The Quest of Iranon

                          By H. P. LOVECRAFT

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                        Weird Tales March 1939.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Into the granite city of Teloth wandered the youth, vine-crowned, his
yellow hair glistening with myrrh and his purple robe torn with briers
of the mountain Sidrak that lies across the antique bridge of stone.
The men of Teloth are dark and stern, and dwell in square houses, and
with frowns they asked the stranger whence he had come and what were
his name and fortune. So the youth answered:

"I am Iranon, and come from Aira, a far city that I recall only dimly
but seek to find again. I am a singer of songs that I learned in the
far city, and my calling is to make beauty with the things remembered
of childhood. My wealth is in little memories and dreams, and in hopes
that I sing in gardens when the moon is tender and the west wind stirs
the lotus-buds."

When the men of Teloth heard these things they whispered to one
another; for though in the granite city there is no laughter or
song, the stern men sometimes look to the Karthian hills in the
spring and think of the lutes of distant Oonai whereof travelers have
told. And thinking thus, they bade the stranger stay and sing in the
square before the Tower of Mlin, though they liked not the color of
his tattered robe, nor the myrrh in his hair, nor his chaplet of
vine-leaves, nor the youth in his golden voice. At evening Iranon
sang, and while he sang an old man prayed and a blind man said he saw
a nimbus over the singer's head. But most of the men of Teloth yawned,
and some laughed and some went away to sleep; for Iranon told nothing
useful, singing only his memories, his dreams, and his hopes.

"I remember the twilight, the moon, and soft songs, and the window
where I was rocked to sleep. And through the window was the street
where the golden lights came, and where the shadows danced on houses of
marble. I remember the square of moonlight on the floor, that was not
like any other light, and the visions that danced in the moonbeams when
my mother sang to me. And too, I remember the sun of morning bright
above the many-colored hills in summer, and the sweetness of flowers
borne on the south wind that made the trees sing.

"O Aira, city of marble and beryl, how many are thy beauties! How loved
I the warm and fragrant groves across the hyaline Nithra, and the falls
of the tiny Kra that flowed through the verdant valley! In those groves
and in that vale the children wove wreaths for one another, and at dusk
I dreamed strange dreams under the yath-trees on the mountain as I saw
below me the lights of the city, and the curving Nithra reflecting a
ribbon of stars.

"And in the city were palaces of veined and tinted marble, with
golden domes and painted walls, and green gardens with cerulean pools
and crystal fountains. Often I played in the gardens and waded in the
pools, and lay and dreamed among the pale flowers under the trees. And
sometimes at sunset I would climb the long hilly street to the citadel
and the open place, and look down upon Aira, the magic city of marble
and beryl, splendid in a robe of golden flame.

"Long have I missed thee, Aira, for I was but young when we went into
exile; but my father was thy King and I shall come again to thee, for
it is so decreed of Fate. All through seven lands have I sought thee,
and some day shall I reign over thy groves and gardens, thy streets and
palaces, and sing to men who shall know whereof I sing, and laugh not.
For I am Iranon, who was a Prince in Aira."

       *       *       *       *       *

That night the men of Teloth lodged the stranger in a stable, and in
the morning an archon came to him and told him to go to the shop of
Athok the cobbler, and be apprenticed to him.

"But I am Iranon, a singer of songs," he said, "and have no heart for
the cobbler's trade."

"All in Teloth must toil," replied the archon, "for that is the law."
Then said Iranon:

"Wherefore do ye toil; is it not that ye may live and be happy? And if
ye toil only that ye may toil more, when shall happiness find you? Ye
toil to live, but is not life made of beauty and song? And if ye suffer
no singers among you, where shall be the fruits of your toil? Toil
without song is like a weary journey without an end. Were not death
more pleasing?" But the archon was sullen and did not understand, and
rebuked the stranger.

"Thou art a strange youth, and I like not thy face or thy voice. The
words thou speakest are blasphemy, for the gods of Teloth have said
that toil is good. Our gods have promised us a haven of life beyond
death, where there shall be rest without end, and crystal coldness
amidst which none shall vex his mind with thought or his eyes with
beauty. Go thou then to Athok the cobbler or be gone out of the city by
sunset. All here must serve, and song is folly."

[Illustration: "Beyond the Karthian hills lieth Oonai, the city of
lutes and dancing."]

So Iranon went out of the stable and walked over the narrow stone
streets between the gloomy square houses of granite, seeking something
green, for all was of stone. On the faces of men were frowns, but by
the stone embankment along the sluggish river Zuro sate a young boy
with sad eyes gazing into the waters to spy green budding branches
washed down from the hills by the freshets. And the boy said to him:
"Art thou not indeed he of whom the archons tell, who seekest a far
city in a fair land? I am Romnod, and born in the blood of Teloth,
but am not old in the ways of the granite city, and yearn daily for
the warm groves and the distant lands of beauty and song. _Beyond
the Karthian hills lieth Oonai, the city of lutes and dancing, which
men whisper of and say is both lovely and terrible._ Thither would I
go were I old enough to find the way, and thither shouldst thou go
and thou wouldst sing and have men listen to thee. Let us leave the
city Teloth and fare together among the hills of spring. Thou shalt
show me the ways of travel and I will attend thy songs at evening
when the stars one by one bring dreams to the minds of dreamers. And
peradventure it may be that Oonai the city of lutes and dancing is even
the fair Aira thou seekest, for it is told that thou hast not known
Aira since old days, and a name often changeth. Let us go to Oonai,
O Iranon of the golden head, where men shall know our longings and
welcome us as brothers, nor ever laugh or frown at what we say." And
Iranon answered:

"Be it so, small one; if any in this stone place yearn for beauty he
must seek the mountains and beyond, and I would not leave thee to pine
by the sluggish Zuro. But think not that delight and understanding
dwell just across the Karthian hills, or in any spot thou canst find
in a day's, or a year's, or a lustrum's journey. Behold, when I was
small like thee I dwelt in the valley of Narthos by the frigid Xari,
where none would listen to my dreams; and I told myself that when
older I would go to Sinara on the southern slope, and sing to smiling
dromedarymen in the market place. But when I went to Sinara I found the
dromedarymen all drunken and ribald, and saw that their songs were not
as mine; so I travelled in a barge down the Xari to onyx-walled Jaren.
And the soldiers at Jaren laughed at me and drave me out, so that I
wandered to other cities.

"I have seen Stethelos that is below the great cataract, and have gazed
on the marsh where Sarnath once stood. I have been to Thraa, Ilarnek,
and Kadatheron on the winding river Ai, and have dwelt long in Olathoë
in the land of Lomar. But though I have had listeners sometimes,
they have ever been few, and I know that welcome shall wait me only
in Aira, the city of marble and beryl where my father once ruled as
King. So for Aira shall we seek, though it were well to visit distant
and lute-blessed Oonai across the Karthian hills, which may indeed be
Aira, though I think not. Aira's beauty is past imagining, and none can
tell of it without rapture, whilst of Oonai the camel-drivers whisper
leeringly."

       *       *       *       *       *

At the sunset Iranon and small Romnod went forth from Teloth, and for
long wandered amidst the green hills and cool forests. The way was
rough and obscure, and never did they seem nearer to Oonai the city of
lutes and dancing; but in the dusk as the stars came out Iranon would
sing of Aira and its beauties and Romnod would listen, so that they
were both happy after a fashion. They ate plentifully of fruit and
red berries, and marked not the passing of time, but many years must
have slipped away. Small Romnod was now not so small, and spoke deeply
instead of shrilly, though Iranon was always the same, and decked his
golden hair with vines and fragrant resins found in the woods. So it
came to pass one day that Romnod seemed older than Iranon, though
he had been very small when Iranon had found him watching for green
budding branches in Teloth beside the sluggish stone-banked Zura.

Then one night when the moon was full the travellers came to a mountain
crest and looked down upon the myriad lights of Oonai. Peasants had
told them they were near, and Iranon knew that this was not his
native city of Aira. The lights of Oonai were not like those of Aira;
for they were harsh and glaring, whilst the lights of Aira shine as
softly and magically as shone the moonlight on the floor by the window
where Iranon's mother once rocked him to sleep with song. But Oonai
was a city of lutes and dancing; so Iranon and Romnod went down the
steep slope that they might find men to whom songs and dreams would
bring pleasure. And when they were come into the town they found
rose-wreathed revellers bound from house to house and leaning from
windows and balconies, who listened to the songs of Iranon and tossed
him flowers and applauded when he was done. Then for a moment did
Iranon believe he had found those who thought and felt even as he,
though the town was not an hundredth so fair as Aira.

When dawn came Iranon looked about with dismay, for the domes of
Oonai were not golden in the sun, but gray and dismal. And the men of
Oonai were pale with revelling, and dull with wine, and unlike the
radiant men of Aira. But because the people had thrown him blossoms
and acclaimed his songs Iranon stayed on, and with him Romnod, who
liked the revelry of the town and wore in his dark hair roses and
myrtle. Often at night Iranon sang to the revellers, but he was
always as before, crowned only with the vine of the mountains and
remembering the marble streets of Aira and the hyaline Nithra. In the
frescoed halls of the monarch did he sing, upon a crystal dais raised
over a floor that was a mirror, and as he sang, he brought pictures
to his hearers till the floor seemed to reflect old, beautiful and
half-remembered things instead of the wine-reddened feasters who pelted
him with roses. And the King bade him put away his tattered purple, and
clothed him in satin and cloth-of-gold, with rings of green jade and
bracelets of tinted ivory, and lodged him in a gilded and tapestried
chamber on a bed of sweet carven wood with canopies and coverlets of
flower-embroidered silk. Thus dwelt Iranon in Oonai, the city of lutes
and dancing.

It is not known how long Iranon tarried in Oonai, but one day the King
brought to the palace some wild whirling dancers from the Liranian
desert, and dusky flute-players from Drinen in the East, and after
that the revellers threw their roses not so much at Iranon as at the
dancers and the flute-players. And day by day that Romnod who had been
a small boy in granite Teloth grew coarser and redder with wine, till
he dreamed less and less, and listened with less delight to the songs
of Iranon. But though Iranon was sad he ceased not to sing, and at
evening told again his dreams of Aira, the city of marble and beryl.
Then one night the reddened and fattened Romnod snored heavily amidst
the poppied silks of his banquet-couch and died writhing, whilst
Iranon, pale and slender, sang to himself in a far corner. And when
Iranon had wept over the grave of Romnod and strewn it with green
budding branches, such as Romnod used to love, he put aside his silks
and gauds and went forgotten out of Oonai the city of lutes and dancing
clad only in the ragged purple in which he had come, and garlanded with
fresh vines from the mountains.

Into the sunset wandered Iranon, seeking still for his native land
and for men who would understand and cherish his songs and dreams. In
all the cities of Cydathria and in the lands beyond the Bnazic desert
gay-faced children laughed at his olden songs and tattered robe of
purple; but Iranon stayed ever young, and wore wreaths upon his golden
head whilst he sang of Aira.

       *       *       *       *       *

So came he one night to the squalid cot of an antique shepherd, bent
and dirty, who kept flocks on a stony slope above a quicksand marsh. To
this man Iranon spoke, as to so many others:

"Canst thou tell me where I may find Aira, the city of marble and
beryl, where flows the hyaline Nithra and where the falls of the tiny
Kra sing to verdant valleys and hills forested with yath-trees?" And
the shepherd, hearing, looked long and strangely at Iranon, as if
recalling something very far away in time, and noted each line of the
stranger's face, and his golden hair, and his crown of vine-leaves. But
he was old, and replied:

"O stranger, I have indeed heard the name of Aira, and the other names
thou hast spoken, but they come to me from afar down the waste of
long years. I heard them in my youth from the lips of a playmate, a
beggar's boy given to strange dreams, who would weave long tales about
the moon and the flowers and the west wind. We used to laugh at him,
for we knew him from his birth though he thought himself a King's son.
He was comely, even as thou, but full of folly and strangeness; and he
ran away when small to find those who would listen gladly to his songs
and dreams. How often hath he sung to me of lands that never were, and
things that never can be! Of Aira did he speak much; of Aira and the
river Nithra, and the falls of the tiny Kra. There would he ever say he
once dwelt as a Prince, though here we knew him from his birth. Nor was
there ever a marble city of Aira, or those who could delight in strange
songs, save in the dreams of mine old playmate Iranon who is gone."

And in the twilight, as the stars came out one by one and the moon cast
on the marsh a radiance like that which a child sees quivering on the
floor as he is rocked to sleep at evening, there walked into the lethal
quicksands a very old man in tattered purple, crowned with withered
vine leaves and gazing ahead as if upon the golden domes of a fair city
where dreams are understood.

That night something of youth and beauty died in the elder world.