Then fell a hush upon the prophets for they murmured: "All knowledge is
with the King."

Then said the King: "Thou first, Samahn, High Prophet of the Temple of
gold in Azinorn, answer or thou shalt write no more the history of the
times to be, but shalt toil with thy hand to make record of the little
happenings of the days that were, as do the common men."

Then said Samahn: "All knowledge is with the King," and when the pomp of
travelling shall be heard in the streets and the slow horses whereon
the King rideth not go behind lute and drum, then, as the King well
knoweth, thou shalt go down to the great white house of Kings and,
entering the portals where none are worthy to follow, shalt make
obeisance alone to all the elder Kings of Zarkandhu, whose bones are
seated upon golden thrones grasping their sceptres still. Therein thou
shalt go with robes and sceptre through the marble porch, but thou
shalt leave behind thee thy gleaming crown that others may wear it, and
as the times go by come in to swell the number of the thirty Kings that
sit in the great white house on golden thrones. There is one doorway in
the great white house, and it stands wide with marble portals yawning
for kings, but when it shall receive thee, and thine obeisance hath
been made because of thine obligation to the thirty Kings, thou shalt
find at the back of the house an unknown door through which the soul of
a King may just pass, and leaving thy bones upon a golden throne thou
shalt go unseen out of the great white house to tread the velvet spaces
that lie among the worlds. Then, O King, it were well to travel fast
and not to tarry about the houses of men as do the souls of some who
still bewail the sudden murder that sent them upon the journey before
their time, and who, being yet both to go, linger in dark chambers all
the night. These, setting forth to travel in the dawn and travelling