city of Einandhu, or whether his bones shall lie with the bones of old
along the desert track.

No name hath the Prophet of Journeys, for none is needed in that desert
where no man calls nor ever a man answers.

Thus spake the Prophet of Journeys standing before the King:

"The journey of the King shall be an old journey pushed on apace.

"Many a year before the making of the moon thou camest down with dream
camels from the City without a name that stands beyond all the stars.
And then began thy journey over the Waste of Nought, and thy dream
camel bore thee well when those of certain of thy fellow travellers
fell down in the Waste and were covered over by the silence and were
turned again to nought; and those travellers when their dream camels
fell, having nothing to carry them further over the Waste, were lost
beyond and never found the earth. These are those men that might have
been but were not. And all about thee fluttered the myriad hours
travelling in great swarms across the Waste of Nought.

"How many centuries passed across the cities while thou wast making thy
journey none may reckon, for there is no time in the Waste of Nought,
but only the hours fluttering earthwards from beyond to do the work of
Time. At last the dream-borne travellers saw far off a green place
gleaming and made haste towards it and so came to Earth. And there, O
King, ye rest for a little while, thou and those that came with thee,
making an encampment upon earth before journeying on. There the
swarming hours alight, settling on every blade of grass and tree, and
spreading over your tents and devouring all things, and at last bending