Knowledge of the gods tells further how the day on which Pompeides
found the gods shall be kept for ever as a fast until the evening and
called the Fast of the Departing, but in the evening shall a feast be
held which is named the Feast of the Relenting, for on that evening
Sarnidac pitied the whole world and tarried.

And the people of Khamazan all prayed to Sarnidac, and dreamed their
dreams and hoped their hopes because their temple was not empty.
Whether the gods that are departed be greater than Sarnidac none know
in Khamazan, but some believe that in their azure windows They have set
lights that lost prayers swarming upwards may come to them like moths
and at last find haven and light far up above the evening and the
stillness where sit the gods.

But Sarnidac wondered at the strange figures, at the people of
Khamazan, and at the palace of the King and the customs of the
prophets, but wondered not more greatly at aught in Khamazan than he
had wondered at the city which he had left. For Sarnidac, who had not
known why men were unkind to him, thought that he had found at last the
land for which the gods had let him hope, where men should have the
custom of being kind to Sarnidac.




THE JEST OF THE GODS


Once the Older gods had need of laughter. Therefore They made the soul
of a king, and set in it ambitions greater than kings should have, and