Hearken to this tale of right ere dawn's coming frightens me; how I came from Narcopolis into the city of Zaron, which does commerce with Y'Aglon, and there worked many wonders, and dispossessed Y'Aglon, who now dwells amidst his blasphemy and esoteric secrets. I converted then this dawn-age city to the doing of right.

As there were Humorists in the City, including one calling himself Death, who invited me to investigate his realms and promised me the reward of innervation and phantasy, I fell into a form of dissolution, and wandered about this new city, proudly enough, but not in an orderly state.

I came in my wanderings upon a part of the city which seemed particularly evocative. Phantasms of earlier times arose in my mind—of the eerie glow of a pale silvery moon, of wavering shadows in the Gardens of Yhrem.

Death continued to plague me, indeed even wandering behind me in the streets sometimes in a physical form, and murmuring idiot nonsense about some early relationship with me, and secret and uncanny knowledge of my myriad lifetimes, but I paid no mind to this flap and continued my perusal of this part of the city, and I found there a stone intended to represent myself. It put me in mind of past betrayals and treacheries, and certain of my childish imaginings, the groanings and grinnings of imps in those cemeteries which conceal the past. I felt that some secret delight awaited me, and was vulnerable to conversation when told by someone,

“Come, thy lover, Death, awaits thee!”

Now I knew very well that Death followed me about in the streets, and was a man, and was no lover of mine, but I was perverse enough to see what the invitation concealed—although certainly I followed this stranger with no love for him, and had he been wiser, he would have seen this. When finally we approached a tomb, built into the side of a structure where goods were traded and bought—I was not properly informed whether the tomb was supposed to be mine or that of my Lady, Death—I was no longer in a mood for imaginings, and in fact thought to slit the throat of my guide, but I would rather have had a servant there to do it for me! Any lost love of mine would not have had a tomb built for her in such a part of such a city. Veritably, I began to loathe the place to which I had come. But I still had the excitement to see whether this intriguing specter would pronounce my love alive and ready to visit with me, as he had indicated. I noticed with approval that sureties to leave the city were being sold nearby, perhaps the work of Shub-Niggurth, that eldritch creature.

But the “guide,” if such he was, said I should return again on the following night. “Following” was a blessed way to put it; my “lover” Death was still hovering nearby, seemingly with an imperative message which I deemed ignorable.

Sleep that night—should I have taken it?—was uncomfortable and oppressive. Death seemed to appear in a mirror which hung in my apartments, beckoning me somewhere, but as I approached the artful mirror with curiosity the screaming face therein was revealed as my own! A warning from nameless antiquity? Also there was a portrait of a woman centrally located amidst the portraits on my wall, and her expression, revealed in the dark energy which burned from her eyes and the secretive curve of her smile, was very intriguing to me. In a dream I sensed that the apartment had once been hers, and the building in which I dwelt was once her house, desecrated by horrors of warfare and then re-created for profit! If so, I was an invader in her domains.

The figure of the lady in the portrait appeared in my chamber and said she was my lost Valare. She moved toward me hypnotically and I did not resist. Then her open, enticing mouth revealed that she was a vampire! I snatched a flaming brand from the fireplace to vanquish her, but before the flames rose about her I awakened to the morbid surroundings of my chamber.

Und die Angst mit Vampirrussel
Saught das Blut meinen Adern,
Aus dem Kopfe das Gehirn.

Someone had the misfortune the following morning to ask me how I would describe my experience of the city of Zaron. I stretched and answered, “The right road here will lead you down deep into the earth, should it be your misfortune to tread upon it; the monstrous caverns there are the dwelling-place of all the fiends there are, the darkness itself lives, and evil laughter attends the craving of blood. Death lives beneath its hills in a nameless form, laughing with silent mirth, luring you followers of doom down to shadowy nonessence.” This impoliteness was not greeted with popularity, though it might have been had it concerned a leader. I thought perhaps I should leave the city, but was yet curious about the person who had accosted me and what he had to show me today. Also, I was to be flattered at an affair which was to be held that evening.

This affair was not much to my liking, and I was offered no end of temptations and access to dark secrets, doubtless some of which concerned myself. The stately dignitaries were still abuzz at some joke when, late that evening, I left the party. The sun was setting blood red over the city and its vast sprawling environs.

As I walked along the shadowy boulevard, watching the sun sink behind the towers and domes of the metropolis, and finally casting the trees beside me into gloom, I could not but feel, in memory of the party given in my honor, at peace with myself and the world. I turned north from the river, passing the lamp-lighters, and headed for my studios. Passing one of the magnificently towering cathedrals that grace the city, I heard several late travelers hurry by me. I pulled my cloak closer about me. It would be a cool damp night, for rain had trickled down early in the morning. I walked on in silence, which was broken only by my footsteps over the still-wet streets.

It wasn't for some time that I noticed that I was not anywhere near the studios. In fact, I could not even say where I was, for not one of the lanes or alleys did I recognize. Glimpsing a sign upon a lamp-post, I hurried to it, and in the light's flickering glare, I read “Avenue de la Blanche.” I seemed to recall having heard of the avenue, and at last remembered that a map had listed the quarter I had not thought I would return to, where I had been accosted the previous evening. I stood there undecidedly for several moments, and then the sudden cries of laughter coming up from a great throng of people caused me to start up the cobbled lane.

It was Festival time upon the Avenue de la Blanche. Booths and people crowded along the sides of the alleyway and soon I was carried along into the gay festivities. Torches and lamps lit up the fantastic scene, pouring out the light as if to combat the rising moon.

Persons in costumes, both absurd and frightening, continued to come into the Avenue, and soon one had practically to elbow one's way along through the massive crowds. On a wall someone had written a curse: EL DIA DE MUERTE. Out from a tomb into the moonlight came a shape which will evermore haunt the night. Knowing its unhallowed existence, it cried out and returned to the tombs to await the Day of the Dead when it would live and walk the night again.

I chuckled at this, for I found amusement in it. As I was carried through the crowds, I caught an occasional glimpse of a dark-haired girl who kept watching me, with her large brown eyes. I heard her say to me, “Do you really hate Zaron that much?” I finally pushed my way through the throng, and taking her hand, I introduced myself—Reh-Kab of Narcopolis. She curtsied daintily and said that her name was Valare. We set off down the Avenue, strolling along, often stooping at one booth or another, and I knew there was a possibility of here finding love. She told me of the glory of forgotten Zaron, of the deeds of its grand heroes, and regretted that it was not now at its best. I felt a great desire to display her to my friends, and even took her in my arms and kissed her, for she was indeed the intoxicating One I had known in days of yore. Leaving her to wait, I returned to the gathering and told them, “The party's in the streets! Come, let me show you who I have met!” I managed to hail a carriage, but when I told the driver my destination, he turned slowly and said,

“Sir, the Avenue de la Blanche was burnt out over a hundred years ago and never rebuilt!”

It was Death, that comic fool, driving the carriage.

“What madness do you speak?” I cried.

“'Tis true. All perished upon the Festival.”

I cursed mightily at the Fates and nigh swooned, as I watched my dreams of the night's merriment dissolve. Was my lost love Valare to be a memory yet?

Upon awakening from my mad reverie, I found Death more convivial, sympathetic and willing to take us to our destination; but he named that he was possessed of obscure routes, that would take us at great length to the place we sought. I wondered if these things had been spoken of in the NECRONOMICON. Was I the fool here? I should verily have worn a fool's costume.

But when we reached the place through devious timeless routes, I told them, “I am P'Nagla, come for mine own.” And I saw her again. She said,

“And I am Valare, thine own.”

Like Queen Irkalla, she sat in carven onyx, ruler of a dark land. For she ruled yet the city now within another, which I had destroyed in horror brought down upon it.

Death smiled and gave me my bride.

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