Back to The Book of Ninety and Nine Doomed Cities
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In a time far removed from this, among a people who dreamed dreams as we do today, there ruled a proud and foolish queen named Khimar Kar Khamar.
She reigned over a empire of the horned folk, seventy days journey by foot from north to south and forty from east to west, which was watered by nine great rivers. It was rich in parameen and silph, and other spices, and also in precious stones, in lincobia and jacinths and grey pearls. On the coast of that empire, looking out into the waters where the sun dies, there were eleven great merchant cities, wherein were many riches, and many wonders. All the noblest of the horned folk lived in the Eleven Cities, and also many of the changing folk, and the dark-winged people who drink poison, and great numbers of Cirilmen and T’sai Lho who spent their lives in buying and selling and making beautiful things.
One day the queen Khimar Kar Khamar grew tired of always travelling from one place to another, to enjoy all the marvellous things there were in the Eleven cities. And she commanded that all of them were to be brought together in one place, so that she might enjoy them at her ease, and be done with travelling. So she caused to be built a city on eleven hills, overlooking the sea where the sun dies, and she named it for herself, the city Khimar Kar Khamar. And the great theatre of the city Courage, where cunning towers were set so that when the wind blew through they would give sounds like the tramping of armies, or the rejoicing of multitudes, or the wings of many birds, or voices singing “glory be to the Immutable God”, depending on what windows were opened or closed by the artificers; this the queen had taken to pieces, stone by stone, and put back together on the first of the hills in her city. And likewise did she deal with the garden of beasts in the city of Temperance, where the last of the silver flaigar were kept in a field of snow, and flying dragons in a crystal dome. This garden was four miles around; and the queen Khimar Kar Khamar caused it to be taken down, and put back up again on the second of the hills of her city. And she dealt also likewise with the Palace of the Elders in the city of Liberality - where the gilded bones of philosophers were used to spell out proverbs - which was set up on the third hill. And she removed the Water Gardens of the city of Magnificence to the fourth hill; and the Red Tower and the Green Tower of the city of Magnanimity, to the fifth hill; to the sixth, the quarter of the artists’ in the city of Love-of-Honour - which was all of madar wood, and three thousand years old - and all that pleased her from out of the cities of Manseutude, Affability, Truthfulness, Pleasantness, and Justice. Each of these things she caused to be set up on its proper hill, and many others besides, until all she wanted was gathered in one place. And the bones of the slaves that took down the wonders and set them up again were cast into the sea; and at the foot of the great cliffs upon which the city of Khimar Kar Khamar was builded they were thrown into great heaps by the waves.
Around the eleven hills Khimar Kar Khamar had built a mighty wall, upon which two armies might encamp, and in the spaces between the hills she ordered to be placed two-score palaces of different coloured stone, and gardens of aromatic trees, and fountains and pools without number. And to the city of Khimar Kar Khamar was diverted the whole of the river which was called Jessamine, to feed the pools and fountains. And a mighty throng from all the empire, and from lands beyond - for there were not artisans enough within the Eleven Cities, nor labourers in the valleys of the Nine Rivers - were gathered around about the city Khimar Kar Khamar, and their houses were piled one on top of another like clods of earth, so that no open space remained. Even so, it took more than a day to cross the city, so that those who lived on its fringes and laboured in the palace had to leave their homes long before sunrise and return long after dusk.
Within the city of Khimar Kar Khamar were gathered all that was of profit from the empire of the Nine Rivers; curtains of grey pearls, and horned gods carved of lincobia, and silver mirrors.
The Queen Khimar Kar Khamar dwelt in her city Khimar Kar Khamar with her many servants, and those she called her friends, and stayed every night in a different magnificent palace, and delighted in the pleasures of a different city of her empire. She would dine every night on dream melon, and the flesh of the irpizarn, and translucent mimosa fish from the very depths of the sea, and young dostaks flavoured with parameen. To drink she would have strong wines from the lands of the heroes, cooled with ice from the mountains, and drunk from skulls powdered with omophon. And at her dinners she would amuse her guests with staged battles between her slaves, reenacting the victories of her ancestors. If the battle had been fought in a desert, she would have the heat of the sun cast on the combatants with great polished mirrors, so that if they did not move fast enough their blood would boil. And if the battle had been fought in the high mountains, in the heart of winter, she would fill whole courts with snow brought from afar at great cost, so that her slaves would fall down in it, and be trampled, and freeze, and never rise again. And she also had lakes made big enough for a score of warships, stocked well with monsters, in which she would stage sea battles. And it was the boast of Khimar Kar Khamar that more men had died in her pretend battles than had ever died in the true wars of her ancestors.
Even her guests were not spared, for when she had had her fill she would let loose hordes of white prosimians, which would swarm over the tables, and despoil the food, and bite the guests, and tear off their clothes. These creatures were her especial pets, and if any guest made so bold as to kill one as it tormented him, he would be taken and slain in some new and ingenious way for the amusement of Khimar Kar Khamar. Such as - but it is not good to speak of such things.
There was in the empire of Khimar Kar Khamar a famous school of philosophy, which had been endowed by a philosopher-king of old and built high in a mountain valley by a stream of water. Here, at the top of a waterfall, thrust high into the pure air and clear cold light of the sky, there lived no more than a score of philosophers, leading pure lives and thinking clear, cold, thoughts. The school and the schoolmen were honoured by all the people of the empire for their purity and their wisdom. The school was not large, but it was finely built, a fitting edifice to be company to such mountains and such philosophers. All of marble it was built, with a high dome of white gold. It came to pass that the queen Khimar Kar Khamar remembered the school of philosophy in the mountains, and commanded that it be brought to the city Khimar Kar Khamar, that she might amuse herself with it. So some thousands of labourers were set upon the road, with some hundreds of warriors at the front and rear of their column, and at the head of the warriors the Bashar Hormizdar One-Eye, a courteous and valiant man of war.
When he came to the school of white gold, he left his captains-of-arms at the gate, and went into the garden. There he found the chief of the schoolmen, casting flower petals upon a basin of water. And as the flower petals fell they took the shapes of the seven and thirty majiscules, as if they were for the first time known that day, and that quiet grove was the one where the Gods had taught the horned-folk the knowledge of such things. But from beyond the walls of the garden came the sounds of some thousands of waiting men.
And it is recorded that the Bashar Hormizdar One-Eye and the Philosopher Ras Ul-Ras spoke together as follows.
Said the Bashar: ‘I have come at the command of the Queen.’
And the Philosopher said: ‘I came many years ago, at the command of one who is greater than she.’
Said the Bashar: ‘It is the will of the Queen that this place be taken down, and put up in her city of Khimar Kar Khamar.’
And the Philosopher said: ‘It is the will one who is greater than she that it should remain.’ (It has been said: One place can no more be moved onto another place than yesterday can be moved into today).
Said the Bashar: ‘I have a company of soldiers with me, and scribes and draughtsmen, and many thousands of labourers. It is our duty to begin at once the reduction of this place; and to remove you Schoolmen also to the city of Khimar Kar Khamar, that your schooling may edify the Queen and those persons who are great in the land.’
And the philosopher said: ‘There are none who are great in the land, except the one who is immutable. I am alone in this garden; and it is my duty to remain.’
Then the Bashar said: ‘I must do what I am commanded.’
And the Philosopher said: ‘Do what you will.’
Then the Bashar Hormizdar One-Eye turned aside form the Philosopher Ras Ul-Ras, and left the grove, and returned to to the dust and tumult of his twice ten-thousand men without the walls. Then he gave command to the soldiers, to enter the school and take hold of the schoolmen; and to the scribes and draughtsmen, to catalogue all the marvels that were within the walls, and to record the place of each stone. And when this was done he commanded the labourers to cast down the wall of the garden, stone by stone.
But when the first chisel was lifted and the first hammer blows struck against the first stone of the topmost tier of the wall, they sounded in the ears of Bashar Hormizdar: This far! This far! This far and no further!
And he knew that what he willed was no longer to obey the Queen, who was evil, but to obey the one who is good. So he called out to the labourers, Halt. And he ordered the release of the schoolmen, and returned with his entire company to the city Khimar Kar Khamar. But word of his disobedience travelled before him, and was first to reach the queen Khimar Kar Khamar. So she ordered her picked guard to arrest the Bashar as he entered the city, and bring him before her to be tortured. On a narrow bridge over the Jessamine they set upon him; he chose death before torture; and his head and body were cast from the bridge into the waters of the Jessamine, one to the left, one to the right.
Then the queen Khimar Kar Khamar called the Bashar of her picked guard, who was called Arak son-of-Thar, and was as cruel as the sea. It was his boast that he was afraid of nothing, neither on land, nor the sea, nor from the stars, nor even from the dark spaces between them. She placed him at the head of two thousand armed men, with a great company of artisans and labourers, and sent him to the school in the western mountains.
And it happened with the Bashar Arak much like it had happened with the Bashar Hormizdar. When he had seen the school of philosophy under its dome of white gold, and the sunlight on the pool of its waterfall; when he had spoken to the chief of the schoolmen, and laughed at him; when he had commanded his warriors and scribes and artisans to set to their work - when he had done all this, he heard the sound of the silver-bronze elders scraping against the paving stones as the labourers loaded them into waggons; and it seemed to him that the sound they made was: This far! This far! This far and no further!
Then he knew that what he willed was no longer to obey the Queen, who was evil, but to obey the one who is good. So he called out to the labourers, Halt, and started back with all who followed him to the city Khimar Kar Khamar. But word of his disobedience travelled before him, and before he could come near the city he was met by an old friend, and given poison wine to drink. When it had burned through his entrails, his old friend hewed off his head, which was brought back before the queen Khimar Kar Khamar. And his body was thrown into a well near at hand.
Then the queen Khimar Kar Khamar brought her own brother before her, the Prince Bashar Varakmar. Many dreadful tales are told about him, but perhaps the most dreadful is that he is said to have found nothing to love, neither on the land, nor the sea, nor in the great void beyond. And the queen gave him command of ten thousand foot soldiers, and thirty war-beasts, and sent him to the place of the schoolmen in the western mountains.
When Prince Varakmar had arrived, and had begun the reduction of the school of philosophy, and the marble blocks of the outer wall were each numbered and loaded on the back of great waggons, he took out his sword and went to the cell of the chief schoolman, who he had been commanded to slay with his own hand. But as he was about to, something within him broke. It seemed to Prince Varakmar that he could hear the bellows of the great war-beasts outside, as they hauled away the gateposts, and that they bellowed the words: This far! This far! This far and no further!
Then he knew that what he willed was no longer to obey the Queen, who was evil, but to obey the one who is good. So he called out to the labourers, Halt, and he said to the chief of the philosophers, Come with me, and ride by my side, and be my advisor. Then he rode down towards the City Khimar Kar Khamar, upon the back of a great war-beast, at the head of his ten thousand men. And he did not go direct to the capital of the Queen, but turned aside to the headwaters of the river Celaebine, and the towns of the dark-winged folk; and twice ten thousand of them marched with him. And from there he went to Bim Pathra, which lay halfway along the river Valinom, and there he was joined by forty thousands of men. From Bim Pathra he rode to the city of Justice, and then to the city of Mansuetude, and in every place along the way soldiers flocked to his banner. Thus when he reached the river Jessamine he had with him a vast host of men of all kinds, both armed men and workers, horned folk, Tsai Lho, and nacreous men. Instead of moving any closer to the city Khimar Kar Khamar, he set this host to work building a great dam across the river Jessamine, so that its course was altered, and the fountains of Khimar Kar Khamar were stilled.
Then the queen Khimar Kar Khamar was greatly angered, and cursed in her withered gardens, and sent forth her armies against Prince Varakmar. And the slaves in their dusty hovels muttered angrily through their parched lips, and whispered treason with mouths as dry as bone. The first army the queen sent against Prince Varakmar lay down their arms, and joined him; and likewise the second. And she sent no more armies, but gathered her loyal guard about her, and made ready for a siege. Since two armies had deserted, she feared the others were filled with traitors; so she gathered all the Bashars and captains at arms together in a feasting hall and burned them to death; and afterwards she was likely at any time to point at anyone she thought of, and say, There is a traitor, and have them slain.
Months passed, and the armies of Prince Varakmar besieged the city Khimar Kar Khamar. Outside the palaces where the queen still feasted, the slaves began to die of thirst, until they littered the streets in thousands and tens of thousands. And in that time sixty of them awoke to find that they were no longer slaves, but men, and they overcame the defenders at the Twelfth Gate, and threw the city open to Prince Varakmar.
It is said that a mob burst into the palace where the queen Khimar Kar Khamar was staying, before the soldiers of Prince Varakmar could get there. It is said that she was eating a sugar-ice, and that a stonecutter named Ulok threw her down from the top of a staircase, so that she burst open at the bottom like a sack of offal. They cut off her head and gave it to Prince Varakmar, and the walls of the city Khimar Kar Khamar they tore down. And all who had lived within those walls fled back to the places from which they had come; and that place was never tenanted afterwards from that time until this.
Thus was the ending of the city Khimar Kar Khamar.
I am told that the place where this city stood was in the desert land men now call Seloom, and think it possible that those very stones I saw so many years ago were once part of the palaces of that most vile person, the Queen Khimar Kar Khamar. So it may be said that those palaces, and that vile Queen, did one thing not wholly vain, in awakening within me this love for ancient things.
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