Here, immediately after the series in which mankind grew hairy, was a
large square with dyes that were still vivid and clear, though it still
seemed quite an ancient picture. It portrayed a number of Dy-lee's folk
crouching amid the ruins, perhaps of this very plain above our heads.
Their attitudes showed perfectly that they were afraid, for they drew
back, with arms about their females and young ones. Then, in a cleared
space, there stood a man of my own race, smooth-skinned and wearing
the raiment of a guardian, the long fringed black fox pelts hanging
from his waist and the short mantle of white hares' skins about his
shoulders. He faced away from the cave folk, with his arms lifted in
just such a mystical gesture as I had often seen the guardians making;
and beyond him, from the edge of an especially well-limned forest,
there arose a being whose every line suggested evil--evil beyond the
power of words. There was no definite outline to the thing. It appeared
to change slightly even while I stared at it, as though the dyes had
been mixed with smoke or mist. It seemed to have horns, and then when
I looked again, the horns had vanished. There were great columns of
legs, and arms that hung loosely before its chest with an indescribable
air of menace. Perhaps there were two sets of arms. I could not tell.
It is strange to speak of a picture this way, for after all it was but
dyes of many shades laid upon rock; but all I could recall definitely
about the evil being, when I had turned away, was that its color was
that of a dead fish's belly, and that from its amorphous head there
blazed out two terrible eyes of purest lambent flame.
The import of this whole picture was inescapable. Here were the
shaggy folk, here was a guardian of my own people, and here was a
representation of one of ...
_The Nameless!_
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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