Though still tragic, The Other Gods is a tale of hubris and receiving more than you’ve bargained for. The gods of Earth

A common thread between the two short stories of this week are questing and unanticipated consequences of said questing. Both serve, in referencing previous Dream Cycle tales, to establish this set of tales in a continuous and connected canon of the Dreamlands. This is particularly interesting as again it suggests a connectivity between dreams beyond the imaginations of their dreamers. Can we really say that these dreams belong to the dreamers of those previous stories, or do these dreamers in fact travel to some independent place in dream?

The Quest of Iranon is are more tragic tale, telling of a different kind of madness resulting in lifelong dissatisfaction, loneliness, and a feeling of never truly belonging. Our protagonist Iranon has spent almost his entire life as a wandering bard, his purple travelling cloak in tatters. His wandering is not borne of wanderlust; he is an exiled scion from the marvellous city of Aira, whose location is now unknown to him and any that he asks. Wherever he wanders, he draws a crowd as he laments for his homeland, though inevitably his audience dwindles. Having effectively been driven out of the latest settlement that he has visited, he finds a travelling companion in a young boy Romnod who has become disenfranchised from his city’s culture of hard toil and abstinence from the arts and other forms of pleasure.

Iranon and Romnod wander for years towards a city beyond the mountains. Iranon seemingly does not age at all during this time, though Romnod grows, experiences puberty, and finally overtakes Iranon in age. In the city of Oonai they find some satisfaction: Iranon has widespread recognition of his talents and Romnod finds liquor and partying. They grow content there and eventually fall to decadence. Iranon gradually loses his audience until the only listener left is Romnod, who soon thereafter dies from an excess of drink and partying.

Iranon leaves Oonai, continuing on his quest for Aira. One night he comes along a squalid cottage and elderly shepherd, and asks once more for news of Aira. The shepherd in fact has something to say of Aira. As a child he played long with a child who considered himself a lost scion of the city of Aira. This boy would constantly sing laments of Aira until one day running away in search of Aira. The moment of denouement comes when the shepherd names his long lost friend Iranon.

As if released from a spell, Iranon ages rapidly until he too is an old man. Knowing finally that his quest is in vain, he wanders into the lethal quicksands and towards his death.

In this tale we see reference to two previous Dream Cycle stories: Polaris and The Doom That Came to Sarnath. He notes that he has “gazed on the marsh where Sarnath once stood” and that he has been “to Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron (N.B. confusingly not related to Unknown Kadath, the namesake of a later story) on the winding river Ai (N.B. no relation to the city of Aira), and dwelt long in Olathoë, in the land of Lomar.”

There has been some debate over which of the dream tales actually take place in the waking world, as Polaris certainly takes place in Dream but hints at a long dead (and lost to historical record) hyperborean city of Olathoë. A tale from last week, The Nameless City certainly takes place entirely in the waking world, yet makes reference to Sarnath in the land of Mnar. I’m inclined to believe that they may be analogous locations dreamt up by ancient societies of the waking world, though I can’t support that with references in the literature. It’s simply my head-canon to justify locations being referenced both within and without the Dreamlands.

Though still a tragic tale, The Other Gods is more of a story of hubris and gaining more than what you bargained for. The gods of Earth - which are regarded as in some way weaker than and protected by the Outer Gods - attempt to live secluded from humanity atop the peaks of mountains. They are chased to higher and higher peaks by inquisitive humans until they make their final refuge atop Unknown Kadath, a mountain thankfully unknown to the humans.

The gods grow homesick for their mountain ranges of the past, and so make journeys to these old peaks atop clouds, which the learned among the humans come to associate with the passing of the gods.

Our main protagonist for this story is one of these learned men, Barzai the Wise, who in his familiarity with many books of ancient lore, has grown arrogant and accepting of the title “half god”, perhaps a title coined by himself. He seeks some form of mastery over earth’s gods by forcing them to reveal themselves to him during one of their journeys to the nearby peak of Hatheg-Kla. Despite the protests of the common folk, who have a healthy fear of the Earth gods, Barzai makes a voyage to Hatheg-Kla together with his disciple, the young priest Atal of Ulthar.

As they climb the mountain on a cloudy night, Barzai powers on ahead of Atal. Atal soon loses sight of Barzai, but hears him gloating from the mists. He shouts about hearing the singing of Earth’s gods and seeing the shadows of them dancing in the moonlight. He declares himself a prophet and greater than the gods who “fear the coming of Barzai the Wise”.

Soon Barzai’s luck takes a foul turn. The moon blackens, an eclipse not predicted in any of the astronomical tomes that Barzai has referenced. Barzai soon finds that the icy cap of the peak extends endlessly into the void, and that he finds himself being drawn upwards into the black heavens rather than back down to the Earth.

Finally, Barzai scream in fear that he has encountered “the other gods… that guard the feeble gods of earth!” His disciple Atal is urged to escape and that is the last we see or hear of Barzai.

When the clouds pass, a search party is dispatched to find Barzai the Wise, but no sign of his body is found atop Hatheg-Kla. Instead, they find a cyclopean symbol, fifty cubits wide, carved into the mountain as if by the chisel of a giant. His former disciple Atal thereafter refuses to pray for the soul of his former mentor, and the people of the nearby settlements learn to fear the vapours of the gods.

In this story we find a second reference to Polaris, as Barzai is said to be familiar with the Pnakotic Manuscripts, which reside in Olathoë. The priest Atal comes from the town of Ulthar, and in fact Barzai was an advisor to the villagers of Ulthar when they passed the law against killing cats, following the events of The Cats of Ulthar. Furthermore, he is aware of lore regarding cats which he then teaches to Atal. Together with The Quest of Iranon, we are beginning to formulate a continuum of the Dreamlands, and a timeline dissociated with the timeline of Earth. Dreamers can perceivably live many ages in dream while only sleeping for a night, and lands of ancient dreamers are proven to exist alongside relatively modern dream locations. We will see in a later story how dreamers may in fact interact with other dreamers long dead in the waking world.