The Mind Creative
One day a caravan of strange wanderers from the South entered
the narrow cobbled streets of Ulthar. Dark wanderers they were,
and unlike the other roving folk who passed through the village
twice every year. In the market-place they told fortunes for silver,
and bought gay beads from the merchants. What was the land of
these wanderers none could tell; but it was seen that they were
given to strange prayers, and that they had painted on the sides
of their wagons strange figures with human bodies and the heads
of cats, hawks, rams, and lions. And the leader of the caravan
wore a head-dress with two horns and a curious disc betwixt the
horns.
There was in this singular caravan a little
boy with no father or mother, but only a
tiny black kitten to cherish. The plague had
not been kind to him, yet had left him this
small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow;
and when one is very young, one can find
great relief in the lively antics of a black
kitten. So the boy whom the dark people
called Menes smiled more often than he
wept as he sat playing with his graceful
kitten on the steps of an oddly painted
wagon.
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