Free In the Land of Time by Alfred Dunsany

Arb-Rin-Hadith, who was the High Prophet, answered: “I pray for all the People.”
    But the people answered: “O High Prophet of All the gods save One, Priest of Kib, Priest of Sish, and Priest of Mung, Teller of the mysteries of Dorozhand, Receiver of the gifts of the People, and Lord of Prayer, for four long years hast thou prayed with the priests of all thine order, while we brought ye gifts and died. Now, therefore, since They have not heard thee in four grim years, thou must go and carry to Their faces the prayer of the people of Sidith when They go to drive the thunder to his pasture upon the mountain Aghrinaun, or else there shall no longer be gifts upon thy temple door, whenever falls the dew, that thou and thine order may fatten.
    â€œThere thou shalt say before Their faces: ‘O All the gods save One, Lords of the Worlds, whose child is the eclipse, take back thy pestilence from Sidith, for Ye have played the game of the gods too long with the people of Sidith, who would fain have done with the gods.’ ”
    Then in great fear answered the High Prophet, saying: “What if the gods be angry and whelm Sidith?” And the people answered: “Then are we sooner done with pestilence and famine and the imminence of war.”
    That night the thunder howled upon Aghrinaun, which stood a peak above all others in the land of Sidith. And the people took Arb-Rin-Hadith from his Temple and drave him to Aghrinaun, for they said: “There walk to-night upon the mountain All the gods save One.”
    And Arb-Rin-Hadith went trembling to the gods.
    Next morning, white and frightened from Aghrinaun, came Arb-Rin-Hadith back into the valley, and there spake to the people, saying: “The faces of the gods are iron and Their mouths set hard. There is no hope from the gods.”
    Then said the people: “Thou shalt go to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, to whom no man may pray: seek him upon Aghrinaun where it lifts clear into the stillness before morning, and on its summit, where all things seem to rest, surely there rests also MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI. Go to him, and say: ‘Thou hast made evil gods, and They smite Sidith.’ Perchance he hath forgotten all his gods, or hath not heard of Sidith. Thou hast escaped the thunder of the gods, surely thou shalt also escape the stillness of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.”
    Upon a morning when the sky and lakes were clear and the world still, and Aghrinaun was stiller than the world, Arb-Rin-Hadith crept in fear towards the slopes of Aghrinaun because the people were urgent.
    All that day men saw him climbing. At night he rested near the top. But ere the morning of the day that followed, such as rose early saw him in the silence, a speck against the blue, stretch up his arms upon the summit to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI. Then instantly they saw him not, nor was he ever seen of men again who had dared to trouble the stillness of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
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    Such as now speak of Sidith tell of a fierce and potent tribe that smote away a people in a valley enfeebled by pestilence, where stood a temple to “All the gods save One” in which was no high priest.

OF HOW IMBAUN BECAME HIGH PROPHET IN ARADEC OF ALL THE GODS SAVE ONE
    Imbaun was to be made High Prophet in Aradec, of All the gods save One.
    From Ardra, Rhoodra, and the lands beyond came all High Prophets of the Earth to the Temple in Aradec of All the gods save One.
    And there they told Imbaun how The Secret of Things was upon the summit of the dome of the Hall of Night, but faintly writ, and in an unknown tongue.
    Midway in the night, between the setting and the rising sun, they led Imbaun into the Hall of Night, and said to him, chaunting all together: “Imbaun, Imbaun, Imbaun, look up to the roof, where is writ The Secret of Things, but faintly, and in an unknown tongue.”
    And Imbaun looked up, but darkness was so deep within the Hall of Night that Imbaun saw not even the High Prophets who came from