And he that carved from
jasper the usurper of Wosh explained how in the village of World's
End, at the furthest end of Last Street, there is a hole that you take
to be a well, close by the garden wall, but that if you lower yourself
by your hands over the edge of the hole, and feel about with your feet
till they find a ledge, that is the top step of a flight of stairs
that takes you down over the edge of the World. "For all that men
know, those stairs may have a purpose and even a bottom step," said
the arch-idolater, "but discussion about the lower flights is idle."
Then the teeth of Pombo chattered, for he feared the darkness, but he
that made idols of his own explained that those stairs were always lit
by the faint blue gloaming in which the World spins. "Then," he said,
"you will go by Lonely House and under the bridge that leads from the
House to Nowhere, and whose purpose is not guessed; thence past
Maharrion, the god of flowers, and his high-priest, who is neither
bird nor cat; and so you will come to the little idol Duth, the
disreputable god that will grant your prayer." And he went on carving
again at his idol of jasper for the king who was weary of Wosh; and
Pombo thanked him and went singing away, for in his vernacular mind he
thought that "he _had_ the gods.
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