A Tale

I don’t know how to get there, or what there really is, but I can tell you what was told me by a ragged man wandering down that mountain. Through his bristly, untrimmed beard, made white by age, he told me tales—I was just a boy—that rival all the tales I’ve ever heard. And through them all, throughout those wonderful adventures he shared with me, that city which you seek always centered. He said he was its denizen, had fled it long ago when he was young, when he had seen what was buried there beneath its streets.