Dylath-Leen is a fictional city in H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

's Dream Cycle

Dream Cycle

The Dream Cycle refers to a series of stories by author H. P. Lovecraft. These stories concern themselves with "The Dreamlands": a vast, alternate dimension that can be entered via dreams.-Geography:The Dreamlands is apparently divided into four regions:...

 and appears in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a novella by H. P. Lovecraft. It was completed in 1927 and was unpublished in his lifetime. It is both the longest of the stories that comprise his Dream Cycle and the longest to feature protagonist Randolph Carter, and can thus be considered a culminating...

(1926

1926 in literature

The year 1926 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is founded in Middlebury, Vermont....

) and the Brian Lumley

Brian Lumley

Brian Lumley is an English horror fiction writer.Born in County Durham, he joined the British Army's Royal Military Police and wrote stories in his spare time before retiring with the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1980 and becoming a professional writer.He added to H. P...

 short story Dylath-Leen.

It is built mostly of basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

, and its streets are dark and uninviting. It is one of the most mysterious cities in Lovecraft's Dreamlands. It buys rubies from strange, turban

Turban

In English, Turban refers to several types of headwear popularly worn in the Middle East, North Africa, Punjab, Jamaica and Southwest Asia. A commonly used synonym is Pagri, the Indian word for turban.-Styles:...

ed men in sinister black galleys (whose rower

Moon-beast

A moon-beast is a creature in H. P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. They are “great greyish-white slippery things which could expand and contract at will, and whose principal shape — though it often changed — was that of a sort of toad without any eyes, but with a curious vibrating mass of...

s are never seen), though the famous dreamer Randolph Carter

Randolph Carter

Randolph Carter is a recurring protagonist in H. P. Lovecraft'sfiction and a thinly disguised alter ego of Lovecraft himself. The first tale in which Carter appears--"The Statement of Randolph Carter" --is based on one of Lovecraft's dreams....

 has advised against it. In the Lumley story this plot-line is continued, with a new dreamer discovering that the moon-beast

Moon-beast

A moon-beast is a creature in H. P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. They are “great greyish-white slippery things which could expand and contract at will, and whose principal shape — though it often changed — was that of a sort of toad without any eyes, but with a curious vibrating mass of...

s have finally taken over the city despite Carter's warnings.