Shadows Out of Time

That which we worshipped. That by whose whim we — and the entire universe — had been brought into existence, for all he might blow our dust away in another instant, should another whim come upon him.

Now after many transformations and transfigurations and changes, there was one among us, at the ultimate end of the chain of being of ourselves, who might perhaps be worthy to make his way up the chain on which our pendulum was suspended, and finally emerge at the center of Chaos, and there fall down in obeisance before the ultimate, mindless god.

So the Black Man of our sabbat, the mighty messenger, fetched one of our number, an old, wild-haired, wild-eyed fellow, and took him by the hand, and led him up that infinite spiral staircase to the ultimate portal, a round glass eye, there to draw back the curtain that covers it and gaze directly into the face of Azathoth on his demon throne.

We all cried out in awe, and spoke the secret words of praise in languages never spoken upon the Earth.

But that’s not what happened. They didn’t go up, at least not all the way. Maybe our fellow was not ready, despite all his learning and power. Maybe he had not entirely sloughed off his humanity, and so was burdened by hope or conscience. Or maybe his mind just snapped like a weak reed.

In any case, it was he who broke away and ran down through the house, screaming like a madman, out the front door and onto a hillside in 1964 where he tried unsuccessfully to dissuade a certain twelve-year-old boy from continuing the direction in which he and his brother had been going. When this happened, all of us scattered in terror and consternation, certain that the wrath of the Messenger would fall upon us. But we needn’t have worried, for those who were able to look say the expression on his face was one of satisfaction, as if he knew an important lesson had been completed.

V

I have spent some time in this madhouse, yes. When I ran screaming down the hillside, after the older boy hit me over the head several times with a branch, after I ran out into the highway in a frenzy and was clipped by a truck, I was taken to a hospital first, then elsewhere when I tried to tell them that I was Thomas Brooks, who had vanished so long ago on that hillside. But of course it wasn’t a long time ago. It was 1964 and Tommy Brooks, aged twelve, wasn’t even missing yet, though he would be in a few days. When he disappeared the police became very interested in what I had to say, but they and the doctors got nothing out of me that they could understand or believe.

I have not drawn back the ultimate curtain. I have not looked upon the face of Azathoth. But I know how it ends. Memory moves both ways in time too. So I, and my other selves, remember both what was and what is to come. I remember that, much bedraggled, my feet bleeding because I’d lost my slippers in the underbrush, I made my way back to the place of that uncompleted sabbat, and I climbed the tower, up the turning staircase through the worlds and universes. I stood before the ultimate portal, though I did not draw back the curtain. The time was not yet. But soon. I know how it all ends because I found there on the floor the corpse of a wild-haired old man in a tattered robe. His eyes had been seared, as if he had been blasted by what he had looked upon, but I recognized his face and it was my own.