The Azathoth Cycle: Tales of the Blind Idiot God by Robert M. Price

Author:Robert M. Price [Price, Robert M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Lovecraft, Mythos, Chaosium, Weird, Horror, Fiction, Short Fiction, anthologies
ISBN: 9781568820408
Amazon: 1568820402
Goodreads: 36507
Publisher: Chaosium
Published: 1995-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

A rising fear, almost a panic, gripped Simon as the evil hum from this unknown barrier increased. Was there to be an infinite series of them? And even if not, would his soul instinctively know the names of their Archons—names whose earthly equivalents his old mentor had never taught him? His fear turned to anger, to rage, took the form of a violent thought:

“Damn you, Dositheus! Damn your incompetence—”

You are wrong, Simon—you have heard the Names.

It was the voice of Dositheus within his mind—and now, dimly, Simon began to see the form of the robed old man, vague and transparent against the starry blackness.

“Baal! It can't be you. Many decades have passed-perhaps even centuries—”

Time is no more a barrier than is space to the possessor of Arcana. I sensed your urgency, Simon. But I cannot long maintain the trance that has made this contact possible. Remember the Names; there are but two more of them. Once I read them to you from the book of Ostanes the Mage, who in turn had them from the writings of a sorcerer of millennium-lost Hyperboria. You must remember—

But now Simon was approaching the Sphere. He saw its planet approaching rapidly, huge and ringed and banded like Saturn, though its bands were darker and greenish, and its rings smaller. It hummed menacingly as it spun, rolling insanely on its side along the path of its orbit, its several moons looping vertically about it like a swarm of wasps. Simon gripped his sword, held its glowing blade out before him as he hurtled toward the near-invisible barrier of the nameless planet's Sphere.

Remember the Name—

Memory and the voicing of it came simultaneously, barely in time:

“Z'stylzem-Ghani!”

Again the brief but searing pain—and with it, one far-distant yet clearly sensed cry of anguish and despair. One last unseen True-Spirit had made it with him to even these remote regions, Simon realized—but only to perish. This time he was truly alone.

Aye, truly alone, for now not even the shadowy form of Dositheus was with him. The madly rolling planet was receding away to his left—but, strangely, it was slowing down, both in its spinning and in the progress it made along its orbit. For an instant Simon again knew terror. Was the thing going to stop, then return to pursue him ...?

But, no—for now he realized that the velocity of his own outward plunge was decreasing also. Evidently his subjective sense of the time rate was reversing. He noticed that the glow of his astral form had again diminished to practically nothing, and this time it was returning very slowly. The weariness he felt was extreme; his very consciousness was dimmed. Apparently the last two barriers had drained all but the last reserve of his spiritual energy ...

He seemed to hover there in the dark, colossal spaces for an eternity while sluggish, fearful thoughts drifted through his semi-conscious mind. How long must he drift thus? One century ... two ... or did it only seem that way? Was he still moving outward, or had he stopped completely, doomed now to drift eternally in these black voids .

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