KADATH!

All golden it blazed in the sunset
I dreamed of it three times
Torn away from this splendid vision
I felt the bondage of dream’s tyrannous gods
I can't resist anymore
My prayers will not go in vain

Descending seventy steps
To the priests’ cavern lit by fire
Without fear, in light slumber
I see the dark gate towards deep dreams

I'm perfectly sure now
That my path will take me to Ulthar
Beyond the river Skai
It stands
To the Temple of the Elder Ones
I learn about the stone face on Ngranek
The face of the Great Ones
Dancing by moonlight
Under unimagined stars
In their black onyx castle
Keeping the secret of Kadath

“Carter”

Me, the dreamer, having traveled the dreamlands
Possessor of the silver key and knowledge
Traveler of the underworld
Traveler of ethereal shores
I'm different, not from this world
Different from this cursed society
which prevents men from dreaming
I will tear myself away from its embrace
Away from its embrace

Descending the river Skai
On the road of the Southern Sea
Like a wanderer in the twilight
I’m finally approaching the basalt city
Black towers of Dylath-Leen
I see the endless sea
Its abysmal darkness,
Place of vile secrets
Perdition of souls
I could sink, I could wake up, I could die
But this dream is mine

A strange drink
Dizziness of space
And the fever of unimagined jungles
An evil laughter on an odious face
And I feel my soul darkening and fading away
In an eternal night.

Coming to my senses, I smell these stenches
I heard the creaking of the black galley
Templed terraces of Zar, forgotten dreams
The spires of infamous Thalarion
Charnal gardens of Xura
Gorgeous lands which cannot hide my tragic fate

I feel the ship rising, far from the fathomless sea
The terrors of nightmare, take possession of me

The galley continues its rise
Transporting me to the impure
Like a comet crossing the cosmos
Crossing the gigantic field of stars

The moon illuminates the night with its ghostly presence
Coming closer like a fleshless world
The trap closes, leading me to the crawling chaos
Towards the sound of the vile drums
Towards the central void and the daemon-sultan

The moon petrifies the night with its deadly silence
Revealing its craters like ancestral scars
I admire it with my dreamy eyes
With my dreamy eyes
With my dreamy eyes
With my dreamy eyes blinded by its glow

With my horrified eyes I see the path
That the galley slowly takes
The cursed path to the dark side of the moon
Where larvae of the Other Gods preach gloom and doom

Seeing the leprous-looking coast
Smelling the hideous stench of that city
I feel my hopes disappearing one by one
In this coldness far from the sun

Creatures that don’t belong to dreams but to nightmares
Of unspeakable ones, the heirs

Tiled streets and black doorways
Images of death and infinite decay
Imprisoned as their non-human slaves
I can only hear the cries of their abject procession

The incandescent light of the torches
The strange sound through that star-specked darkness

Terrified, abandoned to my fate
I fear the crawling chaos' gaze

I feel the silence
The silence announcing the arrival of the messenger

I have been through so much
In my dreamlike journeys
I felt so ready, so ready to touch
Its marble walls tinted with gold
Yet I cry
For having been so naive
But I hear the animal and familiar cries
Of those from Ulthar

A fantastic chorus invades this place of distress
The call of the clan had been given
Resonating throughout dreamlands
A cloud of smothering fur
A phalanx of murderous claws
Fighting in the name of Bubastis
The cats of Ulthar unleash all their fury

In blood-stained cloud
My eyes shine in front of this chaos
Covering the gray rocks, in feline wrath
Cats open my way to Kadath

“Legions of cats from the alleys nocturnal,
Howling and lean in the glare of the moon,
Screaming the future with mouthings infernal,
Yelling the burden of Pluto’s red rune”

From Dynath-Leen to Oriab
Welcomed by the twin beacons Thon and Thal
Resume my journey towards Ngranek
In this ninety eons old land of fire

After a long climb, in the fearsome iciness
I can finally see his face

Stern and terrible shone that face
That the sunset lit with fire
Engraved in black rock
He finally shows me the path I must follow

Black nothingness in my eyes
In the night my body rises
Black nothingness leagued with death
One last breath

In sunless and eternal depths
The peaks of Thok, silence and blackness
In the Mouth of Madness
I sink, I fall
In the eternal darkness
Night-gaunts, blindness
In the Mouth of Madness
I sink, I crawl

In the unfathomable night
Fearing the cries of the bholes
In the vale of Pnath, I stay
Trying to remember Pickman's words

A glimmer of hope
Arises from the darkness
My salvation
Away from grey death-fire

Touched by a repugnant tentacle
I climb desperately to escape
From this place of death
This nightmare of Dreamlands

In sunless and eternal depths
The peaks of Thok, silence and blackness
In the Mouth of Madness
I sink, I fall
In the eternal darkness
Night-gaunts, blindness
In the Mouth of Madness
I sink, I crawl

Having survived the whispers of Pnath
My soul wanders in search of light
I hear the filthy moans
Of Gugs and Ghasts
In the cursed vault of Zin
The dreamer is only flesh and prey

Climbing the huge stone steps
Seeing yellowish-red eyes
I’m running under
Under the sign of Koth

Jasper terraces of Kiran
Thousand gilded spires of Thran
Sound of the galleon
On the Cerenerian sea
My eyes can now admire
The immortal city
Celephaïs, your million lights illuminate me
Deathless city of vision
Away from lands of perdition

Despite the words of the old great King Kuranes
I continue my quest for unknown Kadath
Reaching the onyx land of Inganok
I lead myself to my loss

Freezing wind
Hypocephalic winged nightmare
Golden throne and yellow silken mask
And I fall again

Changeless guardians of the Great Abyss
Sarkomand, dark ruins

Unholy alliance, darkness and nocturnal sky
I cross the sea, with an unnatural army
A despicable island, horde of mephitic moon-beasts
The time has come, it’s time for war

A cloud of black wings falls on the shore
A rain of corpses spills into the sea
Chaos of battle and conquest, bodies hitting the floor
Violence, horror, and beauty

The granite floor turns the color of blood
The blood of those from the dark side of the moon
Phosphorescence of low clouds
Shines on the ground

Having hardly survived the whispers of Pnath
Having courageously escaped the vault of Zin
I can complete my quest through the sky
Across the plateau of Leng, under the sign of Koth

“Viens à moi, toi, le rêveur”

End of the terrible flight
Over the frozen desert
I can see the onyx castle
Where the pale light shine
The pschent of unknown stars
Above the myriad domed turrets
Glow with a sallow and sickly flare

“Come to me, the dreamer
You've been through so much
But face the Old Ones
Could lead you to cosmic horror”

A Hideous blast of a daemon trumpet
Resonates three times in the cyclopean-sized room
Alone in the dark, I feel his presence
Is it the messenger of the Other Gods who observes me?

Then down the wide lane betwixt the two column
A lone figure strode

His regal figure appears in front of me
Fascinating me like a dark god, a fallen archangel
Pharaoh's voice resonates
Calling me by my name
“You, Randolph Carter have braved all things of earth’s dreamland,
And burn still with the flame of Quest”
“So, Randolph Carter, in the name of the Other Gods
I spare you to serve my will”
“For I am Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos”

“Fly!”

“Hei! Aa-shanta ‘nygh!”

Then I take off towards
The cold blue glare of boreal Vega
Great polypous horrors
Unseen bat-wings beat around me
I feel that once again
I was duped
I thought I could finally
Admire my city
But I hear in the distance
Unknown chant
Night and the spheres sing it
Already old when space was born

Je savais maintenant que ma merveilleuse cité du soleil couchant
N’était que la somme de ce que j’avais vu et aimé dans ma jeunesse
La splendeur des collines de Boston
Providence, pittoresque et majestueuse
Et non les ténèbres et les solitudes incertaines
Qui croupissent par-delà le cosmos

The hellish bird plunge onward
Through shoals of shapeless lurkers
Cleaving the uttermost rim
Spanning the outermost abysses
The creature drags me
At the infernal Azathoth’s court
I have to find the thought
That will allow me to wake up

Like a desperate dreamer
I jump off my flying abomination
Crossing endless voids of sentient blackness
Comets, suns, and worlds
Spring flaming into life
Using a vision of my boyhood
I wake up
My dream is over
My dream is over