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  Still firing, he answered, 'There has to be a better way than this. These hounds have broken the rules, left their own environment and come through into space.' He narrowed his eyes, opened his scanners on the distant Red Medusa Nebula. 'And maybe just maybe — that's where they've made a very grave error of judgment!'

  `Henri?'

  'Time's their element, isn't it? And back there near the Red Medusa, there are places where time itself is frozen. According to a certain theory, anyway. Well, such theories rarely apply to the time-clock, but as for the hounds ... ? It's worth a try, anyway.'

  He stopped firing, deliberately sent the clock tumbling end over end, so that it must seem completely out of control, a simulated malfunction. This proved no discomfort at all to the clock's passengers: their space-time machine simply compensated, and it was as if space turned while the clock stood still.

  The hounds closest to the clock had been fleeing in disarray, but now they paused, gathered in chittering clouds, began to fly in ever decreasing circles toward a common centre which was the time-clock. The rest of the vast pack did likewise.

  'Henri, they're coming!' cried Moreen. 'What are you doing? Have you forgotten that they can break through the clock's angles?'

  ‘I know it,' he answered, 'and so do they. I'm far more important to them than poor old Sssss there, Moreen. They're Cthulhu's scavengers, remember? What a great prize we'd make, eh?'

  Believing the clock crippled, the hounds closed in. Now de Marigny could sense their psychic feelers groping for the clock, soul-sucking tendrils of mental energy; and now, too, their chittering was a frenzy of lust and monstrous anticipation. And only at the last moment — when it seemed 'the closest of the nightmare things must surely fall upon, fall into the clock only then did de Marigny accelerate away from them. Not far, a short spurt, and then a pause as he let the clock tumble once more and waited for them to catch up. So he played them, the entire pack, like some vast and monstrous fish on a line.

  And yes, they were hooked!

  Sssss was free of them now, powering himself on and on along his orbit, his distance increasing by leaps and bounds. They could never catch him now, not in three-dimensional mace. But in fact they had lost a11 interest in Sssss. De

  Marigny and whoever journeyed with him, they were the new targets; the travellers, and the time-clock itself.

  Now the gas-being was little more than a mote speeding away into far infinities, a green speck, gone! And now, too late, the hounds felt the irresistible attraction of de Marigny's trap: one of those greatest of black holes where it circled the Red Medusa. For he was leading them straight into its heart! Deeper still de Marigny drove, and ever faster, until even the time-clock's near-impervious fabric began to strain under the forces working upon it. And only then did The Searcher break the time-barrier and leap forward into a future where the hole was long extinct.

  He did it only just 'in time'; for at this range, so close to the black hole, even time itself was beginning to bend and lose its shape. But too late for the hounds, far too late. Matter could not escape the maw of that Great Omnivore; space was warped inwards; the ethereal stuff of the hounds was flimsy as cobweb, no match at all for this vast insensate monster. Down they fell, ever faster, toward a point where time for them would freeze. And them with it.

  Very few of them escaped to limp back to the corkscrew towers of dead and spectral Tindalos...

  Moreen picked up all of these mental pictures from de Marigny's mind and shuddered. `Horrible,' she said. 'A horrible fate, even for such as them.'

  'Moreen,' The Searcher answered, 'sometimes I think you're just too good to be true!' But he hugged her anyway. And then he set course for Earth ...

  PART TWO : DE MARIGNY'S DREAM-QUEST

  1 Ulthar and Atal

  If only,' thought de Marigny, as the time-clock winged him back through time and space to the 20th Century Earth of his past: if only Elysia were as easy to discover and enter into as the dreamlands of Earth. For certainly in their diverse ways both places were parallel worlds of wonder; oh yes, and be sure that there were places in the dreamlands gorgeous enough to rival anything in Elysia.

  Except ... except that not all things were wonderful the,re.. No, for the lands of Earth's dreams were also of _necessity the lands of her blackest nightmares.

  Tell me again of the Motherworld's dreamlands,' begged Moreen, as her man, The Searcher, began to recognize familiar constellations and knew now that he was not far from home — or at least, not far from the world which had once been his home. 'Please, Henri, tell me more of these places I have never dreamed of.'

  It was true, for while she was of Earth stock Moreen hadbeen born and raised in a moon of Borea; she had neveronce. visited the human dreamlands of her birthright butonly the subconscious, haunted dreams of her native uminos. By no means an expert dreamer himself (and is despite the fact that h and Titus Crow had been honoured and feted there, until indeed they had become oe with the stuff of dreamland's legends itself ), stumblingly at first and then with more assurance, de Marigny had related yet again his earlier adventures in the strange dimension of Earth's dreams. He told of how he had gone there to rescue Crow and the girl-goddess Tiania, trapped in abysses of trauma; and how with the help of certain inhabitants of the dreamlands he had succeeded; and then how the three of them together had gone on to triumph over an insidious incursion of Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones into the subconscious worlds of mankind's innermost dreams. And when all of this was not enough for Moreen, then de Marigny went on to tell of places he knew there in that imagined yet real otherworld, and of places he'd only heard of and never (or at best only rarely) seen; places he had dreamed of long ago, which had faded now as all dreamstuff does in the cold morning light of the waking world.

  He spoke of monstrous Kadath where it aches in the Cold Waste, forbidden to all men ever since the immemorial dreaming of certain hideous dreams there; and of the no less ominous icy desert Plateau of Leng, where horrible stone villages squatted about central balefires which flared continuously, while Leng's denizens danced grotesquely in flickering shadows to the rattle of strange bone instruments and the droning whine of cursed flutes. And seeing how Moreen shuddered at the tone his voice had taken and crept closer to him, he at once turned his attention to healthier regions of the dreamlands.

  He spoke of the resplendent city of Celephais in the valley of Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, whose myriad glittering minarets lie mirrored in the calm blue harbour; and of the galleys anchored there, with furled, multicoloured sails, beneath Mount Aran where the ginkgos sway in the breeze of the sea; and of the tinkling, bubbling Naraxa with its tiny wooden bridges, wandering its way oceanward; and of the city's onyx pavements and maze of curious streets and alleys behind mighty bronze gates. He made mention of sky-floating Serannian (which: had always reminded him of Crow's description of Elysia's sky-islands) high over the Cerenerian Sea, whose foaming billows ride up buoyant as clouds into the sky where Serannian floats on their ethereal essence.

  He talked of Zak with its many-templed terraces, abode of forgotten dreams where many of his own youthful dreams and fancies lingered still, only gradually fading away; and Sona-Nyl, blessed land of fancy where men dream what they will, none of which might ever take on real material form; and the sea-spawned Basalt Pillars of the West where they rise from the furthest reaches of the Southern Sea, beyond which (so legend has it) lies a monstrous cataract where all the seas of the dreamlands pour abyssally away forever into awful inchoate voids. He mentioned Mount Ngranek's peak, and the great face graven in that mountain's gaunt side; and having spoken of Ngranek he could not help but mention the hideously thin and faceless, horned and barb-tailed bat-beings the night-gaunts — which ever guard that mysterious mountain's elder secrets.

  Then, because he believed that despite Moreen's fears she should know the worst and not go into the dreamlands a total alien and unprepared, de Marigny hurriedly went onto tell of the Peaks of Throk, th
ose needle-like pinnacles which are the subject of many of dream's most awful fables. For these peaks, higher than any man might ever guess or believe, are known to guard the terrible valleys of the )holes, whose shapes and outlines have often been suspected but never seen; and in one such place, the ill-omenied Vale of Pnoth, there the rustling of the Dholes is ever present in utter darkness, where they infest mountainour piles of dried-out bones. For Pnoth is the ossuary into which all the ghouls of the waking and dreaming worlds alike, throw the remains of their nighted feastings.

  Finally and yet more hurriedly, for by now Earth was swelling large in the time-dock's scanners, he made mention of Hlanith of the oaken wharves: Hlanith, whose sailors are more like men of the waking world than any others in the dreamlands — and ruined, fearsome Sarkomand, whose broken basalt quays and crumblingsphinxes are remnant of a time long before the years of men — and the mountain Hatheg-Kla, whose peak Barzai the Wise once climbed, never to come down again.. He spoke of Nir and Istharta, and the Charnel Gardens of Zura where pleasure is unattainable; also of Oriab in the Southern Sea, and infamous Thalarion; and at the very last, for he wished to be done now, he mentioned Ulthar where no man may kill a cat.

  And Ulthar he had deliberately kept to the last, for it was where their quest must start. Indeed, for of all the towns and cities and lands of dream, Ulthar was the one, place which had its own Temple of the Elder Gods; and who better to talk to about Elysia than the priest of that temple, who himself aspired one day to a position there?

  'And do you know him?' Moreen asked when de Marigny was done and the time-clock sailed in an orbit high above Earth's nightside. 'Is he a friend of yours, this high-priest of the temple?'

  'Oh, yes,' he answered with a nod, taking her in his arms and settling down for sleep. 'I know him fairly well — or as well as any man of the waking world might be expected to know him. I've met him several times before: twice when I sought his help, and the last time at a banquet at the Inn of a Thousand Sleeping Cats, in Ulthar. But as for "friend" — I wouldn't presume. Ancient beyond words, he was around when the dreamlands were young! There's one thing I can guarantee, though, that he's pure as a pearl. As for his name: it's Atal the Ancient — Atal of Hatheg-Kla, who came down again when Barzai did not and if there's one man in all the dreamlands who can help us, Atal's that, man ...'

  The first time de Marigny had used the time-clock to enter into the lands of Earth's dreams might well have been hi last; he remembered that fact now as he drifted into sleep in the arms of Moreen, but this time he had resolved would be different. The trick was this: to meld one's mind with that of the clock itself (for indeed it had a mind) as One fell asleep, and falling asleep to command the clock that it proceed into the neighbouring dreamlands. That way a 'man might take the clock with him into dreams, not merely use it as a gateway into those subconscious regions. That had been his mistake last time: to use the clock as a gateway, leaving it in orbit while he literally became stranded in darkling dreams! After that ... but that's a tale already told.

  This time he made no such mistake. His will, slipping ever deeper into sleep, clung tenaciously to the time-clock, and even more especially to Moreen; so that all three of them, man, girl and machine, entered the dreamlands as a single unit. Physically, of course, they remained in orbit, all three; but. psychically they dreamed, the time-clock too. What's more, de Marigny's dreaming was accurate to a fault the clock materialized in Ulthar beyond the River Skai, in the courtyard of the Inn of a Thousand Sleeping Cats.

  There the lovers 'awakened' in each other's arms, rose up and yawned, stretched, stepped out through the clock's frontal ,panel into Ulthar's evening. De Marigny was not sure what welcome he might expect, or even if he'd be remembered or welcomed at all; for surely his coming again would only serve as a vivid reminder of the Bad Days, when all the dreamlands had been in a turmoil of terror. But the scanners told him that the courtyard of the inn was set with tables, and that the evening was filled with the scents of flowers in full bloom, and that already people were arriving and seating themselves outdoors for an evening meal. What they could not tell him was that the tables had been set since the arrival of the dock, while he and Moreen had lain 'asleep', and that the meal in preparation, like the last one he'd eaten here, was in hishonour!

  But when at last the lovers left the clock and its door closed behind them, closing in the purplish glow of its extraordinary interior and leaving them in Ulthar's lanthorn-illuminated twilight ... ah, how de Marigny's `forgotten' friends in the dreamlands crowded to him then!

  Now, time is a funny business in the dreamlands; in places like Celephais or Serannian it can seem to stand quite still, so that nothing changes much. But to dreamers from the waking world who go there only rarely, it often seems that many years have passed between visits. Or perhaps it is the attitude of the dreamer himself, for it must not be forgotten that the dreamlands are themselves built of men's dreams. De Marigny's attitude - his desire - had been to enter the dreamlands 'now', not in the future or the past, and so he and Moreen had arrived at a time little changed from when he was last here. In other words, dream-time had kept pace with his waking-world time: the friends he saw now had aged a year for each of de Marigny's years not merely an hour, and God forbid a century!

  Grant Enderby was there and his strapping sons; his daughter, too, dark-eyed Litha, blushing as she thought back on earlier dreams. But she was wed now to a quarrier and had her own house close to her father's, and those had been vain dreams anyway for Henri was a man of the waking world, a tall ship passing in the night of the dreamlands. Oh, he had planned one day to build a villa here, in timeless Celephais, perhaps what dreamer hasn't? - but these, too, had been only dreams within dreams.

  Then there were dignitaries from several local districts, some of which de Marigny recognized, and the fat inn keeper and his family - beside themselves with pride that the visitors had chosen this particular place in all the dreamlands into which to dream themselves - and finally there was the venerable Atal himself, who had been a mere boy in that immemorial year when the city's elders had passed their ordinance prohibiting the killing of cats. Atal, borne in by four young priests of the temple, reclining upon a canopied litter and dressed in his red robe of high office. His priestlings wore grey and were shave-headed, but their respect for the Master was not born of arduous ritual and service but more of love. For while he was undeniably the high priest of the temple, he was also simply Atal: which is to say that he was one of dreamland's greatest legends.

  Deposited at the head of the rows of small tables - where stood a somewhat larger table - Atal's litter was tilted and part-folded to form a carved chair, where he sat beneath his gold-embroidered canopy while de Marigny and Moreen were ushered to their places of honour beside him. Then, after the briefest but warmest of greetings and introductions, a fabulous, sumptuous meal was served; and at last, when the throng began to eat and under cover of their low, excited chattering, finally- de Marigny was able to talk in earnest to the high priest of Ulthar's Temple of the Elder Gods.

  '`I knew you were coming,' the ancient told him at once, almost breathlessly., 'You or Titus Crow or some other emissary of the waking, outer spheres. I knew it, for there have been portents aplenty! You know how the people of Nir and Ulthar fear eclipses? No? But of course not, for You are still a novice dreamer - though of course that is not said to slight you. No, for you've served the lands of .your dreams well enough in your time. Anyway, this fear of eclipses all dates back to my youth and is unimportant now; but in the past month there have been two eclipses of the moon, and both of them unforeseen. Now, the orbit of dreamland's moon is at best less than entirely predictable - and never more so than recently, since the dreamlands waged a war there - but our astronomers are rarely so awry as to miss an eclipse! And as for two, that is surely unheard of! How do I read it? I'm not sure, but I know that

  in the Bad Days, when Cthulhu's influence was strong here, eclipses were frequent. Th
ey occurred whenever Nyarlathotep, the Great Messenger, came to spy on the dreams of men ...

  `Another omen: in Serannian of the Clouds there has been a visitation, a singular thing. I have had this from Kuranes himself and know it to be true: an event has occurred there which never occurred before, and so has been the cause of much speculation. Likewise, strange thoughts have entered the dreamlands. I myself heard the merest echoes of them in dreams within dreams, and they were not the thoughts of men — but I believe they were good thoughts for all that. They came out of Elysia, I think, and fell to the ground somewhere beyond Thalarion. But. who in Elysia would wish, to speak to someone beyond Thalarion, de Marigny?' The ancient shook his head.. `Omens, my young friend, all of these things, and more still to come. Would you hear?'

  De Marigny gazed long and wonderingly at the old man, near hypnotized by the gentle sigh and rustle of his voice. Frail and weary with years the ancient was; his face a wrinkled walnut, head sparsely crested with white hair, beard long and white and voluminous as a fall of snow; and yet the colourless eyes in that worn old face were lit in their cores with all the wisdom of the dreamlands. And so: 'Say on, sir,' said de Marigny, stirring himself up and giving the patriarch all of his attention.

  Atal reached out to take his hand in a trembling, mummied paw. 'I am the priest of Their temple, as you well know, and I aspire one day to serve Them there in Elysia as I now serve Them here. In return — though of course I would not presume to bargain — it is my prayer that They shall give me back a little of my youth, so that. I may enjoy more fully something of my time in Elysia, the place of the Elder Beings I serve?