by Brian Lumley
`That's my second question,' said de Marigny. 'Why Elysia? Couldn't I have been caused to guide them elsewhere? I sought for a dream only to see it shattered, to watch it turn into a nightmare ..
For a moment a shadow passed over Crow's face. 'No,' he said then, 'it could only be Elysia. The destruction of Elysia was Cthulhu's greatest ambition. And after Elysia ... there'd be nothing left to stand in his way. It had to be Elysia, surely you can see that? Would you have had hint start with the Earth and "clear it off"? Or with Borea? Or any of the civilized worlds and races you've visited?'
'No,' de Marigny shook his head, 'of course not. But that leads to my third question. I can't believe that we've finally destroyed them. Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones were, they are, and they always shall be. That's the way I'll always think of them. But if not dead, where?'
'Cthulhu, dead?' Crow shook his head. 'Oh, no, not dead, Henri, but only dreaming! Their misguided followers, some of their inexperienced progeny, their lesser minions — these can be destroyed. But not the Great Old Ones themselves. They're beyond death. Truly immortal. Their bodies regenerate, reform, renew themselves. But their minds, their memories, they can be damaged, erased! That was why they feared the Azathi: not for their destructiveness but their contamination, their contagion! And they were right to fear them, for now they have scars — mental scars, gaps, erasures which will be a long time in the healing, Henri. Even billions of years ...'
Exior K'mool touched de Marigny's elbow. 'Do you recall, son of my most distant sons, what Ardatha Ell said of Kthanid: that he, too, was a miraculous mathematician? Cthulhu wasn't alone in his knowledge of the angles. No, and Yog-Sothoth didn't know all the gates. That final "gate" — the great black hole — that was the Completely Unknown ...'
De Marigny's mind suddenly reeled, somersaulted. He looked at Exior and Crow and his jaw fell open. 'Dreaming but not dead,' he whispered. 'And that great black hole, a monstrous gateway into the past. Into their own past!'
Crow smiled.
`Titus,' said de Marigny, his mouth dry as dust, 'tell me, just exactly where is Kthanid? Where is he, and where the others of the Elder Council right now? Where — or when?'
'AM' said Crow. 'But that's your fourth question, my friend. And I won't answer it for I know you've already worked it out for yourself.'
De Marigny felt dizzy, feverish with the one gigantic notion spinning like a top in his head. 'Time is relative,' he whispered, more to himself than to the others. 'If anyone knows that, I do. In "the beginning" Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones "rose up against the Elder Gods and committed a crime so heinous ..." '
`Like ... the destruction of Elysia?' said Crow.
But the Elder Gods pursued them to punish them. And back there in the dim mists of time ... back there .. . memories mostly erased ... they only remember their hatred of the Elder Gods and Elysia ... and ... and ... damn! The whole thing is a cycle!'
Crow clasped him by the shoulders. 'But haven't we always known that, Henri? Of course we have - it's the Cthulhu Cycle ..
A long time later:
De Marigny came out of his mental torpor. He was still a little feverish, but Moreen was there to hold and kiss him. 'Where are we going?' he asked, when he was able.
'There's a world in Arcturus which is a jewel,' said Crow. 'Elysia's peoples are there right now. Tiania, too. They're building new lives for themselves, and for us.'
`But it isn't Elysia,' de Marigny's voice was flat, without flavour.
`It can be, my friend,' said Crow, helping him to his feet,'it can be. In any case, I'm going there because my woman is there - but we don't have to stay. Elysia? I loved Elysia, Henri - but look out there.'
In the scanners, all the stars of space receded to infinity in all directions. 'Done, Henri,' said Titus Crow, 'a chapter closed. Or perhaps a new one started? And as I believe I've said to you before -
`Wait,' said de Marigny, no longer The Searcher. His smile was still wan, but at least there was feeling in it now. 'Let me say it this time,' he said. 'Damn it all, it has to be my turn this time:
`Worlds without end, Titus - worlds without end!'
