Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.365: The Guardian of the Threshold

Last night I was taken once again to that city of alien and Antarctic horror, only to be lifted upon the icy winds and born further southward. It was then that I Grasped what was to be my ultimate destination: that space of unreal geography which lay beyond a second range of gargantuan mountains to which the inhabitants of the ruined city had on occasion made terrified obeisance. Not only was I familiar with the hints about that place found in the works of Alhazred and Von Juntz, but I had also intimated much from Fredrick Mulder’s guarded comments regarding the contents of the Ghorl Nigral - particularly with regard to what that dread tome had to say of the Plateau of Leng, and of Kadath in the Cold Waste. What I had garnered from those vague allusions was that whatever lay beyond that second range of unfathomably vast mountains had fallen from the stars close to 500 million years ago, and that the inhabitants of the alien city which had stood in all-too close proximity to that place had refused to visit it, fearful of what was portended by sinister bluish and purple auroras that flickered about the summits of those mountains - whose immeasurable geologic mass thankfully hid whatever was beyond. I was also reminded of what Lovecraft – inspired by a dream (and who knows what other sources) - wrote regarding the Elder Pharos.

I will not – indeed cannot – recount what was revealed to me as my brain, imprisoned within that cold canister of alien metal, was lifted above and beyond those monstrous peaks. There is truth in the claim that some things are, by their alien nature and condition, utterly unspeakable and wholly incomprehensible to earthly minds. Indeed, any attempt to describe what was revealed to me would Resemble, at best, some virtually meaningless jumble of abstract modernist bizarrerie. But that would fail to convey the full horror of what my vision encompassed: a zone that failed in all particulars to conform to the normative geography of the terrestrial realm; indeed, it was questionable whether such a region could properly be said in any way to inhabit the sane, wholesome and orderly geometries that frame a typically human perception of things. What I will say is that my experience of the previous night now made a sense of sorts - I realised that it was somehow preparatory to the next stage in what I now believe to be my terminal transition from this world, via That which is Key, Gate and Guardian of the Gate, thence leading to my ultimate transfiguration into…That Which Lies Beyond.

Indeed, words cannot describe what I saw; but I understand that you, good reader, will not be satisfied with what, to you, seems such a facile claim. There is one thing, then, that I can show to mitigate your scepticism: the product of a human artist who, I now believe, underwent the same transition as myself - but who went mad as a result. This is his rendition – albeit given expression in a form that thankfully only hints (and in the most vague and abstract manner) at the final shape of that transdimensional monstrosity that was revealed to me. For in that desolate zone beyond the alien city, and hitherto hidden from human sight by those vast mountains, I bore witness to the true form of Yog-Sothoth.