There were amongst these full many of the profound and incommensurable writings of Eibon himself, and treatises upon the supermundane sciences, together with a scripture of inordinate length concerning the Descent of Tsathoggua and His Brethren out of the venerable Pnom; which is to say naught of the veritable and unquestioned Grimoire of Eibon, into whose more tenebrous pages I have looked but once, then nevermore: for an old man needeth his rest and there be that within the testaments of Eibon which would render for ever unendurable the dreams of a mere Cyron.
His folios contained redactions of that which his abstruse and recondite studies into antiquarian matters had uncovered concerning the lives and times of the primal magi of former cycles. Well and fondly do I remember these fables from the years I knelt at the master's feet imbibing wisdom; for it had ever been his wont to relate these to his students in the nature of parables or cautionary tales, in obvious hope that we might learn from the several quaint and, betimes, gruesome ends which had befallen these unfortunate savants, to exhibit in our own practice of sorcery a restraint and a prudence superior to theirs.
It became in time apparent from a scrutiny of these parchments that he had been in the midst of assembling them into a sequential narrative, which labors were interrupted by the untimely persecutions of Morghi. I betook upon myself the tasks of completing that which had been begun.
Time passed, as wast ever time's way, and my master returned not to resume his customary habitation in that house of black gneiss upon its drear and solitudinous promontory whose steep and precipitous shores are washed-about by the cold waves of the ultimate polar sea. Nor would he return ever again from whence he had fled, for at length did I ascertain by mine art the curious and unlikely termination of his career, in penum-bral spheres remote from our own, and of that which transpired in the far and fabulous bourns which lie beyond the ill-rumored tablet of ultra-telluric metal whereof the elder magi whisper much, and little that be wholesome, and the which wast known of old as the Door to Cykranosh.
This uncanny Portal had been a gift made unto Eibon by the dark divinity whose votary he had long accounted himself, even the dire and dubious Tsathoggua; the daemon had made present of it, saying, in a manner sly and cryptic, that in the uttermost extremity of his need my master should find it as a Door the which leadeth to a far haven of safe repose. But what the Black Abomination spake not of, was that once a man passeth therethrough, he can never return thereby again. Of these mysteries did I inquire of my master's own spirit, conjured by mine art into a wizard's speculuum of black steel as he himself had taught me aforetime, therefore I know whereof I speak; but of these matters I shall speak no more in this place, for I have elsewhere writ an account of the latter days of Eibon, and of that Door to Cykranosh, and the prodigies thereof, in a narrative set down in mine own poor words, the which have I added herein as Chapter the Twentieth.
The old queen hath died, and with her the dynasty of the Uzuldarines is ended, as well; and it be rumored amongst men that her nephew, Zor-quus. Prince of Cerngoth, will reign henceforward in Uzuldaroum, and his son, Pharapha, after him. But these are matters which concern me little, for I doubt me that ever shall I live to see them come to pass.
This very eve did I raise Charnadis from the shadows, even Charnadis the Daemon of Time, to whom the ages past and ages yet to come are as one, for such is the fullness of the vision of Charnadis. And from the daemon did I inquire after the manner of my demise, and from the lips of Charnadis did I learn that erelong and in the first year of the empery of Zorquus shall I journey hence into that vast and mysterious Enigma the which lieth beyond Death's black and ineluctable gates. But ere mine eyes grow dim and my hand loseth his cunning, have I set down, in words however cursory and unequal to the task, this poor account of the life and times of the Master Eibon, so that his name shall not be forgotten on the lips of men.
And into the hands of mine own pupil, Alabbac, shall I deliver in the hour of my death this very Book of Eibon which I have at length and in the fullness of time compiled from amongst his scrolls and scriptures, so that the wisdom of Eibon may survive my time to the enlightenment of generations yet unborn. This is as my master would have wished; and so I discharge my trust to him.
Here endeth the Life of Eibon according to Cyron of Varaad, which Alabbac of Mnardis had from his teacher in the hour of his death, and the which was passed on to me, Harood of Kalnoora, in the time of the death of King Pharapha in the three-and-twentieth year of his reign, and of the coronation of Thaarapion; the which shall I also bequeath to the wisest of mine own disciples when that my last hour draweth nigh, so that this lore and wisdom shall not be lost to men.
This true and veritable copy of the Book of Eibon was set down in mine own hand in the sixteenth year of the reign of King Rhastazoul, the fourth monarch of the Gerngothic Dynasty to hold the throne of Uzuldaroum, the which was even the one hundredth year since the vanishment from this Earth of the great sorcerer Eibon. In this same year was the Coming of the Great Ice whereby was the province of Mhu Thulan whelmed under the eternal snows and thereby rendered forever uninhabitable by men.