THE copy of the Unaussprechlichen Kulten which Copeland had purchased from a dealer in rare books in Prague proved exceptionally interesting. The "Black Book" as it is sometimes called (the title translates as "Nameless Cults”), contains a vast wealth of material not even hinted at in the Copeland file. The old-fashioned black-letter text was difficult to read, but the strange marvels therein were so enthralling that I persevered.
According to von Junzt’s account, the planet Earth was not originally a part of this physical universe at all, but originated in another, totally alien plane or dimension of being, that wherein the race of benevolent divinities known as the Elder Gods were supreme. The Elder Gods, near the very beginning of time, decided to create a subrace of lesser entities to be their slaves and thus brought into being the twin monstrosities, Azathoth and Ubbo-Sathla. These two beings, which seemed to be androgynous or multi-sexual, were to spawn a host of minor godlings who would serve the Elder Gods. But Azathoth and Ubbo-Sathla rebelled against their masters, and it was Ubbo-Sathla who stole from the Gods that aeon-old library of hieroglyph-engraved stone tablets, the Elder Records, which he hid away in his gray-lit abode of Y’qaa, deep within the earth. When the Elder Gods rose up in their wrath to seek out the place where the immemorial library lay concealed, Ubbo-Sathla evoked the cosmic powers he had learned from study of the Records, and Earth and its primal denizen fell from their original plane or dimension into our own universe, followed not long thereafter by Azathoth and the first-born of his spawn, Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, Cxaxukluth, and yet other primordial entities. According to von Junzt, Earth fell into our present universe “untold vingtillions of aeons ago."
This account of the rebellion of the original Great Old Ones was followed by a lengthy and detailed description of the descent and genealogy of the Great Old Ones, revealing much information unavailable to Copeland. According to von Junzt, Azathoth and his spawn traversed the stellar immensitudes from the edge of our universe to the region wherein Earth now resided, and along the way spawned yet other beings of their hellish breed. Yog-Sothoth, for example, first mated with a female denizen of a world called Vhoorl, which lay "deep in the twenty-third nebula", thus fathering Cthulhu; later, he maced with a second divinity at a place not named, fathering Cthulhu’s half-brother, Hastur the Unspeakable.
Hastur, in turn, mated with a divinity named Shub-Niggurath, to spawn three sons named Ithaqua, Lloigor, and Zhar, who were air elementals similar to their terrible sire. Cthulhu himself mated with an entity named Idh-yaa at a place called Xoth, thus fathering Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, and Zoth-Ommog. who accompanied their mighty sire down to Earth in later aeons, as I already knew from the Copeland file. As well, the fire elemental Cthugha spawned, on a world circling the star Fomalhaut, another fire elemental like himself named Aphoom Zhah, who descended to Earth, coming down in remote arctic regions. There was much more genealogical information than this given in the prolix pages of von Junzt, but I lack the time to discuss it in further detail. Let it suffice to say that the Great Old Ones grew numerous and when they entered this region of space, they invested Earth and three solar planets, among which was Mars, which became the dominion of Vulchoom, third of the sons of Yog-Sothoth. Cthulhu and his spawn took the Pacific for their empire, while Tsathoggua, the son of Ghizguth, took primal Hyperborea; Aphoom Zhah and his spawn extended their dominion over the regions of the ultimate boreal pole.
Earth at that time was ruled by a race of entities known as the Primordial Ones, described by von Junzt as "winged, crinoid-headed, semivegetable denizens of paleogean Antarctica", against whom Certain of the Great Old Ones, principally Cthulhu and his Xothic spawn, warred. Not long thereafter another race contested with them for the supremacy of Earth, the so-called "Great Race of Yith", a swarm of purely mental entities who voyaged to this planet through time and space, assuming the bodies of a cone-shaped race already resident in primal Australia. The Great Race unleashed frightful weapons of terrific potency against the Old Ones, and even managed to drive them underground into enormous caverns for a time. But here the Old Ones encountered their lost brethren, the spawn of Ubbo-Sathla, and their power was vastly augmented. For during the numberless ages, Ubbo-Sathla had begotten many offspring as he wallowed in his gray-lit abyss of Y’qaa, and among these were Zulchequon and Abhoth, Nyogtha and Yig, Atlach-Nacha and Byatis and dark Han. Before long the Old Ones burst from the depths of the earth to challenge the Great Race, but by that time the Elder Gods had entered this universe and, centering their power about the star Betelgeuse, descended into this solar system to punish their former slaves for their iniquitous rebellion. The Great Race abandoned Earth, fleeing first to Jupiter, and next to a dark star in Taurus; their eventual goal, says von Junzt, is given in the Pnakotic Manuscripts as the future age of a post-human beetle race here on Earth. When life becomes extinct upon this planet, they will migrate to inhabit a race of bulbous vegetable entities on Mercury.
The Great Old Ones transported the Elder Records to a planet of the star Celaeno for safekeeping and fought mightily against the Elder Gods, but were defeated, as Copeland's notes had already informed me. But the Unaussprechlichen Kulten gave a much more detailed account of the banishment or imprisonment of the Great Old Ones than that contained in Copeland’s cursory summary. Nyarlathotep, for example, lies enchained on "the World of Seven Suns", which von Junzt equates with the "shadow-haunted Abbith to which the Pnakotic Manuscripts so cryptically allude"; Hastur they sealed in the “cloudy depths" of Lake Hali, at Carcosa, on a world near Aldebaran in the constellation of the Hyades; while his brother, Vulthoom, together with his minions, the Aihais, and Ta-Vho-Shai their leader, the Elder Gods prisoned in the cavernous abyss of Ravormos, on Mars, beneath the age-old city of Ignar-Varh. Cthugha was sealed away on a planet encircling the star Fomalhaut, as I had already learned, but von Junzt added the datum that his chief minion. Fthaggua, and the Flame-Creatures, or “Fire-Vampires” as the Necronomicon calls them, were banished to a distant world—Ktynga, it is called—and von Junzt tentatively identifies it with Norby’s Comet, a stellar object in the vicinity of Antares which some astronomers believe will approach perilously close to our own planer some four centuries from now. As well, I might add, it was to "nightmarish Yaddith", a world near Deneb, that Shub-Niggurath was banished; while Lloigor and Zhar, two of the sons of Hastur, lie enchained beneath a ruined city in the jungles of Burma, served by their loathly minions, the Tcho-Tcho people, whose leader is E-poh.
As for the spawn of Ubbo-Sathla, several of them—such as Abhoth the Unclean, the spider-god Atlach-Nacha, and Zulchequon—are imprisoned with him, or near him, in primal caverns far beneath the earth, while Nyogtha was driven from this world, and is penned on a lightless world near the star Arcturus. But most of the Lesser Old Ones, it would seem, are not imprisoned. and work ever to free their masters from the bondage of the Elder Sign. Among these are Dagon and Hydra, who dwell on the ocean's floor, either in sunken R'lyeh or at a place called "many-columned Y’ha-nthlei", and Ubb, leader of the repulsive yuggs, who serve Ythogtha and Zoth-Ommog, and who also dwell beneath the sea. Naggoob, the “Father of Ghouls”, chieftain of the servitors of Nyogtha the Dweller in Darkness, is also free, as are Quumyagga, leader of the shantaks; Sss'haa, chief of the serpentmen or Valusians who serve Yig, Father of Serpents; and Rlim Shaikorth, leader of the Cold Ones who are the minions of Aphoom Zhah ....