Various authors

“ I had never doubted what he was come to do; and now I knew that while my body sat safe in the cheerful little church, he had been hunting my soul in the Court of the Dragon.
I crept to the door; the organ broke out overhead with a blare. A dazzling light filled the church, blotting the altar from my eyes. The people faded away, the arches, the vaulted roof vanished. I raised my scared eyes to the fathomless glare, and I saw the black stars hanging in the heavens: and the wet winds from the Lake of Hali chilled my face. ”

“ Once I heard Zarf gasp as a sword bit deep, and once he groaned in agony. It was a wild mêlée while it lasted; and never did I enjoy myself more. . . . Through a red haze of slaughter I saw that only two dwarfmen remained facing my blade. Lunge—slash—parry—slash and lunge again—but one left—I gathered myself—dimly saw another blade than mine pass through that last dwarf—heard Zarf as from a far distance crying exultantly:
"Lord King, you fight even better than in the other days! It is well—for you will have many a fight ere you sit once more on the Chrysolite Throne of your race." ”

“ Fo Wen was well educated though he had never attended school. His father had taught him to read and write. The beauty of his brush strokes might have brought envy to an artist. Nature, too, had been his teacher. From the wind in the willows he learned sweet songs which he longed to translate into words; from the sky at evening he drew inspiration and serenity; from the glory of scented pine trees he drew faith. So it was but natural he worshipped their god. That the god was all but bankrupt as far as worshippers were concerned, he did not know. ”

“ He had laughed in face of danger, yet now he was afraid when there was nothing to fear; afraid of blackness when he had crept about Chinese villages feeling his way along, not even a candle visible, and had never given it a thought. Now, without reason, horror, biting, incredible was eating into the very marrow of his bones.
How long he could have stood the suspense of an unknown terror, as though he were falling into a deep pit and the earth was closing in, is problematical, had his descent not abruptly ceased. He struck with a jolt and the parachute dragged him along a few feet. ”

“ Fo Wen remained silent. What matter the vessel from which one slakes thirst?
"In your possession will be amber trinkets in which leaves and ferns, insects and lovely flowers are entombed; while all about your home will be gorgeous jade flowers growing, their petals of gems of rainbow colors. The rugs beneath your feet will be soft as moss and of a green sheen. You will bathe in a crystal bath, the like of which may not be found the world over. You will feast on viands of a piquance and delicacy to entice the appetite of a king."
"Rice alone is sufficient for my needs. ”

“ As a Flying Tiger, Trent had seen death in a hundred cruel forms and so close had he lived to it, he was without fear. Besides there was no slightest tinge of enmity in his heart for Mu Lin. All that he cared about was this new wonder that had come to him with a woman's kiss. And now for the first time he noticed that her eyes were open, black brilliant eyes that contained all the mystery of the ages. Mu Lin, too, had beheld and in that moment all anger was drained from him. One could not be angry in the presence of this fair woman. ”

“ The streets filled with people—men, women, and little children; and on no face did I see aught written of good, but only all wickedness. Before I could decide what to do, of a sudden a detachment of soldiery bore down on me, surrounding me before I could rise to my feet. Again I shouted to Zarf and Koto; and deep as was the slumber-spell, Koto's brain must have caught, in part, my warning. For he moved uneasily, flinging out one arm restlessly. That arm fell across the image where it lay wrapped in my cloak. ”

“ He who will guide the rash one beyond all the worlds into the Abyss of unnamable devourers. For He is 'Umr At-Tawil, the Most Ancient One, which the scribe rendereth as the Prolonged of Life."
Memory and imagination shaped dim half-pictures with uncertain outlines amidst the seething chaos, but Carter knew that they were of memory and imagination only. Yet he felt that it was not chance which built these things in his consciousness, but rather some vast reality, ineffable and undimensioned, which surrounded him and strove to translate itself into the only symbols he was capable of grasping. ”

“ Once on Earth, though in the body of a clawed, snouted thing, he might be able somehow to find—and finish deciphering—the strangely hieroglyphed parchment he had left in the car at Arkham; and with its aid—and the key's—resume his normal terrestrial semblance.
He was not blind to the perils of the attempt. He knew that when he had brought the planet-angle to the right eon (a thing impossible to do while hurtling through space) , Yaddith would be a dead world dominated by triumphant Dholes, and that his escape in the light-wave envelope would be a matter of grave doubt. ”

“ The Mate let out a shout, and, snatching an oar from one of the men, leapt into the stern of the boat, and commenced to thrash the weed with it, whilst the rest laboured infernally to pluck the boat forth into the open sea. Yet, despite their mad efforts, and the death-dealing blows of the Mate's great fourteen-foot oar, the black, living mass were all about the boat, and scrambling aboard in scores, before she was free of the weed. ”

“ I am minded to try my sword on this black barrier and find out if it be impassable."
Before he could reply—the black barrier was not! Only, two eyes that were crimson fires of hellishness were staring into mine from a distance of mere inches. . . no face, no form. . . just vacant air—and two eyes. With a snort of disgust, I turned my back to the phenomenon.
"Koto," I said severely, "I am Karan, rightful King of Octolan. I am not interested in child's play, nor am I to be frightened by any Elemental, devil, goblin, or fiend in all my realm. I am their King as well as yours! ”

“ Yellow jade is one of the rarest of gems. Not till he was quite close did he realize that it was amber, amber as clear as polished crystal.
Mu Lin clutched his arm so tightly his fingers felt like steel claws. Nevertheless Trent made no objection to the pain. It was odd that a man so old should have such strength in his fingers.
"See, I keep her in a Golden Room," Mu Lin whispered. "A red embroidered cloth is spread before the shrine of her beauty. Above, the curtains are of silk as green as jade. Her fragrant mouth is small. Tell me did your eyes ever behold a girl more beautiful?" ”

“ There had been the usual legal advertisements of the conference in papers wherever Carter's heirs were thought to live: yet only four now sat listening to the abnormal ticking of that coffin-shaped clock which told no earthly time, and to the bubbling of the courtyard fountain beyond half-curtained, fan-lighted windows. As the hours wore on, the faces of the four were half shrouded in the curling fumes from the tripods, which, piled recklessly with fuel, seemed to need less and less attention from the silently gliding and increasingly nervous old Negro. ”

“ Shall I, his son, summon him?"
"King Karan," and Agnor Halit ignored Koto completely—"your word is inviolable, nor do I break promises. Yet Baron Koto is right. I can see your part—and you shall receive mine ere I take my payment. Is that satisfactory?"
"Magician," I exclaimed, impatient, "do more, and talk less! And you, Koto, let him have the thing as suits him best. I have taken his word, even as he accepts mine. Shall we quibble endlessly?"
"Yet will I do even as Baron Koto wishes," the sorcerer smiled. He laid his left hand on the back of my neck. ”

“ Is it not conceivable that man could destroy himself through excessive development of his nervous system, and give place for the future evolution of a comparatively simple form of life, such as the insects were at man's height of development? This, it seems to me, was the great plan; a scheme with which man dared to interfere and for which he is now paying by the boredom of existence. The earth's population is decreasing so rapidly, that I fear another thousand years will see a lifeless planet hurtling through space. It seems to me that only a miracle will save us now. ”

“ Time, the waves went on, is motionless, and without beginning or end. That it has motion and is the cause of change is an illusion. Indeed, it is itself really an illusion, for except to the narrow sight of beings in limited dimensions there are no such things as past, present and future. Men think of time only because of what they call change, yet that too is illusion. All that was, and is, and is to be, exists simultaneously.
These revelations came with a god-like solemnity which left Carter unable to doubt. ”

“ My King, that old devil, Agnor Halit laid a trap for you! It is well known that King Karan does not lightly break his word. But if I, Zarf, have aught to say about this matter, here is once Karan of Octolan breaks a pledge, nor gives it a second thought. To plunge into that pool is the act of a madman. If that damned sorcerer wants that image so badly, let him come and dive for it himself. He will only go to Hell a little sooner, through a most befitting gateway, and this region of space will be that much improved because of his absence! ”

“ A faint, dimly seen blue light struck horizontally through the whirlpool—two vague, shadowy figures barely seen as I whirled in that mad headlong dance—a powerful grip clamped fast on one of my ankles and I thought I was being rent apart—the vortex hated to let go—but that mighty pull at my leg would not be denied—I looked up into Koto's ugly face—then Zarf's voice, heavy with reproach:
"King Karan, is this well? Go back, I pray you, as soon as the bubbles rise!" ”

“ Is it not a fact that it is only the imagined that is ever real? Or is it true that nothing exists except the moment one is living, and in this moment this one woman encompassed all. Perhaps he too was only made of the stuff that dreams are made of. Was he not in the caverns inhabited by the legendary Red-Haired People? Was he not a guest of Mu Lin who certainly existed on the borderland of reality? ”

“ After many hundreds of revolutions the Carter-facet seemed to gain on the Zkauba-facet, and would spend vast periods calculating the distance of Yaddith in space and time from the human Earth that was to be. The figures were staggering—eons-of light-years beyond counting—but the immemorial lore of Yaddith fitted Carter to grasp such things. He cultivated the power of dreaming himself momentarily Earthward, and learned many things about our planet that he had never known before. But he could not dream the needed formula on the missing parchment. ”

“ Nevertheless his eyes were as keen as sharp swords.
With shaking hand Trent applied the lighted match to the chips of fir and pine. They flared up joyously. Had they not been aged and dried for many years by Mu Lin for the moment that would be for him the culmination of his dreams, perhaps bringing him youth once more? But always Mu Lin had hesitated. Suppose his experiment failed, suppose his golden girl was devoured by the flames that consumed the amber. Suppose youth should always remain beyond his fingertips even though success crowned his efforts. ”

“ Being a product of an age when practically to wish for a thing in a material sense is to have it, I experienced the greatest impatience, while waiting for any evidences of plant-life to become manifest. Daily, yes hourly, I watched the soil for signs of a type of life long since departed from the earth, and was about convinced that the germ of life could not have survived the centuries, when a tiny blade of green proved to me that a miracle, more wonderful to me than the works of man through the ages, was taking place before my eyes. ”

“ Then, while we still beat our hands and thighs, one of them took up the third, laid her across the altar and made her ready with a stone knife. The fire's light gleamed off the chipped edge of obsidian. As her blood drained down the groove cut as a gutter into the rock of the altar, we stopped our chant and the fires were snuffed out.
But still we could see what was going on, for these things were, of course, not happening at all—only seeming to happen, really, just as all the people and things there only seemed to be what they were. Only I was real. That must be why they desired me so. ”

“ The water of the river was probably fresh, so he was in no danger of thirst. Before hunger could overtake him, he'd be able perhaps to climb back into the world of men once more. Without doubt, he had fallen into a mighty crevice in the rocks, though why the air was so sweet to breathe was an enigma. Why was it not fetid and vile if the walls were narrow, and filled slightly with the sweepings of the wind? He felt about him. The rock was as smooth as a marble road that was kept in good repair. ”

“ Long ago man learned how to reduce all matter to its constituent elements, of which there are nearly a hundred in number, and from them to rebuild compounds for food. The old axiom that nothing is created or destroyed, but merely changed from one form to another, has stood the test of ages. Man, as the agent of God, has simply performed the miracle of transmutation himself instead of waiting for natural forces to accomplish it as in the old days.
At first humanity was horrified when it was decreed that it must relinquish its dead to the laboratory. ”

“ You are more learned, Chadd, but I am more Zulu. Why is it that the jolly old barbarians of this earth are always championed by people who are their antithesis? Why is it? You are sagacious, you are benevolent, you are well informed, but, Chadd, you are not savage. Live no longer under that rosy illusion. Look in the glass. Ask your sisters. Consult the librarian of the British Museum. Look at this umbrella. ”

“ To invade a man's home and steal his beloved was the most heinous of crimes. That he had released the girl from the amber prison in which for so many ages she had been enclosed, Mu Lin saw fit to overlook. Trent had attempted to captivate her. Therefore, he must die, not only because he had inadvertently invaded the sanctuary of the Red-Haired People but also for his preposterous impudence. Truly no man was ever more deserving of death. And so Mu Lin clawed at Trent's throat, his face convulsed with hatred, but Trent was a trained athlete and easily eluded him. ”