In the eighth and final chapter of the story, Randolph Carter reaches the end of his quest and the end of his dream.

Carter and his host of ghouls and night-gaunts fly through the night, through darkness and foul winds, with such speed that Carter marvels that they are still within Earth’s Dreamlands. As they reach more dizzying heights, Carter sees the three peaks of the quarry stretching out before him and only now realises that they are former mountains, carved in the shape of godly sentinels.

Carter and the ghouls are spooked by some colossal flying creature keeping pace with them. Carter imagines a shantak of epic proportions, but the flying creature appears more like an infinitely magnified head than a bird. As the group clears a mountain range, Carter is driven to madness but utters no scream. The “flying creature” is in fact only the double hyena head of some silently lumbering titan who is following them. Carter looks back to see that the three mountain sculptures have also animated and are silently creeping after the group.

In the endless void, the constellations, while unchanged, begin to reveal their true hidden meaning and geometry to Carter. Carter comes to realise that there is a hidden pattern in the stars which points ever forward to true north. Carter eventually notices that the night-gaunts no longer flap, and that they are borne ever onward on some violent gust.

Pickman utters a command and the night-gaunts rapidly gain height and speed, leaving the mountain sentinels behind. They travel at such hurtling speeds that Carter believes they must have crossed into some new realm of the dreamlands. Suddenly, he sees the peak of Kadath, a mountain for which the impassible range between Leng and Inganok are merely foothills.

Atop the peak is a gargantuan castle, a structure for which the colossal carved onyx from Inganok form building bricks. The host of night-gaunts and ghouls effortly glide abreast through the one lit window. Once inside, Carter struggles to see the boundaries of grand chamber. The winds abruptly cease and the party are deposited on the floor of the chamber. The castle appears otherwise empty.

The group are greeted by a dreadful trumpeting. At the end of this haunting note, Carter realises that his entire retinue has dissolved into thin air and he is alone. A horde of slaves, with chimera-headed wands in one hand and silver trumpets in the other, form a line and play a fanfare announcing a man, the ideal image of a pharaoh.

The pharaoh greets Carter amicably and introduces himself as Nyarlathotep. He apologises for Carter’s trouble at the hands of his minions and explains that, if he had not been busy elsewhere, he would have personally escorted Carter to Kadath. The gods of Earth have abandoned their castle atop Kadath and declared that the fantastic city of Carter’s dreams shall be their final home.

Lovecraft then, through a monologue of Nyarlathotep, writes a love letter to New England. Nyarlathotep explains that the wondrous city of Carter’s dreams is simply a congeries of all the wonders of New England witnessed through the eyes of an infant Carter. Carter’s prayers alerted the gods to its existence, and they were so enamoured that they’ve abandoned their godly duties.

Nyarlathotep pleads for Carter to travel to the city of his dreams in order to persuade the earthly gods to return to Kadath; his reward for this task will be to keep the dream city for his own. He produces a shantak and describes the journey, warning Carter to steer away from the haunting music of the Outer Gods.

Of course, this was all a ruse by Nyarlathotep, who knows that Carter and the shantak will be hypnotised by the music and urged to travel on to Azathoth and inevitable madness. The instructions on how to escape this fate were simply given to torment the helpless Carter.

While travelling to his waiting doom, Carter remembers that he is in fact dreaming. Through a feat of mental strength, he wills himself to jump from the back of the shantak and plummet into the void.

Carter plummets for unknown aeons, witnessing the birth and death of galaxies. He witnesses the new beginning of a new kalpa (Hindu word for a cycle of time. Carter sees the recreation of the universe itself). He continues to plummet as light and darkness are remade. galaxies form and he continues to plummet towards a familiar planet. As he enters Earth’s atmosphere, Nyarlathotep races in chase. Just before he can regain Carter, Nodens emits a triumphant noise that allows Carter to escape.

Carter wakes in his familiar bed in Massachusetts and startles awake his black cat. In unknown Kadath, a brooding and foiled Nyarlathotep tortures the gods of earth for catharsis.

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This draws the epic of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath to a close. This is my third time reading it and I’m also a bit shocked at how it abruptly turns into a love letter for New England. other than that, I believe it’s a fantastic finish.

The imagery in the final chapter plays into a certain fear of mine. Since I was a child, on foggy nights I’ve imagined colossal glowing eyes opening in the mist and staring at me. On car journeys I imagined giants chasing after me, stepping between hills as we would step up onto a curb. The imagery of the walking mountains really chills me.

Onto the references, there is the obvious Azathoth. There is also Polaris. This is a connection that I’ve only made in my latest reading. The dreamer in Polaris is borne away to a new world when he is haunted by the north star shining through his window. From the very first dream story we’ve seen evidence for how the stars bear secret pathways that transport us, willingly or not, into the world of dream. As Carter travels to Kadath, he witnesses new meaning in the constellations. They appear to be actively leading him further north. I interpret this as the same phenomenon seen in Azathoth, where the dreamer found passage to dream by studying the interconnected voyages of the stars.