Ritual of the Tenth Opening

Taking my cue from the author, one Mr. Lught, I had scraped hollows into the oaken wood and carved the sigils into the stone markers myself while we waited for the night of the centric celestial alignment forecast by the astronomers. The ink with which I inscribed the sacred symbols on the dirt floor was a compound of my own blood mixed with some black ichor dredged from the local moores. It was all I had available, but it was enough to build the Enneaway.   My acolytes, dark robed, faceless creatures in undulating dark shadows, were ready with their instruments, and my assistant, Simon, was in the corner, prepared to take notes and step in to assist if defensive actions proved necessary.   When the angles of the planetary spheres formed the Kethric sign, I called up the astral fires from the core of my own heart-chambers. The circle so created was an extension of my own self, as if I had become bigger, flesh and aura joined as one, growing, the limits of my mind and soul extended to the farthest point and then farther.   The flutes made me dizzy. I swayed on my feet as I intoned the sacred names, nine times around the circumference, stopping at each gaping rift to sing the resonance until the rhythmic guttering of every candle flame in the room described the subtle vibrations in the very air itself—invisible harmonies, a crescendo of silent frequencies arpeggiating together with the flutes and tearing a vortex into the aether at the center. At some point, I noted, briefly, that poor Simon had been taken. We never should have set him on the outside, even with the symbols traced on his brow. I saw him sprawled across the chair, legs and spine at impossible, spider-like angles, his brown eyes turned a hideous, staring shade of chalk-blue. His hand (on loan to some prolific entity) a blur, filling page after page with other-dimensional writing and diagrams. He bobbed and giggled, dark liquid spilling from his mad, gurgling grin. He was chewing through his own tongue to provide blood for the ink.   I cannot help him now.   As the tenth door opens to me, I collapse. The world shimmers—I sleep and dream that I journey across the darkness of the void to another place far above. There I meet Someone: a God, perhaps. Next to It I am infinitesimal. I feel It raising me up, above the stars, to a point out of time and space where I can see—madness! Countless layers lie spread out before me. I am surrounded by an infinite horizon from every angle. It all begins and ends in the same flash of light, and every circumstance in between is fixed in my mind for the briefest of moments, forever. What choice but to let go of any pretense of self and sanity?   Lightning, larger and brighter than a thousand thousand suns, streaks across the aether, illuminating entire lives, lived by other minds, each carrying their own infinity within themselves...it continues, inward and outward, and I have become all of it.   Mr. Lught's book had ill-prepared me for such an abyss of form and desperation. I am screaming. The God is screaming. It is as terrified of ItSelf as I am. The flute notes wind around our howls and the song spirals down into the depths of my skull, tearing my mind apart, bearing my own infinity to myself and we follow it, this God and I, falling deeper into a mirror, and all I can see is this, and this, and this...