Titus Crow [1] The Burrowers Beneath by Brian Lumley Page A

many eggs have hatched since then, or how many others are still waiting to hatch in unsuspected depths of rock?
    The more I think of it, the more hideous the threat grows in my mind.’

    Finally, before I had left him, Crow had tiredly scribbled for me a list of books he believed I should research. The Necronomicon of course headed the list, for the connection of that book with the Cthulhu Cycle of myth was legendary. My friend had recommended the expurgated manuscript translation (in a strictly limited edition for scholarly study only), by Henrietta Montague from the British Museum’s black-letter. He had known Miss Montague personally, had been by her side when she died of some unknown wasting disease only a few weeks after completing her work on the Necronomicon for the Museum authorities. I knew that my friend blamed that
    work for her death; which was one of the reasons why he had warned me time and time again regarding too comprehensive a study of the book’s contents. It was therefore understood that I should merely extract those sections directly concerning Shudde-M’ell and beings like him but keep, as far as possible, from becoming too involved with the book as a whole. Crow himself would arrange for a copy of Miss Montague’s scholarly work to be put at my disposal.
    Next on the list had been Ibn Schacabao’s Reflections, also at the British Museum but under glass because of its short life expectancy. Although the museum had taken the usual precautions - chemical treatment had been applied, photostat copies made (one of which I would have to read, and more thoroughly than at that time some years previously) - still the venerable tome was gradually rotting away.
    The list continued with two little known books by Commodus and Caracalla respectively, simply for the sake of their authors having been given mention by Wendy-Smith, and directly after these there followed the translated sections of the almost unfathomable Pnakotic Manuscript for the same reason.
    Similarly was Eliphas Levi’s History of Magic listed, and finally, this time from Crow’s own shelves (he had carefully wrapped it for me), his copy of the infamous Cultes des Goules. He had scanned the latter book so often himself that he was fearful of missing something important in a further personal perusal. On my inquiring, he told me he did, however, intend to give special personal attention to the Cthaat Aquadingen; there was much in that hideously bound book - particularly in the two middle chapters, which Crow long ago had had separately bound - that might very well apply. Most of these writings, as I have previously stated, I had read before, but without a definite purpose other than occult and macabre curiosity.
    It could, I suppose, be reasoned that my itinerary should also include the G’harne Fragments, and of course it would have, if that mass of crumbling, centuried shards had been in any one of the four languages with which I am familiar! As it was, there had been only two supposed authorities on the fragments: Sir Amery Wendy-Smith, who left nothing of his decipherings behind, and Professor Gordon Walmsley of Goole, whose *spoof notes’ contained what purported to be whole chapters of translations from the G’harne Fragments’
    cryptic ciphers, but which had been mocked as absurd fakery by any number of reliable authorities. For these reasons Crow had omitted the fragments from his list.
    All these and other thoughts flew around in my strangely misty mind, until eventually I must have drowsed off again.
    My next remembered thought was that of hearing, seemingly close at hand, the dreadful droning and buzzing of monstrously alien voices - but it was not until I found myself awake and leaping from my bed on wildly trembling legs, my hair standing up straight on my head, that I realized I had only been dreaming. The sun was already up, filling the day outside with light.
    And yet even then there echoed in my ears those loathsome,