Three nights before the coming of Mlok to earth, Lohi was foretold of it in a dream. This Lohi was very old and very holy, having dwelt all alone in his lowly hut on the edge of the Bnazic desert for more years than anyone could remember, and in all those years having spoken to no one but his gods. But some months previous to the time of which I write he had taken to himself a disciple. When Lohi awoke from dreaming of Mlok he instructed Nin (for such was the disciple’s name) to prepare for a week’s sojourn in the desert, for he was determined to be the first of men to offer himself to Mlok.

At evening they set out, Lohi and Nin and the camel that carried their baggage. Lohi rode with the baggage, for his years had made him feeble, but Nin went on foot. They traveled eastward, chasing their shadows away from the setting sun; and fast as they went their shadows went faster still, gaining upon them steadily until they lost them in the night. They traveled by night, because only then was the fierce heat of the desert abated, and because on that trackless plain Lohi could plot their course only by the stars. The stars were holy to his gods and he besought their guidance with interminable prayers.

He besought their guidance with interminable prayers, and so it was that Nin first learned of the object of their quest. A new god was about to declare himself to men, and they would witness his advent. They would greet him in the name of men and lead him out of the desert to the cities where they dwelt, where he would be honored above all gods as his priest would be honored above all priests. That was what the prayers told Nin of the object of their quest. Thereafter he watched the sky for portents even as closely as he did the ground for snakes.

Toward the end of the third night his vigil was rewarded, when a star broke free of its heavenly sphere and fell to earth. Full in the east it fell, screaming to wake the thunder, which growled and growled below the horizon long after the screaming was still.

Next evening a demon of stubbornness entered the camel, and neither the soft words of Lohi nor the hard blows of Nin could drive it out again. There was nothing for it but to leave him, so Nin took his master upon his back and trudged away. He had not trudged far before a wall of sand arose between him and the stars. The wall was not steep for all its height, and Nin could have climbed it easily without Lohi; but having climbed it he found that he could go no farther, because of the pit the wall enclosed. The full moon shone across its mouth but only the stars shown down its throat. And by their light Nin dimly saw great boulders protruding like teeth from high up along its sloping sides.

Lohi did not look into the pit, for he knew what it contained. Instead he knelt with his back to it and prayed a final prayer. He prayed not to the stars, for they were not so holy now that Mlok had forsaken them to sojourn among men. He prayed not to the stars but to the pit. For there the falling star had borne Mlok to earth and earth had opened to receive him, and there he waited for his priest to come. And this was the burden of Lohi’s prayer, that he should be found acceptable to Mlok, that ninety years of faithful service should not go unrewarded.

Nin too had served the gods, for seven long months had he served them. But the prayer of a feeble old man stood between him and his reward. So he picked up a heavy stone and silenced the offending prayer forever.

Then he knelt a little apart from Lohi and prayed a prayer of his own. He prayed not as Lohi had done, an old man dwelling on the past. No, a new cult needed new blood and Nin was the man to provide it. He dwelt not on the past but on the future, on all the years he had still to dedicate to the service of the god. But the burden of his prayer was ever the same, that he should be found acceptable to Mlok.

It was then that Nin looked under him and saw that his shadow was not his own. Something had come between him and the moonlight, something that had not a human shape. He looked sideways out of the corner of his eye, and saw the tip of a questing tentacle wriggle past him on its way to murdered Lohi. Look backward he dared not. But when the tentacle recoiled from the dead face of Lohi, and turned toward Nin, he bowed his head as if to receive a blessing.

The offering was acceptable to Mlok.