The Glass from Leng

Abdul Alhazrad sat cross-legged on the rapidly cooling desert sands. Night had fallen and he awaited the rise of the moon. Beside him petals of Black Lotus smoldered in a bronze brazier crafted in sunken Lemuria. The mad poet forced his brain to ignore the monstrous shapes formed by the lotus smoke. His attention was focused on a chunk of glass held in his hands.
    He had obtained the glass from an eyeless beggar on the outskirts of Damascus who claimed it to have been created in the fabled land of Leng and that it gave a man visions of things beyond imagining even a glimpse of the abyss beyond space and time wherein dwells the daemon sultan Azathoth. The old man had fallen on hard times and in the end had traded the glass shard and ancient scrolls written in the high Aklo tongue for a few crusts of moldy bread and a skin of sour wine.
Abdul had spent a week studying the scrolls and waiting for a full moon, now he was ready to look through the veil of time and space.
   The moon rose and the blue light streamed through the glass into Alhazrad's left eye, then deeper into his mind. Within the glass Alhazrad beheld wonders of primal ages, glorious cities and kingdoms so ancient no scholar could remember their names. Further back he saw the first men, shaggy brutes who sacrificed their children to winged things in exchange for knowledge of fire and primitive magic. He saw the ancient Serpent Men hissing incantations and mixing vile potions. He beheld the continent of Rl'yeh in its colossal glory, hurriedly looking away when Great Cthulhu turned to meet his gaze.  
    Then the poet cast his vision far out into the silent void, past Yuggoth and Xoktli, past Hali with its slimy churning lake, to the very rim of space and time to the place where dwells Azathoth. The great eye of Azathoth opened to stare back at him. With that vision Alhazrad hurled the glass from Leng away and ran screaming into the blue-litten dunes for the eye of Azathoth held no ultimate wisdom only idiocy and cosmic madness.