Through the Gates of the Silver Key

Through the Gates of the Silver Key is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price, written from October 1932 to April 1933. It continues Lovecraft's earlier story The Silver Key and belongs to a series about Randolph Carter. The tale first appeared in the July 1934 issue of Weird Tales.

The plot begins at a meeting about Randolph Carter's estate, which has been kept in trust since he vanished. A mysterious figure called Swami Chandraputra, wearing thick mittens and flowing robes, tells Carter's friends what happened to him. The Swami explains that the Silver Key carried Carter through a cosmic structure called the First Gate into the Outer Extension, a realm beyond space and time. There, Carter met the Ancient Ones, led by 'Umr at-Tawil, a dangerous being mentioned in the Necronomicon, which warns that anyone who deals with it never returns. 'Umr at-Tawil offers Carter a chance to go deeper into the cosmos. When Carter accepts, the Ancient Ones open the Ultimate Gate, sending him into an infinite void.

In this void, Carter becomes a disembodied fragment of himself and encounters an entity implied to be Yog-Sothoth, though he realizes how slight and fractional his understanding of that being is. The entity is described as an all-in-one and one-in-all of limitless being and self, not limited to one space-time continuum but tied to the ultimate essence of existence. It explains that all conscious beings are facets of greater beings outside three-dimensional reality.

The inhabitants of the Ultimate Abyss are archetypes, formless and ineffable, guessed at only by rare dreamers on low-dimensional worlds. The chief among them is the Supreme Archetype, of which all beings, including Carter and Yog-Sothoth, are mere facets. The Supreme Archetype seems proud of Carter and offers him a wish related to its many facets. Carter asks to learn more about a long-extinct race on the distant planet Yaddith, which is threatened by monstrous Dholes.

He has been dreaming of Yaddith for months. The Supreme Archetype transfers Carter's consciousness into the body of Zkauba, a wizard of that race, but warns Carter to memorize all symbols and rites. Carter arrogantly trusts the Silver Key alone, but soon finds himself trapped in Zkauba's body. The two minds find each other repulsive and struggle for dominance, switching control periodically.

Beyond the Ultimate Abyss lies the Ultimate Mystery, which the Supreme Archetype offers to show Carter—the last and inmost secret behind all scenes and dreams, the final cosmic reality that belies all local perspectives.

After a vast time on Yaddith, Carter uses drugs to suppress Zkauba's mind, then employs Yaddith technology and the Silver Key to return to Earth and the present. He retrieves a manuscript with the symbols he needs to regain his original body. He then contacts Swami Chandraputra, instructing him to attend the meeting and say Carter will soon reclaim his estate. After the Swami finishes his tale, Carter's cousin, lawyer Aspinwall, accuses him of being a conman in disguise trying to steal the estate.

Aspinwall tears at the Swami's masklike face and beard, revealing that the Swami is not human but Carter still trapped in Zkauba's hideous body. The other witnesses do not see the true face, but Aspinwall dies of a heart attack. The shock causes Zkauba's mind to reassert itself, and the alien wizard enters a coffin-shaped clock, implied to be his transport, and vanishes. The story ends with a vague postscript suggesting the Swami might have been a common criminal who hypnotized everyone to escape, but notes that some details of the tale seem eerily accurate.

The story originated from Price's enthusiasm for Lovecraft's earlier tale The Silver Key. Price wrote a 6,000-word draft in August 1932, and Lovecraft produced a 14,000-word version in April 1933, keeping fewer than fifty of Price's original words, though Lovecraft retained many of Price's concepts and some of his language. Central ideas such as 'Umr at-Tawil, mathematical planes, and multiple facets of Randolph Carter across time and space came from Price, who was well read in neoplatonic thought, theosophy, and the occult.