Part Three

With Aubrey indisposed for the weekend, the other investigators consider their next course of action. Perhaps Graham Roby has a reason for not wanting to speak to them? They decide to press him for an interview, citing the death of Dr Trollope in their letter.

Visiting his local pub for a drink with Alex, Ludwig is knocked to the ground and threatened by a tall, thin man with a knife. Only Ludwig sees the knife and hears the whispered threat ("Be careful, Sir, or you could end up fucking dead"). The man, suddenly much drunker than before, is thrown out of the pub and is not seen again. The landlord is apologetic: the man was not a regular and the pub is a genteel one. Fights are unheard of.

Georgina and Ludwig continue their study of Alexander Roby's book. Georgina in particular is disturbed by what she reads and begins to feel that she is being watched, although she is not sure by whom or by what.

The book itself is written as a case history, although the author and the "patient" are clearly the same person. It describes a series of dreams (in German) and their interpretation (in English). The text is divided into two acts, each describing a series of dreams. The acts are divided by a period of no dreams.

In the first act, the patient comes into contact with a power that he calls "Hastur", "Kaiwan", or "The Unspeakable Name". This power is older than the human species and possibly older than the Earth; it has touched the Earth several times in the past and will do so again; there is an association with the night sky and the star Aldebaran. The power is indifferent to humans and cannot be fully understood by them, but contact with it brings insights that change the dreamer. He feels that these changes fill something in him that he had always known was missing.

In the second act, the dreamer is introduced to the city of Carcosa. It is not entirely a dream, nor entirely a real place, but rather a way of understanding that is alien to human thought and has some of the characteristics of both. Beyond the city is Hali, which may be associated with the lake on whose shore the city stands or with a kind of understanding that is beyond humanity. The dreamer feels at peace in Carcosa and hopes to understand it well enough to stay there forever. In time he achieves this, although the author is not privy to the final insight.