unswerving and obedient to the foul legate 's orders , that hellish bird plunged onward through shoals of shapeless lurkers and caperers in darkness , and vacuous herds of drifting entities that pawed and groped and groped and pawed ; the nameless larvae of the other gods , that are like them blind and without mind , and possessed of singular hungers and thirsts onward unswerving and relentless , and tittering hilariously to watch the chuckling and hysterics into which the risen song of night and the spheres had turned , that eldritch scaly monster bore its helpless rider ; hurtling and shooting , cleaving the uttermost rim and spanning the outermost abysses ; leaving behind the stars and the realms of matter , and darting meteor-like through stark formlessness toward those inconceivable , unlighted chambers beyond time wherein azathoth gnaws shapeless and ravenous amidst the muffled , maddening beat of vile drums and the thin , monotonous whine of accursed flutes .