and before the day was done carter saw that the steerswoman could have no other goal than the basalt pillars of the west , beyond which simple folk say splendid cathuria lies , but which wise dreamers well know are the gates of a monstrous cataract wherein the oceans of earth 's dreamland drop wholly to abysmal nothingness and shoot through the empty spaces toward other worlds and other stars and the awful voids outside the ordered universe where the daemon sultan azathoth gnaws hungrily in chaos amid pounding and piping and the hellish dancing of the other gods , blind , voiceless , tenebrous , and mindless , with their soul and messenger nyarlathotep .