Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the wonderful city. Mystery surrounded it like clouds enveloping a legendary, unclimbed mountain. As Carter stood breathless and expectant on that battlement with the stone railing all around, he was overcome by bitterness and doubt from nearly forgotten memories, the pain of lost things, and the frantic need to remember again what had once been a place of awe and significance. He knew it must have been of the utmost importance to him; yet he could not say in which cycle or incarnation he had known it, or whether in dream or waking life. Through a land of horrors, Randolph Carter embarks on a quest for the unknown Kadath, his second vision and obsession beside the golden, marble city. Dark gods, dangerous creatures, pirates threaten.