Azathoth

There is a cause why the flute plays so prominent a role in the Cults that worship the Old Ones in the dark places and hidden caves, away from the ears of common men. At the seething and fiery center of all, Azathoth sits upon his ebon throne within his halls of darkness that no man has seen and survived the vision. He is both blind and bereft of mind, but unceasingly he pipes upon his reed flute, and the pearling notes that rise and fall in measured patterns are the foundations of all the worlds. These notes are more than music, they are numbers. Azathoth ever calculates in sound the structure of space and time. Were his flute to suddenly fall silent, all the spheres would shatter into one another and the myriads of worlds would be unmade as they were before the creation.

There is a mystery known to few, that his flute is cracked and can give no pure sound. It is explained by Sages that when he blew the first great note that began the outpouring of the worlds, the force of the sound was so vast that no instrument could endure it, not even the flute that made it; but this is the reasoning of children, and the truth is elsewhere, for the crack in the flute is a way of expressing the imperfection inherent in all created things. All that is made is imperfect, for perfection can have no form or texture in the mind; Azathoth himself is imperfect, being blind and blubbering as he pipes. Yet how can the creator who was never made be himself imperfect? Consider this riddle and be wise.