"Ubbo-Sathla" by Clark Ashton Smith

For Ubbo-Sathla is the source and the end. Before the coming of Zhothaqquah or Yok-Zothoth or Kthulhut from the stars, Ubbo-Sathla dwelt in the steaming fens of the newmade Earth: a mass without head or members, spawning the grey, formless efts of the prime and the grisly prototypes of terrene life ... And all earthly life, it is told, shall go back at last through the great circle of time to Ubbo-Sathla.

-The Book of Eibon

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recherché: rare, exotic, or obscure

vermiculated: could mean either marked with sinuous or wavy lines, or worm-eaten. Or, carved or molded with shallow wavy grooves resembling the tracks of worms! In this case, probably that last one.

Liassic: of, relating to, or being a subdivision of the European Jurassic

eft: the juvenile stage of a newt

The picture used is by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab, depicting a young Earth being bombarded by asteroids.

To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/224/ubbo-sathla

This story feels a bit Lovecraftian to me. One can imagine that these two are not the only two to have been in possession of the stone, probably some one else thousands of years into Paul's future found it and used it and had the same experience. And then someone thousands of years forward from there. And on and on and on.