Once there was a beautiful queen of a old kingdom, where stone towers were built high enough to nearly touch the sun. Lands were scorched by the heat of the sun, but flourished in the cooling stream waters.
One day during the festival of the profane Gods they believed existed and wish to appease, the God was entertained by a magician. Whose powers were far greater than any mortal in the world, with a face of as beautiful as a gorgeous woman, and as handsome as a masculine man, he cajole the Queen and her concubine to attend him on a dais of stone.
Before the statues depicting their false Gods, the magician read from a ancient book of the Hyborian age, before the existence of written word. The book was filled with perverse imagery, and iconography that only those gifted with the Unsight could translate.
Opening the books blood smear, stone slab covering, the magician turned the slimy, fleshy pages to the incantations of the Desecration Nazarene. By merely opening the book, the sun went black, as if it was swallowed by a terrible eclipse. Clouds darkened, and from the skies fell a torrential deluge that would drown the realm in a terrible flood.
Speaking aloud the translation in a tongue that made everyone there scream in terror, feeling the dread consume, as the chambers of the Queen’s palace was overcome by evil.
Beyond the scope of mortal perception, the illogical damned came froth from the miserable wasteland of hazy desolation. Colorless sands, and dusty winds blew in the spirits of some vindictive hate, as it enraptured many of the humans present in the chamber.
The magician and those on the dais watched as demons took root in the souls of humans, purging them of all compassion, turning them to envious deviants of hateful sexualization. Raping the life from those there, their eyes ruptured from their skulls as their minds swollen beyond the scope of what they are culpable to understand.
Unable to die, the malformed possess melted skin, blood, and innards onto their victims, which burned them so fiercely they couldn’t move. The magician from the haze of hedonistic despair saw the face of a denizen of the Beyond, a thing so awesome in its evil, it ruptured his eyes, propelling them from their sockets, leaving them bloodied, and vacuous.
As the magician lamented the loss of his sight of the world, and seeing only the unfathomable terrors of the Unsight, the Queen screamed out in anguish.
Her concubine had been possessed by a demon, and despite great effort, had formed her onto an altar, and mounted her roughly. Forcing the bestial manhood into her, it bred its corrupted seed into her womb, as it let out a howl of wheezing, shrill, snarls. Completely filled with the rancid seed of unredeemable wickedness, she was overcome by a sudden power, compelled as if by a greater power from above to closed shut the profane book. Lifting it up, and taking it to the windows of her towering palace, where she threw it into the rising deluge.
The waves swallowed the evil leaden tome, banishing with it the called upon demons, who were pulled back into their supernatural domains, beyond the veils of reality. All was silent in the chamber, all her guests and concubine were dead, except from the magician who lost in blindness left the realm never to return.
From that union of mortal flesh and demonic rape the queen after nearly a year birthed a child, whose rule ended the Queen’s dynasty, sending him adrift in a world he’ll never truly be apart of, as he was born torn between the world of man and the Evil Beyond.
***
Abimelech was searching far and wide, following rumors he had heart from across the known world. Stories tell of a fisherman who found it one day, a despicable hunk of rock, that were filled with the images of the most foul sort.
Incantation and rituals transcribed in non erasable ink made of the bile of some aquatic abomination. Stories would start off with the book transferring hands from fisherman to scholar, then go into the horrible retributions from the otherworld that would befall the previous owner. Corpses of decease loved ones crawling from their graves to drag their living kin into their holes, babes born with horrific abnormalities of the unnatural kind, and sudden inexplicable death followed by days of torment by unseen specters.
From Spain to Hibernia these incidents require little intervention from Abimelech, the one armed swordsman could only look on with pity. Last stop before he set to sea on a small fishing boat, he saw how the wretched tome had blighted a girl with a fatal skin condition. Open sores covered in hair, and crimson pus leaking from them, would eventually lead to an incurable festering that would have her dying in incurable agony.
Her parents wouldn’t even hold her hand as she was in throws of terrible death throws in her last hours of life—but Abimelech did. Holding his hand limp, he allowed the child to transfer as much of her suffering onto him by her bone cracking grip. Finally after the last seconds of her life, she let out a ear piercing cry before expiring, leaving her parents to mourn her with silent tears.
Paying fisherman to follow the trail of the book, the Abimelech would feel the world change since the resurfacing of the evil relic. The skies darkened under layers of storm clouds, seawater would rise and fall in violent rhythms. Stench of unworldly sickness was carried by the wind, and it all seemed to come from the direction of a singular island.
Off the west coast, a small island of trees and hills, Abimelech felt a pull in the direction of that accursed place, but the fisherman would not entertain going there for any reward.
“That is the cursed island, many ghostly apparitions and ghastly sorceries are seen there on cold nights. In this dimming light, I fear to even set my eyes upon it, in fear it’ll strike me blind.” whimpering as he spoke, the fisherman turned his eyes away.
“Oileán an Bháis—” (the Island of the Dead) “—is not for the likes of us, may the Gods have mercy on our wretched souls if we are drawn to that place of evil.” the Captain of the boat warned.
“I have to go there.” Abimelech said as solemnly as an oath as the priests of Rome would pray to their Pantheon. “I will take your rowboat there, here.” handing the captain a purse of Roman gold, he took the boat, and lowered it into the savage waters.
Before anyone on the boat could warn him further, he hopped onto the rowboat, and started to swiftly paddle to the island.
Fighting the menacing waves, and battling the rising tempest, he moved along the waves of the sea, cautious as not to be dislodged from his vessel. However no matter the whims of the sea, he was always carried further to the island, its size becoming blacker, as the sky darkened till he could only see the flashes of lightning in the sky.
After a huge wave, that picked his boat up, and threw it as if it were the arm of Neptune, Abimelech’s boat was hurled in the air, till it was utterly destroyed on the coast of the island. Dislodged from the boat, Abimelech tumbled on a wet sand of the beach, bruising his body, but he was able to get to his feet.
Now on the island, he could smell the stench of vile witchery, there was an unmistakable taint in the air, and the very rain tasted sour on his lips. Crawling onto the grass of the island, he felt the whispers of the evil dead all about it, speaking Aristotelian falsehoods in the guise of prophecy.
Ignoring the words of the phantasm, Abimelech moved through the tress, as a drizzle that had began to fall since he came to the island, had become a sharp downpour. Raindrops fell on him with a sharp point as if they were needles on his skin.
Chilling his flesh, the summer solstice was becoming more akin to a frigid winter.
As he moved through the trees, guided by the subtle shades of darkness, he saw through the clearing the unmistakable light from torches. Still retaining heat in the rain, the torches were held by those bearing the mark of the druid.
Cloaked and hooded, they were naked, blushed skinned cretins of Celtic heresy, leading a line of roped prisoners up a hillside. Tallest on the island, the island at its top had dark shapes, of some monuments for their practices to their spirits. Emerging from the trees, Abimelech trailed after the druids, remaining in shadows, watching as they ascended the hill.
Keeping his distance, but remaining close to see the faces of the forsaken prisoners, filled with terror on their crestfallen faces.
On the top of the hill, Abimelech could see a gathering of a host of the dark worshiping druids, gathering in a circle made of monolithic stone blocks. Assorted to various figurations, they might have been runic representations of their ancient language, or a way to gauge the turning of the year.
Whatever the method, there was a clear converging of the powers of the Earth, intersecting on that spot on the hill. Whaling of the prisoners begging for mercy, were quieted by their captors, who lashed them with long strips of leather.
“Quiet! Non-believers.” ordered the head druid who wore the ornaments of teeth and bone on a necklace around his neck, and the skull of a deer upon his head. Looking as a horned demon, he was of imposing size, so much so he was naked from the neck down, and was painted with symbols of his magical practice.
Standing outside the circle they formed within the area of the stone, the druids placed at the center of a gather a stone table. Bearing the symbols of stars and moons, its gray form was stained at its center with layers of gore and blood. Scent of the massacres happening on its surface sickened Abimelech to his stomach.
Hand on the grip of his uncovered sword at his belt, he was eager to draw forth his serpentine blade to fight off the maddened pagans. However he was stopped when he saw in a flash of lightning a portal form in the white flash, blacker than the darkest of nights, it was there and gone. And in this moments of it materializing, the black doorway deposited a entity into the world.
Wearing a face of porcelain his eyes were as black as the portal, and as his expressions change so did the mask, as it calmly observed the gather, it contorted in rage, for a moment.
“Someone does not belong!” he spoke in a vindictive voice of a cruel father beating his child to death. Lifting up his arm, he pointed with his long nailed fingers, appearing almost as monster claws in the direction Abimelech was hiding. “Come forth!” he commanded, and despite resisting as best he could, the powers at the magicians command pulled him into the druid’s circle.
As he approached, Abimelech could see the magician hug something to his breast, it was the tome he was hunting for quite some time. The destructive book known as Pluto’s Manifesto, was there, and he knew it was going to be used for a rite of terrible consequence to the world of man.
“You dare sully our most sacred rites, trespasser and infidel!” the magician slapped the air in front of him, and then Abimelech’s head turned by some invisible force, soon he felt a sharp pain form on his face. “You shall bear witness to the powers of Jambres, the acolyte of Pluto, King Of The Underworld, will show you true despair.”
Opening the stone coverings of the book as he stood upon the stone table, the magician black eyes reflected the true abysmal Hell he looked upon. Pages oozing with drops of mucus, the book’s flesh pages turned, either guided by the wind or some demonic influence no one knew for sure, but eventually the pages stopped on a page dripping with blood.
The porcelain lips of the magician’s mask parted as he spoke aloud the incantations of the book. As the words flew from his mouth, the wind died, the rain stopped, and the clouds parted overhead and a crimson light fell upon the circle.
A blood red star shone a scarlet light bathing everyone in it in a depraved shade of crimson. Look as if they were babes freshly born, bathed in their mother’s blood.
Cringing, Abimelech felt a sensation start from the middle of his spin, and send a shivering shot throughout his body. Screaming our in frenzied rage, he pulled his sword with his one arm, and slashed at the druids, cutting them down with savage brutality.
Having a reasonable mind however, he cut the bounds of a group of prisoner’s grunting to them with a deep, throat voice commanded them, “Go! Leave the circle!”
Sensing a invisible ghostly barrier form around the stone monuments, Abimelech managed to escape with the prisoner’s, as whatever Jambres had conjured took possession of those assembled within.
Watching as if through a glass made murky by rainwater, Abimelech and the people he freed watched as a giant rose from the ground.
Materializing as if he were made of stars and sand, the giant oversaw the contortion of those on offer to be his sacrifice.
For what Abimelech knew of ancient occultism, the giant mirage was that of Pluto, a false god, whose true identity is that of a demon of Blazes. From his form came hordes of demons, despite knowing he should run, Abimelech and those he freed were trapped by the sheer horror of what they witnessed.
The demons moved as if they were figures of clay, animated by invisible hands, and with forms of beasts and crude, primordial man, engaged in bloody, carnal rights with the prisoners.
Almost immediately after the first human was mounted with skin warping demented lust, a druid was seized upon, and his flesh was made into a spiked, multi-limbed manhood of a multi-eyed devil.
Crying out in shock, the head druid watched as desolation took to the grass beneath his feet, as it became that of sand, and hard rock. The large druid watched as his followers began to flee, but were caught as they were held within the circle by the magical barrier. Ripped and fused they joined the leviathan of the demons, which were shown to be tendrils of Pluto, he poked through the gateway through realities.
Commanding the magician ceasing the terror inducing rite, he seized Jambres with his massive hands, and in doing so, revealed the magician was headless.
Torso and limbs were covered by a flesh colored leather skin, one that peeled in the humidity of demonic sex. Tearing, nearly melting off the grotesque swampy green flesh of his demonic form, the magician’s head was that of a porcelain mask, affixed to where he had once a head.
“Do you see? No…pathetic mortal…look into my own, and see only the eyes of the condemned!” Nearly shrieking the words, the large druid man, eyes seemed to writhed in their sockets.
Churching and pulsating, he screamed as foamy, crimson tears formed on the seams of his eyes, and with a gurgling cry of pure anguish, his eyes erupted. Spewing crimson gore all over the magician’s porcelain face. The face now awash with crimson took a wrinkled, disgusted look, as if he saw mankind as a abominable insect feasting on the blood of his magnificent God.
Eyeless the large druid fell to his knees, and called out for an end, but no one there would bring him the peace of death. Till the end of his days, he would travel a wasteland devoid of al things but hopeless eternity, his sight forever blackened.
Through the wavering walls of the barrier, the magician saw those that escaped, and raised his arms, as if he could command the demons with thought alone. Armored in the molded bodies of their victims, they started to give chase.
Spurred on by fear, Abimelech and those he freed ran into the trees, as the demons gave horrific chase, through the trees and under the brush. Some were caught by the demons and forced to melt into the bodies of living flesh, and exposed, throbbing organs.
Those monstrosities of otherworldly chimera bodies comingled with alien human flesh, forming a comingling of parts as if they were blood mixed with apple cider. A repulsive formula of benign Hell, not quite so dastardly as to be wholly inconceivable by virgin minds, but enough to render blind the more innocent of souls.
Sightless many of those that fled, were either caught themselves to join with the horrors or to die of pure terror at the realization they were utterly alone and helpless.
Those with spirit as sturdy as tempered iron made it through the trees, all of them followed a unseen guidance to a glade. Where the storm was dispelled and daylight streamed in, and summer was in full vibrancy.
Undeterred, they gathered by the side of a benevolent spirit of the island, a nymph wife of Pan, the guardian of the willows and the streams. Appearing as if she was sleeping, her back to a tree of fantastic height, she had sent the roots of the tree deep into the ground.
Tunneling through dirt and rock as if they were miners, parting away passages to allow in the flow of water. Stream water, underground, by a few feet, enough to forbid passage by the ilk of Pluto. All over the island more streams were dug, as the storm dissipated, and the crimson stars light was fading, there was a unmistakable change in the way of the world. Evil had no authority there, the sun forced away the wickedness of the night, and the water corralled the demons back up the hill, lest they succumb to non-existence.
Further up they go, going into the circle beyond the stone monoliths, there a circle of underground flow of water was dug, as if they were the veins of Mother Nature. All powers summoned by the manifesto were compelled to returned into the form of Pluto, lugging with them the souls of the damned with them into Pluto’s avatar.
Absorbing the souls gathered, Pluto cursed the sun, as he reverted to his form of a wretched, ugly imp of sloping forehead, and jutting teeth. Surrendering to the reality, he vanished back to his underworld, leaving the blinded druid and Jambres who reverted to his human guise.
Disgraced that his powers of evil were so easily dispelled, clung to the book, and left the circle. Going down the hill, he felt as if a righteous hand was being raised to smite him dead, so he hurried down to the shore, to leave the island forevermore.
Abimelech and those he saved looked upon the sleeping nymph, who opened her eyes as if she was waking up from a gentle dream.
“Children of Eve, your souls have endured much, yours more so than the rest—” she gestured to Abimelech who didn’t relax his stoic stance. “—as a mercy for your suffering, I will take you to Paradise, where you will live your lives, till Death takes you to your ultimate reward.”
“I cannot.” Abimelech said sounding as cold as a falling icicle in spring.
“Why do you continue on? You are not without salvation, I beg, please come, you will be welcome into the arms of my Lady.” tempted by the offer of spending his life in the loving prison of ultimate peace, he couldn’t help but scowl at his own weakness.
“I am not made for such things.” Abimelech despite being asked to come by those he saved, rejected the offer.
“Then you must go.” the nymph said sadly. “A boat of my making will wait for you at the beach, pray hurry, for I will take this island to the Garden Of Paradise, where you refuse to go.”
“I cannot linger in such places. Even if I am welcomed, I cannot deny the burden I have yet to carry.” leaving the glade, he heard the thankful calls of the people he saved.
Jogging till he reached the beach, he found a skiff on the beach, made of tightly bound branches and vines. Boarding it, he felt a wave come ashore, and lift him and the boat into the water, where the waves guided by a more gentile force guided him to the mainland.
Just as he embarked on his voyage, he felt a quack in the water, turning to the island, he watched as if moved as if it were being dragged by a titan from under the waves. Floating further and further away, it vanished in the distance, and from the fleeting island came another who would disembark.
A lone figure riding on the back of a serpentine lindwurm, slithering across the water, carrying its new master to where it is bidden to go.
Knowing who rode upon that serpent, even if he only saw him as a dark silhouette, Abimelech wished the boat to follow the form, and as if Neptune obliged, the boat followed after the serpent.