Seal Of The Grey God

The Atrocities Bore Witnessed By The Shroud

It was a terrible stormy night, the snow was only weeks away, and the cold winds had made the winds frigid, and the rain hard with frost.

A nobleman, bearing the holy crest of the pilgrim was given shelter by a peasant family. A wife, a husband and their son, taking in the man dressed in violet fineries he was a stranger to that remote county, near the border of the King’s Lands. Jewelry encrusted his tunic, and rings gleamed on his fingers when he removed his riding gloves.

‘I trust you can put up, some kind of hospitality.’ the nobleman arrogantly demanded, as he had no qualms in having the Lord of the lands they dwell on, punish them for their lack of generosity for an agent of the church.

‘Please sir, we have not much, but what we have, please enjoy in plenty.’ Generously the husband, Falso Kuirass presented a bottle of wine.

Alzlɵ his son, wanted to keep the wine a secret, begging his father not to give away their winter to which he was gently rebuked.

‘Son, we have not many visitors here, and since such a honorable man comes to our door, it is our Christian duty to see him right.’ pouring the man who sat at their table with a glass full of wine.

The noble sniffed it, then drank it, and immediately his pale cheeks blushed with the taste and aroma. ‘It is indeed a fine vintage, you should listen to your father boy. No man was even hung for giving a good meal.’

At that the wife, Gloretta, brought a platter of savory meats and cheeses, enough that would keep the family full for half the winter. Wheels of cheese the nobleman devoured, eating all their smoked meats, and chewing their softest bread, as he drank bottle after bottle of wine.

Alzlɵ a feisty, strong willed boy tried several times to sass the nobleman, but each time his parents seeing his displeasure intervenes. Muffling his mouth with their hands, or sending him one errands.

‘Go check on this nobleman’s horse, while we prepared him for bed.’ his father spoke in a hissing, soft voice, it alarmed the young man, but he did as he was told. If only to appease his parents, as he watched his mother and father help carry the man into the bedroom, he saw something unnatural on his parent’s faces.

Never before did he see such, hunger and malice on their usually meek and gentle faces. Before he could look more into it, he put on his cloak and hood and went out into the storm. The barn was quiet, and the noble’s horse was in a stall, content with the hay and water he brought it earlier.

Stroking the obsidian mane, he felt a warmness to it that confused him, his parents unlike the horse had cold flesh, and it frightened him sometimes how they acted when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Forbidden him from worshiping Christ, he instead was taken into a cave in the woods, and forced to pray before a idol of disgusting appearance. Looking neither man nor insect, he was told it was the Grey God, Zartchios, there they offered their slain pigs and wild animals as tribute.

Sometimes he saw his parents go into the woods with other people from the town down the road, but come dusk, only the parents returned. All of it was becoming more unbearable to think about, as he couldn’t stand to contemplate the horrid reasoning for these actions.

As he locked up the barn, he heard a heinous cry from within the house, it was shrill, frightful, and struck him through the heart as if he were impaled by a lightning bolt. Rushing through the rain he went into the house, and charged to the bedroom, there he saw the nobleman, his tunic was torn open, exposing his dissected chest.

Gasping and choking on air, the nobleman was weak from his grave injury, as his exposed organs and bloody flesh were being eaten by his parents.

Both Falso and Gloretta were not humans, they were demons, horrible insects akin to praying mantises that the black monks have warned about for centuries. Eating the organs of the living, they were devouring the nobleman, they had made helpless with excessive wine and food. Which they now ate from his torn stomach, as he watched his father gorge on blood soaked wine, his mother put her mouth to the man’s eyeball and sucked it out, as if she were eating grapes from the vine.

Vomiting in disgust, the Alzlɵ left his parent’s bedroom, but he heard those haunting words.

‘You have our blood. You’ll become us in time, so join us. And eat.’ his parents skin turned gray, and pallid, their eyes shimmered as if they had tiny moons inside, he couldn’t tolerate their wickedness.

‘I—I…—’ he lacked courage to denounce them, as they ate away the dying nobleman, the boy already feeling his devil bedamned puberty changing his body, ran out of the house into the storm. Unable to stay in fear of becoming what he loathed, he went to the barn, fetched the nobleman’s horse, and after urging the beast on, rode off into the night.

Vanishing into the raging storm, as he tried to out race the slurping, gory sounds that plagued his mind.

***

Tens years later and many miles away…

Shadows clung to him even in direct sunlight, as if he was a shroud of a never ending midnight. Pallid face, moonlight eyes, he was feared to be a wight by the rest of the slaves. Bounding between two unfortunate, frail souls, a bone shivering chill went down the length of the chain that emanated by the shrouded man (if you could call him one).

Where everyone else was weak by hunger, and shallow in face from being forced to march for leagues across the humid jungle, the shrouded man appeared strong, and rigid.

Despite his sinister nature that emanated from him, he showed a kindness one day. During the slave drive, one of the slaves was bitten on the ankle by a deadly viper, whose poisoned foamed around the wound. Where the masters would have given him up for dead, the shrouded stranger came to the injured slaves side, and putting his pursed, violet lips to the bite wound, sucked out all trace of poison.

To their amazement he didn’t spit it out, instead he seemed to savor the poison as if it were a tantalizing wine. From then one, even the slavers feared him, and they regret buying him at the port days ago, but they needed man power to get the mine operating.

Already the shafts were giving way to the weight of the mountain, and their labor force has been dying to a miasma that poisons the lower caverns. Digging upwards they still found possible gold deposits, but a religious man wearing a cross on a necklace claimed the mine was cursed.

‘The devil has his roots in those mountains.’ the man wailed.

The chief of the slavers not wanting his men to lose spirit, cast out the cross-believer and sent him alone into the jungle, without food or weapon. That night terrified screams of a man being devoured alive echoed in the darkness, along with ferocious roars of some jungle beast.

Since then the slavers were keen to get their riches and leave, before some calamity befell them, though the new slave in his dark shroud they feared might be seen as a ill omen.

During the night, the slavers watched over as the slaves slept, taking turns at guard for any escape attempt. Resting in the clearing between rocks and trees, the moon filtered through clouds of darkness, and muted starlight. Standing over the slaves as they slept was the shrouded one, his eyes were more visible in the night. Glowing orbs of amber light reflecting on depthless pools of abyssal dread.

Just looking into them, made the slavers fearful and they turned away, ever aware that those eyes were upon them, as if waiting for them to sleep. Some of them drank wine heavily as to dull their sense of fear, while others kept acutely awake, even when it was their time to sleep.

Fear didn’t lessen till dawn came, and it was time to continue onward. The slavers were tired, and distracted from the way ahead, as they periodically checked behind them to see if the shrouded man was still in his place in the chain line. One slaver was so distracted he mistepped along suspension bridge, missing the wooden planks altogether, he plummeted to the deep valley below, where he vanished in the mists below.

‘Accurse demon!’ spat the dark skinned slaver, who turban he wore as a crown of authority. Eyes of a eagle, he came as close to the shrouded slave as he dared. ‘You will prostrate yourself to that tree!’ the order was obeyed, but it seemed as if it was done by whim than by a command.

Once he embraced the tree, the shroud was torn from the stranger, and as it fell to the ground as if it were weighed with lead, the man’s naked, pallid body was exposed. At first it looked as if he was covered in ashes from a fire, but the roughness of his skin texture blended seamlessly with with his pallor.

To everyone there, who bore witness to his undisguised form, he appeared to be that of a hairless beast, given reshape as if he were clay by a cruel and demented creator. No one there could see him as human, and a fear overcame the slaver who sought to cane his back for the death of one of his men.

‘...Cover your body…’ was all the man could say, the desire for revenge was decimated by his terror at what they had purchased.

Covering himself in the shroud again, the man-creature rejoined the rest of the slaves, the chains rattled, shaking off bits of frost that formed on the iron links. Despite the humid day, the cold seemed to stretch out as the spectra hands of death, touching the back of their necks, and brushing against their ears.

Crossing the bridge nervously, the slavers and slaves survived the crossing, but with the echo of the falling man’s screams tormenting their minds. Climbing a rise of hills, the foliage became denser, as trees towered over them, the large leaves nearly blocking out the sun. In the dim passages between the trees, the head of the slave train, a large man with a whip at hand, cautiously walked forward.

Him along with his men were wary for tigers, the crazed man-eating beasts of the jungle, whose taste for man blood only increased with the drought that has dried up the streams and ponds. Typical for that season, and if not for the desire for gold, they’d have left it alone, but the fear of their prize being taken from them, has kept them in that dangerous wilderness.

If the secret got out of the riches hidden in that primeval jungle, foreign lords and kings would soon conquer those savage lands. Many of their own have been killed or tried to steal and leave them, or were suspected to be disloyal to the cause. Before being slavers they were brigands, former sell-swords and loyalists who became desponded by their nations. Taking on a profiteering philosophy they banded together to become as rich as kings.

Firstly they needed to extract then smelt the gold for travel, that required hard work they didn’t wish to do themselves. Buying dozens of slaves, they managed to keep them in line with fear, and sheer brutality of their measures. However an equal number die in the mines, which were just ahead, their camp hidden in the hills and jungle trees.

Pushing aside brush, a hideous stone totem revealed itself, scowling at them, many of the slaves tried to run from the monstrous face, but the chain kept them in line. Instead their ran over each other, nearly dragging themselves over in their failed flight.

‘By Shiva, you mongrels know too much of fear.’ being battle hardened killers, the slavers urged the slaves onward, as they gazed more horrendous, profane monuments of the fallen civilization.

Ancient jungle had grown dense over the millennial, hiding secret occult cities of the unchristian past. Heathen ritual sites coated in aged blood, skulls and bones decorating the halls of tarantula filled acropolises, it was the site of their hidden mine. Along the crumbling stonework underfoot, the monuments and structures that were built under and alongside the trees began to crumble.

At the mouth of a massive cave leading into the hills, recently installed wood beams were used to keep the yawning mouth of rock safety open, as the digging continued.

The slaves were leashed inside of a cage, made of sharpened, razor wire spikes in the ground that rose fifteen feet high. Locked within by a barred door, held in place by padlocks and chains, the slaves waited to be given water and food.

Having not eaten since the night before, many collapsed into the dirt, while sweat drenched their faces, and their swollen tongues stretched out of their gasping mouths. Soon they were given a bucket of water to fed to them with a ladle, and old bread and meat for them to be rationed out. All the slaves crowded for their food and water, except for the man-creature who refrained from nourishment once again.

Since the slaves and slavers known him, the mysterious pallid man did not eat or drink, yet he had a unforgiving ravenous gluttony in his eyes, demanding nourishment of something else altogether.

After being fed and watered, figures appeared from the darkness of the cave, two slavers, and men lined up, bound with chains, wielding crude shovels and pickaxes. Haggards, unweight, and sunken eye, they looked more emancipated than the new slaves. Covered in poorly bandaged wounds, and blackened bruises, it was clear that they were worked beyond their strength. Soon it was more likely than not that they’ll die, in sacrifice to the greed of their masters.

A harsh whip cracked the air, and the chieftain of the camp came into view, from his perch from a stone tower, repurposed as his headquarters, the large man was blacker than any civilized man. With eyes as white pearls, and lips as black as a hound, he wore his hair in spiky dreads, that made him look as if he were an animal that was given the power of speech and ability to walk upright.

Cracking his whip, he commanded the attention of the camp.

‘All who hear me, listen! To the new slaves, I am Abdell Xemo, my word is law, and the law is your do as you are told, or you shall suffer the consequence—!’ pointing off to the edge of the camp clearing, the new slaves saw men crucified in cruel contraptions. Made of wood and iron, the crucifixes were oblong, and built as if to be some kind of cage.

Those nailed to these cruel instruments, had their joints broken by the effort of stretching to be nailed, and slowly as their suffer from the heat and starvation, their limbs grow weak and snap off their bodies.

Honey dark blood, and bubbling pus filled those wounds, as the eyes of the men were constantly wide with excruciating pain.

‘You will work and you will bed fed. Any disobedience will be met with that!’ cracking the whip again Abdell solidified himself as a cruel master, with no compassion. Not wishing to suffering that greatly and die miserable, the new slaves did as they were told. So then their cage was opened, and the old slaves were ushering in for rest, they didn’t hesitate to follow along to complete the work.

The slavers who didn’t see the shrouded stranger were confused by his dress, one suggested having it ripped off, but another slaver forbade it.

‘That one is altogether a man, I fear to look upon him again.’ the blood in all the slavers ran cold when they looked at the eyes of the shrouded one. Gasping out in fear, they saw their breathe cloud up as if it were winter.

Some wished to speak about their displeasure at the bewitching slave, yet none dared speak, till the slaves were lead into the darkness of the cave. Then once he was out of sight, the slavers silently agreed it was best to wait and see if he died in the mines, since what was next, was the excavation of a sealed vault, with the face of the demon.

***

Shadows swirled with the visible miasma that clouded the ground, making it appear as if they were entering a otherworldly abyss.

‘We got most of the word done—’ one of the slavers began to speak, ‘—we just need you to break the lock on the doors, we can start digging up the ore.’

The slaves kept quiet, as nervous were they chained to the shrouded stranger, it was far more terrifying to be in the mines. Even though they were barely a dozen feet from the entrance, the blackness that surrounded them was absolute, except for the firefly bright candles and lanterns that lit their way forward.

In the haze of clarity, they saw horrific shapes in the darkness, ancient crypts, stalactites looking like the fangs of a giant ogre, and bodies of dead slaves, allowed to rot in the passages. Squirming insects covered the dead, making it appear as if the shadows themselves were slowly devouring the dead flesh.

‘Christ preserve us.’ one of the slaves squealed, but was roughly struck by a slaver who found such talk blasphemous.

‘Don’t speak your heathen talk here!’ the dark skinned slaver cruelly remarked, as he whacked the again with a large, wooden rod. ‘We believe in the Grey, and you shall too!’ the man’s mouth seethed with menace. A fury was on his face, that made his eyes wide, as if he were possessed by a demon, and he was prepared to attack the slave again, who cringed low in contrite sorrow.

Intervening the shrouded slave stood between the slave and the wrath of the master.

The slaver wished to command the shrouded man to move aside, but those eyes were hypnotic and made it hard for him to utter a word, as if a wasp was stuck in his throat. Sharply breathing in air, he twitched and let out a pained groan. The other slavers were also robbed of their speech and neither of them had the courage to make any demands of the foreboding stranger.

‘You will not touch him again.’ the shrouded man said, in a voice wholly unnatural as if a forlorn devil was speaking down a long dried well. ‘Stand.’ he said then turning to the slave, helping to his feet with cold, but supportively strong hands. ‘It is for God that we kneel, not from fear of lessers.’ those words were spoken as if he were spinning fine strands of gold. Nothing had ever sounded so awe striking to the meek, yet so boldly struck to the souls of the wicked.

‘Come along.’ one slaver regaining enough of his senses ordered in a quieted voice, whipping at the air around, but nowhere near the shrouded man who the other slaves. ‘The vault door is up ahead.’

Obediently the slaves continued, led by the candlelight lantern at their front, they saw no glittering gold dust in the darkness, and began to wonder what prize the slavers coveted so much. Till they saw it through narrow slits in the rock, a ambient hoard of golden ore, as big as their skulls, glowing as if it were the light of the sun.

Behind the slits of stone, protected by thick walls of rock, the only way to breach into the treasure laden cavern was to open a door that barred the way.

Made of layers of stonework and ancient metals, it was chisels at, hammered, and pulled upon by lengths of rope attached to its handles. Only clearing off the metal braces that sealed it closed, it had on lock remaining, a large circular stone wheel, depicting the face of a demon—the terrible insect head of Zartchios.

Upon seeing that profane face, the shrouded stranger stopped, even as the other slaves were allured by the gold, he held them back from the seal. Going as far as the chains could stretch, the shrouded man, seemed repelled by the seal, as everyone else was allured at the what is guarded.

Slaves despite their dire circumstance plotted in their minds to overthrow or flee their masters with a bounty of stolen wealth. As the slavers imagined mansions paid for by the blood of slaves, they handed out tools to the slaves who eagerly began attacking the seal.

In groups of two, taking turns after two of them tired out, they beat at the seal with pickaxes and hammers.

‘Put your backs into it infidels! We won’t stop till the seal is broken.’ despite striking the stone lock with enough effort to exhaust six grown men, the numbers of unexhausted slaves were dwindling in the darkness.

As sparks shot out from metal scrapping again stone, the light from their lanterns began to die out as the hours went on by, with no sign of progress.

‘Fools! You’ll spend all night in this cave, if the seal is not broken before our lights go out!’ one of the slavers went to the mouth of the cave to get fresh lighting, as they were down to their last candle.

Once darkness consumed their last light, they could only see when sparks erupted when the pickaxes struck the seal.

When the slaver returned with fresh candles he warned the others, ‘Abdell he grows impatient as the sun sets. He says if we do not break the seal before midnight, he’ll crucify us all!’

The fear of such grotesque suffering compelled the slaves to work harder. Exerting their already malnourished weak bodies to the point of collapse.

‘Get up! Get up!’ the slaver tried to rouse the workers with a few lashes across the back, but despite the crimson marks on their backs, they couldn’t rise to their feet.

‘They can’t even rise to their feet, they worn themselves out.’ the slavers brought their lights across the chain of slaves, seeing if any had the strength to keep working, but all that was left was the shrouded man.

Boldness splintered and frayed in their hearts and throats, nothing could compel them to speak an order to the wicked creature they had in chains, but fear of a excruciating death.

‘You…break the seal…’ one ordered as softly as if a lion was sleeping a few feet away.

Eyes of glimmering amber were upon him, and he felt his legs shake, the slaver despite his mercenary past could not stomach such a eerie gaze.

‘Do you truly wish the seal broken? Not all that glows should be coveted.’ he spoke in a dreary, sleepy tone that made it seem as if he was speaking as if in a trance.

‘...Just…do as I say.’ the slaver managed to croak out, not wanting to die by Abdell’s cruel methods.

Moving past the slavers, the shrouded figure stood before the demon head seal, and as if he was tearing away spider web, he snapped the seal. The stone crumbled in his hands as if grains of sands were flowing through his fingers, and slowly the door began to open, as a ray of gold within allured the slaves and their masters towards its mesmerizing light.

Only the shrouded man stood back, and watched as they entered the cavern, covered almost completely in gold.

***

Nightfall was over the jungle, as the moon hanged higher, in the cloudless sky, showing all the stars in the heavens above, the slavers waited impatiently for the men to return from the cave. Abdell had ordered crucifixes prepped for any failure, fully intended to crucify both slaves and his own men to set the example. Half-expecting they would hide in the mine all night rather face their failure, he was about to send men in, when he saw a light in the darkness.

Smiling to himself he expected to hear news of the seal being broken, instead he saw a figure holding a lit candle, emerging into the moonlight. Shrouded with bright eyes that seem to draw in the moon’s color, the man-creature was still chained, but the links that connected him to the other were severed.

One slaver inspected them in the light of his lantern, and with wide eyes called out. ‘They’re smelted! Something melted the iron.’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ condemned Abdell who joined in inspecting the chains, pushing aside his fear of the shrouded man for a few moments. ‘What happened to the others?’ the camp leader was confused, and when he inadvertently looked into those bright eyes within that hood, he saw something unnaturally and inhuman.

‘They’re still within, and they’re never leave again.’ was what the shrouded man answered.

‘They didn’t break the seal?’ Abdell speculated, already feeling the head of rage burning his face.

‘It is broken, they went to take what lies beyond it.’

Gritting his teeth at hearing the shrouded man’s words, he gave a rallying cry and called the other men to his side. ‘Show us! I want to see those traitors in the act.’ obediently the shrouded man, guided the slavers into the mine.

Already they felt the unworldly chill, one seemingly coming in all directions. Barely dressed for such low temperature, they shuddered and some wished to go back outside, where the night jungle air was warm, however one glare from Abdell forbade such wants.

Going deeper into the cave, the darkness seem deeper, none of the shadows were lifted by their candles, only enough for them to see that they existed in the perpetual expanse of blackness. That was till a golden beam shone at them, nearly blinded them, it was so awesome it felt as if they were looking directly into the sun, even as they covered their eyes.

Not till greed hardened their vision, did they see the doors were open, and inside the cavern was gold, a vast display of wealth that would make them all kings. Forgetting all earthly troubles they went into the cavern, not heeding the words of the shrouded one who tried to speak a warning but who they gleefully ignored.

Entering the doorway, they saw stalactites from the floor and ceiling made completely of gold, nuggets on the ground as big as a gooses egg, that they could pick up and shove in their pickets, which they did—together the slavers weighed themselves with their heart’s desires. Not bothering to listening to the shrouded man, who repeated his warning as a mantra.

‘That gold is cursed, do not be fooled like that others.’ but those words seemed childish, and superstitious compared to the heft of the reality of their new wealth.

Gold, precious and of such rarity it has blinded men to their virtues, and the danger of sin. Within that cavern were warning signs, profane imagery, barely visible, etched in the gold, and monuments to the previous slaves and slavers who sought the gold.

Just like the men who craved the wealth, they suffered the same fate, slowly then steadily, and finally quickly the gold infested the men’s skin with tiny mites. Smaller than fleas, they burrowed into their flesh, and as they itched at their skin, their fates were sealed.

Slowly the ichor on their mouths had a petrifying affect on blood and bone, the slavers felt their bodies grow harder and they moved slowly, as they stiffly tried to leave the cavern with their bounty. However they were beyond help, the insects were turning them into hives, just like the stalactites, who were once human, they would be malformed into pillars of what some would believe was gold. In truth it was hardened ichor from the insects stomachs, that consumes all and excretes the malleable substance that then stiffens into the substance known as gold.

Midas Mites, they are called, and were the ultimate downfall of the primordial civilization. Screaming out in terror, the men saw their hands turn as if to liquid, dripping and flopping about, as the insects worked their will and twisted still living flesh into needle headed pillars of gold. Spitting out ichorous phlegm which hardened upon the floor as golden nuggets, the slavers couldn’t run, their feet were rooted, couldn’t scream anymore, their mouths were sealed, and could see cause their eyes were blinded. Hearing was the second last of themselves to go, right after heart beats and breathing, finally their minds were subsumed and they thought no more.

Watching as the door closed, keeping the mites at bay for a time, the shrouded man speculated it wouldn’t be long till they expanded beyond their prison to the outside world. Feeling pity for mankind he took a pickaxe and diligently etched into the stone door holy icons that will detour the demonic insects, forcing them to remain in the cavern. Though the stone may wear in time, he prayed by then that the mines will be forgotten and the evil that slumbers below.

Already he could feel the ancient anti-god stir in its antechamber deep under the rocks. Though it was a soft vibration in the rock, he fear in a millennia or more he would awake and bring a hellish chaos upon the world of man. No longer seeing anything else to bear witness to he left the mines.

Once outside he saw the slaves who imprisoned look at him with confusion and fear in their eyes. They began to whisper about the missing masters, and were frightful of the glowing eye stranger, whose mouth seemed to reach out towards them as if it were mandibles. Standing at the gate to their prison he opened it but stood between the slaves and freedom.

‘You may go…but one must stay, I must feed…’ a soft command that offered no compromise, or showing it was a need that gave him any pleasure. It was purely to keep reason and sanity from his despised half-nature.

No more slavers, and the men on the oblong crosses were dead, their meat too sour for use, it was a terrible choice that had one slave push another into the clutching grasp of the cloaked stranger.

As the slave murmured pleas in a fearful whimper, the hood of the shroud was removed, and a gray insect head, and large insect fangs protruded from a out stretched mouth.

‘Flee!’ the man-creature commanded, and the slaves left, taking what supplies and weapons they could grab in their flight into the jungle, as they ran they heard a loud scream of terror, followed by a dead silence.

Soon they heard in the growing distance that they ran into the jungle trail, the sound of flesh being devoured.

***

Dawn came and the slave was now bones, all traces of blood and flesh gnaw and suckled off, by a now sated Alzlɵ. Carrying on with his accursed blood, he goes out into a new day, enshrouded in a cloak of shadows, seeking ultimate salvation for his tainted bloodline.