Feature Writer: The Mighty Xloph
Feature Title: In the Temple of Gar the Desecrator
Contact: themightyxloph
Synopsis: Intrepid explorer meets ancient evil and naked priestesses.
In the Temple of Gar the Desecrator
It is with a heavy heart that I set out to commit these words to paper. Mine is not an easy tale to tell, and the reader will be forgiven for disbelieving this report, since it stretches credulity to beyond what even the most gullible would consider plausible. Furthermore, my words are all that I have, and no physical proof of any nature exists to lend substance to what I am about to relate here. Yet what follows is a truthful account of the events that have taken place, although there have been many occasions on which I have questioned my own sanity while reflecting upon them. However, being unable to properly assess the latter myself, I will have no choice but to trust in my recollection of what has occurred.
To begin this narrative without any further ado: I took part in expedition which departed from the archipelago at the southernmost edge of the South American continent in the year 1891. We planned our departure to take place shortly before the end of November, in hopes of making use of the clement weather prevalent in the Southern waters during these months. Our destination was the rocky isle due south of our point of departure, which had claimed the lives of so many intrepid sailors of late, and on which the crews of sundry passing ships have reported sighting unexplained flashes of light, eerie glows, sudden bolts of lightning and other mysterious phenomena that cannot be explained simply as being the result of bad weather, unskilled observation or an over-indulgence in grog or other such alcoholic restoratives to which a sailor may resort, so as to better withstand the rigors of a nightly watch in the frigid climes of the far South.
We sailed at first light on board of the schooner Intrepid: a sturdy three-master built but a few years earlier at the yards of Bath, Maine, and reinforced since against the possibility of encounters with ice in the frigid Southern seas by means of an iron cladding fitted to the bow and stern. Both weather and wind continued favorably, and in less than a week our objective appeared on the horizon.
I freely admit that, the first time I laid eyes on it, I felt an unreasoning fear. That black, foreboding pile of rock instilled in me a terror that I was entirely unable to explain. All I knew is that the sight of that rocky isle, which was essentially similar to any number of other formations found in these waters, caused me to have such feelings of cold dread as I have never experienced.
Our landing party consisted of six men including myself. Three of us were men of science, the others former members of the Her Majesty’s Naval Service who, having become disillusioned with their careers, had since lent their services to the Society in hopes of expending them on more fruitful endeavors and had now been assigned to our expedition. Having a specialty in the natural sciences myself, I carried with me a number of instruments for the investigation of various phenomena, with the intention of finding the cause of the mysterious manifestation reported by passing sailors. My colleagues, Messrs. Thomas Delarousse and Robert Barstow, had brought on board their own equipment to aid them in their respective fields of geology and zoology. They hoped their endeavors would reveal the origins of the island and perhaps lead to the discovery of rare, strange or unknown creatures that might dwell on it.
With the Intrepid standing at anchor about half a mile off that forbidding shore, we loaded our scientific implements (packed in sturdy crates to protect them from the elements) into a dinghy along with tents, provender and the sundry supplies and equipment necessary to keep six men fed, sheltered and in relatively safety if not comfort for several days. Our naval companions Francis Gardner, William Jackson and Geoff Bradford proved their experience by quickly rowing us across and finding a sheltered cove with a small sandy beach, where we were able to go ashore with relative ease.
We unloaded the dinghy and carried our supplies and equipment up to a convenient plateau that we located behind the beach, sheltered from the elements and the incoming seas. Since it was rather early in the day and we felt we could leave our equipment safely, we decided to reconnoiter before making camp, traveling lightly and taking with us only what we expected to need on this first, cursory exploration. This was limited to sturdy boots for the lot of us, as well as some simple rock climbing gear and of course the various note books and pencils without which no self-respecting man of science would ever find himself. In addition to this, Bradford carried a rifle, while Jackson brought along a side arm.
The rocks proved more difficult to negotiate than we had expected. While our path from the beach up to the plateau offered relatively good footing across an easy slope, we soon found the rest of the island to be quite different. As we set out from what was to be our camp site, we found the rocks subsequently to be much larger and covered in a dark green, slimy ooze that not only proved treacherously slippery, but was also quite repulsive. My feelings of dread, which had abated since, returned in full force and, although none of us spoke about it, I could clearly see from the expressions on the faces of my companions that they had similar misgivings.
We paused briefly at the request of Thomas, who produced a rock hammer and proceeded to take some samples of the stone formations that surrounded us. By the time he put away the magnifying glass through which he had examined the chips thus liberated, he looked very troubled indeed.
“This is simply impossible!” he exclaimed. “These rocks are volcanic in origin. There has been no volcanic activity to produce them at this location for eons, yet these formations show virtually no signs of erosion. The rocks are also angular in shape, which is profoundly unnatural for material of this composition. I short, these formations should not exist. Yet they do!”
There was not much I could say to that, having little expertise in the field of geology. Robert Barstow, meanwhile, had deduced by now that his presence here would most likely be wasted, as the island appeared to be entirely devoid of anything of interest to the zoologist. We saw no signs of life whatsoever. There were no birds, nor crabs or mollusks, not even the small marine encrustations or fronds of sea weeds that usually adorn all rocks that are exposed to the waves. Why this was so, none of us could say.
As we continued on our way upward we entered a region where the shape of the rocks grew more regular, and gradually the going became easier. It was as if these higher strata of rock had been shaped and arranged, not by haphazard Nature but by a deliberate stonemason, although this Builder of Islands would have had to possess inhuman levels of strength and skill.
Then, in the course of our continued ascent, the air began to change in a very peculiar fashion. All around us we could see the waves of the wind-tossed sea, and the Intrepid, which stood at anchor not far off, moved with the winds and the waters as was its wont. Yet the air in which we now found ourselves became still and unmoving, the sounds of wind and water that until now had pervaded our environs becoming muted and distant. How this was possible I was unable to explain.
It goes without saying that we began to feel rather disquieted as this occurred. However, we were men of science and, confronted with phenomena which we were as yet unable to fathom, we felt compelled to proceed until an explanation would present itself. Yet none of us was surprised when Bradford unslung his rifle, and Jackson unholstered and cocked his pistol.
The wisdom of these precautions was confirmed when the rocks ahead of us revealed themselves to have been arranged in a straight path flanked by linear rows of stones, all equal in size: an arrangement that left no doubt as to its artificial nature. Stretching before us as it did, the black stone, adorned with its unwholesome green patina, exuded a sense of inexplicable anciency, and somehow we felt as if we were the first to set foot on it in a time so long as to be incomprehensible to the human mind.
We halted and regarded the prospect before us, but were unable to see for more than a few yards, since the remainder of the path was obscured by a peculiar pearly mist hanging in the inexplicably still air. We also detected a faint but distinct odor of ancient decay, as if the very stones themselves had produced this noisome exhalation.
We slowly continued forward. While we did find ourselves permeated by not a small sense of dread, we also felt compelled to proceed, as if an unseen force beckoned us and urged us on. Soon the mists surrounded us, the vapors cold and clammy upon our skins, a sensation reminiscent of what one feels when touching a corpse. I am sure that, had it not been for the strange compulsion under which we now found ourselves, we would all have turned back and, having reached our intended camp site and taken stock of the situation, perhaps even might have decided to quit the island entirely. As it was, we continued step by step through the mists across the wetly glistening surface that stretched before us. The path was completely straight and level now, paved with stone blocks that had been squared and fitted with a degree of precision that clearly bespoke the great lengths to which its builders had found it necessary to go in constructing it.
The mists became even denser and more oppressive, and before long we felt that we had departed the world from whence we came and strayed into an entirely different realm, one far removed from the comforting familiarity of the physical and rational and instead dominated by unseen forces, the nature of which we could not even begin to guess. To further this impression, a wan, eerie green glow slowly became visible ahead of us through the mists, and we felt our pace increase as we perceived what surely had to be our destination.
What appeared before us as we proceeded through the haze was an immense wall, stretching into the mists farther and higher than the limited visibility allowed one to see. It was absolutely straight and flat, and constructed from the same square stone blocks as was the path that led to it. However, this wall was possessed of a glow more intense than what emanated from the road. Furthermore, the sense of enormity it carried about it caused me to wonder how something of this size would not have been visible from afar, especially given the fact that no previous observation of the island had ever revealed any mist or fog of the order in which we now found ourselves.
Set into the wall was an entrance, framed by heavy, rectangular beams hewn from a rock rougher in texture and lighter in color than was the stone from which the wall and road were constructed. The vertical beams leaned inward, causing the entrance to be wider at the bottom than at the top, and the lintel that crowned them was a heavy slab, appearing more than capable of holding up the immense weight resting on it. However, it was not its size or massive appearance that drew my attention.
Chiseled into its face was some sort of writing, but of a variety I had never before encountered. It resembled in no way our own Latin-derived writing, nor did it bear any likeness to the curled script of the Middle East and North Africa, the ideograms of the Far East, or even the runes and hieroglyphs of old. Instead this script appeared completely alien, and there was something repulsive and unwholesome about its character; something reminiscent of spiders, roaches and other many-legged things that crawl about unseen in dark, dank places.
Yet what lay beyond this foreboding gate was not darkness. The peculiar luminescence that emanated from the wall and, to a lesser degree, from the road leading to it, was even stronger within the passage to which the gate gave entry. Although by no means brightly lit, and filled with the same misty haze that surrounded us in such a way as to limit the reach of the eye to a but a few yards in, the passage was by no means dark enough to require the use of torch or lantern.
To this very day I wish, more than anything, that we never had taken that first fateful step across the threshold. But the strange compulsion that had urged us on to this point still held, and we felt ourselves drawn into that nebulous green glow within. Had we but known what awaited us there! I am sure we would have easily overcome our urge to venture onward if we could have suspected the magnitude and intensity of the horrors that lay ahead. As it was, we cautiously entered the corridor, aided by the faint greenish illumination that emanated from the stone that surrounded us.
As the mists parted before our slow advance, they revealed a row of sculptures which were suspended from the walls on either side of the passage. We halted at the first one, and found it to be very peculiar indeed. It depicted a man, rendered in exquisite detail and carved from a smooth, black, glossy stone. A Phidias might have sculpted him, although no ancient art had ever included a work quite like this. Affixed to the wall in a spread-eagled position and completely naked, the man looked almost as if he had been crucified, although his arms were raised above the horizontal, so that his arms and legs formed a large letter ‘X’. Heavy steel bands at the wrists and ankles secured the sculpture to the wall. Its head was thrown back so that it was looking up at the ceiling of the corridor, and its contorted face with the eyes closed and mouth open bore a tortured expression that suggested extreme agony.
But that was not the most peculiar aspect of the sculpture. Barring the artworks of an amorous nature found in bawdy houses and similar establishments of ill repute, and the reliefs adorning certain temples in India, no human form had to my knowledge ever been displayed in this particular state.
I feel I must utter a word of caution at this point, for what I am about to say may be deemed distasteful by some who read this account. However, in the interest of clarity and the accurate statement of fact, I must proceed in the most candid of manners, as the nature of the discoveries and events still ahead of us simply cannot be described with any degree of truth if I am to remain within the boundaries of civilized conversatioin. Moreover, this will apply not only to what I have to say here, but also to the remainder of this narrative. Therefore the reader should be prepared, as there is much worse yet to come. Yet the peculiar aspect that I must clearly state here is fully relevant, as it touches upon the matter of this report in ways that defy the imagination of a healthy mind. I will, therefore, have to dispense with the restrictions of good taste, and speak candidly.
That most singular aspect to which I refer concerned the state of the statue’s manhood. It had been rendered fully engorged and erected, as if the sculptor had caught his subject at the height of physical arousal and, in response to some inexplicable lewd impulse, had chosen to depict him exactly in this condition.
Thomas bent down and touched the black stone. He ran his fingers across the smooth, almost glossy surface, then examined more closely the one of the steel bands that had been wrapped around it. He produced his magnifying glass and peered through it at the area where a small chip had been dislodged by the edge of the steel that anchored the statue to the wall.
“Most remarkable,” he said. “This material is black, amorphous, and igneous. It is almost certainly obsidian, which is an exceedingly hard and brittle substance not often encountered in deposits this large without displaying fracture lines or other flaws. Obsidian sculptures therefore never have attained this size nor this level of detail. This is very strange indeed.”
“That is not the most striking peculiarity,” Gardner observed, as he regarded the statue’s erect manhood. “Who would make something like this?” He doffed his hat and hung it on the rigid member as if the latter were a peg on a hat rack. “There, lad, that’s better,” he said. “At least you’re half decent now.”
“We may not have enough hats,” Barstow cautioned him as he peered ahead into the gloom.
And indeed, it was only a few steps further until we encountered another, similar work of art. Like the first one, this one was also suspended in the same spread-eagled position and depicted in the nude, and its member was as rigid and engorged as had previously been the case. Yet this statue presented its own mysteries.
Whereas the first model was possessed of the classical features commonly found in sculpture and even had somewhat of a heroic bearing, the man who had stood for this depiction had been rather unremarkable. Slight in stature and lacking the muscularity or definition so characteristic of the usual subjects of art, the body of this man could at best be described as common. His face, although contorted in an expression of agony like that of the first statue, was lean, narrow and weathered, as if it had been exposed to the sun, winds and other rigors of outdoor life that so often mark the commoner. Why any sculptor would have chosen a model so uninteresting, especially given the singular way in which the work had been rendered, was something I was quite unable to explain.
Upon closer examination of this statue’s erect member (an examination which, I freely admit, I performed out of curiosity more than for any other reason) I noticed something exceedingly odd. Apart from the size of the genital, which exceeded the endowment of the previous statue by a generous order of magnitude, there was a peculiar detail that caught my eye. Suspended from the tip of the sculpture’s rigid manhood was a drop of its male essence, and the definition and accuracy with which this had been carved out of the glossy black stone was of such a delicacy that it caught and reflected the light in a way as to make it appear almost real. But why would the sculptor have gone to this great effort to render a detail of this nature so accurately, yet choose a commoner for his model?
Unable to answer these or any of the many other questions that puzzled us, we proceeded along the corridor, passing several more sculptures similar to the ones already described. While all models that had stood for these works appeared to have been drawn from different walks of life, each statue was suspended from the walls in a spread-eagled position, arms raised and legs spread, nude, and depicted in a high state of passionate arousal with its members engorged and fully erected, its face bearing one of a variety of contorted expressions.
Shortly thereafter there appeared before us out of the gloom another gate, glowing eerily green like the one through which we had entered the passage, yet the light emanating from this gate was subtly different: it had a quality about it that was, somehow, repulsive and unwholesome, giving rise to thoughts of diseased things that fester and rot in the dark unseen; suggesting mold and decay and putrefaction, and I am forced to admit that I felt the cold hand of fear around my heart once more. Yet the strange compulsion under which we operated held and, almost without noticing how much we were driven, we went forth toward this second doorway. It was similar in nature to the first, being framed in heavy, squared beams of stone, wider at the bottom than it was at the top, and crowned with a heavy lintel bearing the same spidery pothook script that adorned the one we had seen earlier.
The gate seemed to call to us. I realize this is a strange description for a man of science to give, but this is the best way I can put it into words. From it there seemed to emanate a sense of unspeakable delights awaiting us within, and we felt ourselves drawn to it. Yet we hesitated. Standing there, I’m sure we all were torn between attraction and revulsion, between the urge to proceed and the urge to withdraw. I know I was.
CHAPTER TWO
It would be easy for me to say that we were lured inside. However, honesty commands me to confess that there was something more to it. Something deep within me, something unspeaking and dark, wanted me to enter and partake of the unknown but somehow very real unearthly pleasures that surely awaited me there.
Be that as it may, we proceeded through the gate. What lay beyond was quite different from what we had encountered so far. We found ourselves in a dark, gloomy, cavernous hall. Its walls and floor were of a glossy black stone not unlike what we had seen outside but, instead of being constructed from separate blocks, these appeared to be hewn out of the rock itself, although we could see no tool marks in evidence of this. It was as if the mountain within which we now stood had been hollowed out, by who knows what arcane artifice and skill. The vault was enormous, its walls and floor fairly even, with only the texture of the rock detracting from what would otherwise have have been a perfect smoothness.
Within the vast space of the hall stood a number of rectangular stone biers or altars, arranged in a semicircle around what appeared to be a vast fire pit. They were each about seven feet in length, four feet wide and three high. The stone from which they had been made had been finished and polished to mirror smoothness and high gloss, and on all sides they bore the same alien, spidery script we had seen over both gates leading to this hall.
But that was not the hall’s most disconcerting feature. In the wall beyond the fire pit, faced by the semicircle of altars, was set a statue that was chilling to behold. Rendered in the same black glossy stone as had been used for the sculptures in the corridor leading up to this vault was a demonic figure, somewhat larger than a man. Its face bespoke a level of cruelty beyond imagining, and its hide was reminiscent of a snake’s skin, although its features were not reptilian in nature. Its shoulders were broad and its arms massive, both suggesting great strength, and its hands were great and claw-like. Its legs appeared muscular but were not overly heavy, and between them hung down a member that could only be called disproportionately large. Its posture was slightly crouching, as if it was about to spring and rend some luckless victim with its claws.
This demonic statue stood in a large yet shallow niche set within the wall, as if it had been sculpted from the very stone of the mountain at that very spot. Yet it differed from the wall in one respect: the stone from which it had been carved possessed an unattainable quality that some how suggested living flesh. To this very day I am unable to explain what it was that gave me this impression, but I distinctly felt life within this horrifying statue! I involuntary took a step toward it.
“Halt!” a voice echoed through the hall.
Needless to say this gave us quite a start. Seeing as the voice originated from the other side of the hall, we turned as one and beheld a woman dressed in a dark green hooded cloak and holding a torch. Only from her voice I knew she was a woman, as the distance, the darkness and the cloak all conspired to conceal her features. Yet I could see that her bearing was regal, in the manner of one who possesses vast powers and is accustomed to exercising them. However, what business a woman could have in so insalubrious a place as this I could not even speculate at.
“Do not approach,” she said as she strode forward, slowly yet deliberately. “You are not worthy.”
“Who are you, madam, if I may be so bold to ask,” Barstow said. “I must confess that we had not expected to find anyone here. My name is–”
“Your names are of no importance here,” she said, her voice somehow filling the vast space of the hall. “You will no longer have any need for them. I am the High Priestess of Gar the Desecrator. You have entered his temple. You shall not leave it.”
With that, she raised her hand. Immediately a grinding noise filled the hall, as if vast blocks of stone were dragged across each other, and a distinct vibration could be felt through the floor. Scarcely a moment later I found myself struggling to stay on my feet. This was puzzling to me at first, for the vibration was not so strong that it should rob me of my footing, yet I saw my companions reel about like drunkards also.
Then my feet told me what my eyes had failed to detect through the gloom: the floor had begun to tilt under us. The section on which we were stood was no longer horizontal, but had assumed an angle that grew steeper with every passing moment. Not two heartbeats later the rotation had progressed to a point where it was impossible to retain our footing, and we slid helplessly down the slope thus formed and into the chasm that had opened under us.
The cries of my companions joined my own, and for a brief but terrifying moment I was convinced that we were about to fall to our deaths, plunging into unfathomable depths only to have our flesh crushed and our bones shattered upon reaching the bottom of that vast chasm. Instead our descent was brief, and the impact at the end of it lessened by a thick layer of straw that arrested our fall with nary a bruise.
In the dim light I could see how the section of the floor above us continued to rotate until it had reversed itself entirely, closing the gap through which we had fallen. But even before it had completed this process I suddenly became aware of a cloyingly sweet smell, and by the last rays of light that shone through the slowly closing gap above us I saw a green cloud of vapor or gas roll into the room in which we now found ourselves, filling it, and I remember no more.
It was impossible to determine how much time had passed when I woke. I slowly regained consciousness and I gradually realized that the gas or vapor must have been some powerful narcotic. After a few moments I tried to move and, much to my dismay, discovered that I had been put in chains while I dozed.
A single torch mounted on the wall dimly illuminated our quarters. We found ourselves in a large cell with a low ceiling. The walls appeared to be made from roughly hewn stone blocks and a layer of straw covered the floor. A heavy wooden door, bound by steel bands, was set into the wall near the corner of this dungeon. And a dungeon it clearly was, for we all had shackles fitted around our wrists and ankles, connected by means of various lengths of chain to large steel rings set into the wall, an arrangement that allowed us some small freedom of movement as we sat on the floor with our backs against the wall.
However, one thing was even more worrying than our obvious incarceration: there were only five of us. One was missing.
“Where is Jackson?” I asked, noting as I did so that my voice sounded raspy and hoarse.
My remaining companions moved sluggishly, obviously still struggling to shake off the effects of the narcotic as much as I was.
“They came and took him,” Barstow said. He coughed, then continued. “I don’t know how long we have been here. I myself woke up not half an hour ago. He appeared fully conscious when I woke, perhaps because he is the youngest and most resilient among us. Four hooded guards came and took him. Where to, or why, none of us know.”
“What shall we do now?” Delarousse asked. “This is quite a pickle to find ourselves in, and no mistake.”
“First and foremost, we should attempt negotiation,” I said. “We are being detained unlawfully, if law there is in these parts, and finding out who these people are and what plans they have with us should be our prime concern. There must be some purpose for which they want us. That might give us a bargaining position of sorts.”
“I wish you good luck with that,” said Barstow, his facial expression morose. “The guards who collected poor Jackson did not utter a word.”
“Have you a better suggestion to offer?” Bradford asked him. “We are in chains, by all that is holy! What options do we have?”
“At the very least we should not despair,” Gardner replied. “If we keep our wits about us and our spirits up, some small opportunity may arise to improve upon our situation.”
“I can’t but agree,” I said calmly. “Gardner is indubitably correct.”
But inwardly I did not feel so confident.
We spent the time that followed in silence, until something happened that proved the fears I am sure we all felt to be justified. A cry came through the closed door, sounding very much like the voice of a man in agony.
“He is being tortured!” Barstow exclaimed. “We have to do something!”
None of us replied, our inability to take any action at all being obvious. We merely sat there and looked at each other, and I am sure that the dismay and fear I saw on the faces of my companions was visible on my own in equal measure.
For a while nothing else occurred, and I’m sure we all wondered what horrors poor Jackson might be subjected to at that very moment. Then another cry could be heard, louder and longer this time. My mind raced to manufacture all sorts of horrible fates that might befall our young companion, and the expressions of dismay and upset on my companions’ faces clearly indicated that their thoughts ran along similar lines. I trust I need not detail what this did to our morale: suffice it to say I felt a despair within the depths of my heart that I had never known before.
Several more cries followed, minutes apart, each one louder than the previous one, the interval between these occurrences gradually diminishing, until several raw, loud screams could be heard in relatively rapid succession. Then it grew quiet, and I am sure the reader can imagine our fears as to the reason of this sudden silence.
It was not long thereafter when I suddenly heard the door to our cell being unbarred, followed by the sound of heavy locks being disengaged. Then the door opened, slowly and ponderously, and four robed and hooded figures strode in. Between them they bore the body of poor Jackson. He was naked and unconscious.
“What have you done to him, you savages?” Barstow cried. “You haven’t the right!”
The guards ignored him and carried Jackson to the first available chain which hung from the wall. They proceeded to shackle him, fastening the locking pins with some sort of key, and left him there.
From what I could see he displayed no outward sign of injury whatsoever. I detected no wounds, bruises or other signs of physical damage. Instead his infirmity appeared to stem mainly from exhaustion, for even in his unconscious state his appearance was that of one who has been taken to the limit of endurance and, having expended all his energy, has finally succumbed, the last of his strength utterly depleted. His limbs, however, appeared tense and rigid.
“What do you want from us?” I asked the guards, remembering my earlier resolve to attempt negotiations. “I’m sure we can come to some form of understanding. Remember that if we don’t return soon, the crew of our ship will come to look for us in force.”
I might as well have addressed the cold, damp walls with my appeal. The guards ignored me completely and gave not a single indication that they had even heard me. Instead they turned to Barstow and began to remove his shackles.
“Leave him alone!” Delarousse demanded. But he, too, was ignored.
Having unshackled Barstow, the guards dragged him to his feet and, holding him firmly, proceeded toward the door. The ghastly expression of horror on his face is something that will continue to haunt me for the rest of my days. As soon as the guards had made their exit with their prisoner the door closed and was barred and locked from the outside.
Over the course of the next two hours or so, by my estimate, there followed essentially a repetition of what had occurred before. We kept our silence. I suppose none of us trusted himself to speak, and in any event there was very little left to say. The only sound was our breathing, the cries and screams penetrating our cell from the outside, and the spluttering of the torch on the wall next to the door.
Jackson had not stirred, much less regained consciousness when the guards, after what seemed an interminable period, returned. They brought in Barstow, who was now in a condition similar to that of young Jackson. Again I noted the absence of any outward sign of physical trauma such as could be expected from torture, as well as the overall impression of utter exhaustion that overlaid his slack and unmoving features, and the inexplicable rigidity of his limbs.
Then the guards turned to me, and honesty compels me to admit that the fear that I felt within me nigh unmanned me. A feeling of faintness and dizziness overtook me, my vision dimmed as if it was about to fail me, and the hollow pit of my stomach churned. But then, somehow, I found some steel within my backbone. Overcoming my trepidation, I vowed that if I was to be led like a lamb to the slaughter, I would at least walk to my doom with such measure of dignity and of composure of manner as I could bring to bear in this darkest of hours. Therefore, as soon as I had been released from my bonds, I stood up even before the guards could haul me to my feet.
“Well then, gentlemen, shall we be about it?” I asked, addressing the nearest of my captors.
Since I had not expected to receive a response, I was not disappointed. The robed quartet took hold of my arms and shoulders and led me to the door. True to my earlier resolve I did not struggle but maintained my aplomb, keeping my bearing straight and my head high.
My captors ushered me out of the cell and into a narrow corridor. It was unlit, but a fifth guard, robed and hooded like the first four, bore a torch that provided sufficient illumination. I was walked down the passage, the walls of which were damp and oozing with an unwholesome looking green lichen of a variety I had not encountered before. Short though the corridor was, I felt as if we made our way through the bowels of the mountain, surrounded by Heaven may know how much stone above, below and beside us. We passed two other doors of a construction similar to the one that gave access to our cell. Both were barred with a heavy wooden beam and fitted with great steel locks. I could only assume these alighted into more cells like ours, and I pitied the luckless souls that might occupy them.
Before long we approached the end of the corridor. Our torchbearer, who had led the way, stood aside and we entered the vast hall that our party had left so quickly and unexpectedly, how long ago? It was impossible to say, since none of us knew how much time had passed while we were comatose.
Upon our first entry we had found the hall dark and empty. Now it was lit by various torches lining the walls, and a number of braziers were placed at irregular intervals across the floor, providing a ruddy glow and a measure of warmth, although they did little to dispel the pervasive dampness.
But none of this is what caught my eye. Instead my gaze was drawn to the robed figures that stood behind the half circle of stone biers or altars. (I shall refer to them as altars henceforth, since that seems the more appropriate designation.) They stood there like statues, each facing the fire pit at the center of the semi-circle formed by the altars. Inside the pit a fire smoldered, burning low with sickly green-tinged flames and producing a small column of greenish smoke which rose vertically in the still air until it lost itself in the darkness of the stone rafters. It was as if some noxious chemical had been added to the fire, although I somehow sensed this not to be the case.
The demonic statue facing the fire pit from the other side had also subtly changed, and once again this was something I sensed rather than saw. The surface of the statue seemed to have a slightly different hue somehow and appeared to have lost some of its stony character, although I was unable to explain in what sense and still cannot properly describe.
The guards, still holding my arms and shoulders firmly, led me toward the altar in the middle. Its surface was smooth, clean and glossy. I had expected to see instruments of torture and various traces of their use there, following the cries we had heard from poor Jackson and Barstow, but none of these were in evidence.
When we reached the central altar, one of the figures strode forward. When she spoke I recognized the voice: this was the woman whom we had encountered earlier when we first entered the hall and who had introduced herself as a High Priestess.
“You are in the temple of Gar the Desecrator,” she said, addressing me. “We all serve him. So will you, mortal one.”
“Madam, I must protest,” I said. “You have not the right to detain me, or any of us.”
She raised her hands to remove the hood of her robe, revealing a visage which both startled and intrigued me. First and foremost, she was completely bald. There was not a single hair to be seen on her head; not even eyebrows adorned her face. Her skin was white as marble, and her eyes were a pale shade of gray.
The lines of her face, however, were what held my attention, for her features were quite exotic. Her forehead was high and smooth, her eyes almond-shaped, her nose straight and regal. Her unnaturally pale skin notwithstanding, she was certainly no member of the Caucasian race, not did her features resemble those of any other race of Man that I knew of. Furthermore, although hers was the unwrinkled and unblemished skin of a woman in the prime of life, there was something ancient about her, something unnatural that somehow hinted at a passing of years far beyond the normal span allotted to Man.
She ignored my words and instead nodded to my guards, who responded by gripping me tightly, and as the dim light that filled the cavernous hall fell into the hoods they wore I saw, much to my astonishment, that they were also women!
The duo in front of me unbuttoned my coat and removed it. They then proceeded to undress me. I objected strenuously, of course, but to no effect whatsoever. What they had begun was done to me in full, and before long I found myself completely divested of my attire. Needless to say, I felt extremely disconcerted at this point, standing there so denuded, because along with my protection against the elements I felt also robbed of my dignity. My nudity in the presence of these women was most inappropriate. Yet my protestations went unheeded.
My guards then took hold of my upper arms and ankles to bodily lift me off the floor. Before I knew it, they had carried me to the altar and placed me upon it. The sensation was a strange one: instead of the cold stone I had expected, its surface was warm and somehow felt strangely alive. Even more peculiar was the fact that it seemed to attract me, and I felt myself entirely unable to lift myself off the smooth surface even a fraction of an inch. My guards had positioned me with my legs slightly spread and my arms raised, so that my body formed a large letter ‘X’, and with a shock I realized that this posture was identical to that of the statues lining the corridor through which we had entered this hall!
Thus restrained, by what invisible power I knew not, I found myself completely helpless. The strange attraction held my body firmly against all my efforts and, although I strove mightily, all my attempts to remove myself from this invisible embrace proved entirely fruitless. Only my head seemed exempt from whatever influence emanated from the altar upon which I lay, and I lifted it to protest this unacceptable treatment.
However, at that instant the high priestess lifted her hands to the front of her robe, and the garment fell to the floor, thus revealing her body, and my words died in my throat before I could utter them.
She was of exquisite beauty. Her neck was slender, and her shoulders were perfectly symmetrical, framing delicately chiseled collar bones. Her high breasts were large yet firm, full and round, and crowned with pink tips which swelled visibly in the cool air of the cavern. Her waist was slender, the swell of her hips was smooth and round, and her slim legs were perfectly toned. Even her feet were sculpted to perfection. Her skin was unblemished and creamy and, like her head, entirely hairless. Even the curls that normally adorn the female pudendum were absent: her sex was as devoid of hair as that of a newborn babe. In fact there was not a single wisp or hair in evidence anywhere on her body.
CHAPTER THREE
The reader should note that I am, at this point, not simply waxing lyrical for reasons of dramaturgy, or even lewdness. I merely attempt to convey the effect she had on me. I was mesmerized by her beauty in a way that I had never experienced before. Upon seeing her in all her glory I forgot for a moment, incredible as it may seem, the surroundings I found myself in and even the perils by which I was beset.
The guards retreated to join the other robed and cloaked figures that stood behind the altar upon which I was bound by forces invisible. This caused me to wonder: were these others also female?
My question was answered almost immediately when the High Priestess clapped her hands once, and one of the figures strode forward, bearing a small bowl apparently made from the same dark stone as was the slab on which I had been placed. Handing this bowl to the High Priestess, the newcomer removed her hood and I could see she was but a girl, much younger than the high priestess. A novice perhaps?
Novice or no, she unfastened her cloak and let it drop to the floor as the High Priestess had done, revealing herself in full. While not as bewitchingly lush and beautiful as the High Priestess herself, this girl was a tantalizing beauty in her own right. The lines of her face were similarly exotic and of indeterminate origin. She, too, was entirely hairless and perfectly smooth from the top of her head to the tip of her toes, including her sex. Her young body was supple and slender, yet beautifully curved, but her skin was strangely pale, its hue not unlike that of the most delicate fine bone China before it is glazed. Her waist was slender, her stomach flat, her legs long and smooth as white marble. Her young breasts were high and firm, yet fully developed and crowned with a pair of pink teats ready for a babe to suckle. My estimate would be that she was definitely of marriageable and childbearing age, but not much older.
In retrospect, compiling this account, I fully realize how strange these events really were. And little did I know how much stranger (and horrible) they were about to become! But, then and there, all sense of apprehension seemed to have suddenly left me, and even my outraged sense of propriety had been stilled. Was this in any way similar to the enchantments that mermaids are said to cast upon unwary sailors, or succubi upon their victims?
I cannot say, not even now. As a man of science I had always dismissed these tales of female apparitions who lure a man to a watery grave, or doom his soul to the eternal torments of Hell. What I experienced in that hour, though, I can only assume to be a similar bewitchment. Inappropriate and even unthinkable as it was, the beauty and sensuality of these women had beguiled me to a degree that I had hitherto considered impossible. My concern and outrage had somehow been replaced with fascination and, to be entirely frank and truthful, an attraction verging on desire.
The High Priestess returned the bowl to the novice and, facing the demonic statue across the fire pit, raised her arms. She then began what I assumed to be some form of incantation, spoken in a strange, harshly guttural language, a language I had never heard before and hope never to hear again. She intoned at some length before she concluded with, as close as I can remember, “K’lath grash og Gar kratapth thrat t’or ritshak, K’lath grash og Gar!”
The group standing behind me repeated her final words: “K’lath grash og Gar! K’lath grash og Gar! K’lath grash og Gar!” As I had suspected, the voices were all female.
Finally the High Priestess finished by saying, apparently for my benefit: “Behold our offering to thee, mighty Gar!” Then she turned to the novice and nodded.
The girl dipped her fingers delicately in the bowl and proceeded to anoint my nethers with its contents, which appeared to be an oil of sorts. While I was entirely powerless to resist, bound to the altar as I was, I am not sure that I would have resisted if I would have been free to move, so much was I under the spell of these women. All sense of dignity and propriety had somehow departed me, and now desire held me firmly in its grip.
The first touch of her fingertips sent a shivering through me, and I felt as if electrified. An almost palpable pleasure flowed through me. Her touch, delicate yet confident, bespoke skill and experience and I felt my rod awaken under her ministrations. She caressed it, stroked it, and within moments it swelled and raised itself up in response to her attentions.
She put the bowl down and, using both her hands, proceeded to play me like a musical instrument. Somehow she knew exactly where to touch me and how, and an intense pleasure infused me. My manhood having become hard and rigid under her delicate hands, I felt my pleasure soar to heights the existence of which I had hitherto never known.
While decency forbids us to freely discuss it socially, it is common knowledge among the sophisticated that men and women often indulge in certain amounts of discrete mischief. Since the matter of this narrative requires it at this point, I must confess to my own participation in this. Having known a number of liberal women intimately throughout the course of my life I was, and am, no stranger to the pleasures of the flesh and to the various means by which to induce them. I recall many a delightful afternoon, evening or night spent in intimate congress with women of various backgrounds, some possessing advanced skills and experience in these matters, others eager to learn.
Yet I had never before experienced the levels of delight that this girl’s touch gave me. In hindsight it is obvious that it cannot have been her mere touch that caused my pleasure to soar to these great heights so quickly. I can only assume that the oil that applied to my privates had something to do with this, or perhaps there was some other effect at work here, something more akin to dark magic or bewitchment. At other times I would have been loathe to consider the latter but, as I write this, I am fully prepared to admit the possibility, especially in light of the even less likely events that were yet to take place.
Be that as it may, her ministrations filled me with pleasure more intense and all-encompassing than I had ever known. Her fingertips played across my privates, causing small jolts of sheer delight to shoot through me from any point at whch she touched me. Her skillful hands stroked my erect member, which felt harder than it ever had been, paying special attention to that most sensitive region at its terminus, causing it to swell up like a balloon being prepared for a transatlantic voyage. Never before had the tip of my rod been this engorged, this bulbous, and soon a great, wonderful tension began to build within it. Those magic fingertips caressed its ridge, causing me to squirm and shiver with delight. I felt myself rapidly approach that precipitous edge from where there is no returning, and I knew it would not be long before the pleasure I felt would erupt in its inevitable climax.
This process was further hastened when I lifted my head (the only part of my body that I could move freely) to regard her. Her eyes were fixed on my manhood, around which she had wrapped the slender fingers of one hand, using the other to caress its bulbous tip. The look on her face was a complex mingling of concentration, longing and determination, as if she was determined to focus on the task with which she had been charged but at the same time wished to see to her own pleasures and fully intended to do so. Her young breasts had swelled slightly, mute testimony to the arousal of her longings, and the pink tips stood out clearly and proudly, providing more evidence of her own needs.
Seeing her like that almost proved my undoing, but not quite, for another strange phenomenon became noticeable at that point. Unnaturally quickly as my pleasure had arisen, it now remained constrained within its ultimate bounds. Try as she might, nothing she did allowed me the release that I expected to experience at any moment now. Her caresses continued to stimulate me and intensify my pleasure, but something prevented me from crossing that limit beyond which it could no longer be contained. Gradually the pleasure became a delicious torture, and I could not stifle various moans, both in delight and in frustration, as this occurred.
Suddenly a mad lust seized me. The touch of this girl’s fingers on my engorged manhood was no longer enough. I had to have her, all of her. Her eyes met mine and a faint smile formed on her lips, as if she had read my thoughts, and there was promise in her glance. But there was something else there as well, something akin to hunger and raw need, and dimly my lust-stricken mind realized that there was far more to her than met the eye. Like the High Priestess herself she had something about her that suggested age, not only beyond her appearance but also far beyond the natural human span. At any rate, a girl as young as she seemed to be could hardly have amassed the skills with which she attended to me, nor was she likely to have the vast experience of which her sure movements and deftly precise manipulations so clearly spoke.
Soon, though, these ruminations vanished from my mind, being drowned as they were by the feelings of lust and the physical pleasure that dominated me. My choice of the word is deliberate, for dominated I was. I could think of nothing else but of the pleasure that her skilled hands induced in me, her fingertips delicately caressing the most sensitive spots on my manhood, her stroking hands lubricated by the oil that she had applied, and no musical instrument has ever been played with more skill, nor brought forth a more enjoyable composition, than the tip of my rod under her touch. She stroked, she caressed, she tapped, she traced, she rubbed, and as one of her fingers made love to me here, the touch of another conjured up the most wonderful feelings there, and every wave of pleasure was counterpoint to another one.
I felt light-headed. The magnitude, intensity and duration of the all-encompassing pleasure conspired to inhibit even the most elementary rational thought in me. I knew nothing but pleasure, which continued to build until the wonderful pressure was almost too much to bear and I felt I would explode with the force of it. Yet, somehow, I was not granted the release that during previous intimate encounters I would have experienced long before. How was this possible? I neither knew nor cared. All I knew was pleasure: an all-encompassing, intense, nigh unbearable pleasure that persisted far beyond what I had previously believed to be possible.
For how much longer this state of affairs continued I could not say. Eventually dark spots began to appear at the edge of my vision, and my breathing, which had been heavy all the while, grew even more labored, until I dimly realized that I was about to loose consciousness from the sheer intensity of the pleasurable sensations.
The face of the High Priestess appeared before me. She must have leaned over me, for she looked closely into my eyes, as if to gauge my condition. Before she disappeared from my field of vision I saw her turn, apparently to face the demonic statue, and raise her arms. Then I heard her voice ring out in another incantation. I do not remember what words she used, only that they sounded as harsh and guttural as the first time.
At this point the group that ringed the back of the altar took up a strange chant. While the words sounded similar to the language used by the High Priestesses during her incantation, this chant was of a different nature, being more languid and seductive in character, yet it carried a distinct overtone of encouragement.
Perhaps I responded to this chanting, perhaps not. Whatever the case may be, my lust soared, increasing yet by several orders of magnitude. I would not have considered it possible, but that is what occurred. Also, whatever restriction had been placed upon me appeared to have been lifted, and I knew that the release I had craved so badly for so long was now upon me.
My ecstasy reached its pinnacle, and I felt as if my manhood was struck by lightning, but it was a lightning bolt of pure pleasure. It exploded within me in a bright flash, discharging the pressure that had collected inside of me and causing it to erupt from my entire nether region. My rod felt electrified, as if the tip of it were aglow with Saint Elmo’s fire like the mast of a ship in a brewing thunderstorm.
I screamed. I could not help it, so great was the force of my release. The pleasure burned within me, searing my manhood with an indescribable ecstasy that I had never before known. The normal progress of time seemed to have halted as the moment continued to a seemingly infinite duration, and all I knew was the most intense pleasure I had ever known. I was, in a manner, frozen in time.
At long last I felt my body shake and my seed burst forth in a mighty eruption with an unprecedented force and in a quantity that I had never before produced. Even as a young man I had never experienced such an flood, and my seed continued to spew, forcefully and copiously, as the girl’s hands held me, stroked me, encouraged my continued release. She succeeded, by what unearthly skill I will most likely never know, while the fires of lust, need and final gratification continued to consume me, and they lasted longer than ever before.
It was not before I opened my eyes that I realized I must have lost consciousness. Gradually I became aware of my surroundings and of the situation in which I found myself. My lust had abated and for the first time in– how long?– I was able to think somewhat rationally again.
I was exhausted. Also my limbs felt strangely stiff, no doubt due to the unusual exertions my body had so recently suffered and the unnatural position in which I was being held immobile. It was then that realized with a shock that the screams and cries we had heard while we were in our cell had not been screams of pain! Having cried out in my own release, it was clear to me now what my companions had been subjected to. As we had heard their voices multiple times, it was also evident that what had been done to me so far was not the end of it, but merely the beginning.
This left me rather conflicted. I was downright shocked, nay appalled, at how easily I had succumbed to this manipulation, and at how the pleasure this induced within me had enslaved me. But at the same time it would be disingenuous to deny the fact I craved more. I suppose this is what the wretched opium smoker endures as a matter of course: the desire to visit the opium den again and again on the one hand, and the desire to be free of opium’s ruinous effects on the other.
For there was no doubt in my mind that, were this treatment to continue, its effects would be ruinous indeed. Had I not been reduced by this pleasure in the same way the opium smoker is degraded by the euphoria of the poppy? Had not the lust overridden my rational thought and judgment in a manner similar to that in which opium stupefies its devotees?
I felt comfortable, though, in the knowledge that my lust was surely sated now and that, at any rate, my rod would be unable to rise to the occasion for quite a while. This alone should serve to protect me from further enslavement to the pleasure which I still craved.
But it appeared that I was wrong in this. The girl who had so skillfully applied her hands to pleasure me appeared in my view again, this time bearing a basin and a cloth. One of the cloaked figures that still stood behind the altar stepped forward to hold the basin while the former dipped the cloth into it, wrung it, and proceeded to wipe my face with it. The cool, wet cloth felt good against my heated face which, just like the rest of my body, had been covered with perspiration as a result of my recent exertions. Another cloaked figure appeared, this one bearing a cup and, supporting my head while I raised it, gave me to drink, albeit sparingly, because in my prone position a few small sips were all that I could manage.
Much to my amazement, and even more to my dismay, one or both of these liquids had a remarkable effect on me. My feelings of exhaustion melted away like snow before the sun, and I felt a stirring in my nether regions that clearly indicated my manhood’s readiness to experience more of the treatment it had but so recently enjoyed. This caused me great consternation, for I understood full well the dangers that this enslaving pleasure presented, and what it would reduce me to if I were to give in to more of it.
I tried to lift myself off the altar, but the invisible forced held and I remained firmly bound to its surface. But in doing so I noticed something exceedingly odd. The demonic statue across the fire pit seemed to have changed slightly. It was partially obscured by the green smoke that still rose from the pit, but the statue’s posture appeared to be subtly different from what it was when I had entered the hall. I did not understand how this could be, and finally I decided that my earlier recollection of the statue’s position must have been wrong.
At that moment the cloaked figure returned, this time without the basin, to stand at the foot of the altar. In the same manner as that of her predecessor she removed her hood and dropped her cloak. She appeared to be as young as the girl who had stood there before her and her general appearance was the same, in that the lines of her face were of a similar nature and indeterminate origin, and her body was also entirely hairless. Was this a racial trait, or the result of some treatment? This question disappeared from my mind as soon as it arose, for the effect she had upon me had begun to assert itself and my attention was now drawn to her more salient features.
Her body, like that of her predecessor, was supple and slender, but her skin was darker, almost like that of a Mulatto, and her breasts were larger and fuller, yet high, round and firm. The nipples that adorned those delectable orbs were darker, too, appearing hard and swollen from the moment she had removed her cloak, which led me to believe it was not the hall’s cool air that had caused them to become this firm and engorged. When she turned, a stray ray of light caused a small glistening from her young, smooth sex, and I noticed that her nether lips had begun to flower open, as in response to a lover’s attentions.
Taking the bowl which her predecessor had used to such great effect, she began to apply its oily contents to my privates once again. I objected weakly but was ignored, and within moments my protestations ceased as the amazing sensations took over once more, drowning my critical faculties entirely. Her hands were as skilled as the other girl’s had been, perhaps even more so, and my rod swelled, lengthened and hardened under her fingers, and this time it seemed to me that my manhood achieved entirely new levels of engorgement. When she gently squeezed it, perhaps in order to gauge its readiness, it felt like a bar of steel in her hand, and when she wrapped her fingers around it she could not fully encompass it, nor cover even half its length with her palm.
Then she bent forward to kiss the engorged tip of my rigid organ, and I involuntarily moaned at the contact. My lust soared, and when I felt her tongue explore that most sensitive region, a shiver of ecstasy ran trough me. Meanwhile her fingertips played across the skin of my sack, gently lifting its delicate contents and touching me in ways I had never before been touched before. Her kisses on the tip of my manhood became more intense, and then she opened her mouth and let my rod slip between her lips.
As I have already stated, I have known intimacy with women, some few of whom were both quite experienced and quite eager, and therefore I was no stranger to the delights of such oral attentions. But never had I felt anything like this. Her lips, warm and soft, were like velvet around the tip of my manhood, and she applied them most skillfully. It has long been my opinion that he soft, tender touch of a woman’s kiss is one of the most precious things in life. The touch of her lips, the caress of her hands; nothing bespeaks her feelings more clearly than that. To feel this gentle touch envelop the most sensitive part of my rod was simply beyond description.
CHAPTER FOUR
But she had barely begun her ministrations. As my manhood slid deeper into her mouth, I felt her the delicate touch of her tongue as it began to explore my most sensitive flesh. She savored my manhood as if it were a meal prepared by a chef de Cordon Bleu, her tongue tasting every little bit of me while her lips held me in their wonderful embrace.
She bent down further, taking my rod deeper into her mouth before applying suction, and my pleasure reached new heights once again, far surpassing the delights that this girl’s predecessor had given me. Her tongue and lips worked in concert, counterpointed by her fingertips which still caressed the skin of my sack, and I cried out with delight.
Still applying suction, she drew my manhood out of her mouth, then let it slide in again, her tongue applying its delectable wet friction all the while. Her head slowly bobbed as her lips caressed me in ways I had never thought possible. I writhed and squirmed under her attentions, or would have, had I been able to move freely. As it was, the invisible bonds that held me to the altar were put to their utmost test as my body responded to pleasures beyond the limits of what it would previously have been capable of enduring. Yet there was much more to come.
The grip in which she held my rod was gentle yet firm, and against the touch of her fingers I felt it to be fully as hard as the stone upon which I lay. Deeper and deeper into her mouth my erect manhood entered, and more and more intense the pleasurable sensations became. Before long, her lips enveloped the base of my rod, and I felt the constriction of her throat hold the engorged terminus of my organ in its wonderful grip.
Then she slowly let go of my manhood and, much to my disappointment, removed her mouth from it. I craved more of this, and once again my lust raged unfettered. I had to have her, or at the very least she had to give me more, more of these wonderful feelings. Once again my critical faculties had abandoned me entirely, not that I was aware of it at that moment, and my rational judgment had suffered its greatest defeat in the face of these feelings of pleasure and lust. My fears about the dehumanizing and enslaving effects of this intense and protracted onslaught of pleasure had proven to be fully justified.
Having let go of my manhood, she raised herself up and turned to her predecessor, who stood beside her. My erstwhile attendant nodded, turned, and strode to the side of the altar to stand next to me. There must have been a raised step or similar construction that I had failed to notice, for she easily stepped up until she was able to mount the altar. Sitting on her knees next to my chest, she lifted one of her legs across to straddle me. This obscured her colleague at the foot at the altar from my view, but my eye was not left wanting.
Sitting so astride me on her knees she offered me a display that increased my lust, which was already at an unprecedented level, even further. She looked down on me and now that her face was closer, I could clearly see how finely sculpted it was, how exotic her beauty was even in spite of the fact that her head was completely bald. Once again, albeit dimly in my current state of extreme arousal, I realized that these facial characteristics were unlike those borne by any of the races of man that currently walk the Earth. I could now see that her eyes were of the same pale gray shade as were those of the High Priestess. The slender neck atop the shapely shoulders was a joy to behold. Looking up at her chest from my prone position I could see how firm yet soft her young breasts must be, and the delicate pink hue of her lovely nipples was the most beautiful shade I had ever seen, and I cursed my inability to move my arms right then, for I yearned to touch them.
But more than that, below the slender waist and the flat stomach her creamy thighs were were smooth pillars on either side of my chest, and her legs were long enough so that she could kneel astride me. This position left her sex fully exposed to my gaze, there between those thighs of silk and marble. The petals of her flower, which were of a delicate pink hue, had just begun to open and were bedewed with the first of her nectar. I could not remember ever having seen anything more beautiful, and the sight of it absolutely inflamed me. I struggled to move against my invisible bonds, desiring, nay needing to bring her closer to me, to bring myself closer to her, but all to no avail.
But then she looked down and her gaze met mine, and she smiled faintly. Reaching down, she touched both my shoulders with her fingertips, and suddenly my arms, if only my arms, were free. I lifted them, dimly noting how strangely heavy and stiff they were, which I attributed to the invisible forces which had kept me bound to the altar for I knew not how long. At any rate, this was a fleeting concern at best as more pressing matters demanded my attention.
I reached up to her breasts, straining to raise my seemingly leaden arms, and lightly brushed those delightful orbs with my fingertips. They felt remarkably warm and soft under my touch, and as my fingers trace those lovely round, firm shapes she arched her back and raised her head, reminding me more than anything of a cat stretching herself in front of a fireplace.
I reveled in the feel of those lovely curves, tracing the roundness of her sweet orbs, feeling the firmness of her young flesh fill the palms of my hand. Then my fingers found their way toward the centers of those twin delights, and those lovely tips were harder under my touch than those of any woman whom I had caressed there. The contact sent a shiver through her. Thus encouraged, I began to stroke those lovely buds with my thumbs. She closed her eyes, and her breasts seemed to swell under my fingertips as they explored those soft, smooth globes with their hard, puckered tips.
But soon the effort of lifting my arms, which seemed to have grown even heavier, became too much for me. With a groan of disappointment I was forced to let go of her and my arms fell down upon my chest. She took my left arm and, lifting her knee over it, placed it next to my body. Then she did the same with the other. This allowed her to move forward on her knees, which brought her sex even closer to me. Her flower had opened further, and I could see that her nectar had begun to flow freely and pool between those lovely pink petals.
Strange as it may seem, it was with some small shock that I suddenly felt my manhood being touched again, for she had distracted me so completely that I had almost forgotten what had been happening at the foot of the altar. I suppose it is a testimony to how firmly desire held me in its grip and obscured my normal thought processes.
As those skilled fingers resumed their caresses of my rigid organ, the girl straddling me moved forward another inch, closing the gap between her sex and my lips, and I eagerly partook of her most intimate part. Unbidden, my arms rose and my hands found her buttocks which, like her breasts, were wonderfully round, smooth and firm, filling my hands to overflowing. Holding her shapely rear, I pressed her against me and my tongue parted her nether lips.
Her honey was sweet, and I felt the heat of her insides against my face as I explored her most intimate place, caressing her, kissing her, tasting her. Then my tongue probed the folds at the top of her sex until it found her jewel, small and firm and smooth, and she shuddered as I rolled it around like a pea against the tip of my tongue. She moaned softly, and as she did so I felt those luscious lips slide down around my rod once more, but my own cry of pleasure was muffled by the delectable flesh pressed against my mouth.
Thus a strange but wonderful game commenced: my mouth caressing the sex of the girl straddling me, the other girl’s mouth caressing my manhood. Up and down the smooth, wet lips slid around the tip of my rod, and skilled fingertips gently stroked my sack. My tongue played with the small, smooth, now much hardened jewel atop the fleshy flower that sat so snugly against my lips, filling my mouth with the sweet, clean flavor of its honey. My hands cupped the firm, round buttocks, pushing her pudendum against my lips. Meanwhile the now unseen mouth continued its work on my manhood, the lips sliding up and down around it, assisted by that devilishly skilled tongue that touched me in ways I had not known before, and the occasionally applied suction made my pleasure soar to greater and greater heights.
Suddenly the girl atop me shuddered and I felt the marble thighs grow tense and tight. Then her body shook as if ravaged by an intense paroxysm, which I have no doubt was indeed the case, seeing as I felt the inner part of her flower move against my lips in a rhythm not unlike that of my own release, and a small flood of its nectar flowed into my mouth.
After a few long moments I felt the tension within her abate, and I discontinued the labors of my tongue and lips, albeit with the intention that this be only a momentary interruption. I looked up to see her face. I suppose that any other woman would have looked rather disheveled at this point, her face perspiring, blushing perhaps, but she showed none of these signs of passion. Her skin was as still as pale, unsmiling and unmarked by even a single drop of perspiration, and when she opened those strange eyes all I could see in them was a strange hunger.
Remaining in her current position, her hands took the back of my head to once again push my mouth against her flower, which by now had grown markedly hot and which was wetted by the release of her nectar a few moments earlier, as was the lower part of my face. She spoke a single word which I was, of course, unable to interpret, but its meaning was clear, and I needed no further encouragement.
I was momentarily distracted by the pair of lips sliding up and down around the tip of my engorged manhood, followed by the intense sensation of suction applied to my organ by that so very skilled mouth. I could not stifle a moan, and the hands at the back of my head suddenly felt more insistent, as if ordering me to disregard the distractions in my own nether regions and continue with the work at hand.
I gladly followed this instruction and with my lips and tongue resumed my exploration of the fleshy flower that was presented to me in so irresistible a manner. This time it only took mere moments before a second paroxysm followed, then a third. Her nectar ran freely, and I felt it coat the lower half of my face, and my chin also. Her hands clasped my head firmly, holding it in place and pulling it against her, but when yet another paroxysm manifested itself she began to sway. Quickly two of the robed figures stepped forward from behind the altar to hold her shoulders and steady her as she shook with the intensity of this final paroxysm. Any other woman might very well have cried out in her release, but she remained quiet.
When her final release had eventually run its course and subsided, exhaustion overtook her, and if it were not for the hands that steadied her, I expect she might have collapsed. Aided by her two robed colleagues she lifted herself off me, trembling all the while, the insides of her thighs wet with the nectar that her flower had brought forth so copiously. Accepting the assistance proffered by one of her acolytes, she managed to climb off the altar, retrieve her robe and drape it around her before departing my field of view. She did not give me another glance, nor did she look back.
This left me free of any diversion or distraction, and almost without warning the pleasures induced by my other tormentress, if that is the appropriate word, once more manifested themselves in full measure. While my tongue and lips had been so hard at work, hers had been, too, and she continued to apply them most skillfully. My engorged rod felt harder than ever, and her lips worked magic on its most sensitive parts as they surrounded it. Her tongue caressed me as her mouth sucked, now gently, then firmly, and her fingertips played across my sack like the hands of a virtuoso would play a musical instrument.
Once more, though, my pleasure, intense as it was, appeared to be held firmly contained, as if some restraint had been placed upon it that prevented it from erupting into its otherwise inevitable crescendo. Regardless of the unsurpassed intensity of the pleasure I experienced, I was not given release. Yet this was to me not quite the source of frustration that it might have been at other times, had the circumstance been different. Instead, the wonderful feelings had filled my manhood to overflowing long since and had begun to spread throughout my entire nether region, building up slowly but surely to a delicious pressure that spoke of even better things yet to come.
This time, though, the building sensations, exquisite as they were, felt slightly different to me. Perhaps this was because they occurred in the wake of all that had gone on before, or simply because my body responded to these wonderful ministrations in a different way. I had of course experienced this before during intimate moments, and was well aware of a man’s tendency to endure erotic stimulation for longer and to greater heights following a release experienced shortly before. However, I judged this to be not the sole cause of the subtle difference. This time I felt heavier, for lack of a better description. I felt as if something within me had grown dark and unmoving.
As the skilled mouth continued its wondrous workings on my manhood, I dimly recalled my earlier concerns regarding my response to what was being done to me. And indeed, whatever critical faculty I had left in that perilous hour told me that I was indeed succumbing to the dangers of being enslaved to this pleasure. But once again this was nothing but a faint realization as my consciousness all but crumbled under this renewed onslaught. No longer able to lift my head as a result of the intensity of the sensations that washed through me, I could not see but only felt the smooth, wet lips slide up and down around my rod, and the tongue touching me with every stroke, as if to both tease me and spur me on to even greater arousal.
I felt myself tremble as the pleasure grew and grew, spreading through me until it infused my every extremity, and I felt as if I were about to explode with the pressure of it, to the point where the intensity of the sensation threatened to overwhelm the remains of my consciousness. Dimly I heard the High Priestess’ strange incantation start again at this time, followed by the chanting of the group standing behind me.
I am as yet unable to explain it, but on this second occasion it became undeniable that this did indeed invoke a physical reaction within me, for once again my lust redoubled and quickly exceeded what I had previously considered its ultimate limit. Like one of the rockets making up a Royal Fireworks display, my pleasure soared skyward, swift and unstoppable, then hovered at that seemingly unsustainable altitude until, after a moment that appeared to stretch into eternity, it burst asunder in a bright and spectacular explosion.
I have no words to describe the intensity of my release. The tip of my manhood felt as if it swelled to at least thrice its normal size before exploding in an intense eruption of pleasure. I do not know how the mouth enveloping my manhood could possibly contain an outburst of such magnitude, but the lips around the tip of my manhood held it softly yet firmly, moving subtly in such a way as to infuse it with even greater ecstasy. My rod felt larger and harder than ever before under the fingers that still gripped it, gently yet firmly.
I heard a loud scream reverberate through the great hall, and dimly realized that the voice was mine. My body shook as I gained my release, and once again it was only the invisible force that so mysteriously bound me to the altar that prevented the paroxysm that wracked me from bodily lifting me off the stone slab.
Then my seed burst forth and I felt the lips slide down further around my manhood to receive it. I felt my muscles grow tense and my body grow rigid as the pleasure of my release continued for what seemed an eternity. I thought I felt the stone beneath me shake and tremble, but it must have been my own agitation that made it seem so. Eventually the power of this eruption gradually subsided, and an intense, weary heaviness infused my limbs. Suddenly I felt unable to move, and it was as if the hand of a giant pressed down on me, its weight nigh crushing me. I felt myself sink into a deep blackness, and suddenly every sensation seemed very distant.
After I know not how long I began to recover, and I realized I had not lost consciousness entirely. I also noticed that I felt dreadful. An intense coldness seemed to have invaded my extremities, to the point where the stone slab beneath me felt almost warm to the touch. I was unable to move. I felt rigid and incredibly heavy, in a way I had never experienced before. There is a price to pay for most things in life, and it was clear to me that the intensity of the pleasure I had experienced now exacted its due.
Even in this wretched state I realized that, once again, I had been entirely unable to resist the temptations that had so skillfully aroused my passion. And even worse for, somewhat to my horror, I felt a hunger within me, a hunger for more of the pleasure to which I found myself now so well and truly enslaved.
When I opened my eyes I saw the High Priestess standing next to me. Still entirely nude, she peered at my face as if to assess my condition. Apparently it satisfied her.
“There is still much more mana to be had from you, mortal one,” she said. “We shall proceed.”
She stood there for a moment, and her hairless visage, along with the curves of her full yet firm breasts crowned with the hardened nipples suddenly dominated my thoughts. Once again, incredibly, I felt a stirring in my loins.
“But first this one will receive her reward,” the Priestess declared.
She looked behind her and gestured, and the girl who had applied her mouth so skillfully to my manhood walked up to the side of the altar, bearing the stone bowl with which I was now entirely familiar. She dipped her fingers into it and proceeded to apply its contents to my nether regions. Almost immediately I felt my manhood begin to re-awaken under her touch, and there was no doubt left in my mind that some obscure ingredient of the oil with which she anointed my rapidly rising rod must have caused this remarkable effect.
Soon my manhood had regained full tumescence and, after having handed the bowl to the Priestess, she mounted the altar as her predecessor had done, this time straddling my hips instead of my face.
Sitting there on her knees, upright, one knee on either side of me, she absolutely inflamed me. While all these women appeared to be entirely hairless from head to toe, I still found it a remarkable sight, and somehow also an intoxicating one, although I could not have explained (and still cannot explain) why the baldness of these women and the absence of any bodily hair had such an arousing effect on me. Perhaps it was the exotic touch it lent to her already outlandish beauty, accentuating the Mulatto shade of her skin, her supple, slender body, the lovely roundness of her breasts, fuller than those of her predecessor but still showing the firmness of youth. Her dark nipples stood out with prominence, perhaps due to the cool air that filled the hall, or perhaps it was more than just that which had so hardened those delectable nubs.
She moved slightly forward on her knees, and at the apex her thighs her young, smooth sex beckoned, her nether lips slightly open, a small drop of her nectar just visible between them. It was one of the most mesmerizing sights I had ever beheld.
CHAPTER FIVE
I did not even realize that once more I had completely forgotten the perils by which I was beset. My bewitchment was complete, and I had fallen under its spell to a degree that left no hope of escape. All I knew in that hour was desire, consumed as I was by my lust, which once again soared to great heights.
I tried to reach out to her, but found my arms too heavy to move. Clearly my recent exertions, intensely pleasurable as they had been, had not been without consequence. Never before had I felt so heavy, never before had my limbs been so reluctant to move. It was as if a sudden case of rheumatism had seized my joints, although I felt no pain or other discomfort. Whatever the cause, it left my extremities as stiff and rigid as was my manhood.
For rigid indeed the latter was, and as she took it in her hand my flesh was as hard as steel under her touch. She put the tip of my rod against the entrance of her sex and began to lower herself upon me, slowly but inexorably, and I felt her inner flesh part before me. She close her eyes, apparently relishing the sensation as I was. As her hot, wet insides continued their descent around my rod she reached up to cup her breasts, pinching her nipples between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. She moved her hips slowly in order to facilitate my continued entrance into the very core of her, until her inner thighs met my hips.
Thus impaled, she began a slight rocking motion, not unlike a rider astride a horse. This appeared to give her considerable pleasure, for she moaned softly and kept her eyes closed, although her face remained expressionless.
The heat of her inner body infused my rod, and I felt the silken wetness of her flesh envelop it like a glove. She leaned forward, putting her hands on my shoulders to support herself, and increased her rocking, rubbing herself against me. She moaned again, and suddenly I felt her hands grip my shoulders firmly. Her body grew tense, and her sex clasped my manhood like the hand of a workman grips the handle of a tool. A sudden heat seemed to flow from her body into my rod, and she shuddered as she gained her release.
I felt a burning desire to reach up and hold her, to put my hands on those lovely rounded marble buttocks and pull her against me as this occurred, but my inability to lift any of my extremities remained, infused with this strange, heavy stiffness as they were.
In spite of my inability to provide her with any form of assistance or encouragement, the paroxysm that held her in its grip continued until it had fully run its course. She relaxed visibly, let her head hang for a moment, then opened her eyes and looked at me. The pale gray shade of her eyes struck me, and mentally I added it to the list of physical features that these women all appeared to share with each other but not with any race of Men that I knew of. Where the origins of these women might lie I knew not, but that their likes were to be found nowhere else on Earth was something that even in my current state I was certain of.
Still sitting astride me she slowly lifted her hips, drawing my rod out of her, until only the tip was still caught between her nether lips. Then she reversed her motion, lowering herself upon me, apparently relishing the feeling of my rod invading the depths of her sex further and further, until once again she was fully impaled upon my rigid manhood. She sighed, then began to repeat this sequence, lifting and lowering herself so that my rod slid in and out of her. Her sex held my organ like a hand gloved in velvet, and the caresses of her hot, smooth and wet inner flesh sliding up and down around it made me moan with pleasure. The sensation was incredible, and my lust rose and rose once more.
If only I could have touched her! If only I could have responded to her movements! More than ever I longed to thrust my rod into her, to meet her movements, to match her rhythm. But perforce I remained passive, uselessly wishing that I could move, remaining unable to do so.
She rode me that way, and soon her movements increased in speed and force until, not many moments later, her obvious pleasure reached its climax once again, and she shook with its force as her pent-up lust discharged itself. My own pleasure soared as well, spurred on by the sudden wave of heat that was released within her nether regions to infuse my rod, deep within her, and by the grip of her inner flesh which continued to stimulate my manhood in ways I had not known hitherto. The juices she so copiously produced flowed down along my rod freely to wet my own body, and I came close, yet not close enough, to releasing my seed within her. Once again my arousal was being lifted to unsurpassed heights but at the same time appeared to remain firmly fettered.
When her release had reached its completion she sighed, paused for a moment, then lifted herself off me. Her sex released my manhood, wet with the fluids of her arousal, and the air of the hall felt cold upon it. She lifted her leg across me until she sad beside me once again, then stepped off the altar. One of the figures standing behind me handed her her robe, which she donned before walking off to the back of the hall where I could no longer see her.
I lifted my head to see what was going on at the foot of the altar. The High Priestess was standing there, as nude as on the day she was born and, upon seeing her so, I was once again inflamed with lust. I found myself wishing that she would mount me as the acolyte had just done. I found myself wishing myself released from whatever mysterious bond held me down atop the altar, so that I could take her in my arms, hold her smooth, hairless body against me, my eyes drinking their fill of her exotic shape, of her delicately chiseled face and the baldness of her head. My hands longed to feel the fullness of her breasts, the hardness of her nipples. Suddenly I had a vision of her, lying on her back at the very spot I currently occupied, me kneeling between her legs and entering her that way, taking her deeply and fiercely.
The vision cleared, and in a brief moment of clarity I once again knew the degree to which I had fallen under the strange enchantment that these women appeared to have put on me. I realized that this was but a momentary respite and that soon my lust would once more obliterate any and all critical faculty that I otherwise might bring to bear. Yet such was the nature of my bewitchment that I knew no despair.
Then I noticed something exceedingly peculiar. Across from the fire pit in front of which the High Priestess stood, the statue had changed its position! I do not mean it had been moved. It had, somehow, changed its posture. It had been standing slightly crouched, as if about to spring forward and attach some hapless prey before it. Now, however, it stood almost upright, and both its arms were reaching out in front of it.
How was this possible? It was as if the very stone itself had come alive and assumed mobility. But his was of course unthinkable. Yet I could not conceive of anything that might explain it, save for one possibility, which was this: I was loosing, or already had lost, my mind.
That my very sanity was in peril I could not doubt, for the lustful bewitchment under which I currently found myself had overruled my critical faculties several times already, to the point of entirely dominating my thoughts and controlling my actions. Absent an alternative explanation, why should this not affect my observations? Yet I dismissed this notion as being highly unsatisfactory and refused to entertain the possibility that I was laboring under some sort of delusion, for deep within me I knew that once I questioned the reality of the situation in which I now found myself, improbable as it was, I would be truly and utterly lost.
These ruminations were interrupted when one of the robed figures behind me approached, holding a small cup. She raised my head, and I was allowed to drink. The contents of the cup left a strange taste in my mouth, but did quench my thirst.
Two more stepped forward from that group and took my arms. Lifting them with apparent difficulty, they carefully returned them to their original position. When they lowered them upon the surface of the altar I felt the strange force take hold once again, binding them in place as it had earlier. I felt strangely helpless, not in the least because I suddenly realized, with considerable disquiet, that my posture once more resembled that of the crucifix-like sculptures lining the walls of the passage into this hall.
Handing the cup to one of her companions, the acolyte shed her robe as her predecessors had done, and proceeded to mount the altar. In many respects she resembled the others, including the exotic lines of her face, her hairlessness, her light gray eyes and the paleness of her skin. She was, on the other hand, smaller in stature and her body was slender. I can only describe her as petite. She appeared, on the surface, somewhat younger than her predecessors, her hips not as widely curved, her breasts not as full. But like the others before her she had something about her that suggested she was much, much older than her outward appearance suggested, something that hinted of an unnaturally large number of years in excess of the span normally allotted to Man.
Standing upright, she put one foot on either side of my hips. She squatted down until she hovered over me. She took my member and put its tip against the entrance of her sex, parting her nether lips with it, then slowly lowered herself upon it. Her sex, perhaps in proportion with her slighter features, was smaller and felt narrow and tight, and my rigid manhood met with some resistance as it proceeded into her inner passage.
Apparently undeterred by this she continued her descent, and I felt her inner flesh stretch as my manhood invaded it. I have had little chance at actual comparison but, from comments made by the women with whom I have shared the pleasures of the flesh over the years I understand that, while the size of my manhood is not remarkable in any way, I may consider myself at least decently endowed. This, combined with the narrowness of her sex, made for a wonderful sensation. She appeared to share this opinion: while her face remained essentially as expressionless as all the ones before hers, she still somehow looked like she thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of my manhood making its way into her most intimate depths, parting her flesh before it as it went.
As she proceeded to the point where she had fully impaled herself upon me, I felt the tip of my rod touch the end of her passage and she made a soft noise when this occurred, something halfway between a moan and a grunt. Whether this was out of pleasure of discomfort I could not say. Her sex gripped my manhood with a tightness I had never felt before, and when she moved slightly upon me I myself could not keep quiet, so exquisite was the way her insides caressed me. The intensity of the feeling surpassed all that I had felt before, including the oral attentions my manhood had received from the girl who had applied her lips and tongue so skillfully.
She held out her arms to either side. Two robed figures stepped forward and took them. Thus steadied, she used her legs to push herself up, drawing my manhood out of her tight passage, and again I moaned with the intensity of the feeling. Then she proceeded to impale herself upon my rod once more until my sword was buried in her sheath all the way up to its hilt.
With the aid of the two acolytes steadying her, she proceeded to stimulate me that way, squatting astride me, moving herself up and down. The feeling of her sex sliding back and forth around my manhood was intoxicating, as was the sight of my rod being drawn out of it and being forced back in. Her inner flesh caressed the most sensitive points of my engorged member, and I felt my pleasure rise and rise.
In the course of this, a faint blush began to creep across her marble face and upper body. Her breasts seemed to swell slightly, and her nipples grew visibly before my eyes. She moved herself up and down with greater speed now, and if it hadn’t been for the steadying hands provided by her assistants she would surely have lost her balance.
Suddenly I felt that this time my release would not be denied to me, and although her face still did not show any specific signs of pleasure, I did get the overall impression that she was approaching her own climax also. While I was loathe to entertain any hopes at this time, I vowed to do what I could not to disappoint her. I wanted to give her pleasure, nay, I needed to give her pleasure. As it was, I was unable to do anything of the sort, and the best I could do was to try and modulate my own arousal so that our releases, assuming I would be granted one on this occasion, would at least coincide with each other.
I needn’t have worried. She moaned softly and increased her tempo, until she was milking my rod with her sex as if her life depended on it. Out of my field of view the High Priestess began her chant once more, joined by the group standing behind me. I felt my pleasure continue to rise toward its inevitable peak, and suddenly she let out a loud grunt and I felt her sex grip my manhood with redoubled force. With a mighty downstroke she fully impaled herself upon my rod for the last time, and suddenly I felt my pleasure erupt and burst out of me as it reached its climax. It felt as if my very life force poured out of my rod into her sex, and I screamed, again and again, so intense was my release. My seed, like oil from Zarephath’s jug, filled her sex to overflowing, in spite of the fact that this was already the third successive occasion on which it had been drawn forth. I could only attribute this to the bewitchment that I had fallen under. Whether it was the oil applied to my privates, the cup which I had been given to drink, or some sort of magic worked by the chants and incantations uttered by these women, I could not and cannot say.
Magic? For a man of science it is, of course, unthinkable to consider so preposterous a notion! However, under the circumstances I am sure the reader will forgive me for calling it so, for there was no doubt in my mind that at least some aspects of what was happening more than just hinted at the supernatural.
Be that as it may, the fact remained that never before my body had been capable of a performance like the one it currently delivered. My rod remained erect, my seed continued to flow in copious amounts, and my pleasure continued unabated. Once again, while in the throes of this climactic pleasure, I felt the altar shake under me, and this time I was sure it was not simply my imagination, as the vibration was accompanied by a grating noise, not unlike that of heavy stone being dragged across stone. I only registered this with the edge of my consciousness, mind you, the bulk of my senses being given over to the pleasure induced by the girl’s tight sex as it continued to grip and caress my pulsing rod.
Eventually my release ran its course and subsided, leaving me exhausted and feeling heavier than ever before. Having ascended the climactic peak of her own pleasures, the girl rose off me and stepped off the altar, supported by one of her assistants, leaving the other one to replace her.
When this girl doffed her robe she revealed a body that was quite different in appearance than that of the ones before her. Her skin was quite dark, although none of her other features resembled the Negroid type but instead were consistent with those of the High Priestess and the other acolytes. For some reason the word that came to my mind to describe her was “Nubian”, although I am sure that this term would be essentially incorrect. Her young breasts were larger and heavier than those of the others, yet her youthful flesh did not succumb to gravity. Her nipples were very dark, in fact they were almost black, as were her nether lips, but the folds between them were of a delicate pink hue, and her sex was like wet, smooth silk and it throbbed like a heart when she carefully lowered it upon my rod.
I shall not bore the reader with repetition. For the next– hour? Two hours? Three hours? I could not say– a succession of girls drawn from the seemingly inexhaustible group of acolytes continued to mount the altar and impale themselves upon my manhood. My seed continued to burst forth on each occasion with undiminished force and in undiminished quantity, and my rod quickly regained its rigidity every time after this occurred, both phenomena being clearly be impossible under normal conditions even for the most virile young man. Each girl applied her sex to my manhood in her own way, but they all appeared to derive considerable pleasure from the act as they all gained release, some sooner, some after considerable time, and sometimes in what appeared to be quite an intense manner. This invariably brought about my own release, to the chanting of the High Priestess and her acolytes.
On each such occasion a vibration ran through the altar and a grating sound could be heard from across the fire pit, as if that of stone being dragged across stone. Several times the posture of the demonic statue visibly changed, and its surface gradually began to grow almost imperceptibly lighter in shade and hue.
While my eyes did see these improbable events in that hour, my mind did not register any of them, and it is merely by dim recollection and later observation that I am able to recount them, for my critical faculties had long since succumbed and given way to a delirium of ecstasy, lust and desire. Both my body and my mind were entirely given over to the pleasures to which I was now so thoroughly enslaved.
Eventually I must have lost consciousness, although I do not remember it, for when I came to my senses again I found myself shackled once more and lying upon the straw-covered floor of the cell from which I had been taken, seemingly a lifetime ago.
I felt absolutely wretched. My extremities were cold as stone and felt just as heavy. The hardness and rigidity that my rod had maintained for so long appeared to have flowed into the rest of my body, although my manhood itself had returned to its normal flaccid state. My joints appeared frozen and my skin had a darkness and glossy shade about it, unlike anything it had displayed ever before.
Gradually my mental faculties reasserted themselves. Upon remembering what had occurred, I felt shame, more than anything else: not just for what had been done to me, but even more for how I had responded to these things. Even now I craved the intense pleasures I had been subjected to. I wanted, nay, needed, more of it.
When I opened my eyes, all my companions appeared to be present. Jackson and Barstow were awake, while Gardner, Bradford and Delarousse appeared to be either asleep or unconscious.
“How long?” I asked. My own voice sounded strange to me, low in pitch and grating, unlike any sound I had ever before produced.
Barstow, who had been regarding me, looked away, moving slowly and with apparent difficulty, but not before I had read in his eyes a shame akin to what I felt myself.
“We do not know,” he said, curtly. His voice also appeared affected, sounding as distorted as my own.
Then I realized what had happened, and was still to happen, and there was nothing more to be said.
The very notion was too fantastic, too improbable to entertain, especially for a man of science, but I felt within me the unshakable certainty that it was the truth. Somehow, by what supernatural effect, magic or witchcraft I knew not, I still know not, our very life force was being extracted from us and reassigned to the demonic statue that adorned the front of the hall in which we had all, by now, shared a similar experience.
CHAPTER SIX
By now I was certain that these women were not ordinary human beings but something far more sinister, and far older than they appeared. I was also certain that somehow, by dint of dark magic or hellish incantation, they had liberated not only our lust, but also that what infuses our flesh and blood with life, warmth and motion, somehow siphoning off this vital essence in order to suffuse the demonic statue with it. And, as the demonic statue became flesh in the process of this unwholesome transformation, impossible as it may be, our bodies were slowly being turned to stone in exchange!
Once again I remembered the sculptures that adorned the walls of the passage through which we had entered this unholy place and, if the rigidity of my body had not prevented it, I would have shivered, nay trembled, in horror, for I now knew these for what they in actuality were: the luckless souls who had been here before us, Heaven only knows how long ago, and who were now frozen in stone, their facial expressions not the result of agony but reflecting their ultimate, final moment of sexual release, at which instant their living flesh had turned into black, glossy stone, their postures unchanged, their members still erect.
And this was to be done to us as well, and I could see no way whatsoever to avoid it.
I knew despair.
We were left alone with our thoughts for many hours, perhaps a day or even a day and a night, during which time Gardner, Bradford and Delarousse regained consciousness. We did not speak, for there was nothing that any of us desired to speak of. I am sure, however, that they felt the way I did, the way we all did. Once during this time our guards entered the cell, and we were given to drink, and whatever concoction was in the cups they held to our lips restored us somewhat, but did nothing to lift our flagging spirits.
A seemingly interminable time later the door to our cell opened again, a group of guards entered and, one by one, we were unshackled and carried out of the cell. We could not have walked, so far had the rigidity in our bodies progressed. When my turn came and the guards bore me into the great hall, I saw that, while the back of it was still obscured by shade and darkness, its front was now lit by many torches and, in the fire pit that separated the altars from the demonic statue, a large fire burned, but its flames gave off an unwholesome green light, and the smoke that rose from it was of a similar unnatural shade.
Eventually our rigid bodies were arranged on the various altars that ringed the fire pit. I noted that the central altar remained vacant, my companions and myself having been arranged around this central position. Once again I felt myself bound to the bier’s smooth, stone surface by forces both invisible and incomprehensible. Of course, given my all but immobile state, such a binding was hardly necessary at this time.
Then the High Priestess, once more clad in her robe, strode forward and lowered the hood that once again covered her bald head. “Mortals!” her voice reverberated through the hall. “A great honor has befallen you. You will be the instrument of Gar the Desecrator. Through you, the living god will become incarnate once again, great and terrible, to reclaim the world, and the multitudes will bow before him!”
She turned around to face the fire pit and began a lengthy incantation, once again uttered in that strangely harsh, guttural language. With great effort I managed to raise my head somewhat, and through the sickly green flames I saw movement within the darkness that surrounded the demonic statue, or perhaps it was just the shadows cast by the flickering of the flames, although a soft, grating sound could also be heard, and a long, soft sigh, as if that of a sleeper stirring shortly before wakening.
Then, from somewhere in the shadows that still filled the back of the great hall, a slow drumbeat began. Its sound was vast, low and booming, its steady, measured beat filling the hall, and even in my current wretched state I could feel the sound pounding in my chest, as if a vast, slow heart was beating there.
The High Priestess, still uttering her incomprehensible chant, turned around, raised her hands to the front of her robe, causing it to fall to the floor. Nude once more, she raised her arms as in benediction, and in spite of myself I was again taken by her exotic beauty: the delicate collar bones, the full, high breasts with their pink tips that swelled visibly now that they were exposed to the cool air of the hall, her slender waist, her smoothly curved hips, the smoothness of her pale skin– she truly was a vision.
Six acolytes then entered the space in front of the altar, walking in procession. As one, they turned to face us, doffed their robes, and joined the High Priestess in her chant. They continued this for several minutes, during which both the volume and pitch of their chanting rose until, suddenly, they fell silent. Only the slow, measured drumbeat, the hissing and spluttering of the torches around us and the soft, sighing, occasionally grating sounds from the niche that contained the demonic statue were the only sound that remained.
Then the High Priestess clapped her hands once, and the acolytes strode forward until each one of them stood next to her own altar. The one approaching the bier on which I lay supine was exquisitely beautiful. She was tall and had a lovely figure. Her lovely breasts were young and firm, full but unsagging, and crowned with a pair of lovely pink nipples that stood out proudly and appeared to be fully hardened. Below her slender waist her hips were smoothly curved, and when she mounted the altar I saw that her legs were beautifully sculpted. She looked like a young goddess, an irony not lost on me, given the fact that her true nature was by no means divine but rather the exact opposite.
She knelt down between my spread legs and bent forward to kiss my manhood. With dismay I felt the first stirrings of lust return to my nether regions. From the corner of my eye I saw another figure similarly positioned on the altar next to me. I believed it was young Jackson on whom she was lavishing her unholy attentions, although I could not be sure of this in the dim light.
Then the girl kneeling before me took my manhood in her mouth and began to caress it with her tongue and lips, which she applied with a skill even more delicate and refined than those of the girl who had performed a similar act upon my person on the previous occasion. With her fingertips she caressed my sack, which proved my undoing: much as I wished for it not to happen, my rod began to lengthen in her mouth, then swelled rapidly, lifting itself up and hardening under her ministrations. With renewed despair I realized this was the beginning of the end of me. Yet I was unable to resist.
She continued to stimulate me with her lips, her tongue and her fingertips, applying all her fiendish skills, and my pleasure soared as before. Slowly, in keeping with the slow, measured, hollow booming of the drum, her head moved up an down, her lips sliding back and forth across the tip of my rod. The feeling was exquisite and my lust raged unfettered, in spite of my efforts to control it.
She continued this for several minutes, as did the girl kneeling on the altar next to me. Suddenly I noticed that they kept exactly the same pace, moving to the beat of the drum as precisely as a well drilled platoon of soldiers would march across a parade ground, and dimly I realized that this might be of some significance. Perhaps rhythm and timing were essential to the end stage of this unholy ritual? I fought mightily to regain at least some clarity of mind, but the unearthly pleasures induced by the girl’s mouth and fingertips on my now fully aroused privates made this all but a lost cause.
Then the sound of a large gong rang through the hall. The girl kneeling before me let my manhood slide out of her mouth and sat up. From the corner of my eye I saw the girl on the altar next to me do the same, apparently still keeping to whatever set pace there was to these proceedings.
She moved forward to straddle my hips, but halted there. Still sitting upright on her knees she reached up to cup her breasts and began to stroke them. With her fingertips she caressed her nipples, which grew larger and firmer under her gentle touch, and the way her upper body moved clearly spoke of the pleasure she derived from this.
Then her hands moved down across the smooth, flat surface of her stomach and past her slender waist, down to where her hips widened, until they traversed the marble pillars of her upper legs. Moving inward, the stroked the insides of her thighs before her fingers slowly traveled upward until they found her nether lips. Parting them to reveal the entrance to her inner sanctum, she began to caress herself there. Soon her sex flowered open under her ministrations, and I could see the first of her nectar glistening between her folds. She dipped her fingertip into her opening to wet it with the fluids of her obvious arousal, then moved it up to the top of her sex where her nether lips met. She used her one hand to expose the small pearl that was hidden there and touched it, wetting and lubricating it with her finger. She closed her eyes and sighed, then began to caress her little pink jewel, stroking around and occasionally across it with her fingers.
Her breathing deepened, and it appeared that she was not alone in this, for sighs of obvious pleasure could be heard between the booming drumbeats that filled the hall. It was not long before her body grew tense and then she shuddered as an forceful paroxysm overtook her. I heard a stifled moan coming from one of the other altars: testimony to the fact that her colleagues were at similar stages of arousal and release.
She sat there for several long moments, then the gong rang once more. Promptly the girl sitting astride my prostrate body moved slightly forward, then began to lower herself. She took my rigid manhood and put its tip against her nether lips. Descending slowly, she pushed down on my rod until it parted those most intimate folds and slipped into her entrance.
She continued to lower herself upon me, slowly but surely, and my rod parted her inner flesh as her sex continued to slide down around it. Thanks to her recent self-pleasuring her nectar flowed freely now, facilitating an effortless ingress as my hardness invaded her softness. The feeling was delightful, but the knowledge that this was to be the last thing that I would ever feel made it all the more precious, to the point where I felt each and every intimate caress that her velvet passage applied to my manhood. My rod felt harder than ever before as it proceeded deeper and deeper into her sex until I felt myself penetrate the very core of her body. It was as if a fire burned there, surrounding the tip of my manhood. Its heat infused me, flowing down my rod to permeate my nether regions.
This sensation was quite different from what I had experienced previously, possibly because the oil or ointment that had been applied to my nethers then had now been omitted. The restraint I had felt on that occasion was now absent, and as my pleasure soared unfettered to unsurpassed heights once again, I knew that it would not be long before it would reach its inevitable climax.
The girl sitting astride me offered me little assistance in this regard. As she slowly lifted herself up and then lowered herself upon me again, her inner flesh caressed my rod most cunningly, and the smooth, warm, silken caress of her sex sliding up and down around my engorged manhood brought me closer to the inevitable end with every stroke. She applied all her fiendish skill, her inner muscles working on my rod as she moved. Her eyes were closed and she had a look of intense concentration on her finely chiseled face.
I closed my eyes as well, as my last glance of her almost proved fatal. Seeing her sitting astride me, her young breasts gently bouncing as she moved, her slender waist undulating with the motion of her hips, her exotic features combined with her utter baldness nearly brought about my undoing. I gritted my teeth and tried to divert my thoughts from the current goings-on, for I knew what my fate would be, should I loose control.
Suddenly a loud cry rang through the hall, coming from the altar next to me, and involuntarily I opened my eyes. Young Jackson, perhaps lacking the experience of age and affected by the eagerness of youth that so often cuts short the intimate pursuits of young men, had clearly reached that what I labored to hard to avoid.
I wish to this very day that I had not looked, for the sight I beheld was ghastly. Starting from his hips and moving outward, a glossy blackness crept over his skin and, wherever it went, his body froze. All movement ceased, and after what seemed an eternity but surely amounted to only mere moments, poor Jackson was transformed entirely. Where a living man had lain, there was now only a still, unmoving form rendered in glossy black stone. The girl who sat atop him held still for a moment, the paleness of her skin contrasting strangely with the glossy black stone that had taken the place of poor Jackson’s body. Then she lifted herself off him and, more than anything, I vividly remember how his member remained upright and motionless, and how it glistened with the fluids which her sex had left on it.
I simply cannot describe the fear and horror I felt, for I knew that this fate awaited me also. This was what was in store for all of us! But, and perhaps worst of all, even the deep despair that held me in its grip in that darkest of hours did not serve to diminish my lust. If it had ever been suggested to me that there would come a day when I would pray for my male strength to fail me, I would have laughed. Yet this is where I now found myself, but my wishes were in vain. Even in the face of this most ultimate of horrors my manhood remained rigid, by what dark magic I know not, and the lust continued to build in my loins as the girl who straddled me continued to caress my engorged manhood most skillfully with the velvet insides of her sex, her body undulating, her young, firm breasts bouncing gently as she rode me, her eyes closed, her movements slow and refined as she used her inner muscles so as to inflict maximum pleasure upon me, lifting herself up before impaling herself once more onto my rod with every stroke.
I shall be brief regarding the hour that followed, for the memories are painful and I prefer not to dwell on them overlong. Suffice it to say that, as time passed, all my companions suffered young Jackson’s terrible fate.
In hindsight I should have wondered why I was the last to succumb. I am by no means an exceptional human specimen, nor do I possess any great strength or unusual sexual stamina. Yet, somehow, I endured to a point beyond that where my colleagues all had lost their battle. Perhaps it was the fear in my heart that turned the sensations in my loins into such a terrible mixture of pleasure and horror, thus reducing the exquisite way the girl astride me caressed my manhood with her sex, to the point where it became the most refined of tortures.
The beating of the drum continued to reverberate throughout the hall as I continued to fight the inevitable. The pleasure in my loins had risen to almost unbearable heights, and the girl atop me seemed to sense this. She slowed her movements, pushing herself up on her knees and thus withdrawing my manhood from her sex almost entirely. Then, reversing that glacially slow cycle at the top of her stroke, her sex slid down around my manhood while she tightened her inner muscles with a degree of skill that under different circumstances would have earned my utmost admiration. Fraction by fraction she forced my manhood, which now seemed more rigid than ever before, back into her warm, moist sheath, and the smooth wetness of her inner flesh caressed the tip of my rod in a manner almost painfully exquisite, until the engorged tip of my manhood entered the heat of the fires that smoldered there, deep within her body, and she could go no further, my manhood havng found itself embedded within her to the hilt.
Certainly the reader is to be forgiven for wondering why am am describing the above in such a degree of detail, to a point where some may judge it superfluous or even perverse. If truth be told, I am not sure myself, save for the fact I was convinced that these were to be my final moments, and every detail, no matter how minuscule, has been burned into my memory forever with a clarity I have known neither before nor after.
Whatever the case may be, my arousal and my despair waged a great battle within me, but there was never any doubt as to which side the victory would go. The pleasure that infused me rose and rose as the exquisite sensations continued to work their vile magic upon me, until I reached that inevitable threshold where I knew I would not be able to contain it for much longer.
At this point she began to chant, softly and with her eyes closed. I could, of course, not make out a single word of it, but it did seem to me that her chanting was somehow subtly, yet significantly different from what I had heard before. This seemed to be not just some incantation, but rather a prayer, following a pattern and cadence unlike the harsh, guttural sounds that had been the hallmark of previous occasions.
Still astride me, he sex caressing my manhood, she subtly changed her technique once again, and the wonderful torture became even more intense. She held me there, at the very edge of loosing control, somehow gauging both my pleasure and my ability to resist it. With a precision that I would not have though possible she kept the two in an exact equilibrium. It was as if her body had become a precisely turned instrument, designed to read the response of mine and translate them into minute adjustments to maintain that precise balance between pleasure and control. The way she moved atop me, the way her sex caressed my manhood in its velvet grip, held me at that very edge, until I thought the feelings would overwhelm me. Yet they did not. Her eyes remained closed, but there was an expression of reverence on her face, as if the was communing with some higher power. Moreover, there was an air of secrecy about her softly uttered incantation.
This went on for several minutes. Then, opening her eyes and looked down at me, she did something with her sex that sent a shock of pure pleasure through my rod. It seemed to swell even further, expanding within her, and suddenly I had lost all control. Through what fiendish skill, magic or devilry I shall never understand, she had deliberately overturned the balance that she had maintained within me, and I realized that the instant was upon me and that there was nothing I could do.
As my pleasure soared out of control and I knew my final moment had come, a huge tremor shook the hall. I would have thought it to be a subjective experience, given the state I was in at that very moment, but the dust and grit raining down from the vaulted ceiling proved otherwise, and I knew the shaking of the altar underneath me to be quite real.
Then my arousal reached its final, ultimate peak and, for lack of a better description, seemed to explode within my loins. Never before had I experienced release like this! It exceeded even what I had undergone during my previous sojourn in this hall, which in turn surpassed anything I had known previously in my life. The raw intensity of what I felt right now was such that it temporarily distracted me from the horrible fate that was now upon me.
Burning like a fire within me, the pleasure sprang from my loins and forced its way up the base of my rod, exploding from it and infusing the sex of the girl kneeling astride me, and she shuddered as I did. She cried out as her own release overtook her at the same instant, but it was not the cry of a woman who experiences a sexual climax with a man. Rather, it was a cry that spoke of religious fervor, of awe and, most of all, of triumph.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Then, when my seed burst forth for what was to be the last time, the force with which it found its way into her inner depths rivaled that of a volcanic eruption, and the flood that my pulsing rod pumped out filled her sex to overflowing. It was as if floodgates had been opened within me and I emptied myself into her, again and again.
Another tremor rocked the hall as this occurred, and I felt the onset of what I had both expected and dreaded so much. An icy sensation infused my limbs, a cold that turned painful within moments before being replaced with a rigid numbness. This feeling quickly spread through my body as the transformation progressed, from my loins outward as if the very life was flowing out of me through my extremities, and I would have shivered but for the fact that my body had assumed an immobility that I knew to be final. I was turning into stone, as my colleagues had done before me.
I expected to see the final darkness then. I could no longer feel my limbs, and as the cold seeped into my heart I knew my time had come. But then! At the last moment and much to my amazement its progress slowed, then halted, leaving me rigid but conscious.
In truth, I would have preferred it if death had taken me! That seemed much preferable to a continued existence like this, rigid, cold and unable to move or speak, yet alive and fully aware of my surroundings. I discovered that I could move my eyes somewhat but, other than that, no muscle in my body, neither large nor small, responded to my summons.
Another quake, more powerful than the previous one, vibrated through the hall and a bestial, obscene bellowing erupted from the shadows across the fire pit. A grating sound followed, then a heavy footfall could be heard, and another one. From the corner of my eye I could see the acolytes turn and kneel down on the floor.
In the shadows across from the firepit something moved, but my limited field of view was insufficient to reveal any detail. Another bellow came forth, even more bestial than the previous one, and the sound would have chilled me to the bone if not for the fact that I had already achieved that particular state.
Then, as it slowly strode forward, I saw it. The demonic statue that had occupied the niche in the front wall of the hall was still demonic, but it was no longer a statue. Where there had been stone was now flesh, albeit of a cold and inhuman looking sort, appearing to be more than somewhat reptilian in nature. The workings of whatever dark magic had been employed had clearly been in the nature of an obscene exchange: living flesh had been transferred from myself and my colleagues to this unholy creature, to be replaced with its stony counterpart in return!
But why had the process remained incomplete, instead of fully transforming me as it had done to the others? Had its demand for my life force (if that is what it took from us) been satisfied before fully draining me? And what would my fate now be?
The girl atop me opened her eyes and blinked, but her hairless visage remained entirely expressionless. She pushed herself up, lifting herself off me, and with a shock I noticed that the icy paralysis that had claimed my body did not seem to extend to my rod! I could clearly feel it slide out of her sex and, although it remained rigid, it did not share the numbness that pervaded the rest of my body. Looking down as far as the limited mobility of my eyes would allow, I saw that it did have the same dark, glossy and obsidian-like appearance that the rest of me now exhibited, yet I still felt life within it! I tried to command whatever muscles would still obey me and, oh joy of joys! my rod twitched in response, albeit ever so slightly.
Could this be what had prevented my utter demise? For it was clear to me now that the hellish transformation that should have claimed my mind as well as my body had remained incomplete for reasons that had not applied to my companions. What ramifications this might have I could not even begin to guess.
Then the terrible creature rounded the firepit and strode into the dim light, and if I could have screamed in my horror I certainly would have done so. The expression on its demonic face surpassed any conceivable level of cruelty, and the evil that shone in its eyes defied description. Its green, scaly hide looked damp and unwholesome, and the creature exuded a cold sense of dread that made itself felt within my very soul.
As it turned I saw one other thing from the corner of my eye: its disproportionately large member was no longer hanging down idly from its loins. It stood up, erect and fully engorged now and therefore even larger than before, to the point where it was easily three, perhaps four times the size of what even the most generously proportioned human male could ever have been endowed with. It did not share the creature’s predominantly green and scaly character, though, but instead had retained its black, glossy and stony appearance.
The creature did not seem to care, or even notice. It bellowed again, and the hall resonated with the volume of its hellish roar. In response to this summons the High Priestess strode forward, approaching the demonic form to within a few paces. She spread her arms in a gesture of supplication, as if presenting herself to the creature, and she spoke once again in that strangely harsh, guttural language. The words were, of course, incomprehensible to me, but something in her posture and her voice spoke of desire and of invitation.
The hellish creature strode forward to the foot of the central, unoccupied altar. It grabbed the High Priestess’ wrist and pulled her toward the altar. Cooperating willingly, she turned and raised both arms high and bent down over it until the tips of her breasts touched its cold surface, thus offering her shapely, rounded hindquarters in clear invitation. The creature positioned itself behind her until its obscenely large member, swollen, rigid and erect, was aimed directly at the entrance of her sex. Then, gripping the Priestess’ hips with both scaly claws, the creature impaled her with one fell thrust.
How she could possibly survive this ordeal I am still unable to explain until this very day. The inhuman size of that black obsidian phallus should have torn her asunder, rupturing her sex and tearing her inner flesh to the point of killing her almost instantly. Yet the arm-long obsidian rod slid into her sex all the way with the ease of a fox slipping into a thicket. This, given the obscene dimensions of the stony member, should have been impossible and I realized once again that, while the High Priestess might at least have appeared to be human to a certain degree, she was in fact nothing of the sort. Each one of the acolytes who had so skillfully ridden my member had looked and felt like an ordinary woman, at least as far as her sex had been concerned. Yet the High Priestess was able to receive that enormous phallus without any apparent suffering. On the contrary: for the first time since I had laid eyes on her, her face was no longer expressionless. Instead an unholy joy now shone in her eyes.
The creature partially withdrew its rigid member from her sex, then thrust it back into her, penetrating her body to what should have been an impossible depth. Yet the High Priestess showed no signs of suffering whatsoever. If anything, the impaling appeared to give her great pleasure. The demon seemed to experience a modicum of lust as well: baring its frightful fangs, it began to grunt with every thrust, arching its back as it pushed its pelvis forward. In fact, the congress between demon and Priestess soon took on all the usual aspects of such encounters as they proceeded to consummate their unholy union. The demon gradually increased both the speed and force of its thrust and the Priestess began to cry out in obvious pleasure, her cries serving as a counterpoint to the demon’s grunting, until they both made the hall ring in concert with this audible expression of their lust. The drum, which had fallen silent sometime during my vitrification, resumed its beating as if to set the pace for this hellish fornication.
I am not sure for how long this continued. The Priestess’ cries gained pitch and volume until they reached crescendo and her release overtook her, not once but several times in succession. However, the demon’s frenzy did not appear to reach a similar peak. Instead its grunting and growling took on overtones of frustration until, at long last, it roared not in pleasure but in obvious anger.
At first I thought it was a trick of the dim light, or of the fact that I could move neither my eyes nor my head and could only perceive all his at the very edge of my vision. But gradually it became clear that this was not the case and that what I thought I saw actually occurred: the demon’s scaly hide began to darken. At first the change took place in small spots and patches, but soon its general hue changed, loosing its greenish cast and taking on darker shades.
The priestess, unaware of this as the demon continued to ravage her nethers from its position behind her, remained lost in her ecstasy. However, considerable upset erupted among the acolytes. Crying out among themselves in that strange, harsh language, their faces were no longer expressionless but now showed anguish and even horror, save for one of them, who remained as calm and serene as before. This was the girl who had ridden my manhood so skillfully in those final moments, uttering her strange incantations. None of the others appeared to notice this in their consternation, but some small suspicion began to grow within me.
The demon roared again, this time clearly in frustration, rage and even fear. Its movements began to slow as its skin continue to darken, until finally its thrusts ground to a halt. Then it froze, its claws still gripping the High Priestess’ hips, its phallus buried to the hilt into her sex. Thus impaled, she did not seem to notice, lost as she was in some unearthly ecstasy, the nature of which I will probably never be able to fathom.
The cries of the acolytes turned into screams of despair at that point, and an enormous tremor shook the hall. Dust and bits of stone rained down from the vaulted ceiling, and as this occurred I noticed something that filled me with a mad, desperate hope: when a piece of stone the size of a pebble fell upon my chest, I could feel the impact! Where there had been only numbness and paralysis, I once again felt signs of life, albeit faintly, within my body!
Once again the hall shook, more severely this time, and larger fragments fell down from the dark heights of its stone rafters. More dust rose in the air and a loud, sustained rumbling could be heard over the screams of panic and horror from the acolytes. This time there was no doubt: I could clearly feel my body move with the vibrations transmitted from the hall’s rocky foundations through the stone bier upon which I lay. Then the altar cracked under me.
Suddenly I was released! The mysterious attraction that had held me bound to its surface had vanished, and I could move. When I say “move”, I do not mean that I was able to sit up, stand or even walk about. I managed to shift one of my legs slightly, and when I tried to move my fingers I felt them respond, albeit sluggishly.
What I saw then made my heart leap with joy. On the altar next to me, the still form of young Johnson stirred. I was not the only one who had so miraculously been preserved! That meant that there was hope for my other companions as well.
Another quake shook the hall and more sensation and more mobility, if not control, was returned to my body. I managed to move my arms from the spread position in which they had previously been held until my hands touched my hips. While this took a considerable effort, I was greatly encouraged by the fact that my fingers encountered, not hard and cold stone, but warm skin and pliable flesh.
All the while the panic among the acolytes continued to increase. They milled about without apparent plan or purpose, as if all reason and cognizance had departed them, something that I realized, with a sudden insight that I am unable to explain until this very day, was indeed the case. These creatures, like the High Priestess herself, were not nearly as human as they appeared: whereas previously some unholy and unnatural conscience had sustained and guided them, all such control had now disappeared and what was left could no longer be truly classified as intelligent beings.
I also realized that time was running out for me. If I were to make good my escape at all, I had better do it while I still had the chance. Where I found the strength to sit up I knew not, but somehow I managed it. The effort it took was nothing short of Herculean, and not even the great Atlas himself has ever lifted a heavier load, but by dint of sheer desperation I somehow managed it. My movements were slow and uncontrolled, but at least there was life in me again.
From my new vantage point I could see my companions stir likewise, thus fulfilling my hopes that they, also, found themselves revived! On the altar next to me, young Jackson pushed himself up, appearing weak and reeling like a drunkard. I imagine I did not look much better myself. Yet I pressed on, forcing myself swing my legs over the edge of the stone slab. I slid more than moved off the bier, and my legs buckled under me when my feet reached the floor. Pausing but for a moment to catch my breath, I eventually managed to stand. When I looked up, I saw that my companions were likewise reviving themselves, and were now in various stages of recovery. Jackson was sitting up, looking dazed, while Barstow had managed to stand, leaning on the altar to support himself. All of us had begun to reacquire our normal skin tone, although the last remnants of stony blackness still lingered in patches.
Carefully, I tried to take a step. My sense of balance was still affected and I lurched as if intoxicated. Gaining control over my wayward limbs with great effort, I managed another step, and another one. I moved with a glacial slowness, and my body felt strangely heavy, but I moved.
Behind me I heard a loud crash. The floor shook once again, and dust billowed to fill the air. I took another step. The going seemed somewhat easier now, as if the effects of whatever devilry had been done to me slowly wore off, or perhaps were being diminished as the damage to the hall progressed. Whatever the case may have been, I slowly but surely made my way to where I remembered the entrance to the hall to be. I expected attempts from the acolytes to waylay me, but none of them interfered. In fact, they seemed no longer able to register any of the cataclysmic events that took place about them.
Before me, shrouded in billowing clouds of dust, I could make out the entrance, made my way toward it. The tremors continued to increase in magnitude and frequency as I slowly stumbled on. Once I was thrown to the ground and much valuable time was lost while I struggled to recover my footing. As I did so, I saw my companions following me, led by Barstow, who seemed to be in a better condition than most of the others. Delarousse seemed to be worst off and was supported by Gardner and Bradford.
After what seemed an eternity we reached the gate. Its unwholesome green glow had vanished and now it appeared to be made of normal, earthly stone. I supported myself against one of the edges and looked behind me to see if we was being followed, but none of the acolytes were in pursuit. Just before I turned, a large fragment of the ceiling came down. The last thing I saw was the High Priestess, who still lay on her altar, apparently lost in her bliss, impaled as she was by the frozen, stony shape of the demon standing motionless behind her.
As I stepped through the gate, I felt as if a great weight was lifted off me. In hindsight it is now clear to me that the malicious influence of the evil enchantments under which I still labored did not extend beyond the limits of the hall, but at the time it felt like a miraculous escape. I breathed deeply of the air, dust-laden and full of dank and decay as it was, as we proceeded down the passage at a quicker pace. Some of the stone sculptures, which I now knew to be the vitrified remains of the poor souls who had entered this infernal place before, had fallen down and lay shattered upon the floor. We stumbled, lurched and dragged ourselves onward, moving like drunkards and gaining headway only slowly.
After what seemed an eternity we saw light before us, and somewhat later the outline of the entrance appeared through the dust. I tried to run then, but the residual stiffness still permeating my extremities prevented this and the best I was capable of amounted to the awkward stumble of a sufferer of the palsy, and the others weren’t much better off than I was. Be that as it may, we eventually did make our way through the final section of the passage and, at long last, gained the gate and emerged into the light.
Oh, that light! Even to this very day I am unable to describe the relief I felt in that hour, to see the daylight that I had so surely known never to see again. Gusty winds, laden with icy droplets, lashed my naked skin, and the stone was rough and painful under my feet, but I cared not. The sheer joy of having escaped that unholy hall and its unspeakable horrors was stronger by far than these trifling discomforts.
We stumbled down the path, the ground shaking under our feet. I do not remember much of my mad dash back to where we had intended to make our camp, except that I fell down several times as the tremors increased in magnitude until they amounted to a fully fledged earthquake. Exhaustion, both physical and emotional, had begun to exact their respective tolls and I barely recall my shipmates finding us there several hours later. I dimly recall that I was wrapped only in a blanket at the time and barely coherent.
There is no other way to say this and I freely admit it: I suffered a lapse of my critical faculties then. I do not recall our return to the ship, nor do I remember any detail of the voyage home. When at long last I came to my senses, several months later in what I gradually understood to be a sanatorium for the mentally infirm, I was told that I had been incoherent from the moment my shipmates had found me.
Having come to investigate what had become of our party following the cataclysmic upheaval that had shaken the entire island, they had followed our footsteps to the camp site. Some of them, having proceeded further along the path, had found the entrance to the passage caved in and, as the earthquake continued and became more intense, had barely made their hasty escape alive.
Huge waves had made it difficult to return to the ship, and more than once the tiny sloop in which the rescue party had come had almost been overturned. Not long thereafter the island had begun to subside, slowly but surely, only the tip of that hellish rock remaining visible above the churning waters. Suitably afraid, the crew had hoisted anchor as soon as this geological upheaval commenced, and had observed its progress from a safe and steadily increasing distance.
The doctors are patient with me and believe they can cure me as they have managed to cure most of my companions, but the horrors that still haunt me are far too great to be expressed in mere words, and so far I have been unable to discuss freely what has occurred.
Fortunately I have found that I am still able to write and, as a man (if I still can make that claim) of science, I do feel the need to document my experiences, factually and in detail, as a warning for posterity even if nothing else. The horrors that lie buried under that storm-lashed, rocky peak that still protrudes from those inhospitable waters must never be disturbed, much less be unearthed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
For even now these horrors live within me. I am afraid to sleep but sleep I must, sooner or later, until I wake to the sounds of my own screams. For whenever I sleep, the dream I have is always the same.
In this feverish nightmare, I stand amid a city constructed from gray, hewn stone, an unspeakably long time ago. Its ancient architecture is stark, dominated as it is by pyramid-tipped columns, by pillars supporting massive lintels and by platforms on may levels. Many temples there are, their entrances flanked by monstrous statues, and as lightning shoots through the black, roiling sky overhead the sound of thunder echoes off the dark buildings, and smoke rises from the great firepits and from the braziers flanking their entrances.
I stand atop a flight of steps. The stone before me is red with the blood of the slaves that have just been sacrificed to me. The chanting crowd is composed of creatures like, yet unlike, men and women. I emerge from the niche that I have occupied for a time so long as to be meaningless in modern terms, my limbs still stiff after having been so recently awakened. I turn and face the altar on which my intended lies, prostrate, her lush, ripe body inviting and ready. I ascend the altar to mount her, my phallus hard, erect and ready. I enter her sex, knowing that upon the consummation of our union I shall rule this world for a thousand years, while the offspring of our union will consume it for a thousand more.
Then I wake, the sheets of my bed invariably soaked with my spilled seed, and the final image of that hellish dream still before me: the face of my ancient arch-enemy, casting his spell to numb my rod, thus preventing me from gaining release and completing that final act which will ensure my dominion over this world of wretched mortals. The same face, somehow, as that of the acolyte who rode my rod so skillfully during the final moments of that accursed ritual in that demonic hall, softly uttering her enchantments all the while so as to withhold that last, vital bit of life force from her mortal enemy and thus gain victory over him once more.
I know not how, but some of the life that was taken from me to unleash a slumbering demon and, through frightful spells or dark magic, finally returned to me, must have infused me with some of the demon’s memories as well. At least I hope this to be the case, because the alternative is too terrible a horror to even contemplate.
For I remember. I am Angt’ush Klat-Gar’chak, the one referred to by my worshippers as Gar, ruler of the underworld and wielder of darkness, and I will feed upon this, the physical realm, for a thousand years once my return to flesh is complete. This is certain. I will vanquish my arch-enemy and this will come to pass.
Shiver, mortals. I hunger. And I will return.
THE END