Samples from books that we have published under the Eartherean Press imprint.
This is another in a series from the second book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: The Divine Queen.
© 1982 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. The license is included as an appendix to this work.
FOREWORD
‘AGAIN, you are to imagine these events occurring outside the lands where men dwell, on the far side of the mountains beyond which the light of Goddess-Sun never ventures: only the cold, unwholesome light of the Lord-Moon. There no things grow or live but those of whom I speak; and the ceaseless dark, the unstopping rains, and the unabating cold reign supreme… When all these preparations have been duly completed … then the torches are extinguished one by one in buckets of rainwater, to symbolize the drowning of the light of Goddess in the water of God… Then a nude girl, usually a maiden, and always of palest skin and lightest-colored hair, is brought forth, and chained over the black altar. She is neither drugged nor gagged, as the worshipers take great delight in hearing her cries; and sometimes if she grows too quiet, they will prod her flesh with barbarous sharp lances…
‘When the moon is at its zenith, and the malevolent dark landscape lambent with its glow, the high priest, usually the chief of the tribe or the Warlord of the assembled peoples, comes forth. Over his head, he wears a mask of dark iron representing the features of his grinning, evil God. The man is naked, although at one ritual I have seen with my own eyes, he wore scenes upon his flesh in various pigments, perhaps in an effort to disguise himself. He mounts the maiden and among the rude cheers of his people and the screams of the victim couples with her. “She is nothing but dirt beneath our feet,” he is heard to exclaim. “We worship only Him, and will follow Him into Darkness wheresoever He may lead us!”
‘At the end of the rite the girl, near death already, is dispatched. Her blood is sprinkled about on the ground, and the worshipers, with frenzied drunkenness and blood-lust, trample the blood into the earth. I only repeat to those skeptics amongst you, that I have seen these things with my own eyes. The remains of her body are confined in a box and buried deep in the dark concealing earth, and a stone marker raised over the spot, to keep her spirit from ever rising again. And this cruel ceremony is not a rare thing among them by any means, but is often performed, especially before or during the course of the frequent raids they undertake against civilized lands, for example, the fortresses of Ul Raambar…’
— from the Book of Skhel, by the learned Inozelstus of Anoth, describing the religious rites of the Madpriests
