In Their Darkened Shrines 4

Nile

I knew they were Accursed

so remote were these nameless desert ruins

Crumbling and inarticulate the debris of

its collapsed walls was

Nearly hidden by the sands of the uncounted ages

It must have been thus before the first stones of

Memphis were laid

And the bricks of Babylon unbaked

Fear spoke from the age worn stones

This desolate survivor of the Deluge

This crumbling antidiluvial ancestor

Of the Eldest Pyramid



Only the grim brooding desert Gods

Knew what really took place here

What indescribable struggles and bloodshed

Awoke some distant throng of condemned spirits

And broke the tomblike silence of these crumbled

Time ravaged remains these night black ruins

Of some vanguished and buried Temple of Belial



But as the Night wind diad away

Above the desert rim rose the

Blazing edge of the morning sun

Which in my fevered state

I swore that from some remote depth there came a

Great crash of metal

Like a great Bronze gate

Clanging shut whose reverberations swelled out

To hail the rising Sun as Memnon hails in

From the banks of the Nile



[This four-part epic is a tale very much inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, and to a lesser degree, Robert E. Howard. It tills the story of a rebellions Serpent cult who are plotting to overthrow Pharonic rule. They are attempting to raise the spirits of the ancient dead, to barness thei arcane knowledge and build an army of undead legions. The story takes place within the subterranean main ch.mber of the crypts of mummified reptiles (true enough, archaeologists have indeed unearthed entire necropolises containing thousand of mummified crocodiles, serpents, ancient Nile monitor lizards, and various other animals that were worshiped as personifications of the gods they represented). Within these dark and bloodstained halls are not only the remains of three millenia of generations of priests and worshippers, but also the mummified corpses of all manner of glorified reptilian deities. The leader of these rebels is standing in the midst of this vast array of Saurian entombment