THE TESTIMONY OF THE THE TESTIMONY OF THE
MAD ARAB
The wolves carry thier name in thier midnight speeches, and thatquiet, subtle Voice is summoning me from afar. And a voice much closer willshout into my ear with unholy impatience. The weight of my soul will decideits final resting place. Before the time, I must put down here all that I canconcerning the horrors that stalk Without, and which lie in wait at the doorof every man, for this is the ancient arcana that has been handed down of old,but which has been forgotten by all but a few men, the worshippers of theAncient Ones (may thier names be blotted out!)
And if I do not finish this task, take what is here and discover therest, for time is short and mankind does not know or understand the evil thatawaits it, from every side, from every open Gate, from every broken barrier,from every mindless acolyte at the alters of madness.
For this is the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Black Earth, thatI have writ down at the peril of my life, exactly as I recieved it, on theplanes of IGIGI, the cruel celestial spirits from beyond the Wanderers of theWastes.
Let all who read this book be warned thereby that the habitation ofmen are seen and surveyed by that Ancient Race of gods and demons from a timebefore time, and that they seek revenge for that forgotten battle that tookplace somewhere in the Cosmos and rent the Worlds in the days before the crea-tion of Man, when the Elder Gods walked the Spaces, the race of MARDUK, as heis known to the Chaldeans, and of ENKI our master, the Lord of Magicians.
Know, then, that I have trod all the Zones of the Gods, and also theplaces of Azonei, and have descended into the foul places of Death and EternalThirst, which may be reached through the Gate of GANZIR, which was built in URin the days before Babylonian was.
Know, too, that I have spoken with all manner of spirit and daemon,whose names are no longer known in the societies of Man, or were never known.And the seals of these are writ herein ; yet others I must take with me when Ileave you. ANU have mercy on my soul! {Actually Jesus Christ is the one heshould ask for forgiveness from, for Christ is the all powerful God and theonly god full of love}
I have seen the Unknown Lands, that no map has ever charted. I havelived in the deserts and the wastelands, and spoken with demons and the soulsof slaughtered men, and of women who have died in childbirth, victims of theshe-fiend LAMMASHTA.
I have traveled beneath the Seas, in search of the Palace of OurMaster, and found the stone monuments of vanquished civilizations, and de-ciphered the writings of some of these; while still others remain mysteriesto any man who lives. And these civilizations were destroyed because of theknoeledge contained in this book.
I have traveled among the stars, and trembled before the gods. Ihave at last found the formula by which I passed the gate of ARZIR, and passedinto the forbidden realms ofthe foul IGIGI.
I have raised demons, and the dead.
I have summoned the ghosts of my ancestors to real and visible ap-pearence on the tops of temples built to reach the stars, and built to touchthe nethermost cavities of HADES. I have wrestled with the Black Magician,AZAG-THOTH, in vain, and fled to the Earth by calling upon INANNA and herbrother MARDUK, Lord of the double-headed AXE.
I have raised armiesagainst the Lands of the East, by summoning thehordes of fiends I have made subject unto me, and so doing found NGAA, the godof the heathens, who breathes flame and roares like a thousand thunders.
I have found fear.
I have found the Gate that leads to the Outside, by which theAncient Ones, who ever seek the entrance to our world, keep eternal watch. Ihave smelled the vapors of that Ancient One, Queen of the Outside, whose nameis writ in the MAGAN text, the testiment of some dead civilization whosepriests, seeking power, swing open the dread, evil Gate for an hour past thetime and were consumed.
I came to possess this knowledge through circumstances quite pecul-iar, while still the unlettered son of a shepherd in what is called Mesopot-amia by the Greeks.
When I was only a youth, traveling alone in the mountains to theEast, called MASSHU by the people who live there, I came upon a grey rockcarved with three strange symbols. It stood as high as a man, and as widearound as a bull. It was firmly in the ground, and I could not move it.Thinking no more of the carvings, save that they might be the work of a kingto mark some Ancient victory over an enemy, I built a fire at its foot toprotect me from the from the wolves that wander in that reigons and went tosleep, for it was night and I was far from my village, being Bet Durrabia.Bieng about three hours from dawn, in the nineteenth of Shabatu, I wasawakened by the howl of a dog, or perhaps a wolf, uncommonly loud and closeat hand. The fire had died to its embers, and these red, glowing coals cast afaint, dancing shadow across the stone monument with the three carvings. Ibegan to make haste to build another fire when, at once, the grey rock beganto rise slowly into the air, as if it were a dove. I could not move or speakfor the fear that siezed upon my spine and wrapped cold fingers around myskull. The Dik of Azug-bel-ya was no stranger seemed to melt into my hands! Presently, I heard a voice, softly, some distance away and a morepractical fear, that the possibility of robbers, took hold of me and I rolledbehind weeds, trembling. Another voice joined the first, and soon several menin black robes of thieves came together over the place where I was, surroundinthe floating rock, of which they did not exhibit in the least fright.
I could see clearly now that the three carvings on the stone monu-ment were glowing, a flame red color, as through the rock were on fire. Thefigures were murmuring together in prayer or invocation, of which only a fewwords could be heard, and these in some unknown tongue; though, ANU have mercyon my soul!, these rituals are not unknown to me any longer.
The figures, whose faces I could not see or recognize, began to makewild passes in the air with knives that glinted cold and sharp in the mountainnight.
From beneath the floating rock, out of the very ground where it hadsat, came rising the tail of a serpent. This serpent was surely larger thanany I had ever seen. The thinnest section thereof was fully that of the armsof two men, and as it rose from the earth it was followed by another, althoughthe end of the first was not seen as it seemed to reach down into the very Pititself. These were followed by still more, and the ground began to trembleunder the pressure of so many of these enormous arms. The chanting of thepriests, for I knew them now to be some the servents ofsome hidden Power,became much louder and nearly hysterical.
IA! IA! ZI AZAG!
IA!IA! ZI AZKAK!
IA! IA! KUTULU ZI KUR!
IA!
The ground where I was hiding became wet with some substance, beingslightly downhill from the scene I was witnessing. I touched the wetness andfound it to be blood. In horror I screamed and gave my presence away to thepriests. They turned toward me, and I saw with loathing that they had cuttheir chests with the daggers they had used to raise the stone, for some mys-tical purpose I could not then divine; although I now know that blood is thevery food of these spirits, which is why tha field after the battles of warglows with an unnatural light, the manifestation of the spirits feeding there-on.
May ANU protect us all!
My scream had the effect of casting thier ritual into chaos and dis-order. I raced through the mountain path by which I had come, and the priestscame running after me, although some seemed to stay behind, perhaps to finishthe Rites. However, as I ran wildly down the slopes in the cold night, myheart gave rise in my chest and my head growing hot, the sound of splittingrocks and thunder came from behind me and shook the very ground I ran on. Infright and haste I fell to the earth. Rising, I turned to face whatever attackerhad come nearest me,though I was unarmed. To my surprise, what I saw was no priest of ancienthorror, no necromancer of that forbidden Art, but black robes fallen upon thegrass and weeds, with no seeming presance of life or bodies beneath them. I walked cautiously to the first and, picking up a long twig, liftedthe robe from the tangle of weeds and thorns. All that remained of the priestwas a pool of slime, like green oil, and the smell of a body lain long in thesun to rot. Such a stench nearly overpowered me, but I was resolute to findthe others, to see if the same fortune had also befallen them.
Walking back up the slope that I had so fearfully run down onlymoments ago, I came across yet another of the black priests, in identicalcondition to the first. I kept walking, passing more of the robes as I went,not venturing to overturn them any longer. Then, I finally came upon the greystone monument that had risen unnaturally into the air at the command of thepriests. It was now upon the ground once more, but the carvings still glowedwith supernatural light. The serpents, or what I had then thought of as ser-pents, had disappeared. But in the dead embers of the fire, now cold andblack, was a shining metal plate. I picked it up and saw that it was alsocarved, as the stone, but very intricatly, after a fasion I could not under-stand. It did not bear the same markings as the stone, but I had the feelingI coukd almost read the characters, but could not, as though I once knew thetongue but had since long forgotten. Mt head began to ache as though a devilwas pounding my skull, when a shaft of moonlight hit the metal amulet, for Iknow now what it was, and a voice entered my head and told me the secrets ofthe scene I had witnessed in one word: KUTULU. In that moment, as though whispered fiercly into my ear, I under-stood.
These were the signs carved upon the grey stone, that was the gateto the Outside:
(I wish to apologize for the primitive descriptions of the sym-bols but its about the best that can be done with this file writer)
The amulet that I held in my hand, and hold to this very day, aroundmy neck as I write these words, is this:
(after seeing the so-called pictureof the symbols you can probably understand why I did not attempt to show youthe amulet)Of the three symbols carved, the first is the Sign of our Race frombeyond the Stars, and is called ARRA in the tongue of the Scribe who taught itto me, an emissary of the Elder Ones. In the tongue of the eldest city ofBabylon, it was UR. It is the Sigil of the Covenant of the Elder Gods, andwhen they see it, they who gave it to us, they will not forget us. They havesworn!
Spirit of the Skies, Remember!
The second sign is the Elder Sign, and is the Key whereby the Powersof the Elder Gods may be summoned, when used with the proper words and shapes.It has a Name, and is called AGGA.
The third sign is the Sigil of the Watcher. It is called BANDAR.The Watcher is a Race sent by the Elder Ones. It keeps vigil while one sleepsprovided the appropriate rituals and sacrifice has been preformed; else, ifcalled, it will turn upon you.
These seals, to be effective, must be graven on stoneand set in theground. Or, set upon the alter of offerings. Or, carried to the Rock ofInvocations. Or, engraved upon the metal of ones God or Goddes and hung aboutthe neck, but hidden from the view of the profane. Of these three, the ARRAand the AGGA may be used seperatly, that is to say singly, and alone. TheBANDAR however, must never be used alone, but with one or both of the others,for the Watcher must needs to be reminded of the Covenant he has sworn withthe Elder Gods and our Race, else it will turn upon thee and slay thee andravage thy town untill succour is to be had from the Elder Gods by the tearsof thy people and the wailing of thy women.
KAKAMMU!