Daughters of the Black Goat

Clad only in witchfire I have seen the daughters of the Black Goat dancing in hidden glades beneath the full moon! That very moon which is the eye of their Dark Mother! And the shapes that come from the woods to dance with them, things cast in a mold not of this world or of any world where sanity and light prevail!
 (Except from a sermon given by Rev. Alton Bowers at the Church of the Holy Light in Arkham, Massachusetts in 1906)

Innsmouth

 The rotten fish smell of Innsmouth no longer sickened him. A part of him loathed the town and it's vile inhabitants. That part of him, the human part, was weak and frightened, it begged him to run screaming into
the rain until the town was far behind.
    In the street below his open window a priest read from a scroll. The words were older than mankind and
not meant to be voiced by men but the words came easy to the priest. The flabby, drooling, lips spoke with
authority, rising above the din of the storm.
  "Pha'tgn Uig'liu Dagon"
  "Ia Ia Mg'nui CTHULHU"
  "Dagon yath'lei"
  "Ug'liu DAGON"
 They were coming up the stairs. Shambling, bleating, many crawled on limbs more suited to the slimy sea floor. The door opened. No, he would not run from Innsmouth, he would take Dagon's sacrament and reveal his true self, then he would live forever amid the terrible beauty of the Deep Ones.

The Saga of Huurgan, part 1

In time it came to Huurgan to leave the island of Co'crissus and take up again to the sea, for the wanderlust in his heart was far greater than his desire to remain as consort to the Queen Saajh, regardless of the comforts and pleasures of that position. He woke early one morning and left the Saajh dreaming in the royal bed chambers, then roused his crew and bid them to set sail as the sun rose.

Saajh awoke alone and went down to the docks in time to spy Huurgan's ship pulling from the harbor. A great anger rose in Saajh and she swore by the dark gods that her lover would not leave until she tired of him. With good reason was Saajh called the Witch Queen of Co'Crissus for she conjured a terrible astral demon that set to devouring Huurgan's crew.

Seeing that a ship with no crew is useless, Huurgan took up arms and fought the monster. But to no avail for his weapons passed without harm through the creature's vaporous form. In desperation Huurgan  turned and hurled his spear in a long arc across the bay, striking full into the ivory bosom of the Witch Queen. Saajh sank to the docks with a sigh as the last breath left her body and without the Witch Queen’s life force to sustain it, the ravenous demon faded away.

Huurgan's crew pulled mightily upon the oars and the ship raced to the open sea. But a great sorrow came upon Huurgan while he plied the tiller and pondered the death of Saajh;  for that spear had been a gift from a gladiatrix of Ukadd and it was a very fine spear indeed. (From The Lemurian Codex, Chapter XXXVII The Journeys of Huurgan)

Adompha's Garden

"And there were many other weird plants, diverse as the seven hells, and having no common characteristics other than the scions which Dwerulas had grafted upon them here and there through his unnatural and necromantic art.
These scions were the various parts and members of human beings. Consumately, and with never faillng success, the magician had joined them to the half-vegetable, half-animate stocks on which they lived and grew thereafter, drawing an ichor-like sap. "
 (from "The Garden of Adompha" by Clark Ashton Smith)

Daughter of Set

 

 

 

 

 

"But he could see only the god-like face, the finely molded head which swayed curiously from side to side. The full lips opened and spoke a single word, in a rich vibrant tone that was like the golden chimes that ring in the jungle-lost temples of Khitai. It was an unknown tongue, forgotten before the kingdoms of man arose, but Conan knew that it meant, “Come!”

(Robert E. Howard, The God in the Bowl)

The Necromancer

The old Necromancer bade Alhazrad to be silent as he chanted an invocation to the Unspeakable Lord of Hali. The two wizards sat in an ancient graveyard on the outskirts of Mandore, protected by a magic circle drawn in their own blood. Alhazrad stole a glance at the necromancer's scrolls. Written in the magical tongue of lost Hyperborea, the scrolls contained secrets of life, death, and the undead.

The necromancer lit the wick of a stinking candle and sprinkled the essential salts over it. Then he spoke, "Now neophyte, watch as the dead rise. While the candle burns they know me as their master and before it burns out I will claim the most able and lay the carrion back to their graves with my art."

Spasms of fear ran through Alhazrad as the graves began to vomit forth the dead. They rose with moans of pain, angry at the interruption of their sleep. The eyeless sockets held nothing but grave worms, but to Alhazrad they seemed...hungry.

The Necromancer strode outside the protective circle and stood among the living dead. He gloated, "Fear them not, though they would devour us living were they not restrained by the candle. Now neophyte, tell me who is greater than he who quickens the dead to make them his slaves?"

Then a sudden gust of wind blew out the candle, plunging them into darkness. Alhazrad fumbled for his flint to reignite it. He heard the sounds of struggle, then screams of agony from his companion. After seconds of desperation Alhazrad restored the candle's flame. In that feeble flickering light, eyes wide with horror, he watched the dead feast on their former master.

Priest of Bokrug

"It is told that in the immemorial years when the world was young, before ever the men of Sarnath came to the land of Mnar, another city stood beside the lake; the gray stone city of Ib, which was old as the lake itself, and peopled with beings not pleasing to behold. Very odd and ugly were these beings, as indeed are most beings of a world yet inchoate and rudely fashioned. It is written on the brick cylinders of Kadatheron that the beings of lb were in hue as green as the lake and the mists that rise above it; that they had bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice. It is also written that they descended one night from the moon in a mist; they and the vast still lake and gray stone city lb. However this may be, it is certain that they worshipped a sea-green stone idol chiseled in the likeness of Bokrug, the great water-lizard; before which they danced horribly when the moon was gibbous."
 (from "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" by H.P. Lovecraft, 1920)