When I was but a youth, traveling alone in the mountains to the East called MASHU by the people who live there, I came upon a large gray rock carved with three strange symbols. It stood as high as a man and as wide around as a bull. It was firmly stuck in the ground and I could not make it topple.
Thinking no more of the carvings, save that they might be the work of some warlord to mark an ancient victory over his enemy, I built a fire at its foot to protect me from the from the wolves that wander in that region and then went to sleep. It was night and I was far from anything I knew. And, Mt. MASHU is approximately 120 miles from the nearest village which is known as BA DURABYA. Being about three hours from dawn, on the nineteenth of Shabatu, I was awakened by the howl of some kind of dog. It was uncommonly loud and seemed very close at hand.
The fire had died down to its embers and the red, glowing coals cast a faint, dancing shadow across the stone monument brandishing these three odd carvings. I began to make haste to build another fire when all of a sudden the gray rock began to rise slowly into the air as if it were beginning to hover. It was strangely horrifying because it was very dark and certainly some unknowable sorcery must be lifting this rock.
I could not move or speak from the fear that seized my spine and wrapped cold fingers around my skull.
I heard a soft voice some distance away. A more practical fear, the possibility of robbers, took hold of me and I rolled behind some weeds while trembling uncontrollably.
Another voice joined the first and soon several figures in black robes came together around the place where I was camped directly under the floating rock. They did not exhibit the least bit of fright.
I could see clearly now that the three carvings on the stone monument were glowing, a flaming assortment of colors, as through the rock were on fire from the inside. The figures were murmuring together in prayer or invocation or something in some unknown tongue, only a few words of which could be transcribed.
The figures, whose faces I could not see, began to make seemingly wild passes in the air with knives that glinted cold and sharp amid the mountain sky. Although they seemed erratic, their somatic gestures simply had to be calculated motions of magical significance.
From beneath the floating rock, out of the very ground where it had sat, came rising the head of a serpent. This serpent was surely larger than any I had ever seen. Something more than supernatural was at work, here.
One section of this snake possessed human arms and as it rose from the earth further it was followed by another set of arms.
These were followed by more still and the ground began to rumble. The chanting of the priests (for I knew even then that they were the servants of some hidden power) became much louder and nearly hysterical.
“IA! IA! ZI AZAG! IA!IA! ZI AZKAK! IA! IA! ZI KUR! IA!” The sediment where I was hiding became moist with some foreign substance. Being slightly downhill from the scene I was witnessing, I touched the liquid and found it to be blood. In terror I screamed and gave my presence away to the priests. They turned towards me and I saw (with loathing) that they had sliced deeply into their chests with the daggers they had used to raise the stone for some mystical purpose I could not then divine. Although, I now know that blood is the very food of their familiar spirits, which I assume must be why the field after a battle glows with an unnatural light. It is the manifestation of the spirits who are feeding upon the dead and dying.
“May ANU protect us all!”
My scream had the effect of casting their ritual into disarray. I raced through the mountain path by which I had arrived, and the priests came running after me, although some seemed to stay behind, perhaps to finish the rites. As I ran wildly down the slopes in the cold night, my heart gave rise to rapid palpitations in my chest and my head was growing feverish, the sound of splitting rocks and thunder came from behind me and shook the very terrain I was running on. In fright and haste I fell to the earth. Rising, I turned to face whatever attacker would come near me even though I was unarmed.
To my surprise, what I saw was no priest of ancient dread, no necromancer of forbidden arts, but rather black robes fallen upon the rocky mountainside with no presence of life beneath them.
I walked cautiously to the robe which was closest to me and using a long twig I lifted the robe from the cropping of boulders. All that remained of the priest was a pool of slime, like green oil, and the smell of a body lain too long in the sun to rot. Such a stench nearly overpowered me, but I was resolute to find the others to see if the same fate had also befallen them.
Striding back up the slope that I had so fearfully run down only moments ago, I came across yet another of the black priests in identical condition to those chasing me. I kept walking. Passing more of the robes as I went. I dared not venture to overturn any more of them. Then, I finally came upon the gray stone monument that had risen unnaturally into the air seemingly at the command of the priests. It was now resting upon the ground once more, but the carvings still glowed with unnatural light.
The serpents, or what I had then thought of as serpents, had disappeared, but in the dead embers of the fire, now cold and black, was a large, shining metal bauble. I picked it up and saw that it was also carved almost as the stone was, but even more intricately, constructed in a fashion that I could not determine.
It did not bear the same markings as the stone, yet I had the feeling I could almost read the characters as though I once knew the tongue and had since long forgotten it.
My head began to ache as though a demon was pounding on my skull, when a shaft of moonlight hit the metal amulet, for I know now what it was, and a voice entered my head and told me the secrets of the scene I had witnessed in one word: AZUG-BEL-YA.
In that moment, as though injected into my brain, I understood the characters cast into the amulet. Although these were not the signs carved upon the gray stone, I somehow came to the conclusion that the stone was the gate from outside our dimension which allowed all manner of horrid creatures in.
Of these three symbols carved into the stone, the first is the sign of our race which came from beyond the stars, and it is called ARGU in the tongue of the scribe who taught it to me. Yet, in the tongue of the elder city of Babylon, it was UR. It is the sigil of the covenant between humankind and the old gods made by the annunaki. And, when they who offered us the seal see it they will not have forgotten us.
They have sworn! Spirit of the celestial firmament, remember!
The second sign is the ancient glyph of the old gods and is the key whereby the powers of the old gods may be summoned when used with the proper words and geometric formula. Its name is AHNA.
The third sign is the sigil of the watchers. It is called DALBAR. This sigil is used to call down the watchers back onto our homeworld. The watchers are a race of beings sent by the old gods to keep the planet safe. They keep vigil while one sleeps provided the appropriate rituals and sacrifices have been performed. Otherwise, if called, they will turn upon us.
To be effective on our plane these seals must be etched in certain kinds of stone and then set upon an altar of appropriate offerings or laid upon the ground in one of many energy vortexes around the globe. Or even engraved upon one of the seven main planetary metals and hung about the neck as a lamen hidden from the view of the profane.
Of these three, the ARGU and the ANHA may be used separately, that is to say, by themselves. The DALBAR on the other hand must never be used alone. Instead it must feature one or both of the others.
The watchers sometimes need to be reminded of the covenant they have sworn between the old gods and our race or else they will turn upon us and slay us and ravage our cities until succour is received from the old gods by the tears of our children and the wailing of our women.
KANAMMU!
| Nothing has Being |  |
Everything has Value |
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