The Well of Night, Part 3

Again I slept, and guided, dreamed the past,
And saw that door to spaces dark and vast,
In caverns deep below the landscape hid,
Beneath a mighty slave-built pyramid,
Where learned priests in robes of white and gold,
Pursued a baleful power eons old,
     Contended power eons old.

About the thing enchantments strong they wove,
To ward and bind the one with whom they strove,
And girded ‘round with charms and ancient rites,
And countless lamps and candles burning bright,
And from that ghastly deep and poisoned well
They drew the blood to feed the lich-wright’s spell,
     The foul, forbidden lich-wright’s spell.

With eldritch power drawn and darkness served,
The dead were raised and clothed in flesh preserved,
The living racked and dressed, their spirits flayed,
And creatures glimpsed in fevered nightmares made,
As men with heads of beasts and birds, or worse,
With hands and paws and faces numerous,
     Great things with faces numerous.

The dead enslaved were servants to the quick,
And mortals seeking godhead, heretic.
Abominations seen by light of day,
Parading on the temple’s holy way,
Wrought superstitious terror on the meek,
Of spaces hid below their very feet,
     An underworld beneath their feet.

Like gods upon the lands above they trod,
And ruled with crown and scepter, flail and rod,
A thousand years the fiendish high priests reigned,
And kept the people fast by fear enchained,
By fear of death and what would follow then,
The mad descent beneath the world of men,
     To horrors hid from mortal men.

With megaliths they built their cities great,
Their monuments and temples dedicate,
To soulless gods and monsters made by man,
But worshipped up and down the river land,
Until the dead no greater burden bore,
Than those who lived in fear of death abhorred,
     Those burdened with a fear abhorred.

And when the weight of dread could not be born,
A leader rose, of faith and status shorn,
Then civil war engulfed the tortured land,
And blood was let in lakes upon the sand,
The priests were overthrown, their names erased,
Their temples, tombs and monuments effaced,
     Their hated legacy effaced.

In caverns deep the former masters lay,
Forever lost to them the light of day,
For barred and buried were the gates once hailed,
And one by one the lamps and candles failed,
Whereat the nameless in the preter-night,
Approached at last for what it owned by right,
     To take the souls it owned by right.