The chronicle of shadows
Bal-Sagoth Lyrics

For it is the iniquity of man which compels him to these tenebrous gates, seeking opiate dreams and the alluring embrace of oblivion...
People do bad things and those evil things draw them to the gates of darkness, seeking to forget their troubles and fall asleep.

Know that I have cavorted beneath the horned moon with repellent fiends, and liberated virgins from the burden of their maidenhood. (Supping deep of that sweet ichor and revelling in the sanguineous megrims my ophidian tongue has wrought.)
I have associated with demons and saved women from their innocence while drinking their blood and enjoying the joy their blood brings to me.

Tyrannic I am where the Serpent dwells, the lissome embrace of the succubi, Like a wolf in the fold, red of tooth and claw, enthroned beneath black nether-skies.
I rule where the Serpent lives, with the smooth embrace of the female demons, Like a dangerous animal, with my sharp teeth and claws, sitting on a throne beneath the black skies of the underworld.

Shadows stalk the viscid gloom, (beware the) blades of the assassins, The call of Ul-Yeh in the air, the crystal skull is shattered, A veil of cloud about the moon, (fevered) dreams of (trenchant) steel and fire, Hearken to the slithering, the envenomed kiss of night.
Darkness and danger await in the shadows, with assassins' blades ready to strike. Ul-Yeh's call is heard and the crystal skull has shattered. The moon is covered by a veil of clouds, and dreams of weapons and fire bring feverish passion. Listen to the slithering of night and its poisonous kiss.

Such adoration bestowed upon me beneath the cryptic moon! Caressed by ululant lotus-stained tongues... (Behold the true purity of that which lurks concealed beneath the mantle of shadow, and let the deluded, debauched sybarites flee in terror from that darkness which they profess to embrace!)
I am worshipped under the mysterious moon, touched by tongues stained by the scent of lotus. Look at the genuine purity behind the shadow's veil, and let the foolish people who think they embrace it run in terror.

Beyond the spheres of light and darkness, beneath distant pallid stars, I bring the iridescent glimmer of forbidden truth, seared in the crucible of blasphemy! For amorphous they come, steeped in the fetor of ten thousand years, Abhorrent colossi spawned from the sinistrous cosmic spheres. And upon their tongues, vile secrets so terrible sweet madness is a redolent balm!
I bring the shining light of forbidden truth from beyond light and dark, beneath pale faraway stars, created by blasphemous burning! They come as amorphous creatures, with the stink of 10,000 years. Abominable monsters spawned from the wicked cosmic spheres, speaking disgusting secrets like sweet madness.

I shall glut the maw of that ineffable nameless evil which lurks forever in the soul of man, for so it is written in the Chronicle of Shadows...
I will feed the unspeakable evil that lingers forever in humanity's souls, as stated in the Chronicle of Shadows.

They came in the night, and butchered five of my party, the terrified survivors fleeing with the first wan light of dawn. The fiends seemed inexplicably to be an extension of the night, as if their misshapen bodies were actually somehow composed of the darkness itself. Even as I gazed directly at them, I found I could not truly focus on their stygian forms... their bodies appearing to shimmer and shift like the ripples of a heat-haze upon an arid plain. My ammunition, discharged in vain, is all but spent... and now, as night unfurls its malign wings once more to enshroud this desolate and forsaken place, I wait alone for the sunrise I fear I shall never see.
They came at night and killed five people in my group. The terrified survivors fled at dawn. Those demonic creatures were like an extension of the dark, as if they were made of it. Even when I looked at them, I could not focus on their shadowy shapes. Their bodies shone and shifted like the dazzle of the sun on a desert plain. I've used up all of my ammunition with no success, and now I wait alone, knowing that the darkness will return.

At dusk I discovered a hidden alcove in the time-raught surface of the great monolith which stands as a mute sentinel before the entrance to the colossal temple; a moss encrusted crevice concealed from the eyes of man for I know not how long. As the darkness massed about me, a strange miasma seemed to grip my mind in tenebrous tendrils, and I beheld that horrifying and immemorial edifice which I now feel certain once cast its diabolical shadow upon the Gate of the Sun.
At sunset, I found a hidden crevice on the monolith before the entrance to the huge temple, the surface of which was weathered over time. It's a moss-covered crack that's been hidden from people like me for a long time. As the darkness came, I felt a strange smog seizing my mind, and I saw that ancient and terrifying building. I'm sure it once cast its devilish shadow over the Gate of the Sun.

It is all true, everything I feared, everything which I dared imagine only in the blackest embrace of the most narcotic malignity. There are Six Keys To The Onyx Pyramid, which conceal a terrifying truth never intended to be grasped by the woefully fragile mind of Man. I now pray that no unfortunate soul ever again stumbles as close as I to those cryptic axioms which lie ever in wait between the incorporeal veils of light and shadow.
Everything I feared, everything I imagined only in the darkest moments of my soul, is true. The Onyx Pyramid contains six keys hiding a horrible truth no human mind can handle. I pray that no one ever gets close to these cryptic truths, hidden between light and shadow.

I would offer up a prayer to the divinity which once I worshipped, but I know it would echo emptily through the abyssal reaches of the unheeding cosmos. As I scrawl this final entry in my journal, the sun sinks with a chilling finality below this now alien horizon. I know the shadowy figures shall soon return to claim me. I must fortify myself for the onset of the night...
I'd pray to the god that I once worshipped, but I know it would add up to nothing in this wide and hostile universe. As I write this last entry in my journal, the sun sets below this unfamiliar horizon. I know those shadowy shapes will be back soon to take me. I must brace myself for the night ahead.