Dear Mark, I spotted a couple of odd statements in Dr. Karswell's big speech to Julia. Ra, not Osiris, was the Egyptian sun god, and Moloch if memory served was worshipped by the Carthaginians, a people I would certainly hesitate to describe as "Hebraic."
Gothick -- Heh, this is why writers really do need editors. Regarding Osiris, this actually
should read "Ra"; I was inserting several references in this passage, a number of which I ended up deleting; I realized I had two Egyptian figures and deleted the name Ra, but left his description -- and left the name of Osiris, but deleted his description! And I read over this passage about five times without catching it. Thanks -- and I'll make the appropriate alteration.
However, Moloch (a.ka.
Molech or
Melech), was a divinity worshipped by idolotrous Israelites. The name
Moloch means "king," and in different places in the Old Testament, it is occasionally used to refer to a human ruler rather than the deity. Solomon is thought to have originally erected a statue to the god Moloch, whose trademark was the sacrifice of young children and the burning of their bodies.
That creature, the Xianges (boy, that's not like any Sumerian word I've ever come across) seems VERY Fungi from Yuggoth. Brrrrrr!
Xianges is strictly a fabricated word; it isn't actually supposed to
be a Sumerian word -- it's the thing's name in its own rightful dimension. The only existing reference to such a creature, in the context of the story (apart from Karswell's personal deduction regarding its appearance in Revelation), is supposed to be in Sumerian mythology (although this too is a complete fabrication). That's not clear in the story, I see, so I might recompose that section.
The initial appearance of the Xianges -- as well as its name -- is taken directly from a dream I had a couple of years ago, which was letter for letter the way it unfolds in the story. It was pretty creepy. The Yuggothian analogy is certainly apt.
Good catch; since this is all first-draft quality, I will be the first to admit, in the absence of a real editor, that a second eye is always valuable.
