Upon its face were stamped countless wrinkles and its blackness seemed less that of pigmentation than the weathering of unbelievable years, the very stain of ancientness.

And about neither face nor figure was there anything to show whether it was man or woman.
From the twisted shoulders a short and sleeveless red tunic fell.
Incredibly old the creature was--and by its corded muscles, its sinewy tendons, as incredibly powerful.

It raised within me a half sick revulsion, loathing.

But the eyes were not ancient, no.

Irisless, lashless, black and brilliant, they blazed out of the face's carven web of wrinkles, intent upon Norhala and filled with a flame of worship.
It threw itself at her feet, prostrate, the inordinately long arms outstretched.
"Mistress!" it whined in a high and curiously unpleasant falsetto.
"Great lady! Goddess!" She stretched out a sandaled foot, touched one of the black taloned hands, and at the contact I saw a shiver of ecstasy run through the lank body.