Read "The Flight to Lucifer" by Harold Bloom online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Perscors stood on a cliff of some seventy feet above the eddying of the sea. The cliff's point was marked with a square black stone. Evening approached, and in the light of the setting sun Perscors made out a kind of stair cut in the side of the cliff. Though the steps led nowhere except straight down into the sea and the light would soon fail, he resolved to go down.
His descent was rapid, and ended in a surprise. The ocean, which from above had been seen as washing the face of the cliff, appeared now to have ebbed far out. Between the waves and the cliff a quarter mile of black sand had been left bare. Rocks of the same color rose out of this bareness at intervals. Directly up against the cliff was a black altar. Halfway between the altar and the sea, a tall woman leaned against a rock, bathed in the glow of the setting sun. Perscors went toward her at a steady pace, until he recognized her and stopped, just out of range of a javelin throw.