View source for Ikulu's Lament

Found by [[Byzantine Envoys]] in [[Tarot Dungeon]]. Written in Greek.

   People of the future! For it appears I will fail; there is some clue I am 
   missing. I have searched and scryed Asia, Africa, and Europa, the three 
   parts of the earth, and yet the minions of the enemy are nowhere to be 
   found. I never found the names of power, either. Who held the seal knew 
   them, I know, but I do not know who held the seal. A direct confrontation 
   without the names of power would be suicide, even if the enemy could be 
   located, and so we must slumber. No, she will slumber, and I will seek on. 
   And she will slumber, long after my death.
   
   There were two sisters and one died.
   
   There were two sisters and one died.
   
   She can be found on her. Only with the body can she be found. The body leads 
   to the body. The live sister on the live sister. I have never been there, 
   and her trip will be one-way, at least until the tomb is opened. Perhaps the 
   vantage point will give her a new perspective. I wish I could hear her 
   describe it. I miss her already. At night all slumber, and I lie awake and 
   look up at the moon.
   
   I failed to find the enemy; I failed to find the name of their enemy; I 
   failed to find the spear that slew them, doubtless because it too slumbers. 
   It can be wakened only by a plunge into the liquid heart of the volcano, the 
   hand that wields it shriveling and blackening. The invaders from the south 
   knew it in their legends, that only in the extreme self-abnegation of the 
   three crippled gods can power come. Tiwaz had but one hand; it is their 
   oldest legend. One blackened hand to wield the spear that no longer slumbers.
   
   In the New City, nothing sleeps, but nothing is truly awake. It is for this 
   reason that I named it after Nawobod, the City of Dreams, whence the roguish 
   boy king brought me back this marvelous gift. Nothing sleeps, but staggers 
   on in a dream that never ends. I could have simply buried her beneath the 
   ground here, where she would linger through the ages, if I thought through 
   the ages she would remain safe.  She is in the safest place, and the last 
   place they would look, where she can tug at them and they can strain but 
   never reach her.
   
   The one born from stone is a metaphor, of course, but many things are 
   metaphors. Only the highest of his priests will guard the truth, the two 
   secret locations, Psoikanthe and the Tomb of the Shepherdâ€”where are hidden 
   my two great creations, the Book of Moons and her. Only in the heart of the 
   enemy can the formula be prepared. The enemyâ€™s godsâ€™ gods will be there to 
   oppose us, the hag and hungry goblin that into rags would rend you. Follow 
   the instructions to a T. I gathered everything together and then had nothing 
   to do with it; I made the quicklime but had nowhere to spread it. We were 
   building a dam, for when the waters rise, but the roguish boy-king could not 
   quite make it. We will not stand united. I had dreamed that all the peoples 
   of the Earth might fight together, but, like a schoolboy behind the Academy 
   with his fists up and his righteous fury, we have nothing to fight. And then 
   something went wrong, so many miles away, and the boy died, just as the girl 
   died, and there was no point even continuing. The dream died with him, and 
   all my dreams died with her.
   
   They came from the sea, terrorized Egypt (which can never be vanquished for 
   long, clever Egypt! that flows like the waters of the Nile), toppled the 
   Hittites, and then melted away. Where did they melt to? What becomes of a 
   dream in the morning, as it fades away like the stars?
   
   There are at least two secrets I have been unable to plumb. Who defeated 
   them last time? Where did they go? Some have said the answer to the first 
   question is: Zeus, but Zeus only fought them in metaphor, when he fought the 
   hundred-handed ones. Zeus is not the name of power. Some say the answer to 
   the second question is: elsewhere. But if they have truly gone elsewhere, 
   and if there is no one to call them back, then are we not safe? And yet I 
   could find no one left to call them back. And yet I never learned the name 
   of the enemy of our enemy, the one whose name brings them fear and haunts 
   their nightmares. I asked Hedamu, who lies near the ship of Deucalion, but 
   even he no longer knows. Egypt is the most ancient country, but even there 
   they have forgotten. The answer, they say, lies beyond the river of stones, 
   but this was the one river the boy could not cross.
   
   I scarcely even know the enemy. Am I repeating myself? She birthed the worm, 
   the dragon, the female monster, the great lion, the mad dog, the man 
   scorpion, the howling storm, Kulili, Kusariku. There was no pity in their 
   weapons, and they did not flinch from battle, for her law was binding, 
   irrevocable. The octopuses bear her on their many shoulders. But what is her 
   true form? Could she be formless? I am so tired now. Was it all so far in 
   the past, this great combat in the skies, that its participants are now 
   forgotten to the world? I am so old and so tired.
   
   This is the dream I dreamed: Long ago, the earth was chaos, a void, without 
   form, as water. Some god fought the spirit of the water, and pierced her 
   with a spear, and made land, and all the things upon it. This is the story 
   of Vili and Ve, who fight the Ymir, the ice, and makes the land from him; 
   this is the story of Zeus, who fought the chthonic Titans and the chthonic 
   Giants and above all Typhon and Echidna; this is the story of dear 
   Vainimoinen, whose family comes from the sky and drives the water back. They 
   sought to build an axis, from ground to sky, following the path of the shaft 
   of the spear, and therefore pin forever the spirit of the waters. The spirit 
   of the waters fought back, destroyed the tower that was to stand as an axis, 
   and perhaps even managed to drown humanity onceâ€”but the man known as 
   Deucalion survived, and humanity survived. But the spirit of the water, who 
   is as formless as the boneless octopus, has not left the earth easily, and 
   will return again, perhaps this time to triumph. All histories of the word 
   but this one are lies. All facts but these are unimportant.
   
   Is the tower a metaphor? Is the spear a metaphor? Is the axis a metaphor? 
   How many thousands and thousands of years have passed? Will humankind live 
   another 1300 years? And what then, when the rains come? Who will rescue us 
   this time, when their night ends, and they wake, and ours begins?


Note how the repeating lines about the sisters echo similar lines from the [[Tarot Dungeon Poem]].