Difference between revisions of "Ikulu's Lament"

Latest revision as of 10:31, 5 September 2005

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 Shepherd—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 enemy’s gods’ 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 once—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.