Fragmentary delusional recollections from within the confines of Grimm’s Hold
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Sanitarium:
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When Blackthorne returns from his expedition to Tiahuanaco and the Peruvian
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jungle I shall duly tell him of the catalyst which compelled me to those cursed
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black vaults in ancient Ur, should Hildebrandt allow me another visit. |
Yes…
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Giza, Karnak, Thebes… I see them now once more! |
In the grip of a waking
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dream, I walk those restless sands again. |
Egypt… here my journey began,
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and here I took the first steps towards destiny… and damnation
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(The events recounted here take place before «The Dreamer In The Catacombs Of
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Ur»)
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From the expeditionary journal of Doctor Ignatius X. Stone:
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Giza, Egypt (March 17, 1890)
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The heat here is damnably oppressive, and all day the omnipresent sand has been
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whipped up by an impudent wind, making progress all the more difficult.
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At dawn, I pinpointed the location of the Great Pyramid’s secret chamber which
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my old friend Professor Caleb Blackthorne and his benefactor Lord Blakiston had
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discovered several months previously, but ingress to its concealed depths was
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denied me by a partial collapse of the age old edifice’s stone ceiling.
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Excavation is evidently impossible, lest more of the mighty tomb come crashing
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down about us. |
At any rate, Blackthorne has studied the incredible inscriptions
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within that hidden alcove exhaustively, and in truth my own interests lie
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elsewhere in this desolate sand-flayed landscape. |
The traditionalists believe
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that, in keeping with Egyptian tenets, only mundane things such as new air
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shafts and ever more ornate sarcophagi are yet to be discovered deep within the
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tunnel networks of these cyclopean monuments. |
Feh! |
If only they knew the true
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extent of this great cosmic puzzle! |
They are as fools who view a tapestry in a
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darkened room by the light of only one candle, seeing only small sections
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illuminated one by one, and refusing to recognize or connect the darkened and
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unseen areas to the entirety
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Working from the geometric calculations which I prepared before our arrival
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here, I have studied the alignment of Cheops, Chefren and Mykerinos.
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It is as I suspected. |
Tomorrow, I leave the the imperious and hoary mausoleum
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of Khufu and seek answers within the Great Temple of Karnak…
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Karnak, Egypt (March 18, 1890)
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What oblations to the grim chthonic deities of the ancient world were once
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offered solemnly beneath the stygian skies of this sweltering place, I wonder?
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What sublime power awaits the aspirant, the querent who dares seek answers in
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those shadowed places where men of lesser fortitude fear to gaze?
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Blackthorne often berates me for what he calls my preoccupation with the
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arcane, the occult, the sinistrous lore of the chthonic… he insists no good
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will come of such delving into nighted realms. |
Ha! |
The path to elucidation is
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seldom devoid of thorns, the road to knowledge rarely free of perils!
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I seek enlightenment, and by the erudite tongue of Herodotus, I may have found
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it! |
Ancient tradition of this land has long spoken of strange flashes of light
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emanating from the depths of pyramid passages and temple catacombs.
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Over a thousand years ago the Arabs wrote of the transient walls and hidden
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chambers of these monuments; |
of secret doors moved by an unseen force and of
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implacable sentries who guarded the secrets of the temples with dour tenacity.
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What I found this evening gives credence to all that and more. |
Is the lore
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which I discovered carved into the ancient stone of Karnak’s temple the next
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fragment of the cryptic conundrum which I have dedicated my life to solving?
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The Coptic papyrus states that, upon the walls of the pyramids and the temples
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were inscribed the mysteries of science, astronomy, geometry and physics;
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inscriptions of unknown peoples and lost civilizations whose lore was carved
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into the stone to preserve it from the ravages of the great deluge.
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The surviving knowledge of long forgotten antediluvian races!
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Aye, prudent Surid, heeding the warnings of his priests, erected certain
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repositories of long forgotten knowledge to withstand first a great flood, |
and then an all-consuming fire which was prophesied would come from the sky.
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Masoudi, in the tenth century, described automata; |
titanic guardians of stone
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and metal which were placed to guard the treasures and the entombed lore,
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and which were tasked to destroy all those deemed unworthy, all those who
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dared enter the chambers unbidden. |
I see them! |
The hoary sentinels of Karnak
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unfettered! |
Rising from their sandy tombs to smite the intruder,
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the raider and the interloper with righteous fury! |
And what is this…
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was there once a glimmer of life within the sightless stone eyes of the Theban
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guardian? |
Does the silent watcher at Giza even now descend from its granite
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dias to once more stalk the shifting sands on carven claws? |
Hu! |
Horem-akhet!
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The alignment of Cheops, Chefren and Mykerinos revealed
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Chthonic lore concealed in Khufu’s imperious mausoleum
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By the erudite tongue of Herodotus, I have found the answers
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Arcane secrets inscribed in the ancient Coptic papyrus
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The Pyramid’s legacy compells me to these dark discoveries
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The Theban guardian rises from its sandy tomb to meet us
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The Silent Watcher stalks, behold the Sentinels of Karnak!
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Thebes, Egypt (March 19, 1890)
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Niut-Ammon! |
Lucidity has reasserted its blessed hold upon me. |
I understand now
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the true nature of that knowledge which was revealed to me deep within the
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shadowed confines of Karnak’s timeless temple. |
Telluric energy, harnessed by
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the ancients… triggered by lunar rays and solar radiation, channeled to
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impart static charges to rock strata and lines of natural power running through
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the earth. |
Neuro-electric energy generated, developed, creating light,
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separating inertia from gravity! |
And what more? |
The fourth state of matter,
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forged countless millennia ago in the hearts of burning stars…
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fettered, channeled, for creation and destruction! |
The secret of the great
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monuments of the ancients! |
Yes, secrets… answers. |
A rogue celestial body
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passes inside the orbit of the moon, becoming a captive of the earth’s
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gravitational field. |
The world tilts upon its axis, its revolution slows,
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the planet shifts farther from its parent star… one of many such cataclysms.
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Asteroid strikes, floods, firestorms, the sky swathed in a veil of darkness
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through which the sun’s light cannot pass, great ice-ages enshrouding the globe.
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And what is this? |
The forces of evil, of chaos… servitors of the sinister
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gods of the universe… manifesting upon the tellurian sphere? |
What dire agents
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of malignity were unleashed upon mankind? |
Bringers of carnage and destruction,
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pestilence and decay! |
The Z’xulth!
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Secrets once known by the forgotten peoples… ancient Atlantis…
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time-lost Lemuria… Hyperborea, Ultima Thule, utopian Atland and its enduring
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legacy. |
Fragments, memories… descendants… the Incas, the Aztecs, the Maya,
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the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Britons, the Frisians, the ancient Sumerians.
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Yes, it is clear to me, like a diamond worked to perfection in the skilled
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hands of a master craftsman. |
The sigils and glyphs I beheld carved into the
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ancient stone of Karnak (which I somehow understood implicitly),
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the visions I experienced within the temple, it is all quite clearly
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compelling me to the next stage in my grand voyage of enlightenment.
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According to the inscriptions, the truth, the key, awaits me within the
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ziggurats of ancient Sumeria. |
I hear the call of the ancients, beckoning me to
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that aeon-veiled place across the unforgiving sands. |
We shall depart at once.
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I feel sure I shall find that which I seek between the two rivers,
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at the place of the seven cities. |
Yes, I shall surely meet my destiny within
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the mystery-haunted catacombs of ancient Ur…
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(From the pyramids of Egypt, to the ziggurats of Sumeria, my grand journey of
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enlightenment must continue. |
Praise the Ancients!)
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The Keeper of the Ancient Lore of Ur:
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Hearken to the warnings of the Ancients… tread softly those sacred and
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unforgiving sands. |
Do not break the seal of the seventh city!
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The Chief Cultist of Ur:
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The Gate must not be opened. |
You dare not awaken the Dreamer! |
Cuneiform tablets bear a grim, darkly portentous warning
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Sumerian catacombs astir with vile Chthonic horrors
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The lore of Babylon inscribed in stone as old as Atlantis
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Glyphs and sigils now compell me to the ziggurats…
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In a waking dream, I hear the call of the Ancients. |
I shall find that which I
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seek between the two rivers, at the place of the seven cities…
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in the Catacombs of Ur!
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(For the outcome of Doctor Ignatius Stone’s expedition to Ur, see «The Dreamer In The Catacombs Of Ur» on the fifth Bal-Sagoth album, «Atlantis Ascendant».) |