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