You who are so far from me ...Far from me ...So far from me ...Far from me ...Then the sun would leave your pr...And you'd retreat from the front of your eyes ...You are so far from me ...Far from me ...Far from me ...'s nothing to learn from that vacant voice ... sails to me across the line ...From the ridiculous to the sublime ...So far from me ...Through the thick and through the thin ...At the first taste of trou...So far from me ...Far from me ...Far from me ...Far from me

If you could soar the sky like a bird ... to see brothers on the curb smokin herb ...And cops from the third precinct rush...Chargin up the league with possess...Make the youngsters come and...Or would you watch the cop in the chopper ...With the high powered binocu...Attached the bottom of his aircr...Hoverin the projects, spotlight...On top see forfeit the death system failur... his brain and blow the smoke off ...Auxillary security retreat ...Heavy artillery sun heat ...Meet the agony defeats the cavalry ...ps your head inside the bear trap ...You can't adapt to the habitat ...The biggest jigsaw puzzle be the world map ...ou die tell me what the fuck you own ...From the genesis exact off the tip ...Shipped to the ghetto for resale ...Peep the calamitist dreams and destroy the thermometers ...The average savage cabb...Off of the credit card balance...The magnetic strips tha...The media breach and yo...To lessen the friction my children beware the pale rider ...ned you with all of the mics that I grip ...lden sphere attacks the hemisphere ...Leaves the human fearness of the pit of urban tears ...Far from Mars, for vengeance...are buried alive at the Wu mount enterprise...cane remain pain in the brain ...Stain the mindframe ...heroin bein shot in the veins ...9th Prince the principle, I was bo...Chop off the head of those who c

If you could soar the sky like a bird ... to see brothers on the curb smokin herb ...And cops from the third precinct rush...Chargin up the league with possess...Make the youngsters come and...Or would you watch the cop in the chopper ...With the high powered binocu...Attached the bottom of his aircr...Hoverin the projects, spotlight...On top see forfeit the death system failur... his brain and blow the smoke off ...Auxillary security retreat ...Heavy artillery sun heat ...Meet the agony defeats the cavalry ...ps your head inside the bear trap ...You can't adapt to the habitat ...The biggest jigsaw puzzle be the world map ...ou die tell me what the fuck you own ...From the genesis exact off the tip ...Shipped to the ghetto for resale ...Peep the calamitist dreams and destroy the thermometers ...The average savage cabb...Off of the credit card balance...The magnetic strips tha...The media breach and yo...To lessen the friction my children beware the pale rider ...ned you with all of the mics that I grip ...lden sphere attacks the hemisphere ...Leaves the human fearness of the pit of urban tears ...Far from Mars, for vengeance...are buried alive at the Wu mount enterprise...cane remain pain in the brain ...Stain the mindframe ...heroin bein shot in the veins ...9th Prince the principle, I was bo...Chop off the head of those who c

The golden treat you ne...It was on the way, ...On the road to dreams, yea...The street is cold, its...The story's told the dark has won. ...It was on the way, ...On the road to dreams, yea...I felt the wind shout like a d...u drained it all to the last drop. ...It was on the way, ...On the road to dreams, yea...On this dark street the sun is black. ...The winter life is comi...There's no retreat from time that's died. ...It was on the way, ...On the road to dreams.

And the sides are drawn, si...Will the red sun rise? ...Will the red sun rise? ...(The glare from your enemy sights m...Blinds divide the sunlight into thin ...The size of a blade ...Glare with the enemy heat of the bodies in bed ...There's no retreat ...ads pressed against the wall ...These are the screams ...Will the red sun rise? ...Will the red sun rise? ...(The glare from your enemy sights m...Administer the pill ...Before the cell divides ...And the landmines in our ch...sized a compound to retreat this conscience, ...One part the gun shot we heard ...One part the screams mistaken fo...art stepping out of the driving rain ...part parting way in the cold apartment ...t keep running down the stairs ...Do you hear the footsteps? ...Can you hear the voices in the traffic? ...Communiques in the attic?

OUR SELF YOU'RE NOT THE ONE YOU WOUN'T GET HURT WHEN THE DAMAGE IS DONE. ...IT'S THE SAME OLD STORY THER...CAN'T BE THE ONE TO LOSE YOU'RE ONLY WEARIN'SOME ONE ELSE'S SHOES CAN'T YOU READ IT IT'S UP ON THE WALL HOW CAN SOME O...LL BE WITH YOU TILL THE BITTER END YOUR NOT...E ZONE RUNNIN' WITH THE PACK ...OU WANT NO WAR IT'S THE CHANCE YOU TAKE NOT...AND THE ICE WOUN'T BREAK ...WHEN THE SUN COMES OUT AT THE END OF THE NIGHT ...YOU WOUN'T ESCAPE FROM THE BLINDING LIGHT ...UT WHO TO BLAME SEE THE MADNESS BURNIN' IN ...LL BE WITH YOU TILL THE BITTER END YOUR NOTHIN'AND YOU'LL FIND OUT WHAT THIS WORLD IS ALL ABOUT STANDING IN THE STRIKE ZONE RUNNIN' WITH THE PACK STANDING IN A ... THERE'S A PANIC IN THE STREETS AINT NO GOLDEN PARKS RETREAT ...OUR SELF YOU'RE NOT THE ONE ...OUN'T GET HURT WHEN THE DAMAGE IS DONE ...IT'S THE SAME OLD STORY THER...CAN'T BE THE ONE TO LOSE ... READ IT IT'S UP ON THE WALL ...THERE'S A PANIC IN THE STREETS ...N'T NO GOLDEN PARKS RETREAT ...RUNNIN' WITH THE PACK ...STANDING IN THE STRIKE ZONE

Look at the Sun, so pretty toda...Blastin', helps out the grass and ...I woke up to the see the Sun shine and ...The Sunkist scrumptous,...Yo, the Sun could never be puss...never run out, when the lights go out ...s Japan's turn now, the Earth had spun arou...The sky is blue cuz the Sun hit the water like bling ...Eye's be blindin' the men (oh my my my) ...He jumped up in the window just to see ...you got the Weather Channel bug...ys find like one in the buildin' yo ...We'd owe us babies from day one ...The way the world look when you... you, and then kiss the ground ...Reachin' the full 98, and got the kids in the pool ...Feelin' the warm sunrays, upon ...The heat driven, a theo... have to go through the Sun to reach heaven and...That Sun's hovered to the extermination of us...hole which leads to the firmament above us ...les and bring it to the sea?

From Sage Daelun's "Chro...Episode I: The Fall of the Shadow-King ...Episodes II & III: The History of the Great Wars ...Episodes IV-VI: The Rise of the Imperium ...Episode VII: The Quest for the Trinity of Might ... VIII: And Lo, When The Imperium Marches Against Gul-Kothoth, Then Dark Sorceries Shall Enshroud The Citadel Of The Obsidian Crown (recounted on the second Bal-Sagoth album; "Starfire Burning Upon The Ice-Veiled Throne O...Episode IX: The Obsidian Crown Unbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisa...(here recounted on the sixth Bal-Sagoth album; "The Chthonic Chronicles...Episode X: The Shadow-King Reborn ...Episode XI: The Battle of the Nine Armies (The War of the Crown) ...Episode XII: The Great Rebellions and the Dissolution of the Imperium ...The Obsidian Crown Unbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisa...Chapter 11: The Siege Begins ...And so the mighty and resplendent armies of the Imperium assembled before the towering cyclopean walls of ancient Gul-Kothoth. It was some time before the billowing dust cloud raised by the massed arrival of the vast imperial host settled, ultimately dissipating as the shadows of dusk descended. With nightfall, the imperial army's countless torches, braziers and cookfires illumined the dark plain before the fortress like a coruscating sea, painting the stygian heavens the colour of flame. And the high summer's night passed swiftly. At length, the dawn approached tentatively, and with the first signs of the newborn sun etching its promise upon the skies, the martial preparations commenced in earnest. A brief and perfunctory exchange between the Imperial Herald and the fortification's Watch Commander held no surprises, and the Emperor's banner was duly driven into the seared earth before Gul-Kothoth with a chilling finality. Vast siege engines and powerful ballistae were hauled inexorably into position, alongside a battery of katapelte and petrobolos. The one hundred thousand strong Imperial Frontier Army, having planted their regimental blazons into the arid soil, waited with a disciplined patience born of never having met defeat in pitched battle or siege, the dreaded Imperial War-Leopards straining noisily against their iron-link leashes to the rear of the cohorts of conscripts and auxillieries. The pitiless Iron Phalanx and their Lord Militant Commander had assumed position at the head of the army's Alpha Wing, polished swords, spears and poll-axes reflecting the glow from the myriad torches and braziers which still burned about the Imperial Host. And behind them were drawn up the legendary Legion of the Ebon Tiger, Pride of the Emperor, the infantry and cavalry famed throughout the Great Northern Continent, personal regiment of the feared general Baalthus Vane. True to their martial reputation, the six thousand strong Legion were inscrutible in their jet black armour, their sable banner billowing in the chill breeze which skittered over the plain. And finally, astride his azure-shaffroned warhorse and surrounded by his elite guard, the silvern-armoured Emperor Koord himself studied the precipitious gates with a disdainful scrutiny. At the Emperor's right hand was the renowned Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku, an eastern bladesman of preternatural skill and the most revered and expensive mercenary in the Imperium. At his left, the infamous Ogre-Mage of the Black Lake brooded silently, swathed in a stygian cloak and fuliginous cowl and exuding an aura of implacable malevolence which unerved even the bravest of the Imperial troops. The Emperor had deemed the services of these two nefarious renegades pivotal to the execution of the Final Campaign, for they alone had knowledge of the mysterious arcane rite known as The Words Which Unfette...ime-worn palisades, the defenders of Gul-Ko...THE EMPEROR KOORD: General Vane, we begin the final stage of this campaign with the rising of the sun. This war which has raged for decades shall finally be decided here, before the hoary walls of ageless Gul-Kothoth. The Imperium's last and most glorious victory is at hand. The procrastinating sybarites of the bureaucracy have been threatened and bribed into compliance over this venture. This more than anything else is why I have deigned to grace this final battle with my Imperial presence, even against the advice of the Grand Vizier and the sage counsel of the Seers. ...hall enjoy watching the Ebon Tiger bloody i...THE EMPEROR KOORD: You should not call in your falcons before the hunt is done, my loyal servitor. Overconfidence is but one of the many foes a general must face upon the field of war. Today, the precepts and maxims of the Imperium shall be tested, and we shall see whether the velvet glove of diplomacy or the iron gauntlet of conquest has proved the more effective tool...BAALTHUS VANE: The days of the feudal suzerainties are long gone, my liege. The Imperial Military Council is the only entity fit to govern the dominions. The fall of Vyrgothia shall today render the truth of the Imperial Mandate se...THE EMPEROR KOORD: And yet I am vexed, for as you well know, the sorcerous emmisary I despatched to the Court of the Over-King has warned that the Vyrgothians may have recovered one of the artefacts comprising the fabled Trinity of Might; the legendary Obsidian Crown itself! In the hands of a skilled thaumaturgist, it is said that the Crown may be used a...BAALTHUS VANE: The Shadow-Sword! The Obsidian Crown! The Ebon Sceptre! Feh! The power of the Trinity is but a myth! No antiquated trinket weilded by a religious fanatic will prevail against the Legion, sire. Our steel is proof against such diabolism! Behold! Gul-Tryarch has fallen, Gul-Azlaan has been given to the earth, Gul-Nomedes is naught but smouldering rubble, and soon we shall surge over the shattered remnants of Gul-Kothoth's renowned walls! The Vyrgothian Alliance shall crumble when these gates are breached, and the Over-King himself s...THE EMPEROR KOORD: Indeed. At any rate, I have been blessed with foresight enough to prepare a contingency should the foe fulfil that fearful potential which has been weighing heavy on my mind. But now, the sun rises! Let it begin! Let the final chapter of our legend be written! Give the word! Raze Gul-Kothoth to the ground! ...The Imperial War-Skalds...The thunder of the battlefield, ...The clarions call, bring down the wall! ...May the Empire's glory neve...The Wizards of Vyrgothi... of night, Crown of the Elder King, ...Unfettered at last the Trinity of Might, the Sceptre, the Sword and the Ring! ...Chapter 12: The Fall of Gul-Kothoth... was unleashed upon the field of battle. Colossal stones, firebrands and howling iron-tipped missiles rained pitilessly down upon the hero-hewn walls of Gul-Kothoth. Vast and serpentine cracks appeared in the ancient cyclopean edifice, and hundreds of warriors, both attackers and defenders, perished in the fray, either crushed beneath the ceaselessly assailed testudo, hammered to crimson pulp by the merciless storm of unforgiving stone, or burned to blackened husks by the nightmare onslaught of flaming quicklime and saltpetre. Scaling ladders raised and repulsed in turn, storms of razor tipped shafts exchanged by the combatants, isolated skirmishes raging upon the ramparts, men blade to blade and clarions bellowing embattled defiance. For seemingly inumerable hours the sanguineous battle raged, with no quarter asked nor given between the bitter ancestral foes. And the gates held firm. ...At length, the mightiest of the Empire's iron-hooded battering rams, dubbed The Bringer of Woe, was brought to bear upon the besieged fortress, and, with the shadows of dusk lengthening upon the field of war, the centuries old Primary Gate of Gul-Kothoth was finally sundered amidst an earsplitting cacophony of shattering oak and iron louder than any storm-born thunderclap. With the rending of the mighty gate, and vast fragments of the ancient walls yielding, buckling and crashing to the blood-sodden earth, the Imperium's forces breached the defenses of Gul-Kothoth and surged into the Vyrgothian Alliance...re and ten, bearing the Obsidian Crown, arrived upon the field of battle. ...Chapter 13: The Wizards Do Battle ...THE SORCERER: By Klatrymadon and Zuranthus! They come! They come, weilding the Circlet of Night! The dire warning issued to me as I stood before Vyrgothia's Master Wizard has been proved no idle boast! The citadel's spells of containment breached... the Black Crown is upon...THE EMPEROR KOORD: It is as I have forseen! Be spry, my sorcerous lackey... join the Iron Phalanx in ent...THE SORCERER: By your c...At once, the far-feared and martially renowned Iron Phalanx wheeled to face the newcomers, and at the command of a decurion, a volley of armour-piercing shafts screamed skywards to rain down mercilessly upon the foe. And even as this transpired, the Emperor's Prime Sorcerer, emissary of the Imperial Court and master of those arts which speak to man in narcotic dreams from the darkest and most silent places, summoned forth that black potency which lay entwined in stygian tendrils within his mind... an ireful power born of they who writhed upon the shores of Pangaea before man's progenitors ever erected their lofty spires to the restless skies. And yet Vyrgothia's Master Wizard, unrivalled Arch-Mage and adept of that lost Eastern order who journey beyond the boundaries of time and space upon those nebulous wings born of the sacred Azure Lotus, rose to meet this power which lapped at the periphery of his mi... arid field of war, the sentinels of light and shadow spoke to eachother in tongues dormant since the Third Moon fell burning from the heavens, and not sweet were the words they uttered....Until at last, with the armies poised to clash, and with dusk painting the sky a deep crimson exceeded in its vibrancy only by that bloody rubicund hue which stained the battlefield below it, the Emperor's mage fell, and the aeons-old might of the Obsidian Crown was finally brought to bear against they who had breached the walls of ancient Gu...The Imperial War-Skalds...Sundered, the gate of the ancient fortress, ... Now breached stand the walls. ...Behold! The Obsidian Crown. ...Embattled, the wizards, their weap...Untramelled, the circlet, the Prime-Sorcerer slai...The Crown's peerless power, the Emperor's bane, ...Like the prow of a blood-hungry vessel of war rending the waves of a midnight sea, a luminescent blade of shrieking cerulean light lanced from the legendary black circlet locked tight within the gnarled hand of the Master Wizard, and clove mercilessly into the glorious ranks of the Imperium. And all who were touched by this ruinous arc of coruscating radiance knew no more... Men and beasts reduced to blackened husks, charred shells of smouldering ash, lifeless effigies which toppled to the seared earth to be dissipated by the whispering breath of the wind. Again and again the ravaging radiance smote the ranks of the Empire, leaving a noisome charnel-pit of nightmare in its crackling wake. The forces of the Imperium were plunged into a howling vortex of disarray, and, faced with the unthinkable prospect of defeat, the unprecedented first routing of the Emperor's glorious army began to become a grim reality. Yet for all the unparalleled carnage which had erupted about them, there was one regiment of Imperial troops for whom the taste of fear was bland compared to the sharp tang of rage ...LTHUS VANE: By all the gods of war! Stand fast, hounds of the Imperium! 'Tis true... steel is no use against this ignoble magical trickery! But if our souls are bound for the Pit this day, we'll damn well take a few of these bastards with us! Onward, my Legion! Alpha formation, banners high! Glory to the Emperor! Into the foe! Show them the Tiger's claws! ...THE LEGION: Never quarter, never mercy, never retreat! Praise the Emperor! ...THE EMPEROR KOORD: My sorcerous thrall has fallen, but he has bought us time enough to riposte! And General Vane's mettle may yet turn the tide of war back in our favour. Now, let the final act be played out! I call thee forth, Ogre-Mage of the Black Lake! I call thee forth, Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku! It is time! Now, I charge thee, for the glory of the Imperium... Speak the Words Which Unfette...And so, it began... the two pivotal players in the Emperor's plan, the two key figures in the Imperium's contingency, stepped forth to fill their most vital of roles in that grand theatre of carnage which now ran unchecked on the field of battle. ...The Ogre-Mage and the Swordmaster began to utter fearsome words in a tongue which was ancient ere the gleaming stars shifted upon the fathomless countenance of the distant heavens, words which in truth were not words, but rather a resonant key which would aspire to unlock a dire power which had reposed shackled since the fall of the legendary Shadow King himself, whose ebon circlet's power they even now sought to thwart. The incantation they gave voice to in the midst of that sanguineous turmoil which engulfed them was not so much heard by those within earshot as perceived, sensed as a vague disturbance in the fabric of reality, as fuliginous ripples on the surface of a hitherto still and placid pool, growing ever larger and more far reaching; an unnerving and unnamable sense of change which insinuated itself into the mind of the listener and suggested with a cold and disturbing quasi-certainty that something of preternaturally ineffable magnitude was transpiring, as surely as a festering and gangrenous corpse would split to spill its noisome gore. And as that maddeningly implacable incantation reached its resounding climax, a momentary silence enshrouded the battlefield, swathing the vista of chaos in an aura of noiselessness more pure and untainted than the tranquility of the boundless and stygi...urable instant that the dark and peerless power unfettered by those grim pseudo-words finally, ultimately, made itself known before the sundered gates of a...nued in: Episode X: The Shadow-King Reborn

Had the world at my feet ...e a smile sent down from heaven ...We ate in the finest restaurants ...Had the wealthiest friends ...the girl I used to know...e a smile sent down from heaven ...But I ain't seen the sun ...oing to hear myself retreat ...e a smile sent down from heaven

0,000 bodies litter the land ...The reaper sows, there's the devil to pay ...The pressure's on and the reb's attack ...The yanks must hold, Th...Expect no mercy from the iron brigade ...Bayonets gleam in the morning sun ...e and fire belching from their guns ...All the devastation ...The reaper has his way ...To preserve the nation ...There's the devil to pay ...South of town down the Emmitsburg road ...The first corps are sta...The desperate need to strengthen the line ...Bodies dropping the blue and the grey ...The union fights defending the town ...From the north and the west more rebels ar...Thousands more and the fight multiplies ...hearson's ridge and the black hats strike ...All the devastation ...The reaper has his way ...To preserve the nation ...There's the devil to pay ...hey're overwhelmed, the situation demands ...The federals retreat and rush out of tow...fortified and saved the high ground ...The day ends in victory for the south ...Across the way the union digs in ...The round tops, Cemeter...When the confederates strike...There'll be the devil to pay ...All the devastation ...The reaper has his way ...To preserve the nation ...There's the devil to pay

He lay face down in the desert sand ...Shot from behind, I thought h... that night I saved the life of Ringo ...I nursed him till the danger passed ...The days went by, he me...Then from dawn till setting sun ...n being could match the draw of Ringo ...One day we rode the mountain crest ...All throught the West they feared the name of Ringo ...ew someday I'd face the test ... one of us would be the best ...And sure enough the word came down ... he was holed up in the town ...I left the posse out in the street ...The gun went flying from my fist ... I was looking down the bore ...Of the deadly .44 of Ringo...They say that was the only time ...I blocked the path of his retreat ...ed and stepped into the street ...The town began to shout...The story spread throughout the land ...And it was just the years, they say ...The tarnished star above the name of Ringo

He lay face down in the desert sand ...Shot from behind, I thought h... that night I saved the life of Ringo ...I nursed him till the danger passed ...The days went by, he me...Then from dawn till setting sun ...n being could match the draw of Ringo ...One day we rode the mountain crest ...All throught the West they feared the name of Ringo ...ew someday I'd face the test ... one of us would be the best ...And sure enough the word came down ... he was holed up in the town ...I left the posse out in the street ...The gun went flying from my fist ... I was looking down the bore ...Of the deadly .44 of Ringo...They say that was the only time ...I blocked the path of his retreat ...ed and stepped into the street ...The town began to shout...The story spread throughout the land ...And it was just the years, they say ...The tarnished star above the name of Ringo

If you run to the sun, call Lu, then ...get penis end, like the girl in the tight dress ...o where to run when the roll is calling ...be me, cause I flow from within girls ... me I'm a hoe, drop the stereo and we can f...A house is in the middle of the street ...Who's in the kitchen cookin' chi...You're best I edit the wish bones before I...flects is flex like the sex faces ...Cause you be the bona fide baby boog...I thought I was the world to you. Shit... you know, I've got the remedy for what you...use you can't fight the feel when I'm in ...Better turn the volume up to ten, and dim the lights ...Ah, but the next day somethin' ... note, must've fell from her coat ...id I'll meet you at the Eaton Centre at a q... so I thought about the shit that my mind w...lls and then called the crew ... it was just to get the feel ... suicide was out of the question ...d, you're livin' on the verge

This is the lethal pop and you ...Who is the native brother who ...'m on Letterman, on the couch yo ...The black thing with knives is called the back do' ...Phife Dawg puttin' the bite back in yours ...MC from now til I get a fro...Wake up, look at the sun, see the sights ...all got to work for the mic ...Zombies, do it from dusk to the night ...Rock to the beat, yo it's never the same ...earin' that ass out the frills ...d no skills, that's the reals ... this money without the friction

autiful time, leave the troubles you find a...autiful time, leave the troubles you find a...spring first day of the heat (heat) ...roops so ya'll best retreat (treat) ...Tryin' to win the eyes off of Little ...chool like "Where's the beef?" and ...If you ain't from an era then you up ...See me on the cover of your Doubl...Takin' a holiday at the hotel (tel) ...eep sending me back the fan mail ...Hey, yo, The sky swallowed the sun ...spitted out the moon and stars ...t shiners that gave the cause ...ArmorAll-ed down, the downtown activity ...to have fun without the problems that live ..., but lets stay out the mosh pit ...tryin' to bring out the devil in us ...ty ain't a party if the thugs don't try to ...Can't offset the thirty or plus caught in the rush ...Keep the door sealed ...Cause the floor's filled with...Rep the BX like Billy Blanc...So we can get in the right mode ...No need to pull on the throttle ... why I can medicate the soul ...The right record that could bring in the pull ...And this must be the right run ya'll ...Cause the dancefloor's full '