aelun's "Chronicles of Antediluvia", volum...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 Of Ultima Thule) ...Episode IX: The Obsidian Crown Unbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisades of Gul-Kothoth) ...(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 Palisades of Gul-Kothoth) ...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-Kothoth beheld ...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 as a weapon of unparalleled destru...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: ...An age of fire, sword and shi...The thunder of the battlefield, ...The clarions call, bring down the wall! ...May the Empire's glory neve...The Wizards of Vyrgothia: ... bejewelled circlet 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...nstant that an army of five score 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 entertaining these latecomers while I prepare a reception worthy of their audacity! ...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 mind like a mid...pon that 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 Gul-Kothoth...The Imperial War-Skalds: ...Sundered, the gate of the ancient fortress, ... Now breached stand the walls. ... lo, there and army of five score and ten,...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 which sat bitt...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 ancient Gul-Kothoth...nued in: Episode X: The Shadow-King Reborn

From the North to the South, ...t Eyes that burn in the sight of the ...Dawn Flames of Hate and the Pathos of ...War Blood and Fire from the Sky to the Shore ...Blinding God in the sight of the Sun ...Nevermore the End has begun ...Gods of War crushing the ground Seven years the siege of this town ...Say goodbye to all of your Angels On ... sworn to fight for the grandeur On this Night of Nights . . . ...Draw your line in the fading Light ...And the Stars will shine fo...On this Night of Nights . . . ...And the Dawn will cry to the Valley On ...From the North to the South, ...t Eyes that burn in the sight of the Dawn Crush and burn, ...hem again Celebrate the Counsel of the Gods who are Men

The pilots playing poker in the cockpit of the plane ...The casualties arriving like the dropping of the rain ...And a mountain of machinery will fall...It's written in the ashes of the village towns we bu...It's written in the empty bed of the fathers unreturned ...And the chocolate in the childrens eyes will...Red blow the bugles of the dawn ...The morning has arrived...And the lost patrol chase t...Train them well, the men who will be fig...r turn your back if the battle turns the tide ...For the colours of a civil war are louder than com...Blow them from the forest and burn the...nd question through the night ...But when the firing squad is rea...At the white boots marchin...Red blow the bugles of the dawn ...The morning has arrived...And the lost patrol chase t...The comic and the beauty queen are dancing on the stage ...We're fighting in a war we lost before the war began ...We're the white boots marchin...And the lost patrol chase t

like a [unknown] in the midst of all wars ...Reason and logic, the generals cry "more"...Caught by the same time, as the guns and roses ...Take me back to the war I survived ...Take me back to the war I survived ...ness guns, bombs to the haloed Moon ...t this landscape to the barren gloom ...Take me back to the war I survived ...Take me back to the war I survived ...wn] rise higher for the martyrs ????? ...there and use them, the shatter????? bomb ...circles, sparks for the dawn ...Take me back to the war I survived ...Take me back to the war I survived ...Take me back to the war I survived ...Take me back to the war I survived

Painful splinters of a cold relief ...humble bow in front of a war to come ...Species allied from the dawn of time ...Lie scattered on the brinks of hell ...n a whisper, a sigh of faith ...Into the precipitous oblivio...Glorified acts of violence produces ...The foundation to our r...A sigh of forgotten faith ...Painful splinters of a cold relief ...humble bow in front of a war to come ...Species allied from the dawn of time ...Lie scattered on the brinks of hell ...n a whisper, a sigh of faith ...Lingers in the hollow remains ...Of a slowly penetratin...A sigh of forgotten faith ...Creator of the growing fued ...Creator of a conclusive war

We attack at dawn ...The glory scene is near...Torching house of single god ...War to us is holy ...War to us is holy ...th with rage in our war eyes ... way through hordes of weak christian fles...War to us is holy ...War to us is holy ...Burn away the false and untrue on...To the only true and power

Unpaid actors of the mystery ...The mad director knows ... I declare the war is over ...rizzling on a grain of sand ...Fading rhythms of a fading land ...ove your courage in the proud parade ... I'm afraid the war is over ...ision just to blind the blind ...Poisoned players of a grizzly game ...One is guilty and the other gets the point to blame ... I declare the war is over ...Find the flags so you can wa...But just before the end even treason mi... I declare the war is over ...veterans will greet the dawn ...marches as they mow the lawn ...And the gargoyles only sit ...The gypsy fortune telle... I believe the war is over

The king of Zor, he called for war ...And the king of Zam, he answered. ...on, they called for war at the rise of the sun. ...Out went the call to one and to ...oed and rolled like the thunder. ...Rolling the call of "Come now to war." ...Throughout the night they fashione...With right on the side of the mighty. ...And at dying of dawn the great war began. ...They met on the battlefield banner ...y looked out across the vacant land. ...And they counted the missing, one upon o...The war it was over before ...They gave a war and nobody came.

The king of Zor, he called for war ...And the king of Zam, he answered. ...on, they called for war at the rise of the sun. ...Out went the call to one and to ...oed and rolled like the thunder. ...Rolling the call of "Come now to war." ...Throughout the night they fashione...With right on the side of the mighty. ...And at dying of dawn the great war began. ...They met on the battlefield banner ...y looked out across the vacant land. ...And they counted the missing, one upon o...The war it was over before ...They gave a war and nobody came.

(Uh-huh, yeah, the Platform sound) ...Aiyyo The Platform, watch the stormtroopers swarm...The Death Star's more than the devilish dawn ...It's where Evil and The Force manifest thei...Rakka shift the modes of the wizard and the warrior ...Plus most of you ? oh, I mean ca...The catalyst, never rock the mic in vain ...The Dilated Peoples hit you wit the Big Bang ...And theories that the Red Shift couldn't ..."You want to front war" "You've done nothi...Aiyyo The Platform, takes respect to perfect the artform ..."You want to front war" "You've done nothi...Word War II, Platform the illest flows ...And after that, the crowd'll react ...To the future we are the magnetic attract ...I catch the story of your life on VH1 Wh..."You want to front war" ...I'm heavy on the mic, can you handle the weight? ...Rockin D&D wit the Alchemist and Babs ...And after the lab, we send Ev to catch the cab ... get caught shot on the balcony ...ll tell you, here's the diff ...The man'll make you mov..."You want to front war"

It was dawn on a holiday ...as dancing alone on the top of the gravestone ...He went to the ultimate PTA meetin...There's a war going on inside you...d's going along for the ride ...There's a war going on inside you...d's going along for the ride ...She was shining up the furniture with mayo...rying to do to save the world ...WORLD ENTERTAINMENT WAR

In my dawn and new day ...No more dawn and new days ...Then your crumbs of lovin

She runs through the streets ...She aches for the songs ...And the heroes so quickly f...In the church yard light ...And talkin' to the sky ...And he hits the ground ...Heaven is closed to the angels below ...Streets of gold are now paved ...When the innocence is gone ...And the war of the angels has begun ...The ghosts in her head ...All one in the same ...In the streets and the alleys ...Hear the battle cries sound ...And the angels run for cove...As the world comes tumblin...All through the night the battle is fought ... can never win back the lives they've lost ...wn on her knees, in the tear stained dawn ...Heaven is closed to the angels below ...Streets of gold are now paved ...When the innocence is gone ...And the war of the angels is never won...Another day in the neighborhood ...The battle begins the day that you're bor...d, so heartsick and war torn ...Heaven is closed to the angels below ...Streets of gold are now paved ...When the innocence is gone ...And the war of the angels rages on

ight like that from the bottom of my heart ...nt to see that side of me ...ow you don't want a war with me ...Aiyyo, it's war this night and over...bullets and get rid of that crew ...So where the bags for the fuck back ...nt to see that side of me ...ow you don't want a war with me ...Doing 1-6-0 on the Autobahn ...ight drink cris til dawn ...nybody want to kick the same old song ...nt to see that side of me ...ow you don't want a war with me ...er what happened in the barium rocks ...in't but a bag full of fucking tricks ...hen I'm a break out the door cause I'm mad ...t to try and change the game (I did that) ...nt to see that side of me ...ow you don't want a war with me

That's the way its always been...Without the heart ...Where have all the songbirds gone? ...Oh the dawn of man comes slow ...Thousands of years ...The dawn of man comes slow ...Thousands of years