It's a good life in the happily ever after ...Last page of a very last chapter ...It's the story of a charmed ...ld and you can feel the magic ...Far from the typically tragic ...That's the beauty of a charmed...It's a good life in the happily ever after ...Last page of a very last chapter ...It's the story of a charmed ...It's a good life in the happily ever after ...Last page of a very last chapter ...It's the story of a charmed ...(It's the story of a charmed ...(It's the beauty of a charmed...(It's the story of a charmed ...(It's the beauty of a charmed

This The Last Ime, Its The Last Chapter ...One Girl In The Day ...Girl For Da Last Time ...Yep I Said Da Last Time ...This The Last Time ...This The Last Time ...See The Problem Is ...Give It To Me One Last Time ...Take It To The Bed Now ...One Last Round ...One Girl In The Day ...Girl For Da Last Time ...Yep I Said Da Last Time ...This The Last Time ...This The Last Time ...For The Last Time ...For The Last Time ...One Girl In The Day ...Girl For Da Last Time ...Yep I Said Da Last Time ...This The Last Time ...irl Jus Listen This The ...Last Time ...One Girl In The Day ...Girl For Da Last Time ...Yep I Said Da Last Time ...This The Last Time ...irl Jus Listen This The ...Last Time

Saturday night and the rain keeps pouring ...That's how the story goes ...That's how the story goes ...Here comes the weekend, here comes the same old song ...If the fun never starts then the fun never ends ...But the weight of the town it just dragge...Gearing up for the weekend let down ...Saturday night and the rain keeps pouring ...That's how the story goes ...That's how the story goes ...n a small town well the word spreads fast ...And the great nights have l...And the future is whatever ...shed and crashed as the party winds down ...The place is trashed but the sorrows drowned ...And in the morning when I'm no...t one night I'll be the talk of the town ...s time I'll make it last ...Saturday night and the rain keeps pouring ...That's how the story goes ...That's how the story goes ...I'll add one last chapter to mine, out where the sun still shines ...There goes the weekend, there goes the same old song ...Saturday night and the rain keeps pouring ...That's how the story goes ...That's how the story goes

Last chapter, verse in the final act ...Open mouth the lines ...ression, understand the silence ...The piercing calm, sour

Test the world ... United co...I watch the sea through my colo...Into the world of helplines, charities, clinics, social workers Doctors, nurses and specialists was not the answer ...One last chapter and another plane a

Every night I dream the same old frightenin...Voices in the distance, can not u...lity I realize it's the naked truth ...My dedication to the past, I'm gonna draw the line ...Can't you see the fact that we are wo...Last chapter in the act, two more broke... killing me, I hate the way you are ...My dedication to the past, I'm gonna draw the line ...no progression from the past as time of lif

The black man in Americ...s and he don't know the time ...He's in the dope game with the caine and the crack, got a gat ...ped like a trick by the devil ...e can't escape from the ghetto ...at he was a pawn in the game ...in that cocaine for the Grand Wizard ...of the Ku Klux Klan, 'caus...Sellin you the powder, now can you...by killin the black for the green, got the white man havin fun...Givin up the machine guns ..., they're scared of the real butter ...point that AK at the wicked wicked USA ...'cause they the ones who put me thr...ke up, wake up - To the Eastside ...ke up, wake up - To the Westside ...ke up, wake up - To the Northside ...ke up, wake up - To the Southside ...-N, once again, has the flow, tellin Pharao...to let the so-called negro G-O...ause yo, we believe the way they treated us...ould've messed with the chosen people ...Now this is the time in history for the separation ...between the two nations ...Lazy and crazy was the way they gave thee ...k babies ever since the day we ...ey broke us down in the Caribbean ...Now to the blind brothers without the power of sight ...The rhyme shines bright...Deaf are the rhymes, can't hear ...the sound of two X, rec...And they lack the power of speech ...The gangbangers, or the drug dealers ...So we grill the real deal wit skill...The enemies want to fle...They scared of the skin of a million b...otta spit shine, on the front line and orga...Soldiers, the battle ain't over, ...ime for laughter in the last chapter ...told of disaster of the slave master ...for the masquerade, and the track we lay ...very slave, back in the days, his wicked wa

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's last and most renowned s...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

second heart attack last summer ...Thats the day Old Yeller died...mmy left for heaven the same year the world was taken by ...That's the day Martin Luther d... that barstool with the bourbon on his hand...That might explain the pain in that old ma...merica forgot about the only war they'd los...ght have never seen the end of that chapter in his life ...80, no doubt it was the best day of his lif...at you see there on the barstool with the bourbon in his hand...Now we've covered chapter two I can almost se...ast a year, to tell the truth I'm shocked h...estioned, this time the good Lord took me b...second heart attack last summer

about just gettin' the divorce ...Before the music stops for me ...And even thought the divorce is final no...o sing you this one last love song ...And of all the things all the things that I want ...Just for the record another chapter in my life ...And you were that chapter just divorced

Sit around the house until the thunder storms slac...ightstand, and pick the paper back up ...ding chapter, after chapter ...Predictions of the end of world, and a...it no beginning, as the world stops spinnin...The little nigga glad t...And as the days go by, I thank...The same man that I was, which starts from the other mind phrase ...Was it the cash I think my tim...The beginning, the ending, of my time ... stay true steps on the game ...hinking like me, do the same ... minute ya smiling, the next ya start cryin..., and be a nigga to the end ...So at the end, I'll see brigh...I save a prayer for the fallen soldier's ...On the slaim's of our slum...y neals, sitting on the front row ...The new millennium, and as I sit watch the distance ...Ships walk the horizon, I'll stare...nd pray for me, all the ends of my sins ...The beginning, the end, of my time, ti...ife lost, it's just the price life cost ...mother, when she on the front row, hold her...God's graced the evil spirit that su...ll went wrong, sung the same ol' song ...ow it's peace after the storm blew on ...And ? it's the better life, securi...What the evil lies, and not ... stopped and called the quits ...It's the lord I trust ...The territory where I c...And in those, last trumpet sounds, put me down in the ground ...We born, from the spirit, of life ...And not, by the flesh of man ...And not by the flesh of man

My size vary at the murder scenes, homo... boxes way up under the stairs ...with the pin in my back, I b...ad through, shit in the game ...I'm known as the be -you-double-L-E-...Comb the hood, in two black ...Been around the corner for a few ho...Hopped out the truck, went right at the coward ...The gun showers, rain o...Hopped back up in the trucks, light the tree back up ...r, no rotunda, with the fully thunder ...Put your name on the affadavit ...just to save it, the project ghetto favo...Laundry mat trap, the Yacub and the rat ...Bill Clinton of the ghetto, respect my ...Tecs and 'caine, the rains nearly stretched the lane ...h, and mix a lot in the trunk ...Shook cause the crooked side done t...gaz on point runnin the gauntlet, fuck with...Hail what the God kick, bow to wh...I be up in the cut, in the bushes, pick up ...last from where you took...ns Finest.. and got the whole click behind ...ns Finest.. and got the whole click behind

e all livin' in our last days. ...l Prime Suspects to the pains of this world...It's your last breath, it's your last cry. ...h these niggas with the slanted and crooked... pressure stress to the fullest, but only the smart survive ...why I'm boxin' with the devil, that's why I'm totin' the AK ...The final chapter want to write me aw...These last days got me sleepin...But the reaper breathe deat...s bacon, hot fry to the finish ...yellow tapes around the scenes ...The last day's right before ...Now see these last days and times, the...eep, cause sleep is the cousin of death ... constant threat in the N.O. ...at shit is grimy in the gumbo ..., I'm straight from the ghetto where niggas...hangin' in front of the corner store ...hange and be up out the game

d I've never I felt the feeling ...Like the one I felt today ... I never could find the words to write you ...ill feels just like the day it started ...I said good bye to the broken hearted ...could never express the way ... she's reading from the chapter ...'cause the girl I once rejecte...Has now become the girl of my dreams ...ill feels just like the day it started ...I said good bye to the broken hearted ...could never express the way ...ve heard my prayers last night (oh last night) ...ill feels just like the day it started ...I said good bye to the broken hearted ...could never express the way ...ve heard my prayers last night

[RZA] Yo check the method of this shit...[Tekitha] The Gods ... your braincells to the upmost ...[Tekitha] The Gods ...Fusion of the five elements, to search for the higher intelligence...The most benelovent kin... occupation to stop the innauguration of Sa...was diabolical to the last visible molecule ...g photon bombs from the arm like Galvatron ...shit together 'fore the fuck Illuminati hit...The rule of rough mind,...The sun gotta shine, ke...the whole Babylon, time...opposed through the gate, case closed ...Cause the last days and times are ...lakes get blown, by the rightous ones ...For you to defeat, the Gods ...The Gods, impossible ...For you to defeat, the Gods ...The ambulance is taking...Everybody get the fuck back, excuse m...t to Bat Day to see the Yanks ...He pointed to the charm on his neck ...With his last bit of energy left,...I opened it, seen the God holdin his kids...hair, turned around the ambulance was there...Plus the blue coats, Officer...o he strip-searched the God and gave him ba...In the back of a cop car, ...Laid on the stretcher, blood on...Deep like the full assassination ...Second grade humped the teachers, about to ...Is that across the whole globe (you ca...The murder rates is inc...So at the same time, when you...That causes the conflict of you goi...From the real