Now the time has come for m...hiding I'm left for the time ...To bring back the order of devine ...With swords in the night ...Oh the last part of the game ...Decision of death and life ...The final battle cry ...hiding I'm left for the time ...To bring back the order of devine ...Children of death ...I have a dream the things you've to hi... panic just give me the thing ...Oh majesty your kingdom is los...Oh majesty your kingdom is los...And ruins remind of your time ...Hear the voice it's cold as ...ast steps will find the right way ...Where's the future the call of the blind ...Watch the sky you see no light ...With the howling wolves the nazgul will die ...For all Children of death ...Hear the voice it's cold as ...Run Run for the whole world ...You feel the strange but cannot ...we carry along from the war

that seep down from the bitter sky tonight ...If I were king of this night, would y...And I hope, your majesty that you like your ...l stare off through the darkness to find us... miles just to find the ground deserving of your feet. ...my love and through the haze. ...And I hope, your majesty that you like your ...l stare off through the darkness to find us...The nightingales are si...lery is thrown into the air. ... their shackles hit the ground. ...The trumpets call out n...And I hope, your majesty that you like your ...l stare off through the darkness to find us

Notable, but not the greatest ...Stolen for me by the latest in a long line of thieves ... down that man hole of memories ...o's different here, the latest me or the latest you ...Course you're the kind of guy who doesn't lie...But you can't fool the queen baby cause I married the king ... I who betrayed his majesty though opposite rea... with no reflection of the sky, of the trees ...I kissed you on the street that night on the far side of for ?? ...And ignoring the persona you wore fo...The lesson must be live...And the clarity to see and ... I who betrayed his majesty though opposite rea... with no reflection of the sky, of the trees ...ok, notable and not the greatest. ...Stolen for me by the latest in a long line of thieves ...out to drop it down the man hole of memories

ery distant future, the last generation of planet earth ...one could be the father, except for ...ild was a gift from the skies of life-divine or... ...Another sky is young... ...The rivers will run, brought to life by the sun, the circle is ...Hail the king! ...chosen not to drain the godsent child, a gi...the skies of life divine. ...A glimpse of hope grow inside, a change of tide. ...Answered prayers of survival. ...The offspring of the unknown gods beautifies the aura of this ...The knowledge of the everlasting, never-...sed to be walkin in the shadows of death for a lifetim...more fears for what the years will bring. ...Rebuild the shattered dream. ...Oh, it's a token, the circle is broken. ...(The drop of blood from her mouth slowly fell down to the ...side dried her out. The king's beloved is n...The chosen one felt the time had come to show the world what ...This day of life, a sacred mome...She was the one worth dying for...Oh, does she hold the power, is she a blessing from the skies? ...Is this the answer to where the secret lies. ...ns have changed and the king is old and wea...The princess has come of age, but still the gift of life they ...In the chambers of crimson sleep. ...In this vault of souls to reap. ...The future lies in the hands of the shrewd (Harmony: An...or the earth will die in s...The darkest night the enchanted skies wer...g plague all across the land all women gave...Raped by the wind and forced to bring life to the hundred ...The unholy ones will gi...the fires of death burn high. ...The time has come for the king to die. (Lead ...e world is mourning the loss of their king. ...Now the princess is their e...A procession to the chambers where they...Can you hear the angel of sadness sing... wit...The princess is too you...arch for such a man of trust there will be...h on desert ground, the incarnation of a king in ...ing, set to rule in the new empire. ...n a mission to save the forsaken ones and to re-light the ...The crowd was confused ...His army of believers was faith...Set to capture the liar, to forever en...were marching on to the battlefield to set ...The sand absords the colour of dawn. ...The years went by under a blood-red sky, the king still sup- ...press the rebellian lie. ...He is the one, the self-chosen son, master of the throne he ...The sacred child awaken...And the earth was shaking, and the people prayed for t...The light of day is flowing into...Oh, the sun is stolen. ...A dark formation in the skies. ...Unites the powers in her eyes....soul's inhaling all the living light. ...Bringing on the dark, eternal night. ...Hail, hail the queen! ...e is queen alone in the human zone, dethroned the king unpure. ...The masses were assured...Draining the liar in the crimson water. ...The unroyal king, surrended to the child of life divine. ... but still no signs of aging. ...ss youth... amazed, the world was raging. ... like an order from the gods. ...The queen and all the children gathered around the chambers ...where the elder ones are join...In wrath she crush the tanks of crystal glass. ...The crimson water gushed on to the ground in the unholy mace- ...[She drinks the life-blood from the feebled man. ...es, soul-drained by the vrigin queen. ...Finally given the pleasure to die. ...She aligns the hate inside their h...Soon comes the end of all, she watched a ..."The earth shall fall. The eternal curse is cast on the sands ...se your power. Show the human race you are the ...The people worshiped th..."The times are changing, re-arranging he pattern of our lives. ...eneath this twisted sky." ...se above this world of you ...to the higher ground. ...Eternal detest from the ones left unblessed...Showing its face of hate and disgrace l...The ones who didn't fol...sharing this moment of grief. ...The end of their own existence...Despite all the faith in their quee...What was the reason for this sac...After the ordeal we know she has the powers to decieve u...But their dream of sons and daughters ...For the king had showed the...gave birth to the sacred one. ...But is she of man, made of flesh and blood, or is she the ...offspring of the unholy ...as chosen to unveil the hidden truth. ...The brave ones were gathered, the strongest were sent to the ...After many moons the troopsreach the temple of their majesty. ...They rtied to find the answer but they wer...maze of slumper far from the light of day. ...The riddle remained una...The queen could read on...the reason for her miss...The highness writhe in ...The queen was filled wi...The spirit of their beloved king ...of great importance an..."The gift from the gods has come to cover the world in dust. ...The chosen few were sacrificed for the others life. ...They were the bait, they would seal the soldiers fate. ...ive grave, to break the soldiers spell. ...The forces fell into the abyss, never to ris...Towards the queen the last of the brave ones wandered...The loss of troops forced her powers to release the magic ...The palace controlled by demons is the heart of all evil pos- ...sessed by the queen and her unhol..."If we destroy it, the earth will be ours ...We'll pray for the gift of breeding. This is a...it is worth all the blood we may bleed. We must close the gate ...capture her soul in the chambers of crimson sleep. ...-place, we searched the ...of this infernal maze, to seek our enemy the one to slay. ...We are the ones, we will not o... her eyes, they are the root of her inhuman forces....Then she's just the child you thought s...But they must seal the entry from where al...Two of the brave ones were sent to distract her while the ...saw her enemies for the last time ...We saw the return of innocence, the symbol of purity we once ...We carried her to the chambers to forever...And now the reborn earth, blessed with the gift of birth can

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 this awesome force ranged against them and shuddered, not with fear, but with an awful and night-cold anticipation. ...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

seen the smiles on dead hand...the stars shine, but th...er and then I count the cost.... ...On the table lies blank pa...cissors/I only have the bluntest home.... ...I've been the witness, and the seal of death ...lingers in the molten wax that is ...When you see the skeletons of sailing-ship spars ... begin to wonder if the points of all the ancient myths ...the time for that's lon...The walls are thin as t...f I talk I'll crack the glass. ...and, as the waves crash on the bleak ...stones of the tower, I start to f...and fall in through the sky, ...the spectres scratch on...I craw the wall till steepness ends in the vertical fall; ...ail has sailed into the sea: no joking hope...White bone shine in the iron-jaw mask ...st mastheads pierce the freezing dark ...no paraffin for the ...v. The Presence of the Night/Kosmos Tours ...'Alone, alone,' the ghosts all call, ...pinpoint me in the light. ...The only life I feel at...is the presence of the night. ...Would you catch the final words of mine? ...The maelstrom of my memory ...ggering madly, over the brink I ...thouses might house the key ...but can I reach the door? ...I want to walk on the sea ...I scan the horizon ...y eyes on all parts of me. ...Looking back on the years ...the way: ...Like a dog in the night, I have run t......now I am the stranger I stay in....All of the grief I have seen ...I'm too close to the light ...vii. The Clot Thickens ...WHERE is the God that guides my ...HOW can the hands of others reach me? ...any way out of here. ...t to be one wave in the water ...I can see the Lemmings coming, bu...under? Which can is the best I may? ...s, I am pulled into the spell; ...lice horizons where the lines stand much to......hands stretch in the dark. ...Camps of panoply and majesty, what is Freedom of Choice? ...Where do I stand in the pageantry...whose i...ry bad now: I think the end is the start.

with the angels of the night. ...Rough-shod winging sky blue flight ...above the cold wind to Valhal...Breakfast with the gods. Night angels serve ...with ice-bound majesty. ...in a cup of silver liquid fire....and light the old Valhalla. ...above the cold wind to Valhal...The heroes rest upon the sighs ...of Thor's trusty hand ...in the desolation of Valhalla. ...empty-handed on the cold wind to Valhal

y step takes a beat of your heart ...on a night that rises and clea...in a sky that's clouded by y...my anger is a form of majesty ...in the shape of a smile ...on a night that could never su...ll me you're afraid of the past ...it's only the future that didn't