I am a product of mass produced facto...Streets full of tenement blocks, ra...l, went straight on the dole ...d my way up to be a second-hand car spiv, ...n't want to work on the factory floor, ...Than to be a slave of a lathe, ...So a second- hand car spiv was ...He was a second-hand car spiv up from the slums, ... beats selling cars second-hand. ...d worn out heaps to the punters on the street, ... Now I'm in control of the country as a whole,...And the world is at my feet...The world is at his fee...er, power, I've got power oozing out of me, ...And when you think of all the things I've done ...ked his way up from the streets. ...Yes I'm a second-hand car spiv. ...Make a sale, ring the bell ...And let the suckers go to hell....Bank the profits, count the change

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

I secure the door and it's the moment of truth ...ound system and let the bass loose ...The earthquake bass makes the walls all tremble ...I open up the windows so the glass don't shatter...The blast falls off my ...My phone rings of the hook with complaint...But I just let it ring and I don't go near...I turn the volume up so that I can't hear it ring ...We rock this power at my command ...The decibels exceed the limits human ears c...The lower frequency bet...Sitting nice with the treble at a jazzy p...eople gots my rhyme the super computer ...The literary genius rhyme ruler of the future ...I'm the fresh prince slayin...So hold the red cup when we tak...Cause I'm the fresh prince and th...I'm the man salute to the prince the power lord ...I'm the messiah or rhymes the verbal gladiator ...omb and my turbo is the detonator ...The crown chief of the poetry industry ...highly respected by the public at large ...The prince will rock is...Be a duel to the death either him or...The force captures my b...helpless in a state of shock ...And the yells of the crowd make my hype ... metamorphosis into the royal fresh prince ...r and higher beyond the mark of red ...cream oh my to what the prince just said ...All of a sudden I get anot...ommonly known as my second wind ...The spotlights are beam...From my body all the sweat is streaming ...Commanding the stage ...Giving my all to the pulse of ...When I step off the stage that's when the stop ...And that has been the account of the evenings events ...g to you live by me the fresh prince ...I'm the latest that you hea

People pissing on the stairs, you know th...I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise ...Rats in the front room, roaches in the back ...Junkie's in the alley with a baseba...Cause a man with the tow-truck repossess... cause I'm close to the edge ...Standing on the front stoop, hangin' out the window ...Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes blow ...Eating out of garbage piles, used...Said she danced the tango, skipped the light fandango ...Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps ...So she can tell the stories to the girls back home ...She went to the city and got so so ... cause I'm close to the edge ...All my children in the daytime, Dallas at ...Can't even see the game or the Sugar Ray fight ...ill collectors they ring my phone ...Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station ... cause I'm close to the edge ...Cause the teacher's a jerk, h...And all the kids smoke reefer, ...I dance to the beat, shuffle my fe...nd tie and run with the creeps ... a car in this land of milk and honey ... that girl in front of a train ... to a doctor, sowed the arm on again ... can't walk through the park, cause it's crazy after the dark ...Keep my hand on the gun, cause they got me on the run ... cause I'm close to the edge ... born, wih no state of mind ...Blind to the ways of mankind ...You grow in the ghetto, living second rate ...es will sing a song of deep hate ...The places you play and...You'll admire all the numberbook takers; ... pimps, pushers and the big money makers ...ind up dropping out of highschool ...Spend the next two years as a... now your eyes sing the sad sad song ...Of how you lived so fa... cause I'm close to the edge

People pissing on the stairs, you know th...I can't take the smell, i can't take the noise ...Rats in the front room, roaches in the back ...Junkie's in the alley with a baseba...'Cause the man with the tow-truck repossess... cause i'm close to the edge ...Standing on the front stoop, hangin' out the window ...Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes blow ...Eating out of garbage piles, used...test a tango, skips the life and then go ...rch a prince to see the last of senses ...Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps ...So she can tell the stories to the girls back home ...She went to the city and got so so ...All my children in the daytime, dallas at ...Can't even see the game or the sugar ray fight ...ill collectors they ring my phone ...Can't take the train to the job, there's a stri...At the station ...'Cause the teacher's a jerk, h...And all the kids smoke reefer, ...I dance to the beat, shuffle my fe...nd tie and run with the creeps ... a con in this land of milk and honey ... that girl in front of a train ... to a doctor, sowed the arm on again ... can't walk through the park, cause it's crazy after the dark ...Keep my hand on the gun, cause they got me on the run ...born, with no state of mind ...Blind to the ways of mankind ...You grow in the ghetto, living second rate ...es will sing a song of deep hate ...The places you play and...You'll admire all the number book takers ... pimps, pushers and the big money makers ...ind up dropping out of high school ...Spend the next two years as a... now your eyes sing the sad sad song ...Of how you lived so fa

People pissing on the stairs, you know th...I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise ...Rats in the front room, roaches in the back ...Junkie's in the alley with a baseba...Cause a man with the tow-truck repossess... cause I'm close to the edge ...Standing on the front stoop, hangin' out the window ...Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes blow ...Eating out of garbage piles, used...Said she danced the tango, skipped the light fandango ...Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps ...So she can tell the stories to the girls back home ...She went to the city and got so so ... cause I'm close to the edge ...All my children in the daytime, Dallas at ...Can't even see the game or the Sugar Ray fight ...ill collectors they ring my phone ...Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station ... cause I'm close to the edge ...Cause the teacher's a jerk, h...And all the kids smoke reefer, ...I dance to the beat, shuffle my fe...nd tie and run with the creeps ... a car in this land of milk and honey ... that girl in front of a train ... to a doctor, sowed the arm on again ... can't walk through the park, cause it's crazy after the dark ...Keep my hand on the gun, cause they got me on the run ... cause I'm close to the edge ... born, wih no state of mind ...Blind to the ways of mankind ...You grow in the ghetto, living second rate ...es will sing a song of deep hate ...The places you play and...You'll admire all the numberbook takers; ... pimps, pushers and the big money makers ...ind up dropping out of highschool ...Spend the next two years as a... now your eyes sing the sad sad song ...Of how you lived so fa... cause I'm close to the edge

In the sheltering shade of the forest...Accompanied only by the full moon...The howling of a night wolf...And the path under my bare ...The Elvenpath...Hearing music from the deepest forest...ongs as a seduction of sirens...The elf-folk is calling...o, Bear-king, Ruler of the forest..., Bluecloak, Healer of the ill and sad...Open the gate and let me follow the uncarven path...The way to the lands...The path where Beauty met the Beast...It's the honesty of these worlds...es my soul long for the past...The moonwitch took me t...Told me to keep the sauna warm for him...At the grove I met the rest - the folk of my fantasies... Willow, trolls and the seven dwarves...The path goes forever o...The way to the lands...The path where Beauty met the Beast...It's the honesty of these worlds...es my soul long for the past...In the early years of the Second Age,...smiths forged rings of power....Madrigals from the woods...The world's an elvish s...The world's an elvish s...But then, the Dark Lord learned ...The craft of ring making and made the master ring.

Searching the roofs for a sniper,...Death in the shadows, he'll maim...The wounds that burn so...Your mother sits on the edge of the world. ...When the cameras start to ro...iewpoints resurrect the killing field. ...ther beer; he's one of the few that cares. ...From the safety of his living room cha...And so I patrol in the valley of the shadow of the Tricolor. ...eading answers from the nameless, ...watchers that stalk the carpeted corridors of Whitehall; ...t you; for whose is the kingdom? ...The power and the Glory, forever and ...fin on its way down the emerald aisle, ...Where the children's stony gl...The bomber's arm places fiery gifts on the supermarket shelves...From the dole queue to the regiment; a profess...On the news a nation mourns your unknown soldier; count the cost. ...For a second you'll be famous bu...Ring o' roses; they all

Some body kill the lights we doin ...Double the pleasures like double the fun ...cks does it take to the center of a Luda pop double the tumbs ...n slower move on to the second lesson ...or hours, in an out the shower, this pimp p...6 hands gripping the sheets, 30 toes are...What in the world is going on till the brake a brake a daw...Get in the game n start workin...Now lean to the side, throw a dick ...You gotta get in the groove you got noth...an take turns while the other one watch ...And wake up the hood till they call...s and you can start the ignition ...Little bit of ring on the neck it won't kill ...Put me on the bottom or top n I'l...ck so get ready for the mack attack ...The way they bending it from sack to sack because the mack is back and I'

used to play up all the fools...But um, screw the dumb shit, cause li...One is little Mike the others Ike I'm sure...(Kick the verse preacher) and...er up I can't sleep the fly brotha must pro...The power pack and I'm stacke...slut she, put me in the rut G...With the dip that was down with me from the whole front...I gotta get the bread, gotta get the butter...at down throw it in the gutter...as if it was a pool of water...Now the water's getting hotter so I bought her a new ring...be a love ballad is the song I sing...Well this is the final chapter (Hel...Of me, we're going to ...The lane and I will pic... (I'll fucking call the cops)...at? I'm gonna call the cops)...I busted thee, top of your skull (are you...You thought the day was going to be... and then I scraped the meat (calling my ho...Off, the bone, of your leg (Stop cal...bit (I'm gonna call the cops!)... me to do some type of freak show?...What you know bout the problems of L.A.?...u what's wrong with the problems...Of the people in the L.A....See the brothers needs some type of education...you know, some type of foundation, in the,...Community, cause the mute-co, duh, the community...ows like seeds, and the seeds will not fall...The tree if you don't water the grass...yo) come here for a second

Searching the roofs for a sniper,...Death in the shadows, he'll maim...The wounds that burn so...Your mother sits on the edge of the world....When the cameras start to ro...iewpoints resurrect the killing field....ther beer; he's one of the few that cares....From the safety of his living room cha...And so I patrol in the valley of the shadow of the Tricolor....eading answers from the nameless,...watchers that stalk the carpeted corridors of Whitehall;...t you; for whose is the kingdom?...The power and the Glory, forever and ...fin on its way down the emerald aisle,...Where the children's stony gl...The bomber's arm places fiery gifts on the supermarket shelves...From the dole queue to the regiment; a profess...On the news a nation mourns your unknown soldier; count the cost....For a second you'll be famous bu...Ring o' roses; they all

Ever ready for the time,...Power surge I get the urge,...The stars in your eyes ...I knew I was the boy for you,...When you came for the second time,...You know you need the rest,...e never ever failed the test,

Feel the realness ...In this business of rep ...Fresh out the gate again time to raise the stakes again ...G A N G to the Starr's son ...The badder you seem, the more lies you tell ...The more lies you sell,...Stupid, you know the God must bless ever...Want to be the shit starter? Fuck ...I'm one of the best yet ...In this business of rep.....Since back in the day I held The Weight and kept my ...The want to see the God catch an L Itz ...ive no man or thing power over me ... like that nigga in the ring with you, impossibl...More than a decade of hits, that'll live ...ime, but you scared of jail ... wig piece just for the way your lookin at ...'t know why so many of why'all want to be ...Face the consequence, of your childish nonse...The flame thrower, make...Stop beatin me in the head son, nah, I'm