"Starfire Burning Upon The Ice-Veiled Throne Of Ultima Thule" by Bal-sagoth

Spears agleam in the dying sun,
The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
From the icy throne of God-King shall rule,
When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.

[Old Northlander war-song, found in the ancient scrolls of
Volmyr]

The  Final  Part  of  Voryn  Helmsmiter's Journey to the Ice
Realm: Blood
drips  from  my frost-encased sword, forming a crimson
blossom upon the ice...
My limbs cold, becoming as one with the massing snows... my
eyes nearly frozen
closed.  For  how  long  had  we  travelled? The memory
grows dim, lost in the
cruel,  searing  storm-winds. And now, at last... our quest
is at an end. With
the  blessings  of  the  elders  we began our journey beyond
the great veil of
shadowed  glaciers...  They  spoke  of  a  prophecy 
foretold,  an ancient and
glorious  legacy,  A  quest for the realm of legendry lost
to man since before
even the Star-Lords descended... Now, only I survive, my
blood spilling to the
ice,  turning  to  crimson crystal upon the deeply frozen
earth. Elder sorcery
crackles  and hums all about me, coursing through the sky,
the snow... As grim
destiny  approaches  with  the freezing boreal gales and
this ancient prophecy
unfolds...

[Predication of the Elders:]
Go,  follow  the witch-lights in the northern night sky,
beyond the great
silvern  mountains...  Let  the  sacred moon-crystal be your
guide, beware the
sentinels at the Caverns of Eternal Mist...

Spears agleam in the dying sun,
The blood is spilled, the battle's won,
From the icy throne of God-King shall rule,
When nine stars kiss the moon o'er Ultima Thule.

Swathed in moon-frosts, in icy winds our blazon flying,
Iron gleaming 'neath the stars, black skies ablaze with
astral fire,
White wolves (like silent spirits) haunt us, ever
northwards, the ice-gem
leads us, glimmering,
Powerful spells entwine the shrine of legendry, mighty gates
of frozen
splendour looming,
When the moon and stars shine as one upon the snows, the
ancient ice-gate
opens, the prophecy is fulfilled!

Towering, ice-encrusted forms lumber forth from the freezing
mist,
(Their eyes shimmering with a fiendish, eldritch
malevolance...)
Our steel is raised against their weapons of gleaming
crystal,
And the virgin snow is rendered crimson by bloodshed in a
searing storm of
slaughter.
(Wounded, dying, my flesh rent by weapons no human ever
forged or wielded, I
am beckoned forward by a strange, alluring force from beyond
the veil of
swirling mists...)

Shadows, images form in the glittering rune-carved walls of
this glacial
chamber,
Secrets frozen within the timeless vaults of eternity...
The throne of the time-lost ice realm, entwined in the
mantle of such searing
star-born power...
This frozen, aeon-cloaked seat of immortal majesty... (of an
empire forged
long before the vast seas rose in devouring fury!)

What shimmering swords raised in combat once sang with the
glorious clamour
of steel on steel?
What splendid banners, billowing in the icy gales, once
heralded the march
of these invincible silverclad legions to the blood-swathed
embrace of epic
battle?
The glory of untold thousands of years past... this ethereal
legacy of
mighty Ultima Thule.
The frozen eyes of immortal kings watch me... such a dark
splendour!

The Guardian of Ice and Shadow:
The grim Ice-Gods sleep in these frost-bound tombs,
illumined by the caress
of lunar fire,
And the kiss of star-gleam from the stygian void...
All is now as was foretold in prophecy, written in the very
ether of empyreal
eternity...
The celestial alignment is night... the conjunction is at
hand!

And nine stars illumine the northern heavens, a vast cosmic
sigil with the
silvern moon at its centre...
Blazing argent light fills the chamber, engulfing the hewn
walls of elder ice,
These ancient carvings in a time-veiled tongue, (etched into
the primeval ice
countless aeons ago, now bathed in diaphonous incandescence
by this storm of
lucent stellar power, their mindsearing meaning at last
becomes known to me...)
their cosmic secrets unfold...
The ice-throne is encased by a shimmering wall of writhing
cerulean flame,
A lambent flame far colder than the frozen surface upon
which it dances...

And then, enlightenment comes, gleaming down upon my
consciousness as the
bright  moon  gazes  down upon this auroral vista... From my
mind is lifted an
obscuring  veil,  a  veil induced by sorcerous arts, and I
realize I have been
merely  a vassal of another's twisted will, a pawn in a game
which is entwined
in  treachery  and  malign  aspirations  to  thresholds of
great power. Such a
traitorous web has been spun! The elders of my kingdom bow
in obeisance to the
vile  priests  of Xothan'kur, and it is their diseased
machinations which have
urged  me here, to the very heart of the far-fabled ice
realm... for they seek
to  usurp  the  power  of  the  Conjunction, stealing the
vast energies of the
Ice-Veiled throne and absorbing them into their own leprous,
undead bodies, pe
rpetuating  the  adoration  of  their  abhorrent  liege  for
 countless  ages,
liberating  his  vile  will  and enslaving the realms of the
world... Aye, for
generations  they  have plotted their actions, and I was the
key to this plot,
chosen from birth for this fated journey... for the blood of
the ancient kings
of  Ultima  Thule runs strong in my veins, and only once in
every aeon may one
such  as I stand before the throne during the great cosmic
alignment, when the
sorceries of the ancient Ice-Gods are at their peak, and
rightfully wield this
power unleashed... And yet I vow that the vile minions of
Xothan'kur shall not
prevail...  Liberating  the  fettered  power  of the
moon-crystal, I sever the
tendrils  of  their  dark  conjurings, and their aspirations
are at an end, th
eir  spells  broken  by  the  very power which they sought
to usurp! The final
vestiges  of  mortal life flee my body in crimson gouts, and
at last I realize
what  the fates have spun for me, and what is carved in the
very ice all about
me... My destiny is at ha nd...

[The Herald of Enlightenment:]
And so, enrob'd by tendrils of starfire and the raiments of
lunar mist,
The immortal liege whose sceptred empire is eternity,
Sits enthroned and brooding over his dark realm once more.
The last of my life's blood spills to the ice, (as
star-wrought destiny is at
last fulfilled.)
Swathed in freezing flame...
The mystic wolves of the frost-moon (slowly, silently)
encircle me,
Their eyes are blazing azure, and their fur is whiter than
the sublime snows.
Such power! I am the Chosen... the secrets of the earth and
the stars are
unlocked before me...
I am destined to reign forever... to reign from the
Ice-Veiled Throne of
Ultima Thule!

[Lyrics: Byron]
[Music: Chris and Jonny Maudling]