[ THE ANTEDILUVIAN ORACLE: ]
Behold glorious Hyperborea, gleaming jewel of the
north; an eon-veiled kingdom forever steeped in
ancient legendry and the renown of its martial
splendour... but of late, an ill wind whispers
malignly through its opulent labyrinth of marbled
citadels...
[ WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE: ]
[ Episode I: ]
THE SPLENDOUR OF A THOUSAND SWORDS GLEAMING
BENEATH THE BLAZON OF THE HYPERBOREAN EMPIRE [ To
be found on the second Bal-Sagoth album;
"Starfire Burning Upon The Ice-Veiled Throne
of Ultima Thule" ]
[ Episode II: ]
THE DARK LIEGE OF CHAOS IS UNLEASHED AT THE
ENSORCELLED SHRINE OF A'ZURA-KAI (THE SPLENDOUR OF
A THOUSAND SWORDS GLEAMING BENEATH THE BLAZON OF
THE HYPERBOREAN EMPIRE: Part: II) [ To be found on
the third Bal-Sagoth album; "Battle
Magic" ]
NOW...
[ Episode III: ]
CRY HAVOC FOR GLORY, AND THE ANNIHILATION OF THE
TITANS OF CHAOS! (THE SPLENDOUR OF A THOUSAND
SWORDS GLEAMING BENEATH THE BLAZON OF THE
HYPERBOREAN EMPIRE: Part: III)
[ ALTARUS: ]
And so, it ends. You have learned much, young
Xerxes. Your training is nigh on complete. The
years which you have spent here at the Praxeum
have been difficult ones, but the reward of
elucidation you have gained far outweighs the
hardship you have endured. Many lessons have you
learned, not least of which is that knowledge is
never without its price, my neophyte.
[ XERXES: ]
Yes, master Altarus. I have heeded your tutelage
well, and your wisdom has been a great balm to me
during the many trials I have undergone. I can now
command the Mists of the Oracle, and the Great Eye
of the Universe opens at my bidding. And yet,
before I am placed before the final scrutiny of
the Elders, I ask that I be allowed to gaze into
the sidereal vista once more, to witness the final
outcome of that great struggle which has so
captivated me during my studies at the Praxeum.
[ ALTARUS: ]
Ah yes... the epic conflict between the Dark Liege
of Chaos and the royal Scion of proud Hyperborea.
Very well, my young apprentice. Command the
starscape to divulge its mysteries... look deep
into the fathomless mists, and the ruinous carnage
of A'zura-Kai shall once again be arrayed before
thine curious gaze. Aye Xerxes, thrice you have
summoned the besieged and benighted vista of
Hyperborea... now pay heed, for the final battle
is at hand!
[ Chapter 7: The Last Stand Against Chaos. ]
[ ALTARUS: ]
And a crimson sun rose slowly over the Field of
Blood... and such were the corpse-mounds of the
dead that they aspired to touch that ireful orb.
Slithering shadows nuzzled the massed bodies of
the slain, as the King rallied the survivors of
the battle against Chaos to one final act of
defiance...
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
Impertinent mortal wormcast! Do you truly aspire
to prevail against me? I am the Bane of the
Atlantean Kings, the Scourge of Lemuria, Arch-Foe
of the Immortals of Ultima Thule! Long before man
hurled himself squamously from the primordial
ooze, I waged war with gods and thwarted eternity!
[ ALTARUS: ]
Lord Angsaar, the Dark Liege of Chaos, was poised
on the brink of ultimate victory. By insidious
manipulation, he had carefully drawn the forces of
Hyperborea to battle at the Shrine of A'zura-Kai,
pitting his legions of ravening wraiths against
the stalwart forces of the Hyperborean Empire, and
during the fray his agents of evil had seized the
Ninth Crystal of Mera from the grasp of the King.
With the cosmic energies of the Shrine magnifying
the empyreal power of the Ninth Crystal, Angsaar
triumphantly performed the arcane rite that would
sunder the sorcerous fetters which had hitherto
kept his physical incarnation confined within the
ancient Chamber of Slumber. Summoning the
interdimensional portal which the mystic power of
the Shrine allied with the sorceries of the
Crystal could generate, Angsaar channelled his
fiendish presence from his darksome prison
directly to the death-gorged Field of Blood. Thus
was the spell of confinement woven countless aeons
ago by Angsaar's immortal nemesis broken, and on
that fateful day the dread Chaos-Liege strode the
world of mortal men once more. The King, flanked
by the few valiant survivors of the ruinous
Wraith-onslaught, stood defiant before the
withering glare of Chaos...
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
Ah, great King of Hyperborea! My mystic shackles
are at last broken... I am free once more! Your
army is lost, your realm is mine... it shall be
blessed with the honour of being the first to fall
before my renewed onslaught! Bow to me in
obeisance!
[ THE KING: ]
Never! For too long your diseased machinations
have hung like a black pall over glorious
Hyperborea... you have invaded my very dreams and
sown the virulent seeds of base treachery within
my court. It ends here, arch-fiend!
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
Feh! Yield to me, throw down your sword! Obey and
I promise that your death shall be swift, if not
entirely devoid of suffering!
[ THE KING: ]
I defy you!
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
Hyperborea shall fall! Your court shall become the
heart of my new imperium! Your people shall become
my lackeys, bearing the glorious burden of my
sovereignty with sweet praise upon their lips!
[ THE KING: ]
I shall always defy you!
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
Then your pain shall etch a new legend of
suffering in the benighted obelisks of the Outer
Darkness, and not even that cursed blade of
adamantine black steel shall preserve thee! Die!
[ THE KING: ]
So, the final battle begins! Into the fray we
ride! For the eternal glory of Hyperborea!
[ ALTARUS: ]
And the Chaos-Liege summoned the remnants of his
cackling wraith-horde, commanding the unholy brood
to once more hurl itself like a black tide against
the now bloodied but still razor edged steel of
the grim survivors of Hyperborea. With the
enchantments of the Ninth Crystal still crackling
in the air about the Shrine, the incorporeal
frames of the wraiths were once more
transmogrified into squamous pseudo-flesh, and
thus vulnerable to the biting blades of the King's
depleted war-host. Rallying his forces once more,
the Royal Scion of Hyperborea clove into the
massed hordes of nethermost horror, his
ensorcelled ebon blade hewing five-score left and
five-score right, leaving a viscous and noxious
trail of sundered fiends in his wake. The
Arch-Wraith of Lord Angsaar, that same bestial
horror which had smitten the King and seized the
Crystal of Mera from his gauntleted fist, swooped
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screaming from the crimson sky in a bid to
extinguish the life-force of the Hyperborean
monarch, but the benighted blade of the King was
swifter, and with a flash of noisome green light
and smoke, the Arch-Wraith's head rolled to the
blood-slaked earth, its leering countenance
forever frozen in a grotesque parody of un-death.
And once more, like a purifying storm of righteous
fury the heroes of Hyperborea dealt steel-cold and
martial discipline unto the baying hounds of
Chaos.
[ XERXES: ]
And yet I perceive that the wraith-horde's number
was being ever bolstered by the sorceries of the
reborn Chaos-Liege... for every keening horror
hacked down by a Hyperborean blade, three more
were summoned from the Outer Darkness by the
machinations of Angsaar. Even the courage and the
grim determination of the King's valiant force
could not hope to prevail against such an
overwhelming foe. But the last, best hope still
remained, clutched tightly within the King's fist!
The Shadow-Sword!
[ ALTARUS: ]
Your perceptions are clear, young Xerxes. The
life-essence of Angsaar's arch-foe was still
encased within the stygian sword following their
last cataclysmic encounter many aeons past, and
that yard of fearsome black steel spoke once more
to the King in the same long dead tongue it had
burned upon his mind deep within the Mountains of
the Dead. One hope remained to defeat Angsaar, but
it would carry with it a most terrible price for
the King.
[ Chapter 8: The Return of the Immortal ]
[ THE ECHOES OF THE IMMORTAL: ]
Hearken, noble King of Hyperborea. Long ago,
before life evolved from the boiling oceans of the
primordial sphere, I waged furious and
slaughterous battle with the Chaos-Liege over the
possession of the sacred Crystals of Mera, shards
of such incredible sorcerous potency that even the
Empyreal Lexicon itself was no greater a prize.
Although I succeeded in smiting the dark one and
imprisoning him within his Chamber of Slumber, I
was hammered to the brink of dissolution by the
abominations of Chaos, and I thus transferred my
life-essence into my Sword, that same blade which
you now hold in your grasp. I committed my fading
energies to concealing the blade from the sight of
man until such time as it would once more be
needed to bring to bear against Chaos... aye,
until such time as Angsaar reawakened. It was I
who guided you to the mountainous resting place of
the blade when my arch-foe marked you as central
protagonist in his scheme to recover the Prime
Crystal, o' King of the North. To utterly destroy
the Dark Liege of Chaos, you must join your
essence with mine... we must fuse our life-forces
and become one so that my full power may be
unleashed against Angsaar once more. But this
final deed demands the most severe of tolls, o'
noble monarch... To become as one with the
immortal essence of the Shadow-Sword is to
sacrifice forever your own mortality, and to
forsake eternally the world of man. Are you
prepared to pay this price, King of Hyperborea?
[ THE KING: ]
To preserve the sovereignty of my realm and
safeguard my people from the forces of darkness?
Aye! For my kingship demands no less a commitment!
So be it... let this final deed be done!
[ THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA: ]
Imperius Rex!
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
What futile gesture is this? Curse you, manling!
Can you not accept the inevitability of your
defeat?
[ THE KING: ]
Begone, servitor of Chaos! Your nemesis awaits
thee! Return to the Outer Darkness!
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
You fool! You cannot comprehend your actions! I
offered you sweet oblivion, and instead you have
chosen tortuous damnation!
[ THE KING: ]
I would sooner suffer damnation a thousand times
than bend the knee to Chaos!
[ ALTARUS: ]
And a great stillness descended over the Field of
Blood. Grimly, slowly, the King held aloft the
Shadow-Sword and spoke those baleful words of
power which had been forever branded indelibly
upon his soul. Writhing tendrils of night-dark,
coruscating energy lanced from the surface of the
blade, entwining the King in a pulsating chrysalis
of searing sorcerous power. His eyes shone deep
crimson with an illuminatory radiance not born of
this world, and forces which had lain dormant
since before the fall of the Third Moon stirred at
last from their aeons-old slumber...
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
No... my eternal nemesis, you will not thwart me!
Abominations rise! Destroy these mortals who vex
me as the buzzing of gnats vexes a titan! Drag
their impudent souls to the abyss!
[ THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA: ]
Havoc is the cry! Come, fiends of the
nether-void... face righteous pattern-welded
death!
[ LORD ANGSAAR: ]
Praise Chaos! By the crystal heart of Mera I shall
stand deified!
[ THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA: ]
Glory eternal! For our King and sacred Hyperborea!
[ THE KING: ]
Noble warriors of Hyperborea... I salute your
steadfast courage. This will be my final command
to you. Now come... follow your King into battle
one last time. Into the fray we ride... For the
eternal glory of Hyperborea!
[ ANGSAAR: ]
The circle closes... you cannot resist the
unparalleled might of Chaos and the exquisite
majesty of the Z'xulth! I shall unleash all the
terrors of the Outer Darkness against thee! Behold
the true extent of my power... My flesh is a
shrine wherein all demons dwell!
[ THE WARRIORS OF HYPERBOREA: ]
Stand fast! Cry havoc for glory and the
annihilation of the titans of Chaos! We fight to
the last man!
[ THE KING: ]
By all the gods of Hyperborea... a legacy shall be
wrought by our blades... our legend shall live
forever! Hear me, Angsaar! My humanity fades... my
mortality dissipates as does the darkness before
the glimmering kiss of the dawn! Let us finish
it... Let this be our final battle!
[ ALTARUS: ]
And thus was etched into the eternal codex of the
heavens the immortal legend of the Hyperborean
Empire.
[ XERXES: ]
But master Altarus... what was the outcome of the
final clash? What effect did the power of the
Immortal have upon the King? Did he ultimately
defeat Angsaar and the horrors spawned from the
Outer Darkness?
[ ALTARUS: ]
Alas Xerxes, no one knows the final outcome of the
battle. Even the Great Eye of the Universe and the
Mists of the Oracle are unable to ascertain the
fate of the King and his army on that fate-steeped
dawn. So much unparalleled and polarized arcane
power was unleashed upon the Field of Blood at
that instant that it has forever obscured the
oracular vista and shielded the truth from the
eyes of even the most talented and presentient
master of the Praxeum. Today, Hyperborea is but a
memory, a glorious legend which rests forever
within the same fathomless shark-haunted grave as
do mythic Lemuria and fabled Atlantis..
[ XERXES: ]
I shall make it a priority to ascertain the truth,
master. I vow I shall channel all the skills I
have learned here at the Praxeum into discovering
the final fate of the King of Hyperborea!
[ ALTARUS: ]
And I believe that you may well succeed, my young
apprentice. But whatever the case, one thing is
certain. As long as legends endure in the cosmos
and the deeds of heroes are celebrated in the
annals of eternity, none who gaze in awe beyond
the mists and are blessed to behold it shall ever
forget the splendour of a thousand swords gleaming
beneath the blazon of the Hyperborean Empire.
[ THE END...? ]
[ 15 October: 1893 ]
After a sleepless and oppressively feverish night
spent pondering the truths which I exhumed amongst
The Ghosts Of Angkor Wat, I have concluded that
these perceived parallels and their possible
significance carry me ever closer to the centre of
this great global web, the strands of which I have
been traversing in my long quest for
enlightenment, and yet I now fear that the owner
of this web has surely felt the tremblings I have
caused along its delicate filaments, and may well
feel compelled to investigate the disturbance... |