Текст песни Bal Sagoth - As The Vortex Illumines The Crystalline Walls Of Kor-Avul-Thaa

(Music: Jonny&Chris Maudling; Lyric: Byron)

Kor-Avul-Thaa... finest jewel in the crown of a realm of sublime
glory, greatest city in the Middle Kingdoms, mayhap all the world...
Its splendid walls of shimmering crystal could be seen from a
hundred leagues distant, kissed by the golden rays of the sun,
as caressed by the ethereal fingers of a midnight moon. Its magnificient
spires and citadels, built by generations of kings from the resplendent
gifts hewn from the ancient bosom of the sacred Crystal Mountains,
had oft’ times been the bitter envy of rival emperors, and many
were the sieges which Kor-Avul-Thaa had withstood and repulsed
over the centuries, for powerful sorcerers did weave great spells
of protection about the dazzling towers, and none may have passed
unbidden through the vast sapphirean gates of mighty Kor-Avul-Thaa...

THE ORACLE OF KOR-AVUL-THAA:

The sky rend asunder... black-winged devils
surge forth from the void...
A maelstrom of crimson fire burns above
us... what carnage hast thou wrought?
Not sword, ballistae, nor burning brand
Could e’er these walls aspire to breach,
Yet now the city’s fall is nigh,
As elder rites black fiends unleash.

HIGH LORD OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF DARK ELUCIDATION (KEEPER OF THE
FORBIDDEN BOOKS OF THE FIRST CATACLYSM):

By Klatrymadon and Zuranthus, such
ancient secrets we discovered within these
sinistrous, worm-worn pages,
Etched with darksome glyphs and sigils, bound
with fearsome spells,
An eldritch tide of stygian sorceries unfettered by
the forbidden Tome of Shadows...

Now thunderous cataclysm befalls the gleaming
Kor-Avur-Thaa (The mystic gate stands open!)
The Xytaxehedron held to the stars... the incantation uttered
with eager tongues...
(What long-shackled powers of the elder dark
have our conjurings loosed?)

By Klartymadon and Zuranthus, the vortex blackens the stars above,
A vast plague of amorphous horrors descends to rend with fang and talon,
(As with torrents of blood the crystalline walls run red!)
And in the glooming chambers of our shadowed sanctum, we wait,
half-mad with terror,
To reap the slaughterous harvest which we have sown...

THE CHRONICLER OF THE CATACLYSM:

And beyond the vortex, che churning black waters of the void
did disgorge the Dwellers in Eternal Shadow.
And upon a horde of winged horrors, brandishing swords of ebon
flame, they rode out from the
Gate...
And a terrible silence fell upon Kor-Avul-Thaa...

THE ECHOES OF THE ORACLE:

The sky rent asunder, black winged devils
surge forth from the void...
A maelstrom of crimson fire burns above
us... what carnage hast thou wrought?

THE CHRONICLER OF THE CATACLYSM:

The Chronicles Of Time speak of only two other instances when
the sky did split wide and bleed forth such a torrent of horror
as that which assailed Kor-Avul-Thaa... One of those times was
the fateful eve when the moon burned black over ancient Lemuria,
as a legion of ravening fiends emerged from the Outer Darkness
to visit catastrophe upon that realm... And the other... the
other manifestation of such a staggering cosmic evil is recorded
only in the ancient Scrolls of the Third Circle, a dark collection
of terrifying blasphemies which was believed to have been burned
by the Older of Kl’aa at roughly the same time as the first Tome
of Shadows was discovered deep within the Black Pyramid... These
scrolls speak disturbingly of visitations of our earth by creatures
from a terrible place known as the Black Galaxy... creatures
which were able to span the vast expanses of time and space separating
our world from theirs in their great dark chariots, bringing
pestilence and carnage whenever they set foot upon the earth...
And yet, the scrolls also speak of the Others, known by some
ancient, lond-dead tribes as the Travelling Ones... beings who
did stand against the denizens of the Black Galaxy and wage war
with them across the nighted void. It is said that the Travelling
Ones sailed the star-seas in huge silvern spheres ringed with
a myriad pulsing lights, and that in a great battle they drove
their shadowy foes back to the Black Galaxy... but at a great
cost... the Travelling Ones were drained of their cosmic powers
and cast into a deep slumber, and some say that they remain here
still, hidden in mysterious, secret places, awaiting the time
of their reawakening. It was ascertained by those mages who found
the Tome of Shadows that certain gateways existed linking our
world and the Black Galaxy, just as maps carved into the stone
walls of ancient tombs displayed the pathway to the terrifying
realm through the eternal blackness of the void... and within
the sinister pages of the dread book were the arcane keys...
the rites to open wide these gates and give the dark wanderers
beyond the freedom to roam the earth once again...
And the darkling lord did descend upon Kor-Avul-Thaa to claim
their splendid prize, and enthrone themselves within the glittering
walls...

THE ECHOES OF THE ORACLE:

Not sword, ballistae, nor burning brand
Could e’er these walls aspire to breach,
Yet now the city’s fall is nigh,
As elder rites black fiends unleash...

THE BROTHERHOOD:

By Klatrymadon and Zuranthus, in Kor-Avul-Thaa, darkness reigns eternal...
Nevermore shall the city glimmer, for now the crystalline walls
gleam black...
Ever black...

And so it was that the bedazzling and splendid Kor-Avul-Thaa
did become the City of Shadows, a sinister fortress of elder
fiends of fearsome beasts, unleashed by the meddlings of mortals
aspiring to dark thresholds of forbidden knowledge and arcane
power, a nightmare city shunned and feared by all. And not since
the sinking of Atlantis was the fall of a realm so sorely lamented...

From the Journals of Sage Daelun