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]