THE WINTER KING
(Lyrics by A.W.Yrjänä translation by Ville Moilanen)
"In 2727 A.D. the good eparch Wong Wu-Wei, whose name means He Who Is Not, gave a garden as a morning gift to his wife. The whole garden would fit into the nail of her little finger. The eparch had built babbling brooks, arched bridges and stunning waterfalls, selected and planted innumerable different blooming trees and built a thousand mechanical birds to sit on their branches. Each of them could sing, in many languages, pieces of the Saga of the Winter King."
I | The Almighty
Laertes Prime A.D. 2481, Autumnal Equinox
The sky is turning red, it knows what to expect
As the bows of ships are glowing at the docking stations.
They rest like wounded animals, so tired
The encircled city awakens in the morning of her last day.
Soon, from the night of ages would the spectres of winged bulls march
From the night of the mist of antiquity, from the dusk of nightmares.
Soon the heavens would open, herds of angels would surge
With arms full of lightning bolts, eyes radiating justice
The king leans on his golden hand in the depths of his tower of metal.
Like a solar flare his stare is soulless, pale, ever-burning.
Now, on the day of defeat, before the doom, he is looking down on his kingdom
And with a face of stone he quotes an old story to the empty walls:
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lie the smoking mirrors above the cosmos
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lies the emptiness that binds us together
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lie the smoking mirrors above the cosmos
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lies the emptiness that binds us together
Air ripples in the room and shadows are moving in the hallways
A shape is gleaming in the dark, even the silence goes silent.
On the general frequency voices clang at last
and they talk like the voice of an ultimate winner:
"You were the king of worlds, holding their strings.
You were a ruler: by your will would lives end or be spared.
At the end of the day even a king is weak just like anyone else.
You shall yet fall on your face and wish to save every last one."
Is the world limited, are we its prisoners?
Then there is a god is behind it all.
Or limitless, without boundaries: then we are alone, free...
But what to do when one knows that the story is about to end?
Be wise, give me a standing place
And I will crank the world off its hinges.
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lie the memories that build us
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lies the time that prepares us for this moment
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lie the smoking mirrors above the cosmos
Beyond the wall of light, beyond the reach of speed:
There lies the emptiness that binds us together
"My grave is guarded by a gentle breeze
My grave is guarded by a drop of morning dew
My grave is guarded by a hundred thousand killer satellites
My grave is guarded by a teraton of antimatter."
II | A Matter of Resources
Excerpts from Propaganda Broadcasts A.D. 2234-2251
Expand and conquer
And extend to the stars, prosper
Or weaken and die
And pine away towards your doom!
So say the competing kingdoms
To each other
And four of them go to war
And one is destroyed at once
But three remain
In a state of a stalemate
And then dawns a time of which
Many stories are told
(Stories are told!)
We are afraid of the stars
We don't try to embrace coldness
And the journeys are so bitter
So long, so heavy
And the resources are so limited
Life is so fragile,
And the colonies, before long
Every one of them will be on fire!
Do you not dream about the stars?
Do you not long for the wide emptiness?
Distances are calling for you
"Travel to the glory, to the colonies!"
The possibilities await:
Unlimited possibilities,
But only if you join the troops now!
The horizons are golden!
Don't you long for an adventure
At the building sites of the new world?
Join our troops, the new alliance,
The interstellar sphere of power!
III | Praetorian Cyborgs
An extract of a Wall Relief in the Ruins of the IV Cataract
From the herds of fanatics
From those wanting to self-sacrifice
Were the soldiers for the elite troops selected
From young aristocrats
From the hopeless of the slums
The best, the craziest
The maddest
Out of the sand of these fields
Out of the echoes in barracks
Out of engine oil, blood
Our strength grew
Out of the heaviest weapons
Out of the weight of battles
Our skin was all scars
Our blood was acid
Our war lasted for years
Raging under the stars
In the fear and the sadness
Of a thousand fields
Our only love is
The roar of the dropships
In storm and snow
The loss and the doubt await
I saved our commander
From the destruction of a frigate
I was promoted to the captain of a starship
I served far in the midst of stars
At home, the greats of my family
Were hungry for power
I would be their secret weapon
Their slave
The deceiver of my brothers
The death bringer
"From the tunnels of Antares to the stardust of Laertes
From the insurrections of Pleiades to the uprising of Orion
From the mandates of quasi-heaven to the maw of hyperspace
Everywhere side by side until we become as one.
A transgene turns us chimeras into a wolf pack
Cyborgs and cherubs are thrown against us.
The enemy is developing golems and seraphs
Their archangels boil crooks in womb tanks."
IV | Ghosts of Power
From the Psalter of the Skylights of the Guards
The fiery furnace of the ground is lava
The sky above like melting lead
At the honour site of the final battle
The guards platoon stands and falls
With burning clothes and cracking lips
We dance the last slow psalm
How alive is the blood in our veins
And the flames like cold steel
And we wonder who we the shadows are
What are we serving here
Who are we protecting watchfully
We, the riders of chaos
We sing a song about evil deeds
And there's not much life ahead of us
We sing about the empty beds
And the places we never returned to
And the gravest sins we commit
When we don't feel anything
And the most beautiful miracle of all
Is the will and trust for love
And we wonder who we the shadows are
What are we serving here
Who are we protecting watchfully
We, the riders of chaos
Only one detail can lodge in the mind
One detail out of the whole life
Some bright glow after the day is done
Or a look a partner gives
Only one detail can lodge in the mind
One detail out of the whole life
Some bright glow after the day is done
or a look a partner gives
And we ascend to the temples of beauty
And we ascend after the day is done
And we ascend to a great mountain
And we ascend and we ascend
V | Starship Captain
From the Chronicle of the Morning of the World
I wake up in the middle of darkness - I am tied up lying on my back
It is warm and wet, I am shouting and twitching in terror
My helplessness calms me down quickly, I am trying my senses
I am looking for something in my memory, it is so desolate and empty
Then, a light powers up slowly and the lid above me opens
I am inside a coffin in a room of metal, and pipes run down my chest
I don't even remember my name, my hands don't look familiar
and the naked body that is mirrored by the wall looks like a strange machine
Through the nightmares I knew that I was elsewhere
That I must bear a strange mission
How an oath binds me to deep shafts and streams
There is a seal over the secret in my heart
A prisoner or a refugee, a slave or a king
No feeling in my memory, then the room starts to talk
"Get up and get dressed, we are nearing our destination"
"Where, who is talking and to whom, I demand more information"
"Our journey was long as was your command
And I don't know about anything else, I'm just the ship's log
I've been guarding your sleep and counting your heartbeats for decades"
So, a log, a ship and outer space, all for some hidden destination
That only I would eventually recognize
Even though I didn't know anything anymore
I get up and get dressed, I touch the door
It opens up to a quiet hallway
If I am here, I am supposed to be here
But where, I must find out
How an oath binds me to deep shafts and streams
There is a seal over the secret in my heart
VI | Song of the Cosmological Constant
Notes by the Editor Regarding the Sources of The Winter King
Just a page off the Codex of Changes and Disappearance
Just an extract of a wall relief in the ruins of the cataracts
Just a memory from the king's mechanical night book
Just a verse from the Psalter of the Nightlights of the Guards
And it is told that his grave is guarded
By a hundred thousand killer satellites
And it is told that anyone trying to reach him
Will go astray in a forest of metal trees
And it is told that his left eye
Is watching every empty landscape
And it is told that he has won over Time
And lost his soul to Darkness
A segment from the Chronicle of the Morning of the World
A chapter from the Farewell Spell of the Riders of Chaos
The obscurest part of the Apocrypha of the Golden Legend
A lost splinter of a whispered tale
And it is told that his grave is guarded
By a hundred thousand killer satellites
And it is told that anyone trying to reach him
Will go astray in the forest of metallic trees
And it is told that his left eye
Is watching every empty landscape
And it is told that he has won over Time
And lost his soul to Darkness
He shall return when the lateran storm rips through the sky again
He shall return when methane hydrate lanterns light up the horizon
He shall rise when the cruel rusalkas return to the palace of hunters
He shall wake up when a prisoner in his stasis suit dreams away his life
VII | The Seer of Parvati
From the Codex of Changes and Disappearance
The star is like the sun of spring, and the planet like the Spring itself
Its woods and springs, its mountains and valleys
And the shadowy paths and the deserts
There are palaces of paradise, and engines underneath the oceans
They keep the nations and peoples of the fairyland
On the move, in the play of life
Few travellers wander here,
They cannot find the way or do not dare to come
The journey is so long, it's a dangerous road
And there is not much comfort on the way
But one does come, he escapes through the tunnel of a thousand fires
Through shafts of time and the vortex of forces
And finally wakes up in his ship
He brings his ship down like a flaming arrow to the safety of the wilderness
He escapes far from the route of his hunters
And begins his longest journey
He hears of an ageless woman up on the mountains, a madwoman or a seer
She is the priestess of the Chronos of Stars
And the bearer of the Keys of Mithra.
Whether the traveller finds his way, no story can tell
But the mountains know and the paths whisper
The two walked together for years
Planning and learning, absorbing strength from each other
They mingle reality, give birth to a myth
They decide that wars must end now
Rulers shall fall off their high and cold thrones
Kings shall collapse, the world shall change
The gates shall be open for everyone
VIII | The Crimson Commander
The Farewell Spell of the Riders of Chaos
Our ship is made of darkness
It mocks the laws of nature
With towlines, ropes, rigs and sails
It sails the waves of the emptiness
On the decks the crimson crew
Dark as if painted with blood
From amidst the purple of cloaks and hoods
Gleam dark silvery eyes
And their elder is Maltan Hiram
The crimson commander
He knows the secrets of the Schwarzschild radii
And the neutron stars and the Cepheids
We journey on his secret routes
Like spectres of space
We strike deep and disappear quickly
Sometimes even the fear cowers before us
When the others rest during the day
The commander sits alone silently
He remembers all his years
And sorrows and his faraway love
He shuts his lidless eyes
Opens up his composite fist
And he rubs a small white stone
And smiles quietly
And their elder is Maltan Hiram
The crimson commander
He knows the secrets of the Schwarzschild radii
And the neutron stars and the Cepheids
We journey on his secret routes
Like spectres of space
We strike deep and disappear quickly
Sometimes even the fear cowers before us
IX | Fallen Light
From the King's Mechanical Night Book
Once, under time's arm
The spring of light was gleaming.
Over a dewy meadow we ran
And hid in dark groves.
Once, under time's arm
Winds and clouds were our people
When proud ideas carried us
And the deep flows of secrets.
Beyond the wall of light
Beyond the reach of speed
Lies the emptiness that binds us together.
The grey rooms of reality
Abandoned farms and roads of iron
All the coldness that can hunt us down.
Spring, out there somewhere
You feel the heavy rumble of water.
You wait for the colours and the scents to return
You walk across the yard with a harsh mind.
But spring will not utter a word
Myrtles and laurels fall off to yesterday.
You think about the end of everything
About the autumn and the dark distances.
Above the gate of the wall of light
A face pressed into metal
It looks infinitely calm.
In its bronze stare
That is unchanging, unfamiliar
There is all the horror that goes on and on.
But it is all a dream, only a dream
Everything is a dream here, far away
Beyond all consolation
Expelled from the shores of beauty
But it is all a dream, only a dream
Everything is a dream here, far away
Beyond all consolation
Expelled from the shores of beauty
And so, when the elders of the council
Wanted to submit me to the test
I accepted the mission and disappeared
On the deck of their most beautiful ship
X | Quanta
Index Prohibitorum Disciplinum Augustam
"Thanatos-6, a marshland
Drop squadron seven five reporting in
Head count eight
Mission parameters understood"
"Storm is rising, we are missing three
The engines are running on auxiliary power
The wounded were left in the chasm
And the Guard will never surrender!"
Through the gate of death into the light!
On the road of sacrifice unto the victory!
So echo the shouts of parade grounds
In our ears, even now
Twisted and muffled
Calls into the emptiness
Wheezing and panting
The fading signal
I took a look to the sky through the smoke of the battle
And through the disturbances in magnetic fields
Over the commands and shouts in the radio traffic
Over the pain of the wounds and the fatigue.
I took a short look to the sky and almost understood
As the fusion burners of ships were blazing
And thousands of shapes of darkness
Could only be seen as dots on the tactical display.
I would only need one second, and I would remember
Why we were created, why we have come here
But a second in the midst of the roar of the battle
Is a small and impossible luxury
From the night of the emptiness, through its flames
My forehead is hit by an EMP
And I would fall into a coma inside my suit
Until I'd wake up somewhere else
Once, all matter will be frozen
Darkness takes into itself
Every bit of a particle
And the entropy sweeps
The mirror clean of photons
Of memories and records
Space is an empty canvas, time endless.
XI | Rusalkai
The Apocrypha of the Golden Legend
Bring forth the one who sits
At the deck of Gayomart.
Throw before me the one
Who still dares to defy me.
The one who cannot see that he is
But a creation of his own king
Nor know that his life is but a dream and a lie!
Seek and destroy, his only command
An endless promise of pain
A limitless will and power to do evil
Above him, only the silence of the cosmos
The music of broken bones
The grim choirs of the dead
The cavities of blinded eyes
And the masks of the flayed
Out of the night of the cataracts
The black shapes arise, singing of death
Humanoid creatures of shadows
The pale underlings of the king
Desolation follows their footsteps
Coldness walks in front of them
Finally they find their prey
He steps up to embrace them
Our master has given the order
So we shall set out
And to the palace of hunters
We shall bring our prey
XII | Mirror of the Almighty
Laertes Prime, A.D. 2481, Autumnal Equinox
The conqueror steps forth before the throne, alone
The heavenly army waiting for her command
She folds her energy field wings, tilts her head
And looks in the eye of a king about to fall
"The destroyer of worlds, the god of the living
The holder of the firmament, the golden mountain
Those are but names, and now they shall be stripped
If you fall down on your face, what would it save"
The consciousness is empty like a painting in twilight
But something seeps through, a scent of memories:
The first memory is weak, so obscure:
A door to a secret is hidden in the heart.
The second memory, faltering like a grey, grainy picture
It shows a face and the scenery behind it
The third memory concerns numbers and formulae
The fourth memory is a dark and dangerous road.
And a voice seems to be explaining something, quietly and seriously
As if something familiar, safe, long ago lost.
It says that the body is a map and the pain is a compass
And the spots of light in the mind are missions:
I remember the great book under the holy seal
The one which my ancestresses carried under the new sky
I remember the alliances, the wars, the travels, the new treaties
I remember myself only in the way one remembers a nightmare.
At last, each and every kingdom collapses into dust
And the names of kings fall into the oblivion
Systems crumble down, great words die on lips
And within the ruins, only a lonely breeze is wandering
And even though I live, everything is scattered in time
Blown to the solar winds of suns that will once die.
The mind's sphere of power is learning the message of space
And the silence of the wordless vaults of stars.
Did love, did hate once flow through my being
Life as its fabric, me as its thread
So, were those moments futile or
All this mortal defiance within me towards the face of darkness