Stygian III: Perennial Voyage (Across the Perpetual Planes of Crying Frost & Steel-Eroding Blizzards) Lyrics

From the Traecean Chasms came the cyclopean waves of dark white, an opaque sea that expanded into the skyline and so the Juurn drowned sister-earth in her sorrow. The callous twin-serpent blade strike of Sharos and Carcophanex has vanquished the light of Heeos and autumn has fallen into endless woeful winter. In his silent domain of frozen cobblestone, the Guardian of Atros Kairn revives from profound lethargy to a world he does not know. Like the spirit of Atra Eas encased into the Weeping God-Sword reclaimed from atop The Aeegian, he cannot begin to fathom the ageless, unfathomable depths of eternity through the infinite coldness of the Perpetual Planes.

"Awakened by the wailing of glacial winterwinds, I arise from the hailstone... to the majestic sight of brooding sunless skies. How many moons have passed while I slumbered deep within these halls? For all that once was, is now but ruin and ice."

Under his weary gaze, starlit plains of crystal frost stretched beyond the horizon, like a sea of frozen tears pouring forth from the heavens

"It's...so ...cold"

(Guitar Solo 1 - Petrifying Glacial Sorrow : Tougas)

"Echoing out across the infinite tundra, my screams remain unanswered, for everyone I have ever known and loved are gone forever"

(Guitar Solo 2 - Bottomless Ice-Chasm Lamentations : Tougas)

"Yet I hear them still, weeping beneath oceans of ice.
And I mourn them still, yearning to find peace among them."

With poisonous contempt, the Guardian of Atros Kairn drew his sword towards the starless tapestry, bellowing to the lesser gods :

"Am I to linger in these realms until the stars wither and fade?"

Hearkening to him, the harmonious laments of shapes of men and women frozen in place pierced the air :

(Guitar Solo 3 - Chants Of The Crying Frost : Leduc - 16 bars)

(Guitar Solo 4 - Wailing Steel-Eroding Blizzards : Tougas - 16 bars)

"Must I live to grieve for all of those I have left behind?"

The cold realisation that the gods abandoned him came down on him like the harrowing gusts of blizzard-winds scorching his flesh, and so he resigned himself to carry on through the ruinous wilderness that laid before him. Months became Years. Years became decades. Decades became centuries. Centuries became millennia. Far away he journeyed, from the Valleys of Arctic Stillness in the lost kingdom of Hegemnon, to the shattered glass domes of Saturnian and the accursed realms of Vecoiitn and its silent fields of permafrost filled with mournful shapes of men and women alike petrified in time. As he finally passed the great arch of Atra Carnis - now but a towering mirror of black ice, the Guardian of Atros gazed upon the planes of crying frost and a feeling of familiarity and confusion suddenly pierced his mind like the icy winds pierced his soul : He had been there before. He could not know whether it had been months, years or decades ago. But he knew it, and it broke him further. Yet he was living still, and had to carry on through the ceaseless, glacial shadows. He had to, for the sake of those he had lost.

"And thus I walked the earth for untold aeons, in search of life through vestigial ruin. But with each and every step that I took in the cold wastes, my grieving soul only grew weary. Then I saw time devour the stars, and watched as the frozen rivers of the Juurn would reflect their light no more. And I saw to the east, a black sun rise over the bronze hills, and upon the sight of this fearful vision, I knelt in the snow and drew my sword into the ice."

Underneath his corroded armor of bronze and silver, he could feel but a thing ; The seering, callous knife of loss and regret piercing his heart, and the memories of everything he ever knew eroding his spirit like the lingering feeling of death that flowed through his veins and bones. The songs of the house of Atros Kairn were now but faded memories, like distant intonations sang by lamenting spirits floating adrift in the dead of night. The only music he knew was the sound of his footsteps in the tundra and the howling black winds of Atramentus that scorched the frozen stones of long forgotten citadels and once glorious halls. What remained of him was but an hollow shell, a ghost wandering in the icy fields where life once flourished. To witness the emptiness and endless desolation before him as he carried the bane of Atra Eas through the throes of eternity had finally become unbearable. And there he sat next to the Weeping God-Sword Atra-Eas, allured by the dancing shades soaring and merging in the crystalline mist around him. But for only a brief instant, the winds became but a quiet hush as the air around him stood still. An eerie calm surrounded The Guardian of Atros Kairn as he gazed into the distance and through a stream of starlight, beheld again for the first time in centuries the magnificence of the Bronze Hills, the hyacinth gardens of Syzygea, the once vibrant streets of Cilucithion, the walls of Armon and its once triumphant capital of all human realms. In a brief moment of peace, he sat there and sang to himself.

"Over the mountainside lies the end of my quest
I'm calling to the nightsky
Gone with the wind, my words are fading
Take my sword and open thy gates
Take my shield and grant me everlasting respite"

(Guitar Solo 5 - Tears Of The Weeping Sword : Tougas - 16 bars)

(Guitar Solo 6 - Frozen Steel Dirges : Leduc, - 32 bars, additional harmonies by Tougas)

The guardian of Atros Kairn saw the breadth of eternity before him and wept, for no funeral pyre could ever appease his sorrow through the purifying fires of Heeos. Like the unyielding scythe of time eroding mountain and stone, Carcophanex feasted upon the stars with unending gluttony. In their evermoving wrath, the howling black winds of Atramentus carried the chants of The Guardian of Atros Kairn through the perpetual planes of crying frost, shattering them against the Bronze Hills. Alit with ardent amaranthine furor, the eyes of Sharos shimmered in the frozen gloom, glaring at the wielder of the screaming-god sword Atra Eus maliciously, for the tragedy unfolding before him would never cease. Such was his tale, for there are no beginnings and no endings. Only the ageless, unfathomable depths of eternity. And through the impenetrable murk of endless night, the weeping-god-sword Atra Eas howled into the infinite void.