In light of the past, and darkness of the age, They lay in the memories of old, Entombed spirits, inked to assuage, Dormant, lifeless and striving in the cold. A phantasm, an eidolon past, Where they seethe, and feast on will, A black horde, a multitude vast, The looming deathwatch peering in dreadful silence, Waiting for their fill. In the foulest pits, in the darkest coves, They are rooted as oaks, and nimble as hares. Bound in the vale of darkness in vast droves. Where it seldom hears, the voice of prayers. Amidst the veil of moonlight shadow and starlight In the shadow of the oldest aspens, I wept. I witnessed a vision of the coming blight, And the elixir, shrined, where it was kept. It was in the old songs of the Smith, The Ancient One's great hammer sang its song, A key to the elixir, where they had thought it a myth And a cosmic hammer, belting well, and powerful. The hammer song was a sacred voice, a diadem of light, Fleeing the hordes of fleshless evil, Exiling this the blackened dread with its great Light, With this ancient song, I felt the key and saw the elixir, Where I pursued this with all my might. Hear the cold wind cries, its deeds and demise. See the vale of night, The leaves have all but died, x7