The Shet of the Doom

And it came to pass in the latter reckonings of the Werld, that there was found among the liviers a chaunt of dread, written not for the comfort of babes but for the waking of the wise; for it is a lantern made of bone, and its light is not warm.

of the stone, and of the swan

1.1 And I saw, and behold, the Father was wroth; for he looked upon the Mother’s workmanship and his heart was kindled with envy, and his envy became counsel, and his counsel became a snare.
1.2 And he took unto himself the likeness of a swan, exceeding fair, and white as sifted potash; and his wings were broad, and his neck was as a pillar of ivory, and his eyes were like a jewel set in ice. And he went before the Yellow Queen, who is the Sun, and She pursued him for the desire of beauty; for beauty draweth even the mighty into the thicket.
1.3 And the swan flew into a dense wood, where the roots are like old serpents, and the boughs are knit together as the bars of a prison. And at the end of a stagnant pond there was a little cave, like a mouth that hath forgotten bread.
1.4 And the swan entered therein. And the Sun entered therein after him.
1.5 And suddenly the Father sprang as a hunter from behind his mask, and the hollow was cast down, and the cave collapsed upon itself, and the falling thereof was as the shutting of a great book. And that which had been a cave became Stone; and Stone became as a seal; and the Yellow Queen was shut up within it.
1.6 And the Werld was plunged into the Eternal Night.
1.7 And I beheld the stars grow dim, as candles in a windless room; and the rivers became like black cords; and the grass bowed its head; and the breath of beasts was like smoke that cannot rise. And the hearts of men failed them, and the birds forgot their songs.

of eyenbite, and of the pond of venom

2.1 Then the White Queen descended, girded with oath, and Her sword was with Her, whose name is Eyenbite. And the edge thereof was keen beyond the ken of smiths; for it cutteth not flesh only, but falsehood.
2.2 And She sought Her Sister through the breadth of the Werld, and found her not; and She grew weary, yet She did not turn aside, for the White Queen turneth not aside.
2.3 And at the last She came unto a stagnant pond, and the air above it was heavy as an unspoken curse. And upon the water sat a swan.
2.4 And the White Queen drew nigh, for swans are Her sacred friends; but lo: the swan hissed at Her, and the hiss was as a knife drawn slowly from a sheath.
2.5 And the White Queen knew him.
2.6 And She lifted Eyenbite, and smote, and shore off the swan’s head. And behold: there came forth no blood, but poison, and it ran as oil into the pond, and the pond was filled, and the water became a cup of bitterness.
2.7 And the severed head lay upon the mud, and the beak gaped, and it mocked the air.
2.8 Then the White Queen heard a voice crying out from within the Stone; and it was the voice of the Yellow Queen, faint as a star behind cloud.
2.9 And the White Queen struck the Stone, and the Stone was cloven; and a seam of light sprang forth as a sword drawn in darkness; and the Yellow Queen was revealed.
2.10 And the Yellow Queen, being sore afflicted, bathed Herself in the pond before She departed; and the poison entered into Her, and She knew it not.
2.11 And the venom became as seed within the Sun.

of the wirm

3.1 And when the Queens were gone, the severed head of the swan was left alone; and the feathers thereof withered and fell as rags from a leper, and the whiteness departed from it as a lie departs from the mouth of a coward.
3.2 And the head rose again, though it had no life in it; and it shed its skin, and it waxed exceeding great.
3.3 And I saw it become a serpent vast and hideous, whose belly was the color of bruised night, and whose scales were as broken mirrors that show not the face but the wound. And its tongue was forked as the road of doom, and its breath was the stench of old treachery.
3.4 And lo, I call it Wirm.
3.5 And it lay coiled between light and night, and it fed upon dread, and it grew by swallowing the little mercies of the Werld.

of the bells, and of the unyielding one

4.1 And I saw a nealness depth, and in the depth a wheel, and within the wheel gears beyond number; and they turned not by wind nor by water, but by command and compulsion.
4.2 And at the core of the Werld there was bound the Unyielding One, a slave of the Father, whom the White Queen had chained in iron words. And the chains compelled him, and the compulsion was as fire in his marrow; and he was commanded to turn the gears that the Werld might spin.
4.3 And the Red Queen, whose heart is swift, and whose wrath is entreated easily by crafty speech, was made deceived; and She loosed a link She ought not to have loosed.
4.4 Then was heard the First Toll of the Three Bells of Doom.
4.5 And at the First Toll the guebbelins stirred in the hollows under the mountains, and their eyes opened like sores; and they gathered as flies gather to a wound. And they assembled before the great ettins, whose sleep is older than nations.

of the stillness of the werld

5.1 And the gears ceased.
5.2 And when the Werld ceased to spin, the mountains staggered as drunken men; and the valleys were lifted up and cast down; and the stars fell from the firmament like sparks from a forge.
5.3 And the forests were burned away as hair is burned from a skull; and the grass became ash; and the air was a furnace; and the seas lifted their faces to the sky and were not, for they were consumed.
5.4 And every living thing perished, and the silence was heavier than stone.
5.5 Then sounded the Second Toll.
5.6 And the Queens made gathered, and their osings with them; and they made war upon the ettin hosts. And the battle was as thunder wrestling thunder; and the earth was broken; and the very names of places were torn.
5.7 And the Queens prevailed, yet their victory was as bread eaten in mourning; for the Werld was already dead.

of the third toll, and of the devouring

6.1 And when the last ettin fell, I looked, and I saw that the sky had become a wound torn open.
6.2 Then sounded the Third Toll.
6.3 And behold, the Wirm came down out of the night, not as a beast crawleth upon the earth, but as a judgment descendeth from above. And it opened its mouth, and its mouth was a gate unto emptiness.
6.4 And it devoured the Moon.
6.5 And the darkness which followed was not the darkness of night, but the darkness of something eaten.
6.6 And it turned itself toward the Sun, and the Sun trembled; for even fire hath fear when it beholdeth hunger.

of the son of the sun, and of the venom

7.1 And I saw the rays of the Yellow Queen gather as a spear gathers to a point; and from the heart of that brightness stepped forth One whose countenance was as the dawn when it is angry.
7.2 AndHe was called the Son of the Sun.
7.3 And He did hold a sword, and upon the pommel thereof a ring; and the ring was rubbed, and vows were spoken which cannot be unspoken.
7.4 And He joined battle with the Wirm in the void between fallen stars, and the clash of them was as the breaking of Werlds. And the Wirm coiled about Him, and the Son smote it; and the Wirm’s blood was venom; and the venom was as a slaying sword upon his breath.
7.5 And the Son of the Sun slew the Wirm.
7.6 Yet the Wirm slew Him also, for its poison was faithful to itself.
7.7 And I beheld the Son stagger, bright and bleeding, and his light went out as a torch cast into deep water. And He wept—not as a man weepeth for victory, but as one weepeth for a thing that should not have been, yet was.

of the mother, and of the end

8.1 And the cries of the Son went up beyond the smoke of the Werld, and beyond the broken firmament, and beyond the hearing of osings.
8.2 And the Mother heard.
8.3 And She returned.
8.4 And Her coming was not as a freye cometh to a feast, but as a sorrow cometh to the heart: sudden, absolute, and without remedy. And She gathered the Son of the Sun unto Her, and She held Him as the sea holdeth a sinking star.
8.5 And She could not save Him from death.
8.6 For death had already written its name upon the Werld, and the ink thereof was the First Toll.
8.7 And the Mother wept, and Her tears fell upon the ashes, and where they fell, the ashes remembered they had once been soil.
8.8 And the End of Time drew near, as a great door closing.
8.9 And these are the things that were shown unto me: Stone swallowing light; venom turning to seed; a swan shedding into a serpent; gears stilled; stars fallen; the Moon eaten; the Sun assailed; and the last child of light dying in His Mother’s arms.
8.10 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. He that hath eyes to see, let him see. He that hath a heart to know, let him know.
Wassail.