The Words
The Words are a mysterious phenomenon that have been encountered by multiple groups in Blackmouth and often have a deleterious effect on those who hear or speak them. They resemble words from the Rúnatal - a section of the old norse Hávamál revealing the origin of the runes and describing Odin's sacrifice to himself for knowledge - but with slightly different phrasing of certain concepts, and have been encountered in multiple languages, primarily in old Norse but also in the First Tongue of the Hisil.
The Words Themselves
Norse: Veistu, hvé rísta skal? Veistu, hvé ráða skal? Veistu, hvé fáa skal? Veistu, hvé freista skal? Veistu, hvé biðja skal? Veistu, hvé blóta skal? Veistu, hvé senda skal? Veistu, hvé sóa skal?
First Tongue: Zu thekh zu be'es. Zu thekh zu duha. Zu thekh zu uma. Zu thekh zu kuruk. Zu thekh zu endar. Zu thekh zu muth. Zu thekh zu dar. Zu thekh zu bhu'uhurk.
Approximate English Translation: Do you know how to cut? Do you know how to rule? Do you know how to win? Do you know how to tempt? Do you know how to ask? Do you know how to bleed? Do you know how to kill? Do you know how to sacrifice?
Beneath Cold Boughs
The Words were first encountered on the cold morning in Willowgate Arcade which started the Children's descent. The man found hung from the stone tree in the centre of the arcade mouthed them in his dying moments, though he did not have breath to voice them. Then, when they found the buried basement of the Arcade and the impossible roots of the stone tree, they heard the Words again. Anyone who went into that basement heard voices repeating them at the edge of hearing and began to speak them if they stayed too long. Hank Torres suffered this fate, speaking the Words in a fuge while attempting to carve open his own wrists with the edge of a chisel.
The Words lingered in the dreams of the three Children, begging to be said. When they met with members of the Blackwood Pack, they were spoken by Morris and spread to several listeners until they were shaken out of their fugue before any serious harm was done.
Under a Killing Moon
The four dream-haunted uratha first heard the Words in their fourth dream, where they heard them in the First Tongue as a gutteral, atonal hymn that was trying to drown the howling song of the moon. Later, when they found tree image carved into the wall of the old steam tunnel, Michael heard the Words, in the First Tongue and then in his own voice. He heard them again in his dreams while being attacked by the jagged-mawed worm-thing, then twice more in the aftermath of the chaos at the Church, in the non-space between worlds when trying to cross into the Hisil and then in the twisted Shadow at the centre of Merritt where the immense Black Tree is growing.