“Welcome to Kuara, The City of the Dead,” greeted a bearded dwarf in green robes and a teal shawl. The other citizens accompanied his bow towards Kiur and his friends. “Do you want a date palm? It’s quite sweet to the taste. We picked them just this morning.”
Presented with baskets full of fresh fruits, it unnaturally drew the trio in to pick one. Too drawn, Cylia and Xander were about to eat one without another thought.
“Stop,” Kiur pulled them back before they bit off of one. Those people made Kiur’s neck hair stand up, warning him to be wary, but even if they saw his suspicion, they didn’t show it. Particularly the dwarf, whose smile only widened for Kiur. “We’re not hungry,” said Kiur. “Had a bit of a rough day.”
“Rough day,” Xander and Cylia repeated those words and rolled their eyes, too tired to recall all the miserable things that happened. Reiszer, wandering the desert, Archil’s failed airline express, the Asag with Scorpion People, or Cylia’s burned feet.
The dwarf stroked his beard and shrugged. “You must be tired then. Please, come with me.” He gestured for them to follow him, which they reluctantly agreed to since they didn’t know where they were.
Surveying the citizens, it surprised the group how nonchalant they were in the presence of strangers. They even fixed the new interior hole Kiur and the others punched in. Neither angry nor displeased, but eager to use the opportunity to renovate and create another public pond.
Children of various ages and all kinds of different coloured robes emerged from the crowd and jumped at the cool pond, playing in the water without a care for the new arrivals.
Xander and Cylia inched close to Kiur—so close that he could feel their breath against his ears. “Where are we? What is this place? Why are these people so weird?”
The place they were in was part of an underground city, right below the desert they had wandered on. It was apparent through the holes and wide crannies above their heads, revealing the bright sky shining through the cracks.
Following the dwarf and turning around one corner, the underground city grew in size, taking on the dimensions of a small city-state similar to Kiur’s home city, Nippur.
Plants and trees were growing underneath the larger and wider holes below the ceiling. Some of them outgrew the largest buildings and reached so high that they almost left the holes and touched the sky.
On another turn, there was also a clear and much calmer river with small boats flowing between large structured buildings, making it look like a coastal area with channels snaking in between.
It was a thriving city oasis right below the very desert, one of unimaginable size and probably even larger than it appeared to be.
“I’ve no idea,” answered Kiur, as he had to get used to these sights as well. “I’ve been to various settlements in the desert, but have never seen anything like that. It looks far more advanced than a typical city-state in Idaris.”
He was sure what they were seeing was a mere fraction of a real city-state these unknown people had built underneath. Still, as Kiur had never heard of such a prosperous and hidden society in the desert, he was not sure what to think of it.
Their clothes were similar in design to his, with their bright robes and shawls, suggesting they were from Idaris, but they had a distinct set of unique patterns and designs. Symbols like sandglasses, islands, rivers or other more complex shapes adored their fine clothing, more complex than the one before.
They saw humans, dwarves, therianthropes, and even other unfamiliar races that were not native to where they were from. They even spotted a couple with bright feathered plumage on their limbs and hair, a man with blue fur and large horns on his head, and an elderly woman with pitch-black eyes and red teeth waving at them as their old grandma would.
This was not a familiar place for the group, and how they didn’t notice it being so close to the oasis was strange. Too strange. It should have been noticeable.
“Look at these lamps,” Xander pointed at the light posts on each side of the smooth and white cobblestoned road they walked on.
“What about them? Those are just lamps,” Cylia said matter-of-factly. “Have you never seen one before?”
“Don’t be snarky with me,” barked Xander before growing weary again. “It’s just that their design reminds me a lot about home since street lamps powered by magic originated in Hellas-”
“Cute of you both to think that our clothes and technology came from either of your countries,” their bearded guide turned around, eyes open wide, with pupils taking on the shape of a rhombus. “We are here. Please enter the hall.”
—❂—
The dwarven man delivered them before a crimson wooden building shaped like a ship turned upside down with downcast raven wings attached to either side. Towering above the entrance of heavy oaken doors was a wooden six-eyed figurehead of a charcoal-painted raven.
“This can’t be.” Cylia was the next one to be confused and stumbled back, gawking. “My mother told me about these buildings. We built them before the occupation. They were once boats and later served as town halls for the chiefs, but the architecture went extinct after the invasions.” Cylia held her arm. “This shouldn’t be here. It cannot exist!”
By now, they concluded this place was extraordinary—stranger than anything else they had ever seen. It was a place built with at least three different cultures amalgamated together, maybe more, and forming a melting pot that rivalled what Kiur knew about.
Then they noticed the dwarf was gone, and with him, any signs of sound, city clamour or distant conversation. It was deathly still, as if the entire city had embraced the silence. They felt a pressure swallowing them up, which didn’t settle well with the presence of the raven statue, ominously staring at them with its six crimson eyes.
Xander raised his hand. “Who agrees with me that this place is giving the creeps?” Cylia promptly raised her hand—that’s all he needed. “I’d like to propose we go back the way we came, but we can. Who wants to come forth and open the door? Any volunteers? Cylia? Thank you for your commitment.”
“Huh? Why me?” Cylia looked at her raised arm and put it down. “No, definitely not!”
“Didn’t you say you found this building familiar?” Xander motioned to the wooden building, which became more imposing by the minute. “The honour is all yours. Come on, rediscover the great lost arts of your ancestors and open the doors!”
“Nononono, no, forget it!” Cylia took several steps back. “I’m way too afraid to open it!”
As they bickered, Kiur pushed at the grand doors. Panic filled Cylia and Xander, pleading with Kiur to stop, but there was an eerie feeling Kiur couldn’t shake off.
“‘Beware of the birds of old. Let the surviving outcast help you to the End of the River,’” Kiur recalled the words of the Asag when he stared at the six-eyed raven figure. “Was this what the Asag meant? Is the answer behind this door?”
The moment the doors revealed a crack, the loud chorus of feasting inside a hall of splendour bombarded them. Men and women danced on tables, fought with metal swords and wooden shields for entertainment, sang, drank and ate to the music echoing through the halls decorated with splendour, game, and weaponry.
No one noticed the trio at the entrance until the doors slammed shut. Every sound lapsed into silence, with all eyes on them. Their eyes glittered with rhombus-shaped pupils as they scrutinised the newcomers.
Their appearances ranged from colourful robes to dark fur-covered clothes with pants, vibrant shirts, or wild braided hair with ashen-coloured hands and feet. Many looked like seasoned warriors, rivalling the Reiszer in fierceness and clear strength. The trio gulped as if they had walked right into a den of wolves.
“You’ve finally arrived, our guests of honour!” They heard the hearty and joyful voice fill the silence. With a bowl of food in one hand and a keg of sweet beer in the other, she carried herself with confidence towards them.
She wore a verdant fur coat that hung from her shoulders, a tight buttoned top and wide black trousers reaching up to the ankles of her bare feet. Her skin was fair and free of scars. Short, mercury hair emphasised her deep lapis lazuli blue eyes. Her defined arms underneath her coat gave any man or woman present a run for their money.
She gave Kiur and the others a small bow while keeping her arms outstretched for her food and beer.
“Welcome, dear guests, to Kuara, the City of the Dead! Rejoice in our hospitality, take respite, come to me!” She put down what she carried, clapped her hands and sat down on a carved throne at the end of the hall as her followers brought forth a wide wooden table and put it in front of the throne. “Bring those two something they’ll enjoy. Set them forth so I can see them.”
Urging Kiur and Xander forward, they were settled before the large table next to each other with a bright variety of flowers and a single, humble porcelain bowl of soup.
“Great, and what am I supposed to do?” wondered Cylia as she was unfairly left behind.
“You can drink with us,” offered a group of tall male and female warriors who made space for Cylia to sit down between them.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Don’t mind if I do.” She quickly accepted the offer when the scent of food and drinks entered her famished body.
Kiur and Xander, though, trembled in their seats.
—❂—
“I have many names,” she said, dipping her keg into a barrel of sweet beer and taking a generous sip. The liquid flowed down her lips and on her clothes. “Ziusudra, Utnapishtim, Atra-Hasis, but for pronunciation’s sake, you can simply call me Noah.”
Xander leaned to Kiur, whispering, “Isn’t Noah a man’s name-” and Kiur promptly elbowed him to be quiet.
“You can think of me as a sort of leader for this city. We’ve heard about the recent attacks of those so-called ‘Reiszer’, but nothing we needed to be worried about,” she emptied her keg. Her pallid face flushed red from the alcohol.
“I meant to ask,” Kiur spoke, not noticing how Noah breathed out an intoxicating red mist in their direction. For a split second, he lost his train of thought but recovered, to Noah’s surprise. “What is this place?”
“Kuara,” Noah let out another breath, but this time, the fuming mist spread and billowed over the table. It dulled their eyes—their senses—until she blurred out most of their surroundings. “I believe we’ve covered that part already, didn’t we?”
“I… I mean…,” Kiur hesitated, but shook it off again. “Seeing this place, how can it exist so far into the desert? Not even the dwarves risk building settlements so far out here.” The glint in his eyes returned. “Nor did I hear of any known or existing settlement so far out. Especially in the western edges.”
Athirst, Noah emptied her keg and smacked her lips. “Your point, child?”
“My point is,” Kiur blinked, feeling lightheaded from all the magical mist. “What exactly is this place?”
In the long history of the continent, every thriving civilization had moved to the furthest edges where life was possible. To the north, dwarves built Idaris through mountain ranges and underground thaigs. To the east was Navarre, built by humans near the sea and the few fertile lands.
To the far west and far south existed other nations like the Reiszer Nations or Hellas, but none of them dared to come even close to the treacherous Navaris Desert. Much less living next to it, except for Navarre or Idaris. It was far too dangerous with the heat, the summer, and the magical beasts.
In conclusion, for Kiur, it was unheard of for a civilization to exist—much less thriving—so far out in the desert. Not ever since the ancient civilization of old had left the desert thousands of years ago when the fertile lands died and the rivers dried.
Kiur couldn’t help but suspect that this place was a remnant of an old and golden time, still kicking in the harshness of nature.
“How did they keep themselves hidden for so long? And how did we find them before anyone else?” wondered Kiur, seeing how many similarities their cultures shared.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with this.” Noah dismissed Kiur’s question with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “We’re well hidden within the vastness of nothing but the sand of the ancient desert. Especially during the Summer Solstice, when no one is brash enough to wander this death trap of a place, but I digress.” Noah flourished her empty keg. “Why should we discuss something as trivial as ‘Why did no one ever hear of us?’, ‘Are we for real?’ or ‘Is this food poisoned?’”
“It sure isn’t!” The crowd erupted in glee and drinking.
“It… sure isn’t…” Cylia went along with the cheers as if she were in a trance—or rather inebriated by the influence of everyone else. Xander held his head in his hands, eyes unable to focus on anything else.
“Eat, eat and enjoy the fact you have survived—until now,” Noah’s eyes lit up as she grinned. “Eat and drink something proper. We can’t have you live on anything but palm dates. Or walk in the desert to the brink of exhaustion. Or have your feet burned by scorching sand.”
Noah laughed and nudged the porcelain bowls closer, urging them to eat. Kiur and Xander felt the compulsion to do her bidding.
They should have found it peculiar how Noah knew what they had last eaten. Or why she was offering her hospitality to them? But none of these questions were on their minds. Lifting their porcelain plates, they inched them closer to their lips.
Their empty plates fell from their grasp and shattered on the ground. They couldn’t remember the taste. Their heads swayed, and Cylia’s head thudded against the table.
“Was the food that good?” asked Noah. “I hope it will warm your bodies and stimulate your recovery.” Noah’s blue eyes pulled them in like a whirlpool, making their heads spin faster and faster.
Lights popped out of thin air, dancing around them in rhythm as the buds rejoiced in the trio's condition. Noah rose and put her hands on the table; the light shone over her head. Sharp and pointy ears materialised underneath her hair with a pair of golden earrings to dance with the conjured wind.
Shadows surrounded them with eyes glowing like red gems of various shades. One massive shadow towered above Noah, revealing a set of large downcast wings and a twisted crown on her head.
The figure’s large shadowy hands moved to Cylia, over Xander and settled on Kiur, lulling them to sleep. Only Kiur was left to notice the shadow’s presence as he slumped down to the ground.
He didn’t feel threatened by it as it wrapped its large wings around him, and he lost his senses in his body.
“Seems like your resistance to magic is greater than you let on, Golden Child,” commented Noah, taking one last sip of her drink. “Get to sleep. We will talk later. Let your godmother enable you, Golden Child.”
— ☾ —
‘Godmother’; Kiur suspected who Noah was referring to.
Opening his eyes, Kiur was in the all too familiar ashen desert stretching out far and wide before him. Before him, an ancient ziggurat revealed its form through the descending carpet of the red nebula.
Downcast wings pushed through the blanket of stars, with a giant Goddess resting on top of the palace. Her closed eyes carefully regarded Kiur's presence, welcoming him with her warm, faint smile and beckoning him to greet her.
“Every single time.” Unlike her, Kiur was less than pleased to see her. “Every time I return here, I have no idea what you want from me! Why are you appearing here before me? Are you a goddess? What are you!”
Kiur yelled at the goddess and riled up the ashen sand that brushed against the ziggurat. Her expression soured with a frown, sombre about Kiur’s outburst.
“Don’t give me that look!” he shouted. “You could have helped me and saved my brother! I blame… no, this isn’t fair. I blame myself for being useless, not you.” Kiur held his head in his hands. He couldn’t cope with everything that was happening. He missed his brother and mother.
The goddess flapped her wings and pointed her finger at a dune to Kiur’s left. Something glistered there, shining and calling him to come closer. Kiur trudged to it, but whatever was there was leaving his sight, stretching away from him.
Frustration and fear seeped into his mind, forming goosebumps. His heart was riddled with anxiety about what he found. Kiur dropped to his knees, cupping the object in his hands.
It was his lion brooch, the one his mother gave him. The same one he thought he had lost to Hessian. “What are you doing here, all alone?” whispered Kiur.
He knew the brooch was fake. Yet when he brushed over the lines that formed the lion’s face, he couldn’t help but think it was genuine.
“Is it more important than helping me?” A familiar voice placed a hand down on Kiur’s and covered his brooch. It was the hand of a child he had forgotten about the entire escape.
The daughter of the couple who had invited him for dinner, trying to lift his spirits right before the Reiszer tore apart their home. “Ninda, how are you?” Kiur asked the girl.
The last time he saw her was at the Reiszer camp—moments before they put the escape plan into motion because of Kiur’s outburst. “Come to think of it, this entire time, I haven’t been thinking about what had happened to you. I am the worst.”
Kiur held Ninda’s hands—they were cold to the touch.
“Tell me, are you alright? Did I fail you?” asked Kiur fearfully, but her hands crumbled to ash alongside his lost brooch. Her body slowly dispersed.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be.” Kiur bit his lip. He mumbled, “It’s my fault.”
“Why?” Ninda asked, her body failing to remain intact. “Is it your fault?”
“Ninda, wait, no!-” In his hands, Kiur’s hands were filled with dust and flew in the wind to reunite back with the ashen fields. His gaze fell back to the dark-winged goddess who hadn’t moved from her palace and watched it all play out.
It was as if nothing had moved at all, not even Kiur. Her sad smile on Kiur depressed him even further after remembering how he had forgotten about Ninda the entire time.
“Tell me, is she safe?” Kiur croaked out. “She’s alright, isn’t she?”
The winged woman didn’t reply, maintaining her silence as if she could not speak. Kiur gave up asking her and sat down, hanging his head from the worries rattling inside.
Back then, he had lost to his own emotions just to retrieve a simple item and ruined everything. “Why was this happening?”
While Kiur didn’t expect to be comforted, he felt the all too comforting presence of the dark goddess kneeling before him. Her large hands brushed over his hair and rubbed his back. She showed him her ever-so-present faint smile.
Bringing him closer to her, she continued to brush through his hair, not saying a single word as she held him. It reminded him of the embrace Esha, his mother, gave him when he was a child—a kind of embrace only a parent could give. Kiur remained in that embrace until he turned his head to look up at her.
Seeing how Kiur was ready, she helped him stand up and brushed over his hair one last time before her body and palace dispersed back into the fields.
Though Kiur was not alone, and he knew it.
“What a performance, though it was a bit staged.” Noah revealed herself, coming out of the red nebula that settled on the desert, though her form was fading.
What once was a beautiful woman turned into a man with the same characteristics as the original had in hair, eyes and skin colour—except for the obvious part that distinguished his gender. He wasn’t much fitter in his new form. He was skinny, had wrinkled skin, darker, dull eyes and a braided dark beard. It was a stark contrast to his now longer and greying hair with sharp, long ears underneath.
His clothes also changed into a fine and thick baby blue coat hanging over his shoulders, a red tunic with golden lining and wide brown trousers that reached down to the very floor and only gave occasional glimpses of his withering, pitch-black feet and purple veins.
His health and appearance looked ghastly, as if he was close to death’s door with his slouch, sunken dark eyes and purplish lips.
“This is your true form, isn’t it, Utnapishtim?” asked Kiur.
The man came to a halt. He tightened the grip on his ornate cane and crooked a grin at Kiur’s hardened voice. “It is,” he replied, coughing. “But I prefer you call me by the one name I introduced myself to you and your friends earlier.”
“Noah it is then,” Kiur grimaced. “How did you do it? Was it some kind of magic you performed to reconstruct this place?”
“Hm, the same question, but I can say it’s something similar,” Noah’s dark eyes showed a hint of a glint but quickly vanished and were replaced with a deep scowl. His hands grasped at some purple motes in the air. “I accessed your memories by establishing a connection to a place we were both familiar with.”
“What place?”
Rolling his eyes, Noah stabbed the ground with his cane three times. “Want to take a guess? I know where you came from, Kiur, or should I call you by your real name, Lotte?”