People flooded towards the heart of the once promised city of Khadrath, stepping into the silvery shadow of the cyclopean pyramid of a palace. Though first to enter, we had to traverse through one of the longest bridges I ever witnessed built from large blackened limestone with the towering balustrades on each garnished with a cold silvery metal.

Strangely the glow they emitted onto the passing people felt more cold than scorchingly hurting, instilling a negligeable longing to remain in their glow, and what the others haven’t felt, a slimy prowling of the mind – though at the time this truth evaded me all the same.

If I am being honest to myself, I even mistook – even misled – it for a revelation as the next thing I did while heading towards the towering black gate long ahead was stopping in my tracks and letting the faux people phase through my small form. Then with knowledge imprinted in my mind, I felt and experienced true weightlessness as I hovered above the marching crowd and like a true specter followed from a higher vantage point valiant Augermil and repugnant Terrianis.

Even amongst the myriad people the two towered distinctly out from the legions even including those who altered their physical selves in great lengths. There were people of hulking frames with faint scales on their exposed limbs, their heads reptilian with small eyes and elongated jaws with rows of razor sharp teeth, even one who once was a pure Djinn, yet now bore the head of an ibis with horns long, coarse and emanating an insidious mist.

Then there were those who possessed undead-like distinctness like preeminent members of our esteemed Host though lacked the otherworldly coldness emanating from the raised or risen dead. Skin which clearly appeared to be frozen in state of decay yet lacked in damages inflicted in myriad ways while their faces were sunken like the orkhin’s. Some were clearly of aevhen flock, I deduced even then from their sharp and faultlessly chiseled and symmetrical features like their sharp, knife long ears, the empty sockets inhibited by darkened purple flames of finality with an almond contoured frame and refined, chiseled noses though for some only the foundational outline remained.

There were even a few who I mistook for dwarves at the time as their height were reduced, and at the center of their sickly pale heads a closed cavity remained whom I now know were the distinct feature of the reviled goblinoids of the far south who often lived in the dark and forgotten edifices of the south’s distant past.

The more I recount all those faces, all those people the more I feel kinship just like I do with my people of the far north. I now believe me and the Pharaoh in Black were kin spirits who sought to upend the infectious equilibrium of great Elhyrissian, though what reason compelled to him to abandon the people whom he built the promised city is still a mystery – a mystery that I may have the answer for, I am just too afraid to recall it.

Through the obsidian gate we entered into the vast courtyard spanning far beyond even my elevated vision filled with squares of condensed people kneeling in the ebony grass growing from the strange sand I first mistook for snow thanks to its ivory shade.

Though while it filled me with a sense of unease, what truly made my heart beat in pace too quick was the gravelly throat chanting coming from the undead veiled in black, shapeless robes standing like statues in front of the people who were slowly infected by the warped tonal chanting. Or maybe it was Augermil or Terrianis whom I shared senses, though that felt preposterous at the time.

A second, earthly tone joined into the cacophony as six large hands grew forth the slanted walls of the pyramid, their seven fingers dug deep into the center wall and opened it up like ravenous ghouls a sliced stomach. Unlike the example though, the walls opened with quite the precision, forming a triangular hole in which a dimly lit hall of myriad hulking columns connected glistening marble onyx floor with ivory basalt ceiling while large spheres hovered aimlessly spreading the little light parting the darkness within.

Though while from my position, I could not see, I still felt the light terror, the anticipation, and envy coalescing within either Augermil or Terrianis – though now I’ll bet my soul on the latter. – as they noticed the Black Pharaoh of promised Khadrath appear along an entourage of strange tripodal centaurs of chaotic outlines, grayish nekrotic flesh and elongated, almost appendage like heads wriggling while in the lower center where their neck began – I believe – were adorned by gaping teethless holes.

Their slender bodies adorned with even stranger plates of armor of black and silver kind, while in their elongated, withered hands they held forked spears glinting in the light of the changing Illius as Dusk slowly approached. I impulsively pinched my nose as their pungent putrid ethereal deathly scent reached my psychic nose conjured by the laws of Oneiron. That I was sure about.

Yet I was once more confused for the otherworldly shiver which ran through my being, my soul as I hovered not far from the two infiltrators, though I did chalk it up to being seen as it felt similar when my Pale Orchid and me were assailed by that umvraoth.

In reality it was his gaze which incurred the shiver through my soul, my being – the gaze of the Pharaoh of Black, the once magnanimous lord of the Seven Vivid Deserts who walked between his Royal Guard conjured from the place where black stars rise over the horizon.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I only glimpsed him when at the raise of his long arms stairs burst from the slanted walls with a blackened, almost aethereal carpet rolling over the thousands steps he slowly descended. On the bottom stacked limestones formed a long path culminating in a circular stand with a spiraling sign of silver engraved into their glossy, reflective surface.

Terrianis not able to contain his thirst, led by it walked through the rows of chanting people while the Black Pharaoh still descended, while Augermil feeling slightly annoyed followed after him and the two now standing out faced the once kind monarch of the distant south standing in the center of the sign while he beckoned silence by raising his arms hidden beneath rows of gauze and the regal yet shapeless robe adorned with overlapping stoles sprouting from the shadowy nested confines of the hood pressed by his obsidian crown and the silvery pallid mask lacking expressions, sculpted from a nameless metal and bearing the visage of an affable man with a pointed, sharp tipped chin while the small calm holes for eyes revealed a bottomless darkness behind.

Even at the time I was baffled – maybe because of my own shy nature – that Terrianis was worthy to be the next Elhyrissiar in both the eyes of his father and the One and the Eight when he stepped beyond the rows of chanting people, and onto the platform inviting the magnanimous Black Pharaoh to a duel offering to withdraw their forces upon his loss or to force servitude upon the people upon his victory.

Was it arrogance knowing that he was destined for a faux greatness? Was it because he was tutored by the late second Elhyrissiar himself who fought against the Grimm Sovereign so many millennia ago? That to this day I am unsure of.

He stood there proudly, his chiseled nose held high awaiting the answer while Augermil felt the pressure of the surrounding silent people, his hands grasping the hilt of his sheathed blade while his eyes firmly remained on the two and the three umvraothoy halting in their encirclement.

The long silence was palpable even in the strange air of the land of Oneiro and I felt quite excited at the prospect of witnessing two great magrohror engage in a battle of will and wit one such as me back in those days could only dream of. And just like that, the Pharaoh in Black accepted the offer, his voice regal and divinely deep while his true gaze remained on me.

Though Augermil let out a sigh with a mild trace of relief, his hand still remained prepared to cut through the hundreds, the thousands of needed to be while Terrianis gloated as he was sure of his victory as he stood calmly at the edge, stepping further into in preparation while his mind surely went through numerous images of the Pharaoh’s demise.

His calmness was tested mockingly by the Pharaoh when his nearest body guard standing on the right began its otherworldly count by uttering what I heard as Hy, then followed by the one on the left muttering Ad, and finished by the last emitting Es. Contrary to what I expected, the two just stood patiently waiting for the other to make the first move, to move their mana through their anima veins while shaping it with their will into spells of the highest grades.

In the end, the first to prove impetuous was Terrianis himself who quickly leaned his torso forward while his index and middle fingers touched the center of his throat while runes born of mauve blackish flames carved into their milk smooth surface. At the same time his jaw widened and flames of the same combined hues poured out in a chaotic whirl and with the velocity of raging wind heading straight for the Black Pharaoh.

While I believed the flames would hit the Pharaoh or at least disperse in front of him, the spell simply passed by his left. Back then I believed he simply wished his form out of the way, now I believe he bade the world or the spells themselves to move or miss his body while he remained still, calmly watching the stupefied Terrianis grinding his teeth, racking his brain on what have happened.

Though he swiftly regained his calm and in another swift motion, clapped his hands together front which was followed by the rumble of the fabric of reality itself while the air around the Black Pharaoh torn and blurred itself, and while I felt his intention was to torturously gash the Pharaoh into many large pieces, all he achieved was the birth of some tassels along the lavish black robe cascading towards the glossy floor.

I felt both confused and amazed, angered and merry at the small motion of the Pharaoh’s veiled, masked head tilting ever so slightly in clearly mocking intent which once more forced Terrianis on the offence as he could not yet fully rule his swelling frustration. Though he still managed to be patient in action as the two began to circle at the edges of the platform while their eyes remained on each other.

In the next moment, I surely believed Terrianis prepared a third attack as he locked index and middle finger together while veering his arm in front of himself while pointing at the floor. Cracks formed on the ground following the tips of his locked fingers, then as his arms slowly rose and the cracks curved towards the Black Pharaoh, he halted his will just before I expected the glossy limestone thorn to break forth hoping to impale the dark form.

Whilst the spell halted before realization, I felt recognition, discernment bloom within Terrianis’s mind in what I could only describe as a faint, hideous smile on an alluring, divinely chiseled visage. Although it evaded my young mind, I still felt the familiar energies of a distant reality from beyond ours manifesting for a moment shorter than the blink of an eye or the flap of hippogriff’s ivory wing.

Most surely the Black Pharaoh himself noticed this recognition, forcing him to go on the offensive. Though as much as I have a disdain for Terrianis, I still must commend him for sensing those faint energies moving according to his opponent’s will, even if in the end this knowledge amounted to nothing when both him and Augermil disappeared into nothingness.

As their sudden disappearance unfolded, I hovered silently, expecting my expulsion from the lands of Oneiron, though the fact I remained left me with dread as I felt the gaze strengthen by the thousands as I noticed the pallid masked Pharaoh stare at me through those empty eyeholes, the silent thousands mimicking his head’s motion.

“Follow me child of Ulrich and Mirdbruil.”