The moment I closed down my eyes, the pull of Oneiron hurled me into the dark vistas lacking any distinct feature initially laid before my mind’s eye. I felt ground beneath my feet yet I knew there was nothing there except for the vast dimness of the dream realm.
Then slowly strange lights were drawn across the empty landscape of familiar colors in various shapes, silhouettes of tall spires, temples, buildings that dotted the marble scape of the capital, though these bore a different style the more I looked them. They resembled the crude curves of the southern edifices I read about in the library of our Keep in the sky.
Then the voidness beneath my feet altered first into a gentle warmness tingling my being, my soul then its warmth elevated itself into a cruel scorching forcing me to move forward as the blackness too shifted into a dozen different hues including mauve and amber of the late filament, bright reds, lusterless purples and shimmering azures converged into blunt steeps.
In their center, enormous walls arose with the distinctness of limestone – a cruder material than the divinely marble – with vigilant watchtowers at the dozen corners of all courses. It was clearly a vast city akin to many of our colonial ones hiding vainly amongst the colorful dunes while a single straight road of softened pale sand gathered straight on to the imposing black gates of wooden or something close to that as it shimmered with an eerie sheen I’ve never seen before on our gates.
Though I seen little through my eighty years locked to the confines of the Keep and the capital of our vast Empire. Still as I was racking my brain, my mind to connect the material to any I hove from the legions of tomes in our library, vague shapes standing on two began to appear in the road, all flocking towards the peculiar black gates. There were many familiar races amongst them including our southern kindred of warm shaded epidermises lacking the prided features of our forefathers, the chaotically different demikin bearing the various animalistic contours, features of their own myriad forefathers savagely stalking the wilds of this vast plane of ours, humans of the southern Yhanubj Tribe and from another possessing lighter skin tones.
And there were also those whom I only read though never seen like the famed Djinn whose arkhaine prowess rivalled of our own, and whose ancient king sealed 90 of the oldest and strongest of the Infaernius in a weighty grimoire bound by the hide of Prometheans’ eldest daughter who aided him in his long endeavor so many a millennia ago that even uncle Augermil wasn’t even a thought.
I even felt excited upon seeing my first aetherkiin, the elusive race whose maghieth knowledge, arkhaine prowess was greater than ours while their history, the reason for their current state of being left a mystery though I read that they were once a race of flesh and marrow like us, though they were a lesser mortal kin who wished to be our equals and for this reason peeked into the infinite mind of the Almodo. Though other scholars wrote that they simply just found the aethereal river of Acheryoth in which they bathed until they exchanged flesh for pure maghieth matter, and eliminated the threat of the Rage.
Never before was I more excited of seeing such a magnificent race other than mine, though my excitement was spiced by a little terror as for a moment I believed he was staring at me from under his dark hood where his vaguely shaped head of pure dim energies whirred. In all honesty, compared to the other phantasms of people, he wore much better clothing fit for the pious of the Gray King or the Solemn Shepherd, but I know that the aetherkiin are a race never staying at one place and many offer their services for a hefty sum to local consulius and magistratoriir.
Then suddenly the familiar towering figure of uncle walked past the darkly draped aetherkiin, and my eye followed him and father who lacked his prismatic scales as he was draped under tattered brown robes just like uncle. For a moment I questioned whether it was him, though as I felt a bit of anxiety not my own, I knew it was them and I followed hurriedly after them, passing through the various apparitions of the marching people.
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Hours passed as I followed father and uncle as they seemingly scoured the streets, keeping to the shadows all the way through. It was a longer vision of the past, and a stranger as I felt the tantalizing scents of food, the more pungent of the undead who made up most of the protectors of the city and I even witnessed the terrifying cadaver of a sandworm left in the air while various folk pried the spices generated under their heavy and enormous chitins.
It was quite surreal, though also strange when I felt the beckoning to try one of the crunchy bakeries emanating the air with the scent of sweet cinnamon belonging to father, whom preferred the saltier tastes, flavors, but I guess he may have preferred those before his ascension to the throne.
Then came the strange thrumming that pervaded the whole city, I knew it strangely, that caused every single citizen to halt and turn towards the large, onyx and silver pyramid casting its heavy shadows over the city and at once they began to flock towards it, and father and uncle followed as they continued to blend in. I felt his anxiety, the one all too familiar of getting discovered.
On the way to the pyramid shaped temple or palace my curiosity led my eyes on the undead guards and the strange folk – including our kindred – who like the dreaded Host augmented themselves with the wicked beasts of finality, resulting in their sallow, parched skin, gaunt, sullen visages and slender, writhed arms and legs wrapped in white or black gauzes. Their pungent odor filled me and father with utter disgust, and I had to wrestle against the intent of my body desiring to throw up while I was asleep.
The long distance of this bridge also made it worse paired with the heat which was tenfold worse than the temperature of Luth-Astaril during the long seasons of Great Weaver, The Matron of Forges and occasionally The Mad Sculptor’s. I truly just want this vision to be over, but the amount of people condensed on the bridge made the pace slower than even a snails, though at least by the time we reached the gates, dusk approached on the horizon, bringing with itself a gently cold wind that tingled me and my father while uncle towered stoically as usual.
Though it may have been a spell cast on the confines of the third or fourth layer of walls surrounding the pyramid which generated these cold winds as we stepped onto snow… no it was sand just as white as Sigi’s description of the frigid blanket of the North. And it felt just as cold when I stepped myself onto it. I tickled and for a moment felt scared at the prospect of someone hearing, discovering me though I feel foolish of this thought now.
Slowly the people of this city marched into many rows, and both father and uncle followed in tow, lining up at the back and the middle and followed every motion including getting down on their knees, though it proved hard initially for father when I heard Augermil’s whisper coming from the right while I watched them from just a few steps behind their row.
A rumble akin to earth splitting boomed across the vast courtyard filled with thousands of people – or maybe even more – and two enormous hands of the same dark marble or stone close to it grew forth the steep wall and dug their fingers deep without denting the faultlessly smooth surface as they ripped open a hole from which stairs grew down to the center where I found myself standing before a podium of sorts with a spiraling symbol carved into the glassy marble surface of it.
On the stairs an outlandish composition descended slowly. Three nightmarish beasts standing on three, long heads of bloody tongues with an oval aperture inhibited by a rancorous darkness, lithe bodies of sallow, scarred epidermis clad in dark plates attuning to their grotesque forms. Between the horrid trio a tall man in regal robes of black akin to brother Opithetar’s, his hands monstrous in contours and covered in black gauzes, adorned by ivory rings beset with gems of utter dimness.
His visage furtive from me thanks to the pallid mask of aevhen contours and listless expression, extending into a thorned crown with the sharp tips blackened, dark root like patterns stretching from the blackness crossing through the narrow eye holes occupied by the same blackness as the three beasts.
Part of me wanted to escape, to run as a dread I only experienced once swept against me like cruel waves of the sea. Although I am not sure if it is my fear or father’s. How foolish am I? It must be mine.
More importantly, now I wanted to stay, wanted to see. I watched with a newfound curiosity deeper and stronger than the fear I feel at this moment. It is a strange sensation when cold needles poke at my soul while a tender warmness tingled at the same time while I watched the Black Monarch of a distant past raise his hands amidst the chanting that I became oblivious to.
From a distant void I felt as he called forth the very same grimoire, I found weeks, months ago in the library of the Keep, and he held it calmly before a stand perfectly sculpted for the book grew from the podium. Was he like me?