The crackling fire echoed through the spacious bedchamber, keeping the shadows at bay. Flames black in their hearts, golden in their writhing rims, called forth by Arshad after the others’ failed in such a simple endeavor. Though he kindly eased their shames, mentioning the decree of the Black Pharaoh still set the laws on the Umbral Vault. A place meant to better one’s self.

  Though most legends regarding the Umbral Vault told only of the Pharaoh casting convicts into the complex, Arshad mentioned there were a select few meant to be forged in the shadows. Youngsters with great magnitude for the arkhaine arts. These bedchambers were built as a haven to rest, recuperate after days of maneuvering through corridors, battling the occupants as Arshad told. “Truth be told, I owe my life to one of the Children of the Pharaoh.” He added, mentioned the rumors they were the sire’s birthed by his mistresses. The few who entered the palace, and never left.

  “Do you think he is one too?” When rest came, Khaetomhian and Drussaev volunteered first to keep watch by the fire. Drussaev turned from staring at sleeping Nephyti, raking his brain. She slept peacefully within an oblong coffin bed in the wall’s embrasure, arms and sides sinking into soft mattress. Then remembered the Vhouromancer whose illusion saved his life one too many times.

  “There is a chance.” He said with a shrug. The two glanced over their shoulders, hearing shuffling, the soft taps of soles pressing onto the dim tiles. “You should rest.” Arshad smiled at the suggestion.

  “I had. Ever since my egress from these vaults, I needed little sleep. A little blessing, a little curse.” He sat down, back to the shadows. “If any of you need to rest, I’ll gladly take their place.” Drussaev gestured to Khaetomhian who hesitated a little, but gave in first. The two watched a bit amused as he crawled up the oblong aperture furnished with a soft, thin mattress and a few sturdier pillows. Once the rattling of his plates ceased the two stared back at the dancing flames.

  “

  He stood, clad in the finest plates forged by aevhei and dwarves, gold as the searing beard of the Dawn Father, beneath silky layers draped his form, red as rubies. And blood dribbled from the wide arc of his axe’s blade. Before him, the curving seats of Luth-Astaril’s colosseum stretched into the shadows, where mocking shapes flittered by. And on the steps, his sister, now a grown young woman wept, holding a corpse in her arms, the bloodied head pressed firm against her bosom. Tears streamed from her citrine eyes, down her Illius-kissed cheeks. She too wore light battle garments; a short blade and a few wounds adorned her lithe form.

  Pain seared in his own eyes, seethed with the flames of anger, and with a swing, green flames lashed out from his axe, towards the mocking shapes. Flames which devoured everything. Stone, flesh and metal, all the same to the hungering flames of life. “Calm down friend.” Arshad’s voice and hand soothed his beating heart, brought a chill upon his heated body. “Is it real? Shall it be real?” He asked, looking into those pallid eyes.

  “They can be.” He answered sitting back down. “Though my memories are jumbled, I remembered they shown me sceneries of blinding whites, the chill burned still into my mind, along with the gargantuan shadow of a black dragon painting the sky dark as these shadows.” Arshad swung his head up, looked as if he surveyed the stars. “But I have never been to the north, walked only in the Albedo Plains at the far east. Though I did witness a dragon once, one whose scales appeared earthly, haggard as aged stone whilst fiery veins trailed towards its antlered head.”

  “So, it all depends on me.” The guide nodded with childish fervor. Until his time came to rest, the two listened to the flames, then in the morning departed, to thread down to the level below, where according to Tanyth and Arshad, the scrolls awaited.

  *****

  Their journey continued not afar from the bedchamber, they stood by an arch twisting into itself. Its surface lustrous like the finest of earthly minerals, reflecting their shapes almost perfectly. Beyond the gaping entrance, a wall of impenetrable darkness peered back at them. Arshad slammed his staff thrice, the timber moaned as its head blossomed, amongst its writhing tendrils, a dim violet stone appeared chaffed by the roots. A strange glow came forth, expanded into a dome enveloping all six, and the guide advised each not to thread beyond the precipice.

  Darkness lengthened over them upon entering, and though they could not see beyond their feet, each remained aware of the other. Drussaev ambled abreast of Arshad in the middle, Khaetomhian at the front, gripping hard the golden shaft of his axe. Their varied footsteps, the soft thuds and rustles of fabric, the clanking of armored steps and clashing off the segmented plates echoed loudly in the seemingly interminable road. An almost childlike urge came over each of them, to ask Arshad how ahead the end was.

  But they exercised silence, upon hearing the ominous sounds from beyond the aegis. Slimy slithering in the dark, with each step forward neared them. Followed by whispers, murmurs coming close.

  Each step forward, the whispers grew in volubility, numbers and variation. Whispers of children, barely learned in the arts of speech, garbled their words. Some weeping, others overly joyous at the visitors. Youngsters shouting in murmurs, full of life, full of anger, full of sorrow as they wished to leave. Adults enquired for the way out, if any of them seen their children, nor if the invaders have left, had the Pharaoh triumphed at last. And Drussaev, who heard his own panting, felt another’s back against his.

  In a singular blink, in a lone breath he found himself amongst brass corpses, spreading before and about his feet. Glancing over his shoulder, Albrion towered over him, his vampiric blade still thirsting. A cold, murderous gaze he cast into the encircling emptiness, searching for something. Someone.

  “” Angura’s voice swept past his ears, and he laid amongst the heaps of metal sculpted in the shapes of the Empire’s citizens. Aevhe, dwarf, merkiin, demikiin and all the other races, recreated by adroit hands. Albrion walked past him, he reached too late. The blade soared, screamed like ravenous bats, before it tasted flesh, bone and blood. Angura’s severed head leapt over the mounds of alloy, stared at him with a strange mixture of pleading and anger.

  Then felt the firm hands upon his waist and arms. Before him a mocking head of rugged dwarf stared at him with its lifeless eyes. Beneath it, no neck held the piece of flesh, bone and coarse hair. A fungal bud stretched, bloomed into a flat disk, pulsating with hideous shades. Putrescence burned his nostrils, either from the bud or from the decaying head. Nephyti and Tanyth pulled him back from the edge he began walking towards. He thanked each, then watched as the bud and head retreated into the shadows, hurling curses at each of them, telling of their coming doom.

  Not far, they egressed from the path in silence at last. Until a wailing shriek alerted them of the coming undead. Ghouls and zombies of the lost. Khaetomhian and Drussaev met with the charging dead, swinging down their axes upon the rotten puppets. Khaetomhian’s long, twin-bladed battle axe reaped them by the dozens, whilst Drussaev focused on the few scurrying back towards the shadows. A few arrows soared through the dim air, pierced their heads. From the sharp tips, flames lashed out, consumed the dried animated husks in the blink of an eye.

  Arshad watched patient as the battle came to a quick end, then led them ahead the way the undead came. Once the last fell, they mended their little wounds, continued until the steps blocked by an inky wall of undulating darkness. Drussaev could swear he saw familiar faces appear on the gleaming black surface, but kept it within himself.

  Nephyti and Tanyth stood before it, hurled iridescent bright pearls into the wall, burning away the blockade. At the winding stairs’ end, a grand chamber they arrived at. Cyclopean eight-sided pillars shot into the blackness looming above, in the middle, a nonagonal aperture seemed bottomless before wet taps echoed up. Squatting, pale toad-like horrors crawled forth, the size of small oxen. A strong, noxious odor accompanied each, no eyes adorned their globular, prognathous heads, instead masses of pink tentacles cascaded down from their snouts.

  Two of the nearest charged at Drussaev and Khaetomhian, emanating a high, fluting sound sweeping balance from their legs. The unpleasant feeling lasted only a second, tender fingers plucked out the tainting seeds planted into their minds. Drussaev shuffled away just as the horror leapt into the air. With a quick upwards swing, he sliced through its throat, up to the tentacles protruding from its lower face. A hunch that paid off as the creature fell and never rose back up.

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  Though no time remained to savor the victory, as a mental suggestion warned him immediately. A club of obsidian swept above his head after he ducked down. Turning around, Drussaev found himself facing a bipedal jackal almost as tall as Albrion. Jetted fur billowed across its sinewy, lean body, puffing out inky streaks as it moved to strike down in the same breath. The pale lines marked around their upper arms and shoulders stretched, emanated a ghastly pale glow, and conjured a deathly cold around the club. And sharp, tapering ears arose from the long head with a voluminous mane.

  Ice spread in the crater where he stood moments before, with the inky streaks thrusted into the ice and dim stone before fading away. “Any weakness on these?” He asked, dodging the quick, subsequent strikes of the beast. He felt wind bullets soars past him, push the beast back a few steps, but for the most part, remained unaffected by the favored element of Shu-Khagor floating behind.

  “Dawn.” Arshad said laconically, standing still. “These are the Anpu, nekros guardians of the tombs.” Words that carried relief followed. A bright golden glow enveloped his axe’s blade, and his shield blocking the next strike aimed at his left side. He stepped close, a foot away leapt into the air to strike high down, split its head open.

  Its canine head split open at the jaw, an abyssal hole within where a starry vortex whirred around, unseen tendrils thrusted into his soul. A light curse escaped his lips, then plunged his glowing axe into the beast’s chest. A distorted howl followed as the maw shut back, and the creature tumbled into the hole, swallowed by the abyss.

  “And preferably, don’t step onto their shadows.” Arshad added, looking at the third toad-like beast which challenged Nephyti and Tanyth. An arrow tore into its snout, iridescent black ichor flown still onto the tiles. Tanyth hesitated a little, even gave up on the arrow for a second, then it came out by itself, by the aid of a gentle breeze. With an honest smile, she thanked the khimmerian orkh.

  ******

  Many great sights they witnessed together throughout the long years, but none like what awaited beyond the circular gate, puffing dust and sand upon wheeling into the walls. Black pillars lined the walls, gleaming symbols swirled languid on the polished surface, the top a silvery like the ceiling and the strange clouds billowing beyond the arch. Wide and many steps laid onto a bridge, connected to a circular platform. Shelves formed towering bulwarks on the edges, here and there a gap left for the terraces set with tables and stone hewn chairs.

  Books thronged taut on each shelf, each whispering into their ears, promising power and knowledge held within them. “Where are we?” Shu-Khagor broke the silence first, speaking not in his usual, calm tone, but one spiced by wonder and terror as he gazed up at the astral gulfs, the strange shapes swimming beyond shifting manifold shades.

  “A liminal chamber. One of the many I believe so.” Arshad answered, smiling at their childlike expressions. “Come, this way.” His voice sobered them.

  In the middle he stopped, held out his right hand, asking for a little space. He slammed his staff into the mark, a spiraling eel or serpent–none amongst them could tell in honesty. The dim violet stone embedded within the staff alighted, a hideous iridescence emanated forth, thronged into lengthening tendrils snaking down the shaft, crawled into the etched spiral, and at last spread in the cracks.

  With ease Arshad dislodged his staff, took a few steps as the stone growled and howled. To Drussaev’s ears, they almost sounded draconic in depth. The rest followed, slowly retreated towards the bookshelves whilst the tiles submerged into a viscous, black liquid. Then it ceased, spewed out a casket of dim ebony ridges, thick obsidian glass, yet the scrolls beneath clearly visible.

  “Traitor.” A sepulchral, raspy whisper reverberated through the space. Ripples undulated across the pond, and putrescence filled the pleasant air. Whence they entered, undead marched down the stairs, all panoplied and mummified, including the titan of writhing torsos grafted impeccable into a single mass of a torso, missing a head. An Anpu lead the warband, though they each felt a chill emanating from the far back, where a tall, lithe figure hovered, carrying himself regally, with the same staff Arshad held.

  With a strong gust, Shu-Khagor swept the first line into the astral gulfs below, giving them time. A translucent wall rippling with azures and violet streaks stretched from one bookshelf to another, raised by both Tanyth and Nephyti. Khaetomhian and Drussaev took the front, cutting through the first stepping through the wall battered. As like before, a silent agreement betwixt them regarding who gets the nekromancer formed. Both knew the honor went to the one reaching the top of the stairs first.

  The two charged ahead, into the fray leaping through the wall battered by the canine Nekros. Khaetomhian leapt high, aided by the winds of Shu-Khagor. His strike well-aimed, planted the sharp blade into the ethereal, cadaverous flesh lurking beneath the black fur. The Anpu howled, then tumbled onto the edge with its massive body, then as the axe dislodged, fell off into the astral depths. “Damn it.” Seeing Drussaev break through the lines of undead, his shield scintillating in the hallowed shades of dawn, Khaetomhian cursed and sighed. His axe reaped three more of the undead.

  On the top, Drussaev glided under the goliath, his axe slammed into the nether region of the grafted goliath, stopping him just in time. Flames tinctured in faint golden leapt off the sharpened edge, into the gaping wound. They spread in haste, devoured the rotten flesh animated by the aspects of Dusk before it landed upon the steps.

  There before him atop the stairs, standing in the mellowed shadows, stood the figure, one blessed with the terrible magnificence of night and death. Lean as a withered corpse, his head missing its top half. The bottom half tapered into a protruding crescent with sharp tip, his lips black as the starless night. Above the gaunt cheeks, ridges of a broken vase, not of the grizzly sight of torn flesh appeared, shadows billowed out, forming the top half of his face. On the sides, lean and twisting horns rose high.

  Long, slender fingers, ending in obsidian talons wrapped around the black wooden shaft, his skin smooth, yet cadaverous and white as snow. A single robe enveloped his body, from midriff to his feet as he floated above ground like Shu-Khagor. A girdle of the same spiraling shape hewn into to the floor cinched his lithe form, made of a silvery alloy of strange undertones against the black fabric. Silver and black trimmed spiraling bracelets adorned each of his arms, a torn woolen ushek sprawled on his shoulders. A stola snaked under it, cascaded down the chest, seamed and stitched with strange symbols.

  He tightened his grip, heaved his shield before himself as a swirling star of blackness hurled against its domed golden front. He slid back, his greaves scraping the stone, and for a moment felt the cold touch of decay grace his fingers gripping the shield’s leathery handle. Each subsequent spell, he shuffled around, swung his axe, but his adversary floated out, chuckling in his wraithesque voice.

  With gritted teeth, Drussaev empowered his muscles, lightened the gilded plates adorning his honed figure scantily, and leapt towards him, swinging down his axe. The nekromancer flittered back, blade arcing down where his shoulders should have been. The dread of horror reflected in his eyes as green flames sprouted from his axes’ blade, planted in the bosom of Albrion. No confusion appeared on his dear brother’s visage, only serenity and understanding. Before the wildfire consumed his flesh and armor, left behind nothing but memory and ash.

  Perspiration covered his body, his chest heaved wild and as he held back sorrow, looking down at the pile before him. And beyond, the horror expanded, children and servants of the Radiant Keep littered the gardens he and Albrion played many times in their youth. When the woes of the world were oh so distant for both. Now it was a grave of his family, whilst the sky above undulated, domed like the belly of an expectant mother, stretched by clawed fingers, until a gap opened and the eye stared down at him. Before the world ceased and returned, with him kneeling in the shadows.

  A voice filled with tender love and worry reached out to him, called upon his name. The face of his beloved appeared shimmering in the shadows, her palms soothing and sobering against the whispers. “What happened?” He asked, his throat perched. He looked around panicking, finding not the nekromancer, only the dead once more returned to their torpor.

  “He slipped away into the shadows. Probably realized his abysmal chances against us.” Khaetomhian said, sitting on the dead goliath’s ass, a triumphant smile forming in place of the worried beforehand.

  “I feel no residue.” Nephyti whispered as the azure and light purplish waves around her fingers tapping his temples faded.

  “It was no spell.” He said, then relapsed into silence, sprung onto his feet. “Where is Arshad?” Then asked.

  “Vanished.” Tanyth said, looking down angrily at her blunder of trusting their guide. Though they dwelt no more on the matter.

  They hurried down, retrieved the casket and whilst lifting it out, found Arshad’s staff half sunken in the black liquid. Khaetomhian and Nephyti argued to leave it behind, but Shu-Khagor and Tanyth strangely agreed to use it to find their way back. Both sensed the strange inscriptions woven into the stone and crystal. At a slight touch, they even had a sense of the way, though how neither could tell.

  Leaving the final vote to Drussaev, he decided at its usage, knowing the dangers lurking in the shadows. They expected trouble on their way out, but not a single horror nor undead impeded their egress. They passed sections they threaded not on the way in, paths looking treacherous, impossible to be built in mundane manners. Roads descending, yet leading up, corridors where they stepping in, they found themselves walking on the muraled walls, the floors above them, the ceiling on their right.

  And in the end, they egressed where they entered from. Bright light mellowed the shadows, revealed the corpse of an aurhe, his handsome visage clawed to the muscle and bone. Freshly incurred. Workers gathered before them, their expressions all united in confusion. Confusion reflected back onto them by the five, who quickly inquired. As they were told, only a minute passed since the gate closed behind them.

  And not a single soul in the camp could recall a guide by the name of Arshad. Only a handsome and prideful aurhe who offered his services a week before. Once a thief in ancient Khadrath who sinned against the Pharaoh…