Songs reigned in the Silent King’s realm.

Valdemar was no music expert. His experience was limited to his mother’s music box and street performers playing tunes in taverns for a coin; he had never listened to an opera or an orchestra.

But as he listened to the melodies echoing across the sand dunes, Valdemar doubted that any mortal instrument could play them. Some sounds he recognized as belonging to trumpets, violins, ocarinas, and pipe organs, but others… Others were more like animal screeches, the sound of shattering ice and burning flames. This was a symphony of chaos and madness, played by an inhuman orchestra.

Valdemar couldn’t help but hum the melody’s tune to himself. Something in the song felt familiar, like a childhood lullaby his conscious mind had never forgotten entirely.

“This is…” Hermann removed his hood as he looked at the heavens above them, his reptilian eyes wet with tears. “Beautiful.”

A black sun shone in the dark red skies above the two mortal visitors, surrounded by a crimson halo. The sinister star reminded Valdemar of an eye gazing down on him, a deity observing the world below from a celestial throne. The summoner had expected the crimson light to burn his eyes, to blind him with its terrible beauty; and yet the black sun’s sight inspired neither pain nor horror, but awe.

It was not the fabled sun and blue sky of Earth, but Valdemar had never seen anything more beautiful in his life anyway. The colors were real, not painted pigments or figments of his imagination. Natural light traveling down from the greater cosmos with no stone ceiling to block it.

And the wind… the flowing current that brushed against Valdemar’s cheek felt as warm as his mother’s hand. The grains of sand were dryer than Underland’s dust, but the air was fresher, pure. No dust or mushroom spores filled the summoner’s lungs as he breathed.

It felt good.

Valdemar had tasted freedom. The pleasure of an open sky without walls or ceiling to keep him imprisoned. He had taken a look outside the stone womb of Underland and gazed at the infinity beyond.

Everyone else needed to see it too.

Valdemar looked behind him, half expecting the Painted Door to have collapsed after they crossed it. To his surprise, an enormous canvas stood out of the sands, representing the Hall of Rituals. Neither Lord Och nor Loctis appeared on the picture, but it looked so vivid, so real, that Valdemar immediately recognized it as a doorway between worlds. He touched the surface with his fingers, sensing the softness of the paint and a lack of resistance. He could push through if he wanted, crossing the boundaries between universes to return to his own.

My hand, Valdemar thought. It was as normal as it had always been, with no screaming mouth growing out of his palm. Had it been a dream? An illusion created by the ritual? Or a brief glimpse at a revelation that escaped even his True Sight?

Valdemar was not stupid. He knew of his abnormal biology and he doubted Lord Och took him under his wing only for his talent. There was more at work than he knew. Eyes, he thought, as he observed his arm. It had eyes like the walls.

“I think we can leave if we cross this painting,” Valdemar informed Hermann. “But neither of our masters crossed it, and I can’t hear anything through the Painted Door.”

“They… weren’t invited. Only the two of us were.” Hermann’s eyes couldn’t stray from the black sun above them. “It’s…”

“Hermann?”

“I’m sorry…” Hermann shook his head, wiping off a tear with his claw. “It’s… I hope your Earth looks as beautiful as this sky… I dearly wish so. This place is… better than anything I imagined.”

Valdemar smiled and gave his friend a pat on the back. “One day, I will show you Earth. Just like you brought me here.”

“We did it… together.”

“But it’s your research, your work, that made this Painted Door possible. I only assisted you in your endeavor.”

“I… I thank you for it.” Hermann looked down from the skies and at the endless dunes surrounding them. Structures rose out of them like blind fish jumping above the Lightless Ocean’s water, whether they were black pyramids standing beyond the horizon, inhuman statues reaching out towards the skies, or the ruins of forgotten cities. “But this place… it’s dead. All dust and ruins...”

“There’s music though,” Valdemar pointed out. “You can’t have a song without a musician.”

“Maybe… maybe the Silent King’s focus isn’t painting… but art itself?” Hermann scratched the scales below his mouth, his gaze thoughtful as he observed the ancient ruins from afar. “The structures for architecture… the subtle symphony for music.”

“Then you think the Silent King contacted other artists?”

“Probably… but the signs were less visible. How can you see… a song?” Hermann glanced at the painted portal behind them. “I wish Master Loctis… could be here. He would know…”

“They can’t cross the Painted Door on their own,” Valdemar guessed. Knowing the lich, Lord Och would have magically forced his way into this other world if he could. The fact he hadn’t meant that the Silent King’s spell only worked on a limited number of people, or that the entity had enough control over the portal to prevent intruders from crossing into his realm. “Do we cross the Painted Door again and report to our teachers?”

Hermann shook his head. “It may close forever behind us… if we try. Better to… explore this realm first. Meet… the ruler of this place… ask for answers.”

True. They had seen the Silent King during the ritual, but the Stranger was nowhere to be found. Valdemar and Hermann were guests in this realm; they would have to travel to their host and pay homage, not the other way around.

The music seemed to come from the ruined city rising out of the sand, so the two pictomancers walked in that direction. Valdemar had barely taken two steps before he had sand all over his boots, in and out. “I don’t think it’s a Painted Place,” the summoner whispered as he examined the grains. They didn’t feel like pigments to the touch. “It’s a natural world.”

Hermann searched under his robes and brought out a compass. The needle pointed towards the black sun above them rather than the distant north. “Laws here are… different. Electromagnetism does not behave… like in our world.”

Valdemar smiled at his friend’s foresight. “Did you bring that tool expecting we would be transported to another world?”

“I… hoped we would.” The troglodyte put the device back in a pocket. “I thought I could… bring my people to this place. Help them settle in a new world… with the Silent King’s permission.”

Valdemar wasn’t sure this desert could sustain life at all. The presence of breathable air implied the presence of oxygen-recycling plants or elementals… or at least it would if they were exploring a cavern. He had no idea how ‘air’ worked in this alien realm.

Come to think of it, how did the wind not disperse into space without a ceiling to keep it trapped? Valdemar had never asked himself the question, but now it sounded odd to him. There were so many things he didn’t know, so much to learn.

“You thought, as in the past?” Valdemar asked his troglodyte friend. “You’ve changed your mind?”

“Only a select few… are let inside,” Hermann replied. “I don’t think the Silent King will… let my entire people settle in his realm.”

“You can always ask, it will cost you nothing. Though I can understand if you would prefer a greener place.”

“I will take… what I can get.” Hermann’s expression turned grim and sorrowful. “We troglodytes are a… a shattered people, Valdemar. Our tribes were long at war… even before mankind conquered our caverns… and scattered us across the tunnels. Our population decreases each year… killed by wandering monsters or derros. If nothing is done… we will disappear. Not now or in a century… but one day.”

“Hasn’t anybody tried to unite the tribes?” Valdemar knew of a few troglodyte warlords who threatened the states that preceded the Empire of Azlant in the distant past. “Not as a marauding horde, but as a peaceful state we could trade with?”

“We do not have Earthmouths… our settlements are scattered. Easily crushed by larger armies. And why would others trade… when they can steal?” Hermann shook his head. “Our respective people will never… become one, Valdemar.”

“We’re getting along just fine,” Valdemar pointed out. “I understand your desire for a place to call your own, Hermann, but I don’t think the situation is so hopeless as far as our species are concerned.”

“Individuals can become… friends. But nations? I don’t think so.”

Many of the imperial Domains once belonged to troglodyte tribes. Hermann had given up on recovering his people’s old homeland from the Dark Lords and now sought another; to the point he had agreed to serve under one of his kind’s tormentors.

Though he was a human whose kind benefited from the troglodytes’ decline, Valdemar couldn’t help but feel compassion for his friend’s plight. If Hermann found a hospitable new world, would Lord Och let him keep it for his people? Somehow Valdemar doubted it. History would repeat itself and the Dark Lords would have their due.

The duo’s long march through the desert ended at the broken fortifications of a dusty city as large as Pleroma. The architecture differed from the visions Valdemar had seen while creating the Painted Door though. The houses were joined together like tunnels in anthill, their walls covered in geometric symbols. The roofs were ovoid in shapes, while the tallest structures included elaborate domes and rounded towers.

Valdemar examined the streets with his True Sight, but to his surprise he didn’t detect any hint of Blood-related magic. The walls’ symbols had no supernatural properties, nor did they have eyes to glare at the visitors.

So this many-eyed entity’s reach is confined to Underland? Valdemar guessed. Good. Hopefully, Earth would be free from the eyes’ presence too.

The streets were desolate and empty, but strangely preserved as well. The dunes hadn’t buried these ruins, nor did a layer of dust cover the paved roads. The desert had stopped at the walls as if afraid to enter the city.

“I recognize… the architecture,” Hermann said as he examined a house’s rounded roof. “I’ve seen a similar shape… at the dokkar embassy. But… sharper. This city... It looks cruder. Older.”

“Could it be an elf settlement from before the Descent?” Valdemar asked. Did they somehow travel to the past? No, that was absurd. He had never heard tales about a black sun shining in the skies before the Whitemoon’s arrival.

He glanced into a house’s open windows and looked at a stone room lacking any furniture whatsoever. Mosaics of hunting scenes or carvings of ancient rituals often decorated the various buildings, but Valdemar didn’t find any table, chair, or even cooking instrument. The homes were beautiful, but lifeless.

“It’s like this city was never inhabited in the first place,” Valdemar noted. “No corpses either. If a cataclysm destroyed this settlement, the dry air should have preserved some remains.”

The summoner grabbed his notebook, recording the walls’ symbols next to his list of English irregular words. Maybe Frigga could translate them when they returned home? At his side, Hermann grabbed dust and dirt samples inside a small flask for study.

Their quest led them to spiraling staircases with crumbling stepstones and steep slopes. The city’s districts were piled up on one another, and the second level proved slightly different from the suburbs. Conic structures swiftly supplanted the rounded houses, while reptilian statues became commonplace. Each street corner, each crossroad had its personal representation of a coiling serpent or a mighty four-armed lizard.

And all of them wore familiar masks.

“Impossible…” Hermann froze in awe before the statue of a mighty troglodyte warrior overseeing a dried fountain. “This is… On’ragon, protector of the Steelscale Tribe.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Valdemar admitted, before noticing something odd with the music.

“They’re… long-extinct.” Hermann raised a hand but didn’t dare to touch the statue. Perhaps he was afraid of bringing down the Silent King’s ire, or of infuriating the cultural deity that the art piece represented.

Valdemar would have asked for details if something else didn’t occupy his mind.

The city’s music had changed so slightly and naturally that he hadn’t noticed at first. Drums and cymbals had replaced the ocarinas and pipe organs, the melody growing slower and more aggressive. The melody was clear and intelligible, but paradoxically no more noticeable than background noise.

Valdemar glanced at the horizon in an attempt to locate the music’s origin, only to notice new oddities. There were pyramids in that direction, he remembered as he stepped close to a stone guardrail and observed the distant dunes. Yet the monument had vanished, replaced instead by the shadow of a colossal tower piercing the skies like a spear. Other structures had risen out of the dunes; a giant cyclopean statue that closely matched those near the Pleromian shrine underneath the Institute; the shadow of another city with twisted, hunched architecture; and a colossal black crystal as large as the institute.

Valdemar glanced down at the houses below. The troglodyte district was no more than four meters above the elven one, but the distance appeared far greater from the summoner’s point-of-view. The houses below had become as small as anthills.

We didn’t climb that high, Valdemar thought with a frown. Did the Silent King use spatial magic? Then why couldn’t the summoner’s True Sight detect anything? Was he too weak to perceive the magical wards embedded in the stones around him, even though he could notice Lord Och’s? Or did the Silent King use a power similar to the Collectors and altered reality on a fundamental level?

So many questions, and no one to answer them.

“They all come from… extinct tribes,” Hermann whispered as he examined other statues. “Shrines to… fallen nations.”

Lost civilizations. Valdemar remembered stories about human empires before the Descent. About how they worshipped the sun, raising pyramids and towers in an attempt to become closer to its life-giving power. As for the Pleromian statue…

So many different civilizations, but they all had one thing in common.

“It’s not a dokkar district,” Valdemar said as he gazed down at the houses below. “It’s from the light elves. We heard their music, witnessed their architecture, and saw their pictures. We experienced the essence of their civilization, their art.”

Hermann immediately caught on. “This realm, this entire world… it’s not a kingdom… It’s—”

“An art museum,” Valdemar completed his sentence while moving away from the guardrail. “Of ancient civilizations.”

Iren collected coins.

The Silent King collected cities, songs, and paintings.

Valdemar licked his lips. Even the taste of troglodyte cuisine, he thought upon sensing a spicy whiff on his tongue, mixed with a sweet aroma.

Hermann’s curiosity turned to dread. “Are we visitors?” he wondered out loud with a hint of terror. “Or… part of the collection?”

Valdemar shuddered. Had this all been a trap? A method to capture artists and preserve their civilization's culture forever? Would they be condemned to wander these endless dunes for all eternity?

“The Silent King left the way out open,” Valdemar pointed out weakly. “And there’s nobody else here.”

“I wonder too… we can’t be the only ones to have… made our way to the Silent King’s realm.” Hermann looked up, his eyes setting upon the highest point in the twisted city; a stairway reaching higher than the tallest tower, yet leading nowhere. “Maybe we will… see more from up here?”

With no better idea to suggest, Valdemar followed his troglodyte friend as they continued their ascent. The music changed once again as they reached the stairway’s first step, alien sounds drowning out the mortal instruments. The symphony grew louder with each step they took, as if the singer awaited them at the summit. The stairway itself lacked a guardrail or anything in the way of decorations, but the path was wide enough to let a giant beetle through.

Valdemar didn’t know how long they climbed. Minutes? Hours? When Hermann had to stop to catch his breath at the halfway point, his friend glanced at the path’s side. They couldn’t have risen more than a few dozen meters above the city, yet it appeared leagues below them. Domes had become specks of dust and towers no taller than needles.

They wouldn’t survive a fall into the void.

The second half of their ascent became weirder and weirder. Each new stepstone crossed caused the world’s music to change slightly, as if they were the keys of a giant piano. The wind stopped blowing, and the world below…

Valdemar held his breath, glanced beyond the stairway, and immediately focused back on the path ahead. Heights already disturbed him, but now the city below had become almost invisible, a black spot at the bottom of an endless pit. A part of Valdemar wanted to look at the void, to throw himself into its depths.

The ground was calling him.

“You won’t fall,” Hermann said while raising his tail as if it were a life-saving rope. “I will... catch you if you slip.”

“Have you ever walked at such heights?” Valdemar asked, a little ashamed of his fear. Unlike him, Hermann appeared almost unfazed.

“Not quite, but… I like climbing.” The troglodyte smiled. “It’s alright.”

Was that what friendship felt like? To know someone would have your back no matter what? That Valdemar didn’t have to fear, because another would help him?

Friendship felt nice. Almost as nice as family.

Their hellish ascent ended atop a rectangular stone platform at the apex of the world. The world had become nothing but an endless red horizon, with black lightning coursing through the cloudless heavens. The music and wind had both died out, leaving only an oppressive silence.

The Silent King liked it this way.

The Stranger awaited his visitors at the edge of the platform, standing at its very edge and facing a portrait floating in the void. His green robes had turned red, grey tentacles wriggling underneath the cloak.

Watching him hurt Valdemar’s head. His vision blurred, his eyes unable to properly perceive the thing facing him. The summoner expanded his senses with his psychic sight, trying to divine the Silent King’s true nature.

He saw nothing.

No feedback, no blood, no flesh, no magic. Nothing. As far as his psychic sight was concerned, the creature in front of them didn’t exist.

This figure was not the Silent King… it was nothing but a psychic projection. The avatar of a greater power that human minds couldn’t comprehend. Valdemar’s brain had attributed humanoid features to this entity in an attempt to give it sense.

As for the portrait that the Silent King observed, Valdemar immediately recognized it as a copy of the Painted Door. Or was it the original, teleported across time and space to join the Stranger’s endless collection?

More strangely, another Silent King walked inside the picture, his robes as green as verdant moss. From Valdemar’s point of view, the Stranger appeared to look at his living reflection in a mirror. And if the Painted Door was here, before them… then where did the painting in the desert lead to?

What was going on here?

Valdemar glanced at Hermann, only to see his friend kneeling before the entity. After some hesitation, the summoner imitated the troglodyte. This creature possessed great power beyond their comprehension, and they should show him the respect he deserved. An insult, perceived or real, could result in their death.

The Silent King didn’t say anything as lightning erupted from the black sun and coursed through the skies. He seemed absorbed in his silent contemplation of the painting, marveling at every detail, each subtle change in color. The halo around the black sun above them changed color, dyeing the red skies with a purple shade.

An alien noise buzzed inside Valdemar’s head as the heavens transformed. They formed words not made of letters, but alien sounds and thoughts; like an animal trying to mimic human speech, understanding the meaning, but not the subtleties.

WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?

Valdemar remembered Lord Och’s words about Strangers. Some were powerful patrons exchanging service for favor, others pranksters toying with mortals at their leisure. To which category did the Silent King belong?

Valdemar exchanged a glance with Hermann, the troglodyte clearing his throat before daring to answer. “What… do you offer… Your Majesty?”

The answer came swiftly.

THE TRUTH.

“At what cost?” Valdemar blurted out, before swiftly adding, “Your Majesty?”

A tentacle emerged from the king’s scarlet robes and brushed against the Painted Door’s frame.

“Will we… stay here?” Hermann asked anxiously.

NO. YOU LEAVE. FOREVER.

They would return to Underland, but never find their way here again. The Silent King would not summon them again from the other side.

Perhaps all his visitations across imperial history had been nothing but art commissions, an attempt to get mortals to paint a new masterpiece for his collection. Or perhaps this portal would serve the Silent King’s aims in the far-future, whatever they were. In either case, he no longer needed the pictomancers anymore. He would thank them for their ‘service’ with gratitude, but no regret nor explanation.

Valdemar glanced at Hermann. The troglodyte looked disappointed, but not surprised. As he had expected, the deity wasn’t willing to let anyone settle in his private gallery.

“What do you mean by truth?” Valdemar probed, trying to sound as polite and respectful as he could. He didn’t want to anger this ancient entity by asking too much, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Will you answer all our questions until we are satisfied?”

Unfortunately, the Silent King was not that generous.

ONE TRUTH.

“One question?” Hermann’s voice died in his throat. “One for the both of us?”

ONE EACH.

Better than nothing, but less than Valdemar hoped. The summoner exchanged another glance with Hermann. “You go first,” Valdemar told his friend. “It was your project. The honor is yours.”

Hermann nodded slowly, before looking back at the Silent King. “Your Majesty... my people are scattered and broken.” The troglodyte hesitated, before mustering the courage to ask his question. “Tell me how… how I may give my people... a new world of their own,”

The Silent King did not answer.

Hermann glanced at Valdemar, with the summoner thoughtfully considering his next words. He had so many questions to ask.

What are you? Valdemar thought. What is this place? Why did you bring us here? Why is this door important to you? Why is there another you inside it? What power do you possess? How may I bring back my grandfather and mother from the dead? Do you know how to turn back time and change the past? What knowledge do you have? What can you teach me? Can you teach me? Is my father truly my father? Will I die before realizing my dream? Who am I? What is the meaning of life?

All these questions had value, but only one mattered to Valdemar.

“Tell me,” he said, “how I can bring my people to this beautiful world called Earth.”

The Silent King turned around to face his guests.

The visage beneath the hood belonged not to a man, but to the sky Valdemar had seen in his dreams; islands of light shining in an ocean of darkness. But instead of the Whitemoon dominating this cosmic landscape, a black sun ruled absolute.

Valdemar lost himself in the darkness beneath the hood, his mind absorbed by the blackness. The black sun grew to encompass the universe itself, the shadow of eyes, mouths and tentacles wriggling beneath its surface. The stars vanished in the pitch darkness of the cosmos, the cold void of space inside which not even the stars could survive.

Valdemar no longer felt his body. He no longer breathed, no longer lived. His thoughts had escaped his flesh, becoming an immaterial spirit. The Silent King’s words resonated in the void, giving shape to nothingness.

BLOOD OF TWO WORLDS.

A vision of Valdemar’s grandfather appeared floating in the darkness, scribbling words in a diary. He looked as if he had lost ten years, and so oblivious to the invisible strings making him dance. Another man’s shadow observed him from inside the cover of darkness, a vile rat standing on his noble shoulder. But when Valdemar tried to look at the stranger’s face, he only saw blood, worms, and a wicked smile.

YOU WERE BORN FOR A PURPOSE.

The vision changed. His grandfather had grown old, singing words while reading scriptures from his journal. A copy of Valdemar stood before him, naked as the day he was born; symbols were etched into his skin, while his gaze was lost in a drugged haze. Alien fumes erupted from his nose and mouth, gathering in the shape of a living nightmare, a monster with many eyes.

FULFILL IT.

The false Valdemar opened his mouth, and it grew. It grew larger, and wider, devouring his torso and his limbs. His blood melted into the earth, his flesh and bones turning into an archway.

The Earthmouth that was once Valdemar opened, and his grandfather took a step through.

His tears dropped on green grass, growing under a bright blue sky.

No.

SACRIFICE.

No, no…

THE GATE AND THE KEY.

No! Valdemar’s mind screamed, denying the vision, denying his grandfather, denying the god’s words.

TRUTH DOES NOT LIE.

Valdemar’s mental scream echoed into the void, dissipating the illusion only for another to swiftly rise in its place.

A derro sat on a throne of steel and steaming pipes. The grey dwarf’s hair was black as night, his face smooth like a polished mirror. A crown of dark steel pulsated with lightning around his forehead, illuminating his cold, heartless blue eyes. An archway of steel crackled with lightning behind him, twisting the fabric of space itself.

ANOTHER WAY.

The derro king collapsed into a puddle of blood, his fluids pouring down a deep dark well. The steel throne and portals collapsed into dust, while another Valdemar stepped out of the darkness. Thick black blood poured out of his veins, while eyes and mouths tore out his skin to reveal the inhuman face underneath.

The Silent King’s final word drowned Valdemar’s screams as an eye opened at the well’s bottom, hungry for blood.

ABOMINATION.

A tide of Blood swallowed Valdemar’s soul, bringing him back to his body.

The Hall of Rituals’ floor was unwelcoming, the air dusty and cold. The ghoulish visage of Lord Och looked down on Valdemar, with none of his grandfather’s feigned affection. “My my,” he said, his words distant like an echo. “You look unwell, my apprentice.”

Valdemar didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His head hurt, his body shivered from the cold within. He didn’t even rise up. His heart was dead in his chest, beating so slowly he could barely hear it.

Lord Och’s amusement turned to… concern? Caution? Something Valdemar had never seen on his skeleton face. The lich gave no word of comfort or condemnation. He didn't say anything.

Instead, the Dark Lord offered Valdemar his skeletal hand.

His apprentice looked at the appendage as if it were a foreign object. He almost expected a trap or a mockery, but Lord Och waited with the patience of the dead.

After a moment of hesitation, Valdemar grabbed his mentor’s hand. The lich felt cold to the touch, but not as much as the floor. Lord Och helped his apprentice rise back to his feet, his expression unreadable.

Hermann was there too, and in a better shape than his fellow pictomancer. The troglodyte held his head while his master Loctis observed him with a look of concern, his reptilian face morphing into a bright smile.

“I saw… I saw it. The Painted World… I saw it.” Hermann glanced at Valdemar with a look of pure happiness. “Valdemar, it’s wonderful… I hope your Earth looks as beautiful...”

Valdemar didn’t answer. The vision of his body twisting into an Earthmouth flared into his mind like a dream twisting into a nightmare. His eyes wandered away from Hermann, to observe the Hall of Rituals’ gallery.

The Painted Door’s panel remained, but it had become a blank slate. Valdemar and Hermann’s sublime magnum opus had vanished, taken away to join an endless collection in a dead world orbiting a pitch black star.

As for the other portraits...

Valdemar turned to his grandfather’s painting, and the ghost within it. The echo of Pierre Dumont smiled at his grandson, oblivious to his clenched hands, gritted teeth, and furious glare.

“Valdemar, are you alright?” his grandfather asked with concern that almost looked sincere. “You shouldn’t talk to strangers.”