The gate swung inward to reveal about a dozen nervous looking men. They were a piratical looking bunch, armed with reaping hooks, spears, axes and a few ancient looking swords. Some wore chainmail or heavy tunics of leather and all carried shields of woven wicker. They weren’t professional soldiers, or even guardsmen, just nervous villagers armed with whatever weapons and armor had been passed down. The wall itself was mortared sandstone polishes smooth as much by blowing sand as human effort. It was rarely higher than ten feet, designed to discourage bandits rather than fend off a real army. The gates themselves were teak panels bound with ancient verdigris bronze hinges. The wood must have cost a fortune in this desert, but the town's founders had no doubt found it cheaper to buy gates than to rebuild the village after a raid, not to mention easier than sewing their heads back on.
“Who is you strangers?” an older man in a dark grey caftan with a white turban asked. In contrast to the nervous men around him, his voice was steady and worn smooth by the companionship of a hashish pipe. He had a staff of some pale timber in his hand, it was gnarled and twisted in a way so intriguing that made Jocasta wish she could see the tree which had produced it.
“Who are any of us?” Jocasta replied airly, adjusting her idiom to match the stranger.
“A strange hour for a philosopher to appear,” the man replied with a chuckle that made his companions shift nervously.
“Do you have names? Where do you come from on so ill omened a night?” he asked. There was a weird cry out in the desert, something like a hyena’s laugh but low enough that it made Jocasta’s guts twist. She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the dunes but there was nothing there.
“I’m Jocasta and this is Beren,” she said hastily, “as for where we come from it is a long story.” She held her hands palm up to forestall the objections growled by a half dozen of the militia men.
“Which I am happy to tell as soon as I am inside and not worried about some eldritch horror ripping me apart while I give an extended travelogue,” she hastily added. The man in the robe snorted and came forward. He was old, his face the color of polished walnut wood and line with wisdom, a white beard framed his face though he bore no mustache. He reached out and laid a hand on Beren’s chest and closed his eyes. If he worked a spell Jocasta couldn’t tell but when he pulled his hand away he nodded.
“This one means us no harm,” he announced, the words smoothing out in Jocasta’s mind as she sorted out the stresses and colloquialism.
“Whether they will bring us harm is too soon to say, but I share the young ladies desire to remain in a single piece.” He twitched his head to the side and the militia lowered their weapons, springing to close the gate almost before Jocasta and Beren had cleared it. The weird chuckling echoed from the dunes again as the timbers boomed shut.
Dikmar was a small but prosperous settlement. It’s wealth was derived from the oasis that sat at its center. It would normally have been picturesque but tonight the still water reflected the face of the moon unpleasantly. A fringed of date palms ringed it in green and sandstone lined channels carried water outwards like spines, bringing water to extensive gardens that opened off the back of low sandstone houses with flat roofs. A large caravansery suggested that it was a stopping point for caravans, from which it doubtlessly drew most of its modest wealth. Water was worth more than gold in a place like this, and the meanest caravan master would pay well for a chance to water thirsty camels. The villagers would take that largess, but also gather up the dung of the camels to fertilize their gardens and produce fresh fruits and vegetables that they would sell to the caravans at another premium. There was nothing of monumental architecture, though a few larger stone buildings bore obvious signs of trades, a blacksmith, a glass blower, a brewery and a few others besides. The grandest building was a small inn marked with a crescent moon. It was doing a brisk business tonight, thronged with nervous villagers. Women in loose shifts carried handsome amphorae of wine with which they filled glasses and mugs in exchange for a few coins.
“I am Fazel,” the old man announced as he led them to a table, “I’m an old fool, but these young fools insist on asking my opinion.” He waved his hands at a few of the militia men who had followed them in a shooing motion.
“Now how about you tell me that story?”
“Alright but I’m going to need wine,” Jocasta replied.
“By the White God that is a tale,” Fazel admitted when Jocasta wound down her account, glossing somewhat over the fact that she had read the incantation that seemed to have set all this in motion.
“I fear that your presence in the pyramid, no matter how unintentional might have released the Black Pharaoh from his slumber,” Fazel said, taking a sip from a brass cup of wine a girl had set before him without asking for payment.
“Narturn?” Jocasta asked and the dozens of torches that lit the night gutted down to nothing. Fazel winced as though physically struck.
“Don’t..” Fazel began. “Say his name. Got it.” Jocasta finished. A nervous sigh went through the crowd as the torches flared back up to their original intensity.
“The legend says that in the ancient days this desert was ruled by great sorcerer Pharaohs, priests of the nameless gods which dwell beyond the edge of shadow. They forged kingdoms with fear and dark magic, harnessing even the djinn to build their vast cities. Of these fearsome kings the Black Pharaoh was the most terrible. The stories say that he turned the very sun and stars dark, and that his kingdom was perpetually in burning twilight,” Fazel said. Beren glanced up at the starless sky above them.
“Black stars,” he observed, and Fazel nodded solemnly.
“It is said that he cast the very demons of the blasted hells into thrall, and that his rule was enforced by things more terrible than men,” Fazel continued. Jocasta remembered the weird hyena-like cry.
“But he was defeated?” Beren suggested, ever willing to look for a way to confront evil.
“The Black Pharaoh did something… the stories don't agree on what, something so monstrous that the other Pharaohs, who were his vassals, plotted against him, and rose up to overthrow him, sealing him in his own pyramid and calling the sand to bury it for all time,” Fazel said with a sigh.
“Not quite for all time,” Jocasta replied, sharing a glance with Beren.