- The Conspicuous Creepings of King Cornyx & Captain Carter, Volume I: A Diligently Devious Dalliance in Diabolical Dining -
The Keep of Gru'mai, Sukur, Present Day
White: the purest of all hues, a reflection of every color visible to the human eye, desecrated with silt and sand beneath the cloven hooves of four-eyed creatures only faintly reminiscent of the oryx and ibex and extending in its muted, frozen cloak from the icy road under the soles of his escort's heavy boots to a distant, ashen horizon. Upon the world's edge, three moons clung, dangling upon the precipice like tightrope walkers on a high demi-pointe, held only by thin, ragged threads that could snap and send the heavenly bodies crashing to a small and barely-hospitable world as its final amen. Through clouds, a sallow yellow sky was visible, the color of cream blocked out by rolling, distant, monotone dust. Even the air here was different, like one had climbed a mountain and stood at too high an altitude, every step lighter than it had to be on a larger planet.
Like the last tooth of some ancient skull ossified and frozen, a jagged structure rose from this barren waste. It was dark, even had it been set against some warmer hue, as if it swallowed every bit of light shone upon its surface, towering into low-hanging fog that devoured its silhouette. The place exuded an ancientness palpable even in the dry brumal atmosphere, palpable in every xeric breath and searing exhalation, as if every stone sung with the sublime and sanguinary song of everlasting seasons now turned white.
The man sent to escort Carter was almost human, just close enough to go unnoticed until one stared at him for too long and began to notice the subtle irregularities, like a face formed by artificial intelligence that couldn't quite master a mimicry of man. His irises were just barely too yellow; his teeth, a few degrees too pointed; his build, barely too thin to match his admittedly impressive musculature, like a cheetah on stilts. When he pulled his hood away upon entering the keep's gates, jutting cherrywood-colored horns spiked out of his umber curls, and a prehensile tail of the same hue wove out of his pant leg to hang loosely behind him, sheathed blade glimmering at its tip. The hound that had accompanied him came out of the interworldly shadows the size of a lion--larger, even--with a wolflike face and feline gait, something between a dog and a cat but vastly more terrifying than either one, even before his spectator noticed the fangs long enough to protrude from his jowls.
Monstrous, draconian creatures opened the double-doors to the castle, with meaty, scaled talons for feet and scaly skin blacker than coal, heavy skulls wreathed in twisted horns. The castle's halls were eerily silent, as if the darkness swallowed more than just light, but every voice that dared to defy it as well. Torches flickered in sconces far above, flattened by an interminable draft that danced over every brick and pulled at its sovereign's cuff like a playful lover.
None of this, however, was comparable to the throne room widening before the man of Nye.
Vast, vaulted chambers yawned into shadowed corners illuminated with grey sunlight through a barred window dominating the wall that opposed its entrance. Braziers, alight with luminescent, crackling embers, did nothing to warm this space--where it had been frigid before, now winter's teeth gouged into any unprotected skin like the serrated claws of some invisible beast--and the walls and columns were engraved with daedal depictions of deities and death. Dragons' wings unfurled and nonhuman creatures with two and four arms bowed before them; talons and teeth fell upon blades and bludgeons; magic rose and fell, and so too did the monsters that were nothing more than misty memory and lost legend but for the singular individual perched upon his throne.
The man standing behind him was pitched into shadow by the bloodied wings frozen in enthrallingly grotesque beauty and primal terror above the dais. Dark-skinned, wearing a long skirt and sleeved, white shirt, khopesh at his hip. His eyes all but glowed with distant red-gold. Next to the throne was another creature, this one not dissimilar to the canine-thing that had accompanied Carter: she was white, streaked with silver instead of black, but every bit as large as the other one, blue eyes meeting those of the newcomer's with intensity in the way that a hawk beheld a hare.
Of all these, it was the lanky form on the throne that demanded attention. The ice marbling the throne room's tiles thickened as it came up the dais and turned his seat the same color as snow, making his ivory skin cadaverously pale. Ebony hair was pulled into a tight ponytail at his nape and a heart-shaped countenance housed owlish black eyes sunken from his almost-emaciated gauntness, yet the sickly look of him was belied by the sharpness in his gaze and commanding quiet. He had no crown, bore no scepter, wore only a grey and silver suit absent of any elaborate adornment, but all here bowed to his absolute authority.
"Carter of Nye," the demon who'd brought him here announced and fell to one knee before his sovereign. The king looked down at him, languid in the slow speech that succeeded his subordinate's words, voice a low and legato tenor.
"Rise. Thank you for your service. You are dismissed."
Another bow, never once turning away as he backed out of the room with that russet-grey monster of a pet, doors clanging shut heavily behind him. Cornyx watched, waited until the last booming echo ceased, and then turned his attention to his guest with a smile that might've been friendly or malicious and there was no telling which one.
"Carter," the dragon king of Sukur purred, "it is a pleasure to finally meet you in person."
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