The Voice
In the desert far to the south the sands shift
Deep beneath the golden sands the figure lies. For near two centuries he has remained thus, silent and unmoving his pail translucent flesh concealed from the harsh light of the burning sun slowly gathering his strength anew. Here he lies entombed by the fiery silica of the southern plains listening to the soft whisper of the sands and the tales they carry to him on the endless hot desert winds. For generations he has listened to this rasping lullaby and learned from it. Yet now this soothing sirens song was disturbed, the sound of distant footfalls harsh and loud as beating drums after a lifetime of listening only to the quite whispers of the sands and their tiny spirits.
Eyes like glistening sapphires flickered open for the first time in mortal memory. Who would have the impudence to walk these lands? None dared come here; even the dune people and the desert riders of the fae shunned his domain for fear of the sleeping thing their legends and elders spoke of. This the figure thought in the moment he took to rise from his resting place displacing the accumulated sand of ages in flowing robe of gold. With a thought heat flowed over his gleaming body in a haze fusing the sands into a vestment of spun glass that shimmered with brilliant colour in the noonday sun.
The southern winds flowed forth like the blast of a furnace, causing woven glass to chime softly, gusting about him as they recognised their ancient ally. He spoke his voice resonating sweetly in his crystal throat as he bade his servants tell him of those who would dare intrude on his slumber.
He stood silent save for the delicate music of his robes as hands of insubstantial air shaped the sands into figures. Sculptures that showed the invaders in exquisite detail two in the long desert robes of the southern nomads yet possessed of a grace and beauty alien to those brutal people. And the others, his gem like eye dwelt on them for scarcely a heartbeat before he allowed the shapes to collapse back into the dust foul dead thing yet possessed of an obvious power and purpose. Only one thing would draw beings of such strength to his realm, the same thing that had plagued his dreams for two hundred years the black sphere.
Fear stirred in his heart. It could not be allowed, it could not be permitted the eye must never again see the light of day. So for the first time in an age The-Voice-of-the-Endless-Sands left his resting place and strode out across the dunes shrouded in a haze of fragmented light, with him came power of the desert storms.
