The wind carries more than salt. It carries memories of gods displaced, of stone speaking in the language of stars. You are about to enter a moment torn from the edges of history, a fragment of a world where

Egypt stretches its shadow into distant lands.

But this is only the surface.

There is a deeper layer beneath the rituals unfinished, powers not yet awakened.

Should you feel the ground tremble and wish to follow it to its source, a secret path awaits

you in the hidden archives of the twilight histories on Patreon.

This is the Obelisk by myself, Jordan Harbor. The sea was the color of tin.

It folded and crashed beneath the cliffs and long, cold waves.

The wind smelled of salt and pine pitch.

The seagulls wheeled overhead, shrieking as though Anubus were plucking their feathers to weigh against the souls of men.

Below at the edge of the cove, a barge approached the dock.

It was a massive, wide-bellied craft,

hewn from the great oak found along the coast of these mist-drenched lands.

The prow still bore the aesthetic curve of the Nile, but the northern wood that filled its walls was of a thick knotted oak, much tougher than the timbers used in Egypt.

Saphcat stood near the edge of the white cliff, arms clasped behind his back, face expressionless, but alert.

He watched each movement below like a priest, overseeing a ritual, and in a way this was a ritual.

The ropes were unhitched from the railings of the barge, and the canvas was pulled back to

reveal its cargo, massive stone obelisk.

It was carved from Sarsen, a native stone of these gray, dripping aisles. Its surface bore a pale, corpse like you, mottled with shadows of ash and old bone, as though queried from the bedrock of forgotten tombs.

It lacked the sunlit fire of Aswan granite, whose warmth echoes the pulse of ra.

This northern stone felt damp even when dry, cold to the touch, as if it had never known the kiss of true light.

It was a rock born of mist and burial formed from the roots of the underworld.

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