Uh Hiesd

The wind howled over the deadlands of Eirath, sweeping dust across cracked earth and blackened stone. In the center of the desolation stood a lone traveler, cloaked in ash-stained robes, his hand resting on the hilt of a curved blade. His eyes scanned the horizon, not for enemies—but for answers. His name was Corren, and he had come in search of something spoken only in riddles: Uh Hiesd.

No one in the living world could say exactly what Uh Hiesd was. It wasn’t a place, nor a person. The name was whispered by dying tongues, found scratched into the walls of forgotten crypts, carved into ancient bones buried under the dunes. Scholars debated it, priests feared it, and kings declared it a myth. But Corren had seen the truth.

It began the day his brother vanished.

They had grown up in the mountain town of Verrin, twin sons of a swordsmith. One cold morning, Corren found his brother’s bed empty, the floor beneath it charred and cracked like scorched stone. Etched into the wood of the door was a single name: Uh Hiesd. No footprints, no signs of struggle. Only silence.

For three years, Corren searched. He crossed deserts, questioned hermits, paid gold to mad prophets, and still the trail led to a single truth: Uh Hiesd was not a man. It was a summoning. A binding. A word not meant to be spoken by mortals.

His last clue had brought him to the deadlands.

Beneath the twilight sky, Corren reached an ancient ruin—an obsidian tower half-sunk into the ground. Vines of petrified ivy clung to its walls. At its base was a circular door carved with old runes and a single phrase etched in Eirathi: “Speak it, and you summon it. Know it, and it knows you.”

Corren placed his hand on the stone. It was warm. Almost alive.

He took a breath and spoke the name aloud.

“Uh Hiesd.”

The door responded with a groan, grinding open slowly. Heat poured from within—dry, old, and unnatural. Inside, the tower was hollow and dark, lit only by veins of crimson light that pulsed through the walls like a heartbeat. A stair spiraled downward, vanishing into shadow.

Corren descended.

At the bottom was a circular chamber, lined with statues of strange, hooded figures. In the center was a stone altar, and upon it lay a figure—unmoving.

It was his brother.

“Ralen!” Corren rushed forward, touching his twin’s face. Cold. Pale. But not dead.

A voice echoed from the walls, quiet as a breath but heavy with power.

“You have spoken the name. You have bound yourself.”

Corren drew his sword. “What are you?”

“I am memory. I am binding. I am the space between words. I am Uh Hiesd.”

The chamber pulsed. The statues turned ever so slightly, as if watching. Corren stood protectively over his brother’s body.

“I want him back. Release him.”

“He spoke my name willingly,” said the voice. “He wished to know. He wished to see. He could not accept that some truths are forbidden.”

“He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“And yet he knew enough to call me.”

Corren’s grip tightened on his sword. “Then take me instead. Let him go.”

The silence that followed stretched long. The walls flickered with strange shadows.

“Would you take his place?” the voice asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you bear the knowing, the memory that tears thought apart?”

“Yes.”

“Then speak the name again. Speak it and bind yourself.”

Corren looked down at his brother’s face. He hadn’t changed—not in years. Still twenty-two, like he had been the day he vanished. Corren’s eyes filled with tears.

“Uh Hiesd.”

The moment the name left his lips, the room exploded with light.

Corren’s body seized. His mind stretched open. Images flooded his thoughts—not just of places, but of time itself. He saw the rise and fall of empires, the birth of stars, the ancient wars of shadow-beings before the first breath of man. He felt the thoughts of creatures beyond comprehension, heard songs from the birth of language, tasted the first death, and smelled the dust of forgotten gods.

He screamed—but his voice didn’t echo. It dissolved.

And then, silence.

When he opened his eyes, he was alone. The chamber was gone. The statues, the altar—gone.

He stood now on a different plane. Grey skies swirled above an endless plain of cracked obsidian. Across from him stood a man with his face.

His brother.

“Ralen?”

The figure nodded. “You came for me.”

“I took your place,” Corren said, his voice hoarse.

Ralen stepped forward. “No, brother. You joined me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t undo the knowing. Once you’ve spoken it… Uh Hiesd becomes you.”

Corren staggered. His thoughts burned. The knowledge still screamed inside him.

“So this is it?” he whispered. “We’re trapped here forever?”

Ralen’s eyes were calm. “Not trapped. Transformed. There is a price for knowing. But there is also a purpose.”

Suddenly, in the void between them, a door appeared—identical to the one from the obsidian tower. On its surface glowed the name: Uh Hiesd.

Corren turned to his brother. “What is it?”

Ralen smiled sadly. “The next one. Someone will find the name. Someone will speak it. And we will be the memory that answers.”

Corren understood then. They were not victims. They were keepers. Guardians of a truth too great to be held by any one mind.

They had become part of Uh Hiesd.

And somewhere, in the world above, a young scholar opened a forgotten book, running her fingers across a strange, unspoken name etched in ink that shimmered in the light.

The wind grew quiet.