tall, darkly clad, pale man

The man wore all black, even in this sweltering heat. He was pale, uncharacteristically so. Maybe he was a sage, or a mage. Maybe he was a wizard. Maybe he was a jinn. He had eyes that had dark black circles around them, on his left cheek was a birthmark. On his forehead, a dark grey circle, completely colored in. His hands were smooth and seemed brittle. His limbs long and his clothes loose and flowing. His cheekbones sunk in. Hur saw all this. So did the others. Some of them would talk about it later. Others were too jaded to care anymore. These latter just wanted to be worked to exhaustion, and then death. They did not care. Hur saw all this. But that was not what was the strangest about the man. Hur saw in him that same glow. The glow that surrounded the pyramid. Hur saw it, hungry, and evil. Hur saw it, looking at him, as if for the blink of a second, and then it vanished. He could not feel it. He rubbed his eyes, the man had not yet looked at him. His eyes were above the pyramid, on a spot Hur could not see. It was probably around where the tip would be when it was finished. He looked like he was saying something. It was two thirds of the way there already. Hur wiped sweat off his brow, and then continued to work. His heart was thumping. He felt a boring in his back, chills up his spine, and heart beating faster, he turned and looked. From yards away, he saw the man staring directly at him. He gulped, and then turned around and kept working. The sensation in his back became stronger and stronger, as if he were burning, as if it were burning, he gripped the stone he was lifting tighter and tighter, his hands threatening to drop it out of pain. Just before it became unbearable, it stopped. He felt blood on his tongue, his eyes were seeing red, he dropped the stone, and it landed on his toe, he shouted and winced and jumped back to a stinging whip on his back. The rest of the day was uneventful.

He hesitated about trying to find out. Something was wrong. The man had unnerved him. But the power was too addictive, so despite all his instincts screaming at him, when the moon was high in the sky, he leapt out of bed, and softly made his way to the site. The power was stronger now, he felt certain that if any of the workers were here right now, they would faint. “They could die,” a voice, cold and smooth, said from the darkness. He turned around. The man was standing there calmly, looking at him. He could have sworn he was not there a minute before. The man smiled as if he could read Hur’s thoughts. “Yet, you seem unperturbed, curious even.” he drawled, comfortably. Hur flinched. “Why is that, i wonder.”