Lord of Wonders
If you love Lord of Mysteries, then this is absolutely for you.
In the year 1900, the city of Cairo is a powder keg of progress and antiquity. Beneath the shadows of ancient minarets, the British Empire and the Khedive's court play their games of power, while gas lamps illuminate streets where forgotten magics lie dormant. In this city of glaring sun and deep shadows, Omar Hassan lives a life of quiet desperation. A meticulous, low-level clerk in the Khedivial Archives, his world has shrunk to the scent of aging paper and the mounting anxiety over his younger sister's worsening illness. His only goal is to earn enough to afford the European medicine that might save her.
Omar's mundane existence is shattered when he is tasked with archiving a disturbing police file from the Restricted Section. The case, officially closed as a suicide, details the death of a man whose body was found folded in ways that defy the laws of anatomy. Clipped to the file is a photograph of the victim's final, cryptic note: "They sing from the angles. The geometry is wrong... I fold now. I fold to fit." Driven by a reckless curiosity he cannot explain, Omar steals the photograph of the note—an act that pulls him past a threshold from which there is no return.
He has stumbled upon a truth hidden from the world: reality is a thin veil stretched over the Echoing Void, an abyss of non-existence from which alien, god-like beings press against the world. Their influence leaks into reality through "Whispers"—incomprehensible cosmic principles that manifest in esoteric artifacts, forbidden texts, and maddening sounds. Those who can decipher and internalize these Whispers can gain supernatural abilities, becoming "Listeners" who walk a razor's edge between power and damnation. Each ability, however, demands a sacrifice, forcing the Listener to align their very being with an alien concept. Failure to do so results in "Discordance," a terrifying process where one's mind and body are irrevocably corrupted, twisted into a monstrous reflection of the Whisper they failed to control.
Now, haunted by what he has seen and touched, Omar discovers he is not alone. Secret societies, ravenous cults, and clandestine government agencies have long contended for control of this forbidden knowledge. Armed only with his sharp, analytical mind and the first terrifying tastes of a power that threatens to unravel his sanity, Omar must navigate a labyrinth of conspiracy and cosmic dread. To save his sister and himself, this humble scribe must learn the rules of an impossible game, deciphering the maddening symphony of the Void before the final, dissonant chord brings silence to the world.