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Before you lies the world of the Black Kingdoms: a vast perspective of plains and savannah, a sea of yellow grass whose monotony is broken from time to time only by a solitary tree, a shallow stream, a herd of buffaloes... In the distance, the horizon is lost and merges with the blue sky, almost white, vibrating in the heat mists.

The Black Kingdoms...

Almost mythical lands for the races located further north. Lands of aloes, mimosa and incense, forests of fig trees and acacias, powdery lands crushed by the sun that has set fire to the spirit of many who came to lose themselves there...

But it is something else that catches your eyes and suddenly occupies your thoughts: a city. Is it possible? No, your brain dazed with fatigue, your numb senses do not deceive you, it is indeed a city, visibly extended and surrounded by high walls.

Who would have believed that in these expanses where one usually meets only villages of huts and rare houses of adobe gathered behind a palisade?

Who built these imposing walls, these round towers and these domes sparkling in the sun? It is of little importance for the moment. This vision has given a new vigor to your aching limbs, to your sagging will, and you set out again. For the presence of this mysterious city means shade and coolness, rest, a refuge...

The other thought that comforts you is that you will have no difficulty in communicating in these places: many daring merchants came here in the past to trade gold and feathers, sugar, spices and ivory with the black kings and they left here a common language spoken by all since, a language that you master enough to make yourself understood.

Around you, the grass is high, rough and dry, herds of herbivores come and go with a placid gait, antelopes with a graceful silhouette raise their heads as you pass. But you soon realize that a misleading perspective effect has distorted your judgment: this unknown city is much further away than you had assumed. Stopping near a thin stream of water that crosses the plain, you look around, massaging your numb neck.