Liquid rock churned and bubbled far below the ancient road, the sound of it like the rumbling of distant conversations. The light was uneven and flickering, one moment nearly as bright as day and the next as dim as twilight. Eni felt rooted in place as she took it in, the air suddenly so hot that every breath hurt.
The cavern was immense beyond possible measure, filled with towering cliffsides taller than any wonder built by mammals and vast enough to swallow a city whole, and Eni had never felt smaller in her entire life. Although it was somewhat worse for the wear there was no arguing that it had been built to last. Eni could see where the molten stone had ebbed and flowed over countless eons, the sturdy pillars supporting the bridge forward and the foundation of the fortress caked in layers that had solidified above the fiery surface like tar on the pilings of a dock.
The unimaginable sense of age that accompanied her first glimpse only grew; it would have been utterly impossible to estimate how ancient the buildings were. Tens of thousands of years, at the very least, without so much as a speck of dust on them. The eroded ruins looked freshly excavated, and despite the unbearable warmth Eni shivered as she peeled off her jacket.
The road led deeper into Gwared Mountain, sloping gently downward, but when she looked overhead it was clear that the way they had entered was far from the only option. Trestles soared far overhead until they vanished into the gloom, the other paths they supported that came spiraling down too numerous to count. Here and there enormous hexagonal blocks had fallen, casting irregular shadows like the legs of something monstrous.
Tin looked back at Eni, wordlessly beckoning her, and she crept forward. The stone underfoot was far from cold, but it didn't feel as searing as the hazily thick air around them. Zathos's eyes roved about endlessly as it walked, taking in every detail with great interest, and as they advanced they came to the first break in the road.
It was evidently a way into the fortress that the broad lane split, a set of stairs descending into the utter darkness of the building's interior. Arrayed in a ring around the steps were a number of massive tablets that stood like bollards, each one a few feet shorter than Eni and about three feet wide. They were made of an odd material; it was as smooth as glass but sparkled and shined in the bizarre light with incredible brilliance. Eni reached out and touched the nearest one, running her fingers along the cool surface. It was engraved with strange pictograms, the edges of which were beveled to sharp geometric precision, and realization struck her.
"These are diamonds," she said, her voice hushed but filled with awe, "I've never even heard of ones so large."
Tin appeared entirely unimpressed, his gaze drifting past all the tablets before stopping at the one that stood immediately in front of the steps. "Something missing," he said, pointing, and Eni saw that he was right.
Unlike the others on either side of it, which were inscribed with icons and symbols, the block he indicated was larger and had no obvious text. There was a tall and slender groove carved into its center, one that ran perfectly straight and true, and on each side of it were carved paw prints. "It's for a staff," Eni said, "It has to be."
Without hesitation, she pressed her palms into the engraved depressions on either side of the spot where a staff should have gone, searching with her power. She closed her eyes, focusing all her attention on the spot before her, imagining the missing artifact so intently she could almost see it. She stood still, groping for something that wasn't there, and—
A new image filled her head, one so dim and faded Eni could barely make it out. She saw a mammal, his entire body covered by flowing black robes, reach out and grab a beautiful staff of burnished iron, the metal glowing with its own inner light. The thief's face was hidden behind a sinister mask of gleaming silver, his eyes nothing more than endless black voids. The mammal gripped the staff, his fingers young and strong, striking the floor with its end as—
"It's gone," Eni whispered as she stared at the empty space in the diamond block, the words leaving her mouth as the thought came to her, "Stolen, so long ago…"
She shook her head and jumped; she had brushed up against something warm and firm. Her mind lurched, the vision disappearing, and she realized it was only Tin's chest. "Sorry," she said, a nervous laugh escaping her, "Just jumpy, I guess."
Zathos cocked its head to the side, its unblinking eyes carefully studying her from well over Tin's shoulders. "Attempting to diffuse tension with humor is nothing to apologize for, Archivist," the monster said in its bland voice, "Bathos is a staple of mammalian storytelling."
"What?" Tin asked, the concern on his face giving way to confusion as he turned his head and looked back at the monster.
"Leporids are well-known for their leaping ability," Zathos continued, the words nearly serene, "A hare apologizing for being jumpy is therefore an amusing play on this common perception."
Eni blinked, wondering if the monster's experience with the Derkomai symbol had somehow affected its mind. It certainly didn't sound any different; Zathos spoke with as eerily emotionless a tone as ever. "Thanks for explaining," Tin said dryly, and Zathos inclined its massive head slightly.
"You are not laughing," it observed, "It is my understanding that elucidating a joke is much like performing a dissection. Knowledge is gained at the cost of life."
Eni bit down on her lip, fighting the mad urge to giggle, and she almost could have sworn that the sides of Tin's muzzle twitched at the monster's pompously precise words before his gaze turned back to her.
"You saw something," he said, and she nodded.
"There was a staff here," she replied, gesturing at the spot, "A mammal wearing robes and a silver mask stole it a long time ago."
She sighed, blowing out a breath of air that made the lock of fur hanging down in front of one eye puff briefly upwards. "I wish I could have seen more," Eni said wistfully, but she tore her eyes away from where the tool had been and looked at the other blocks.
They seemed to be carved in different languages, but not any that Eni had ever seen; the shapes weren't quite the alien shapes of Derkomai but they were very nearly as strange. All of the blocks had a different script on them, dense text filling them, but each one was as unfamiliar as the last. "We should keep going," she said, and they began walking around the stairs and toward the path forward.
As they passed the last of the blocks on the far side of the staircase, Eni spared a final glance back and suddenly stopped. She rushed back the way they had come, her ears rising uncontrollably as she got close enough to the one she had spotted. "This is High Aigla!" Eni cried, excitement making her voice far louder than she had intended, "It must be!"
"High Aigla?" Tin repeated; he had turned back with her and stood at her shoulder.
The wolf's head tilted at an angle as he studied the delicate symbols, a frown crossing his features.
"The Avian written language," Eni explained, the words falling out of her mouth, "They believe that it was a gift from the phoenixes, a way to share their wisdom wherever they couldn't be themselves. The Avians say that in the days when the phoenixes were in power, there were actually nuances in the logo-syllabic script th—"
Tin was looking at her blankly, and Eni cut herself off and jumped to the end. "High Aigla really hasn't changed much over the millennia," she said, "Not like mammalian languages. Especially after the last phoenix disappeared; they want to be sure he or she can still read it, if an incarnation returns."
The wolf's features had sharpened as Eni spoke, evidently grasping her point. "And you taught yourself to read it," he said, and Eni nodded eagerly.
"The grammar and syntax are a bit unusual, but I ought to be able to," she said, "And the way these panels are arranged… Of course! That's… It's…"
Eni bounced on her heels, her heart hammering in her chest. "There's a reason these are all written in a different language!" she said, "The text on each one of these must be the same, just translated. That way, as long as you can read one of them…"
"You could read them all," Tin finished, and Eni stabbed a finger at the tablet triumphantly.
"Exactly!" she said, "Look, one of these blocks uses the same pictograms that the walls of the fortress are carved with. Can you imagine what must be inside it?"
The symbols were tantalizingly close to telling a story, somewhere between drawings and text, and Eni wanted to know exactly what each one said. The ruins of the fortress were covered with the enormous images, many of them too badly degraded to make out, but one clearly showed Aerodan with the sun and the moon in its orbit, the celestial spheres depicted in very nearly the same way as the carvings hidden in the vault under Terregor. They were telling the same story, Eni was suddenly sure, but the ones she was looking at were far more detailed. The strange and shadowy being that had descended upon the land was almost too beautiful and terrible to behold, its victims rendered with haunting care.
She could barely manage to focus on the Aiglan symbols, her vision seeming to pulse in time with her heart as she studied them for a moment before speaking. "'Ken ye the first of the demiurges, yon traveler? For thy comprehension in whole or part, Abraxas doth be the beginning and end,'" Eni read aloud, fumbling over the strange Aiglan words as she did her best to translate into Circi.
She paused, looking back to the fortress with new awe. "Abraxas built this," she whispered, "He must have."
"I do not agree, Archivist," Zathos interjected, its voice as mild as ever, "Although it is conceivable that the First Demiurge constructed the temple, these caverns have a high probability of being older than ten millennia."
"You might be right," Eni said, frowning, "But what makes you think this is a temple?"
Although she hadn't spoken the word out loud, "fortress" was the only one that seemed to fit what lay on either side and underneath the road. It was broad and thickly built, with none of the gracefully delicate airiness of any house of worship devoted to the Mother Eni had ever seen. "Not made to be defensible," Tin answered for the monster, "Look."
He pointed out where there were other entrances into the imposing building, which didn't seem to have any obvious gates or ways to block progress. Eni's frown deepened; she couldn't argue with what the wolf and the monster had noticed, but somehow she felt sure they were wrong. Rather than disputing the point, she turned back to the Aiglan text, reading from where she had left off. "'A doughty…'"
She paused, trying to sound out the unfamiliar word that followed; if it was the name of his species it was so archaic she had never seen it used, and Eni gave up and continued. "'Something… of unequaled might, yet himself unequal to the ultimate problem. He leaves thee all he was, ere he was ashes, that a solution may yet be sighted. Find what Abraxas could not, traveler, and ward…'" Eni continued before trailing off again.
She couldn't keep speaking, but it was not her lack of knowledge that held her tongue. The word before her was perfectly clear, one that had an entirely unambiguous meaning. Her mouth was dry and her tongue felt heavy as she forced herself on at the questioning look that Tin gave her. "'Annihilation,'" she whispered, "'The End of All Things.'"
There was a long pause as the message sunk in, Eni's eyes roving to the next lines even as her heart sank in her chest. "Keep reading," Tin urged in a low voice, but she shook her head.
"The rest of it isn't part of the message," she said, "It's just… laws."
"Laws?" Tin repeated, the disbelief in his voice evident.
"I think… I think he wanted to be sure there was enough," Eni replied, slightly unsteadily, "To make sure whoever followed in his footsteps had a large enough sample to work with for translation."
She gestured vaguely at the Aiglan symbols. "It's a wonderful set of text," she said, "Very complex. I think it's even got tenses High Aigla doesn't have. This section looks like it's supposed to be in the future imperfect."
Eni laughed bitterly as she brushed a finger across the words and gestured at the tablet that stood to the right of the one in Aiglan. "And see that one?" she asked.
"It's blank," Tin said, staring at the gleaming crystalline surface.
"It is," Eni replied, "So's the one next to it. Part of Abraxas's legacy, I think. He knew a calamity was coming. He devoted his life to preventing it. But he couldn't. So he left blanks. Just…"
Tears were beginning to stream down her cheeks, feeling oddly cool compared to the oppressive air. "Just in case whoever came next couldn't figure it out either. So they could copy the message in their language for the next ones to come along. But… There's not going to be anyone after us, is there?"
Tin gently turned her around until she was facing him, his paws firm as he gripped her arms. "No," he said quietly, "We stop her or no one will."
Eni's throat felt so thick she almost couldn't force out words. "I… I want to translate those pictograms," she said at last, "I want to go down those stairs, and pore over every inch of this building. It's all there; I know it is. The cycle of Scourges… How life itself came to be… Maybe even how to stop the Visitor. But…"
She swallowed hard, feeling as though she could taste her own disappointment. "But we don't have the time for it," she said, her ears drooping until they were back in their usual position flat against her back, "It'd take me months to figure out a new language. Maybe years. And then to read it all…"
Tin had pulled a handkerchief out of one of the many pouches strapped around his tail and he carefully blotted at her face, making a wordless sound as he dried her tears. "It's another trap," she said, "And do you know what the worst part is?"
"What's that?" Tin asked, and Eni offered him a miserable smile.
"I know it is," she said, "But I still want to."
Tin looked at her, his face serious, and then he asked a strange question. "You have tissue paper in your bag?" he said, and Eni stared at him for a moment before slowly nodding.
When he looked at her expectantly, she swung her satchel around, rummaging through it before emerging with a flat square envelope of waxed canvas, carefully breaking the seal and pulling out a large and flimsy sheet of folded paper. "And a pencil," Tin added, and Eni offered him one.
As she watched, the wolf used one of the blades along the edge of his whip-sword to split the pencil in half the long way, exposing its entire core, and then he unfolded the sheet of tissue paper and pushed it up against the Aiglan tablet. He rubbed the pencil along it briskly, and seeing what he was doing Eni grabbed another piece of paper and another pencil. She used her knife to split it as he had, and then began copying the tablet written in the same strange pictograms that were etched into the fortress.
It was quick work, and barely any time had passed before they were both folding up their sheets, Tin offering his to Eni. "Now you can," he said, "When this is over… When you leave… You'll have a new project."
"Thank you," Eni said, carefully tucking the tracings away, but she couldn't quite meet Tin's eyes.
She felt as though her tears might return if she did, and so instead she looked ahead to how the road continued. "Time to go," she said softly, and Tin nodded, waiting for her to sling her bag across her back again before he kept walking.
Zathos had waited with its usual patience, observing them keenly but offering no input, and the monster remained silent as the path sloped down deeper into the mountain. Although it descended into the boiling rock, it was still passable; as the road approached the fiery liquid's surface it became enclosed and turned into a broad tunnel. They still had to walk carefully, however, as the occasional gap in the path created geysers of intense heat invisible but for how they distorted the air. Eni could feel every ounce of moisture leaving her fur even as she gave the nearest one a wide berth, but once their path became a tunnel it seemed free of any imperfections.
She was glad of her lantern as they entered; the glow of the magma didn't penetrate very far into the shaft, and it quickly became extraordinarily gloomy. The unbroken walls meant that no other light entered, and if the next chamber it reached was illuminated it was too far away to see. They progressed in the dim bubble of Eni's lamp until even the light of the churning liquid rock behind them was invisible, lost to distance and the winding turns of the tunnel.
Although there were no branches, Eni quickly lost sense of what direction they were going other than the unrelenting downward slope. That was the only constant; the path twisted left and right, running straight for hundreds of feet before turning sharply. It made it equally impossible to tell how far they had traveled as the minutes passed, but Eni gradually felt the incredible heat diminish.
She wasn't sure if it was because they had gone far below the enormous pool of molten rock or if the tunnel was simply an incredibly effective insulator, but the more they walked the less envious she became of Tin being unburdened even by a shirt. Hers had felt nearly as stifling as her jacket in the main chamber, but she became glad for it as the temperature slowly dropped. It felt like hours had passed with nothing to see but the unchanging walls of smoothly carved stones and her companions, her ears full of nothing but the sound of their footsteps echoing back at them, before something broke the monotony.
Eni's stomach grumbled.
She nearly jumped at the noise, which brought Zathos's words back into her head, and then took a deep and steadying breath. "I guess it's been awhile since I ate," she admitted ruefully, looking through her satchel for the most appetizing rations, "Do you want something, Tin?"
She offered him a jar of carrots, a bright and cheerful orange behind the glass, and he raised one paw to demur. "Not hungry," he said, and Eni frowned as she twisted the lid off and freed one of the preserved vegetables.
"Are you sure?" she asked, relishing the snap of the carrot between her teeth and its sharp vinegar bite on her tongue, "I think it's already the twenty-third."
It was supremely unsettling to realize that a new day had come when they were deep below the ground, unable to see the sun, but she couldn't remember the last time the wolf had eaten something. "It is," Tin agreed, shrugging his shoulders, "Just… Don't feel hungry."
Eni didn't push the point, but she was more ravenous than she had realized; the first jar of carrots vanished into her mouth in a matter of minutes, and shortly thereafter she began polishing off one filled with pickled beets. When at last she was sated, she ensured both containers were carefully stowed away, not wanting to leave any litter behind. With her meal finished, their descent continued, pausing only momentarily sometime later to refuel her lantern from one of the canisters for Tin's whip-sword. The walls remained resolutely the same, perfectly round without the slightest hint of an angle or even a crack, and ahead there was nothing but inky blackness.
Eventually a dim light came into view, the end at last within sight as a faint golden glow. Eni had to restrain herself from running for it, the minutes feeling endless as they at last approached a new chamber. Unlike the one far above, there was no molten rock. It looked something like a honeycomb, hundreds of tunnels all converging into a single massive hallway. The entrances of each tunnel was as black as the one they were leaving, and Eni pulled an inkpot from her satchel, dipping a brush into it and drawing a large cross near the opening.
"So we can find our way back," she said, her voice low; she didn't know where the other tunnels led but the idea of being lost miles underneath Aerodan filled her with a terrible dread.
Tin nodded absently, but he didn't give any of the other passages a second glance, his nostrils flaring briefly before he turned left down the long hallway. "Are… Are you sure that's the right way?" Eni asked timidly, looking the other way down where it continued.
As far as she could tell, there was no difference between going left or right; the hallway stretched on for what looked like miles, everything made of Aurum Regis etched with patterns that were almost, but not quite, geometric. The walls themselves didn't glow, but they dully reflected a light that seemed to emerge from the air itself, making everything as bright as mid-morning. Either end of the hallway was too far away to make out, but Tin appeared utterly confident in his decision. "Close your eyes," he said, "Listen."
Eni did as he asked, squeezing her eyelids shut and focusing her attention on what made its way to her ears. At first there were only the same noises there had been in the tunnel they had just left, the sound of her own breathing and heart mixed with Tin's. Zathos was utterly noiseless itself, but she could hear where Tin's breaths puffed against the enormous monster's chest. She could hear the soft rustle of the legs of Tin's trousers against each other and the slight clink of his whip-sword's hilt against his wide belt, but the hallway was otherwise completely still.
It was almost oppressively quiet; it felt like there was a vast pressure on her head, driving everything else out, but Eni reached for the strength within herself, straining to hear something without her ears. She stood motionlessly, feeling as though her mind was expanding to fill the endless hall, and at last something came to her.
She couldn't describe it; it wasn't like a voice, but there was still some deeper meaning to it. The sound was like nature itself, as powerful as the rush of a waterfall or the shaking of an earthquake, but unarguably deliberate. The word came to Eni suddenly and felt utterly correct; there was an intelligence behind what she was perceiving, something that was far from random or meaningless. It was a siren and a lullaby, a heart-rending expression of loss intermingled with an undeniable call to come forth, and Eni could tell exactly where it was coming from.
Her eyes opened slowly to find Tin looking at her. "You're right," she said softly, "Left."
"We're getting close," Tin said firmly, "Just past the enclave."
"The enclave?" Eni repeated, turning to stare down the tunnel.
She still couldn't see where it ended; all that filled her sight were myriad entrances to tunnels. "How far is that?" she asked, squinting, "I can't see it."
"It's…" Tin began, and then his face twisted into a frown, "The enclave is…"
He grimaced suddenly, his fingers idly tapping against the hilt of his weapon. "I… I don't know why I said that," Tin said slowly, his tail slowly swinging back and forth, "I've… never…"
The wolf closed his eyes, and Eni could hear his heart suddenly beating faster as he stood frozen. "Tin?" she asked, and when he didn't answer she reached out with one paw.
Just before her fingers met his, his eyes snapped open, their pale blue brilliant with reflected light. "Must be able to smell it," he said, but there was a note of uncertainty to his words that Eni didn't like, "Let's go."
Zathos followed obediently at once, but Eni paused long enough to stare back at the cross she had made on the tunnel they had exited to enter the hallway. She had drawn it as large as she could manage, each line nearly three feet tall. As they continued on, though, it grew ever smaller, until at last Eni could no longer make out where they had come from. It was lost in the numberless series of identical openings, one of many, and Eni swallowed hard before firmly facing forward.
There was still no sign of where the hallway ended, but Eni was filled with a terrible certainty that it wouldn't be much longer before she discovered what the enclave was.
Comments