The Edge of a World, page 13
Before Otar could say anything else, a voice cut in.
“Why are you looking so somber this early?”
They both looked over. Aaoran had arrived carrying a bowl that held twice as much porridge as had been in Otar’s.
Otar grinned. “Morning greetings, peras.”
Aaoran rolled their eyes and sat down beside Otar in one fluid motion.
“You haven’t been my student in a long time. No need to greet me like that anymore, Otar.”
“You took a chance on me, and I wish to honor that.”
Aaoran shook their head and turned to Onder instead. “When will you set out?”
“As soon as I’m finished.”
“Stop by the staff tent.” Aaoran flicked a finger to the left, pointing out a bigger tent with a line in front. “They’ll give you provisions as always, and a few letters for leader Andres and a few for other tribes. I’d be grateful if you could distribute them further.”
Onder inclined his head in assent. “As you wish.”
With that Aaoran rose, his bowl and cup of brew already empty. “Otar, a word?”
Otar scraped the last bits of his own food out, chugged down the brew, and stood. He looked at Onder, who winked at him.
“Stay safe,” Otar said with a formal bow while holding the empty dishes.
“As you shall,” Onder answered with smiling eyes.
Otar brought his used utensils to the designated collection area and joined Aaoran, who talked to a passing group of scholars. When Otar drew close, they excused themselves and waved Otar closer.
“Tell me, how are you really feeling?”
Otar started walking with Aaoran falling into step beside him. “It has been a couple of eventful big-turns.”
“Found anything special on your last trip before getting knocked out?”
Otar eyed them from the side, but there was nothing on Aaoran’s face that indicated that he knew what had transpired in the mountains. Not trusting his voice (Aaoran had always read the lies in his tone), he shook his head.
Aaoran clapped their hands together and smiled gleefully. “Well, but I have, and I dare to say it’ll be a treat for you.”
They stopped by Otar’s tent so he could collect his notebook and pencil, then Aaoran led him out back to the passage. Otar commented on his lost tools, and Aaoran assured him the staff would see to his needs.
They stepped onto the main path, which started at the crevasse and went in a straight line past the camp, further into the distance. Otar could make out another, much narrower crevasse. There, the road passed through a second rock formation.
Stone blocks as tall as Otar, driven into the ground, paved the way. They fit neatly together, the seam lines hair thin, as if it was one big slab of stone. He crouched down and brushed the dirt and sand to the side, letting his fingers graze the stone under it. It was smooth.
“The Ancients built it?” he said half to himself and half to Aaoran.
His mentor hunched down beside him and nodded. “So far, we haven’t been able to determine why. As you saw, they didn’t build any roads to or from the ruins, only a few pathways between the outer buildings. This one leads all the way to the main dome. There is nothing in the canyon and beyond, in either direction.”
Otar looked up and down the road. Then he fished out his notebook, scribbled down a few words, and made quick sketches with more notes, which he would fill out later with more details.
“This is remarkable,” he muttered. Everything that deviated from the norm was noteworthy. Even if they were left with more puzzle pieces and no clue as to how they all fit together.
“Ah, don’t use up all your excitement! There is more to come.”
Otar studied them. Aaoran was almost giddy with anticipation. He narrowed his eyes at them while he rose. Aaoran pointed down the road to the other crevasse and, with their other hand, patted him on the shoulder.
“My dear friend, my most beloved student, this, I promise you by the lords, will be the best turn of your life.”
Chapter 14
“Onder told me you are currently in the southern jungles at the Blue Mountain ridges, and if this letter finds you in time, may I ask a favor? You might remember my student Otar. He is on an extended excursion through the southern jungles, close to the Green River, and I worry about him being alone while researching crumbling stone and unknown regions. If you could check up on him, I would be most grateful. The last known location …”
(From: “Letters to Andres”, Vol. 2)
The sun significantly changed its place in the sky when they finally arrived at the stone gate. Otar was hot and sweaty. At least the way through the hill had brought a moment of sweet relief. Walking downhill in the blistering heat had taxed him, but he had enough energy left to gape at the sudden stone gate.
“A gate?” That was also unprecedented. The Ancients ruins followed a rather formulaic pattern, depending on their magnitude. A cluster of low buildings in a dense rectangle form, cut through with five main roads that originated in a star-like arrangement from a middle spot—the main dome. Those were the big ruins. Of them, they only ever found a handful. More common were the smaller ones. They exhibited the same type of central dome, often in the same size, but fewer constructions clustered around it. Roughly half of the ruins, they found somewhat intact, were just the dome alone. The assumption was that this central building was the point of origin from which the ruins grew in a strict pattern depending on how big the population would be.
Otar stepped closer to the archway. It had no doors and was made of the same smooth rock as the road. Beige stones, not showing even the slightest tool usage from the masons. With no visible seam lines, the blocks fit together like puzzle pieces. The gate straddling the road didn’t show that there had ever been something inside the arch to close the way. And yet it must have a meaning.
“Why put a gate here?” Otar asked while he made more sketches. There wasn’t a sign of a wall or a fence. One could circle it completely with no obstacle. Scholars and workers flowed around them; some nodded at Aaoran, who smiled back.
“You’ll find that many things are different here.” Their voice held a peculiar note.
Otar squinted at them, taking in the barely contained tremors running through their body and the sparkle in their eyes.
“Oh.” He said and turned around, taking it all in. “You think this is Eitin, the first settlement.” He blinked. “But—”
Aaoran shook their head. “We don’t know if Eitin was the first. And therefore I sent for you. Regardless, you should have been here right from the beginning.”
The legends about the Ancients were as clear as they could be. The texts and stories called them travelers, arriving from the east, from beyond the Great Ocean. They settled on these shores and then spread out through the Seven Lands, until they disappeared one turn, leaving nothing behind beside slowly crumbling stones. Some myths and old scrolls referenced one city, the biggest and most amazing a person could ever lay eyes on, filled with wondrous and impossible things. The text fragments called it Eitin, the only surviving city name. Scholars contested if it really was an Ancients name, or a name that the people later had given it.
Either way, it had never been found, and nothing they discovered did the descriptions justice. Some thought it might be up in the northern mountains, buried under snow and ice, in one of the thousands of hidden valleys and crevasses; others searched for it in the southern jungles hidden under the thick green canopies; some suspected it to be in the waters on the coast, believing it must have sunk into the sea. Finding nothing put a damper on that research. Money dried up, and the scholars turned to other fields of interests.
When his Imperial Heir Jasner and his right-hand man and adviser Turas sparked a new interest, fresh funds came in and scholars spread through the Seven Lands again.
Otar’s eyes roamed as they walked through the gate and down the rest of the road. They encountered the same narrow buildings as in the other ruins, not higher than three stories, interconnected by a dizzying number of stairs and small bridges—everything in pristine condition.
The main road led down to the dome-structure. The central one was the biggest, its sides each nestled a smaller one. They were connected by a small bridge on both sides. The main dome counted eight spires curving over the top, with the smaller domes having four. On top sat a smaller spire pointing into the sky. So far, all domes they’d discovered sprouted such spires, but always fewer than eight.
The sun was hitting the stone from behind, invoking the faint glimmer many ruins showed. A handful were built from a grayer stone, usually the ones in the mountains, but a number of those had darkened with time with plants growing over them or encrusted with moss and dirt.
They never found the building material in a natural environment, and analyses had given no answers about its composition.
Another mystery atop so many. It was as if everything else would unravel should they ever be able to answer just one of the thousands of questions.
Aaoran led him down the pathway to the main dome. Along it, workers shoveled sand and scientists crawled like ants over every inch, shouting measurements to each other. Artists made sketches from all angles. From time to time, Aaoran would point something out, and Otar wrote a quick note or did a hasty sketch of his own.
At first glance, Adabel was in perfect condition. One more mystery scholars didn’t understand. Some ruins appeared as if the Ancients had built them yesterturn, while others had crumbled to dust heaps. A popular thesis was that they had been protected by some kind of magic that must have run out or failed for those that were now destroyed. But there was no evidence.
Otar kept silent about his own theories, as voicing them would open a box of fishing worms he could never close again.
They both sighed with relief when they stepped out of the sun’s heat into the cooler and darker interior of the central dome. It was almost gloomy. A multitude of witch lights swaying around gave it an eerie atmosphere. Still, Otar’s eyes needed a moment to adjust to the difference, before he could take the structure in.
A dome was the primary building of an Ancients ruin. Every domed building was perfectly round, not even a speck off. The floor was always tiled in a dark blue mosaic, with the tiles not being larger than Otar’s hand. The main wall on which the dome rested circled the entire floor. Painted onto it, running the whole circumference, covering the complete wall, was a mural depicting flowers, plants and animals, and strange things, no one had ever seen or recorded in the Seven Lands.
Otar could name them all.
A popular theory was that this flora and fauna were long extinct; others hypothesized that they’d be found in the lands beyond the ocean, where the Ancients hailed from. A few in the minority waved it all away, scoffing that they were entirely made up.
Aaoran led him over to the pictures and Otar’s eyes sought out the strange symbols that accompanied each of the different drawings automatically, forming words that echoed in his mind.
Attraquer. Ziarav. Beltrider.
Words he wasn’t able to match to Common or any other language whispered in his mind. For him, they were just empty names.
In every dome, though, they were the same. At least they usually were.
Otar frowned at the thought and stepped closer. The words were the same, he was sure, and yet … he crooked his head and squinted.
He sidestepped a scholar who was crouching down to copy a tree-like plant called Edes. Otar was now almost touching the wall with his nose and turned his face this way and that.
“What do you see?” Aaoran had followed him.
Wasn’t that a strange question? Otar put it to the side and concentrated.
“They are the same,” he said slowly, “but there is something …” He fished out his notebook and, after scanning through it, cursed. The relevant notes were stored at the university. “I think they’re different. Tiny changes.” He pointed to the plant that was called Ziarav. A blueish-purple flower with five buds and dark green leaves with thin yellow stripes. He remembered counting those buds in all the ruins he’d gotten access to, writing the amount repeatedly: Five buds, three leaves, with each leaf having three stripes.
This flower was painted with four buds and three stripes, and while that number matched, the stripes ended halfway up the leaves.
Aaoran put their head right next to Otar’s, squinting their eyes. “I can’t be sure myself. I’ll tell the other scholars to make a comparison. We have some sketches with us which were taken from other ruins. We should have a result pretty soon.”
Otar hummed in confirmation, his mind already working on coming up with a conclusion—were these painted first and then copied over? And if so, why? And how?
Aaoran waved someone over and instructed them to compare the pictures. Then they tapped Otar on the shoulder.
“There is more to see.”
Otar raised an eyebrow. More? How could there be more? And why did they only discover this now, when Adabel had been known for a while?
Aaoran guided him with a light touch to his lower back, around the bustling scholars and then to the small opening that would lead them down a staircase to the deeper levels. They stopped short at the level with monochromatic chambers—they didn’t seem to differ from those in the other ruins. Otar made a mental note to take a closer look, to be sure.
They walked the rest of the stairs down and found themselves in front of two massive stone doors propped open. A slew of witch lights swarmed around.
“The lights aren’t working?”
Aaoran looked at him and then back into the chamber. “No, we haven’t been able to revive any of the energy systems.”
Sometimes ruins burst to life when anyone entered them, yet more often they remained dormant or dead—like the one in the mountains. He always shuddered when he went into one.
They stepped onto the even ground and further into what Otar thought of as the heart of the ruins. It was a circular room located under the main dome and was about the same size. It varied, but was never off by too much. The middle points always matched.
Just off the threshold, Aaoran turned them around and pointed to the opposite, there half-hidden behind the stairs, was a closed second stone door.
“I’m assuming this is the gate to the sibling dome?”
“Yes, there is another one beyond this chamber.”
“And the bridges outside?”
Aaoran spread their fingers. “There is nothing in the ceiling that indicates there is a way out, and we couldn’t check the smaller domes. These doors seem to be the only point of entry, but they’re shut tight.”
Otar furrowed his brows, looking back to the center. “The main chamber was just open?”
Aaoran nodded.
Then they walked inside. Scholars and workers surveyed every inch here. As soon as they stepped closer to the well, Otar held his breath, waiting with trepidation for the ghost to come—and found himself equally disappointed and relieved when nothing happened.
The monster rattled around agitated once more, grasping for something that wasn’t there, just as it did in the mountain ruin. Otar pushed that firmly to the side, and after another burst of reaching, the monster settled down.
Otar looked up, fearing red eyes peeking once more down at him, but all he’d see was the rough stone of the ceiling.
The chamber was as overwhelming as the dome above. Tiny white tiles gave the ground a scaled look. From the middle, thick black lines fanned out in a star pattern to the walls—a star with too many beams. Otar never counted so many. A lot of the other ruins had a handful, but this seemed to be, at first glance, more than two dozen.
Along those lines, the Ancients had scribbled more of those tiny symbols that they had also painted onto the mural walls.
More words and names, Otar knew.
Pahrasha. Escrin. Zydarra. Leontar.
The symbols, or maybe letters, were strange and foreign in his thoughts, forming impressions of cities and landscapes. His eyes stopped at a thicker line with a small border around it, which was almost imperceivable in the dim light. His gaze stopped at a name for several small-turns before his mind accepted what he was reading.
Eitin.
Otar swallowed. He searched for Aaoran, but his mentor had moved further to the middle. Otar hurried after them. They stopped at what the scholars had named the well. A round translucent area that glowed in a soft blue when the ruin was alive. Here it was dark, indicating it either was dead or had run out of energy. Otar looked down at the empty pool and then studied once more the lines that originated here.
After comparing maps and layouts, a scholar had discovered the markings corresponded with actual existing ruins. Following a line and walking straight, eventually the traveler would arrive at one.
At the end of the Zykara line laid Zyvkan, another ruin in the mountains in the west; Escrin was the line to Bakusaran, the excavation close to his own home village, and the first ruin he had ever entered; Pahrasha pointed to Patreshka. Which was ironic because scholars had written many theses about the question: Was the principal city of the steppe built upon a ruin? They never found a ruin on the line, just rocks and caves and at the end, Patreshka. But they could never satisfactorily prove that a ruin lay under the city.
Otar could lay all those speculations to rest, but that would reveal his ability to vocalize the symbols, and he was still grappling with the implication of that after all these summers.
All the time Aaoran was silent, but let Otar see and feel and experience. After a nod from him, Aaoran led him to the other side through the open door there and into the other staircase hall. As they’d said, there was another set of stone doors firmly closed.
Ruins were symmetric, everything had an opposite in the same shape and form.
They climbed up the stairs and through the main dome and walked back out into the sun. Otar soaked up the warmth. There was something peculiar in staying an extended period of time in the dim light or even in the darkness of a ruin. It latched onto them, claiming pieces of those that walked in them, chilling them down to the very bones. Otar thought back to what he had encountered with Marit in the mountains, the black shadows coming for him. Had that really happened? At least Marit had seen it as well, so …
