We boarded a small boat right before dawn, leaving the main ship behind. Me, Otho, Titus and Tiberius. Otho and I rowed while Titus and Tiberius sat in silence, lost in their thoughts. When the boat hit the beach, Tiberius jumped into the water and walked towards the shore. The rest of us pulled the boat onto the beach and followed.
“How does it make you feel being here?” Titus questioned Tiberius. His blue eyes seemed lost in time.
“It feels like it happened in another life,” he answered whispering.
“I don’t like this, I don’t like being here. Nothing to gain dwelling within such vile memories,” Titus murmured to himself.
“Nothing to lose either, Titus. Everything we had, we already lost it here. You, me, Atia, Julia, Octavia, Flavius… Come now, I want to see if they’re still there.”
We left the beach and entered the thick forest jungle. We walked on a well beaten path, so it seemed pirates still roamed through this area on a regular basis. After a short stroll we reached the camp – or what was left of it. The scattered pirate bones and the flipped boat were still there.
“I’ve had words with this man in Porosia, he often trades with pirates. He told me they’re afraid of this place. They’re convinced it’s haunted and they do not dare to move the remains of this sad lot. I must say I found comfort in his words. That these worms can’t find peace, not even in death. Tiberius… What are we doing here? We should be on our way to Porosia, following our other ships.”
“There’s been a discovery. A ruin of the Ancients, an hour walk from here. I want to see it for myself. Ironic, isn’t it? Thirty years ago we were so close to discovering it and now here we are. Life can be such a morbid adventure. It's almost laughable."
He took a deep breath and continued:
"Every time I come here I hope for a closure of sorts. Not peace, I am not that naive! But something at least. Anger, even rage, sadness, anything! But I feel nothing. What I see is some odd camp with skeletons, which in time will get swallowed by dirt.”
“Everything flows, nothing remains,” said Titus and sighed. He still appeared uncomfortable. Tiberius then pulled a map out of his purse and unrolled it. He then started walking and we followed. Every once in a while he pulled out the map and studied it. Nobody said a word. After some time we left the path and entered the thick jungle. Tiberius ordered Titus to hatch through the thick greens of the forest. He walked behind him, looking at the map and directing him. I was very afraid of the snakes and lizards I knew were lurking about. I tried to distract myself by thinking of Antonia, wondering how she was doing. After about what seemed like an hour, Tiberius tapped Titus on his shoulder. The tap scared him and he jumped a bit, then blushed.
“Here we are,” Tiberius said with a cheerful voice.
“I don’t see anything,” Titus answered, annoyed by the whole escapade.
“You’re not supposed to," Tiberius smiled.
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“It’s hidden?”
“In a way. Time hid it. Look there,” he pointed to what looked like a small cave entrance.
“Light the torch,” he ordered Titus. We entered.
First thing I noticed was the shape of the cave. Everything was in straight lines and correct angles. It was not a natural cavern. Then I noticed the carvings on the walls. Titus illuminated them and we stepped closer. They were of oddly dressed people with odd sticks in their hands. Odd carriages without horses with eight and more wheels. Ships of odd shapes, without any sail or rowers. Birds with people inside, and the birds dropping stones to the buildings bellow. Titus moved the torch and we saw more carvings with what looked like ruined cities. The buildings appeared tall and were of rectangular shape. Elongated narrow round shaped tents with fire beneath them flew towards these cities. The next carving was of a big peculiar looking cloud engulfing everything. Bellow this image was a single sentence. Four words written with unknown symbols.
“What a strange place,” Titus whispered. The cave seemed to distract him from the bad memories of the island. He seemed more at ease, cheerful even. “Do you understand any of this?” he asked Tiberius.
“It’s a tale of destruction, a tale of war. War between the people that were before us. The first ones.”
“I thought the Ancients were a myth, a fairy tale?”
“No. They were real people. And they weren’t much different from us.”
“How do you know this?”
“The Giants told me of their tale. I spent some time with them in the north, after I became Lord. Thousands of years ago an ancient civilization thrived on this continent. They were so advanced it’s no wonder the majority of Helena nowadays considers them Gods. They destroyed each other in a terrible war.”
“What was the war fought over?” I asked, which startled Titus. He had forgotten Otho and I were with them!
“Politics, what else! Their prosperity reached unmatched levels. And when a society reaches those heights of comfort, the hunger for meaning increases. Life isn’t meant to be an experience of superficial joys. We cannot last that way. We don’t last that way! So, this inevitable search for a deeper meaning caused two factions to emerge. One wanted to reach enlightenment by political and religious rule. The other by incorporating both the light and the dark side of our nature. Of course I’m using poetic speech describing this war. A historian would use a very different terminology, but in its true essence, that was the main cause.”
“Who was right?” I asked.
“Both. If they joined forces in a moderate way, time would have diluted their differences. Let’s go further, there's more of this cave to explore.”
We kept walking down the cave, Titus with a torch first, Tiberius behind him and then me and Otho. We walked through a narrow passage that opened to a large room. One of the walls was filled with odd symbols. In the end of the room stood a large dark statue. When we came nearer and exposed it to the light of Titus’s torch it became alive with colors of blue, purple, green and gold.
“This is beautiful,” said Otho, admiring the statue. He wanted to touch it but was afraid. The statue was of a man, dressed in strange clothes, with a sad expression on his face. Beaten. Defeated. For some reason his face made me angry. We stood there for a bit, then left. It felt good to come out of that cave.
“We’ll need to excavate this place. We have much to learn,” said Tiberius with a smile on his face. His blue eyes were dancing and he was happy with what he saw.
“Why?” asked Titus. “I mean, by this point it’s just a curious story. It might as well be a dream.”
“Those who don’t know the history are bound to repeat it. And not only that! There’s a possibility of artifacts scattered in the earth all around this area. Lost technology that we could use to better our lives.”
That shut Titus up. We were all tired by that point, so we headed back to the boat. The sun was high in the skies. When we passed the camp, Tiberius lingered for a moment or two as if he was saying goodbye to something. I doubted he knew to whom or to what.
Nothing lasts, everything flows.