“This is a mess. A bloody hot mess,” Viryl said in dismay, limping towards the ruins of his farmhouse. The effects of Anker's paralyzing magic were wearing off, but the aftershocks were still being felt.
Anker was despairing and screaming inarticulate sounds as he pulled away pieces of wood, junk and planks in an attempt to recover Madja's body.
“Anker, boy, we don't have time to waste here, we have to run to the observatory immediately!” Viryl exclaimed, trying to get Anker's attention.
“What the hell are you talking about?! Come here and help me!”
“Maybe you didn’t notice, but the thing the Fearkan was carrying in its beak was my Exoplion. I assure you that right now the top priority is to prevent that beast from doing whatever it has in mind to do. We can think about your friend's body later.”
Anker was momentarily taken aback by Viryl's cynicism but, after all, he was talking about a fallen knight: was there any compassion or honor to be expected from him? Anker simply replied: “Fearwhat? What the hell are you babbling about? If you don't want to help me, get out of here!”
Viryl sighed and shrugged: “Suit yourself, I don't have time to give you more exhaustive explanations than that right now.”
Then he added: “If only you had spared me that shitty paralyzing dart…” and he walked as quickly as he could, though considerably hampered, towards his destination.
*****
In a few minutes Anker managed to find Madja's body, almost unharmed except for a few broken bones where the beams had fallen on her, and it took almost twice as long to extract her. He was also able to recover the bear skins on which she had been laid, and he used them to wrap her inside. She was still warm, but the total absence of breathing and pulse left no hope: she was dead. He tried to cast a defibrillation spell and revive her for a few minutes, but without success.
Then Anker sat down in the snow next to the bundled corpse, with one knee to his chest and his eyes lost in the void, like his mind. He only came to his senses when he was reached by the air displacement generated by an immense being gliding down from the mountain. It must have been the monster that had attacked them shortly before. Since there was nothing more to be done for Madja, it was worth reaching Viryl and finding out what he had to say.
Following Viryl's footsteps on the fresh snow, by the light of the glowing orb, turned out to be quite easy for Anker.
The footprints wound their way through fir trees and dwarf pines, until they reached an extensive clearing at the edge of which one could glimpse the outline of a tall and wide stone building. On the front steps, which bore the signs of time in the form of cracks and lichens, sheltered by a portico supported by equally ancient columns, Viryl waited disconsolately. “I arrived too late — ” he began.
Anker asked no questions and stood next to him, looking at the valley and the faraway lands, where the lights of the magic lanterns of the cities and villages of the province of Hither Sanchiria shone through the gaps between the dark, dense, cotton-like clouds that still enveloped the mountain. During a clear day, the panorama that could be observed from the observatory must have been truly breathtaking.
“ — I saw the Fearkan leave the observatory when I was a few hundred yards from the entrance. I tried to hit it with one of my spears as it flew over my head, but even though I hit it, it didn't flinch and continued its descent. And now I'm not sure what to do. But maybe you can help me, Anker.”
“Help you do what?”
“You see, this observatory was built on the ruins of a Classian temple dedicated to the god Ghorou, which in turn must have been built on a much older structure. To protect the secrets hidden inside, a magical seal has been placed on the front door, which only opens to the knights of the Royal Order of Ferlonia. To be precise, you need an enchanted emblem that resonates with the recess on the lock. For example, you can use a badge or an Exoplion to open the seal. Unfortunately, on the day of my abdication, I returned my badge and, as for my Exoplion, well — ”
“That monster stole it from you. Is that why you didn't want to give it to me? Because you needed it to open that door?”
“Yes.”
“What's so important in there?”
“Ancient inscriptions.”
“Huh?”
“If you open the seal, I'll explain it to you on the way,” Viryl cut him short.
It can't be said that Anker didn't find the whole thing suspicious, but at this point curiosity was winning over caution. He pulled out his badge and fitted it into the outline on the door. The mechanism activated and the doors began to open slowly. “After you,” Anker said to Viryl, who stood up from the step he was sitting on, and together they entered the building.
The seal, in addition to allowing entry into the observatory, also served to start the sympathionic flow inside the structure and reactivate the magical circuits and artificial lighting. Luminous Crystals embedded in the scales of Razor Lampreys had been fixed to the walls and reverberated an azure light that dispelled the darkness from every single nook and cranny of the observatory's narrow ring-shaped rooms. The outer perimeter walls were surrounded by shelves upon shelves of yellowed and uninteresting volumes.
“The observatory itself is on the fifth floor, but we're not here to look at celestial bodies — damn, it's just as I thought,” Viryl interrupted his exhilarating joke, and he headed to an opening on the inner wall of the room that must have originally been blocked by a wooden door, before it was violently broken open and thrown to the ground. This gave access to a claustrophobic stone corridor that opened into a circular room of much larger size than the first. It was so large that the light from the lamprey scales could barely trace a path to follow and highlight the contours and corners of colossal marble blocks carefully positioned by industrious men of past ages.
“Well, Viryl, would you mind starting to give me some explanation? What is this damn Fearkan you keep talking about? It looked like a beast, but beasts have no intellect, so I don’t understand how that thing could have the brilliant idea of stealing your Exoplion.”
“Tell me, boy, do you know about the Ancient gods?” Viryl asked, as he ventured into the depths of the cave.
“Do you mean the False Gods that were worshipped during the Classian age?”
“Oh, no, that’s not so simple. I can't blame you for being confused, I imagine that at the Knightly Academy of the Golden Fox, where I suppose you studied, they don't pay much attention to these doctrinal subtleties.”
“Enlighten me then, o illustrious scholar of the Academy of the Spheres of Lazul.”
“Well, the pantheon of the so-called False Gods of Classia was actually modeled after the Ancient Gods worshipped by the populations that the Classian emperors subjugated during their conquests and whose worship they recognized, sometimes merging different deities with similar characteristics. Tracing back to actual Ancient Gods from the Classian False Gods can be very complex, anthropologically speaking. In any case, that's not the point. What I mean is that there are many more Ancient Gods than False Gods, since not all Ancient Gods were included in the Pantheon. Moreover, they were very heterogeneous deities, and the very definition of divinity could differ greatly from one civilization to another.”
“Viryl, I'm not following you. How does this mumbo jumbo answer my question?” Anker asked, gradually regaining his distinctive arrogance as he became more familiar with the fallen knight.
Viryl exhaled vigorously, trying to stay calm, and continued: “What I mean is that the Ancient Gods were very different from each other. For example, the False God to whom this mountain is dedicated, Ghorou, or if you will Ghelmerion, the name of his corresponding Ancient God, is very different from the Ancient Gods of Neferia. For example, the fertility goddess Ilixanthia really granted women who meticulously performed a specific ritual in her honor to conceive male children. Ghorou was also offered human sacrifices, but from what the chronicles report, he never granted anything to his cultists.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Anker frowned, but he tried to play along with Viryl and patiently replied, “What you said seems like nonsense to me, and you still haven't answered my question. If they are called False Gods, it is because they were, in fact, false, from the first to the last. If those rituals had a positive outcome, there was obviously a scientific rationale behind it that the ancients did not know about. Imagine if women gave birth to males because they had said a little prayer to Ilissantia, or whatever her name is.”
“Trust me, if many of those pagan cults have survived to this day, it is because there is a fundamental truth to them. And what we faced before was a Fearkan, a beast transformed by a pact with an Ancient God and in the service of a sorcerer who worships him,” Viryl concluded, finally giving an answer to Anker’s question after the long preamble.
“This is esoteric nonsense, Viryl.”
“Look, our God, the god of Zephyrism, is himself one of the Ancient Gods, Sylyphyr. I don't see why he should be true and the others not, if they are coeval. And then what matters are the facts. That monster acted as if it had a precise plan, its body didn't ooze Black Blood after I hit it with my spear, its eyes were glowing, and I don't think you've ever seen that in a bestiary. I'm telling you, that was neither a Ferenkelt nor a Fekoro, it was a Fearkan, a beast transformed by the arcane arts and in the service of a sorcerer.”
“Are you a heretic, Viryl?” Anker asked, ignoring the second part of Viryl's answer, and consequently ignoring the core of his argument.
“I am what I am, you imbecile. Certainly not a heretic. And you should look at the world with a more open mind, boy. You may have been made a knight, but you would pale if you were faced with the abyss of the truths of the world that you do not yet know. Even a man like me, almost half a century older than you, pales at the thought of the unkown!”
The knight and the fallen continued to advance as they carried on their conversation, and had reached and passed a new circular colonnade, which marked the entrance to the tholos of Ghorou. They had then reached the cella of the temple and had entered it. Suspended above their heads was a dome decorated with four orders of deep coffers, in the center of which was a narrow oculus covered with a copper plate. On either side of the entrance were seven panels of white marble, separated by pilasters and covered from top to bottom with inscriptions in ancient Classian.
At the opposite end from the entrance was the colossal face of a statue that plunged into the floor at the level of its gaping jaws. On it, in the light of the azure scales, one could still see traces of red and black pigments, which had originally colored its skin, horns and the outline of its fierce eyes uniformly.
Adjacent to the statue's gnarled nose was a sacrificial altar, which must have been displaced from its original position, as it was now in an uncomfortable spot to practice blood rituals.
In the center of the naos, the floor of rough black granite had been torn up and dug out around a circular metal channel, revealing a hole about eighteen feet in diameter, which could be accessed via what could be called a rudimentary wooden spiral staircase, although it was nothing more than a series of poles and planks spiraling into the wall of the hole: Viryl's hand in this work was evident.
“We need to go down below,” Viryl announced to Anker, pointing to the hole in the center of the cella.
“It looks dangerous.”
“It is, mind your steps.”
“I hope it's worth it,” Anker complained skeptically. Viryl shook his head, increasingly annoyed by Anker's know-it-all attitude.
After descending for five or six yards, they reached the last rung, to which was tied a rope ladder that plunged into a dark cavity. Viryl summoned a glowing orb, and began to descend the ladder. Anker followed him.
They lowered themselves into the hypogeum for about fifty yards before reaching the bottom. That room was as damp and rough as a cave, and no lighting had been provided: it must not have been discovered yet when the observatory was built. Monstrosities born from ancestral minds were carved on the walls, and a titanic and skillfully modeled body descended from the head of the statue of the temple of Ghorou. The work as a whole managed to impress Anker, and he let out an ironic comment: “These ancients certainly knew how to keep themselves busy."
Apart from the sculptures, which seamlessly clung and wrapped around the walls, the only other semblance of a human hand's contribution to the architecture of the room was a series of three concentric stone slabs embedded in the floor, covered in glyphs and perfectly preserved. Next to the slabs were a desk and a stool, and Viryl immediately ran to that spot.
“Everything! Those bastards have taken everything!” Viryl shouted, banging his fist on the bare table.
“What have they taken?” Anker asked, less and less interested.
“My notes, the stele of Demetriscus, there's nothing left here!”
“Of course, the stele of Demetriscus, how could I not have realized it right away.” Anker said sarcastically.
Viryl finally lost his nerve and snapped, “Listen here, you ignorant wanker. This temple was erected during the Classian Empire on top of a much older hypogeum. It's not the only one of its kind: nine similar ones have been found so far, and there could be many more according to the annals. When the project was undertaken, in the year CCCLXXVI of the Classian age, the goal was to build eleven of them, and the tribune in charge was named Demetriscus. He placed a stele in each of the temples, and the one in the temple of Ghorou was the only one to be perfectly preserved among the others we know of. If those idiotic Royal Archaeologists don't understand — ”
“You can drop it, why should I care about this futile history lesson?” Anker interrupted him, starting to show signs of impatience.
Viryl gasped in a burst of outrage, then continued with even more fervor, pointing to the engraved stone slabs on the floor: “Because the damn Demetriscus tablets, I'm trying to explain to you, bear inscriptions in both Classian and the languages of the indigenous peoples living in the lands where the temples were built, which have been almost totally lost! And knowing those languages is essential to translate the first of those monolithic rings that you have before your eyes!”
“Let's see if I understand…” Anker muttered, massaging his temples: “You were translating a text from Classian to Ferlonian, so that you could compare it with the part written in the language of the ancient Sanchirians, so that you could learn such language, so that therefore you would be able to use it to translate the characters engraved on a monolith whose origins are lost in the mists of time.”
“Exactly!” Viryl exclaimed.
“And what's the point of going through all this trouble?” Anker asked in a tone that was both compassionate and derisive, as if he were dealing with the plots of a crazy old man.
A spark flashed in Viryl's eyes: “Boy, the outer ring is just the first step to deciphering the inner ones written in even more ancient languages, in times that, according to modern scholars, predate the invention of writing itself! You don't realize the scope of the thing: the runes of the central circle are the same ones found in every single hypogeum, from the deserts of Neferia to the tundra of Rokmar, it's only the two outer rings that vary. The point is not to recover a lost language, but the content of the message. The same message that all the peoples of prehistory felt was worth passing down to us! Peoples we have always believed to be distant in customs, language and traditions!"
Anker was not at all convinced by Viryl's dense exposition, but trying to play along, he inquired: “So, what does the message say?”
Nervously, Viryl replied: “That's what I was trying to find out, before that damned Fearkan threw away years of work! The Demetriscus stele doesn't directly talk about the monoliths. By the time of Classia, the true purpose of these sanctuaries and the precise reason why they were built had already been forgotten for a long time. All cultures defined them as "tombs" or "cradles" and agreed that they were a form of cage or seal against a primordial evil that should never have been released. The Classians were unable to understand what the actual consequences of such a release would be, but they decided to put an additional barrier to this possibility, by walling up the hypogea and building temples over them. The Demetriscus steles are neither more nor less than the account of these circumstances, but the meat is in the monoliths. And yet here in Ferlonia these temples don't get the attention they deserve, so I've decided to take care of it myself. I dug an opening in the hypogeum, brought down the stele, and started the translation!”
“I’ve heard enough, Viryl. You basically ran here instead of helping me extract Madja from the rubble because you were afraid that the feathered beast or whoever was commanding it would steal the fruit of your research? You're a fallen knight, I know you have no pride, but your selfishness disgusts me,” Anker proclaimed with disdain.
Viryl shook his head and replied calmly, with a note of despondency in his voice, “You don't understand, if that stele falls into the wrong hands, we're in big trouble. And I'm afraid it has fallen right into those very hands.”
Such a sudden change in Viryl’s attitude left Anker perplexed, “Oh, come on, this is all just archaeological nonsense.”
“Is it possible that your fine mind as a knight of the Royal Order of Ferlonia doesn't suggest to you that there's something wrong with this? A beast, which you believe has no intellect, first steals an Exoplion and then an ancient stele, as if it knows exactly what I was hiding in this observatory and where to look. Business as usual, right?”
“For sure something doesn't add up, but it doesn't seem like as big a problem as you're making it out to be.”
“Of course, you're caught up in your own problems, boy, I understand it. You failed your mission and lost your partner. You can’t see the bigger picture in your condition. Anyway, I've checked what I needed to check and, as far as I'm concerned, we don't have much more to say to each other. You did me a favor and I'll return it: I'll help you bury your friend.”
GLOSSARY:
Classian Empire: an ancient empire that through its campaigns of conquest expanded to the point of encompassing the known world almost entirely. It fell nine centuries ago, but traces of its legacy can still be witnessed all around the continent of Boreatica.
Lazulian Zephyrism: the official religion of the western world. Its head, the Pope, lives in the ancient city of Classia, on the island of Laclea, west to the Velitasian Peninsula.
Razor Lamprey: a marine Ferenkelt with a bioluminescent body. In the past its sturdy, azure and transparent scales were used to build lamps and candelabra.
Neferia: The northernmost strip of land of the continent of Austrica. It is covered in deserts and ruins corroded by the sand can be found in all of its extension.
Rokmar: the north-eastern region of the continent of Boreatica. It is the land that belongs to the Emperor of Rokmar, and the claim on it was made even if the imperial explorers never reached its eastern border. Subsequently what lies in the east is a matter of myth and superstition.