A Guide For The Vertically Inquisitive
The next day had the air of the potentially momentous. That description applied solely to the figurative air, for the weather maintained its even aspect with no indication of rainfall. It was the people who caused the change.
The non-expert tourists especially could hardly help but expect some drastic discovery, since for one to be made at any other time than their visit must be regarded as an intolerable imposition on the part of fortune. Some expressed their fantasies of unprecedented finds openly while others hid theirs behind a facade of world-weariness. “There is always some great discovery or other being announced that will change everything about everything, and what is the outcome? None, but the barkers proceed to the next without shame. It is all a big theatrical performance where we are the spectators and actors at once.” There, and if the cynical prediction prevailed they would be satisfied in their intelligence while if their secret wishes were fulfilled, all the better.
An effective antidote to excessive optimism was that Mr. Atkosol did not intend to be present himself at the initial survey, instead allowing Doltandon Yurvitas to handle the matter. The great man preferred to oversee ongoing tunneling in the manner of someone who believed accolades better earned than possessed, and furthermore he thought the road to town to be worth the closest attention. Certain reporters exaggerated the circumstance to suggest a lack of enthusiasm for the entire excavation which had begun on an impulse and could end the same way. Others noted that Atkosol's history of putting himself forward at opportunities for publicity consisted of, so far as they could find, nothing, and therefore his absence held as much prophetic significance as a bull's liver.
Though the schedule called for Mr. Doltandon's survey to take place during working hours, Stadeskosken's Ritualist would be able to attend, or rather had to. The client wished for a second of that class to be available for consultation by Patklenk Ost, his own Ritualist, in the event an opinion from a fellow practitioner inexperienced in antiquity's rituals as encountered by the modern explorer became desirable. Put that way, Patklenk almost certainly would not avail himself of the resource, and “almost” was more of a collegial concession than an admission of doubt. Dirant accordingly marched out from the commercial quarter assured that his role for the day was simple tourism and met Takki as she emerged from the visitors' quarter with the same idea. They joined a murmuring crowd ready to be guided down. Of course many knew the way already, but some occasions are inherently communal.
Doltandon Yurvitas stomped to the front, looked them over, and explained the restrictions Atkosol had implemented in order to preserve the fragile remnants of an ancient civilization while at the same time protecting himself against legal action. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Don't touch anything.” His public-facing job done, he ventured forth from the camp.
The path remained external to the hill for a distance long enough to deceive the traveler into believing it a respectable road before it turned and plunged right in, down rough stairs made by brigand-paid labor which ended in a natural cave further developed when Iflarent still lived, one of the few which survived the bizarre chain of terrain alterations among which he died. It had formerly been used as a supply station during the establishment of a route to the ravine's bottom but had become obsolete. The tourists transmitted that information among themselves, since Mr. Doltandon was, rather than a guide, someone moving with purpose who condescended to allow others to follow him.
Once at the ravine, the universal thing to do was look up. Everyone who crossed the bridge looked down in defiance of both well-intentioned advice and common sense, and therefore the opposite took on the aspect of simple reciprocation, not unlike questioning an acquaintance's musical taste after his unkind words concerning yours. The bridge looked as frail from below as it did in the imagination, thin and unsupported. To the sides, masses of exposed rock in layers of orange and gray composed a citadel more imposing by far than anything created by man save perhaps in Sedoglai Dolinyan alone, a country otherwise unremarkable.
“I can climb those walls easily, given equipment.” One tourist claimed that with such confidence that, while nobody believed him, the notion of hiring the man as a salesman occurred to several.
The explorer who kept his scrutiny exclusively to the horizontal saw nothing to recommend Ertith as far as infrastructure. No ziggurats were visible in the ravine or much else. A single wall, seldom intact and often collapsed, represented an entire building. As for streets, those were the segments without walls, unless one had fallen onto it. Such adornments as statuary and fountains existed in the imagination of an Entrepreneur considering land value improvements and nowhere else. Any modern town might emulate the exposed district simply by contriving to be affected by an earthquake.
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Over tunnels opened in the ravine's sides had been hung signs. One indicated by its grand title of Triumph Avenue that it led to the main square or rather circle, a ring of palaces and ziggurats around what once may have been a market, a ceremonial location, a ground suitable for military drills, a park or garden designed to please the upper stratum, or some combination of those. Researchers differed as to the details, but nearly all agreed the city circle appeared to be a regular feature of Ertithan planning; every major site had one, down to what appeared to be a diminutive village which nevertheless possessed on opposite sides a two-story palace and a three-step ziggurat barely taller than a modern barn.
That was not the tunnel Doltandon Yurvitas took. Instead he hurried under a sign which marked the far more mundane Route 5. Such hurry would have been dangerous at many an excavation where laborers supported by university funding permitted the burdens of crouching and avoiding obstacles to fall on the people who would get the credit for any finds. At the Hideout, Atkosol's treasury alone bore everything on its golden shoulders. Tall, broad passages reassuringly braced by regular systems of lumber compared well with the model complexes lauded by mining periodicals which produced record amounts of ore while not requiring a complete workforce replacement every five years for reason of excessive fatalities. The occasional thin shaft in the ceiling not only relieved the oppressive solidity of the ceiling but, in combination with the ritual designs encircling the holes Dirant if nobody else detected, ensured a consistent airflow. Exits from the main corridor came as regularly as doors in a hotel and looked more inviting than many.
“Something is lost as far as rude appeal. There is this potential however for Mr. Atkosol to make the place a retreat for the wealthy and perhaps allow gambling also, elaborating upon the natural advantages regarding security.”
“Does this state permit such?”
“After five words from him.”
“And those are?”
“'I offer this much money.'”
“Ha!”
No better evidence of the lack of rude appeal could there be than the light mood of the crowd as it followed Mr. Doltandon with none of that whispering and uneven breathing one imagined when reading about some dauntless Explorer making his way on hands and knees across and under scraping rocks until at he reaches a cavity which accommodates his full height, and there before him the splendors of an earlier age wait like a bride at a long-delayed marriage ceremony for him to gaze upon and tremble with the joy of it. The lone indications of agitation were produced by Mr. Odibink, for whom “anxious” and “alive” seemed synonymous, and Mr. Doltandon, who gave the impression that wherever he was and where he wanted to be forever had a great distance between them.
Mr. Doltandon eventually made a turn. The journey lost a little of its ease on account of the narrower tunnel he entered. No longer could the visitors travel three abreast, arms around shoulders and singing a lively song. Nobody had been behaving in such a manner, and yet the freedom to do so could not be surrendered without regret. As compensation, the tension rose a little and along with it, the thrill.
Where the passage ended and the antechamber began was a matter for philosophical argument, for the former's width and height increased slowly and then quickly until it had incontrovertibly yielded to the latter. That underground area expanded still more, and just past the point where several Odibinks knocked over by jealous husbands could be comfortably laid across the floor if more than one Odibink might be found (and even a single jealous husband), it became an entire cavern firmly supported by the hardest rock which had for decoration crude pillars and spikes formed by centuries of accretion and condensation.
“That is highly odd, is it not? Was this city built underground from the very first foundation, or?”
“Likely so,” Gabdirn Haubentlag opined. “Not the whole. The main circle they did higher, probably above ground then. Geological shifts make a fine disguise, and it's difficult know to know what was where. This district was unquestionably lower than most. The question is what was the necessity. Storage is one idea. Religious significance is another. Defense is highly likely, but the threat which needed special defense was what?”
“Oh, now wait with that,” Odibink Sharazilk objected. “You say, or, you aren't saying how many doubts there are about what you said, and is that irresponsible? I think it is. In the first place it's still unresolved when the Ertith civilization flourished—”
“Are we children?” Gabdirn interrupted.
“Now I forgot where I was.” A short, hard stare at nothing recovered Odibink's line of thought. “Oh, I wanted to mention the hill formation process that may have antedated the abandonment of this site. Hills are formed when a force distends a rock layer upward, forming caverns that—“
“They are not!”
A lively academic discussion followed while Doltandon Yurvitas joined up with the workers assigned to search for access to any lower passages, and it did not cease after they reported and subsequently received their instructions, whereupon the combined group went from presumed house to supposed granary. The employees held brushes and a capacity for thoroughness while the experts held forth. Public opinion appeared to be on Odibink's side, though since the public limited its expression to murmurs between particularly salient points, gauging it was nothing but guesswork.