The Prophesy: Book 1 - Cave Lupus

 

As they were following the road towards Kantar, Harp and Williams kept an eye out for any sign of orcs. They had barely covered a mile in an hour, due to the bad state of the road, and were turning inland to engage the climb up to the pass when they heard a deep rumble behind them.

"What do you think this is? I doubt the orcs have cavalry, I've never seen them with any horse, they eat them rather than ride them," wondered Williams.

"I don't know, but the ground is shaking violently. I even see some rocks rolling off the side of the mountain."

The two turned and looked back down. They had a diving view into the river and could see almost to its bed. Tiny dots could be seen moving on the cliff faces, the orcs.

"They look like ants whose hill has been ravaged by an anteater!" Williams exclaimed, fascinated by the spectacle.

"Yes, but it's not them causing all that noise. Even a huge cavalry wouldn't be doing that much noise!"

Suddenly a dark, black cloud seemed to travel along the canyon, at a speed that left them open-mouthed.

"What is that? There are no locusts around here! It's way too cold!"

"That seems like ash! Williams, it's the cloud preceding the river returning to its bed! Look at the dust cloud! It must be five hundred feet above the lip of the canyon! What we are hearing is the sound of the wind that is being pushed ahead of the wave!"

"The wind must be terrible!"

"The wind's nothing. Ash is like cutting glass, diamonds! The orcs and crocodiles must have their meat leached off their bones by the particles! What a terrible way to die!"

As they watched, awed by what they could see, the noise redoubled in intensity and an even darker cloud could be seen rising over the gorge.

"Here comes the water! Look at the height of this wave! It's easily half the depth of the canyon! It must be eating away at the river's banks!"

"Yes and it's still two mile away, and the river does a sharp turn right below the road we just left to climb here, Harp. Something is going to happen. Let's climb up further, I fear danger!"

The two had barely made a mad dash to climb another two hundred feet when the wave hit the bank on which they were. A huge geyser of water, rocks, ash and sand exploded some three thousand feet in the air, pitching rocks and water droplets on the road below them. Huge boulders seemed to have been used as pebbles by giants in a slingshot game, crashing below them on the stretch of road they had vacated less then ten minutes earlier.

Suddenly, the road, already in terrible condition, seemed to crack and explode as the water gouged layer upon layer of compacted ash and undermined its base. The road and about seven hundred feet of the canyon's top vanished in the turbulent waters. A few minutes later, the calm had returned, and the water had receded. The only surviving structure was the bridge, a lone figure with no road leading to its deck.

"Well, Harp, we won't be coming back this way. The road is cut off."

"Yes. I wonder how far Kantar is?"

«Ten miles from the bridge, following the road,» replied Paschal, who had been following the events through Harp's eyes from his position in the column.

«I am surprised the bridge didn't fall in the river.» Enron remarked.

«The Ancients probably anchored the bridge deep within the basaltic base of the area, and what we see is only a tiny part of the overall work,» offered Harold.

"I wonder why there hasn't been any crocodiles or orcs on the road since we crossed the bridge?"

"There isn't an infinite number of either, Harp. What we saw was probably a small skirmish."

"A small skirmish? The battlefront extended over sixty miles, and probably involved a hundred thousand orcs and maybe five thousand priests! What will it take for you to see it as a big skirmish?"

"I don't know, Harp. But our situation is precarious. We are lucky they are too busy fighting each other to bother us."

"Has it ever occurred to you they may consider us small fish?"

"I know, and it sends shivers down my spine. We need to determine exactly what their true strength is. And what is their population base."

«Three factors influence their respective population,» commented Francesca, who had come into her telepathic powers during the past few days.

«What are they?» Sitar asked.

«The first factor, birth rate, compensated by death rate, which gives longevity, or life expectancy. Second the food supply. Their feeding habits and the rate of replenishment for their respective diet influences that. The third factor is their dispersion or distribution. That is their range of habitat. The wider their range, the more numerous they can be.»

«We know nothing about these factors. For instance, consider crocodiles. They are amphibians, and we only know they need human females to reproduce. But who knows how many they capture each year? Given there seems to be complicity of some authorities to supply them with their mates, as evidenced by Franz, even that number is in doubt. Add to the fact that the priests live in areas that we cannot access safely, either because they are too radioactive for us, or they are too isolated, we have no idea of where they are, except when we find a temple. We have destroyed two of those, and found twenty in the one in Sophia, a small sample, quite insufficient to establish if that is a small or a large temple. Furthermore we know next to nothing about the geography of the northern regions. They have been inaccessible for six thousand years. Things have changed considerably where we live in these six thousand years, and it would be preposterous to think that this has not happened elsewhere.»

«That is true dad, and there is another thing about crocodiles we know very little about. Their life expectancy, once they have survived the first year. If they are like sea turtles, they can live hundreds of years,» added Sitar, who had been busy reading about amphibians since seeing Paschal's portrait of a priest.

«You are scaring me, Sitar. Suppose they are like the crocodiles we found the description in that ancient book, and can live in the sea? That would give them a very big ecosystem to live off!»

«And remember, Harp, these crocodiles of old could live in fresh water, brackish waters, and open seas, off anything that happened to be caught and eaten. Their only restraint was the need for a sandy beach warm enough to lay their eggs in.»

«The major limiting factor to their growth in numbers is the need for human females, then. Given a female can only give birth once, their numbers must be restricted,» commented Enron.

«Not necessarily, you know. It limits their birth rate, but if they live as old as, say, elves, and have been making babies for the past say five thousand years, at the rate of one a year, it can pile up considerably, numbering in the several millions, way above what we can ever consider defeating. And there is no guarantee a priest limits itself to a single female. One hundred thousand births a year would go unnoticed, and in ten years, there would be a million of them.»

«What do we know about orcs?» Samson asked.

«Not much more than about the crocodiles. They are land creatures; water and them do not add up, that's all we know for sure. They are very numerous, and seem to be gregarious. We have yet to find an orc nest. The few sites we found were temporary camps, and had no trace of family, or children in them, like they were hunters on the prowl. The size of these camps was deceptive, unless they literally pile up on each other during rest. We never knew they were so numerous.»

«All these considerations will have to wait. I can now see Kantar. It is below what seems to be a huge fall, and is encircled by impressive fortifications. There is another thing that seems to encircle Kantar: orcs. The plateau is covered with them. Have a look,» commented Yamato, that was in the lead with his cavalry.

All which had gained access to their gifts focussed on the panorama that Yamato was surveying from the pass' exit. Two miles away, about five hundred feet down, they could see the fortifications and the huge moats. The drawbridge was up, and the city was under siege.

«Have we been detected?» asked Enron.

«Not yet, but it shouldn't be long,» replied Yamato.

«We need to stay hidden, Enron. Let's get a dust storm blowing!» Harp suggested.

«Easier said than done, Harp. Any idea what is the weight of air?» Harold replied.

«Air has weight?» asked Sitar, doubtful.

«Yes, son. We need to find air that is already on the move. I'm looking for a cold air mass located up the valley. We can then create suction by starting a fire down in the lower vegetation. It's meagre, but it's very dry. That should be enough to get things moving, at least if we start the fire far from the falls, which keep everything wet.»

After a few minutes, Harold found what he was looking for.

«Harp, Sitar, start the fire, about five miles down the valley. We have no allies there, the orcs have taken both sides of the river, and it's covered with a thick cover of pines and firs that are very dry. It should burn fast and propagate both up and down river, creating a substantial call for air. I'll deal with moving the cold air mass down valley with the help of Enron, Paschal, Williams and Samson. Yamato, keep an eye on things while we do that. We are vulnerable, stretched as we are.»

The fire started easily: magic is good at focussing energy, and fire is energy. Ten minutes after the first fir burst into flames a firewall spread from the rock cliff to the river and was moving downward lazily. The two boys started the fire on the other side of the river, setting a clump of pines on fire. The drain of air was already speeding up and this one took off to catch up with its brother downriver.

«Fire on the run, dad.» Harp told Harold, jubilant.

«Good work, my little pyromaniac. Keep an eye on the fires. Sitar, come help us push on the air.»

«How do you push on air?»

«Imagine a huge wall moving down the valley, pushing the air in front of it, like your hand when you move it rapidly in front of you. We will bind our powers together to get the wall to be consistent enough. Ready?»

«Yes.»

«I'll take left center, Sitar will handle right center; Enron, you and your dad deal with the left, as the valley opens. Williams, you deal with the right side. Stay close to the cliff; it's vertical, like some huge tooth gouged the earth's face.»

After each had judged the terrain, Harold began focussing.

«Bind!»

The five minds melded and created a force field that spanned the entire glacier valley, from top to bottom, and above.

«Move! Remember the faster we move the more powerful the wind. Let's move at wind speed first, which I estimate at ten miles per hour.»

«Speed up! Twelve Fourteen Sixteen Eighteen Twenty »

At sixty miles per hour, and less then five seconds before they reached the plateau, Harold called out:

«Dissolve the wall! Disengage!»

Everyone could watch the plateau below them darken as the wind kept picking up on its own now. Clouds of ash, dust, and flying debris hid the surface. Bushes, which had been precariously rooted to the rocks could be seen rolling down wind and falling over the plateau's edge.

«Hey, that gives me an idea!» Harp exclaimed. A few seconds later, rolling balls of fire were crossing the plateau, setting everything that could burn ablaze. Orcs, being very hairy, were particularly exposed to fiery collisions and began lighting up like little candles.

«Isn't that cute!» Paschal commented. «The plateau looks like a huge birthday cake with roaming birthday candles!»

«That's nice, but we need to get across that maelstrom while we can. That is a diversion, and it won't last,» Yamato replied.

«We can redo the trick we did to cross the river?» Enron suggested.

«Maybe. But I think we need to have a more substantial defence here. We could make it so that the force field is only upwind, and simply forces the air to move up over us. The distance to cover is much more considerable than before, and the caravan is a lot longer. This will be tiring!»

«Enron and Paschal both have a valid point. Furthermore, to complicate matters, the road we need to follow has the highest concentration of orcs, notwithstanding the ravages Harp's cute fire wheels are causing in their ranks,» Theresa added.

«Talking about those, I'm running out of ammunition. But I have another idea. Sitar, Paschal, I'll need your help.»

Ten minutes later a thunderous noise could be heard rising from the plateau below them, and even more little candles seemed to light up.

«What did that little pyromaniac think of now?» thought Yamato.

«I remembered that when you rub rocks on your skin, they burn. I figured if we moved pellets way, way up in the air and let them drop at very high speed, they might heat up and burn too.»

«Are you telling me you have dropped rocks from high up on the orcs? How high up?»

«Ten miles up. They heat up so much by the time they reach the ground, they can't be touched, I think.»

«Ah, these are the red glowing things I've seen coming through the atmosphere and falling into the dust cloud below!» exclaimed Francesca, fascinated by the fireworks. «How long will that last?»

«As long as we want. Pebbles are very plentiful around here, and we need only drop a few pounds over an area for it to be clear of orcs! We relay each other so the shower is continuous.»

«They must be bouncing off everywhere!» Williams exclaimed.

«Who? Are you talking about orcs or pellets?»

«Actually, both! There is a renewed flaring up, especially coming from where the rocks offered shelter from the wind!»

«Ok. Let's get moving! Harp, are you still with Williams at the rear guard?»

«Yes dad. We will intensify the molten rock falls right ahead of the column as we move. That ought to clear the path.»

«Fine, but remember, we need you to support the windshield too.»

«I know.»

The column began its slow descent down the trail leading to the plateau. As it progressed, Kantar appeared and disappeared from view, depending on the meandering of the trail. At a hundred feet above the plateau, the first whiffs of dust could be smelled, along with a tenacious and poignant odour of burning swine. The howl of the wind between the rocks was also beginning to be heard ever more vigorously.

«I never knew cockroaches could smell like burnt pigs!» Enron commented.

«I'm already hungry, Enron, don't add to my misery!» Harp replied.

At fifty feet above the plateau's top, the sky, which had been relatively clear, turned progressively towards a rusty look. The further they progressed, the darker the covering became.

«It's time to set up the shield, dad, I'll stay here as anchor. We will need all of us to keep its integrity. Yamato? Since you are in the lead, you deal with the front shield. If ever you need help due to orcs, ask Harp to deluge the area you are with molten pebbles. That ought to keep the orcs away for a bit.»

«All right, Sitar. At what interval do we need to be to maintain the effectiveness of this windshield?»

«The distance is two miles. We will be at about one thousand and seven hundred feet apart. Very thin, if you want my opinion,» commented Paschal.

«That will be the case only when we have reached the full length. Meanwhile, I'll be available to support any weak point should it be necessary. I'm getting better at focussing deluges of fiery rocks!» Harp replied.

«The wolves and horses will report any unwanted activity from the orcs, if any have survived that type of razor,» Enron said.

«Fine with me. Yamato is already five hundred feet further down the road. The dust is billowing over the segment of the shield and falling about thirty feet due downwind. The layer of dust is already several inches thick on the ground, making for a difficult progression on the road.»

«Thank you for the report Sitar, I should be getting at your level in five minutes,» Enron replied.

***

The column continued its progression across the plateau, hidden from view by the dust. As Yamato progressed, he noticed the layer of dust and ash was getting ever deeper. The road disappeared and reappeared from view as gusts of wind lifted the particles off the ground, hiding everything in sight. Yamato tried to keep in mind the image he had of the sun's position relative to the towering city, but, eventually, he had to admit that the cloud cover was such he couldn't even see a semblance of shade. He tried to guide himself on the prevailing direction of the wind as best he could guess, but he knew that pillars of porphyry were twisting the wind's direction and that, eventually, he would need to reassess his position.

After an hour of ever-slower progression, he had to admit it to himself: he was lost. What could he do? He had no reference point, as the dust cover was such it made even the darkest night look clear.

«Harp?»

«Yes, Yamato?»

«Is it possible to reduce the wind? I'm lost and I have no idea if I'm turning around in loops. The only thing I'm sure is I've not met our own column!»

«Sorry, Yamato, the wind is picking up as the fire down valley is increasing in intensity. We cannot stop it! Stop and stay put. I will walk up to you following the column, and try to use the mage stick to find our path.»

«I will wait for you. How long do you think it will take to get to me?»

«An hour. I do not feel comfortable teleporting in that murk. I could end up in the middle of orcs, outside of the protective corridor. Sitar?»

«Yes, Harp?»

«Where are you?»

«I am still in station at the beginning of the cloud.»

«I need a visual to teleport to your location, or it's going to take me six hours to reach Yamato. From your point to where he is, wherever that is, has taken him an hour. I should be able to do it in the same time.»

«OK, I understand your idea. Here is the visual. It will be short; I do not want orcs to see it.»

«Waiting!»

Sitar, who was carrying Mitsuko, had it flash a bright white light that Harp could see. It was a very powerful, coherent beam of light that cut through the dust cloud right up. Harp located the beam and quickly focussed on it teleporting at its vertical, then teleporting himself right down, falling on the ground as if he had jumped from a tabletop.

«We better talk that way, Harp, the voice gets carried away by the wind, even if we are shielded.»

«OK. Thanks for the beacon. I was quite a distance away.»

«To each his fireworks, brother. It's that way to get to Yamato,» replied Sitar. «You will find Paschal, Enron, Samson, and Harold along the way. They have been getting more and more trouble with the windshield as the wind picks up.»

«Thanks. See you later.»

Harp quickly followed the column's path, staying downwind. He noticed the issues Yamato had to deal with, including little dunes of ash, sand, glass shards, and an occasional leftover orc body, partially eaten away by the sand before the column had protected it. Harp rapidly noticed that Yamato had taken a slow left turn and was now, more than likely, off the road, and travelling parallel to the fortification rather then straight to it.

«Yamato, are you right-handed?»

«Yes, why?»

«You have been turning left slowly, and are now probably traveling parallel to the fortifications rather than towards them.»

«What? How is that possible?»

«I don't know why, but I do know that the orientation relative to the magic field has changed. It took me a while to figure out what was happening, but now it's clear. You turned slowly left.»

«I can explain, Harp.» supplied Dunbar. «I learned that when trying to follow a straight line without reference point, a person tends to stretch the dominant step a bit longer than the dependent step. In the case of Yamato, his right step is slightly longer than his left step, making him turn left. Yamato is a bit slower in understanding his new capacities and trusting them, and this has backfired.»

«That's interesting. Harp, how far are you?»

«I've been in the murk for forty-five minutes. I should reach you in fifteen minutes, Yamato.»

Yamato waited patiently the fifteen minutes and was relieved when he saw the greyish looking Harp emerge from the horses.

«What happened to you?»

«When I teleported above Sitar, I found myself in a fine dusting of ash. The cloud cover is rising slowly. By the time I did the second teleportation to the beam's source, I had collected ash enough to look like I had spent the day cleaning chimneys.»

«I see. Now, where do we go?»

«I'll take the lead, Yamato. I will teleport you to where Williams is, at the rear guard. I have a clear image of the location from Williams. We need you to close the rear guard to terminate the corridor. Williams is due to engage in the murk any time soon, and the detour has added another mile to the length. We will be very stretched. In fact I think we will have to work differently. The situation is too dangerous.»

«What do you have in mind?»

«Williams is about a mile away from Sitar, up towards the pass. Keep the units there until we come back to pick you up. As soon as we are within the confines of Kantar, I will begin teleporting the units, starting with the rear, and moving towards Sitar's end. When Sitar and you merge, I will bring you into Kantar. Then Sitar, you, and I will begin the process of reinforcing the wall to protect those of us still caught in the dust storm. Get on your horse; you are off for a little jump.»

«Yes, Prince.»

***

The teleporting of Yamato and his horse went without a hitch. However, the sudden suppression of Yamato at the tip of the leading edge of the corridor had consequences that Harp had not anticipated. The lead wall collapsed and a gust of wind blew ash and dust into his face, making him cough. It took him a few miserable seconds to rebuild the energy wall, during which he felt like he was swallowing a full sand dune. Afraid for his lungs, Harp teleported himself a couple of feet behind his immediate location, and watched, fascinated, as what looked like a ghostly image of a pair of black lungs stayed where he had been, before slowly dropping to the ground.

Francesca watched the phenomenon with awe.

«Are you aware you have found the perfect treatment for silicosis?»

«What's that?»

«A sickness that affects miners of rocks containing silica, which represents three out of four mines that are in operation. The rest is coal dust, and I think it could be applied as well.»

«Well, we'll get to it later, Francesca. For now, I got to get us to Kantar by the shortest route. I also have a dozen horses, cavalrymen, and canines to treat. I can see some have taken a big load of that crap in their lungs.»

It took ten minutes for Harp to deal with everyone affected by the burst of dust, but Harp began to remember seeing others, down the column, with similar symptoms. It became clear to him that the cloud of dust the army was raising as it walked was doing damage to the column's members. He would deal with the issue in due time, he thought.

Harp began to search for Kantar. Using the magic stick as a compass, he rapidly noticed that it told him to turn a little more than at right angle to his right, like Yamato had begun turning back on his steps. Harp knew this wasn't the case, but figured he might as well trust the guiding compass the stick represented, so he began leading the column in that direction.

The dust layer was getting extremely thick, well in excess of three feet. Harp figured he needed a way to shovel that crap away or they might fall in a hole and he wouldn't even know it until it was too late. Increasing the density of the lead wall, he forced it down to the ground and began pushing it forward a few feet ahead of his horse. Some layers were so thick he had to do two; sometimes three passes because the mass was too dense and heavy.

It took Harp three-quarters of an hour to progress noticeably towards Kantar. At long last he began to sense things were getting a lot darker, so he figured he was nearing the wall. He halted the progression to ascertain where he was and then resumed his forward progression at an ever-slower pace. Suddenly, his horse refused to budge and step any further. Intrigued, Harp dismounted and looked at the ground.

About a foot ahead of the horse was a dark crevice, that seemed to extend out of sight on both sides, and he could not even see across the pitch-black abyss.

«Samson, is Kantar encircled by a moat?»

«Yes, Harp. It is a mile deep, and is the bed of a swift river that flows around the city. It is fifty to a hundred feet wide, except on rare areas, like the drawbridges, and another place we have never figured out the reason.»

«I've reached the moat, but I can't see any drawbridge. I'll use the mage stick to light up a bit.»

«Be careful. That moat has the reputation of being unforgiving.»

«I can imagine why!»

Harp tried to light the bottom of the hole to gauge its depth, but the light diffused so much because of the dust that all he saw was flying particles of mostly grey ash interspersed with quartz, basalt and granite dust. An occasional clump of bigger material could be seen falling down faster than the fine dust that traveled horizontally, blown away by the howling wind. The beam of light only revealed a pitch-black abyss that seemed to be bottomless.

Finally bored by the spectacle of falling clouds of dust, Harp directed the light emanating from the magic walking stick horizontally. Again, the beam got diffused rapidly by the dust, and did not reveal anything other than a wall of moving dark dust, that seemed to be a bit more reddish than what his search of the canyon had revealed so far. The brighter the light Harp put out the more blinding it became, as it was reflected by the moving particles. Harp decided to emit a narrow, very focussed beam; much like Sitar had done with Mitsuko to guide him to his location. He gradually increased the intensity of the light beam; finally, the dust particles began to melt as they entered the beam's path, but still no visible other side.

Frustrated, Harp decided to extend the windshield beyond his position at the edge of the cliff face. This greatly cleared up the air in front of him, and eventually, the force field revealed a wall, which seemed to of be a rather reddish nature. Yet, there was no apparent opening.

Harp began by expanding his view horizontally, but, after expanding over five hundred feet in both directions, he still did not find any apparent door or drawbridge. Desperate to figure out why he had been drawn to that specific place by the stave, he began expanding vertically. Rapidly it revealed a change in nature towards the bottom, indicating that this was indeed a wall of a specific nature resting on a light grey footing, probably basalt.

Continuing his expansion upwards, Harp reached a height of eighty-five feet above the base before giving up. Maybe he needed to use mage sight to see what was invisible. Focussing his inner senses, he could tell something was there, ahead, but he could not make it out clearly. Harp decided to focus a beam of magic to light up characters or any other material susceptible to magic. This finally revealed the door, in a dark, jagged contour, and at the top, writings the likes of which Harp had never seen before.

The Door to Kantar - Neolithic Fortification

The drawings baffled Harp, but he sensed that they held the secret to the door he saw outlined in the wall so far away. Figuring the best linguist was Yamato he decided to ask for his help in figuring this out.

 

The Door to Kantar - Hieroglyph Password

***

«Yamato?»

«Access my mage sight. Have you ever seen that?»

«Seen what? Holy macro! Hieroglyphs! Here! Here? That place must be way older than we thought!»

«Hieroglyphs? What are they?»

«Ancient Egyptian writing. The oldest hieroglyph date fourteen thousand years! The last use was some eight thousand years ago, give or take five hundred years! Its last use predates the Ancients by something like two thousand years! This is a fantastic discovery!»

«I can understand your enthusiasm, Yamato, but can you read it? I sense this is vital!»

«You must know that hieroglyphs combined two languages, maybe three. One based purely on the pictograms, and another on phonetics. The third is even more mysterious, and was named the Writing of the Gods. We have no idea of its meaning, nor did the Ancients. From what I see here, this is phonetic, based on the second empire, because I can see a few pictograms not found before then. Give me a few minutes to remember the phonetics of each symbol.»

It took a few minutes of serious memory searching for Yamato to come up with the phonemes. He came up with this code:

Dd xnms wn aA

«The issue here, is that like most written Semitic languages, vowels were dismissed because people of the time could deduce which one was needed. Furthermore, many of these languages carried surviving forms that survived until the Great Cataclysm, such as Hausa, or Boshiman, characterized by a high proportion of harsh consonants and very short vowels, giving the language a clicking sound.»

«What are you trying to tell me, Yamato?»

«That finding the meaning of this is not going to be easy. And even if I found the meaning, what would it serve? I do not speak Egyptian.»

«This isn't encouraging, Yamato. Let us put our resources together! Please, all search our common memory for anything dating to very, very ancient Egypt. They had dogs, we must have a memory of their language hidden somewhere. Mom, join us. Wolves, dogs, all canines, join us as well. I do not know if the Egyptians had horses?»

«Yes, Harp, they had horses, donkeys and other equines working for them. I remember seeing an illustration of a battle with horses and chariots in one of the precious books dad so cherished,» replied Yamato.

It took four hours to find enough information from the collective memory to rebuild the potential meaning of that rebus, as the collective consciousness was split between the task of maintaining the force field against the ever more violent wind and doing the search. Even Mage Nestor, from his far-away College of Magic, was put to contribution; so did Mage Ferriday, who had a lot to gain from helping out. After all, if the windshield collapsed, he expected his bones to show up rather quickly! Yamato finally broke the code, and came up with a tentative transliteration.

«I think I have a meaningful sentence.»

«What is it? Any solution is better than none,» replied Harp.

«If I were you, I wouldn't say that! What I have is troubling at best. It says something like this: Say friend open door, or, if I follow the order of reading, indicated by the direction the human figures face, it would be door opens friend say. Hieroglyphs are written differently depending on the direction of reading. If the life forms, be they human or animal, face left, you have to read from right to left; if they face right, you have to read from left to right; and finally if they are in column, you have to read from top to bottom. If I understand this, it means we have to say the word friend in ancient Egyptian and the door will open.»

«Is it that simple? All I have to say is friend and it will open?»

«Simple? Yes and no, Harp. Do you know how to say friend in ancient Egyptian?»

«Ah, well, no.»

«No one does. We have to search the canine and equine consciousness for how to say friend in ancient Egyptian. And we aren't even sure we have it, because the way to say words changes over time, and from one region to another. The further you move from the language base, the greater the diversification. And Egypt is not next door, Harp. It is across a vast body of salty water, Atlanticus! Think of that. How old is this place? How much did the language evolve from the original Egyptian before this door was built? And come to think of it, I never knew the Egyptians of these times knew how to build that kind of door. I doubt even the Ancients knew how!»

«There is one thing I'd like to know, Yamato.»

«What is it, Paschal?»

«Languages evolve. All right, but how do they evolve? Some sounds must stay more constant than others. Otherwise, it wouldn't take long for people from a similar linguistic root to stop understanding each other. The changes must be predictable and affect some sounds more than others.»

«That is true, Paschal. Vowels change a lot more than consonants; they mellow, stretch, shorten, sharpen, combine, and vanish to be replaced by others; sometimes, they even change their position in a word, but generally only by switching with another vowel in a vowel pair. Why that question?»

«The ancient Egyptians must have known this fact, if they were able to encode a verbal command to open that door. What if the only important sounds were the consonants associated with the word friend? Say I had to do this with our language, I would make sure F R N D would trigger the door, whatever the two vowels in the middle, because I would expect the vowels to change, transpose, or even disappear with time.»

«That analysis holds, Paschal. At least it's a start. Harp! Here is how to say these consonants. Listen to me carefully, and then when I'm done, I will say the word in full. Then you test it. I will listen as you say it out loud, first softly, then loudly. It may not work at the first try, or even the second or third, but it's our only hope.»

At first, Harp had problems saying each consonant properly. The language spoken by Egyptians of old seemed to be composed mainly of throat sounds, clicks of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, lips clapping violently or separating with force to create a call of air, interspersed with rare sucks of the tongue and clicking of teeth. The worse parts were the sounds created by pushing air through the teeth and tight lips. Eventually Harp got the individual sounds right, which gave rise to a rather funny-sounding language, which had not been heard in that region for eons.

«Next step, saying friend. That will mean combining the sounds in this fashion, Harp. Remember, we hope vowels play no role in this, but we aren't sure. Here goes.»

Again, Harp heard in his mind the combined consonants as Yamato, at the other end of the column, spoke them. The combination was a difficult one for him, as his muscles were put to use in unfamiliar manners and sequence. Try as he might, Harp had issue with the click-clock sound combination, which required a move of the tongue from the front of the mouth to the back, to create the deeper resonance of the clock sound. He was getting thirsty, so he asked Yamato for a break while he materialized himself a glass of fresh, cold, water.

After savouring the tasty iciness of water taken from the snow up in the mountains, he felt refreshed and was ready for another try. This time, he got it right, and after a few more practice runs, felt ready to project his voice loud and clear above the howl of the ever more powerful wind.

The first few tries were not successful, but suddenly, the plate on which the hieroglyphs were inscribed lit up brightly! The door slowly turned on itself inwardly, revealing a huge black hole to those close enough to the head of the column.

«Success! Success! Success!» Harp hollered, overjoyed. «Your idea about consonants was right, Paschal!»

As Harp watched, awed, a huge tongue began to appear, slowly progressing across the huge gap separating them from the wall. Unsure as to how far this would progress, he had the first few rows back off from the incoming protuberance. Strangely, it did not go over the edge but inserted itself in a slit that had escaped their examination, just below the lip of the cliff face on their side.

***

«I'm moving on the mobile bridge, with the cavalry. Follow me, one unit at a time. Wait for my signal to cross! I do not want that fancy bridge to buckle under our weight! Horsemen! In row, by two! Forward march! The distance to cross is around thirty feet! Stay in the center!»

Strangely enough, Harp did not realize he had given the order telepathically, and none of the horsemen realized it either. Not a sound had left his lips, but everyone heard it as if it had been told to him personally. Everyone, from one end of the column to the other, heard the command over the wind's increasing violence.

The hoofs of the horses resonated on the bridge, revealing its metallic nature. The horsemen quickly covered the gap and entered a dark cave whose size they could not access.

"Lux!" ordered Harp, bringing a bright light to the tip of his stave. This revealed a vast, no, huge, cave, whose floor was covered with very fine white sand, and whose walls rose to a vertiginous height. Entering the cave cut the sound considerably, and, for the first time, they could assess the solidity of the walls. The stones measured as much in depth as they were long, giving the wall a thickness of twenty-five feet!

Harp moved to the side and pointed the stave in the direction he his unit to move.

«Get as close to the wall as you possibly can. We have a lot of units to pack in here!»

The next unit was composed of wolves. They ran the bridge and headed right behind the horses, Harp teleported the furthest unit of the column in the middle of the cave, and had them head left rather than right, as he had done with the previous units. The process repeated itself for hours as first, two units in the protective corridor walked in, and then Harp teleported a trailing unit still in the down path leading to the plateau. Yamato, Williams and Enron closed the corridor and progressively collapsed the windshield as each unit walked ever further towards the cave. The last units teleported outside of the corridor were the wolf rear guards, numbered around three hundred, which had kept the orcs busy and far enough for them not to see or detect the column in the descent. Another hour was needed after that for the last units to plod their way through the dust path and reach the cave's entrance. The last unit that had walked the dust bowl had been horses carrying weapons. Harp himself collapsed the windshield across the gap as he saw the last royals walk in with difficulty across the bridge.

"It seems you ate a fair mouthful of silica dust, Yamato, first as leader then as trailer. I'll deal with you first."

Harp quickly teleported Yamato a couple of feet backward, maintaining any unwanted dust particle in place. A dark shadow of a pair of lungs appeared where he used to stand, and began to collapse and disperse. Harp immediately contained it in a compact sphere, which he threw out across the force field keeping the dust storm out of the cave.

"Ah, boy! That feels good. I was feeling like I was drowning!"

"I can imagine. That dust cuts through lungs like glass shards. Sitar? Since you have Mitsuko, use it to heal the lungs. I'll clean them up and get rid of the dust, both on the body and inside, but you need to heal the alveoli."

The two boys, even if they were tired, spent the next three hours treating everyone that had been in the dust. Paschal held the energy wall that kept the dust out, and Enron fed everyone. The item most in demand was fresh water as most were too tired to consider eating anything. Once their thirst had been quenched, bedrolls were taken out and people lay flat on the compact sand floor, falling asleep almost instantly. Even the canines focussed on water, discarding the idea of eating anything. Body piles were found everywhere, animals, elves, and humans intermixed freely to find a comfortable position to sleep. Even the horses lay on their side to rest, as their legs were being healed from the cutting they had endured from the glassy rocks they had traveled.

As everything settled down, and all that could be heard was the snoring of sleeping individuals, Harp looked at the open door, wondering how to close it. He had managed to keep an arc that represented the path he thought would get traveled by the closing door. Moving to one of the double door's panel, he was surprised he could move it slowly to its closing position. The other panel seemed to move in synchrony with the one he was handling, and he noticed that the metallic bridge was retracting slowly, creating a cascade of falling dust in the abyss as it progressed, while the energy wall kept the dust from entering into the cave. He doubted that those who had built this place had neglected protecting their sensitive mechanism from the proverbial grain of sand in the wheels. As he was almost done closing the door, he noticed the last bit of the bridge retract in its hidden alveoli. A huge pile of dust and rocks had collected against the energy wall and suddenly found itself without any support, vanishing into the bottomless pit. The door panels silently meshed together, and a series of huge steel rods slid across, effectively locking the door close. The closing brought an eerie quiet to the cave.

"Well, Enron, you can collapse the last energy field. We are safe."

"Yes, and I am so tired I doubt I would have been able to keep it much longer anyways. Water!"

Water did effectively appear, but it doused Enron, shocking him.

"To drink water, Enron, you need a cup or a glass to contain it! We're lucky you only thought about a few gallons of the stuff!" Sitar commented, laughing as he watched Enron's expression.

Everyone went to sleep and Harp tuned down the light from his stave. The last few days had been horrible and everyone really needed a break.

***

The next day was spent resting, and Paschal seemed busy.

"What are you doing, Paschal? You seem distant."

"I've been thinking, dad. If the orcs manage to stop the flow of the river down in the abyss, nothing would stop them from climbing this side and invade Kantar. As the storm is at its peak outside, I'm using the sand to polish the cliff face on both sides. They will have a major problem getting down, and an even bigger problem getting out on this side! I'm sandblasting the cliffs. Properly used, this could make them slicker than mirrors!"

"Show me how you do that?"

"It's simple logic dad. Notice that the wind swirls and rotates, creating vortexes? I use that to move the sand grains. I start with the biggest grains to do the roughing out, and then progressively get smaller and smaller grains, until I use dust particles to finish. When I can see myself reflected clearly through mage sight, I am done. I then add a little sheen of magic to the surface, preventing any further damage from the sand storm. When the storm will falter, the sheen of magic will stay, preventing the orcs, or anyone else, from using carving tools to build steps in the cliff faces. Let them get out of there!"

"That's a good pastime, Paschal. How do you maintain the magic sheen?"

"This mountain resonates of magic, it's literally afloat on it. I'm tapping on that reservoir. That sheen should last as long as the reservoir isn't emptied, and I can't even imagine how many million upon millions of years this will take."

"That seems fun. Can we help?"

"Sure. In fact it could be good training for those who haven't fine-tuned their magic skills. We have enough work to keep everyone busy for the day, and that storm will last us ample time to make this mountain shinier than a mirror!"

Everyone took turn polishing the cliff faces, and a friendly competition was instituted as to whom would produce the shiniest segment; Paschal was elected general entrepreneur, and Sitar ended up in charge of inspection. Even the canines and equines took part in the polishing, as they too began tapping their magic capacities. The day passed quickly, amongst laughter, jokes, and good humour.

The night was quiet, and everyone enjoyed a well-earned supper, with water as the drink of choice for everyone. By matins, everyone but Harp was deep asleep, as he had elected to take the night watch. An hour before Williams was due to take his place, he noticed a slight change in the field, and, exploring with his mind, found that the wind had begun diminishing in intensity. Not that they had any intention to go back on the plateau any time soon, but the knowledge that the weather was clearing up was interesting, even if they were living as troglodytes.

Prime came way too early for everyone, but as breakfast was coming to a close, the royals began exploring their new domain. The size of the cave they were occupying astounded them. It could have lodged an army twice their size easily. As Yamato, Paschal, and Harp walked the circumference of the cave, Mitsuko was used to light the wall and their way.

"This cave is a library of sorts, boys. See all those hieroglyphs? They are telling a story, I am sure, but I can't figure it out. It's all mixed up."

"What do you mean?" Harp enquired.

"Well, sometimes I recognize phonetics, then just as I think I figure things out, the next hieroglyph throws me off. When I understand that one, I figure it's pictographic, but then the next one baffles me. I'm lost!"

"What if it was another thing we need to figure out, another rebus?" suggested Harp.

"I tried, but I can't find a pattern, a code."

"Maybe it's a lot more simple than what you think, Yamato. Use the kiss principle."

"The kiss principle, Paschal? EWW!"

"Harp, this is the shorthand for Keep It Simple, Stupid!"

"What are you thinking about, Paschal?" wanted to know Yamato, not willing to discard any suggestions from these geniuses whom had proven their worth.

"Remember, you told me you had studied hieroglyphs, and that they were reputed to represent three forms of writings: phonetic, pictographic, and divine. What if all three languages had been mixed evenly, one hieroglyph part of the phonetics, then another part pictographic, and the third part, well, magical, since I actually do not believe in gods."

"That's an interesting proposition, Paschal. Let me see if I can make sense of this sentence there."

After a few minutes of drawing one out of three hieroglyph until he found the end of the text, marked by a line, Yamato came back to the boys.

"I have three sentences out of these hieroglyphs. Let me look at them a few minutes."

Studying the first segment did not bring any signification to the drawings at hand. However the second did give a meaningful sentence, and the third also did give the same meaning.

"Boys! I found it! Paschal, you are one of a kind! These two texts say the same thing, and the other one is in divine Egyptian and probably also says the exact same thing! Not only can I verify my understanding of the two scripts I know by comparing their meanings, but I can even break the Divine language, something even the Ancients never were able to do!"

"Wow! That is an important discovery, there!" hollered an enthusiastic Harp.

"You can say that again, Harp. This beats the Rosetta Stone, discovered by a French explorer before the Great Cataclysm and on which is based today's understanding of hieroglyphs!"

"The Rosetta Stone?"

"Yes, Harp. A French linguist, Champollion, decoded it. It had three representations of the same text, one in hieroglyph, one in demotic, and another in ancient Greek."

"That is interesting, but what does that sentence say?"

"Curious, aren't we? Well, it's rather mysterious, it refers to a star child."

"If you are talking about that image, there, I'd say it's a comet!"

"Maybe?"

"If that is so, it's talking about Ian!" exclaimed Sitar and Harp in unison.

"That can't be!"

"So is everything we have seen so far! Decode, decode, Yamato. We need to know what that library contains!"