Ashhai
19-02-2005, 14:00
There are indeed people among men, who have sought for refuge unto people among Djinn: but they only increased their folly:
And they thought, as ye think, that God would not raise any from the dead. ~ Qu'ran, Sura 72, "The Djinn"
***
Redman's Fall wasn't much to look at from the air; a hanging valley just like hundreds of other hanging valleys abutting onto upper Ravensdale, spilling scree down into the valley. Near the edge the tents of the advance party were splashes of bright orange on the drab brown rocks.
"Do you suppose Doctor Reignard will have discovered anything?" Kate Mason wasn't hopeful - from up here, at least, the valley looked bare of anything to interest the archaeological party.
Eleanor Wright shrugged. "Potsherds, most likely. They're wonderful things, potsherds - last practically forever. Bones, perhaps - they're nearly as good. If my estimates are off too far, and it's actually Rivestone Valley or Slatetable, then nothing."
Around them the hum of the engines changed, and the pilot called back to tell them that the little blimp would soon be landing.
Kate went to watch their descent from the forward cabin, although even if one couldn't see it, one could feel it, and hear it, everywhere in the airship; a rapid hiss as helium was released, followed shortly by a hard jolt as the crew released the mooring lines, and they were caught by the figures on the ground. Clearly Reignard's assistants did not make the best ground crew ever to grace an Ashhai airship.
Then the airship was pulled roughly from the sky - a combination of Reignard's winches and the pilot venting gas (he'd need to resupply from the depot before heading back down to Ravensburg). Eleanor finally put away her notebooks and joined her before the window - even going so far as to crack a smile and wave at the white-haired figure hastening towards the blimp.
"Reignard! What have you found?" She was out of the airship to meet him - Eleanor's attention was always firmly attached five thousand years in the past, rather than the more mundane activities of the present - like helping the crew unload their supplies from the hold. Kate shook her head in fond amusement, and went to assist.
By the time they'd done that, the two were deep in esoteric conversation - "Glyphs thirty-nine through sixty-one are very clearly early Kell One markings," Reignard was saying in his rapid chatter, "That for Pleimann's amalgamation hypothesis! And given the positioning, what you're looking for should be somewhere on the Western slope."
""Somewhere on the Western slope"?" Eleanor made a face, indicating fifteen kilometers of sheer valley wall. "I'll have to take a look at those, see if I can't narrow it down somewhat."
"I used your translations," Reignard retorted, "So good luck at that - oh, hello, Miss Mason. I thought you'd have stayed back in Ravensburg, surely? It's not all that interesting, our poking about at scrawls on rocks."
"I think it's quite fascinating, actually," Kate said, sticking up for Eleanor (who beamed happily), "And El said it wouldn't be a bother ..."
The Doctor made a noncommittal sound. "I trust the Hierodux didn't give you any trouble, then? You know how the priesthood can be about this ..."
Kate didn't, but Eleanor replied; "No, we didn't - I believe Revenant Lord Kordany is in Emberton - some ceremony with the Praedilect there. Oddly enough" - and the sarcasm in those two words was dripping - "We've had not a cloud in the skies from anybody." She nodded firmly, and Reignard nodded back.
What was that about?, Kate wondered. Secret handshakes?
"Good to hear!" Reignard said heartily - the church in general, and Hierodux-Revenant Kordany in particular, had been a thorn in the way of scientific research of the Kell Two culture all through his decades of scholarship, and in most of the years of Eleanor's meteoric rise to prominence in the field.
"Now, glyphset fourteen we came across quite by accident, over here ..."
Kate left them to it, and wandered back to give the ground crew what help she could; with airships essentially burning Eleanor's money every minute they were chartered, the sooner this one got back to Ravensburg the better. Back when she'd first met Eleanor, Kate had harboured some hope of helping to achieve some momentous breakthrough, but that had whithered under the slow, methodical pace of Eleanor's work - in a way, her girlfriend would feel cheated, were she to stumble across some fully-formed explanation to a problem.
The blimp was turning and heading back down the valley when one of the research-assistants-turned-ground-crew approached; Kate had seen him working at the winches on the far side of the airship, but it was only up close that she saw the enamelled mask obscuring his face. Hand met forehead in a hasty salute; he was after all a Revenant, and she was after all only of the Golden caste, according to the priesthood.
But he shook his head, and waved away her obesiances. "Please don't," he said, "After all, I think the nearest person who'd care is seventy kilometers away! You're Kate Mason, aren't you? Doctor Wright's friend? Jarred Kale, Third Spoke Crimson."
He might say it didn't matter, but the absent-minded addition of rank and caste indicated otherwise; but then, any Revenant - and especially one halfway to Lordship in his own right - would spend so much time among his fellows that it might come automatically.
"That's me," she agreed, "Kate Mason, Golden. Pleased to meet you."
"It's mine, truly," he replied. "Your friend - well, she's done some pretty amazing stuff, completely revitalised the field!"
"Yes, I know." Everyone knew, probably, how Eleanor Wright had discovered old manuscripts mouldering in the temple library at High Arcester, and used them to translate the complex Kell Two script. The Revenant was surely comitting that unique sin of scientists - assuming that everyone outside his field knew nothing about it.
"Oh, of course. Do you think she'll find it?" And he was off on a tangent, hiding his embarrassment behind talk and his Revenant's mask.
Kate shrugged. "The vault? I really wouldn't know about that, I'm sorry. She tried explaining the way she estimated the position from some book or other -"
"The Crypt Books of King Reqanhe?"
"Yes, that was them - anyway, I could not understand all that. I hope she does, though - they'll have to give her a medal or something."
"Or an excommunication."
"A what?"
"You mean you didn't hear? I thought everyone knew - Hierodux Kordany, Axis Carnelian, is off in Emberton trying to get the Conclave to outlaw research into the Kell Two. Likely he'll justify it to the Senate by calling them "heritage sites"."
"That hypothesis hasn't been proven!" Kate protested. No, she hadn't heard - had Eleanor been purposefully not telling her? Surely she would have known.
"The church has been operating as if it were for two decades." Jarred shook his head. "Shameful, really - enough to drop the mask!"
Kate nodded - it was shameful, and Bad Science to boot. But Jarred - perhaps less vulnerable (or feeling less vulnerable, which was different) due to his higher status - hadn't considered the problems of an excommunicate in Ashhai's highly religious society. Kate, merely once-born and Golden, did.
With priestly disfavour hanging over her head, Eleanor might have a great deal of trouble getting funding or academic recognition from even the most secular elements of the academia. Her job might be in danger, as University faculty bowed to theocratic pressure.
And El didn't tell me ... why not, damnit? We could work something out - if she won't go to me when she needs help, then who?
***
Around seven o'clock the sun slipped down below the Western valley wall, plunging Redman's Fall into shadows. Eleanor and Reignard (still debating the day's findings) reappeared as dinner was being cooked, and other scattered archaeologists drifted back in to camp.
It was fun, sitting around the gas stove (there was no firewood in the valley, after all) waiting for the tea to boil, and listening to the talk of the archaeologists - like being on school camp, almost. But Kate couldn't shake the thought of excommunication, and her thoughts came back to it, would she or no.
What would she do? What would we do? Maybe I'm worrying about this too much, maybe Kordany'll be defeated in the Conclave or the Senate.
It wasn't likely, though.
"Hey El, what did you find today?" she asked - it was better to find something else to occupy her mind, after all. And she hadn't been lying to Reignard - it was fascinating stuff.
"Oh! Let me show you." Eleanor smiled, and pulled out her notebook. A map of the valley fell out, and she unfolded it. "You see, here - just by the landing field, actually - we found a set of glyphs in Kell One -"
Eleanor's mouth worked as she struggled to pronounce the alien words, and Jarred Kale interrupted to speak them - a staccato rattle of stops, clicks and glottals varying in timbre, pitch and intonation, carrying variations so subtle Kate was just aware she couldn't perceive them all. It was beautiful, in it's way.
"That's it," Eleanor agreed, "Thank you, Jarred. What they mean is something like "Let that which sleeps remain in slumber, lest it's waking rend the world in twain". Ominous, but a lot of Kell One inscriptions are like that - we find them carved in stone at taboo sites, and of course we don't see any shopping lists."
""Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fgtagn!"" someone intoned, and everyone laughed.
"Anyway, we found the same inscription mirrorred here, here, and here, forming an arc around a point here."
"But there wasn't anything at that point," Reignard said, and Eleanor shrugged.
"Maybe there was, four and a half thousand years ago? But we found a lengthy inscription down here, up near the saddle of the valley - "Tomblord -" something, I'm not at all sure about the translation. "Tomblord Whoeveritis guards this place, from now until forever and the falling of the stars. May it -" it's very certainly the neuter gender or the hermaphroditic, although Reignard thinks it could be the spiritual - "May it guard it well against the barbarian storm of beast and man and wind, and keep safe from them the secrets of our -" ancestors? Forefathers? Then, "Graven upon this -" something, the calendar has never been very clear - "Graven upon this date by -" another name I don't know - "Foremost Pack-Lord of Huntmaster -" something.
"All that is in the Kell Two script - I'm not very sure about the proper names, really. But over it someone's carved an inscription in Kell One - the glyphs for "annull" and "evil" - well, not quite "evil", I think the nicest translation I've heard is Pierdanschy's "unconscionable and unlawful transgression of the natural order" - repeated over and over."
"Spooky," Kate said, and someone - the same Lovecraft quoter as before, said;
""That is not dead which can eternal lie ...""
Eleanor grinned. "We get the picture, Tasha. Maybe we should leave you behind, to tell the rescue party after Great Cthulhu eats our souls?"
The kettle finally gave a rising whine to announce that the water had boiled, and Kate poured water into mugs for the group. Jarred drank his with the careful lift of the mask she was beginning to associate with Revenants - no matter how little he might claim to care, it was taboo for once-born to see a Revenant's face.
"Didn't you say the vault ought to be on the Western side of the valley, Doctor?" Kate asked.
"Hmm." Reignard considered. "I suppose that I did, yes - mainly because of the direction of the arc formed by the Kell One inscriptions - it's open to the Western side, and I thought that a vault door ought to be horizontal. We looked on the valley wall directly to the West of the center point, but there wasn't anything there."
"But the valley isn't oriented straight North to South," Jarred pointed out, "And neither is your arc. - May I, Doctor?"
At Eleanor's nod, he took the map, and sketched a rough line in between the Northernmost and Southernmost points - as he said, it was about twelve degrees off vertical.
"See? Drawing a line perpendicular to that, it comes to ... here, which is a few kilometers North of where you looked. Or I could use the section of arc there to form a triangle, and draw perpendicular lines from the sides of that to find the center of the circle - if we envision the arc as part of a circle, the center is ... at the same place.
"Were I you, I'd look there."
Reignard looked sheepish. "I'm sure we shall, tomorrow," he said, "Although I'm not sure how the Kell One culture could work out such accurate positioning. Good work, Jarred."
The Revenant shrugged. "Just geometry. Anyone else with high school maths could have done it."
They discussed that for a while, and inevitably the conversation turned to what they might find in a Kell Two vault, if it existed here.
"Treasure," Tasha said. "We'll make our fortunes, retire to Eastshire, and live like Revenant Lords."
"A conclusion to the Harroway hypothesis," Jarred said - as a Revenant that would be close to his heart. Kate was reminded of Hierodux Kordany and his plan to abolish research into the Kell Two. Might the church already have that conclusion, hidden in some temple library?
"I'll be happy with surviving Kell Two codices," Eleanor admitted.
Kate smiled uneasily, and said; ""And they all lived happily ever after." That's what I want."
***
That night, when the light and noise from other tents had grown still, Kate rolled over in her sleeping-bag to face Eleanor.
"El?"
"Yes? I was sleeping, damnit."
"I was talking to the Revenant today - Jarred Kale. He said Hierodux Kordany is in Emberton because he's trying to outlaw research on the Kell Two. You said he was attending a ceremony with the Praedilect of Emberton.
"Damnit, El, why didn't you tell me?"
Eleanor was silent for a moment which stretched uncomfortably long.
"I didn't want you to worry about it," she said finally.
"You "didn't want me to worry about it"? What kind of - of thing is that? What, you thought I'd worry less if I read it in the paper instead of hearing it from you?"
"It wasn't that -" Eleanor replied, pathetic. "Look, you're worrying now!"
"Oh? And I shouldn't, I suppose? What about when they excommunicate you, should I worry when my girlfriend is made casteless?"
Eleanor drew in an angry breath. "Kate, I've known you for two years now, and in that time you have never cared about that sort of thing. You're Golden, I'm Cerulean - what does it matter?"
"That's not what I meant! But how long do you think the faculty is going to last with Kordany breathing down their necks, before they cave in and kick you out? There are Cerulean professors, there are Azure professors, but there are no casteless professors. Not one."
Eleanor sat up in a rustle of cloth, and put an arm around her shoulders to pull her close. "It might not happen," she said gently, "He might fail at the Conclave or the Senate. I could study Kell One instead."
Kate expelled her breath in a long, defeated sigh, and leaned into Eleanor's embrace. But she knew that she was trying to convince herself just as Kate hersef had tried, and that her girlfriend couldn't possibly switch to studying Kell One. Her reputation, all her knowledge was built upon the older culture - how could she go from one of the greatest ancient civilisations to a paltry few barbarians huddling in the wilderness?
***
The next morning dawned clear and crisp, but the sun would not rise above the Eastern hills for another hour or so, and the shadows clung heavily to the bottom of the valley. Kate sat on the lip of Redman's Fall, watching dawn reach the hills of Ravensdale, nearly a kilometer of tree-studded scree below.
Booted feet crunched on the gravel behind her, and Jarred Kale sat down next to her. His breath steamed oddly through the nose-holes of his mask.
"Morning, Kate," he offered politely. "It certainly it is a glorious view."
"Good morning, Jarred. It is, isn't it?"
He nodded. "Is it safe, so close to the edge?"
Kate shrugged. "Ought to be - this bit's solid rock, not gravel." she took a piece of the loose stuff and threw it idly over the edge, watching it tumble down the scree until it disappeared.
"Careful," he said, half joking, "You could start an avalanche." And then; "Have you known Doctor Wright for long?"
The question startled her. "Two years and a bit," she replied. "I was reporting for the Ravensburg Herald back then - I first met her when I was interviewing her."
"That's ... several years after she first published her translations, though. I'm sure even the Herald can't be that far behind the times?"
She laughed. "No! This was when Pleimann came up with his amalgamation theory based on her translations. It was a slow news week for the cultural section, so I got sent to rustle up some news."
Jarred paused, and said; "She certainly is very pretty."
Oh God, Kate thought, He doesn't realise - !
"Yes," she agreed finally, "She is."
"Oh. Oh!" Jarred sounded mortified as things fell into place in his mind, and Kate carefully avoided laughing. "I am such an idiot! Oh God, I'm sorry."
She did laugh then, and smiled to take the sting out of it. "I'm sure she'd be flattered if she knew. Have you -" been lusting after her - "Had a crush on her for long?"
The Revenant chuckled. "Only since I first saw her on the TV! You're very lucky."
"Oh dear. I'm sorry to crush your dreams like that."
He waved a hand, as if to say they're nothing (did Revenants dream, she wondered? She supposed they must do). Kate was sure he was blushing, under that mask.
"Anyway," he said, "I got sent to tell you that Reignard and Doctor Wright - Eleanor - are about to leave to look for the door again. Were about to leave. That was a while ago, actually; I suppose they've left without us."
"You figured out where it was last night, didn't you? I'm sure you can do it again. We can meet them there."
"So we can." Jarred pulled a copy of the map from his pocket - a poor-quality photocopy, with the glyph locations marked in with ballpoint pen. "Let me see ... we're here, the camp is there, and the point on the valley wall is I think about -"
"There," Kate said, and pointed."
"Oh? How do you know?"
"I can see them standing over by the rocks. See the orange spot? That's Tasha, I think."
"You have good eyes. Let's go see what they've found, then."
They jogged across the valley floor. The Western side was warmer, the benefit of the sun now rising higher in the sky, but the thick lichens were still sending up faint wisps of steam into the sunlight. They might be only a few degrees warmer than the surrounding air, but they trapped the early-morning dew until it evaporated, now, in the sunshine. It reminded Kate of a fantasy - Faerie, perhaps, or somewhere in Middle-earth.
The others were standing around a point on the valley wall - some carving or inscription sandwitched between two boulders.
""Speak, friend, and enter!"" she called. Eleanor gave her an odd look, but Jarred laughed - as, to her suprise, did Reignard.
"So what is it?" she asked, peering over Tasha's shoulder at the cliff.
"An inscription," Eleanor replied, "In Kell Two. "Within sits Tomblord -" have I mentioned how much I hate these title-glyphs? - "Tomblord Whoeveritis in watch eternal, to guard against all comers, to preserve the ways and words and works of the -" the best translation I can come up with is "Unseelie Hunt" - "Against the inequities of time and man. Enter not."
"Then that last - "enter not" - is repeated over the inscription several dozen times in Kell Two. It seems they agreed on one thing, then."
"It's a door, then?"
"We think so," Reignard said, tapping the rock. "Although we can't find anything so simple as a doorknob. Or a door, for that matter."
"It echoes differently, if you listen closely," Jarred remarked. Revenants had better hearing than the once-born, so it was likely he was right.
"Um, El?"
"Yes?" Eleanor turned to look at her.
"Step back a meter or two and look up and to the left."
They shuffled backwards reluctantly, and looked. The boulder to the left was a good two and a half meters tall, and extending upwards behind it for another two meters or so was a dark line, ruler-straight. It was mirrored behind the boulder to the right.
"Well, there's our door," Eleanor said. "Now, how do we get in?"
OOC: If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! More to come, once I figure out how to write myself out of the corner I've gotten into. Constructive comments are welcome.
And they thought, as ye think, that God would not raise any from the dead. ~ Qu'ran, Sura 72, "The Djinn"
***
Redman's Fall wasn't much to look at from the air; a hanging valley just like hundreds of other hanging valleys abutting onto upper Ravensdale, spilling scree down into the valley. Near the edge the tents of the advance party were splashes of bright orange on the drab brown rocks.
"Do you suppose Doctor Reignard will have discovered anything?" Kate Mason wasn't hopeful - from up here, at least, the valley looked bare of anything to interest the archaeological party.
Eleanor Wright shrugged. "Potsherds, most likely. They're wonderful things, potsherds - last practically forever. Bones, perhaps - they're nearly as good. If my estimates are off too far, and it's actually Rivestone Valley or Slatetable, then nothing."
Around them the hum of the engines changed, and the pilot called back to tell them that the little blimp would soon be landing.
Kate went to watch their descent from the forward cabin, although even if one couldn't see it, one could feel it, and hear it, everywhere in the airship; a rapid hiss as helium was released, followed shortly by a hard jolt as the crew released the mooring lines, and they were caught by the figures on the ground. Clearly Reignard's assistants did not make the best ground crew ever to grace an Ashhai airship.
Then the airship was pulled roughly from the sky - a combination of Reignard's winches and the pilot venting gas (he'd need to resupply from the depot before heading back down to Ravensburg). Eleanor finally put away her notebooks and joined her before the window - even going so far as to crack a smile and wave at the white-haired figure hastening towards the blimp.
"Reignard! What have you found?" She was out of the airship to meet him - Eleanor's attention was always firmly attached five thousand years in the past, rather than the more mundane activities of the present - like helping the crew unload their supplies from the hold. Kate shook her head in fond amusement, and went to assist.
By the time they'd done that, the two were deep in esoteric conversation - "Glyphs thirty-nine through sixty-one are very clearly early Kell One markings," Reignard was saying in his rapid chatter, "That for Pleimann's amalgamation hypothesis! And given the positioning, what you're looking for should be somewhere on the Western slope."
""Somewhere on the Western slope"?" Eleanor made a face, indicating fifteen kilometers of sheer valley wall. "I'll have to take a look at those, see if I can't narrow it down somewhat."
"I used your translations," Reignard retorted, "So good luck at that - oh, hello, Miss Mason. I thought you'd have stayed back in Ravensburg, surely? It's not all that interesting, our poking about at scrawls on rocks."
"I think it's quite fascinating, actually," Kate said, sticking up for Eleanor (who beamed happily), "And El said it wouldn't be a bother ..."
The Doctor made a noncommittal sound. "I trust the Hierodux didn't give you any trouble, then? You know how the priesthood can be about this ..."
Kate didn't, but Eleanor replied; "No, we didn't - I believe Revenant Lord Kordany is in Emberton - some ceremony with the Praedilect there. Oddly enough" - and the sarcasm in those two words was dripping - "We've had not a cloud in the skies from anybody." She nodded firmly, and Reignard nodded back.
What was that about?, Kate wondered. Secret handshakes?
"Good to hear!" Reignard said heartily - the church in general, and Hierodux-Revenant Kordany in particular, had been a thorn in the way of scientific research of the Kell Two culture all through his decades of scholarship, and in most of the years of Eleanor's meteoric rise to prominence in the field.
"Now, glyphset fourteen we came across quite by accident, over here ..."
Kate left them to it, and wandered back to give the ground crew what help she could; with airships essentially burning Eleanor's money every minute they were chartered, the sooner this one got back to Ravensburg the better. Back when she'd first met Eleanor, Kate had harboured some hope of helping to achieve some momentous breakthrough, but that had whithered under the slow, methodical pace of Eleanor's work - in a way, her girlfriend would feel cheated, were she to stumble across some fully-formed explanation to a problem.
The blimp was turning and heading back down the valley when one of the research-assistants-turned-ground-crew approached; Kate had seen him working at the winches on the far side of the airship, but it was only up close that she saw the enamelled mask obscuring his face. Hand met forehead in a hasty salute; he was after all a Revenant, and she was after all only of the Golden caste, according to the priesthood.
But he shook his head, and waved away her obesiances. "Please don't," he said, "After all, I think the nearest person who'd care is seventy kilometers away! You're Kate Mason, aren't you? Doctor Wright's friend? Jarred Kale, Third Spoke Crimson."
He might say it didn't matter, but the absent-minded addition of rank and caste indicated otherwise; but then, any Revenant - and especially one halfway to Lordship in his own right - would spend so much time among his fellows that it might come automatically.
"That's me," she agreed, "Kate Mason, Golden. Pleased to meet you."
"It's mine, truly," he replied. "Your friend - well, she's done some pretty amazing stuff, completely revitalised the field!"
"Yes, I know." Everyone knew, probably, how Eleanor Wright had discovered old manuscripts mouldering in the temple library at High Arcester, and used them to translate the complex Kell Two script. The Revenant was surely comitting that unique sin of scientists - assuming that everyone outside his field knew nothing about it.
"Oh, of course. Do you think she'll find it?" And he was off on a tangent, hiding his embarrassment behind talk and his Revenant's mask.
Kate shrugged. "The vault? I really wouldn't know about that, I'm sorry. She tried explaining the way she estimated the position from some book or other -"
"The Crypt Books of King Reqanhe?"
"Yes, that was them - anyway, I could not understand all that. I hope she does, though - they'll have to give her a medal or something."
"Or an excommunication."
"A what?"
"You mean you didn't hear? I thought everyone knew - Hierodux Kordany, Axis Carnelian, is off in Emberton trying to get the Conclave to outlaw research into the Kell Two. Likely he'll justify it to the Senate by calling them "heritage sites"."
"That hypothesis hasn't been proven!" Kate protested. No, she hadn't heard - had Eleanor been purposefully not telling her? Surely she would have known.
"The church has been operating as if it were for two decades." Jarred shook his head. "Shameful, really - enough to drop the mask!"
Kate nodded - it was shameful, and Bad Science to boot. But Jarred - perhaps less vulnerable (or feeling less vulnerable, which was different) due to his higher status - hadn't considered the problems of an excommunicate in Ashhai's highly religious society. Kate, merely once-born and Golden, did.
With priestly disfavour hanging over her head, Eleanor might have a great deal of trouble getting funding or academic recognition from even the most secular elements of the academia. Her job might be in danger, as University faculty bowed to theocratic pressure.
And El didn't tell me ... why not, damnit? We could work something out - if she won't go to me when she needs help, then who?
***
Around seven o'clock the sun slipped down below the Western valley wall, plunging Redman's Fall into shadows. Eleanor and Reignard (still debating the day's findings) reappeared as dinner was being cooked, and other scattered archaeologists drifted back in to camp.
It was fun, sitting around the gas stove (there was no firewood in the valley, after all) waiting for the tea to boil, and listening to the talk of the archaeologists - like being on school camp, almost. But Kate couldn't shake the thought of excommunication, and her thoughts came back to it, would she or no.
What would she do? What would we do? Maybe I'm worrying about this too much, maybe Kordany'll be defeated in the Conclave or the Senate.
It wasn't likely, though.
"Hey El, what did you find today?" she asked - it was better to find something else to occupy her mind, after all. And she hadn't been lying to Reignard - it was fascinating stuff.
"Oh! Let me show you." Eleanor smiled, and pulled out her notebook. A map of the valley fell out, and she unfolded it. "You see, here - just by the landing field, actually - we found a set of glyphs in Kell One -"
Eleanor's mouth worked as she struggled to pronounce the alien words, and Jarred Kale interrupted to speak them - a staccato rattle of stops, clicks and glottals varying in timbre, pitch and intonation, carrying variations so subtle Kate was just aware she couldn't perceive them all. It was beautiful, in it's way.
"That's it," Eleanor agreed, "Thank you, Jarred. What they mean is something like "Let that which sleeps remain in slumber, lest it's waking rend the world in twain". Ominous, but a lot of Kell One inscriptions are like that - we find them carved in stone at taboo sites, and of course we don't see any shopping lists."
""Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fgtagn!"" someone intoned, and everyone laughed.
"Anyway, we found the same inscription mirrorred here, here, and here, forming an arc around a point here."
"But there wasn't anything at that point," Reignard said, and Eleanor shrugged.
"Maybe there was, four and a half thousand years ago? But we found a lengthy inscription down here, up near the saddle of the valley - "Tomblord -" something, I'm not at all sure about the translation. "Tomblord Whoeveritis guards this place, from now until forever and the falling of the stars. May it -" it's very certainly the neuter gender or the hermaphroditic, although Reignard thinks it could be the spiritual - "May it guard it well against the barbarian storm of beast and man and wind, and keep safe from them the secrets of our -" ancestors? Forefathers? Then, "Graven upon this -" something, the calendar has never been very clear - "Graven upon this date by -" another name I don't know - "Foremost Pack-Lord of Huntmaster -" something.
"All that is in the Kell Two script - I'm not very sure about the proper names, really. But over it someone's carved an inscription in Kell One - the glyphs for "annull" and "evil" - well, not quite "evil", I think the nicest translation I've heard is Pierdanschy's "unconscionable and unlawful transgression of the natural order" - repeated over and over."
"Spooky," Kate said, and someone - the same Lovecraft quoter as before, said;
""That is not dead which can eternal lie ...""
Eleanor grinned. "We get the picture, Tasha. Maybe we should leave you behind, to tell the rescue party after Great Cthulhu eats our souls?"
The kettle finally gave a rising whine to announce that the water had boiled, and Kate poured water into mugs for the group. Jarred drank his with the careful lift of the mask she was beginning to associate with Revenants - no matter how little he might claim to care, it was taboo for once-born to see a Revenant's face.
"Didn't you say the vault ought to be on the Western side of the valley, Doctor?" Kate asked.
"Hmm." Reignard considered. "I suppose that I did, yes - mainly because of the direction of the arc formed by the Kell One inscriptions - it's open to the Western side, and I thought that a vault door ought to be horizontal. We looked on the valley wall directly to the West of the center point, but there wasn't anything there."
"But the valley isn't oriented straight North to South," Jarred pointed out, "And neither is your arc. - May I, Doctor?"
At Eleanor's nod, he took the map, and sketched a rough line in between the Northernmost and Southernmost points - as he said, it was about twelve degrees off vertical.
"See? Drawing a line perpendicular to that, it comes to ... here, which is a few kilometers North of where you looked. Or I could use the section of arc there to form a triangle, and draw perpendicular lines from the sides of that to find the center of the circle - if we envision the arc as part of a circle, the center is ... at the same place.
"Were I you, I'd look there."
Reignard looked sheepish. "I'm sure we shall, tomorrow," he said, "Although I'm not sure how the Kell One culture could work out such accurate positioning. Good work, Jarred."
The Revenant shrugged. "Just geometry. Anyone else with high school maths could have done it."
They discussed that for a while, and inevitably the conversation turned to what they might find in a Kell Two vault, if it existed here.
"Treasure," Tasha said. "We'll make our fortunes, retire to Eastshire, and live like Revenant Lords."
"A conclusion to the Harroway hypothesis," Jarred said - as a Revenant that would be close to his heart. Kate was reminded of Hierodux Kordany and his plan to abolish research into the Kell Two. Might the church already have that conclusion, hidden in some temple library?
"I'll be happy with surviving Kell Two codices," Eleanor admitted.
Kate smiled uneasily, and said; ""And they all lived happily ever after." That's what I want."
***
That night, when the light and noise from other tents had grown still, Kate rolled over in her sleeping-bag to face Eleanor.
"El?"
"Yes? I was sleeping, damnit."
"I was talking to the Revenant today - Jarred Kale. He said Hierodux Kordany is in Emberton because he's trying to outlaw research on the Kell Two. You said he was attending a ceremony with the Praedilect of Emberton.
"Damnit, El, why didn't you tell me?"
Eleanor was silent for a moment which stretched uncomfortably long.
"I didn't want you to worry about it," she said finally.
"You "didn't want me to worry about it"? What kind of - of thing is that? What, you thought I'd worry less if I read it in the paper instead of hearing it from you?"
"It wasn't that -" Eleanor replied, pathetic. "Look, you're worrying now!"
"Oh? And I shouldn't, I suppose? What about when they excommunicate you, should I worry when my girlfriend is made casteless?"
Eleanor drew in an angry breath. "Kate, I've known you for two years now, and in that time you have never cared about that sort of thing. You're Golden, I'm Cerulean - what does it matter?"
"That's not what I meant! But how long do you think the faculty is going to last with Kordany breathing down their necks, before they cave in and kick you out? There are Cerulean professors, there are Azure professors, but there are no casteless professors. Not one."
Eleanor sat up in a rustle of cloth, and put an arm around her shoulders to pull her close. "It might not happen," she said gently, "He might fail at the Conclave or the Senate. I could study Kell One instead."
Kate expelled her breath in a long, defeated sigh, and leaned into Eleanor's embrace. But she knew that she was trying to convince herself just as Kate hersef had tried, and that her girlfriend couldn't possibly switch to studying Kell One. Her reputation, all her knowledge was built upon the older culture - how could she go from one of the greatest ancient civilisations to a paltry few barbarians huddling in the wilderness?
***
The next morning dawned clear and crisp, but the sun would not rise above the Eastern hills for another hour or so, and the shadows clung heavily to the bottom of the valley. Kate sat on the lip of Redman's Fall, watching dawn reach the hills of Ravensdale, nearly a kilometer of tree-studded scree below.
Booted feet crunched on the gravel behind her, and Jarred Kale sat down next to her. His breath steamed oddly through the nose-holes of his mask.
"Morning, Kate," he offered politely. "It certainly it is a glorious view."
"Good morning, Jarred. It is, isn't it?"
He nodded. "Is it safe, so close to the edge?"
Kate shrugged. "Ought to be - this bit's solid rock, not gravel." she took a piece of the loose stuff and threw it idly over the edge, watching it tumble down the scree until it disappeared.
"Careful," he said, half joking, "You could start an avalanche." And then; "Have you known Doctor Wright for long?"
The question startled her. "Two years and a bit," she replied. "I was reporting for the Ravensburg Herald back then - I first met her when I was interviewing her."
"That's ... several years after she first published her translations, though. I'm sure even the Herald can't be that far behind the times?"
She laughed. "No! This was when Pleimann came up with his amalgamation theory based on her translations. It was a slow news week for the cultural section, so I got sent to rustle up some news."
Jarred paused, and said; "She certainly is very pretty."
Oh God, Kate thought, He doesn't realise - !
"Yes," she agreed finally, "She is."
"Oh. Oh!" Jarred sounded mortified as things fell into place in his mind, and Kate carefully avoided laughing. "I am such an idiot! Oh God, I'm sorry."
She did laugh then, and smiled to take the sting out of it. "I'm sure she'd be flattered if she knew. Have you -" been lusting after her - "Had a crush on her for long?"
The Revenant chuckled. "Only since I first saw her on the TV! You're very lucky."
"Oh dear. I'm sorry to crush your dreams like that."
He waved a hand, as if to say they're nothing (did Revenants dream, she wondered? She supposed they must do). Kate was sure he was blushing, under that mask.
"Anyway," he said, "I got sent to tell you that Reignard and Doctor Wright - Eleanor - are about to leave to look for the door again. Were about to leave. That was a while ago, actually; I suppose they've left without us."
"You figured out where it was last night, didn't you? I'm sure you can do it again. We can meet them there."
"So we can." Jarred pulled a copy of the map from his pocket - a poor-quality photocopy, with the glyph locations marked in with ballpoint pen. "Let me see ... we're here, the camp is there, and the point on the valley wall is I think about -"
"There," Kate said, and pointed."
"Oh? How do you know?"
"I can see them standing over by the rocks. See the orange spot? That's Tasha, I think."
"You have good eyes. Let's go see what they've found, then."
They jogged across the valley floor. The Western side was warmer, the benefit of the sun now rising higher in the sky, but the thick lichens were still sending up faint wisps of steam into the sunlight. They might be only a few degrees warmer than the surrounding air, but they trapped the early-morning dew until it evaporated, now, in the sunshine. It reminded Kate of a fantasy - Faerie, perhaps, or somewhere in Middle-earth.
The others were standing around a point on the valley wall - some carving or inscription sandwitched between two boulders.
""Speak, friend, and enter!"" she called. Eleanor gave her an odd look, but Jarred laughed - as, to her suprise, did Reignard.
"So what is it?" she asked, peering over Tasha's shoulder at the cliff.
"An inscription," Eleanor replied, "In Kell Two. "Within sits Tomblord -" have I mentioned how much I hate these title-glyphs? - "Tomblord Whoeveritis in watch eternal, to guard against all comers, to preserve the ways and words and works of the -" the best translation I can come up with is "Unseelie Hunt" - "Against the inequities of time and man. Enter not."
"Then that last - "enter not" - is repeated over the inscription several dozen times in Kell Two. It seems they agreed on one thing, then."
"It's a door, then?"
"We think so," Reignard said, tapping the rock. "Although we can't find anything so simple as a doorknob. Or a door, for that matter."
"It echoes differently, if you listen closely," Jarred remarked. Revenants had better hearing than the once-born, so it was likely he was right.
"Um, El?"
"Yes?" Eleanor turned to look at her.
"Step back a meter or two and look up and to the left."
They shuffled backwards reluctantly, and looked. The boulder to the left was a good two and a half meters tall, and extending upwards behind it for another two meters or so was a dark line, ruler-straight. It was mirrored behind the boulder to the right.
"Well, there's our door," Eleanor said. "Now, how do we get in?"
OOC: If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! More to come, once I figure out how to write myself out of the corner I've gotten into. Constructive comments are welcome.