They had nearly caught up to the others now.  Anna was pulling pictures carefully from her bag, and Djaren was trying to look at them all at once.  Ellea stared at the door with her head tilted to one side, and Tam stood beside her in a similar posture.  It looked funny.  Jon smiled.  The Professor looked, and smiled back.

            “Let’s see about the photographs,” the Professor suggested.  “If you see something, anything unusual, you can tell me.  What you have is a gift, one I could wish I shared.”  The Professor smiled ruefully.

            Together they set up a base in the corridor, under a sun shade.  Anna pinned up all the pictures she had taken onto a large board.  With the aid of a magnifying glass, a number of notebooks, and the Professor’s expertise with languages, they were soon all hard at work trying to decipher the carvings.

            First, Jon and Djaren set to work on translating the Alendi version of the text from the missing tablet, from the photographs.  They worked at it, each taking a line at a time until they had a full translation written out in a notebook. 

            Djaren read it aloud.  “Here lies the god-warrior, called stranger, called hero.  Here with his armaments lies the one who slew the god Elush-bel-azzer.  Sent from the heavens, from the far west, deliverer of Sharvor, came the god warrior, servant of the One.  Here he died, slayer of gods, slayer of terrors--”

            “Rather long winded, weren’t they?” Anna asked.

            “Shh,” said Ellea.

            Djaren continued.  “--liberator of peace, he who felled the unworthy.  Let none dare disturb his rest but his kin.  Terrors await the unworthy.  The abyss will swallow all his enemies.  As the god warrior slew Elush-bel-azzer so shall those who enter here be felled.  A plague will fall upon them, and stones will crush their heads.”

            “Well isn’t that pleasant?” said Anna.  “Makes you all excited to get in.”

            “Doesn’t it?” said Djaren, missing her sarcasm.

            The Professor looked equally starry-eyed.  “We found the warrior’s tomb.  This is magnificent!”

            “And think of all the words we now know of Sharnish, from the Alendi,” Jon grinned.

            “Plague and stones, yes.  Very useful,” Tam said.

            Anna grinned at him.  “Who’s for something cool to drink?”

            “I’ll help you with the trays.  I need to stretch my legs out,” Tam said.

            “Good luck with the languages.  Don’t translate anything exciting without us.” Anna waved.

            Several pitchers of water and plates of sandwiches had come and gone before any of the Sharnish had been translated.  Djaren found another useful set of doubled lines around the newly cleared door frame that gave them three dozen new words.  The sounds of workmen in other passages stopped, signaling the rest time, but the linguists kept working.  Ellea played a little game with threads on her fingers, and Tam went to go look at the horses.  Anna began another sketch of some interesting figures along the middle of the door.  The workmen started up their hammering and digging again, and Tam joined them for a while, to have something useful to do.

            “Do you know,” Anna said after some time, setting down her sketch, “these figures might actually be words too.”

            “They’re a bit too detailed to be hieroglyphs,” Djaren said, mopping his brow with an ink-stained handkerchief.

            “I didn’t say they were hieroglyphs, at least not an ordinary type.  But see, all the little people are oriented toward the inset in the center.  Two of them are pointing right at it, but there’s nothing on it at all but a kind of star shape.”

            “I have something!” Jon exclaimed, standing up triumphantly with his notebook.  “I’ve translated some Sharnish!”

            “Let’s see,” the Professor said.  Jon gave him the book, and the Professor read over it.  “May the pilgrim/traveler of the west seek the sacred sign, and walk vigilant into the night.  The moon’s (horns?) will guide your way,” he paused, and considered the door. 

            “There isn’t any moon, not in the carvings,” Ellea said.

            The Professor looked at the door carefully.  “That star, Anna, point it out to me.”

            Tam came back then, with another flask of water.  “This lot is flavored with lime, Mama Darvin says.  Anything new?”

            “Yes,” Jon said.  “Shh.”

            “The star is right by your hand, see.”  Anna pointed.

            The Professor dropped down to his knees and examined the spot closely. 

            “For such an ornate door, that bit looks a little empty,” Ellea said, coming to stand nearer.

            “It looks like a Shandorian Star to me,” Tam said.  “Four points, only this one is sideways, like an X.”

            “Professor,” said Jon.

            “Yes?”

            “About the star.  I have a hunch, sir.”

            “So do I.” the Professor smiled.  “Do you know, the Shandorian star is actually a symbol used often by the Ancients?  It was sacred to them.” The Professor put his hand out and touched the star with his fingers.  Jon felt a shiver run down his spine.  The star spun under the Professor’s hand.  The Professor stared, startled.  The children jumped.  The little figures along the middle of the door all changed.  Where they had been was now an elegant flowing script in the language of the Ancients, interspersed with lovely, strange carvings.

            The Professor read over them quickly, entranced, his lips moving.  “This is amazing,” he said at last, breathless.  “They were here.  This is their work.  I believe the ‘god-warrior’ was in fact an Ancient, and died here, but others of his people helped to bury him.”  He looked up at Jon.  “The original of that crudely wrought text above is right here.  This is something.  Something important.  I must tell Corin at once.” 

            Jon and the Professor exchanged glances.   The Professor’s eyes were shining.  “This is an amazing find,” he told them all. “I must send word to Corin and Hellin immediately.  I will be right back.  Stay here.”  He dashed off toward the camp, leaving the children staring at one another. 

            Tam pointed at the new carvings.  “That’s not normal, is it?”

            “No,” said Anna, looking perplexedly from her sketch to the new carvings.

            “They say some of the carvings under the Castle of Shandor move,” Jon offered, a little uneasily.

            “That’s true,” Djaren agreed, with a friendly smile at Jon.

            “And some of them are invisible.”  Ellea nodded sagely.

            “Right,” said Tam.

            “This is amazing,” Djaren said, brushing the new lines with his fingers.  “Jon, help me translate these.  Ancient is harder than Kardu even.  So many subtleties.”

            “I think this mark means ‘Ascended’,” Jon said.

            “This one is ‘Warrior’,” Djaren added.

            “And there,” said Ellea, pointing to one new carving on the far left, “is the missing moon.”

©2007 Ruth Lampi