Chapter 2
Graz
I got lucky—extremely lucky. After investigating the south side of the massive stone structure, I discovered an old, hidden doorway covered by fallen rocks and vines. Luckily, I was able to move most of them aside. There are benefits to being an orc, and one of them is my upper body strength.
After discovering this perfect little side entrance, I went back to retrieve my horse and settled in for the night somewhere dry, nearly bouncing with my excitement to return the next morning and investigate. I barely got any sleep, but that doesn’t matter much when the thrill of finding answers is coursing through my blood.
What if there’s more magic here, like the map suggests? I can do so much with it, learn so much from it. Maybe I could make other devices like the one I created for Lo’zar. What else could I build with that kind of power in my hands?
I light my lamp first thing in the morning and head back. I designed it so I wouldn’t have to carry a torch, because holding a stick of fire near my head doesn’t entice me. It safely contains the flames, and I built in special reflectors to amplify the light.
The passageway is pitch black inside, but my lamp guides the way, revealing cobwebs in every corner and tiny creatures fleeing wherever the firelight touches them. I even spot a snake that slithers off into a hole in the stone the moment I go past.
I shudder. I very much do not like snakes. Lizards? Fine. Izzy is still back at my mechanic’s shop, and I hope Kugara is feeding him. I thought about bringing my iguana along, but managing a finicky horse and a territorial lizard at the same time felt like too much work.
Snakes, on the other hand... The last thing I need is a venomous bite while I’m out in the middle of nowhere all alone.
The passageway winds deeper into the stone fortress, and I wonder just where it’s taking me. Carvings cover the walls, figures and shapes that must be some form of language. I observe them as I walk, thinking I’ll have to return later to make rubbings. Perhaps I can decode it if I find some context deeper inside.
I’m starting to breathe harder the farther I get in the tunnel, imagining all of these rocks tumbling down on top of me. I would be trapped, probably crushed.
Just as I’m about to turn around, because the walls feel like they’re growing narrower and narrower... I find it. The hallway ends, and my lamp illuminates something else just beyond it. With a few more steps, I find myself standing out in the open, in a massive room that spreads out around me in every direction.
This is what I’ve been searching for. I’ve made it. Plus, I survived that tiny tunnel.
That’s when I hear a sharp cry. On the other end of the huge space, someone is standing high up on the steps, a torch in her hand. Another person? Here, in a ruin that hasn’t been touched in thousands of years?
Her outfit is brownish beige, a matching buttoned shirt and matching pants. She’s staring at me just as I’m staring at her.
A fucking human .
That’s when I notice the gun. Damn it. I didn’t even think to bring a weapon with me. I never, ever expected I’d find someone else here—not to mention a human.
Instantly her fingers grasp handle of her gun, and I know I’m screwed. Absolutely fucked.
I hold up both my hands, the lamp dangling from one of them. If I show her I’m not armed, maybe she won’t shoot. Humans and trollkin have established a tentative peace in the last few years, after the last war wreaked havoc on both our peoples. I have to hope that truce extends to the two of us, as well.
She pulls the gun from her hip and takes a few more steps down the stairs, but it doesn’t look like she’s ready to shoot just yet. Now we’re standing across from one another, separated by a few hundred yards. The two stone thrones stand between us, and I suppose I could hide behind one of them if she started shooting.
I can’t believe I didn’t come prepared. I’m such an idiot.
“ Saan haas!” the human calls out, her shoulders tense. I wish I knew what the hell she was saying. At least Lo’zar and his human mate had some kind of mind-speak, where they could communicate without words, allowing them to cross the language barrier.
Unfortunately, I have no such abilities.
“Hey,” I call back, waving my hands in the air. “Please don’t kill me. I’m not armed, see?” I gesture to my belt, where I only carry my excavation tools.
The human’s brows lower. Then, to my surprise, she returns the gun to her holster. She holds up her torch and cocks her head like she’s trying to figure me out.
“I’m just here to investigate,” I try again. “I’m safe. I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.”
The human frowns, probably because she can’t understand me just as much as I can’t understand her. We’re at an impasse.
With a sigh, the human turns away from me. It’s such a foolish move that I’m tempted to run across the room and hit her over the head just to eliminate the threat of her pulling a gun on me. But I came here to find answers, not fight with humans. So I watch what she’s going to do, keeping a safe distance between us.
The little woman approaches the wall, holding up her torch. An image is etched into the rock from floor to ceiling, and she’s staring at it intently, like she’s trying to figure it out.
When I take a few steps back to see the whole thing, I immediately understand why. The picture is clear: two faces, pointed toward each other—one human, the other trollkin. In the middle, near the floor, there are two hands locked together.
“What the fuck?” I say reflexively. The human’s head jerks toward me, and she shakes her head, putting a finger to her lips to shush me.
Huh. At least some gestures are universal.
I decide to obey the woman who has a gun at her hip, even though it annoys me to be shut up like a child. At least I’ve interacted with humans before, and I know they’re not all little wretches. Rimi, Lo’zar’s mate, had irritated me at first, but after a while, she grew on me. All she wanted was to be with my best friend and find her way to safety. How could I hate her when that’s what we all want?
This human, though... I have no such assurances that she won’t try to kill me.
But I’m too curious for caution to reign. Deciding to push my luck, I carry my own lantern closer to the carvings on the wall. What does this mean? Did these ruins belong to trollkin, or to humans, once upon a time? I examine the other walls, holding up my lamp higher. The exact same carving is repeated behind us, as well, the faces so close together they look like they’re about to kiss.
The human appears just as perplexed by it. What have we found down here?
* * *
Vienne
The orc’s got a peculiar device—a lit flame contained with in a protective glass case and equipped with a handle. I didn’t think trollkin were all that advanced, but I’m starting to see I might’ve been wrong.
What’s the chance that we would both arrive here at the same time, in this ancient ruin deep in the swamp? It’s unfathomable that we’d happen to discover it at the same moment, and yet, here we are.
What’s he after?
He doesn’t seem keen to attack, given he has no weapons, and I don’t want to start a fight if I don’t have to. I could always call Raiden and the team, and they’d have him surrounded and outnumbered in seconds—but for some reason, I don’t think that’s necessary. He’s not interested in me, that’s clear. No, he’s curious about what we’ve discovered, too. Could I have found a fellow scholar?
Part of me wishes I could speak their language. I want to know why he’s here, if he’s after the same secrets I am. The King’s History Corps has been cataloguing ancient ruins for quite a few years now, looking for remnants of our past, and occasionally stumbling across some hidden treasure.
Maybe he’s a grave robber, but I don’t think he’ll find that here. This ruin isn’t a grave or a tomb. I think it’s a gathering place, perhaps the seat of some ancient king or queen, if the matching thrones are any indication.
While the orc quietly puzzles over the carvings on the wall, I investigate further, searching the corners. There are bugs galore living here, and I have to push away cobwebs to get a good look at the rock faces. More carvings decorate the rest of the room, these ones appearing to be more like a pictographic script. A script that looks familiar.
I hastily pull out some paper, place it against the wall, and rub my charcoal over it to capture the etchings. I use more and more sheets, trying to record the entire length of it, rolling them up and putting them in my bag when I’ve finished.
I’ve seen some of these characters before in one other ruin we found in the desert of the Hazrain. That was quite an expedition, and one I would rather not repeat. The sand there is brutal. All we found was the tippy-top of a ruin that had mostly sunk into the sand, but after a few days of laborious excavating, we managed to dig out some stones with carvings on them—carvings that looked like these.
Is it really possible they’re connected when they’re so far apart? Could the same people, whether human or trollkin, have actually built cities in both places?
“ Grrak haz arg ,” someone says behind me, and I spin around with my charcoal held out like a knife. I’m not sure what I plan on doing with it, but maybe I could jab it into the orc’s eye.
He tilts his head at me, standing a few feet away, and glances down at the outstretched charcoal in my hand. Then he grabs hold of the big, thick goggles on his head, pulls them down over his eyes, and walks up beside me. I put a few feet of distance between us, but he ignores me, crouching down to get a better look at the carvings. There, he taps a button on top of his goggles.
A tiny metal arm emerges, and I jump back in surprise as it lets out a tinny, mechanical whine. The arm has what appears to be a single lens attached to it, and it settles in front of his goggles. He closes his other eye, peering through the magnifying lens.
“ Urzag grrozek ,” he says, though I think he’s talking to himself, not to me. He hums, then sits back on his heels and taps the button again. The tiny lens retracts into his goggles again, and he pulls them back up onto his head.
This moment should be significantly less companionable than it is. He’s trollkin. I’m human. We’re underground in a massive, ancient ruin together, simply observing and recording.
“ Naz ?” the orc asks me, nodding at the sheaf of paper in my hand. Reluctantly, I hold it out, and he takes it with incredible gentleness. He unrolls the paper and cocks his head, then hands it back to me.
I’m not sure what that was about.
Then the orc rises up to his feet and leaves me again, wandering over to the other side of the room to keep searching. I decide to ignore him for now and continue with my work—as strange as this all is.
But after only a few moments, he calls out to me: “ Yazzen !”
I turn around and find him beckoning me over. My hand drops to the handle of my gun reflexively, and the orc frowns. He shakes his head like he’s disappointed in me, and returns to observing the big mural carved onto the other wall.
“Fine,” I grumble, then head toward him. The orc is tracing the carving around the room with his index finger, and when I approach, he ushers me to follow him back to the center, where the two hands are clasped.
“ Azz yak ,” he says, pointing at something. I stoop to get a closer look, where two circles appear to be cut into the stone. Pressed into them are a pair of handprints: one with five fingers, and a larger one with four fingers.
I glance at the orc, and he’s tapping his chin thoughtfully. Then he lowers his four-fingered hand to the matching print and sets his palm against it, fitting his fingers into the grooves. Reflexively, I do the same thing, fitting my hand neatly into the five-fingered print etched into the stone.
Both circles abruptly depress, sinking into the wall. I gasp and yank my hand away, afraid it might get sucked into some sort of booby trap and cut off. The orc stumbles back, just as surprised.
Then, all around us, there comes a deep and terrible groaning, as if the rocks themselves are moving.
What have we just done?