Ashes and Oaths

Chapter 78: Ancient Symbols

Mestre Escuro stood on one of the watchtowers near the burned and collapsed cathedral. He looked out at the city below, the smoke still lingering in the air. As the sun set, the lights coming from some of the houses and the embers from burned down houses became clearer to see. His gaze was distant and unfocused, as he recalls the past.

“You must be Escuro,” Estela Astuta said cheerfully. “It is very nice to meet you.” She shook his hand. Escuro smiled shyly at her cheerful tone and shook her hand. “Thank you, I am glad to be here,” he said with equal friendliness. “I look forward to working with you.” She pulled her hand back, her hazel green eyes bright with excitement as she gestured toward the crumbling stone pillars surrounding them. Vines snaked around the weathered masonry, and the air smelled of damp earth and old dust. “I have already made some progress with the eastern corridor,” she said, stepping closer to a section of wall covered in faint, etched symbols. “The runes here seem to describe a star map, but they are faded. I think the humidity from the sea air is eating away at the stone.” She picked up a small brush from a nearby wooden crate and lightly swept away some debris from a carved line. “Come, look. If we can decipher this sequence, it might tell us where the central chamber is located. I have been stuck on this part for weeks.”

Estela turned back to Escuro, her expression eager. “My father taught me a trick,” he said, his tone professional. “If you rub something like dried ink or charcoal onto the surface, the symbols become clearer.” He took a glass container out of his satchel, with a blueish black powder inside. “May I?” he asked considerably, trying not to overstep. Her eyebrows shot up. She had not heard of such method before, and her curiosity immediately piqued. “Dried ink or charcoal,” she repeated, leaning in closer to peer at the glass container. “I have only even used water and a soft brush. That sounds much more efficient.” She stepped back to give him space, her hands clasped behind her back in anticipation. “Please, go ahead. I would love to see how it works.” She watched him intently; her head tilted slightly to the side. The ruins were quiet around them, save for the distant sound of waves crashing against the island’s cliffs and the occasional rustle of wind through the vines.

The afternoon sun filtered through the gaps in the ceiling, casting long, dusty beams across the stone floor. “If this works, we might be able to map out the entire eastern wing by tomorrow,” Estela added, her voice low with excitement. Escuro carefully opened the glass container and sprinkled some of the dust on his hand. Then he gently rubbed it onto the surface of the pillar. “May I use that brush?” he asked, his brown eyes focused on the markings on the pillar. She nodded quickly, handing him the small brush. “Yes, of course. Here.” She watched him work with rapt attention, her breath held slightly as the blueish black powder met the weathered stone. As he brushed away the excess, the faint indentations of the ancient symbols began to darken, catching the pigment and standing out against the grey surface like ink on parchment. “Look at that,” she whispered, leaning in so close her shoulders nearly brushed his. “It is working. The pigment is settling right into the grooves.”

Estela pointed to a specific cluster of marking that had been nearly invisible moments before. “That sequence there– the one that looks like a crescent moon with three dots beneath it. I could not make sense of it before, but now it is so clear. It is not a moon at all? It looks more like a constellation.” Below the mark is another mark that looks like a water drop. “I have seen this symbol before,” Escuro said excitedly and pulled out a journal from his satchel. He hurriedly paged through the journal and then stopped at a page with a similar mark. “Here, the ancients worshipped the flow of water.” She leaned over his shoulder, her hazel green eyes darting between the journal and the pillar. “The flow of water,” she murmured, tracing the shape of the symbol in the air with her finger. “That explains why these ruins are built so close to the cliffside. They were not just building houses; they were building something that needed to be near the sea.”

Estela straightened up, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. “If the water drop symbol is connected to the constellation above it, maybe the constellation represents the tides. A map of how the starts influence the ocean.” She turned back to the pillar, scanning the newly darkened markings for anything else that might fit this pattern. “Escuro, look at this line here,” she said, pointing to a long, winding groove that ran horizontally across the stone. “It does not look like a symbol. It looks like a path or a river.” Over the next few weeks Estela and Escuro mapped out all the symbols in the ruins until they found information that led them to a river flowing through the island and entering a cave below the ruins on the north side. Salvaxe was the guide that led them to the rugged, mountainous landscape, where a dark cave entrance was set into the side of a steep grey rock cliff, its interior fading quickly into shadow so that nothing inside is visible the cave mouth is irregular and jagged, as though carved naturally over time. On either side of the river, the terrain is rocky and uneven, dotted with patches of green grass and small shrubs clinging to the mountainside. A few evergreen trees grow along the slope.

A clear, turquoise river flows from the foreground toward the cave, its surface rippling and foaming as it moves over scattered rocks. The water appears cold and fast-moving, with white froth forming where it breaks against stone along the riverbed. “I will wait outside,” Salvaxe said as they neared the entrance. “I hate caves.” So, Estrela and Escuro entered alone.