Now there was only darkness, and the only thing that disturbed the silence was his heartbeat. He could hear his own hearth in his ears. Other than this, he looked no different from his father lying on the ground before him without moving.
His father had long been dead. He accepted the reality. It was a disturbing thought that he had never even considered the possibility of this happening. But now, it had become reality. His father was dead.
He waited, and waited. Didn't know how much time passed. His thoughts were blank.
Later when he started to think again, he looked at his father's still open eyes. His eyes still showed the shock before he died. Arsh slowly closed his father's eyes.
He picked up the oil lamp from the ground and stood up. He was trapped here. At least until the villagers came, there was no way anyone could get him out.
Then he realized something. These people covered the tunnel. Probably the villagers knew that there was a well because some of them came here for help when he fell. But it would take time for them to dig the area. He didn't have any food and water with him.
Waiting was pointless. He decided to look for a way byhimself. There were a lot of holes in the well's wall. Maybe he could find a way through these. He started to look for bigger holes.
As he walked, something shining between dry tree roots caught his eye. He bent down and picked it up. It was a flask. When he opened it, he caught the scent of alcohol. Then he remembered a scene that had just happened. Will had thrown things to the well before it was closed.
'I guess he tried to help.'
There was something else he threw. Arsh searched the area and found it. It was a notebook.
'He is really not helpful. What was he thinking?'
It wasn't the notebook he took notes in, but a different one. He didn't think too much and put it in his pocket.
Then he found an idea. Not a bright one. But he decided to work on it. If he stayed here too long and the villagers never found him, he wouldn't even get the chance to get out alive.
There were holes in the walls, made by different animals. If he was lucky, one of them might still open to the outside, and he could widen it enough to crawl through. He picked up a relatively flat piece of wood from the ground and tore a strip from his shirt. Pouring some alcohol over it, he wrapped the cloth around the wood and lit the makeshift torch with the flame of the oil lamp.
He raised the torch and watched the smoke curl slowly upward. Then he held it in front of one of the holes — nothing. He tried another, and another — the same result each time. These were the largest holes, yet they were all closed.
But after several tries, he noticed the smoke was drifting, twisting its way into one of the holes. He waited for a while, watching carefully, to be sure that this one had a connection to the surface.
He felt a bit relaxed but when he thought about the surface almost five meter above him he felt frustrated. But tried not to think about it and took a little and pulled out the small pickaxe from to his belt, started to work.
He dug for a long time. However, the situation didn't look good. The tunnel kept getting narrower, and he was beginning to lose hope of getting out. Fatigue slowly crept in.
He sat on the ground and looked at his father. He would have to bury him or cremate him as a responsibility of a son. Then he shook himself out of the thought. If the villagers didn't come, he would find a solution. For that he had to stay alive.
He was thirsty. He had never drunk alcohol before but he took a sip from the flask to quench his thirst.
"Ahh.. it is horrible"
He didn't like the feeling it gave him. After a while he took another sip. This time, it felt a bit better. He took the pickaxe and started to work again.
…
When he saw the hole narrow at a certain point, he collapsed onto the ground in disappointment.
'There's no other way. What should I do?'
He thought he was going to die here, alongside his father. 'Not that bad, I guess' he told himself.
He put down the pickaxe and went to his father. With some effort, he lifted him onto his back. While supporting his father's body on his back with one hand and holding the oil lamp with his other hand, he started walking towards the burial chamber,
In their culture, when someone died, a person needed a tomb room. These tomb rooms weren't large, but it took effort to prepare one. Generally, only the village elders were buried in such tombs, as a way to show respect. The rest were usually cremated, their memory honored in simpler ways.
As he walked, his father's blood dripped down his naked upper body. It was no longer warm, but cold. Feeling this and realizing what it meant, Arsh bit his lip in pain as much as he can do to not think about pain in his heart.
He carried his father to the tomb chamber and lifted him onto the platform where the sarcophagus had just been. He had to pause several times to rest along the way, but in the end, he managed to lay his father down on the platform.
He couldn't clean the blood off his father's body, only tried to tidy his clothes. If they were going to die here, at least his father would rest in a proper burial chamber.
There was an earring in his father's ear. Arsh took off one of his own earrings and put it on his father's ear, then put his father's earring in his own ear.
"I believe it will connect us when we die"
He was not a very faithful person, but he gave importance to tradition.
Then he stepped down a few stairs and leaned back. He watched the darkness beyond the reach of the oil lamp's light. He would start digging again after some rest. He planned to keep trying until the very end, though he had already accepted the thought of death. He just didn't want to die with fear in his heart.
The image of the girl in the sarcophagus came back to his mind — the glowing symbols, the light radiating from her eyes, the blood flowing all around. He looked down at the wound on his hand.
As he took a sip from the flask in his pocket, Will's notebook came to his mind. He wondered why he had thrown away something like that. Luckily, the alcohol had at least served some purpose.
He took out the notebook and began flipping through the pages. The writing wasn't in Symaraniese but in Old Kurshaniese. Barely half of the notebook was filled.
It was a diary.
Arsh flipped through a few pages. Will was describing an archaeological excavation he had joined with a small group of adventurers. A couple of pages later, his eyes stopped at a drawing. It was a symbol, kind of similar he showed from his other notebook. He decided to read other pages.
"These adventurers are only looking for gold. It is a shame for me to be around them. My friend from school referred me to them and they introduced themselves to me as people who love history. Unfortunately I am someone easily deceived by others…"
"…This excavation helped to me understand a part of history. A lot of people in our lands like this history because they can use it in their conversations to make themselves appear intellectual or they find it exotic and use it as a theme in their noble gatherings. But history is not that simple. If they only know how powerful things the history hide in its darkness. I am even not sure…."
"…After Bertham died. They didn't cremate his body. If his body was mummified, sure there are siunians remained. After he died there is no legend like his. No powerful person appeared in this lands like him. Even if he wanted to no one see his body sure someone take a look of these, maybe his doctor, maybe his wife, maybe his sone, maybe the berson who burry him… So there is no record. Probably there is no one beside him worthy to inherit. It would end with death ıif a person not worthy, or his body collapses slowy, or they can only use small amount of power of siunian… That was what I used to think…"
"We found a burial chamber in the desert near Nertam. Honestly, I didn't expect to see something like this here. It was quite far from the capital of ancient Kuşka, Nevartham. Because there wasn't much treasure inside the chamber, the adventurers — or rather, the grave robbers — were quite disappointed. But I was thrilled. The inscriptions on the side of the sarcophagus shed light on a part of this land's history that had been unknown until no"
"'Here lie my two sons. May their souls be blessed by Arianna — she who was meant to carry my name forward. Not by blood, but by spirit. Even though I tried to keep her from my sons, it was not possible. With her death, the fate of these lands was sealed.'"
"There was a mummy of a boy around twelve or thirteen years old inside the sarcophagus. When the grave robbers plundered the sarcophagus, I saw the symbol on the boy's skin. If my assumption is correct, this Siunian belongs to the Bertham. Perhaps this Siunian was the one that helped the King control the desert sand. I'm noting this down in my journal. I wish I knew how these symbols were used one day. Is there another ritual required when engraving it onto the body, or how one can know whether someone is worthy of bearing it?"
Arsh look through other pages. Will didn't explain exactly how, but he mentioned that he had joined a group and was receiving research support through his connections.
"I'm a little scared. I'm not quite sure what kind of thing I've gotten myself into. But this is the best option I have if I want to move forward and continue my research. Most of the time, the decisions I make cause fear because of my timid nature. I hate the way those fears eat away at me. And most of the time, I know there's actually nothing to be afraid of. I just hope that, once again, my fears turn out to be baseless and I won't regret this decision. Unfortunately, the reason they accepted me among them is my knowledge about the Siunians — and that gives me the uneasy feeling that this time, my fears might be right"
"During the expedition I joined with the tomb raiders, I didn't tell anyone what I found. I'm keeping this siunian to myself. Even though I'm now part of this organization, I'm still just a lower-level researcher. I know they're testing me, trying to understand what I am capable of. What kind of power could people possess who are aware of these siunians' existence and keep them hidden? What could their social implications be? I know the reason they let me in wasn't just because I was successful, but because of the thesis I wrote. They want to observe me… I have to get rid of this notebook."
'So you threw it away because you were afraid.'
Arsh was trying to make sense of what he had just read. He found it a bit foolish — people gaining power by carving those symbols, the Siunians Will mentioned, into their bodies?
But then he began to think it might actually be possible. Nothing he had experienced today was normal. There was definitely something supernatural here.
"It would be nice to have powers like that" he muttered.
He continued examining the notebook under the light of the oil lamp. He glanced at some other drawn symbols, but there were no explanations about them. Then he turned back to the page with the first symbol — the one said to belong to the king of Kuşka.
"If it were possible, this would be the one thing I need the most. A king who used the sands of the desert in battle… If I had such power, I could get out of here."
He thought for a second 'Propably I am going to die here anyway, why don't I give it a try?