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To See  by Eredadain

Inspired by Tolkien, in humility and deference.

— Eredadain

Thanks to daw the minstrel for beta reading! 

To See

ONE: The Shadow of the Past

Chris Aiken looked up from the cook stove at the approaching truck.  Black with a yellow stripe from fender to tailgate, it looked like an angry snake speeding across the dry riverbed.  The dust it raised drifted slowly east, blenching the sun just rising over the decaying mountains lurking on the edge of sight.  The dust made the sun red, doing nothing to improve Chris’ mood.  He stood and waited as the truck slid into the campsite, tin cup of coffee steaming in the morning chill.

The man who stepped from the truck was tall, well over seven feet, and dressed entirely in rich, black leather.  Black hair hung straight to the middle of his back, plaited today into a single heavy braid.  The raven of his hair contrasted sharply with the marble white skin of his face.  Depending if the face was in sun or shadow, it shifted from beatific to corpselike.  The eyes were hidden by sun glasses that reflected nothing.

“You have news.”  The man’s voice flowed from his thin lips like a cold fog.  Each word seemed to go on endlessly until it dropped into nothingness.  The s stung Chris’ ears.

“Nothing much.  I told you I would call you when I had something definitive.  Kjarl needs to shut the hell up…”

“Kjarl does as he is told, as should you.  Even though you excel at what you do, you are not the only archaeologist in this field.  Remember, all are expendable.  Tell me what you have found.”  The engine of the truck ticked quietly as it cooled.  Across the flat the dust settled to the warming earth.  The sun rode to yellow above the hills.

Chris looked at the tall man with unhidden dislike.  “Just because I take your money, Samuel, doesn’t mean you own me.  I run this dig, and when I find something important, I'll tell you.  If I called you every time I dug up some old rock or piece of iron, you might as well live here.  This riverbed has some historical fragments; there was obviously human activity here at one time.  But it’s too ancient to make much of it.  Some of the smaller stones show signs of being worked, and there are elevated levels of iron in the soil.  But other than that there’s not much.  The biggest artifact so far is the corner of a larger block, maybe one meter by one meter.  It’s too square to be natural, but it could be anything, maybe nothing more than part of an old bridge.”

“What of the seismic readings, the ones that show larger pieces?”  Chris caught the barest tremor of excitement in the normally inflectionless voice.

“That’s why Kjarl needs to keep quiet!”  Chris growled.  “I told you I’d tell you when I find something.  Anomalies are nothing until confirmed by excavation.  What if it’s simply an ore deposit?  Or an underground spring?  Hell, it could even be random variation in the instrumentation.  The heavy equipment is coming later today, but it’ll take me two to three days to dig that deep.  I’ll call you when I get close.  For the time being, stay away!  All you do is slow me down and get in my way.  And tell that sneaky shit Kjarl to stay out of my way too, or he might find himself on the wrong side of a shovel."  Chris tossed the dregs of his coffee at Samuel’s feet.  The splatter made little pockmarks in the dust.  One cold drop flecked the polished steel of Samuel’s boot tip.

“You are treading dangerous ground, my friend.”  Samuel pulled himself even taller.  His icy voice seemed to fall from his mouth and coil around Chris’ feet.  “I will tell you what is important or not, when I am to be called, and when I arrive or leave.”  He pointed at Chris’ heart with his left hand.  Chris noticed, as if for the first time, the missing finger.  “And if you cross me, or fail to learn respect…well, there are worse things than death.”  Samuel clenched his hand shut.  Chris felt his throat constrict, and for a brief instant, a bright light flashed in his mind.  As quickly as it came it was gone.  All that remained was the false flare on the back of his eyelids, spots that as they faded took on the disconcerting shapes of serpentine eyes, lidless and rimmed in red.  Samuel got in the truck and roared into the east.  Chris stood silent for a long time after the truck was out of sight.  For the first time in his life he felt something akin to fear, and accompanying helplessness.  It was a feeling he did not relish.

*      *        *

A phone call.  Is that all it takes to wreck a man?  To set him on a path otherwise successfully avoided all his life?  It was a slippery slope, the descent into fear.  Fear bred self loathing.  Self loathing meant failure.  Failure, ultimately, meant death.  Chris had conquered all these things on his way to where he stood now, cheating death and reaping the rewards.  In a world where failure meant death, and success meant life, Chris had been successful for a long, long time.  But now…something here was different.  There was something here Chris didn’t understand, and a man, maybe, whose power Chris must take seriously.  Chris had “found things” for other powerful men before, but each time the client eventually recognized who was in charge.  This time felt different.  Only pride kept Chris from jumping in the jeep and heading west.  I should have forced a face to face with Samuel before I signed anything, Chris thought, as he fitted the coupling of the plasma hose to the generator.  But Kjarl was adamant that all dealings would be with him until the contract was signed.  “My client is a busy man,” Kjarl said over and over in response to Chris’ demands.  Chris had not been allowed to meet Samuel until after the deal was completed, or maybe things would have been different.  It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.  Kjarl was an effective negotiator, and the large sums of cash he offered seemed ridiculous for the apparent simplicity of the job: survey twenty kilometers of old river bed for remnants of an ancient city.  Fifty percent now and the balance upon proof the city existed and its exact location.  Child’s play.  But as soon as the ink was dry Samuel appeared, his cold voice and piercing eyes making Chris regret his decision.  And what rankled the worst was Chris’ inability to shake the discomfort or thrust it aside.  Whenever he was around Samuel, he got the feeling his skin was slowly being peeled back, every nerve and thought exposed to that baleful glare.  Fear was as foreign to Chris as failure, so quitting was never a viable option.  But working under the constant enmity was wearing.  Tension and isolation were conspiring to crack Chris’ solid foundation.  He hoped this latest seismograph proved fruitful.  Six months of this crap and both he and Samuel were losing patience.  The money was phenomenal, but at what cost to himself?

Chris looked over the deck of the plasma shovel at the growing hole, nearly sixty meters deep and one hundred on each side.  Two days of digging had brought him this far below the level of the plain.  Slow going.  The plasma shovel was powerful enough to move this much dirt in an hour, but for this work Chris needed delicacy, at which the plasma beam also excelled.  Computers directed the cutting beam, set to remove normal substrate and leave other objects as directed by the operator.  The problem was, Chris didn’t know what he was looking for, so he had to work around every object larger than a pebble.  Still, it would have taken dozens of workers months to excavate this deep with shovels and brooms, a time frame Samuel made clear he was not willing to accept.  Nor was Samuel willing to have so many people know his business.  So Chris plied the plasma shovel alone, stopping frequently to catalog strata and artifacts, thankful at least for Samuel’s bankroll.

Thus far the excavation had revealed only one item of note: at fifty meters, nestled among the normal river stones and debris, a fossilized tusk of gigantic proportions.  Though broken at the base, the tusk measured over six meters in length.  No expert in ancient fauna, Chris was still amazed that he had never heard of any elephant type animal that had grown such tremendous appendages.  Tagged and bagged, the tusk lay in the shade of the tent.  Chris had had to use the jeep to drag it from the hole.

But that was it, the only intact bone.  Though this river was long dead, it had once been mighty.  The section where Chris worked was nearly half a mile wide, sloping gently to the east and the rising hills, and rising rougher and more abruptly to the hills to the west.  Once it must have teemed with life of all kinds.  One of the facts of nature is that water gathers men and animals, and where life gathers, so does death.  There were a few fossils of fish and other aquatic creatures, and isolated pockets of calcium deposits, but whatever had killed the river had also eliminated all other traces of life.  A mystery.  One Chris had no time to ponder.  The plasma beam whittled away at the hole, millimeters at a time, vaporizing and recondensing the soil in growing piles away beyond the camp, little mountains shadowed by the collapsing mountains to the west.  Finally Chris shut down the machine as the sun dipped below the earth.  Purple fingers fled across the plain, pulling down the mantle of dark.

As he lay on his cot that night, Chris felt in his bones he was digging in the right place.  In his mind’s eye he could see the relief of the plain laid out below him, as if he were an eagle soaring high above this tortured land.  The dry river bed ran from the north, at times creating a floodplain several miles across.  During the last ice age, some one hundred- forty thousand years ago, massive ice fields covered the land to the north.  Water and time had flattened the mountains and widened the valley, but the melt had been so gradual the valley was not gouged by the flowing water, but had rather been filled by silt.  And then, somewhere to the north, the land had risen and shut this river off.  The earth changed, and what once must have been green and fair was now desolate and barren.  Mountains far to the south, nearer the sea, had risen, shutting off this land from the ocean moisture.  It was a yellow land, warm but not hot.  Dry as dust.  Near where Chris was digging, the river had once forced its way between two opposing mountain chains.  To the east the now lowered hills marched north and south, paralleling the river for hundreds of miles.  To the west a line of hills, once great mountains, ran perpendicular to the river, terminating in a larger out thrust of bare rock, like a finger pointing directly at the excavation.  Where the river thrust through these ancient ramparts would have been a natural location for a city of men.  Tomorrow might bring better news.

*      *        *

It was dark.  The stars swung in unfamiliar constellations and a strange moon hung uncomfortably in the sky.  Wolves howled in the distance.  Chris held his arms out before him, and the moon came and settled in his hands.  To his surprise the moon was smooth as glass.  Suddenly the moon went dark, but shimmery, as if reflecting starlight in its mirrored surface.  The sound of hooves silenced the wolves, and at a distance, but nearer, came the sound of metal beating on metal, and faint screams, and a man yelling in a tongue he did not understand.  There came a roar, loud but faint as the ocean, and then a piercing shriek that raised the hairs on his neck, even in sleep.  Concentrating to hear the faint noises, Chris became aware that the moon in his hands was growing very heavy.  Slowly he sank under its weight and was overcome, but he felt neither pain nor sadness.  The moon killed him.  But that, he was sure, it had the right to do.

*      *        *

No memory of the dream remained as Chris fired up the plasma shovel for the day’s digging.  Seismic readings taken yesterday at the bottom of the hole confirmed dense objects starting within approximately ten meters.  What’s more, the objects appeared to be oblong in shape, which lessened the chance that he’d been digging for nothing more than erratic boulders washed down from the mountains.  Besides, he knew beyond a doubt that there was something there, something meaningful.  Each time in his life when he’d made a major discovery, it was preceded by this papery feeling, as if the boundary of the hidden world he was closing in on had texture.  To breach this boundary, bring to life the dead things of an ancient world, was the ultimate triumph.  Understanding and truth lay in wait beneath the rough skin of the world.  A careful and patient man, one who took time to learn from these treasures, was prepared for the time when he would be placed beneath the ground.  Chris knew as one who had seen, nothing lies unburied, as nothing lies buried forever.

It took three hours to dig the remaining ten meters.  Chris pushed hard, telling the machine to ignore any object smaller then ten centimeters.  Still, as he approached the objects, time seemed to slow, until finally the plasma beam jittered and danced around a pale white stone, exposing first the top, and then one meter of the side closest to the shovel.  Chris shut down the unit and walked slowly down the depression.

The stone appeared to be polished granite.  The surface, though pocked, shone slightly reflective in the sun.  Most surprising of all were the faint markings graven into the stone.  The carvings were unlike any language Chris had ever seen.  As he traced his finger through the runes, a feeling of sadness washed over him.  Faintly he heard the clang of metal on metal, and the neighing of horses.  Standing with a start and looking around, there was nothing but the soft whir of the solar generator and the sighing of the wind.  With a shiver, he climbed back onto the shovel and started clearing the remaining dirt.

*      *        *

Chris knew he should have called Samuel two days ago, when he first uncovered the stones, but something, pride, maybe, or spite, held him back.  Now that he had discovered the ancient city, he was loath to let it go, give it over to Samuel for whatever purpose.  After the first day it was a moot point anyway.  He’d uncovered so much, working late into the night, that Samuel would know he hadn’t “just” uncovered it a short time ago.  Chris’ only excuse now would be to plead radio failure.  Certain parts had magically fused together in the night.

Another thing holding him back was the feeling that he, Chris, and only he, was meant to find something hidden at the site.  Though the dreams were lost upon waking, they left a residue of memory, like a scent from childhood, and as the days went on the scent strengthened.  The ghosts of lost dreams were piling up, nearly ready to break through into the waking day.  Chris sensed this as he picked dirt away from the growing expanse of city.  Nearly a full block now lay exposed, crumbled streets and avenues and jumbled walls, and at the edge of the digging, the top of a wall the seismograph indicated went straight down several meters.  Chris surmised it was a wall built on the edge of the river.  He was starting to visualize the layout of the city and how it fit the terrain, even though thousands of centuries had passed.  A strong part of him now said to forgo unburying the city, and to focus on the river bed.  This stood in opposition to common sense, but Chris was used to following his hunches, so today he was excavating along the river wall, tearing down through the layers of silt at a frenetic pace, looking for he didn’t know what, but giving in to the sense of urgency he felt prickling in the back of his brain.

In the late afternoon, as the sun was slipping behind the piles of tailings, the plasma shovel unexpectedly shut down.  For ten hours it had done nothing but remove sand and fine gravel.  The river lay exposed for nearly three hundred meters south along the great wall.  The wall ran along the edge of a great causeway, and down ten meters right to the original bed of the river.  After all these millennia the stones still fit tight and true, and the wall remained unbent and unbuckled.  Near the base of the wall was where the shovel had shut down.  Chris looked at the display screen.  UNKNOWN MATERIAL was flashing in bright blue letters.  Chris typed a few commands and the machine whirred to life.  The plasma beam spit from the end of the probe and then quit.  UNKNOWN MATERIAL flashed on the screen.  Chris jumped down and sprinted to the end of the digging.  There, under a fine layer of dust, gleamed the top of what appeared to be a sphere of dark matter.  Taking out a trowel, he slowly dug the soft sand away from the object.  Finally he was able to lift it out, a warm, smooth ball, approximately forty centimeters across, heavy in the cradle of his hands.  Looking down, Chris knew he held his death in his hands, but no part of him cared.  The stone was his by right, and his fate was no longer his. 





        

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