Vasily shrugged. “But why did the crew go to such lengths to drag it here, to protect it?”
Lomonosov waved to Orlov. “The lamp... bring it closer.”
Vasily nodded for his lieutenant to follow this instruction. Lomonosov pointed to a section of the tusk.
Across most of its curved length, the coarse exterior husk had been shaved down to the ivory beneath, creating a canvas for an ancient artist. Fine scrollwork had been engraved into the ivory. Unfortunately, age and weather had shattered the handiwork into fragmented pieces.
Still, there remained enough to reveal glimpses of some city, one marked by pyramidal structures.
Lomonosov choked on his words. “It’s... it’s just as Captain Razin described...”
“But who etched it?” Orlov asked. “Was it one of the crew?”
Lomonosov ignored the question. Even Vasily knew this couldn’t be true. This was far older than any of the dead men.
Lomonosov confiscated Orlov’s lamp and set about examining the length of the tusk. He illuminated every surface, occasionally revealing other glimpses: a broken tower, a decorated throne, a sliver of a moon.
“What’s being depicted here?” Vasily asked.
Lomonosov stiffened and brought the light closer to the ivory. He stared at a section for several breaths—then passed the lamp to Vasily. “Hold this.”
After Vasily took the lantern, Lomonosov stepped back and fumbled through the inner layers of his heavy frock. Vasily used the moment to study what had triggered such a reaction in the man.
The lamplight revealed another scrap of scrollwork, just a sliver, but enough to reveal a trace of writing, one that looked more crudely inscribed, perhaps a hasty addition.
Vasily squinted at the letters. “This writing... it almost looks—”
“Greek,” Lomonosov confirmed as he withdrew a small book from an inner pocket. “I believe it’s a name. One that has echoed across millennia.”
“What name?” Orlov asked, looking warily back at the bodies.
Lomonosov leafed through the pages, then stopped and showed Vasily a passage. “This is written by Pindar, a Greek lyricist of the sixth centuryB.C., from the tenth section of hisPythian Odes.”
Vasily frowned and shook his head, failing to understand the significance.
Lomonosov sighed and tapped a finger under a single word in that passage. “Does this not look familiar?”
Vasily stared between what was written on the page and what was engraved on the horn. “It looks like the same word—at least a fragment of it—has been carved into the ivory. But what does it mean?”
“Like I said, it marks a name, a mythic place.” Lomonosov returned to study the depiction of the pyramids.
“What place?” Vasily pressed him.
“Hyperborea.”
Vasily scoffed with disbelief. All who sailed these seas had heard of the legendary lost continent to the north, a land free of ice, richly forested and populated by a nearly immortal people. Many explorers had gone in search of—
Vasily straightened as understanding struck him. He gave Lomonosov a hard look. “Is that what these poor souls had gone looking for—not the Northeast Passage, but Hyperborea?”
“At the request of Empress Catherine,” Lomonosov confirmed.
Vasily clenched a fist. “Then they were doomed from the start.”
Lomonosov kept his gaze on the curve of tusk. “It was indeed a daunting task given to them. To quote Pindar, ‘Neither by ship nor on foot could you find the marvelous road to the meeting-place of the Hyperboreans.’”
“In other words, a fool’s errand.”
Lomonosov stared at Vasily with a raised brow. “Do you dare call our empress a fool?”
