That happens in lava tubes all the time.
He didn’t believe himself and turned off the scanner, switched his headlamp to a lower beam, and started retracing his steps toward the exit. The closer to the exit he got, the more hestopped thinking like a scientist and started feeling like a trespasser. Not a visitor, or an observer. A trespasser.
The tunnel narrowed in places, then widened in others. Its almost smooth walls were damp with condensation. His headlamp threw long, narrow cones of light against the stone, illuminating the carved glyphs that wrapped along the wall in a spiral so precise it looked machine-laid. His boots crunched over dry stone and embedded grains of black sand. The air had changed three symbols ago—becoming lighter, warmer, and easier to breathe. He paused at the middle glyph and adjusted the beam angle of his headlamp. It caught on a triskelion with broken lines—a swirl turned in on itself that he’d missed.
How did I miss that on the way down?
“Impossible. This whole place is impossible.”
You keep saying that word. And yet you’re standing inside a volcanic cave on a chartless island, face to face with pre-Ogham symbols that match a lakeside boulder in County Waterford. So maybe stop pretending impossible still applies here.
He lowered his pack to the ground and opened it, flipping to his field journal to read the chant again.
Behold, son of Cumhaill, true king.
Under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun,
We bind your power to the bones of the earth,
With the wind’s voice and the tears of stone.
There is no path home,
Unless you turn back upon your own heels.
The only thing that didn’t make sense was that it was only six lines, because the numbers three and nine were way more powerful to the ancient Irish.
Why six and not three or nine?
Did I miss something?
He strode back to the beginning and tracked the symbols again. This time, the glyphs translated more easily in his head. Each one built on the last. He noted the repeating imagery and the pattern and spiral progression they took. He could feel it—linguistically and physically that he was missing something, where the tunnel curved downward on the side of the symbols, almost touching the floor.
“What comes after, ‘with the wind’s voice and the tears of stone,’ and before, ‘there is no path home?’” He was missing something. He felt it in his soul. He just had to find it. Getting on his knees, Ward ran his fingers along the bottom of the wall, feeling with his fingertips for any dips or changes in the smooth rock wall. He’d almost given up when he found it—what felt like the beginning of another spiral.
He had to crouch low and crawl beneath an almost invisible overhang, flashlight in his teeth, to see it. His pulse thudded in his ears as excitement tugged and twisted at the edges of his unease. Wriggling on his back, he slipped in under the overhang and scanned the walls. “There you are.” Whoever carved or put these glyphs here hadn’t wanted this one to be easily found. He worked out the most logical translation in his head from memory, as there wasn’t room to pull out his notebook, and repeated it twice to memorize it.
“Let your breath be silenced by root and flame. Let your breath be silenced by root and flame.” He was now up to seven symbols, which left two missing ones to make the magical number nine. He dug his heels into the rock floor and maneuvered himself deeper under the overhang. “Where are you? Come on. Come into the light.”
The beam of his flashlight caught on an inverted arc, and he could barely make out that it was bisected by three vertical lines which ran like shadows down to disappear out of reach of the light.
Shit, what does that mean?
In his head, words he’d almost forgotten from that day in the Irish Gaeltacht echoed. Ward repeated them twice so he’d remember to write them down correctly.
Let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time. Let your name be forgotten beneath shadowed time.
He decided he’d study them later to see if they fit the sequence. It was a struggle to fish his phone out of his pocket, but he managed it, snapped an image of the glyph, and made a mental note to take one of number seven on the way out. “That’s eight. There has to be one more here somewhere.”
Scooting on his back, he pushed as far forward as he could and stretched his neck, peering at the wall. “There you are.” Three times he tried to take a shot with his phone before he got one that he hoped he’d be able to use. “Now I just need to get out of here.” He managed to get his flashlight out of his mouth and shoved it into his pocket, and somehow was able to fit his phone in there too. Bracing his hands on the rock over his head, hepushed himself forward. “Fuck, I need to start doing more arm workouts.”
He was out of breath by the time he made it to where he could roll over to crawl free of the overhang. “That was a stupid thing to do with no one to make sure I got out.” But he couldn’t bring himself to care. He moved away from the wall and sat, legs folded beneath him, journal open on his thigh, and pulled out his phone to study the photos of the new glyphs.
Let no song find your ears nor light your path.
“Is that correct?” He cocked his head to one side and squinted at the photo. “You know, I think it is.”
Let no song find your ears nor light your path.
