As she continued lifting away rubble, more of the dome appeared. Soon footsteps echoed in the hall. She turned to watch as the five Thinkers climbed down the wall.
Barmonia picked his way over to her, looked down at the dome and scowled.
“Yathyir was probably a bit premature,” she said, shrugging.
He looked at her, eyebrows arching, then turned on his heel.
“Continue,” he ordered.
She rolled her eyes. Turning back to the hole she had made, she resumed shifting dirt and rubble. The dome was large, so she concentrated on removing the debris on one side. An edge appeared. She cleared more and uncovered a wall. Finally the top of an arch appeared. Remnants of a wooden door still hung from a hinge and rubble had tumbled into the structure.
“Halt!” Barmonia barked.
She stopped. He climbed down to the opening and thrust his torch inside. Interior walls were illuminated. He climbed back out again.
“Continue.”
Suppressing a sigh, she cleared the opening. When the entrance was uncovered, Barmonia barked at her to stop again. He moved past her and looked inside, then turned back.
“We’ll do the rest by hand.”
The other Thinkers followed him in. Ray paused beside her. He glanced up at the steep slope of rubble on either side.
“Your hard work is appreciated, Emmea,” he murmured.
She smiled.
He looked up. “It’s unnerving. This crevice and the cracks in the passage run the same direction as the escarpment. I can’t help thinking the city is slowly falling down into the lowlands.”
Emerahl looked at him in surprise, realizing he was probably right.
Ray moved inside the building. Following him, Emerahl paused in the entrance as she saw that the Thinkers were clearing rubble away from a large stone box with their bare hands. Barmonia was grinning broadly and she could sense intense anticipation and excitement. She took a step inside...
... then stopped. A familiar feeling had come over her. Her skin prickled, but it took a few seconds for her to recognize why.
A void. Here of all places. Was this part of the reason no immortal might take the scroll? With no magic, she could not protect or heal herself. But neither could a mortal.
Yathyir had paused to look at her. She forced herself to step over the fissure, all the while watchful for some trap that might spring from the walls, ceiling or floor. The thought of the slab of wall hanging above was suddenly much more discomforting.
Emerahl looked down at the box. It was the shape of a coffin. Barmonia leaned over and blew the dust from the surface, revealing glyphs.
“What does the script say, Emmea?” Ray asked.
She moved forward and traced her fingers over the carvings. “It says: ‘Even that which has no flesh may die.’ ”
“A tomb for a goddess,” Kereon said.
“Well at least this time we won’t be disturbing a corpse,” Barmonia said lightly. Bracing his hands against the edge of the box, he pushed. Nothing happened. Ray joined him and the lid slowly slid aside with a dry, scraping sound.
The men drew in a collective breath of awe and greed.
The torchlight reflected from precious metals and gems. A tangle of chains, vessels, bangles and weapons filled the box, but it was the gold object in the center that demanded attention.
It lay open, the “parchment” artfully curved in a way real skin would not have. The rods at either end were a twisted mess of elaborate trimming, patterns and projections, studded with gems. The runes were also decorated, some so much that the shape of them was distorted.
“It’s beautiful,” Kereon breathed.
“What does it say, Emmea?” Yathyir asked.
Making herself ignore the sheer ugliness of the object, Emerahl focused on the script. She nearly groaned aloud.
“It rhymes. It’s poetry. Very bad poetry.”
“But what does it say?”
Emerahl paused to read. “It’s a history. It tells how the goddess was grieved by the deaths of other gods and... that’s interesting. It says she helped kill them, and felt a terrible guilt.” She paused to read more. “She gave her priest all the secrets of the gods. Here it says she bade him record them in an indestructible form. Then... Well!”
“What?” Barmonia demanded.
Emerahl looked up at him and smiled. “Then she killed herself. Here. In this very place. Do the gods become ghosts, I wonder.”
Yathyir looked around nervously and the others smiled.
“And the secrets?” Ray asked.
“The scroll doesn’t describe them,” she told him, frowning as she realized it was true.
“Let’s take all this out,” Barmonia said. Everyone fell silent as he bent to pick up the scroll. He grunted as he lifted it.
“It’s heavy,” he said. “Yathyir?”
The young man’s eyes widened and he held out his hands for the scroll. “Yes?”
“Not this, you idiot,” Barmonia growled. “Climb back up and bring us something to carry it all in. Packs would be best. Empty packs.”
As Yathyir obediently hurried out of the building, Emerahl followed him. She stepped outside and breathed a sigh of relief as magic surrounded her. Nothing bad had happened to her. Perhaps whatever trap had been set for immortals had long ago deteriorated.
“Emmea?” Ray called.
She turned to see him staring at the remnants of the wooden door, still half buried.
“What is it?” she asked.
He pointed at the door. “What does this say?”
Forcing herself to step back inside, she turned to the door and saw that large glyphs had been carved into the surface. She felt a chill.
“It says: ‘Beware, immortals,’ ” she told him. “There’s more.”
He cleared away more of the rubble, revealing the rest of the message.
“Beware, immortals. No magic lies within. Enter and know your true age.”
She felt a smile tugging at her lips. No magic. A void. Whoever had carved this had believed immortals couldn’t exist within voids. They probably imagined that, without magic to sustain them, immortals would revert to their true age.
