it flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands
like some grave might thought threading a dream,
and times and things, as in that vision, seem
keeping along it their eternal strands
There had been a sandstorm last night, one that changed the mountainous dunes of the Mors and covered the entire city in a fine layer of sand. The wind had rattled the windows of the citadel; it had whipped and hissed outside, like a beast possessed, and Orestes the next morning left the citadel through a back door and descended the cliffside upon which the rear of Solterra is built. From there, Ariel led him deep into the desert, further and further, until the pair of them found themselves wandering the carcass of some fantastical beast.
First, Orestes wonders if it is perhaps @Raum ’s deceased basilisk. The skull of the serpent is large enough for a grown horse to stand between the serrated teeth, as if laughing at death. Ariel does not possess reverence for the dead monster; he leaps atop the skull with the grace inherent to any cat, and walks a haphazard path down the serpent’s ridged spine.
“Here is a lesson in kingship, my Lord.” Ariel’s voice is like thunder, like rage, like the resounding crash of the sea against rocks.
Orestes humours him. “And what is that, Ariel?”
The cat does not seem amused. “There are skeletons in Solterra’s closet larger than most.” The lion walks down the spine of the serpent. Orestes realises, then, that this is not what Ariel had brought him to see.
No. The tail winds, and winds, until it comes to twist around cutting Entrada pillars, made of deep red sandstone. Ariel follows it further, further, to the pillars, where at last the lion abandons the carcass with a clatter of bone and movement. Orestes follows through the rib-cage of the beast, at once reverent and puzzled.
“The catacombs,” Ariel says, at last. He rests atop the pillars that guard a pitted entrance. The entrance itself is cobwebbed and covered in sand. It is scarcely wide enough for Orestes to fit, if he were to want to. But, at the moment, he doesn’t want to. “Ariel, there is a much larger, seemingly safer entrance in the center of Solterra at the moment. I’m not sure it’s in my best interest to venture down a desert cave, under the presumption this same cave will lead to—“
Ariel cuts him off. “Orestes, it is an entrance.” The Sun Lion drops from the pillar easily and, with a condescending glance over his shoulder, Ariel slips through the cobwebs and desert debris into the dark opening.
For a little while, the fierce sunlight above glows through the sandstone roofing; but the entrance slants downward at an angle, and eventually the only light is the light that emits from Ariel’s body. It casts the cavern into a pale yellow glow, and Orestes follows closely. He does not feel fear, necessarily, but apprehension wells within him in the same way the sea swells during a storm. Orestes has never thought of it so coherently before, but he has always found safety in the openness of the desert or the sea. The walls brush his shoulders and the ceiling overhead, at times, bumps against his neck and head. Orestes continues to follow, however, with a sort of blind trust that erects itself sometimes between those who are Bonded.
Eventually, the entrance opens into a larger cavern. Ariel begins to glow more feverishly; heat wafts from his skin, and the light ascends to the ceiling of this cavern, too. Orestes’s hoof clips a rock, and the sound echoes for much longer than it ought to.
The cavern is massive; so massive, the darkness of it threatens to eat up Ariel’s light. They begin to walk much more carefully, and keep to the wall. Orestes finds himself staring out into absolute darkness, stretching beyond the radius of Sun Lion’s reach. When he glances closer at hand, to the wall they walk closely to, Orestes discovers painted hieroglyphics and a scene of a sandstone city with an oasis at the center. A griffin rests at the base of a large pyramid, and oversees a large crowd of bustling equines. Among them, Sun Lion shine metallic against the wall. Ariel pauses to examine the mural before rather recklessly departing from the wall and walking into the darkness.
After a slight pause, Orestes begins to follow him.
“I have been awake at night,” says Ariel. “Sometimes, I explore these new catacombs. They stretch far from city itself, and the further one ventures, the less they seem to connect to the Solterra we know today.” Ariel paces carefully around a large, rectangular pedestal. Orestes pauses to examine it, in the Sun Lion's light. It gleams like nacre, or opal, inlaid with gold and an opaque, gleaming substance not unlike obsidian. Strangely crystalline. Orestes realises, when Ariel’s light glints off the surface, it is not a pedestal at all. Orestes does not recognise what it could possibly be, with ornate symbols and clearly drawn equines in worship—
“It’s a sarcophagus,” Ariel answers. “Older, and different, then a tomb or a crypt. There is a corpse in there.” Orestes finds it deeply troubling, and as Ariel explains, Orestes feels as if the darker shadow within the crystal encasement seems to be vaguely equine.
Haltingly, as if enamoured, they begin to continue. They do not make it far before a clattering, metallic sound echos in the darkness. Ariel’s light immediately goes out and they are plunged into a darkness more absolute than Orestes has ever known.
It is silent for several long moments. Then, Ariel asks in a thunderous voice, “Who is there?”
It echoes, and echoes, and echoes.
Orestes thinks it is far more likely the past will answer, than any mortal voice. For the first time, true apprehension begins to creep up his neck and cool his blood. The Sovereign is afraid.
caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
that roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
of high Sesostris, and that southern beam
the laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
"Orestes" || "Ariel"
