Now there was only darkness, and the only thing that disturbed the silence was his heartbeat. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears.
Aside from that, he looked no different from his father, who lay motionless on the ground before him — pale and bloodied
His father was dead. He accepted the reality. It was a disturbing thought that he had never even considered the possibility of this happening. But now, it had become reality. His father was dead.
He waited and waited. He didn't know how much time had passed. His mind was blank.
Later when he started to think again, he looked at his father's still open eyes. His eyes still showed the shock before he died. Arsh slowly closed his father's eyes.
He picked up the oil lamp from the ground and stood up. He was trapped here. At least until the villagers came, there was no way he could get out.
Then he realized something. These people had covered the well. The villagers probably knew there was a well here because some of the men had gone to the village to get help when he first fell. But it would take time for them to find the exact spot and dig him out.
Waiting was pointless. He decided to look for a way out by himself. There were many holes in the well's wall. He thought maybe he could find a path through one of them. He slowly began searching for a larger opening.
As he walked, something shining between the dry tree roots caught his eye. He bent down and picked it up. It was a flask. When he opened it, he caught the scent of alcohol. Then, he remembered the scene that had just happened: Will had thrown things into the well before it was sealed.
"I guess he tried to help. He didn't look like he knew what was going on either."
Then he remembered there was something else Will had thrown. Arsh searched the area and found it. It was a notebook.
"He really isn't helpful. What was he thinking?"
It wasn't the notebook Will took notes in, but a different one. Arsh didn't think too much about it and tucked it into his pocket.
Then, an idea came to him. It wasn't a great one, but he decided to try it anyway. If he stayed here too long and the villagers never found him, he wouldn't have a chance to get out alive. He had to try everything.
The holes in the walls had been made by different animals. If he was lucky, one of them might still lead to the outside, and he could widen it enough to crawl through. He picked up a piece of wood from the ground and tore a strip from his shirt. After pouring some alcohol over it, he wrapped the cloth around the wood and lit the makeshift torch with the flame of the oil lamp.
He raised the torch and watched the smoke curl slowly upward. Then he held it in front of one of the holes—nothing. He tried another, and another—the same result each time. These were the largest holes, yet they were all closed. When his torch extinguished, he made another one and started to try again.
He failed and failed again.
After who knows how many tries, he noticed the smoke was drifting, twisting its way into one of the holes. He waited for a while, watching carefully to be sure that this one had a connection to the surface.
He felt a bit relieved, but when he thought about the surface almost five meters above him, he felt frustrated. He tried not to think about it. Pulling the small pickaxe from his belt, he started to work.
...
He sat on the ground and looked at his father. He knew it was his responsibility as a son to bury or cremate him. Then he shook the thought away. If the villagers didn't come, he would have to find a solution himself, but for that, he had to stay alive.
He was thirsty. He had never drunk alcohol before. He held Will's flask and smelled it for a while. There wasn't much left. He took a sip to quench his thirst.
"Ahh... it's horrible."
He didn't like the feeling it gave him. After a while, he took another sip. This time, it felt a bit better. He picked up the pickaxe and started to work again.
But when he saw the hole narrow down to the size of his fist at a certain point, he collapsed onto the ground in disappointment.
"There's no other way. What should I do?"
He thought he was going to die here, alongside his father.
"Not that bad, I guess," he told himself.
He put down the pickaxe and went to his father. With some effort, he lifted him onto his back. Supporting his father's body with one hand and holding the oil lamp with the other, he started walking toward the burial chamber.
In their culture, when someone died, a person needed a tomb room. These tomb rooms weren't large, but it took effort to prepare one. Generally, only the village elders were buried in such tombs, as a way to show respect. The rest were usually cremated, their memories honored in simpler ways.
As he walked, his father's blood dripped down his back. It was no longer warm, but cold. Feeling this and realizing what it meant, Arsh bit his lip as hard as he could to distract himself from the pain in his heart.
He carried his father to the burial chamber and lifted him onto the platform where the sarcophagus had just been. He had to pause several times to rest along the way, but in the end, he managed to lay his father down on the platform.
He couldn't clean the blood off his father's body; he only tried to tidy his clothes. If they were going to die here, at least his father would rest in a proper burial chamber.
There was an earring in his father's ear. Arsh took off one of his own earrings and placed it on his father's ear, then put his father's earring in his own.
"I believe it will connect us when we die," he whispered.
He was not a very religious person, but he valued tradition.
Then he stepped down a few stairs and leaned back. He watched the darkness beyond the reach of the oil lamp's light.
He would continue digging after a short rest. Though he had already accepted the possibility of death, he planned to keep trying until the very end. He just didn't want to die with fear in his heart.
That day, everything had happened so fast.
As he went over each moment in his mind, the image of the girl in the sarcophagus returned to him — the glowing symbols, the light radiating from her eyes, the blood flowing all around…
He looked down at the wound on his hand.
Then again he took another sip from the flask and took Will's notebook. He wondered why he had thrown away something like that. Luckily, the alcohol had at least served some purpose.
He began flipping through the pages. The writing wasn't in Symaraniese but in Old Kurshaniese. Barely half of the notebook was filled.
It was a diary.
Arsh flipped through a few pages. Will was describing an archaeological excavation he had joined with a small group of adventurers. A couple of pages later, his eyes stopped at a drawing. It was a symbol, somewhat similar to the one shown in his other notebook. Then, he started to read.
"These adventurers are only looking for gold. I feel ashamed to be around them. My friend referred me to them and they introduced themselves to me as people who love history. Unfortunately I am someone easily deceived by others…"
"… This excavation helped me understand a part of history we don't know much about. A lot of people in Symran like Kurshan history because they can use it in their conversations to appear intellectual, or they find it exotic and use it as a theme in their noble gatherings. But history is not that simple. If they only knew what kind of power it hides in its darkness... I am not even sure myself, nor do I think others truly know..."
"… After Bertham died, they didn't cremate his body. If his body was mummified, surely there are siunis remaining. After his death, no legend like his ever followed. No one as powerful as him has appeared in these lands since. Even if he didn't want anyone to see his body, surely someone caught a glimpse—maybe his doctor, his wife, his son, or the person who buried him. Yet, there is no record. Perhaps there was no one beside him worthy to inherit his power. If a person is not worthy, their body slowly collapses, or they can only use a small amount of the siuni's power. At least, that was what I used to think…"
" We found a burial chamber in the desert near Nertham. Honestly, I didn't expect to see something like this here, so far from Nevartham, the ancient capital of Kuşka. Since there wasn't much treasure inside, the adventurers—or rather, the grave robbers—were quite disappointed. But I was thrilled. The inscriptions on the side of the sarcophagus shed light on a part of this land's history that had been unknown until now."
"' Here lies my son. May his soul be blessed by Arianna—he who was meant to carry my name forward. Not by blood, but by spirit. Even though I tried to shield him from my sons born of my own seed, it was not possible. With his death, the fate of these lands was sealed.'"
"There was a mummy of a boy around twelve or thirteen years old inside the sarcophagus. When the grave robbers plundered it, I saw the symbol on the boy's skin. If my assumption is correct, this siuni belongs to Bertham. Perhaps this siuni was the one that helped the King control the desert sand. I'm noting this down in my journal. I hope to learn how these symbols were used one day. How one can know whether someone is worthy of bearing it? I wonder about their origins. How they first appeared and how they vanished? "
Arsh looked through the other pages. Will didn't explain exactly how, but he mentioned that he had joined a group and was receiving funding for his research through his new connections.
"I'm a little scared. I'm not quite sure what exactly I've gotten myself into. But this is the best option I have if I want to move forward and continue my research. Most of the time, the decisions I make cause fear because of my timid nature. I hate the way that fear eats away at me. And most of the time, I know there's actually nothing to be afraid of. I just hope that, once again, my fears turn out to be baseless and I won't regret this decision. Unfortunately, the reason they accepted me is because of my knowledge of the siunis — and that gives me the uneasy feeling that this time, my fears might be right."
"... I didn't tell anyone what I found after the expedition I joined with the adventurers; I'm keeping this siuni to myself. Even though I'm now part of this organization, I'm still just a low-level research assistant. I know they're testing me, trying to understand what I'm capable of. What kind of power could people possess who are aware of these siunis' existence and keep them hidden? What could the social implications be? I know the reason they let me in wasn't just because I was smart, but because of the thesis I wrote. They want to observe me… I have to get rid of this notebook."
'So you threw it away because you were afraid.'
Arsh was trying to make sense of what he had just read. He found it a bit foolish — the idea of people gaining power by carving those symbols, or the 'siunis' as Will mentioned, into their own bodies?
But then he began to think it might actually be possible. Nothing he had experienced today was normal. There was definitely something supernatural here.
"It would be nice to have powers like that," he muttered.
He continued examining the notebook under the light of the oil lamp. He glanced at some other drawn symbols, but there were no explanations for them. Then he turned back to the page with the first symbol—the one said to belong to the King of Kuşka.
"If it were possible, this would be the one thing I need the most. A king who used the sands of the desert in battle… If I had such power, I could get out of here."
He thought for a second,
"I'm probably going to die here anyway, so why not give it a try?"