The lunch break arrived in the blink of an eye, and everyone gradually returned to the encampment.
Marto, apron tied and humming, was distributing sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil to those who came for their meal, while simultaneously stirring the sizzling meat in a small frying pan with one hand. Cyclops had specially asked Marto to prepare a more refined lunch for the two soldiers: grilled fish with crushed fennel and candied onions.
Of course, there were no drugs in it or anything, even if we weren't lacking the desire.
When the soldiers took their trays, the faded snake tattoos on their knuckles looked like a gang insignia.
Minos, cleaning his hands with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, squatted near a hastily assembled shelf next to the soldiers' table and began to meticulously clean the imago. His movements were, as always, extremely cautious, as if he were styling the hair of a woman who had been asleep for a thousand years. Mimir, camera in hand, circled around Minos, which somewhat annoyed the big fellow.
Cyclops, meanwhile, cheerfully uncorked a bottle of wine and invited the soldiers to sit under the canvas awning.
"Get some rest this afternoon, our team still has quite a few documents to sort through," he said, serving them wine, while nonchalantly pointing to the distant beach. "Would you like to go for a swim? The scenery is beautiful over there... The wind is perfect before the afternoon high tide."
The soldiers exchanged a look and nodded with an enigmatic smile.
Baba Yaga stood not far away, her old, impeccably maintained semi-automatic rifle slung over one shoulder, intently staring at the rest area on the beach.
Meanwhile, Anubis, dragging Cobra along with me, took the opportunity to slip away and venture deeper into the island.
I carried my heavy equipment bag, piloting the drone to scout ahead of us, my eyes glued to the screen, fearing I might miss the slightest sign of ground disturbance.
The path on the island became increasingly difficult. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dead branches and decaying leaves; our feet sank into it with a dull, muffled sound.
Fern-like plants brushed against the legs of my hiking pants, like countless small claws grazing the skin, tracing barely visible marks.
At times, a rustling sound could be heard in the grass, as if animals were slinking through the tangled undergrowth.
While pushing aside the grass in front of me with my walking stick, I couldn't help but glance several times at my feet: "Are there... venomous snakes here?"
"If there are, they're not necessarily on the ground," Anubis replied without turning around. "Most likely, coiled in the trees."
I reflexively looked up and saw a monkey squatting on a branch not far away, holding a ripe banyan fruit in its hand. It was nonchalantly tearing the fruit's skin, its juice dripping, forming a garland of small blood-like drops in the interplay of light and shadow in the forest.
I suddenly felt itchy all over my body. The sun filtered through the dense jungle, casting layers of intertwined shadows. These branches seemed as if they could, at any moment, allow a pair of scaly, cold, and smooth claws to emerge.
"Don't stress out like that, Sphinx," Cobra said with a laugh, while chewing the rest of his sandwich. "It's too hot at noon; snakes are lazy during the day, they only become active at night. For now, we're pretty safe."
Anubis, however, simply continued to stride forward, as if he had absolutely no need to stop to assess the terrain, nor worried about any potential danger, not even deigning to turn his head.
Seeing their two figures, a dull anger rose within me. I quickened my pace to catch up with Anubis: "How long have you been acting on your own initiative? Apart from that astrolabe, have you touched anything else?"
Anubis didn't reply immediately, merely raising an eyebrow slightly, as if he had just heard a boring joke: "Guess?"
I didn't rise to the bait. He glanced back at me, then his tone suddenly softened: "I know you still have a meeting tonight. I'll make a full report with Cyclops. No need to rush; if I tell you now, you'll have to hear it a second time tonight." He paused, a hint of irony in his voice. "Of course, it's nothing against you; it's just that I want to save my breath."
I gritted my teeth: "I have to say, I really don't like the way you do things."
"Which aspect?"
"For example, the fact that you enter unexplored areas without authorization. And also, you knew perfectly well that the imago was a crucial artifact, and you still took it out to show... those people."
He finally stopped, turned, and looked me straight in the eye, his expression calm: "I was merely proposing a transaction."
I met his gaze: "A transaction? These artifacts don't belong to you, nor to them – they don't even belong to us."
"Then who do they belong to?" he asked.
"Legally, to the government of the region or country where the island is located. Even if it's a lawless area, there are international standards we should respect."
"Then why didn't you hand it over directly to those guys from Marshall port?" He gave a slight laugh. "They are indeed the 'local law enforcement'."
I opened my mouth but was momentarily speechless.
"Just because some systems are flawed doesn't mean we should admit that anyone has the right to break the rules," I said in a low voice. "Archaeology isn't pillaging, and a site isn't an ATM."
He looked at me, an indecipherable glint in his eyes: "So, your judgment is made: I am a looter?"
"...Not completely." I looked away. "But you disrupted the normal work of the archaeological team."
"You Libélinese live too comfortably," he said in a cold tone. "Do you know that in many corners of this world, the notions of morality and justice simply don't exist? There are only survivors, and sacrificed ones."
I remained silent. I was unable to refute him immediately.
"How did you find that field of fritillaries?" I asked, trying to break the impasse.
"The smell." He lowered his head and crushed a dead branch, which snapped with a sharp sound.
"...What?"
"Last night, while walking around the island, I smelled fox pee, and also another..." He paused, as if trying to remember. "...a smell of garlic, so strong it was pungent. That's the root of the fritillary, an acrid and volatile smell. I'd seen that kind of wild fritillary before."
I opened my mouth, unable to imagine what that smell could possibly be like.
"Is that so surprising?" he retorted, a slight smile on his lips.
Cobra suddenly interjected: "I've smelled that before! It stinks worse than a big dog that hasn't been washed for ten days and just jumped into a pond!" He pinched his nose with an exaggerated air and made a face.
I was taken aback, not knowing how to react to this strange comparison.
Anubis, however, let out a brief burst of laughter. It was the first time I had heard him truly laugh.
We continued to advance. The air became increasingly humid, heavy with a musty odor from decaying leaves and earth. An indefinable smell, somewhere between a stench and something else, gradually intensified, like a mixture of metal and sulfur. My throat began to tighten.
I looked down at the image transmitted by the drone: it showed a small earthen mound rising before us, covered with tangled vines and moss, with a few eroded stones visible here and there.
"Stop." I raised my hand to signal the team to halt. I adjusted the drone's altitude, trying to capture clearer details, while looking up towards the forest that was gradually opening up not far away, at the end of which was a bed of red fritillaries.
I compared the treasure map and the position indicated by the drone; the location roughly matched.
I increased the drone's altitude again. Around this ruin, the vegetation seemed to thicken into a kind of vortex, which meant that the layer of topsoil underneath was not thick enough to allow tree roots to anchor deeply.
"Which means... the place where we are currently was very likely the base of some constructions, or something else, that is to say, an area of human activity," I said to myself in a low voice, while adjusting the focus of the drone's camera.
Anubis suddenly spoke: "I remember a tragic story. A young man, a victim of injustice, his blood flowed into the flowers. The flowers absorbed his blood, then bowed their heads in mourning for his death. Do you know this story?"
I was stunned for a moment, not knowing if he was asking me a question or stating something. Those red fritillaries indeed all had their heads bowed, the edges of their petals already a little faded.
At that precise moment – the drone's signal abruptly cut out, the image exploded into static, then the device lost control and fell.
This was it. The place where the drone I had sent from the boat had crashed.
Cobra suddenly shouted: "Sphinx! Anubis! Come quick, look!"
We ran towards him and saw a stone statue, heavily eroded, half-buried at the edge of the mound. Its shape was indistinct, its silhouette strange; impossible to say if it was a man or a beast.
The statue's base was damaged. Inset at its base was a stone plaque covered with symbols. Anubis's face changed slightly; he immediately squatted down to examine it.
"Look at this, it should be ancient Aurian," he said, pointing to the symbols, syllable by syllable. "This looks like 'ku'... this one is 'sha'... and that one..."
He took out his notebook and quickly jotted down notes, his phone also taking photos nonstop.
I murmured: "A door?"
"Yes, it can also be understood as a passage, or an interface," Anubis said in a muffled voice, chewing on the cap of his pen.
I said in a low voice: "In mythology, there's a Wailing Wall between the world of the living and that of the dead... this inset door, could it lead to the abyss of hell?"
Anubis stood up, contemplated the statue, and said in a low voice: "The pronunciation of the first sounds is... Yaern... ladeagno..."
Cobra stared hesitantly at this series of ancient symbols.
"These few syllables... I think I've heard them before," he said slowly. "In our village, the elder, every year during the harvest prayer ceremony, recites a text in an ancient language. There's always this phrase in the middle – 'Yaernladeagno'."
I turned to him: "Do you know what it means?"
He nodded, his expression more serious than ever: "It means 'supplication' or 'earnest request'."
I was stunned for a moment, my gaze returning to that bed of bowed red fritillaries, but much older images flashed through my mind –
About two thousand years ago, in the northern hemisphere of the planet Yasha, stood a vast, sea-bordered empire. In academic circles, we still call it "Ancient Aurian."
It was a golden age. The empire's inscriptions, engraved on stone plaques, adorned mountainsides and temple facades. Orders emanating from the capital spread to city-states thousands of li away, among them Libélin – which was then only a secondary port, far from its current prosperity.
Later, whether due to a natural disaster, a palace coup, or a collapse of beliefs, the empire suddenly fragmented and crumbled, like an overturned chessboard, scattering from the center to the frontiers. Fragments of language, religious symbols, and popular rites thus spread into the barbarian lands. Orthodox grammar disappeared from the capital but was passed down from generation to generation in some remote border villages.
Like Cobra's mother tongue – Tebiktaï, considered by scholars as a "hybrid dialect without a system." Yet, the ritual incantations he had heard in the mountains had a pronunciation identical to that of this stone plaque.
And on this island, nicknamed "Les Champs-Élysées", the red flowers symbolizing mourning grew abundantly before the gate named "Supplication."