.𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘴𝘩.

KELTIUS

The quiet in the north is unlike the quiet of any other place. Keltius knew this better than most, for he was well acquainted with the frost-bitten northern reaches of his home country. The silences of the forest, or the ocean, for example, are not truly silences. There is always something happening underneath: birdsong, the rustling of leaves, the crashing of waves. Up north, one becomes aware of any disturbance within miles. Every crunching of the boot on ice, every uttered word, seems to echo across to the Blue Mountains.

For that reason, Keltius walked carefully and spoke in hushed tones.

He stood at the base of a large cliff, pulling on the fingers of his gloves in order to pry them off his hands. As he did so, he craned his neck to look up. A waterfall near the top had contributed to the wall of ice that clung to the rocks above. The ice was so thick that it changed the shape of the cliff, softening the edges into flowing curves suspended by the frigid cold.

Once his gloves were off, he continued walking along the bottom of the cliff until he reached an outcrop of rocks. Much like the cliff, they were obscured, only this time by piles of snow. He arrived at the nearest one, a rock formation large enough to be considered a hill. And then he reached down, lightly brushing off the top layer of snow.

“Over here,” he said, not needing to raise his voice to know his message would reach the others. They were nearby, scouring the landscape just as he was. But something told him that he had arrived at the sacred place they had been searching for. There was a weight in the air, and unhearable and unseeable disturbance that could only be instinctively known.

They were searching for ancient ruins. Manuscripts Keltius had found in the royal library referenced a burial ground approximately twenty miles inland from the western sea and ten miles south of the Blue Mountains. The text read: The ancients traveled here for rituals of unknown purpose. Rock formations create a natural path to the resting place of old, where the Ancestors are now one with the landscape. It was a vague reference, but the only written evidence he had found that significant landmarks existed in the area he had long suspected to be important.

He retrieved a brush from his pack and used it to begin wearing down the hardened snow. After that, he used a pick to chip away the underlayer of ice. It came away easily and in large pieces. When Keltius glimpsed what was underneath, he felt an eerie tension in his chest as if he were standing on a great precipice. What lay under the ice was not rock, but what looked like clear blue glass. When he struck it with his pick, the tool bounced back as if it had come up against hard metal. No marks were left on the clear surface.

Hands shaking slightly, the archeologist continued his work of chipping away the ice. By that point, he could hear the distant sound of footfalls and voices. The others would find him momentarily. In the meantime, his heart was beginning to pound audibly in his ears. The ice clattered to the ground with each sharp sound of his striking pick.

And then he stood, exclaiming softly.

He knew then that he had not happened upon some ancient temple or altar. Before him, as unmistakable as his own pounding heartbeat, was an enormous blue eye.