Mar 01 2008
Chapter 45: Bones
And there, maybe fifty metres away, cut into the very face of the mountain was something that resembled a large stone gateway, although it quickly became apparent that its tunnel ran only a metre or so into the mountain before stopping - almost as if it had been started and then abandoned quite soon afterwards.
Tobias ran towards it, gripped by an insatiable urge to discover any clues that would help shed any light on its origin. He stared at the archway for a few moments before reaching into his pocket and taking out a small brush, which he used to begin cleaning a section of rock with. Finally, he looked closer and frowned.
‘There are some markings here,’ he began, ‘but they don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before.’
He looked up at Hillary in desperation.
‘Are these familiar to you at all?’
Hillary squinted towards where Tobias was pointing and sure enough - scrawled into the rock below a rough recess around the archway - someone had etched a series of marks. They certainly looked crude and old, but even though they were weathered, there was no way of knowing if they were ten or even ten thousand years old.
Hillary rubbed his beard. ‘It’s usage is old, but bear with me whilst I attempt to translate.’
Eventually he whispered to Tobias.
‘I think it says something about a guardian and the threshold, but that’s as much as I can grasp from the marks here…’
Tobias took the pipe out of his mouth. ‘Oh great…’ he whispered.
Hillary frowned.
‘What about those footsteps I heard though?’ whispered Tobias.
Hillary shrugged.
‘What’s your point?’ he replied. ‘You think they’re connected?’
‘Oh, stop being so melodramatic.’ said Wendle. ‘This was obviously written a long time ago…’
And with that, Tobias popped the pipe back into his mouth.
‘Still can’t quite believe I’m being lectured to by a talking dog.’ he muttered.
* * * *
Thomas let his eyes wander away from the stone gateway until they came to rest by chance upon a gap in the weeds. Somewhere there, beyond the path, a glint of light caught his attention.
With curiosity he began to move the mass of brambles and weeds away with his foot. As he absently kicked away, his foot caught a rotten tree trunk, causing it to collapse and forcing him to hop back and fall over in surprise as the contents of the trunk cascaded towards him.
It was only then that he realised that the shiny objects that had glinted in the sunlight and caught his attention in the first place were in fact human skulls - hundreds of them - all white and bleached and packed neatly into the hollow of the rotten trunk.
One of them fell out and tumbled towards him, eventually coming to rest between his legs. He let out a scream as it stared up at him with a malevolent grin. Panicking, he booted it away into the undergrowth, leaving only a jawbone remaining on the path and scrambled to his feet whilst hysterically brushing himself down.
The others rushed over desperate to discover the cause of the commotion.
‘Thomas! What is it? What’s the matter?’ screamed Scarlet looking past her brother into the undergrowth.
But Thomas said nothing.
Instead, everyone followed his eyes as he pointed with a shaky finger to the lonely jawbone that lay on the path in front of him and then into the border of weeds at the edge of the path.
Hillary walked forward.
‘What? What is it?’ asked Tobias.
‘There are bones here…’ said Hillary, brushing the weeds away, ‘and from what I can see there must be hundreds, at the very least…’
He looked around warily with a beady eye. ‘Someone or something’s been storing them…’
‘But why?’ said Tobias.
‘Don’t know, but there is a huge amount here - all brittle and bleached white. I’d say they’ve probably been here for a hundred years, at least. They’ve certainly been put here very carefully…’
‘Some ancient sacrificial ceremony perhaps?’ hazarded Tobias.
Hillary snorted.
‘I very much doubt it…’
