"The soil," Nubel said quickly. "Vergilius, don’t just stand there—help out… Clean these stones, clear the ground… Dig, damn it!"

  Pebbles flew, earth scattered beneath metal spades. Saelin tore at the ground between the columns with the frenzy of a dog uncovering a buried bone, breathing just as heavily, just as hoarsely. Petros leaped up, brushing great beads of sweat from his brow; the sun was high now, beginning to scorch from the sky.

  "The road…" Nubel muttered, scraping again with brush and broom at paving stones revealed beneath the earth. Here, no men had walked, scarcely even animals had strayed. And yet no more than two feet of soil covered the path that had been laid two thousand years before. "I’ll be damned… The road! Guys, we’ve found it!"

  "That’s right," Saelin muttered. "Now it makes sense. The rails ended because it was too hard to lay them farther into the mountains. But the shrine is close—we’re already at its approaches. This is the pilgrims’ path… Petros, Nubel, you remember these columns—they were always placed to mark the way to the shrine!"

  "No more than a hundred yards to the entrance," Nubel estimated. "Yes, I remember. Columns with ritual symbols carved into them, and the path went straight between. But lads, if we start clearing all these paving stones, we’ll be here for a week. Isn’t it easier to find the rest of the columns? They’ll lead us straight to it."

  "That’s exactly what I was going to suggest," Petros nodded. "The direction is west. What do we see there?"

  "There they are!" Hector cried, carried away by the general excitement. "By the river—one still standing, another fallen nearby!"

  "Exactly! Forward!"

  Up over the stones, sometimes on steep climbs where boots slip, and staffs can not find purchase in the tiny cracks and crevices. Among mossy boulders and tall jagged cliffs. The men, seized by a kind of feverish frenzy, press ahead, with Hector and Ashley barely managing to keep up behind them. Two more columns are barely left behind, and already Petros and Saelin can make out the next ones… The river splashes and roars like the keys of an organ, dangerously close, only a few feet away on their right, clouds of spray flying onto their clothes and damp, sweat-soaked hair…

  The last markers stood on a flat cliff just steps from the spot where the river plunged like a mad tsunami from a height of about a dozen feet, shattered against the ledges, and tumbled further down, back to the place from which the exhausted travelers had just climbed. These columns were not granite, but white marble, clearly visible against the gray rock. Here, the dark-tiled path was laid out in full glory. The mountain stream poured from an overhang above their heads, and with such speed that the water formed a natural, curving arch. Behind it lay a dark niche. And the path led straight there.

  "The shrine," Nubel whispered in reverent awe. "My friends! We’ve found the shrine!"

  Saelin turned around. His gaze swept the distant, sheer descent, the path lost among the high cliffs. No wonder they were the first in two thousand years to dare reach this place. The sun was climbing, almost at its zenith now, flooding the stone masses that crowded the riverbank with light.

  "Forward," he said firmly.

  ***

  Ivy wrapped the rocky outcrops framing the narrow passage hewn by human hands, and from the outside, behind thick greenery, it was impossible to spot the arch unless one came right up to the roaring waterfall. But once they pushed through the dense veil of water and stepped into the niche, it became clear that people had labored here with care, striving to make this place of worship as beautiful as possible. From somewhere deep within the dark corridor glowed a ghostly blue light. The smooth walls were adorned with intricate silver and gold ornamentation, with glowing Ulin stones woven gracefully into the designs. The floor, flawless and without the slightest crack, bore rows of hieroglyphic script, forming a religious hymn, easily visible by the torchlight the scholars lit.

  "Here they worshiped the god Kereas," Petros determined after examining the hieroglyphs. "In case anyone forgot—that’s the God of Nature, patron of plants and animals, ruler of rivers, lakes, and the like."

  They moved slowly onward. The corridor led deeper and deeper, gradually widening; at times, a flight of steps led down, while the ceiling rose higher. On the walls, in addition to ornamentation, they could discern ancient frescoes depicting rituals. The dim blue glow seeping from the depths of the labyrinth filled their hearts with a vague unease, and cold shivers ran down their spines again and again.

  Then they descended another stairway… and emerged before a massive arch, flanked on either side by colossal statues of men with eagle heads, holding spears in their hands. Beyond the arch stretched a hall, illuminated by a ghastly blue light pouring from somewhere above, all of it drowned in an eerie, unnatural silence, where every step echoed sharply.

  Petros approached the arch slowly, raised his hand; the others instantly froze, tense, clutching their weapons.

  "Ashley, the elixirs," the mage commanded quietly. The girl jumped and hurriedly rummaged through her bag, searching for the precious vials of potion brewed by her own recipe. She drew out dark bottles, corked tightly, handed them out in silence, then pulled the stopper from hers first—and breathed in the spicy, sweet aroma spreading around.

  "Don’t drink in one gulp," she warned. "Small sips, very carefully. Many of the ingredients… not exactly poisonous, but they can cause serious problems with the throat and esophagus."

  "Stop scaring everyone," Petros chided gently. "We’ve all tried this stuff before. We know what to expect."

  With that, he raised the vial to his lips, sipped, then, straining it through his teeth, drained it within seconds.

  The world jolted, circles swam before his eyes for an instant, and then suddenly everything grew sharper, clearer, more vivid. The range of colors changed. Now he could see every chip in the stone, even in the darkest corners of the shrine. Around the people shone radiant auras, and from the place where they stood, faint violet threads floated through the air, stretching toward the shrine entrance, ensuring they could not get lost inside. The glow from the hall intensified, and everyone who had taken the elixir now sharply felt something like faint gusts of wind from within. It was the touch of magic, waves of ancient sorcery preserved here for millennia. All their senses sharpened, their noses caught the faintest odors, their ears heard the distant splashing of the mountain river outside.

  The heads of the statues and their spears glowed with crimson light, streaked with bright sparks. Streams of magic drifted across the floor of the hall like tattered smoke. Petros raised his staff—the crystal at its tip blazed so brightly that the light hurt the eyes—and moved forward first, probing each stone before him, watching every step. The others followed in a single file.

  Their backs prickled with clammy fear as they passed through the arch and the silent stone sentinels—and then all together let out a breath when they saw what awaited them.

  Streams of blue light, as if pouring from gigantic spotlights in the unseen ceiling, filled the hall in towering columns. Yet the ceiling itself could not be seen. Twenty feet above the floor, thick magical mist hovered, its shifting gray clouds obscuring the source of the radiance. The walls, however, were clear to see, set far apart. At the far end of the hall stood a dais, with benches for the faithful and lecterns for holy books.

  "The floor," Saelin said quietly. "Look at the floor."

  "Yeah," Petros muttered, moving slowly and raising his staff higher. "We’ve all noticed, Erik…"

  Under the effect of the elixir, they could now see what had been invisible before: the power lines left by the magic once woven here. Red sparks drifted slowly across the floor, flowing as though along hidden channels, never straying from their paths. Looking closer, they saw the lines, patterns, and hieroglyphs carved in the floor.

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  "It’s a map!" Nubel cried in excitement. "Look! It’s a map of the Crescent shrines!"

  "Exactly," Petros said, crouching down and passing his hand above the carvings. "Here—this place, where the huge sapphire is inlaid—that’s our shrine. From here, no rails lead further north… but the next point on our route—here it is. And it’s not drawn schematically, but clearly indicated. You can see—it’s no longer the mountain ridge. It’s one of the regions of the Regerlim Forest, just as our sources predicted. Nubel, be so good as to get out your journal and copy this scheme down as precisely as you can."

  They moved slowly across the hall. The mist above swirled and shifted, changing shape, and its presence was strangely unsettling. Saelin kept glancing around, hand tight on the crossbow at his belt. Petros said nothing, looking calm and focused, yet chills of foreboding prickled his skin as well.

  "Notice the frescoes," he suddenly said, when they, passing row upon row of carved benches, reached the ambo, beyond which stood statues and the wall concealing altars to various gods.

  "What is that?" Konrad asked in awe, looking around. "Some kind of religious rituals?"

  "Quite possibly."

  Before them was depicted a great throne, upon which sat the god Kereas himself, with the head of an eagle and a scepter entwined with ivy. On either side of the throne stood people—some in monastic robes, some in armor and helmets—but directly before the throne was a figure larger than the rest, though smaller than the god. This figure too had the head of an eagle, and his garments were painted with far more care than the faceless robes of the others: a scarlet toga, clasped at the chest with a large golden brooch. The eagle-headed man bowed his head before the throne, but held above it some object…

  "The Sun and the Kraken," Konrad whispered in reverent awe.

  They turned their gaze to the side and almost simultaneously gasped in astonishment.

  The next fresco, separated from the central one by ornate ornamentation, depicted the same high priest with the Sun and the Kraken in his hands. But far more intriguing was the landscape surrounding him. The priest stood in the center, beside him something like an oval, the height of a man, with a spiral inside. To the left stretched the familiar crowd: warriors, monks, merchants against the backdrop of small buildings in the well-known style of ancient Nocturn architecture. But to the right of the oval began a completely different scene.

  These were houses resembling upright stone blocks, with dozens of stories and hundreds of tiny windows, with some strange structures on their rooftops. There were bizarre figures like carriages, only without shafts or harnessed horses, with thick wheels, shown as though moving on their own. Strange shapes in the sky, painted among clearly recognizable clouds and sun, like mechanical birds with outstretched wings. And again, dozens of people bowing before the priest.

  "What is this?!" Konrad muttered; for perhaps the first time in his life, Petros saw him shaken—and frightened.

  "It’s another time," Saelin said calmly. "The fresco shows that with the help of the Sun and the Kraken, the priest traveled through time. The oval shape beside him, that’s the crossroads of times."

  Petros looked at him, and for the first time during the entire expedition, his face lit with genuine delight.

  "Damn me… but you’re clever, Saelin!" he said.

  Ashley gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. The scholars froze, transfixed, studying every detail of the fresco.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a historic moment," Petros murmured, his mouth stretching into a triumphant smile. "Nubel, Vergilius, write down and sketch everything you can! This may be our first and most convincing proof that the High Priests of the ancient Nocturns used the artifact known in some sources as the Sun and the Kraken to create crossroads of times. This alone is a discovery to make us famous for centuries! Do you understand?"

  "Perhaps he’s not using the artifact, only holding it?" Vergilius objected doubtfully. "That proves nothing. Maybe he simply found this crossroads and is showing the others the way through it…"

  "You’re hopelessly dull, Vergilius," Petros waved him off. "Look around. All these frescoes are devoted to the same motif, and in every one, this thing is present. I’m absolutely certain that if we translate the inscriptions we’ll find around, we’ll get even clearer confirmation. Konrad, Nubel, I beg you—get to work on that… Vergilius, you want more proof? Well then, here it is!"

  The fresco showed the priest in a mask, holding the same object in one hand, kneeling at Kereas’s throne. Nearby, Nocturns bowed, while the god, seated on his throne, extended a book to the priest, a book with the image of the Sun and the Kraken upon it.

  "It means the priest receives knowledge from divine hands," Saelin nodded. "For a deeply religious, primitive society, that’s straightforward symbolism."

  "The church needed such symbols to keep people in submission," Petros muttered. "Amusing contradiction—their political system was a republic, the High Priest’s power was not hereditary… Are my eyes deceiving me, or is there a door?"

  "There is," Saelin confirmed. "Through it the priest passed to the altars. Shall we?"

  "Of course. Frescoes are marvelous, but we need to find documents. Written word is the most reliable—and besides, it’s time to give Konrad some work."

  "A scriptorium," Saelin said confidently. "There must be a scriptorium here."

  They found it quickly, just a little way into the corridor behind the door. One passage led up a stairway to the left, toward the altars, where gloom reigned, and faint sparks shimmered, visible only thanks to the elixir—remnants of great magic. Another door was locked by a spell, which made breaking it much easier. Petros raised his staff, formed his fingers into a special sign. The spell shattered with a loud crack, and the rotten door crumbled into splinters. Inside was thick, impenetrable darkness.

  Torchlight revealed a small chamber, lined with tables bearing closed inkwells and quills. Along the walls stood shelves of manuscripts, and at the far end a fresco stretched across the entire wall. While Petros moved unhurriedly along the shelves, examining the folios, Saelin fixed his eyes on the image…

  "Petros!"

  "Hm?"

  "Look. It’s a diagram. Not just a religious picture to inspire the scribes. It’s a diagram, meant for higher-ranking servants, not mere monks."

  "And what makes you think so?" Petros set one manuscript on the table and stepped beside him, stroking the stubble on his chin.

  "To me, it’s clear. At the top—Aktos, the traditional lord of space and time. From one of his hands runs a chain down to the earth… and there… wait, that’s another crossroads of times! And from his other hand, to the crowned priest. The priest holds Octarus."

  "You suppose there’s a connection?" Petros shrugged. "It’s just a fresco in the style of ‘all is subject to Aktos, both the known and the unknown.’ Crossroads, Darius’s magic, the gift of a seer."

  "No, Petros. I’m certain it’s all connected. Otherwise, this drawing wouldn’t exist. It’s an instruction, damn it. An instruction on how to create a crossroads of times."

  "If it’s an instruction, then curse me if it makes any sense at all," Petros muttered absently, carefully leafing through ancient parchment leaves.

  "What have you found there?"

  "A chronicle of the shrine. Up to its very last days, written, it seems, by a humble monk, and left here before they abandoned the Crescent and sailed to the Islands. I want to read it at leisure. Everything else—philosophical and religious treatises. But this book interests me greatly."

  "And what about traces of magic? I can’t judge them well, I admit…"

  "Nor can I," Petros muttered, turning and leaving the scriptorium. "We’ll ask Vergilius, he can make a detailed analysis. But one thing is clear: only one kind of spell was used here, and it’s very strange. The lines in blood-red color—that’s powerful protection against outsiders, though after two thousand years, its force has greatly weakened. But I thought I sensed something else…"

  "Let’s check the altars," Saelin suggested, turning toward the stairway.

  Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the impenetrable dark as they slowly climbed toward a faint, pale glow.

  Beyond the arch lay another chamber with a high vaulted ceiling, hung with chandeliers. Looking closer, Petros shuddered: the chandeliers’ frames were made of white human bones. The candles themselves were melted down, yet their wicks burned with tiny tongues of blue flame, which did not dispel the gloom but seemed only to thicken it…

  "How do you like this?" Saelin asked, taking a hesitant step forward.

  They stood between tall golden altars adorned with statuettes of gods and dozens of candles. On each altar sat chalices carved from skulls. A carpet on the floor led deeper into the room, where a ritual pentagram was drawn. Above it, a vortex of blood-red sparks still churned, rising to the ceiling, the lingering remnant of a vanished crossroads of times.

  "Aktos…" Petros whispered, rubbing his eyes. "Well, I’ll be damned!"

  "Here it is, Petros. This is where it stood two thousand years ago. And this is the trace it leaves behind when it disappears. Impressive, isn’t it?"

  "I’ll agree. I wonder to what time it led. Look around—there must be some records, on the walls, on parchment. They couldn’t have opened these portals without recording the destination…"

  But Petros himself was already moving toward the swirling magical vortex. He raised his hands, spoke one spell, then another, sighed with satisfaction, and stepped almost up to it, peering into the dancing sparks. Then he waved his hand, closed his eyes, and stepped into the very heart of the bloody whirlwind.

  A blinding flash before his eyes. No tactile sensation, yet the walls of the glowing scarlet storm seemed to part, and he found himself inside before a stone pedestal inscribed with hieroglyphs. Upon it lay a silver key. Petros took it, lifted it to his eyes to study, then slipped it into his pocket, pulled out a notebook and pencil, and carefully copied down everything he could see on the pedestal. He turned—and started at the sight of Saelin standing right beside him.

  "What did you find?"

  Petros showed him the key.

  "Where do you think it leads?" Saelin asked, licking his lips.

  "We’ll know very soon," Petros said with a smile. "But something tells me—it opens the door to what we’ve been searching for."

  The door leading to Octarus.