Excavations and Enlightenment (A sequel to "Caveats and Cliches")

Chapter 12: No Pain, No Gain

I awake to an array of discomforts. Two of my subjects are using my right arm as a pillow and it's tingling with a painful lack of blood flow. Turning to my left I come face to face, not with my lovely wife, but with the drooling countenance of one of my knights. Yuck! Waking up like this may prevent me from ever sleeping again! Sarah is annoyingly out of reach on the other side of this presumptuous gargoyle that has cuddled up to me as if I were it's grandmother. She's still asleep and looks serene, despite the fact that she's surrounded by so many little gremlins that there's even one in her hair. With a grunt, I extricate my arm from the space invaders on my right, then struggle away from the overly touchy knight. The goblins roll into the space I've vacated and continue snoring; while I step down onto the balcony and survey the damage done by the storm.

It doesn't look good. The wind and rain wreaked havoc on the neat piles of dirt that Toby and his team had hauled away. Everything is soaking wet and the early morning sun is already turning the day unpleasantly humid. Sighing, I look back at the disorderly jumble of sleeping workers. Easton lies on his back with a number of goblins curled up like kittens atop his torso. Toby is on his side with a stack of them leaning against his back. They are pressing so close to him, he looks like a dam about to collapse. Now that I'm no longer embroiled in the shapeless lump, they all look...sort of...cute. I must be going soft. Although, if I'm honest, I've always had a bit of soft spot in this regard. I rail against the goblins at the slightest provocation, but in reality, I wouldn't trade my kingdom for any other in the entire Sphere.

Then again, they did intrude on my romantic evening with Sarah. I give them an unnecessarily sharp blast from my whistle and smile to myself at the collective groan it evokes.

No one is very eager this morning, but Toby and Easton are still determined to make progress. As soon as breakfast is over, they round up their individual teams and head across the river. Sarah follows, still yawning and blinking away the sleep from her eyes. Camp is in hand, so I join them, helping Easton clear the confines of the temple entryway. The morning goes by at a snail's pace. It takes more time and effort to move the wet earth, and though everyone is working hard, it doesn't seem like we are making much headway. About two or three hours after our brief lunch, the crews are really begin to lag. I want to bring it to an end, even though there are still a few hours of daylight left. But Easton argues that we should just take a break, then keep at it. I acquiesce for the moment and call for everyone to stop and rest. Every shovel drops and the crew takes a seat next to the rock outcropping on the side of the temple. I see looks of exhaustion and disinterest on my subjects as I move to join Sarah.

"We're never going to be able to get them back to work."

I murmur, as I sit down next to her.

She gives me a thin smile. "They are just discouraged, that's all. Only half a night's sleep, waking up to a cranky king, seeing most of yesterday's work demolished, not to mention this dreadful humidity..."

She trails off, tapping her fingers to her lips. After a moment she says,

"Maybe you should sing to them."

Sing to them? I haven't done that in ages!

I stare at her, thinking she must be joking, but she just stares back, not even the barest hint of laughter or sarcasm in her face. She's actually waiting to see if I'll do it. I rise and take a few steps toward the river, looking out at the stretch of valley as it is being painted by the late afternoon light.

I choose a human song from one of Sarah's albums called "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Though everyone was already subdued, I can tell they have quieted even more and are listening attentively. The sound of my voice and the gentle melody echoes faintly from the canyon walls and even has a pacifying effect on me. Why haven't I been doing this? I used to love to sing. All this time sequestered in my kingdom has gotten to me more than I realized. The song ends and turning back to to the crew, I find my performance has had more of an effect than I would have thought. The goblins are all fast asleep and even Easton and Toby's heads are dropping to their chests. Sarah's leaned against the rock with her eyes closed, breathing steadily. I decide to let them rest, while I go back to working at the temple. After an hour of digging, I wake the crew and tell them they can have the rest of the day off. What they hear, however, is it's time to have a party in the river. This time Toby and Sarah introduce us to a game called chicken. This is a human game with no understandable purpose. One person sits on another's shoulders and attacks another similarly stacked pair of people. The object of the game is to throw the person on top down into the water. When the goblins see what we are doing, they go nuts, and it takes us twice as long as the night before to get them to dinner. Well, at least everyone is staying clean.

The night is peaceful, without even the hint of a storm. Much to my chagrin, however, we all end up sleeping in one room again. By the next morning the humidity is gone and we all plunge into the work with greater zeal. By mid morning we make a breakthrough. The decaying entrance swallowed up the mudslide that had buried the temple, but the dirt had not reached into the entire structure. When his shovel pushes into open space, Easton gives a whoop and digs even harder. Between the two of us, we manage to clear an area big enough to walk through by late afternoon. Toby and Sarah crowd in around us with torches and tools; and we move deeper into the mountain.

"I don't suppose Pema's journal said anything about where exactly the staff would be?"

Sarah asks. Easton shakes his head.

"There really isn't anything more in the journal about this place. All the rest of the entries are about another dig, on the other side of the mountain range west of here."

"All the rest of the journal is about another site?"

Sarah says, with a curious inflection in her voice. I glance at her, wondering what's on her mind, but Easton isn't paying any attention.

"Yeah, just the story and the map from the town describe this site."

Toby pipes up, "It should be lower down, like a basement, or far at the end of the building. These main rooms would have been used for housing and worship. They would have put the bodies far away from rooms used on a daily basis."

We keep moving forward, carefully checking for passages or stairways. The room we are in was fairly large at one time, but much of it has crumbled in on itself, and we have to work our way carefully around the wreckage. We pass through another two unidentifiable rooms before we find what we are looking for. Far to the right of the fourth room stands an unobtrusive archway with a narrow staircase twisting into the depths. We pause at the opening, shining our torches as far down as we can, but the spiraling design prevents us from seeing anything of distance. Wordlessly, Easton takes the lead and strides forward. I wait for the others to follow and watch the way we came. There's no reason to think that there would be any danger, but I feel better keeping an eye out. At the bottom of the staircase is a low hallway. On either side of the hall are sealed archways with a variety of etchings; I assume they indicate who is entombed behind each. At the end of the hall there stands a broader archway, more elaborately decorated than the others. The inlays are of gold and silver, expertly set. We don't have to decifer the characters to know that this is the tomb of an Emperor. It's so exquisitely adorned, it almost looks newer than the other tombs. Toby squints at the edge of the archway where the entrance is sealed, then smashes it with a pickaxe. Easton joins in, and they reduce the ancient work of art to rubble in minutes.

Stepping inside the crypt, we find there is little to see. The sarcophagus looks like a piece of antique pottery formed in the shape of a man. There are shelves carved into the rock, but whatever belongings or blessings they once held have turned to dust. There is nothing else. Sarah produces some crow bars and and we line up to pry off the coffin's lid. It's heavy, and once we've loosed it from the bottom we have to readjust our tools and give it another strained thrust. The lid breaks away suddenly and we all slump forward and stare in awe at what's in front of us.