The City of Shifting Stones: Part 2

Part 2

Kubelka, dripping with sweat herself, stood back with her hands on her wide hips, shaking her head slowly back and forth.

"You duffers maybe just uncovered the greatest stonecunning secret since the first spire was raised. Don't any of ya damps even think of scarrin' this up with so much as a single chisel mark!" 

She spun around with an intense gleam in her eye and addressed the gathering crowd that had begun forming on the quarry's edge. First just a few onlookers, then more and more quarry workers drifting over, dropping their tools to gawk at the jaw-dropping display of forgotten artwork adorning the foundation stones.

"Droogs! This here's more important than anythin' your tiny gearboxes could grind out in three lifetimes combined! I want all quarry operations ceased immediately until I can raise the proper mucky-mucks to sign their gills to this blastin' thing! Hazlitt! Get on that breed-horn and summon every goggler, sage and scribe-snot in the Upper Districts who can tell earth from arse! We got a proper mystery on our hands!"

Kubelka whirled back to her stunned masons as the wiry man called Hazlitt hurried off to send out the call for as many learned experts and lore keepers to be summoned to the site with all haste.

"As for the rest of ya duffs," Kubelka jabbed a finger at Thrak and the others, "you lot are stayin' put and monkeyin' over every handsbreadth of this crazy cryptograffiti until I get some runeys down here to squinterpret the whole shanboozie! Don't need you jugmugs loppin' off some key bit by mistake!"

She turned and cupped her hands around her mouth again. "VORDELL! Get that fat fornikker runnin' with some foo foo lous and any other squishwits what can stoke this gang of mine while we're babyfeedin' this mess! Gonna be a long night!"

 

With that, Kubelka spun on her heel and stormed off, bellowing at gawkers and stragglers to clear the way, leaving Thrak and the rest looking bewildered but dutifully standing guard over their startling discovery. 

Soon, laborers were ferrying in bundles of torches which were distributed and lit as darkness fell, the flickering firelight casting the uncovered mural in an eerie, dancing glow. Foodstuffs and waterskins were also brought forth to allow the stonemasons to fortify themselves for the long vigil ahead.

Perched on an outcropping of rock, taking occasional bites from a hunk of travel bread, Thrak found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the mystifying pictographs and etchings. What incredible craftsmanship! What unfathomable skill had been required to carve this intricate, sprawling mural into the very bedrock of the valley? And what did it all mean? His calloused fingers idly traced the outline of one of the towering giant figures as he pondered its significance.

"Pretty wildwundr, ain't it?" The amicable voice came from the slight figure of Jinda, one of the younger masons gifted with an artistic sensitivity that allowed her to shape and polish stone with a deft, delicate touch.

Thrak grunted an affirmative as the waifish woman settled herself cross-legged beside him, a chunk of flatbread in one hand. Her other reached out to reverently run along the edge of an elaborately realized border of geometric knotwork encircling a particularly detailed scene.

"Amazing that anything like this could've lain hidden and undiscovered for..." Her voice trailed off as her eyes danced along the winding, precise patterns. "Well, for who even knows how long? You did a real bangvine job uncoverin' this, Thrak."

He shrugged his broad shoulders, keeping his eyes on the cyclopean figures. "Just doin' me job, loike always. Just so happened I was the one to catch a glimpse of the first crack, is all."

Jinda nodded slowly. "Aye, and what an eye you must've had to spot it at all." She squinted at an intricate motif of three interlocked rings, each one containing more rings within, like an endless recursive knot. "Just look at the level of detail! And such inventive, otherworldly designs. I could spend years just tryin' to perfectly recreate that one pattern alone."

"You think you'd be able to make sense of it all?" Thrak asked. "I mean, I know you appreciate that artwhatsit stuff a lot more than the likes of me."

The younger woman was quiet for a long moment, clearly studying the ancient stonework as intently as she could. "Well...I can try to offer my thoughts at least, if the real scholars can't slide their brains around it."

She pointed at a particularly ornate border segment. "Like, I'd wager my jewel-punchers that these triangular pictorials represent some sorta ritual or spiritual practice. Notice how they keeps gettin' folded back in on themselves in an endless cycle, right? Could maybe be the sacred geometric language of some kinda...analmatic or somesuch."

Jinda rose up on her knees, using the bread in her hand to gesture at the central images of the towering giants striding across vast expanses. "And those ones there, well...I'd say there's little quarrel that they depict some sort of fabled race of...what, primordial titans? Godbeings? There's certainly no denyin' the sheer scale they're meant to convey!"

She glanced back at Thrak with gleaming eyes. "Just imagine if this is, in fact, some lingerin' testament from the quasi-mythical Ancients everyone's on about? Their language of runes and picture-scripts that were somehow imbued with actual energized properties for working all manner of magic and stunners! Oh, to be able to decipher even a fraction of the buried wisdom here..." Jinda trailed off in an awed hush, gently running her fingers across the intricate carvings again.

Thrak had to admit, when the dreamy young artistan put it that way, it did make his chance discovery seem all the more monumental and thrilling. The possibility that this could be an honest-to-burl relic of the ancient world-shapers themselves! His own part in exposing this archeological wonder filled the normally humble and unassuming miner with a sense of pride and amazement.

Lost in thought, he barely registered the clamor of voices and shuffling footsteps signaling the first arrivals summoned to examine the unexplained mural...

To be Continued...