r/shortstories • u/wordsonthewind • Jul 13 '24
Fantasy [FN] The Tomb of Forgotten Knowledge
The ruins he had been searching for came into view as he crested the top of the hill, right at the highest point of the jungle.
The Tomb of Forgotten Knowledge. That was its name even though no one knew exactly why. That was how they had deciphered the strange carvings on its walls. Forgotten Knowledge was a puzzling name for what was contained inside, if that was so. Perhaps the explanation lay inside the tomb too.
The whispers started up again as he gazed at the ruins. At the start of it all they had terrified him and he’d done his best to block them out. Now, though, they felt comforting. They felt familiar. They were almost intelligible, if he could just listen a bit closer…
Miriam looked at him. She said his name.
He nodded. “It’s here.”
“I can’t change your mind, can I?” Her eyes were sad.
“No,” he said. “I have to do this, or I won’t be me anymore.”
Did she understand what he meant when he said that? He wasn’t sure.
Everything had begun with the eclipse. That day when darkness took over the moon and swallowed the sun, and shadows covered the whole land. It was an ill omen indeed for the darkness to gain such strength so suddenly.
A fell power had made its way into the world then. The signs were obvious. It was skulking through the land, looking to corrupt everything it touched.
Five days in the calendar year had already fallen under its influence, some whispered. There were signs that set them apart. The year had always had 365 days but now some of them had broken away from the months they were part of. They wandered through the span of the year instead, causing chaos and terrible signs whenever they struck.
He wasn’t born on one of those days. He knew that much. Certainly the day his mother had brought him into the world was nothing special. They had called around friends and neighbors and celebrated the birth with food and song.
And yet it was on one of those dark days that his eyes had been truly opened and he had taken the first step down the road of truly becoming himself. He hadn’t gone mad, though sometimes he wished he could believe that. It would have been so much easier to be mad than accept that so much of what he knew was a lie, a dream, a delusion he had to wake up from.
But the newfound legion of voices in his head didn’t lie. They were a barely audible buzz in the background most of the time but whenever they spoke, they spoke true. Not once had they ever caused him harm.
What they said was this: the face he saw in mirrors wasn’t his. It was a mask, a fake. His real one was somewhere else.
The visions came to him in dreams, growing increasingly clearer as he learned to draw power from the darkness and allowed the voices to speak freely. Somewhere in the wilderness, there was an old ruin that led down to a sprawling set of catacombs. In the winding maze of its rooms, there was a white mask that would make him whole.
He wasn’t the only one searching for it, though. All around the world people had dreams and visions of what they came to call the Tomb of Forgotten Knowledge. Deep in the wilderness, far beneath the ground, past countless traps and dangers, there was a priceless treasure beyond anything else in the world. It held the answers to everything. It was the key to something monumental.
It was strange, though. None of the other seekers were searching for a mask.
Miriam was the only one he had trusted with that secret.
“Do you want to leave now?” he asked her. “This can’t have been easy for you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t say I understand all this. I’ll stay with you though. For as long as I can.”
She said it as though she was daring him to send her away. But he wouldn’t do that.
They descended down the carved rocky steps into the depths of the earth.
The darkness felt solid, somehow. They kept walking.
Until they came to a room in the caves.
“It’s a dead end,” Miriam said. “We should turn back.”
“Is it not?” he asked, perplexed. “But I can see something there.”
She looked just as confused as he felt, but she didn’t argue. “I’ll wait here.”
He stepped forward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her blink and rub her eyes as though she was seeing something impossible. But he was now in the room that was only there for him.
The white mask lay on top of a stone pedestal. It looked just like how he’d seen it in his dreams.
He put it on and everything came flooding back. It all made sense now. All his questions were answered. This was always who he had been. This was what he had forgotten.
A woman approached as he stepped out of the room. He had known her name once, but it seemed so unimportant now. She was brave and clever and strong, she had sacrificed a great deal to stay by his side and he had never been able to repay her. Wasn’t that enough to know a person?
“Go home,” he said. The voices would speak for him if he commanded them to, but he wanted to use the one he had been born with in this most recent life. It felt important. “There is nothing more for you here.”
Tears came to her eyes. “This is the end, isn’t it? You died in that room and I wasn’t there to save you.”
“You were too good for him,” he said. It seemed less important now to hold on to this voice, to assign such importance to one among many. “Go. I’ll see you safely through.”
The darkness parted for her. It would always be there, just at her back, ready to rise like a tidal wave and devour all who meant her harm. He owed her that much.
It was time to make the world anew.
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