DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything mentioned in this chapter except Robert Taylor, Mary Cloud, Sandra Newton, and the basic plot. Oh, and the frogs.
Archaeology
"Bob? Get down here! We've found something!"
Robert Taylor looked up from his computer, annoyed. He had been cataloguing finds ten hours a day, six days a week, for the past two months, and was heartily sick of it. However, he was even more sick of the periodic interruptions from his teammates. About twice a day they would call him down into the pit, to show him yet another interesting carving of a frog. To be fair, there had been fewer frogs recently, and more from their huge inscription.
Oh, yes, the inscription. They had been so pleased when someone – Bob couldn't remember who – had accidentally stumbled against the soil-covered wall and knocked off a layer of dirt to reveal the first line of text. They had quickly cleaned off all of the wall that was at that time above the soil level, and started on the long task of digging out the rest. It was currently a full ten yards long, and was still changing alphabets every two lines. Yet they still hadn't found a single one that they recognised. Occasionally they came across a letter that looked something like something someone – usually Mary – half remembered seeing in some book, somewhere, and called him down to look at it, but none of his subsequent trawls of the internet had shed any light on them.
As he wandered over to the pit the team were working in, he passed under the last remaining archway of St. Paul's Cathedral. After the Great Fire of 2032, the government had not felt the need to rebuild such a blatant symbol of organised religion. In an earlier age they would have, but after the world had realised the harm state-sponsored religion had caused, the churches had been left to rot.
So the cathedral had been given over to the archaeologists, despite the protests of developers that such a prime site, right at the heart of London, should be turned into offices with all speed. At the time, Bob had argued vehemently for the chance he now had, but now, with the team constantly dragging him into their pit, he was about ready to lay the foundations himself.
At this point, Bob was jerked out of his reverie by the ground falling away beneath him. He had reached the centre of the ruined cathedral, and before him lay the deep pit his team was working in. He walked around it until he came to the loudspeaker, used to relay messages to people at the top, now that the pit was too big for shouting. Beside it, a staircase wound back and forth against the wall of the pit, leading down almost a hundred feet to the current level of excavation.
It was this staircase that he now descended, passing layers of soil, rock and history with each step. The walls of the hole were close around him, but he had no fear of them falling. The shaft had been dug out using a digging laser, the only hi-tech piece of equipment the team could afford, and as a result the sides were solid rock, melted and reformed into a surface as smooth as glass. About two thirds of the way down, the soil became packed stone, and the hole opened out into a reasonable-sized chamber. At least, on three sides it did. The fourth...
The fourth wall was plain rock, or had once been. Long ago, though, someone had carved two lines of flowing letters into it, letters no one in the team recognised. Then below that, two more lines in a different alphabet. And on it stretched, thirty or more feet downwards, countless different alphabets, all showing what was presumably the same message.
It would have been far easier if they'd installed a lift, rather than forcing any visitors to make a trek that was virtually a small mountain climb. There was, however, little money to spare in post-Fire London, and the team had been lucky even to get digging equipment beyond the standard spade and trowel ensemble. There was no way they were going to push for anything more.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the small digger at the bottom of the pit entered his field of vision. It wasn't running, however, which struck Bob as odd. With such a low budget, they didn't turn the digger off unless they were stopping for a substantial amount of time. Starting it up again cost a lot, money which they just didn't have.
He was still musing over this when he reached the bottom of the stairway. Glancing back up, he could see the line, six feet or so above him, where the soil had filled the bottom of the chamber. Those six feet of soil were now piled up against the back wall, sloping down to where the team were all crouched around the inscription wall. He sighed. Yes, they'd found another interesting letter all right.
Mary Cloud noticed him. "Bob! Come over here! You /have/ to see this!"
"Mary," he said, as he walked carefully over, "I've seen enough of your kind of half familiar letters to last me a life... time..." His voice trailed off as she moved aside to let him see the last two lines of letters. Very familiar letters...
"It's Latin," said Mary into the silence. "Not only the letters, but the actual words. Sandra, tell him."
Sandra Newton, the linguist of the group, looked up from her study of the words. "It says, 'I, Maglor, Son of Fëanor, departed this world in the year five thirty-two of the Fifth Age of the Sun. The phrase is...' and I can't understand the final words. They don't seem to be Latin at all."
Bob frowned. Something about those words had sparked a distant memory... something about an oath, no, an Oath, and the First Age...
But even as he tried to grasp it, it slipped away, and he returned his attention to Sandra. "So you can't read these last words?"
She frowned. "Well, I can try. I'm not sure /how/ these vowels should be read, but I think it's something like 'Mernyë cenë'. Of course, I –" she cut herself of with a gasp as all of the group span around to face the sudden light.
The wall opposite the inscription had lit up, as glowing silver lines traced their way across it. They outlined a map, on which two stars shone brightly, almost level with each other, but one much further to the east. Around the map, the silver light continued to trace letters like those in the top row of the inscription, but Bob was no longer paying attention. The memory that had eluded him earlier came rushing back. He could name places on that map, that map of a place that had been called fantasy. He could put a name to the whole world.
Middle-Earth.
'Mernyë cenë' is Quenya, 'I want to see'.
I claim no knowledge of architecture, archaeology, or Latin, so apologies for any hideous mistakes in those. I do claim a passing acquaintance with St. Paul's, having been inside it once. It was not, however, burnt down at the time.
I have never been to the year 2032. I do not know what happened to Maglor. I do not know if Tolkien envisaged a Fifth Age. You may have gathered that I do not know all that much.
Cloaked Eagle