The ancient road ends at a broad trench where stone and dust have collapsed into the earth. Valtún follows the others to its rim as wind combs the exposed masonry.
Ibram lowers himself beside a slab jutting from the trench wall. Beneath the road’s broken layers, faint carved lines emerge from the dust, preserved where the collapse shielded them.
Ibram
Here. The crescent is repeated, but the descending lines continue beneath the causeway. This was never a road marker alone.
Naramu kneels beside him, bracing one hand against the rubble while he clears grit from the lowest inscription. Dust spills into the trench in thin streams.
Naramu
The old script says, “Where the king’s road breaks, the buried road proceeds.” Ibram, your tablet was pointing downward all along.
Samira circles the trench, veil snapping in the hot wind. She tests several shelves of stone with her staff before finding a narrow descent where the dust has settled undisturbed.
Samira
The safest path is here. We can descend to the exposed foundation, but the route below may be another gate, not a passage for travelers.
Ibram
The inscription predates the marsh ruin. Whatever built these gates reaches farther beneath the kingdoms than I feared.