“Your order is not privy to the information I am about to share with you. Only the highest circle of the priesthood knows this.” Sarra lowered her voice. “The gods have rescinded the gift of the amaranth, or at least my predecessor, Pouri Amunet, thought so. There is a drought, but the lack of rain is not the source of our seed shortage. The amaranth is in short supply because the amaranth seeds are infertile and have been for two hundred years. The seeds of the newly planted amaranth do not bud or grow. We sow seeds from the empire’s old storehouses, reserves that are nearly emptied. The field that you saw outside was the last of the supply.”
“Impossible,” Noll whispered. “How?” he shook his head. “There would be records, ways to trace such things. You’ve kept this hidden?”
Sarra tilted her head to one side. “Is it really that hard to believe? That the priesthood could keep secret the truth behind its sacred crop—the one only we can tender, whose very nature has been protected by the priesthood for three millennia?”
Noll did not argue with her. The scribe was quiet, then he asked, “There will be no more amaranth?”
Sarra pressed her lips together. “When the seeds are gone, the amaranth will be gone. Our stores of seeds were once vast, but they are nearly depleted. The gift of Mithra, the amaranth, cultivated by the priesthood and sold to the people of Solus, will be no more, and the desert will be uninhabitable. Right now the forests of Feren sustain much of the empire, but there is not enough food in the Gray Wood to feed all of us.”
“The priesthood has been keeping this a secret? Why?” Noll asked.
“My predecessors felt it best to conceal the amaranth’s infertility. A drought is an easy thing to understand. The empire will not blame the priesthood for a drought. But tell the people that our sacred crop, a plant tended only by the priesthood, is infertile? We will surely be blamed.”
“I understand, but why are you telling me this?” asked Noll. “I study symbols. There is nothing I can do.”
“I hope you’re wrong.” She led Noll through a corridor, down a ramp, and into a room no wider than Sarra’s outstretched arms. The lamplight revealed faint indentations on the walls and ceiling. “Can you read the marks?” Sarra asked.
“A few—most of them, actually.”
“Good. My priests decoded one or two, the rest were indecipherable. I brought you here and I told you our secret because they say you are fluent in the script,” she said. “That you can read the ancient language of the Soleri, the forbidden tongue in which these marks are written.”
Noll looked as if his answer might anger Sarra. “No one can read all of the old symbols, Mother Priestess. Even during their time, the keys to the ancient language were kept hidden. The gods did not share their tongue with their subjects, but I’ve pieced together a skeleton of sorts, an inventory of the old characters.”
“Good. This is an antechamber, nothing more. But through that passage”—Sarra gestured—“there is a larger chamber, one carved entirely in these same symbols. We’ve seen hundreds of storehouses, but only this one carried the markings. I need to know why this site is different.” Sarra coughed, pushing dust from her lungs. “I want to read the symbols.”
Sarra led Noll through the gradually narrowing passage, cool air rushing through cracks in the stone. The passage widened into a brazier-lit room. Miniature symbols covered the chamber walls.
At first glance, the marks resembled the scratches of a caged animal, but they were characters in a forgotten script. “Do you recognize it?” Sarra asked, gesturing to the marks.
“It’s hieratic.” Noll squinted at the wall through the flickering light. “Derived from the old pictographic language of the Soleri.”
“I know what the word means, it’s the symbols I am interested in,” Sarra said. “Others tried to decode the inscriptions, but the language was beyond their ability. I’ve summoned priests from all over the kingdoms, but none of them could read the marks. We asked the Harkans to send us scrolls from the repository in Harwen, but the parchments were of no use. I’m hoping you will have better luck.”
His eyes darted from symbol to symbol. “The walls contain prayers, wards of protection, curses against those that trespass.”
“Wards you say?”
Noll nodded without turning from the inscriptions. “Yes, wards. This is a forbidden place, a chamber meant only for the Soleri,” he said, walking deeper into the room, up a step. Noll kneeled before a column and traced a circular carving, an ornate ring incised at the base of a pillar. Upon closer inspection, faint indentations, markings that resembled scales, dotted the ring and what seemed to be a chip at the circle’s top was actually a snake’s head carved in the act of consuming its own tail.
“What is it?” Sarra asked.
“The snake is the symbol of Pyras.”
“The firstborn of Mithra-Sol?” Sarra asked.
“Yes. The snake’s head circle is an ancient ward, placed here to frighten looters. The mark warns that the eye is watching.”
“Whose eye, the eye of Pyras?” Sarra asked, looking askance at having to say his name. She knew the myth well.
The story of the first of the Soleri cannot be told without Pyras; the two were entwined from their beginning. Pyras was the progeny of shadow, Re the child of the sun. The children of Mithra were birthed in a place beyond the heavens, in Atum, the domain of Mithra-Sol, the land beyond the sky, the home before time.
Atum. A world fashioned for Mithra-Sol’s children. A world that after a time seemed too small for the sons of Mithra. So Pyras, firstborn of Mithra-Sol, searched for a land that he alone could rule. He found none that were worthy, so he devoured what he discovered and fashioned a new world from the remains of the old.
But Re, seeing this new world and wanting it for himself, pricked a hole in the sphere of Atum, so its light could shine upon this new land. That pinprick became Sol; the land became Sola. Through the fissure, Re plummeted to the earth.
Mithra’s child touched the desert sand, and his essence poured into the land, the amaranth bloomed, and life blossomed across the desert. Mithra granted Re a wife, Rena, and together they gave birth to ten children. These were the first of the Soleri, but they were beings of Atum, made of pure light. To more fully experience their new world, they took on new forms, bodies born from the creatures of the land, shells made from the stones of the desert and the light of the stars.
The Soleri made a new home, a new perfection, and claimed it as their own. But the stars and the stones and the desert sand did not belong to the Soleri—they belonged to the Pyras and his progeny. Pyras made this world. He was the first.
A great conflict erupted between the two families.
Seeing his children quarrel, Mithra-Sol devised a solution to their conflict. He gave his children both darkness and light in equal amounts. To accomplish this feat, he set the sun and stars into motion. He made the world spin. Day and night were born, and the children of Mithra-Sol were once more at peace.
But the Soleri did not want peace. They wanted the world for themselves and so they tricked the firstborn of Mithra. In secret, the Soleri gave birth to Luni, the moon, and placed her in the sky so even at night Mithra’s light would shine upon the land.