"You smell," Juan said.
"You also smell."
The fishermen had already headed out with their boats before sunrise, so the shacks were almost empty. The only ones left behind were a few people repairing their nets and some hungover drunks.
They walked together toward the carriage waiting behind the harbor buildings. Juan was carrying Ezra on his back. No one paid attention to the strangers passing through. It looked like they were used to minding their own business, not caring about a weird-looking man carrying another man who looked dead.
"Who's this guy? What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know what's wrong with him. It might be some kind of poison. We need to take him to Professor Reiner immediately."
"Don't worry, we'll be there soon," Juan said as he placed Ezra inside the carriage as gently as he could.
"Look at this… You were supposed to come meet me, and yet here I am, picking you up instead!"
"Sorry," Arsh said with a laugh. "Where's Mes?"
"Ah... the kid has a lot on his plate, so I thought I'd come instead."
"Thanks."
They didn't talk until they left the path from the shacks. Arsh held Ezra carefully so he wouldn't get shaken too much. Once they got onto the main road, Juan spoke again.
"You've been busy since you got here. Herman told me a little. Good job."
"You were the one who told me to come here and said you'd help me in return. I did exactly what you said."
Juan laughed when he heard that. "Good. You did well," he said. He kinda looked proud.
When they arrived at the manor, Professor Reiner was already waiting for them. Juan carried Ezra to a room prepared for him. The Professor cut away Ezra's shirt and bandages carefully. Then began examining his wounds. Arsh had already described the situation in the telegram he had sent earlier. So he didn't have to explain anything.
As the professor examined Ezra's wounds, his expression began to grow serious. For a while, he moved the green, worm-like lights emanating from his hand over the black veins on Ezra's arm. But there seemed to be no change.
"What on earth is this?" he muttered to himself.
Arsh didn't want to disturb him, so he didn't ask any questions. He watched as the wounds on Ezra's shoulder and back disappeared without leaving a scar. The professor tried once more to heal the pain black veins caused, but it was clear it had no effect. Finally, completely exhausted with sweat pouring down his forehead, he collapsed onto the edge of the bed.
"Professor…"
"Arsh, I'm sorry. This isn't poison… I'm not even sure what it is. I don't know how to treat it. I'll take some blood to examine it. Right now, all I can do is ease his pain with medication," he said.
He picked up a syringe that had been prepared beforehand on the nightstand and injected it into Ezra's arm. Then, with another syringe, he gave him a painkiller shot.
"This should ease his pain a little. Let's step outside."
As he and Juan left the room, Arsh stayed behind for a moment, watching Ezra lying on the bed. The groans had already begun to fade within a couple of minutes as the medicine took effect. But this wasn't a solution. He wanted to know exactly what had brought him to this state. Whatever it was, he had to find a cure.
Once Ezra's breathing had steadied, Arsh left the room and joined the others waiting in the sitting room. Mes and Bera were there as well. Bera looked better than he had the day before, though he was still pale.
Seeing Arsh's troubled expression, no one spoke for a while. Then Mes broke the silence with a hesitant tone.
"Did he manage to find the notebooks?"
"Ah… the notebooks. I forgot to check them," he said, pulling the bloodstained notebooks and papers out of his bag. The reason he had sent Ezra there had completely slipped his mind. He handed the notebooks to Mes, who was sitting beside him.
The pages were filled with cuneiform texts copied from tablets, with translations written underneath. Some pages were a complete mess, but most of them seemed to have been translated. After quickly flipping through them, Mes opened the first page again.
There was a note saying "Records found on tablets from the ancient Nicea period, discovered in the Haros region". Beneath it was the name of Richard Adams, whom Mrs. Burton had mentioned as her mentor. It seemed like all tablets are about different things; some recorded details of daily life, others were written in the form of letters, while others were about folk tales and legends.
As he turned the pages, a sentence caught his eye. It felt disturbingly familiar. It was the same inscription carved into the Gate inside the Well.
You can't know your destination until you arrive.
"You can't know your destination until you arrive," Mes muttered. He remembered it. Arsh had copied the inscription before, and Mrs. Burton had translated it.
'You can't know your destination until you arrive,' a voice echoed inside his head at the exact same time.
"What did you say? Which language is that?" Mes asked.
"What?"
"You muttered something just now. I didn't understand what you said."
"Did I? I didn't notice," Arsh said. He didn't remember saying anything.
Mes said nothing and continued flipping through the pages. Arsh wanted to keep reading as well, but he was starting to realize he had underestimated the toll of a sleepless night and a long journey. His vision was beginning to blur, and it was becoming harder and harder to focus.
"Look at this. This one's interesting. I think that's the part Mrs. Burton was talking about." Mes said, turning back to the same page again. "Professor Adams noted that this was probably written by a traveler who visited Nicaea."
He began reading aloud.
"Like a lost soul, I wandered until I found my way to the land of the Blessed. I was told that I would see happy people there. But when I arrived, all those happy people shattered like clay figurines. Flames filled the sky, and joy withered like a flower. These people did not fear the command of the Lord. Now, they have been punished. But their punishment was the demise of the very god they destroyed. They did not understand. Nor was there hope for those who did. If there is no god to deliver justice, then everyone is guilty, and everyone is innocent."
Juan leaned over Mes's shoulder to look at the text.
"Hmm... what's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know either," Mes said, turning the page and continued to read aloud.
"I have heard that there are people trying to save god. Is such a thing possible? But perhaps it is. If a god can perish from the ignorance of humans, perhaps they can also be resurrected by their sincere sacrifices. Arinne of the South, Vurdar of the North, Isle of the West, Nok of the East, Seyra of the distant seas and beyond, the nameless gods of nameless lands... All of them are wounded, all of them have fallen."
"I have heard that the last remnants of the fallen gods' power, the final traces of what once flowed through human veins, the last sign that they ever existed—are to be hidden in the southern lands, where the desert spreads like a plague to the green lands. I told them it was a hopeless pursuit. But they all gave the same answer, 'You can't know your destination until you arrive.' I said nothing more. For if anyone knows the path of a wanderer, I also know. A man cannot truly know what awaits him at the end of his road, even if he believes he does."
"This part might be related to the burial chamber Millway found," Mes muttered. "The thing it says about hiding... Arsh?"
"I don't know," Arsh said. His mind was blurred even more, while at the same time, something else felt like it was clawing its way out from within his head. The pain was growing with every second.
"Hey, your nose is bleeding. Are you okay?"
"Get some rest first. There's no rush. You two can look at this later," Juan said.
"No, I'm fine. Keep reading, Mes," Arsh said, wiping the blood from his nose onto the sleeve of the coat the homeless man had given him.
"Okay... The boundary will be drawn, the remaining gods will depart, the child will be buried in the earth before they die, and fate will shroud itself in silence for now. It will wait for the time it must awaken." Mes continued to read quickly, not giving himself and others time to even process the words.
As Mes kept reading, the pain in Arsh's head grew worse. The haze over his vision thickened, as if his skull was about to split open. Whatever this was, it was definitely not exhaustion.
'What is this… what is happening?' he tried to think, to understand. But his consciousness was fading too quickly for him to make sense of it.
There were already blood stains from Ezra, and now Arsh's own blood was staining the notebook in Mes's hands. He heard voices—someone calling out. He wasn't sure who they were calling for or why.
'Who is this Arsh…?' was his final thought. Then everything else was erased as his consciousness slipped away.