" What are you two waiting for, come in." Jamal crossed under the arch only to fall down just as he came to the other side with a loud cracking sound, making the two kids rush towards him.
" Are you alright?" Zarqa was concerned.
" You're a clutz or something?" Ali Baba gave a mocking snort which Morjana underscored with a squawk as if laughing at him. He shut up however when Zarqa glared back at him.
" What was that just cracked?" She inspected the older boy worriedly.
" That hurts…" He grumbled rubbing his forehead which was already marked by Majid's beating. " What did I trip on anyw- WAAAH!"
He cried out, scrambling away as much as possible from the base of the arch. " There!" He pointed a shaking arm and the two kids followed his finger, only to regret it instantly.
Zarqa gave a squeal as she looked away while Ali Baba gagged at his mouth in fear that whatever remained in his stomach by then would climb up at any second.
What they saw there was a pile of bare bones, barely covered by a shredded cloth… a skeleton. It lay there, jaw-dropping, skull tilted, and its empty sockets fixed forward. Despite having no eyes, a shiver ran down Ali Baba's spine as if he was being watched by it. One of its legs was jutting outwards and broken, probably what Jamal tripped on a moment ago.
" … I was beginning to think we were the first to discover this city. Turned out I was wrong." Ali Baba commented as he gleaned his courage and stepped towards the corpse. If he had to guess, he would have said that this person had been there for a century at least, seeing nothing but small patches of what was once his clothes remained. Curiously enough, those clothes were made of silk and seamed with gold, which piqued his interest.
As he reached for the last of the fancy clothes to inspect them, the skeleton fell down as if on cue, its bones coming apart.
Zarqa looked up at that moment only to realize something. " There is something engraved on the wall behind it."
Ali Baba then took notice of the lines of letters etched on the golden surface and the dagger that was held in one of the skeleton's hands. " This person left it behind…"
" And someone etched over it again…" She pointed towards the small points and lines added over the original letters. " Someone before us deciphered it."
" Let me see." Jamal squatted by his side, squinting at the small writing before him. Zarqa bend from behind them, making sure both boys stood between her and the sight of the skeleton.
" ' Seeker of gold beware, a wisdom left by a banished tribe, jewels they gleam and blind, yet a treasure here you won't find.'" She read.
" This is nonsense!" Ali Baba and Jamal, for once, agreed.
Zarqa seemed to ponder on those words for a moment before standing up. " Anyway, we have to do something about the skeleton. We can't just leave it like that."
Ali Baba chanced a quick glance at it. " It's not like we can bury it with the golden pavement."
Jamal reached into his bag and rolled out a large dirty and dusty sheet which he used to cover it. " Well, this should be enough."
Zarqa considered it for a moment before giving a nod of approval. She closed her eyes and offered the soul of that body a silent prayer.
" Now, we need to figure out where we're and how to proceed," Jamal stated a little too enthusiastically as if he hadn't just tripped over a dead skeleton, almost breaking his own neck.
All of them took in the place they were in for the first time. It was a large square, with high and fancy buildings surrounding it and an extravagant golden fountain shaped after an eight-pointed star at the very center. The buildings were considerably larger and more luxurious than the ones they had passed so far, speaking value and grandeur. Each one of them could rival the palaces and castles of the royalties.
Circling the whole square were four great arches, one of them was the very one they had just crossed, and underneath which laid the covered skeleton.
" This must be the plaza," Jamal hummed in bemusement as he walked around its perimeter, studying the buildings and their carvings hungrily. " The people who lived here before must have been of high status."
" Except that none of them is around anymore," Ali Baba remarked as he peered through a window inside one of the large castle-like structures. Despite everything inside being appealingly made of gold and decorated by gems that he could never dream of owning, there was a pressing lack of humans. And that began to gnaw on his mind. " That brings me to wonder what happened to the citizens?" Despite him, his eyes flicked back at the one hidden underneath Jamal's sheet. If they had left, it was unlikely that they would have left their wealth behind.
" Who knows," Jamal shrugged, not the least interested. " So far, there had been no sign of life."
Zarqa walked over to the fountain and peered down at her own reflection. It was then that she took notice of the mosaic work at its very bottom. It was perfectly laid together, no imperfections or faults could be spotted despite how very old the thing must have been. Smoothly, they came together to form one large picture of a huge scorpion. And although she grew to hate those lethal creatures roaming the deserts unnoticed and taking lives with ease, she couldn't help but marvel at the piece of art.
As she leaned forward to take a better look, she could feel a crevice under the tips of her fingers, a defect on the ledge of the fountain.
That wasn't quite right.
Despite this city being God knows how old, there was no cut or scratch on any of it except for the very ones the person who came before them cut. Ali Baba had just pointed out how seamlessly all of its surfaces were.
With a squint of her eyes, Zarqa brushed away the golden sand covering the rim, only for her fingers to run over something, a carving, a drawing on the very end of the star's point. Not jugged as if etched afterward by something sharp, but smooth and well-drawn as if intentionally made in there from the beginning for a purpose.
The cogs at the back of her mind clicked together.
Brushing all of the sand away, the carving became visible, three wavy lines, as if moving together in a rhythm.
" What did you get there?" Ali Baba walked from behind her, peeking at the symbol. " What's that?"
Zarqa inclined her head, as if looking at it from another angle would make any more sense.
It did.
Zarqa looked up as the revelation hit her and she spun around before running back all the way to the arch they came through, ignoring the presence of the corpse. Then turned around, craned her neck, and looked up at the engraving at the top of the arch. Squinting her eyes, she tried to add points and vowel marks to the lacking words within her mind, and soon it made sense. " ' The Turbulent Waves'." She read aloud the word at the top of the archway, with the same symbol from before encircled above them.
" What's the matter?" Both boys seemed at a loss of it as the girl feverishly ran back to the fountain.
" If that pick was pointing towards the arch then it means…" She ran over to the next pinnacle, brushing the sand away.
Jamal and Ali Baba ran to her sides, peeking at the drawing. This time, it was of the sun, almost at its brightest point with long lines to illustrate its strong rays.
" Not enough…" Zarqa murmured and ran over to the next, unearthing the carving.
Seven stars gathered like a plow, with the one at the end of the handle having many lines around it, as if shining the brightest.
" Could this be… Polaris?" Jamal asked, pointing at the star in question.
" That leaves…" At Ali Baba's words, all three of them ran to the next tip. Zarqa brushed it with a shaking hand and there it was, a symbol of the bright sun again, albeit this time cut in half and with small triangles at its base.
" The setting sun…" Zarqa whispered breathlessly as she looked over her shoulder, at the golden arch standing on the other side, right behind them.
" There is one way to figure out…" Morjana agreed with a caw.
With hasty steps, the kids made for the said arch, necks bent so they could take it in, and glimpse the slightest sign that it was their destination.
They halted just a few feet from the monument, admiring it. Golden? it was. Gate? definitely could pass for one.
Swallowing in anticipation, Zarqa crossed under the archway and looked back, her heart beating fast against her chest. And there it was, the same symbol of the demi sun and the triangles. And right underneath it...
" 'The Setting Sun'," she mumbled with both joy and relief.