The Road With a Friend.

"Do you understand what is written here?" David asked the woman, noting how attentively she was looking at the inscriptions.

"Y-yes, I think I understand," Elena came closer to the place where the mysterious symbols were depicted. The light provided by Marcus's lantern was enough to distinguish each of them as in daylight.

Marcus smiled contentedly; he did not even doubt that this capable lady would contribute invaluable help in his search.

"I hope Elena, you will explain to us the content of these squiggles? If I understand correctly, there may be clues about where the knife is hidden, which means that we can easily find it."

Elena frowned, even if she understood in general terms the meaning of these symbols, she was not completely sure that this was true. If important information was hidden in these letters, then it was necessary to interpret it very accurately, otherwise, any mistake could become a serious problem for them.

"Hmm, as I understand it, it says about some hidden key that opens and closes the divine gate. A pure soul with the blood of God keeps this key and collects a fee for its service in order to return this key to God when he comes for his tribute," Elena explained, but the meaning of this was still unknown to her.

Even if they now knew what was written here, people in ancient times expressed their thoughts in a completely different way. It would be naive to expect to see instructions wherever it was said point by point - go here, then there, and there you will find what you are looking for.

And if we were talking about such a cache as this pyramid, then any phrase could be an encrypted message, the meaning of which was like a rebus with several options.

"That's right, well done," Marcus praised her. He had enough of this information because it confirmed what he already knew.

The prediction, the trigger of which he became due to the thoughtless and greedy actions of his father and grandfather of Amelia, completely coincided with what Elena read. Even Lina did not know the full content of that ancient warning, the bearer of which the girl became at birth. And only Amelia and Marcus were aware of what kind of demon their ancestors had awakened.

"The key which this inscription tells us about is the knife we're looking for, isn't it?"

"Yes, you could say that," Marcus answered David's question and lowered his hand with a lantern, the inscription disappeared into the darkness again. The man walked forward and stopped near one of the tunnels, "This place is a dead end that I can't get through. All these tunnels, regardless of their length and direction, eventually return here to this room. I carefully studied each of them, but neither of them has any inscriptions or drawings, nothing that could give any kind of clue."

Marcus attached the lantern to the wall on a pre-prepared hook, removed the backpack from his shoulders, took out three more lamps from there and fixed them above the entrances of the other three exits. The perimeter of the room lit up, and Elena saw that the stone walls were covered not only with words but also with drawings.

"In addition to the inscription on the ceiling, there are several more characters that are similar to those that are present there. I assume that the inscription above the head is just general information, and the hint itself is encrypted in these signs," the man pointed with his finger towards one of the drawings, where an image of a man was depicted next to several symbols. "So, any ideas?"

Elena went up to the wall and ran her hand through the shallow grooves that outlined the silhouette of a man. The fact that this drawing was several hundred years old caused excitement in the woman as if she could feel the whole stream of time that passed from the moment the artist's hand finished this creation.

With her fingertips, she slowly scored the long line running under the drawings and resembling a road. This line went through all the walls, combining the images into a single ensemble. In some places, other lines went down from it to the floor, trying to connect in the center of the hall.

The woman followed her gaze after one of them and saw another drawing on the floor. It looked like a sun in shape, and the lines from the walls were its rays. Each person depicted on the wall looked towards this sun as if trying to reach it but could not.

"When alone, the road is long. When with a friend, the road is fast," Elena explained the meaning of the symbols depicted on the walls.

They, in a compartment with drawings, reminded her of some ancient manuscripts that she had seen in Professor Richards' office when she had just enrolled in the Academy. One of his courses was ancient history, and in his lectures, he often demonstrated copies of Egyptian parchments or clay tablets of more ancient civilizations.

Not all students liked these lectures, Jason usually napped at them, Corey sometimes wrote something, but Elena was the only one from the whole group who listened to the teacher with pleasure and attention. Perhaps that is why an authoritative professor noticed her, and Elena soon became not only the best student at the faculty thanks to her knowledge and phenomenal memory, but also a personal assistant to Brian Richards.

That man treated her with warmth and care, as if she were his own daughter, and Elena often remembered him even after so many years. If the professor was alive, he probably would have been able to solve these riddles.

"David, can you lift me up? I want to check something on the ceiling."

David walked over to his wife, grabbed her tightly around the waist and lifted her up, "Will that go?"

"Hmm, take a step to the right, please."

"What is there?" Marcus perked up, he also noticed that there were some other small drawings on the ceiling that he did not pay attention to.

Elena ran her palm across the surface of the stone, in the center of the ceiling, above the symbol of the sun, was a symbol similar to the moon.

"I'm not sure, but it seems to me that these little men on the walls mean that a person has to move, do something, but he usually doesn't do it if it's night outside," the moon pattern stood out a bit from the rest of the surface.

And if the woman had not seen it close, then it would have seemed further that it was just an uneven stone. But now, being at the very ceiling, Elena saw that it was not a solid piece of stone, but a brick.

She raised a hand to the image and pressed it.

A skirr and rattle rang out from all sides, David bounced to the side, holding his wife tightly against him. Under their feet, a plate with the image of the sun rose up and protruded above the surface. On the walls, where people were previously depicted, four small niches formed, similar to hiding places.

"Hmm, it seems our beautiful lady has just found something unusual," Marcus smirked, his mood improved noticeably, "Who is interested to check out what's there?"