My colleagues at the university had called me mad for sinking my life’s savings into this expedition. The diggers and treasure hunters had called me cursed after I led them day after day through whipping sands, blazing heat, and shimmering visions of water in the distance that could never be reached. After the last pack animal had died of thirst and the final excavator had fled into the night, I had begun to believe they might be right. But still I trudged onward over steep dunes and rocky plains, called forward by your gentle persistent whisper.
When I passed through the Canyon of Dilli and finally laid eyes on the Tomb of Cor Zon, the clamoring voices of fear uncertainty and doubt flew from my mind, no more real than the shimmering waters I had seen in the desert. Day after day I dug with shovel and pick, ignoring thirst and hunger, my mind filled with visions of glory. Keen as I was for my prize, I felt as if I could sense you, a dull beating in my bones, a spoken word just beyond hearing.
Finally, on the seventh day in the tomb, I broke through a wall of brick and sandstone and entered the Chamber of Spoils. My eyes scanned the vases of gold, mummified servants, and stacks of ancient weapons as I hunted hungrily for that which had called me. Finally my eyes came to an ornate chest with bands of rusted iron. My stomach felt light and my limbs seemed to hum as I pulled open the lid and caught my first glimpse of you, the Battle-dress of Cor Zon. Although the iron plates had gone to rust, the silk faded and crumbled, and the Zardozi pattern threads of gold and silver lay tarnished, the beetle wing flowers still sparkled and shown with a violet light.
I pulled you to my chest and fell to the floor. Having achieved what I sought, I could no longer hold back the exhaustion, the thirst, and the hunger. I felt the world slowly fading to black. My final thoughts as I closed my eyes were that the scholars of Tar Loom had not done the beetle wings justice in the ancient scrolls. 3000 years they had been in this tomb and still they kept their iridescent luster.
