“[i]Disturb my slumber if you dare,
For there are fates much worse than mine
Awaiting those who cross this line.
So carry onward with great care,
Lest you invoke my curse[/i].”

The torchlight flickers, orange glow on pale sandstone walls. It feels like a last defence against the encroaching dark, shadows that have housed three thousand dead for three thousand years. And the words, read out with careful, dreadful precision, don’t quite echo as you might expect―the flat, dead voice chills us to the bone.

“Really?”

“No, don’t be dumb,” Peter says, and there is a collective sigh of relief. “Seriously, did you all really think some ancient inscription was going to have near-perfect rhyme and rhythm in English?”

Trish at least has the decency to look away, but everyone (aside from Peter) feels the same―shame at falling for the trick, and indignation that the trick had even happened in the first place. Arthur, though, is the first to put it into words:

“You’re a dick, Peter.”

Not that Peter seems to really mind. He just chuckles, and turns back to the glyphs that line the walls, running a finger over them delicately, his attention totally captured. It’s odd, but they’ve all seen Peter do this before.

“Any actual ideas?” Arthur asks, the impatience in his voice clear to everyone. Peter’s finger falters for a moment, and a wave of something that was once frustration and was now merely motions passed over his eyes and out of his nose in a sigh.

“So far as I can tell,” Peter says, his voice slow and deliberate, “there’s a dedication to the gods, and something unintelligible about sheep. It doesn’t seem to mention what this line on the floor means at all.” As he finishes, Peter swings his backpack over his shoulder with practised care and rests it softly in from of him, wedged between his knee and the sandstone wall. With a flick of a clasp the backpack is open, and Peter is diving his whole arm into it, right up to the rolled sleeves by his elbow. A moment later he has a small, battered book in his hand, and he is flicking through it.

“Are we really just going to wait here until you’ve translated that?” Trish asks. “I mean, it’s probably just saying something about some sheep they sacrificed to help build this place.”

“No.” Peter’s voice is soft, nothing more than a murmur. “It’s not quite right for that. There’s a standard way they would record sacrifices, and this just doesn’t start to match. And I’m not even sure ‘sheep’ is declined properly…”

Even with his voice so soft, Peter doesn’t hear their footsteps—he’s too absorbed in the words on the wall, and the little book of notes in his hand. It’s only a few minutes later, when the words made a little more sense and the book was a few pages more battered, that he noticed the few shadows that had vanished from the wall, and the silence around him.

He shrugged, jotted down the quickest of notes, and slung his backpack once more onto his shoulder. A brief whistle that barely echoed later, and Peter was wandering slowly down the tunnel to catch up with the group, the unread warning all but forgotten on the wall.