Page 25 of Dark Rover’s Luck (The Children Of The Gods #95)

25

DIN

A s Din and Fenella left the Hobbit Bar, he could practically feel her energy crackling. Getting hired had been like an injection of vitality for her, and for the first time since reuniting with her, he saw glimpses of the girl he used to know fifty years ago—full of life, smiling, and optimistic about the future.

His heart reacted. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed the girl she used to be and discovering that she was still somewhere in there made him hopeful.

"I'm so excited to work in a place that looks like it was plucked straight out of Middle Earth." She gestured animatedly. "Atzil seems like a nice guy, and if I prove to him that I can run the place without him, he will allow me to open the pub all week long. It could be my little queendom."

"He's lucky to have found you. The drinks you made were impressive. I had no idea you were so talented."

Fenella tossed her hair over her shoulder with a casual flick. "There's a lot you don't know about me, professor." The teasing lilt in her voice sent a pleasant warmth through his body. "Besides, I'm willing to bet that you've never ordered anything other than whiskey. All of you guys back home regarded cocktails as girly."

He chuckled. "True. It's probably the same here, and I'm surprised that Atzil didn't mention it. But given the selection of whiskeys on display, I suspect I'm right."

He wanted to bring up his dinner plans, but he didn't know how to do it without seeming like he was setting up the stage for seduction.

"Speaking of displays," Fenella said, tapping her lips with her index finger. "If you have time, I'd love to see the artifacts in the glass pavilion again, but this time with an expert by my side." She cast him a brilliant smile. "Would you like that? Or are you adamant about enjoying your break from teaching and don't want to look at one more dusty display until you have to?"

He feigned a frown. "And miss an opportunity to impress you with my knowledge? No way. Besides, I gave the display only a cursory look when I passed by it."

"Really? Why's that?" she asked teasingly. "I would think that you'd be interested to see what the competition was doing."

He had no reason to pretend like she hadn't been the only thing on his mind when he'd arrived at the village. "I was preoccupied with thoughts of you and in a rush to see you."

"Oh, that's sweet." Fenella threaded her arm through his and leaned her head against his bicep.

He could have started singing love ballads at that moment if he hadn't been too embarrassed. Fenella was letting him in and already treating him like a boyfriend. He hadn't expected to make so much headway in such a short period of time.

It's happening fast because we are fated to be together, a small voice in his head whispered .

"Fair warning, though," he said. "Once I start talking about archeology and the mysteries it uncovers, it's hard to get me to stop."

"I'll take my chances."

The glass pavilion that served as the village's central hub was quiet at this hour. Sunset was nearing, so the light wasn't as strong as it was midday, but it was still enough to illuminate the display cases containing Kalugal's artifacts.

"Let's start with an overview and then go back to whatever catches your interest, sounds good?"

Fenella nodded. "Perfect."

"Most of these are from Egypt," Din said as they strolled along the wall. "Though there are some pieces from Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and pre-Columbian America as well."

Fenella stopped next to a case that contained a collection of small figurines. "These don't resemble the typical Egyptian artifacts I've seen in museums."

He was surprised that she'd even visited museums during her travels. Perhaps they had more in common than he'd assumed.

"Good eye. They're from pre-dynastic Egypt, before the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around the third millennium BCE. The mainstream archaeological community tends to focus on the more 'iconic' periods—the New Kingdom with its grand temples and Valley of the Kings, or the Old Kingdom with the Great Pyramids."

He approached the case, pointing to a small statuette of a woman with an elongated head. "These depictions have always fascinated me. Conventional archaeologists attribute the elongated skull to artistic license or perhaps depicting a binding practice, but given what I know about the gods, perhaps some had naturally elongated heads, or had been genetically altered to have them, because it was fashionable at the time. Or it could have been a depiction of another alien species that had visited Earth at some point."

"You think it actually depicts an alien?" Fenella raised an eyebrow.

She studied the figurine with renewed interest. "That makes more sense than head-binding, which is the orthodox explanation."

Din shrugged. "It would have been easier to accept the head-binding explanation if there were no other anomalies throughout ancient Egyptian art that the orthodox narrative struggles to explain."

He walked to the next case, which contained several tablets covered in hieroglyphics. "Take these, for instance. They're from Abydos, dating to the reign of Seti I, around 1290 BCE. But if you look closely at these cartouches, they contain symbols that don't appear in standard hieroglyphic lexicons. For years, Egyptologists dismissed them as either errors by the scribe or later additions. But the carving technique is identical to the rest of the tablet."

Fenella leaned closer. "What do they say?"

"They reference 'those who came from the sky,'" Din translated. "And describe technology that sounds remarkably like spacecraft. Of course, mainstream archaeology interprets this as purely mythological language."

"But you know better." There was a hint of wonder in Fenella's voice.

Din nodded. "Humans gave divine interpretation to what they couldn't grasp, and the gods took advantage of that, playing into the narrative. According to the Clan Mother, their motives were benevolent. They wanted humans to develop a just and moral society, and to a large degree, they succeeded in doing so in Sumer. It's only after their destruction that things started to deteriorate, and humanity devolved instead of evolving. Regrettably, history is full of such circles. People erroneously assume that things will always get better and that their children and grandchildren will have it better. They fail to internalize what they learned from history, if they learned anything at all." He smiled at her. "I don't want to sound like a snob, but most humans are ignorant, yet they believe they know everything they need to know. It's very frustrating, especially for someone like me who does his best to teach them better."

As they kept walking from one display case to the next, Din pointed out curiosities that conventional archaeology struggled to explain—perfectly drilled holes in granite that would challenge modern diamond-tipped tools, pictures of precisely cut stones weighing hundreds of tons moved and fitted with millimeter precision, and artwork depicting what appeared to be advanced technology.

"This is one of my favorites," Din said, stopping before what must have been a replica of a relief carving from the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. "It's commonly called the 'Dendera Light' because of its resemblance to a modern light bulb."

The carving showed what appeared to be an elongated bulb with a filament-like snake inside, supported by what looked like a cable connected to a box.

"Egyptologists insist it's a symbolic representation of a lotus flower with mythological significance. But considering the practical-minded nature of Egyptian art, that explanation never satisfied me. The gods possessed advanced technology, much more advanced than this, but they might have imparted a more primitive version to their human subjects."

Fenella studied the carving with skeptical interest. "So, the ancient Egyptians had electricity?"

"This particular device likely used some chemical reaction to create light."

"The ancients probably thought it was magic. It's like Clarke's Third Law," Fenella mused. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Din looked at her with pleasant surprise. "Exactly. I didn't know that you were a science fiction fan."

She shrugged, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. "As we already established, there are many things you don't know about me. Back in the day, when I was a young lass, there were no smartphones with endless entertainment options at the tips of my fingers. More often than not, the only thing I had were books to keep the boredom at bay, and I developed a liking for science fiction. I liked stories that took me away from the drudgery of this world, but fantasy didn't appeal to me because it was all about sword fights and magic. Science fiction opened windows into different possibilities, and instead of relying on magic, it relied on science, and it was much easier for me to suspend my disbelief."

"I completely get why you didn't like fantasy. Given what you have been through, you've become too jaded and sarcastic to suspend disbelief. Science providing different realities is easier for you to accept."

Fenella's expression turned guarded. "It wasn't all bad. I saw the world, experienced different cultures, and learned to rely on myself."

Din wanted to say more—to apologize properly for his role in her difficult life, to promise he'd make it up to her somehow—but he sensed that she wouldn't appreciate that. In fact, he regretted even bringing it up and spoiling her mood. Fenella was a proud woman, and she didn't want him to think of her as a victim.

She was a fighter and a survivor, and he'd better remember that.

Moving along, he stopped next to a display case containing small mechanical objects. "These are known as the Baghdad Batteries, though these examples were actually found in Egypt. Conventional archaeology dates them to around 250 BCE, during the Parthian period."

The artifacts consisted of terracotta jars containing copper cylinders that housed iron rods, with evidence of an acidic residue inside.

"When reconstructed with grape juice or vinegar as an electrolyte, they produce electricity. Mainstream archaeologists debate their purpose—some suggest they were used for electroplating jewelry while others think they had medical applications."

"And what do you think?" Fenella asked.

"I think they're downgraded versions of much more sophisticated power sources the gods used. Over generations, the technology was simplified and its original purpose forgotten, but humans continued making them based on inherited knowledge."

"They were trying to copy what the gods had."

"Precisely," Din agreed. "Much of ancient human civilization consisted of imperfect attempts to replicate the gods' technology and customs."

As they moved to the next display, Din was hyper-aware of how close Fenella stood, the subtle floral scent of her hair when she leaned forward to examine an artifact, the animated way her hands moved as she asked questions. The academic discussion was comfortable territory for him but underneath ran a current of something more primal—an attraction that had only kept intensifying the more time he spent with her.

"What about this one?" Fenella pointed to a small stone object that resembled a modern airplane.

Din smiled. "Conventional archaeology classifies it as a bird figurine or perhaps a weathervane, but its aerodynamic properties are remarkable. A larger model of this was built and tested in wind tunnels, and it displays genuine lift."

"So, it's a model airplane?"

"More likely a glider, but I believe it represents a flying machine of some kind. There are similar artifacts from ancient Colombia and other pre-Columbian civilizations that exhibit the same aerodynamic features."

Fenella shook her head in amazement. "It's incredible how much evidence of the gods' existence is hiding in plain sight."

"Humans see what they expect to see. The paradigm of gradual technological evolution is so entrenched that evidence contradicting it is rationalized away or ignored entirely."

"That's what makes it possible for immortals to live among them undetected," Fenella said.

"Exactly," Din agreed. "The human mind is remarkably adept at filtering out what doesn't fit its understanding of reality."

"Have you heard of the Piri Reis map?"

Fenella shook her head.

"It was created by an Ottoman admiral in the sixteenth century. What makes it extraordinary is that it shows the coastline of Antarctica without ice—something that shouldn't have been possible, as humans didn't discover Antarctica until the nineteenth century. Its coastline beneath the ice wasn't mapped until much later, using modern technology."

Fenella frowned. "Did it match?"

Din nodded. "The admiral claimed that he compiled the map from older sources, including some dating back to Alexander the Great's time, but I believe the ultimate source was the gods, who had aerial views of the earth and mapped it completely. That knowledge was preserved in ancient libraries and charts, but it was fragmented and degraded."

"So, the gods had satellite imagery?"

Din nodded. "Not only that, but carvings were also found in Sumer that look a lot like today's satellites. The technology was probably a little different, but the purpose was likely the same."

As the sunlight began to fade, casting longer shadows through the pavilion, Din realized they'd spent longer there than he'd expected. Fenella didn't look bored, for which he was thankful, but soon the place would become completely dark, and they needed to get home.

"I've been talking your ears off." He cast her a sheepish smile. "You should have stopped me."

"I enjoyed every moment." She took his hand, which sent a jolt of electricity through him.

It was time to mention dinner.

"Do you like ribeye steaks?" he asked.

She laughed. "Who doesn't? Why? Are you offering to cook some for me?"

Wow, that was much easier than he'd expected. Fenella had practically invited herself to dinner. Then again, she probably assumed that Thomas would be there. He needed to tell her they would be alone and allow her to bow out if she wanted.

"Thomas is out on a mission tonight, and he very generously offered the use of his kitchen and some excellent steaks from his freezer. I could cook for you, if you'd like."

"I'd like that very much." She offered him a bright smile. "Dinner sounds lovely, but do you actually know how to cook, or is this going to be an experiment?"

Din laughed, the tension draining from his shoulders. "I can manage a decent steak and some sides."

"Well then, Professor MacDougal," she said, the use of his formal name sending an unexpected thrill through him, "lead the way to this promised feast."