14 – "Cuniculus: The Ancient Vein of the Bosphorus"
"The Emperor's Submerged Artery"
Istanbul had pulled the night over itself like a heavy shroud, yet the restlessness beneath it never subsided. From atop that high, wind-swept ridge, Borz looked down at the highways encircling the city like shackles.
Those roads were a labyrinth, every step directed by overseers, hedged in by invisible prohibitions, and woven with soulless regulations. The glittering but restrictive order of the modern world was like a seal struck upon Borz's freedom. For this reason, he chose not to walk the monitored paths everyone else took, but rather the ancient veins forgotten by history and hidden from the eyes of the system.
"The time has come," Borz whispered, his eyes fixed on the pitch-black darkness. "Now, it is time to return to Daymokh—to the Fatherland."
These words were not a farewell, but a vow of return to his origins. His plan did not involve using the monitored bridges or the restricted tunnels of modern engineering. Instead, he relied on an underground artery—a masterpiece of military strategy and secrecy from the era when the Roman Empire stamped its seal upon these lands.
This passage was a secret undersea corridor, designed to connect the continents of Europe and Asia, used to silently move legions to "Little Asia" whenever storms raged at sea or a great threat emerged.
Borz could not trust the fleeting lights of the modern world. He gathered natural resins, old rags, and the oily, flammable mixture that had accumulated among the stones of the ruins.
He drew the hatchet from his back; the cold surface of the steel flashed once in the moonlight. With a single strike, he carved a sturdy stake from a fallen oak tree, shaping it into a torch. When he coated the tip with that ancient mixture and struck it with a flint, an orange flame tore hungrily through the darkness.
As they moved along the ridge, the vegetation thinned, and they were met by massive, moss-covered stone blocks thrusting out from the heart of the earth like a dagger.
Though it appeared at first glance to be a random pile of rocks, the perfect symmetry of the stones screamed that they once belonged to a magnificent fortress or a fortification.
Borz held the torch to the base of a marble pedestal. Beneath a silhouette of a Roman eagle worn thin by time, there was a Latin inscription: *"Viam Secretam Ad Orientem"* — *"The Secret Path to the East."*
"This is it," Borz said, stroking the dog's back. "The vein forgotten by Rome, but the one where we shall find refuge."
As they stepped inside, the noise of the world above—filled with its rules—was cut short like a blade. The air below was cool, heavy, and kneaded with a thousand years of humidity. The flame of the torch danced with a slight but constant breeze coming from the depths of the tunnel.
The flawless *opus caementicium* (Roman concrete) craftsmanship of the walls whispered that these stones had not been inspected by any "overseer" for a millennium. This was a world where prohibitions did not exist; only the weight of the stone held sway.
The tunnel sloped steeply downward, heading directly beneath the massive body of water of the Bosphorus. Borz moved forward, feeling the solidity of the ground beneath his feet. Directly above them, those tons of salty water flowed by, yet Rome's unshakable engineering protected the tunnel like armor. In the niches along the walls, the soot from the torches that once lit this place still remained; it was as if time had stopped here, waiting for Borz and his companion to pass.
This journey was not just from one continent to another, but from a state of captivity toward the sacred freedom of the Fatherland. As Borz walked toward the free lands of Little Asia in the flickering light of his torch, he felt the fire within him was as deep as the path itself. He had left the false lights of Istanbul behind; he was now a silent storm passing through the heart of the darkness.
As the flickering flame of the torch illuminated the massive arches stretching into the depths of the tunnel, the astonishment on Borz's face transformed into a profound sense of reverence. This was not merely a path; it was a total victory of human will over nature and time. As Borz ran his hand across the smooth yet cold stone wall, he felt the unshakable rationality of Roman engineering at his fingertips.
This structure had likely been built at the zenith of Rome's glory, during the era when Istanbul—then known as Nova Roma—was declared the heart and capital of the Empire. It was the product of Emperor Constantine's, or perhaps his successors', desire to make the city invincible not only above ground but beneath it. Rome did not just conquer a city; it encased it in an armor of stone. And the most secret piece of that armor was this magnificent undersea artery through which Borz now walked.
"Look at this," Borz whispered, aiming the torch at a keystone in the ceiling. "Thousands of years have passed, yet there isn't even a single crack. The stones are locked together so perfectly, it's as if they were carved from a single piece of rock."
Roman engineering did not resemble the quickly decaying concrete heaps of the modern world. With their mysterious mortar prepared from volcanic ash and their flawless knowledge of geometry, they had created a structure that defied even the corrosive power of seawater. While the massive currents of the Bosphorus and tons of salty water roared just above them, this tunnel maintained its silence like an unyielding fortress. This was a road of freedom built not by the rules of overseers, but by the sanctity of mathematics and labor. Rome had brought the sea to its knees, connecting two continents in that deep darkness where even fish could not enter, through an immovable bridge of stone.
As Borz progressed, he saw the symbols of Roman legions, laurel leaves, and perhaps the hidden signatures of the master architects who had perished during the construction of this tunnel. This passage was the key to a clandestine operation into Little Asia. In a moment of peril, the Empire could move its armies through here without being caught by any scout, confronting its enemy in the heart of Anatolia by sunrise. Now, this strategic miracle was hosting the sacred journey of an exile and his wounded companion.
"They think they control everything," Borz said, referring to the modern world above. "Yet they have no inkling of this giant that has been sleeping beneath them for a thousand years. The weight of the stone is more real than their prohibitions on paper."
As he walked, the air grew even heavier; the scent of seawater merged with a thousand years of dust, stinging his throat. But Borz did not stop. The torch he had carved with his hatchet shone like a beacon of hope in this steadfast Roman tunnel. With every step, he drifted further from the restrictive borders of Europe, drawing closer to the wild and free winds of Little Asia, and from there, to Daymokh.
Rome might have built this road for emperors, but tonight, the road belonged to the last wolf returning home.
...
"How much longer will Rome's flawless keystones resist the massive weight of the water above? What sound will break the ancient silence awaiting Borz at the deepest point of the Bosphorus, in the very middle of the tunnel? When he takes his first step onto the soil of Little Asia, what new destiny awaits Borz and his companion?"**
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