There's a little turquoise smudge in the ground. He brushes aside the dirt and picks up the rusted remnant of a coin.
'They minted these in celebration of their king's new pact with the arcane powers,' he says, passing the coin to his student. 'You can just about see the remains of his head on it.'
'Is this how you date the collapse?' she asks, inspecting the ancient copper coin.
He looks out at the flat, desolate plains. Nothing grows here. There's just grey dirt.
'Yes,' he says. 'After the pact was made, it all gets blurry. All the evidence from that time is lost and we only have the written reports from neighbouring nations and their historians. The details are sparse.'
'Their power was unrivalled for a brief moment. They burned bright and quick.' He gestures to the coin in her hands. 'That's all that remains of them.'
Paddy Dobson
6th August 2022