The underground Avenue of crickets, bats, bat shit, stalactites and great stony Oak trees was becoming more crowded with people curiously observing the Greibarians, arms full of books as they hastened from the Banquet Hall to other chambers in the underground metropolis.
People
looked down from their balconies adorned with ornamental fabrics, out of
windows and from atop ladders as more people crowded the path below.
Water
had begun seeping from the pool they called the Watergate, down the stairwell
and into the deep carvings on the floor of the Banquet Hall. The Greibarians
were moving the books to another chamber.
Discerning
Sonique’s voice as she talked to Tjikko amongst the chorus of excited voices,
Rai neared her.
‘Sonique,
come with me to the Hall and tell me what you see,’ asked Rai.
They
left Tjikko’s side and began to wander. Soon they were passing under the stone
archway into the great underground cavern of the Banquet Hall.
‘What
can you see?’ asked Rai quietly as people close by threw curious glances.
‘There
are people removing the books,’ said Sonique, though Rai could discern this
motion. ‘And some people,’ continued Sonique, ‘who I think are making a note of
what order the books go in, as they are removed. Or maybe they are making sure
they go out in the right order…’
‘The
Greibarians,’ said Rai. ‘It’s their calling to preserve our story.’
‘What
happens if they get it wrong?’
‘Wrong?’
frowned Rai.
‘Well…who
chooses what is recorded? What if something important is missed or lost?’
‘Our
stories aren’t preserved in those books alone,’ assured Rai. ‘And the point of
our stories are not to be found in any book.’
Sonique
moves out of the way as some people lift a table from the floor where they had
been standing and others begin to place food on it, fresh vegetables. People
broke stalks and took leaves, nothing appeared burned.
‘Where
does the food come from?’ asked Sonique, to which several people looked her
direction but continued about their way.
‘From
the same forest as everywhere,’ said Rai. ‘Have you been? I would love to know
how you see it. I’ve wanted to go there but it’s…so different, to here.’
‘A
forest? Where? How do you get out of here?’ asked Sonique.
‘Out
of here? What do you mean? And everyone knows food comes from the forest…where
did you say you came from again?’ asked Rai.
‘I’m
sorry, not that I think this place is bad or anything…’
‘What
do you mean, this place?’ asked Rai sounding more confused. Together, they
neared a wall emptied of books where no one was standing.
‘Where
exactly did you say you came from Sonique?’
‘From…’
Sonique looked to the ceiling and felt a cold chill as she remembered falling
through darkness and earth into water. There must be a way to return to the
surface, but why?
thought Sonique, and how do I explain how I came to be here?! Must I?
Sonique
hesitated as she glanced the water trickling down the steps from where she had
entered the underground world. Light reflecting against water in the deep lines
scarring the floor of the Banquet Hall had been transformed into an intricate
network of colourful lines.
Across
the way, people assisted the Greibarians in removing books from their niches.
Sonique
begins to fear she has something to do with what is happening. Have I
damaged the Watergate in some way? she wonders.
With a bewildered expression and growing unease, Rai waits patiently for
Sonique’s answer.
‘Where
are you going? Is this your place?’ repeats Rai softly.
‘Has
this happened before Rai? The water?’
‘What
water?’
‘On
the floor…isn’t that why they are moving the books?’ asks Sonique, disguising
alarm.
‘Oh
yes, the water, that happens regularly.’
Sonique
relaxes slightly.
‘But
I’m not sure why they are moving the books,’ adds Rai. ‘Maybe someone will
explain at Haita.’
Rai’s
expression is one of anticipation as she waits hopefully for an answer to her
first question.
‘So…where
did you say you came from again?’
‘North,’
said Sonique glancing the ceiling, ‘I came from the North.’
Rai
smiles, ‘You’re the most unusual Northern Pleiian I’ve ever met Sonique.’
~
Walking
along a darkened stone tunnel, young Tjikko adjusted the cluster of brass cogs
affixed to his jacket. Each had been taken on a different special occasion
whilst working deep in the cavernous iron maw beneath the lake. There, he had
laboured when he felt like it with several hundred other men and women by the
light of glow globes, in humid air mingling with cool currents thanks to
steam-powered fans.
His
favourite brass piece was from the day they celebrated the completion of a
beating pump designed to distribute water throughout the various mechanical
parts of the machines being constructed analogously.
At
the end of the tunnel, Tjikko turned a corner and crossed a brightly lit and
busy avenue; here the walls were stacked with pre-metal books that were more
prone to dissolution.
Tjikko
spotted the flash of long blonde hair through the crowd, and braced himself for
the piercing blue eyes that would be upon him any moment now.
‘You’re
late,’ smiled young Rai as she turned to face him.
‘Better
than never,’ smiled Tjikko.
Together,
they left the bustling avenue, entered an ornately carved doorway reading Dorphins
Emporium
and began climbing a winding staircase.
At the top they passed along a dim winding corridor whose walls were set
with glowing rocks.
‘I’m
having trouble seeing in this light,’ admitted Rai.
‘Me
too,’ said Tjikko. ‘Here, take my hand.’
In
some places, large sections opened out into rooms filled with gemstones. Tjikko
placed his hand on the crystalline rock.
‘They’re
growing you know,’ mused Rai as Tjikko admired them.
Soon
they felt a cool draught and found themselves upon the edge of a dark lake,
looking at a wooden jetty extending out low over the perfectly still water. Two
men were sitting quietly with their legs over the edge under a single light
suspended not far from the farther edge of the jetty. There was also a woman
standing nearby making notes in a book filled with symbols.
‘Welcome
to the stellarium,’ whispered Rai excitedly as she gently pulled Tjikko into
the spherical cavern. Tiny lights glinted above and below them under the water,
reflecting off the globe in the centre of the cave.
‘Can
you see them?’ asked Rai.
‘Just,
yeah, tiny lights?’
‘Yes,’
smiled Rai.
‘What
are they?’ asked Tjikko holding up a hand to the glinting lights, watching them
appear and disappear as he slowly waved.
‘Diamonds,
but I like to remember they’re coal…fragments of trees that have passed and
transformed.’
Tjikko
smiles.
‘They’re
not just randomly placed either. They relate to the lights on the surface,
Dorphin did this.’
Tjikko
nods to show he has heard her as he notices his shadow against the wall
blotting lights in succession. Looking around he notices a dark patch in the
ceiling and draws Rai’s attention to it. Rai inspects it curiously, ‘Looks like
a hole in the ceiling.’
‘Maybe,’
agreed Tjikko.
‘It
definitely is,’ said the woman holding the book. ‘A section of the wall has
come away, it’s affecting the otherside too,’ she said pointing down into the
water.
Rai
and Tjikko look down, unable to see what looks wrong.
Seeing
the expression on Rai’s face, she adds, ‘see that large star there, and there,
and there, see how they run in a line and there seems to be a greater
clustering of little lights across here…like a band?’
By
now the two men sitting quietly together had turned around to look and listen.
‘Imagine
you are standing on a disc and looking out over the edge as if it were the
horizon of the lake, do you see?’
‘Oh!’
exclaimed Rai, pointing. ‘There, it seems like there should be some more there,
a large star is missing too.’
The
woman smiled as it dawned on Tjikko and the other couple stood up to see as
well.
‘Wait
a second, where is the light coming from?’ said Tjikko.
‘It’s
reflecting from here silly,’ said Rai pointing to the light at the end of the
jetty beside them all.
‘Oh
yeah,’ coughed Tjikko awkwardly.
‘I’m
glad I saw this with you,’ whispered Rai to Tjikko, gazing up at the lights as
the couple behind them held one another in arms.
~
Sonique watched Rai and Tjikko some distance ahead of her. Tjikko kissed Rai’s cheek as he took her hand and they turned the corner out of sight. Sonique looked back down the corridor, unable to discern how it was so different from the ones preceding it. She wished she had payed more attention to the detailed carvings along the walls but they were walking so quickly. She continued to gently drag her fingers along the wall .-.. --- ...- . ….. -.-…-…-, hoping the memory of its texture might help her find her way back alone if she didn’t like the next space.
Turning the corner, Sonique found herself in another avenue smaller than the one with the stone Oaks and lit by a strange glowing light. Once she focused beyond the silhouettes of the people standing around this area, Rai and Tjikko amoung them, she could see the light was reflecting from the water of an expanse underground lake in a colossal cavern.
In the distance, across the lake, she could make out a small island of greenery bathed in strong light beaming down from somewhere above.
‘Sonique! Are you there, are you coming?’ called Rai happily and waving.
Sonique realised she had stopped walking, ‘It’s beautiful,’ she gasped.
Rai gave a curious frown and Tjikko smiled.
‘We haven’t started yet,’ beamed Tjikko.
Sonique resumed walking and approached the edge of a sweeping arc of stone steps falling away to another plateau resting a single step away from the lake below. Upon the plateau were fiftyfour wooden plinths, loosely laid out in three rows, facing a lone dais. The surface of the steps and plateau below are carved similarly to the Banquet Hall, with ornate drawings.
A considerable crowd was already seated quietly and many were still entering from other entryways and stairwells nearby.
‘I take it from your reaction you haven’t been to the southern amphitheatre before,’ said Rai as she held Tjikko’s hand and stepped down.
There are more? marvelled Sonique.
‘Welcome to Elbrihim,’ said Tjikko with a sweep of his arm.
Sonique watched a boy and girl run across the empty plateau below to the Lake’s edge and throw something into the water, perfect circles emanated in waves across the surface.
She noticed a boat on the water with a man standing in it and a woman sitting down, between them was an array of leafy plants and bright red and yellow plants that she assumed were food from the forest on the other side of the lake.
The man standing drew the boat up to the edge of the lake closest to her. As he did so, he looked around and up the amphitheatre steps, turning his head this way and that, looking around in a way that Sonique suddenly realised she had not noticed Rai or Tjikko or anyone in the Banquet Hall doing. When he looked up towards the gathering crowd, they met and held one another’s gaze. Due to the distance, Sonique couldn’t meet his eyes but only discern the oval shape of his pale face framed with fair hair and set with light eyes. Sonique wondered fleetingly whether she could stay and live here in this place, perhaps with a companion as people were oft to do…but another vision, that had been steadily furnacing its roots in her dream time, was preventing her from forming such a picture. She wondered if the man whose gaze she could not return lived a happy and fulfilled life with his family and friends in this place. She wondered if he was at peace in the stillness of being here, and realised she felt peaceful and grounded in this moment yet somehow was also flying along with great rapidity.
The realisation of how what was happening and what was about to happen would pass like a wisp of smoke to the wind, leaving nought but a trace of memory, shadows and light in her mind, stunned her to silence.
At once, every object in colour, contour and detail sharpened, every sound seemed to speak to every other sound as they travelled the warm and cool currents in the air, she felt their histories in their present faces; following the paths of these travels she extended their lines into the future. Imagining the world around her a passing dream, she felt the only way to be sure she existed in all in this magnificent chaos was to mingle with its elements. Drawing another breath, wriggling her toes against the stone underfoot, feeling the shifting weight of the clothes she had been given to wear, feeling the roof of the cavern expand overhead and herself absorb into the crowd, Sonique wondered how Rai and Tjikko were feeling.
‘This place is amazing,’ sang Sonique, ‘You have a very beautiful home.’
Rai and Tjikko smiled their appreciation as they sat down.
Through the presence of the people around her as she admired the sunlit forest on the other side of the lake within the colossal cavern, Sonique felt contentment. I will go there later in one of those boats, she resolved to herself.
Sonique glanced around; Celia was approaching unaccompanied by Zayd. Celia’s outspoken spirit had come to remind her of Thea, and Rai’s gentle nature of Aryamo, though they were in essence completely different. Sonique felt them to be family and appreciated their extensions of hospitality as such.
Celia slowed her pace of walking to such a degree Sonique thought she might stop altogether; she was listening for Rai or Tjikko whilst pitching her own call though Sonique could not hear any of it.
‘Celia is coming,’ said Sonique to Rai through the clamour of conversation around them.
Rai turned around and a moment later Celia immediately looked their direction.
Seated with Rai, Tjikko and Celia, Sonique watches people beginning to emerge from passageways in the steps below onto the plateau lined with wooden plinths; musicians are emerging one by one, each bearing their own unique instrument.
‘Zayd never took to the stage until his little brother passed away,’ said Celia to Sonique. ‘For him, it was then that he came to his own realisations and became compelled to share that which he had shaded.’
Sonique looked down as Zayd emerged to take a place on one of the many wooden plinths on the plataue below and briefly check his instrument was still tuned.
‘After he did what he feared doing for so long,’ continued Rai, ‘his life became even more fulfilling. When his actions became fully aligned with his thoughts and feelings, when he did what he loved doing, he found peace.’
‘He held back for so long, now I can’t imagine Zayd not playing,’ smiled Rai.
‘I can’t imagine him being afraid of anything,’ said Sonque.
‘To feel your way forward partly involves re-membering,’ said Celia. ‘Zayd reminded me that this is a greater struggle for some than most. Mercifully it is a struggle that endows sensitivity and therefore strength.’
~
Urik walks beside Jullee as they slowly make their way across a white rocky landscape of great, though sparse, trees. As they approach a rocky outcrop Urik lifts Jullee up onto a stone ledge before climbing onto it beside her. Together they look down and out over a sheer cliff to a vast jungle with the city of Asher nestled in the distance by a river. Jullee turns to address the hundred or so people behind them.
~
‘Jade!’ whispered Prahla. ‘Keep up!’
‘I’m trying, can’t we stop here somewhere till its light?’
In the darkness, the sound of crowds inside the city, panick stricken by earth tremors, was fading away; the sound of insects and animals in the forest around them was growing louder.
‘No,’ said Prahla, ‘we have to keep going. If we get picked up by Armin or savage bons in that chaos they’ll just tear us apart.’
~
Grey is running across the grey grass of the Memorial Gardens outside Lassalle, he makes a beeline for a taxipod point, accidentally knocking over a young girl. He hastily stops to help her back on to her feet and her Mother forgives him.
‘Alysia? Are you there?’ says Grey urgently. ‘The Channeled Forces has called me up…Alysia? I’m coming to yours.’ He leaves the message recorded and falls into a taxipod.
‘F4IV Vernalis at 4.03, edge of Cebuan,’ muttered Grey hastily as he set about trying to contact Ataur.
‘Make that M74,’ said an unexpected voice.
‘Ataur?’ said Grey looking up quickly.
An Aleksi was sitting in the front seat.
‘Whose Ataur?’ said the Aleksi as the pod took off.
~
From within the crowd Ataur watches Grey climb into the taxipod, it leaves before he can contact Grey because he’s distracted by nausea and dizziness. As he is looking up at the crowded entrance to Lasalle a woman places her hand on his back, ‘are you okay love?’
‘Mayani?’ gasped Ataur.
‘Got my eye on you boy,’ winked Mayani.
~
‘Nelesia? Surely you’ve heard wrong,’ stammered Garrett.
‘I have my sources,’ snapped Harje.
Garrett could see the rest of the Elthred already congregating in a circle inside the crowded Lasalle. With them inside the now empty Elbrihim, several Aleksi stood silent and motionless against the walls.
‘My dear Harje, pray tell how do you suppose I communicated with Min Greenfield? Telepathically?’ smiled Garrett. ‘She’s…vegetating Harje.’
Harje scowled.
‘Ronan will hear of this,’ said Harje as she turned on her heel.
‘Why do you say Ronan?’ said Garrett as she started walking away, out of Elbrihim to the entrance of Lasalle.
‘He’s not king chicken you know,’ hollered Garret. ‘Yet,’ he muttered quietly under his breath.
~
Richard Rinehart stands carefully on his broken balcony, looking down
upon people hurrying about the gaslit streets.
‘Daylight
is yet several hours away Murn Richard,’ said Mario. ‘Perhaps we should wait
until light-’
‘Do
you think they
will? No, I’m sure I saw some children scurrying out through my gardens before.
So use more lights, I don’t care how much power it uses up. I want every inch
of this city lit up and no one is to come or go without due permission. Have
everyone searched, even at the inside gates. Pull up anyone found carrying
trumpets and such.’
‘Flowers?’
‘Yes,
you heard me. The more we have tucked away the fewer wanderers for us to worry
about. Any excuse will do.’
Mario
bowed his head, ‘Yes Murn.’
‘Now,
where is Finlee? I should like to think that boy knows he isn’t getting out of
his duties come daylight.’
~
Young Luc and Alesandra held Lenshu’s hands as they walked through the
darkened tunnel behind Barbuak and Jaklyn. Edy was leading the way as Mica and
Maine carried Samuel on a bed they had fashioned from pieces of the broken air
glider. He had still not stirred a muscle since being picked up, but his heart
was beating strong.
‘How
are those torches lighting?’ asked young Alesandra as she pointed at the
glowing globes that began to appear on the walls.
Edy
looked round at Alesandra, unable to understand her language and realised she
was admiring the glowing globes in the rock.
Some
people who had opened the entrance to them appeared. They greeted Edy warmly
followed by Lenshu and the twins, Barbuak, Jaklyn, Maine and Mica, before
helping to bear the weight of Samuel.
It
was soon realised that one of the women was able to speak a similar language to
the Amacites. She began to converse with Maine, having realised Jaklyn didn’t
use words and introduced herself as Remi. Maine was fascinated and distracted
by her coiled hair that bounced as she talked animatedly.
‘You
have much to look forward to,’ Remi smiled assuringly. ‘Only good food and much
dancing; you do dance don’t you?’
Maine
smiled. ‘No, that one, he’s the dancer,’ he said pointing to Lenshu.
Lenshu
blushed as Luc and Alesandra began to shake his hands excitedly.
‘Oh
yes, he’s awesome!’ declared Luc.
~
Seated beside Celia and
Rai who cannot see what is going on below, Sonique watches as the musicians
finish taking their places at the lakeside below. Two Greibarian’s enter the
plateau, one carrying a fine round silver sheet and the other, a small indigo
object. They place the sheet that appears white when it catches light over the
lone plinth; from where Sonique is seated it appears to hover in mid air.
Squinting, she assumes there must fine wires holding it in place. The
Grebarian’s then proceed to pour fine indigo sand onto the silver sheet.
As
the Greibarian’s turn and leave, a lone fellow wanders out onto the plateau.
Sonique
watches as someone stands up holding a silver triangle and carefully strikes it
with a similarly made stick.
At
once, the crowd in the great cavern ceases their chatter and falls silent.
Sonique
is awed by the number of people facing the same direction and creating a
beautiful pattern all the way down the sloping cavern steps to the plateau
below. She notices movement, a few people looking around; mostly young people
and she guesses they must still have sight. She had come to learn that most
Pleiian’s, as they called themselves, tended to lose their sight as they aged.
The
young man holding the triangle did a little jig with a beam on his face before
very gently striking it again.
Sonique
copies Rai and Celia as they begin to clap their hands in concert with the
other few hundred or so gathered, until a sound like cascading rain water
completely fills the haven around them.
The
applause peaks and slowly subsides as people begin standing up; Sonique follows
suit.
In
the silence Sonique hears the familiar sound of water though she can’t see
where it is coming from through all the people surrounding her.
Suddenly
she realises there is water running underfoot, through the ornate carvings in
the stone and down the steps. Her attention is divided as a breeze has begun to
move across the lake and sweeps up the slope towards them. With a word from the
lone fellow wandering amoung them, the orchestra begins to play.
Hammock, We could die chasing this feeling. Koan, When the Silence is SpeakingGod is an Astronaut, All is violent, all is bright.
Koan, Odysseus Under the Old Tree.
