S. Grove - The Glass Sentence

Sophia looked around her in amazement. There could be no doubt. The room was not a room at all—it was an underground garden. Only the nighting vine survived, but stone walkways and pale urns across the dirt floor outlined where other plants had once grown. Martin, standing next to her, bent down to take a pinch of soil between his fingertips. His voice was hushed and full of wonder. “I believe we are in the ruins of a lost Age!”

1891, July 1: #-Hour

Certain architectural remains are particularly difficult to date, since even in their corresponding Age they are considered ruins. For example, the ruins of an earthquake might survive for five hundred years, just as in some Ages cherished monuments and dwellings survive for hundreds of years. Thus the ruins—abandoned, partially disintegrated, and entirely uninhabited—seem to belong to an earlier Age while in fact belonging to a later one.

—From Veressa Metl’s Cultural Geography of the Baldlands

WHILE THE OTHERS fanned out, taking in the sculptures and the cascade of water, Sophia crouched next to Martin. “What is a lost Age?” she asked.

“Lost,” Martin said, pushing himself to his feet, “in the sense that these are the ruins of a civilization that declined within its own Age.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see,” he said, moving excitedly over to the staircase, all exhaustion suddenly forgotten, “when the Great Disruption occurred, these ruins appeared. That means they were already ruins. I would guess that this underground garden had already been abandoned and quietly disintegrating for”—he paused, rubbing the pale marble— “perhaps six hundred years.”

“Six hundred years,” Sophia breathed. She looked up at the staircase and realized in astonishment that Theo, knee-deep in rushing water, was climbing it. “Theo?”

He turned to wave. He was more than twenty feet above her, near the arched entryway through which the water descended. “This is really warm,” he called down. “And there’s something up here.”

Slowly, the others assembled near the staircase and looked upward. “It’s incredibly warm,” Veressa agreed, testing the water. “There might be a hot spring below the caves.”

Theo climbed the last few steps. “I can’t see,” he called, his voice faint over the rushing water, “but it looks like there’s a big cavern.”

“Onward,” Burr said eagerly, mounting the stairs.

Shadrack frowned thoughtfully, scrutinizing his map. “That must be it. We came in through the only entryway that doesn’t have running water. According to this, we turn. Veressa? Sophia?”

Sophia nodded, reading her own map by Calixta’s torch. “I think so.”

“Let’s try it,” Veressa agreed.

One by one, they mounted the staircase. The warm water immediately seeped through Sophia’s thin boots, and more than once she almost lost her footing. She was glad to see that Shadrack was helping Martin.

The others had reached the archway and were standing just beyond it on the embankment. With the torches held high, Sophia realized that the stream of water emerged from a shallow aqueduct cut into the stone. They all turned toward the vast cavern that they could feel but not yet see. The murmur of water came from deep within the darkness, echoing quietly. Holding the torches higher only made the ground below dim. They could see nothing but the entryway to the subterranean garden behind them and a short portion of the aqueduct.

In the moment that the group stood there, pondering the depth of the dark cavern, Martin reached into his pocket and tossed a seed onto the stony floor.

“What was that?” Veressa asked apprehensively.

“Nothing,” Martin replied. “Just a seed.”

As he spoke, a strange rustling, distinct from the murmur of water, sounded in the darkness. After a moment’s hesitation, Burr held his torch high and stepped forward. And then he stopped, aghast. A pale tendril had burst out from the loose soil. Burr bent forward as if to swipe at the vine with his arm.

“Wait!” Martin exclaimed. “Leave it!” They watched in silence as the vine spiraled into the air, turning into a slender sapling before their eyes. “I’ve been dropping seeds,” he explained quickly, without taking his eyes off the growing plant, “in the hopes that this would happen.”

The sapling thickened, throwing branches in every direction. Its metallic roots punctured the cavern floor, anchoring the little tree firmly. Then the branches began to grow shoots that unfurled into pale, silvery leaves. As the trunk sprouted upward, the leaves stretched far beyond the faint light of the torches. And then, to everyone’s astonishment, the leaves themselves emitted a bright, silvery light that shone like the moon into the dark recesses of the cavern.

The pale glow of the tree cast just enough light to see that the space before them stretched farther than they could have imagined. A great underground city stood before them. The slim waterway through which they had emerged led directly toward it, passing under a metal archway that seemed to mark the city’s entrance. Apart from the aqueduct, the city was perfectly still. High towers and gables shadowed one another in the silvery light like the stones and monuments of a crowded cemetery.

They stood in awed silence, gazing at the ruins. Finally Shadrack spoke. “Is there any mention of this place that you know of?” he asked Veressa.

“None. I have neither read nor heard anything about it.”

“Then we are the first to explore it.” Shadrack’s voice was tight with excitement.

Martin hobbled forward, passing his hand lightly over the trunk of the silver tree. “What genius they must have had. That is why the roots are metallic. To reach through stone—or ice .”

“Father?” Veressa said, going after him.

Martin reached into his pocket and dropped something else onto the ground. “Lovely,” he said, smiling, his face illuminated on one side by the pale light of the tree and on the other side by the yellow light of Burr’s torch. “An avenue of brilliant maples, leading to the city gates.”

As he spoke, the seed that had fluttered to the ground cracked open and plunged its thin roots into the earth. A slender stem burst upward, throwing its pale limbs into the air like smoke from a doused fire. The trunk thickened, the branches stretched upward, and the fragile limbs were suddenly filled with tiny buds that in a single, sweeping movement opened into delicate leaves. They were shaped like maple leaves, but they shone with an unearthly luminescence. Martin stood staring up at it, and then he pressed his hand reverently against the trunk. “Beautiful,” he whispered.

“Father, be careful,” Veressa said, taking his arm. “We don’t know what these seeds do.”

“It’s not the seeds , my dear,” Martin said, turning to face her. “It is the ground—the earth. The earth of this Age. And to think—this has been here all along.”

“Then you know this Age?”

“Yes and no,” Martin said slowly. “It is the same Age as the one Burr found—where he got the soil that gave me a silver leg.” He bent down with effort and took a pinch of dirt between his fingertips. “Amazing. It isn’t a hot spring. It is the soil that warms the water. The earth has heating properties.” The others bent down and pressed their hands to the ground. Sophia gasped in surprise. The dirt felt as warm as if it had been baking in the sun for hours. “Look here,” Martin exclaimed, pointing into the aqueduct. “The soil at the base of the aqueduct glows red—like fire, like molten rock.”