Marie Brennan - Within the Sanctuary of Wings

We humans have long been prone to identifying every impressive Draconean site as a temple, but I had no doubt that I stood in the antechamber of a holy place. Historically speaking, there are two types of buildings to which people will devote great amounts of labour: the religious and the kingly. It was possible the Draconeans of the Sanctuary had a king or equivalent ruler, but the remote location of this place did not lend itself to political use. This was, of course, assuming that Draconean motivations were like those of humans—but my experiences with Ruzt, Kahhe, and Zam gave me moderate confidence that their ways were not so alien as that.

The walls of this antechamber were richly decorated, in elaborate circular patterns reminiscent of the mandalas found in many Dajin countries, but different in style. Their meaning was opaque to me: I could recognize that it must be there, for nestled among the spirals and geometric figures were repeated symbols, but they could have signified anything. Each was painted in vivid colour, predominantly yellow, blue, and white, with rare touches of red. The artist in me wished to examine these more closely, because I was curious about the pigments they used; surely the Draconeans did not trade with the outside world to obtain the necessary materials. But the white and yellow might be derived from lead-based minerals, and the blue… copper? Cobalt? There might even be lapis deposits in the region; certainly they were known elsewhere in the Mrtyahaima.

I shook myself from my trance. The yak butter had warmed enough for me to light my lamp; with that in hand, I set forth to investigate.

Three different paths lay before me. Staircases ascended from the right and left corners of the entry hall; between them stood a pair of doors, almost as large as those through which I had come, but much more elaborately carved. I suspected they would be easier to move, for they were not a tenth so weathered as their exterior brethren, but for the time being I chose to leave them untouched. Instead I took the right-hand staircase upward.

Partway up this lengthy, spiral path, I realized why the climb was so fatiguing: the steps had not been cut for human legs. The Draconeans I knew were all a good thirty centimeters taller than me, and their legs were long to match; this meant that a comfortable step upward for them was a heave for someone my size. “I feel like a child again,” I grumbled to myself—and then snapped my mouth shut as if I could somehow swallow my words.

For as I spoke, I came around the final curve and found myself at the periphery of a large, open room… which was full of sleeping Draconeans.

Their tidy ranks stretched far beyond the reach of my puny lamp. But here, too, clerestory windows admitted dim light from without, disclosing lines of bodies that carpeted the floor from one wall to the other. Had I come up here without a lamp, I might have trod upon the nearest before I noticed they were there.

I stood as motionless as a mouse under the gaze of a hawk. Had my voice disturbed them? The unsteady light of my lamp (unsteady in part because of my trembling hand) made it seem as if those close to me were moving, but I steeled my nerves and did not bolt. Long moments passed. In time I realized that I was holding my breath, and made myself expel it quietly. No one had shifted or made any sound. I was, for the moment, safe.

And I had found the remainder of the Draconeans. Whether this was everyone who dwelt in the Sanctuary, I could not say; the room stretched back into the mountain, farther than either lamp or windows could show me, and I was not about to risk tiptoeing between them just to see. Certainly there were hundreds of them. For the first time, I found myself wondering about the size of the population here—were they in danger of inbreeding? But developmental lability might help to mitigate that issue; I had no idea one way or another, though it was an intriguing question to investigate later. It also helped to steady me. Very well, then: they hibernated, as I had surmised. Bars made a lattice of the clerestory openings, and below I could make out larger windows, shuttered and barred. Why both, the former open and the latter closed? Regulation of light, perhaps, while still admitting a quantity of cold air, which no doubt helped to keep them asleep.

I was very grateful for the cold air.

One careful movement at a time, I crept back downstairs. Brief investigation of the staircase on the other side of the entry showed me that, as I suspected, it led to the same place. For ritual reasons? Or practical ones? (Were I a Draconean, I would not have wanted to face the lengthy queues that would result from everyone there trying to ascend or descend by a single route.) Had Kahhe intended to bring me to that chamber? Wake someone inside? Or perhaps some other purpose altogether; I had not yet explored the entire place. I therefore turned my attention to the great carved doors.

I was glad to see that the hinges of these were well oiled—I was still thinking of the sleeping Draconeans, though it was doubtful that a squeaky hinge would be enough to rouse them from their seasonal slumber. The handles were two large brass rings, still bright gold, in contrast with the green patina on the fittings of the exterior doors. Telling myself that it was unlikely to budge, I gripped one and pulled.

Many thousands of years had passed since the construction of the Watchers’ Heart, but the Draconeans either had not forgotten the techniques of hanging an exceedingly heavy door, or had rediscovered them. It swung open far more easily than I expected.

“Well,” I murmured to myself in a near-soundless voice, “hanged for a fleece, hanged for a yak.”

Once again, my tiny lamp did not throw its light very far, and the small windows of the entry hall were no help at all beyond this threshold. But reflective flickers answered my lamp from all around the room; the nearest, to my right, was another brazier. Holding my breath—a foolish impulse, but difficult to quash—I lit the oil inside.

Colour sprang to life all around me. This room too was painted, with more of those mandala-like designs, interspersed with elements I suspected were purely decorative. But the image that dominated the room was familiar to me from Draconean sites: a circular disc, from which extended two stylized wings. Where it is found painted upon walls, that disc is invariably yellow, but here, as in the hidden chamber of the Watchers’ Heart, it was made of hammered gold.

Our best theories said the disc represented the sun, though why it should be winged, no one knew. Equipped with my knowledge that dragon-headed people were real, I found myself re-evaluating the basis of Draconean religion: was the sun itself perhaps what they worshipped? The winged disc often held a central place at any site, either hovering over Draconean figures, or on its own. Then again, real Draconeans did not rule out the possibility of mythical ones as well. After all, human religions have often depicted the gods as human in shape. Moreover, I had no certainty that the faith practiced here was the same as that which had prevailed when the Draconeans reigned over a worldwide civilization. Indeed, I should be surprised if it had not undergone changes.

With a wry smile, I added “religion” to the list of topics I must broach with the sisters when time and vocabulary permitted. The list was approximately a thousand items long, and grew with every passing day.

I turned my attention once more to my surroundings. The chamber was large, but not large enough to accommodate together all the Draconeans I had seen upstairs. Its furnishings were sparse. The reflections I had seen were from the winged disc and the gold tracery adorning the braziers, all of which had been polished to a mirror sheen. Finely carved benches occupied part of the floor, but not all. Beneath the sun disc stood what I presumed was an altar, with what appeared to be offerings. Approaching, I found branches of greenery and a bowl of seeds. The former were still springy to the touch; they could not have been cut more than a day or two before.