Gillian Anderson - A Dream of Ice

Mikel’s hand strayed to his radio. The Tac-XI unit was international, keyed to either general radio receivers or specific programmed phone numbers. His impulse was to contact Flora. But of course, the radio wouldn’t work this far down. Not unless there was a direct opening to the surface. His hand dropped and he felt almost grateful. There were no hoops to jump through, insufficient explanations that would feel like silt in his mouth compared to the magnificence of what lay before him.

Where to begin?

He moved with caution, remembering the incapacitation he’d felt on the airplane as that small artifact had hummed through the camera case into his chest, how his mind had reeled and possibly hallucinated. He could have been setting himself up for far worse than that now.

So what are you going to do? he asked himself. Scurry back up with Siem?

Practically in slow motion at first, then with a bold thrust, Mikel reached toward the stone, his fingers opening like fronds. His hands hovering over the stone, he felt the humming without touching it. It reminded him of a tuning fork, soothing rather than disturbing. After nearly a minute he let one hand drift down and grasp the mosaic.

A red flood rushed into his mind so vigorously, that he felt as if he were falling over. He cried out and clutched at the olivine-studded stone with his other hand. A rank odor rose toward him, the smell of sulfur filling his nose and throat—making him gag. He could feel the hum of the stone growing more vibrant, as if it were using his entire body to amplify itself. Afraid that it would shake loose his grip, he leaned forward, resting his head in his hands and gripping the stone as tightly as he could. The mosaic was fading now, though it was still there, still tangible.

And then suddenly, he was looking at a room. It was all around him but he wasn’t in it—his hands were still on the mosaic and his knees felt like an extension of the rock. He willed himself to look around the hallucination, the vision, whatever it was.

He saw a tall chamber with smooth but fantastically twisted walls, all dark gray. Basalt , he realized, but no lava flow he’d ever seen created such spirals or—his eyes traveled up—a latticework dome. The grid held glass and above that, thin smoke drifted across a bright blue sky.

This was the work of artisans.

Of Galderkhaani.

His heart pounded against his chest as he peered incredulously into the living past. The latticework, a complex of knots, had an overall counterclockwise spiral shape that was mirrored by the floor, which held an enormous double-armed spiral. One arm of the spiral was the same smooth basalt as the walls but made simply, without twists or adornments. The basalt also provided a solid center to the spiral. The other, recessed into the floor, was filled with clear water. Every few feet, a cluster of flames seemed to float mysteriously upon the water’s surface with no materials or gas pipes feeding the small fires.

These fires had to be decorative he thought. Nothing about their strength or position suggested they were used for light or heat. Nor was there direct sunlight anywhere in the chamber. He believed he could make out a walkway just below the dome that sported flames dancing in stone braziers built into the wall—or did they protrude from the wall?

Everything seemed to have the same regular texture, like plastic poured in a mold. Below the walkway, the walls were sculpted in the shape of shelves. Panes of opaque white quartz enclosed the shelves, but enough of the panes were open for Mikel to see stacks of parchments, hundreds of them, piled in no particular order. This had to be a library, but the librarian would not have met Flora’s meticulous standards.

Flora.

It was a real-world thought reassuring him that at least he still had some control over his own mind. And, yes, he still felt the stone in his hands and smelled sulfur. This was merely a projection of some kind, like a hologram. Suddenly, he was staggered by the realization of where he could go, what he might learn, if he figured out how to “drive” the mosaics.

Returning to what he could actually see with his eyes, he surveyed the room. A second, wider walkway directly beneath the first provided access to the shelves as well as space for furniture, which seemed to bubble from the rock. Small tables held stone cups with steam rising from them. Suddenly, the smell of sulfur lessened, replaced by the gathering scent of—what was that?

It was jasmine tea.

Stone couches and chairs cushioned with bright, gem-colored pillows stood near the tea tables and as Mikel’s eyes adjusted to the dimmer light here, he saw that there were a few dozen people in the room.

Not just people: citizens , he thought. Adults, all. Proud and rich with purpose . They had the carriage of women and men who belonged here. He longed to catalog all the detail. He was so accustomed to taking cell-phone images that recall, mental snapshots, was a nearly forgotten craft.

Don’t try, just let it in , he told himself.

And then, curious, he lightly squeezed his fingers on the transparent tile as if on a touch pad. The flames froze. So did the people. The shadows were all locked in place.

He could control this. Tightening his grip froze the image. No doubt it could be rewound, replayed. He relaxed his grip and the display resumed.

On the whole, the citizens did not appear relaxed. Only a few were sitting down, their yellow and white robes draped around their feet. They were drinking tea with curiously coordinated movements: when one reached for a cup another always did the same. Then each person inhaled steam from the other person’s cup while maintaining eye contact, and usually smiling, before drinking from their own. It was something like a toast but more intimate.

The more restless citizens were standing and talking urgently to parchment bearers. The parchments were changing hands with nervous movements and gestures and hastily scrawled signatures.

That’s not paper or papyrus… it’s too malleable. Vellum? No, it’s too fine for animal skin. At least, the skin of animals known in the modern day. The writing implements—fish bones, possibly. Or teeth mounted in wooden or stone styluses?

Hands touched hands as the swaps were made, fingers trailing in lingering, comforting gestures. Everyone’s faces were lost in downward looks so Mikel couldn’t see their expressions. He could not hear them nor see what was on the parchments. He let his eyes wander through the many shadows.

For a library, the chamber was remarkably ill lit. One could retrieve parchments from the shelves, then move to the upper walkway to read them, but that would require holding them dangerously close to the open flames in the braziers. Below, there seemed to be no way to read closely at all. Perhaps the ink glowed, Mikel thought, like the olivine in the stone he was holding. Maybe they had a phosphorous content that glowed when exposed to light?

Or perhaps the parchments weren’t the point. Along the floor-level walkway, statues were arranged among all the furniture. Mikel’s eye had skipped over them; he’d assumed they were decorative. At second glance, he realized that the furniture was oriented toward the statues, regarding them. He studied the figures more closely with rising excitement. They were all black basalt human forms but they were not paeans to the elegant musculature and shape of the human body. The asexual torsos and arms were exaggerated in size, while the rest of the bodies were carved wearing long robes that seemed to cling only occasionally and only at the bottom to indicate the position of the feet.

Why the feet? And the hands? The hands were oversized, and they displayed a wide variety of different positions and gestures.