Gillian Anderson - The Sound of Seas

“It’s a hortatur mask I found in Galderkhaan,” he said. “Remarkable relic. It allowed me to breathe underground… and it’s helping me heal. I want to be there if it does anything else.”

Caitlin smiled. “There is no one alive who would understand that better than me.”

“I know that,” he laughed. “Do you want to go inside?”

Caitlin shook her head. “If you don’t mind, I want to stand right here. I want to watch the cars and road, the people, the arteries of a living city. I haven’t really been able to do that for a while.” She looked at him. “That is, if you don’t mind the cold.”

“This, cold?” he laughed. “No, I don’t mind.”

Caitlin grinned when she remembered where he had just been. “I’m sorry about Flora Davies,” she told him. “I didn’t exactly get along with her—”

“No one did.”

“But I would have liked the opportunity to get to know her better,” Caitlin went on.

“Maybe you will,” Mikel said. “She left countless notes, recordings. If you’re interested.”

“One day, I’m sure,” Caitlin replied. “I need time.”

The archaeologist understood that as well.

“Are you going to stay in the city?” Caitlin asked.

“I am,” he said. “Some of the international figures behind the Group are coming. I want to continue the work we were doing. But obviously with a very different endgame. Not something for Priests or Technologists.”

“For everyone,” she said.

“That’s what ‘they’ wanted,” Mikel said.

Caitlin knew whom he meant. The same beings that Madame Langlois had meant each time she used the word.

“When you phoned, you said you saw me with the Candescents,” Caitlin said. “I couldn’t see anything but light.”

“I didn’t actually see you,” he told her. “What I saw was a force that I knew was someone who had earned the right to be there. You are the only one who had come as far as I did. I entered the dome of light and I was drawn to you, suspended ahead, shimmering and very much a balance to me.”

“How a balance?”

“I think either of us, alone, might have been consumed by the light. Together, we were strong enough to remain anchored.”

“Together,” she said. “The Candescents survived by joining. The Galderkhaani transcended by joining. So that’s the takeaway. Hold hands, teach the world to sing.”

“The biggest, oldest ideas are often that simple,” Mikel said.

“But us,” she said thoughtfully, “there at the same time. Are you suggesting we were meant to be there together?”

“I believe that from the very start, everything was designed to bring us there.”

“From the start of what?” Caitlin asked. “Was all this set in motion two weeks ago by stones waking up under the ice? That seems a little arbitrary, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Mikel replied. He glanced at the mask around his arm. “Which is why I believe the sequence of events is older, far older than that.”

Caitlin shook her head. “I’m not sure I’m ready to believe that. I have an okay ego, but not big enough to imagine that all of history was orchestrated so that we could have a chat with the Candescents.”

“‘Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?’” Mikel said. “Exodus 3:11. My grandmother was a devotee.”

“I am not a prophet.”

“Yet,” Mikel said. “You already know the message and you have your patients and your platforms. Give it time. That’s what I intend to do.” He looked at the sky. “They are out there now, no longer in stones. We may all be changed. We already are.”

Caitlin thought of Jacob, who bristled with newfound confidence. She could not dismiss the idea, but she remained cautious. She tapped her shoe on the steps. “The Candescents are down there as well.” She pointed with two fingers to the south, toward the harbor. “And out there too.”

Mikel nodded. “True. I have to learn to think in many directions. Different dimensions.”

“What I mean is, the change may be slow in coming,” Caitlin replied. “Assuming we were ‘chosen,’ they picked a psychiatrist, someone who works with young minds. They selected an archaeologist who understands archetypes in civilization, is familiar with the many ideas of monotheism, pantheism, atheism.” The sun warmed her and she tugged open her scarf. “What I’m saying is—baby steps. We shouldn’t range too far, try too much.”

“No, you’re right,” he said. He touched the hortatur mask. “I could probably spend an entire lifetime just studying this.” He laughed. “I probably will.”

Caitlin smiled. “And the vision will fade,” she said with a touch of longing. “It will seem dreamlike as time passes. Life will not push out the mission but it will intrude on its urgency.”

“Maybe that’s why the Candescents brought us there in a pair,” Mikel suggested. “So we can keep reminding each other.”

Caitlin could not, did not, dispute that.

They fell silent as they enjoyed the residual connection they had felt. Finally, Caitlin looked from the park to the museum. “I can’t decide whether I should just walk through the park or stroll through the anthropology wing of the museum.”

“You should probably take your own advice,” Mikel said. “Baby steps. You go in that building, you’re going to work.”

“If I go to the park, I’m going to think of the last walk I took, through the streets of Falkhaan,” Caitlin said. She grinned. “We’re stuck, aren’t we?”

Mikel nodded. “There is no turning back.”

Caitlin’s grin became a smile and she hugged her companion, careful not to crush his wrist. She could have sworn she felt something as she leaned against the sling—a comforting familiarity, a sense of being home… a kiss.

They parted without another word; Mikel to the curb to catch a cab headed downtown, Caitlin remaining where she was. She continued to watch the traffic and the people, the bikes and the pretzel cart, the nearly barren trees and the sky with clouds—

Clouds that once provided sustenance for a civilization .

No , she told herself with a gentle mental push and a final willingness to surrender. There was no escaping Galderkhaan.

The green lands loomed below, thick and full of new and colorful birds that flitted above and through the canopy. Whitecaps stormed the beaches with a healthy fury, washing a shore that glistened with countless beads of light set among the seemingly endless expanse of sand. The sound of the surf was energizing.

Not far above, an airship limped toward the coastline. It was battered and worn. Like its crew of twelve and its two guests, it was strained to near collapse, held together by strength of arm and will of spirit.

On deck, an exhausted Standor Qala—at her command post for several sleep periods, without having rested—watched the epic vista roll toward them as they soared below the thin clouds.

“I did not imagine such riches existed,” Femora Loi said from her side.

“She said it did,” Qala said.

“Who?”

“Someone quite remarkable,” the Standor said. She did not want to try and explain that the woman in the cabin was not the woman who had directed them here.

“I wish they could have seen this at home,” Loi said, his voice heavy.

“Perhaps they do see,” Qala replied.

The Femora shook his head. “I do not believe in the ascended,” the officer said. “I can say that, now that there are no Priests to prosecute me.”

“They were a resilient group, and the Technologists,” the Standor said. “Others may have escaped as we did.”