BillGarrett/FallOfEdenPrelude
- Back to BillGarrett
- Back to BillGarrett/FallOfEden
The Study is quiet. The high ceilings and overly broad gaps between bookshelves, tables, and divans all serve to magnify sounds made in the chamber. As a result, a profound and meditative calm is ordinarily found here.
Today, the clicking of heels like a military drumbeat are more than enough to draw the attention of anyone in the room. Only one other is now present, and his attention is very firmly on the Lion Queen. The woman paces, like a caged animal, her tail swishing behind her. Periodically she glances out the stained-glass windows that look outward across the Imperial Mountain. And periodically, she will direct her gaze to her companion, as though by merely standing there he would have more information than she.
Her Circlemate reflects that his Solar associate has some of the qualities of a Lunar after all. He is not impatient. The orichalcum crown he wears is surmounted by an ornate mechanical clock the size of a hen's egg, mounted over his brow, and it ticks off a silent but steady pattern. This man, the Artifex of the Gaian Dilemma, just smiles when looked upon. "The Crown of Chronos says they will be here," he says calmly. "And it--"
His words are interrupted by a wall of insubstantial water, the ghost of a tsunami wave, which passes with a rumbling noise through the southern wall of the study. Despite its evident fury, nothing in the room is harmed by its wake - a phantasm. There is one thing which is not phantom nor ghost, but which is also unaffected by the motion of it, and that is the man whose booted feet rest calmly on the wave's foremost crest. As the tidal wave breaks upon the 'shore' of the carpeted floor, this man is deposited peacefully upon it, and takes two booted strides forward. Faintly moist footsteps stain the carpet behind him, and vanish quickly, and his blue hair shimmers in the spray left behind.
Beside him is a larger puddle of water also deposited by the incoming tide, and this pool coalesces and ascends into a manlike form. What at first seem like ripples or reflections on its surface become definitions. From pool to sculpture to manlike apparition to man itself, a tattooed Easterner makes his own peculiar entrance. The two bow politely, and the Lion Queen eagerly greets both. "Waverider and Water-Master," she says. "The Deliberative meets as soon as we four are ready. And the battles?"
"Over," says the water-borne man, frowning. "My touch felled ninety-nine Fair Ones and the rest have parlayed."
"Good. Then Gaia awaits."
...
...
At the center of the room is an ornate and elegant pedestal of orichalcum and starmetal. It has angular braces for supporting a large book, but is empty now. The only unusual element of its construction is a slightly radiant sphere of crystal embedded into the trunk. At a gestured command from the Artifex, however, six insectile legs spring out of the base and the thing lifts itself up. It scuttles toward him, while the man himself calmly removes a pack of cards - the size and shape of simple gambling-cards - from the sleeve of his robe. He shuffles through this deck and inserts one of the cards into a narrow slot just beneath the brace. On the face of it, visible just for a moment, is a large tome with a series of numbers and glyphs.
The crystal becomes more radiant, and from it, thousands upon thousands of tiny spiders emerge. They crawl upwards, spinning rapidly, and it becomes clear that what they are spinning is the framework of a book. The spine is constructed with the rapidity of lightning, and pages are being woven by the tiny craftsmen at an astonishing pace. It takes mere moments for the spiders to complete their work - a book, matching exactly the picture on the card. Calmly the Artifex cracks open the book's cover and begins flipping pages.
...
