Suddenly Kai’s left hand shot out and grabbed at Shen’s cloak, pulling him close as his own eyes remained transfixed by the temple’s grandeur.
“I know, I know,” whispered Shen, regaining his balance, “I always get surges through the filaments on my back when I see this, Salvator, and I lose all my words. All of them. Every one.”
A laugh of sheer joy convulsed up from deep inside Kai; stifled into silence at his throat, it escaped silently but surely from his eyes as he turned and gazed at Shen, making the next words both redundant and inaccurate —
“And I usually turn a little purple too. Speechless and purple. You see?”
Kai’s bright smile remained as he turned back to breathe in the next stratum of the temple. Before him, the floor dipped slowly, slightly towards the building’s core through myriad rings of coloured marble until it smoothed onto the vast, central circular dais of crystalline white. This disc was etched with interlocking onyx circles, a complete Elucian Symbol, with the overlapping surfaces of the circles shimmering through a rainbow of tiny precious stones — an opulent fog. Upon the white, and over the rings of tawny, lilac blush all around the hall, trod countless feet and pads and hooves of worshippers, workers and tourists. Despite these swarming specks of life, however, and their solemnly quiet clicks and clacks, which sprinkled up into the dusty golden chiming beams that echoed brightly about the place, the temple seemed almost empty, such was its gargantuan size.
“The Firsts!” said Shen breathlessly by Kai’s ear, “The Eluciaë made all of this, sculpting all from stars and stone to stand for millions, sacred millions of generations, before they...before the...the light....”
Kai glanced uneasily at Shen, expecting “light” to send him reeling into cacophonous spurts of colour, but Shen simply closed his eyes, swallowed hard at the air he could not breathe, then blinked back with a smile and looked around the temple serenely.
Within the curving walls, glittering strands of inlaid amethyst and sapphire wove up through the marble, snaking in towards and around eight huge circles, each four times Kai’s height and evenly spaced around the temple walls — eight grand, imposing component circles of the Elucian Symbol, mosaicked in inset, burnished black and white. Before each one bustled a congregation of chalky, chattering robes — kneeling, bowing, murmuring, raising parchments and icons, and rocking from limb to limb to limb.
“Each has its own following, my dear Salvator,” said Shen, nodding over at the symbol, “Even the Dark Three are revered for their enduring might, and the perspective they offer the Light....”
Shen’s eyes glazed over in a yellow sheen. Kai tugged at his robe, and with a rapid shake of his head, sending his white hair-filaments into a flurry, Shen returned without incident.
“This is a somewhat contentious point, however. Not all agree the Dark Three should be esteemed. But the Elucian Way accepts everyone, recognising and embracing all offshoots of the original Way.”
As they made their way towards the nearest symbol, Kai noticed a collage of paper and slate and holographic sheets pasted and pinned to the walls around the broad circle.
“For every official symbol, there are a thousand unofficial icons...”
As they neared the penitent throng, Kai could make out some of the symbols — birds and palms, lambs and flowers, sickles and fish, all wrapped and held and penned and pierced by haloed suns, angular grilles and watery discs. Other symbols had long since faded and could no longer be distinguished from the dust.
“And the Way accepts them all as one.”
As they walked past the circular symbol itself, the subtle chimes that wafted through the temple focussed off the smooth stone and resounded in their skulls. Kai looked around, trying to ascertain the source; Shen instinctively pointed to the huge opening in the roof. Kai looked up and up and up, pulling taut his eyes until he saw — invisible channels of energy drew in the rain from the sky above towards a plane of light-vibration spanning the circular oculus. The water swirled onto this gossamer sheet, which dipped slightly in towards the middle as it filtered and sifted the rain back into purifying drops that trickled and flowed through ever-decreasing circles towards the open centre of the disc, chafing the invisible light into a rippling sheen of sound, a tapestry of tiny jingling peals and chimes that swirled and spiralled down into the hidden, lipless mouth and fell and fell and fell into a calm cascading stream through air and time, singing to the marble floor below, where the Elucian Symbol’s oval core raised its pristine marble edges into walls around a sparkling pool that frothed and rippled and flowed around a single sodden, lifeless husk of wood.
“That’s all that’s left,” whispered Shen, shaking his head until it began to shake him back, “All that remains of the Tree...the Tree of Light. The Tree of Light. That’s all.... I....”
He stood in solemn, trembling hush, and wiped his tearless eyes as the rain began to lessen and pull the shimmering chorus of chimes into a lingering diminuendo; Shen’s shaking head relaxed as the choir withdrew, until he was as still and wan as the temple’s lull.
“They left,” he whispered in melancholic paresis, “The Eluciaë. They just left. Moved on.”
Kai’s heart halted an instant as he realised that his own dark eyes were filling with Shen’s tears; he reached out, and as his hand touched Shen’s arm, colour and cadence flushed back.
“Yes. Yes, you see? They constructed all this to feed the Tree. But after the Cataclysmic Era it was all but destroyed. This is all that remains...here, at least.”
Shen’s enthusiasm rushed back in and he threw his arms around and up.
“Salvator, did you ever wonder why the temple is so huuuuuge? The Tree! The Tree was...colossal! It must have been!”
About two thirds of the way up the rotunda wall, the marble flowed seamlessly into gold.
“See this dome? It would catch and reflect the illumination from the Tree, and together with reflections from the pool and the starlight and the vibrations, the whole dome would be filled with the Eluciaë's greatest creation. Only vestiges remain now. Echoes. Ghosts.”
Kai tightened his eyes again, pursuing shadowy spirits in the heavens. Faintly flickering coruscations drifted amongst the golden sheen, hovering shapelessly.
“Ghosts indeed,” whispered Shen, “Stained by the new sun. And with the weather changing every minute on Destiny now, even when it does appear nothing stays for very long, and...and....”
Far above the oculus, the cloudy grey gave way at last, releasing a blinding deluge of steely sunlight through the heavenly eye of the temple.
“Oh...my!”
The brilliance darted and dazzled around the walls in fluid colour, though no longer merely as reflections — the light itself was beginning to gather into a ring within the empty space of the dome.
“Salvator! It...it’s here!”
Lines were forming, curves and dips and bulges and grooves of fluctuating gleam — a band of shapes, in three dimensions, flickering in and out of completion.
“There it is, my dear, dear friend — the light frieze.”
Next chapter — The Light Frieze
Sunday 13 March 2011
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