I went far to the north, on a strange vessel, which unlike ours has no prow, nor a square sail, but instead one that is half way between a triangle and a square, and those who sail these vessels turn back and forth to, as they call it, ‘go around the wind’, and thus they are not prisoner of the winds as we are, nor bound to their oars as often…
… there they took me to a great grassy knoll, a series of undulating humps that rise out of the land, like the serpentine figures of wharls that we could often see during the voyage. We were far to the north, and at night the might handful [circumpolar stars], were high overhead, and always in view. The fields, the larger of which marks true north [Magellanic Clouds] was almost half way up the sky…
…on that knoll the showed me massive stones, raised up by giants they said, which marked the comings and goings of the sun, still almost perfectly aligned after these thousands of annae. The showed me markings on one, which they said they had made, and which they called the runa. Each event was marked, though before this there were swirls and loops, which they said marked even older events. I noted down the dates, and have checked them against the library at Teloikopolis, and found them as accurate as our own, and going back, if the spirals are to be believed, even farther….
Whether recorded or calculated, it showed a remarkable understanding, and a skill matching our own. And these remarkable people are yet ignored by most of ours, or driven from their islands in pointless small wars. And yet, they recount to me that our wise are often found among them, and that they have voyaged all the way down, past the equator, to the bright star lands, where Tiamat winds around the Southern pole, and there are lands which are still unknown to us.
My Inquiries Ecodotus, excerpts from chapter 47
Long Count Date: 998.11.92
At this moment Marchangela burst into tears. They had been welling up from time to time, first with the dreams, then with the problems, then with the fear on the road, then with making her seem foolish. This was the last straw, because it some how implied that all the rest had been useless and pointless. But she did not bawl. Instead, she stopped, and got angry, and the next words had a nasally edge to them that was born of that anger.
“So what is the point of dragging me around like this. You and everyone else have said a great deal, and you’ve shown off what you have, but, so nothing about me, other than to make me look and feel foolish, knock me off of track, and lecture me.”
She had not noticed how her legs had become firmly planted in the earth and her knees had locked. She did know that she had folded her arms, and glared at the Magus.
He, for his part, had moved the orb close to the source of the water, and there, plainly visible, was the head of a satyr, mouth opened wide, water pouring out, around this was a pentagram, inscribed in a circle, and around that another larger circle at some distance, the pentagram’s circle had a deep grove, and it pointed neither up, nor down, but slightly askew. Behind the slab which was the back of the fountain, there were a short, sharp set of steps that curled up around, and there to a door made of wood. He pointed at the door.
“The beginning of answers are behind that door.”
Marchangela stared at the fountain, observing the carving on it, it must be very old, for it showed great wear.
“Why is the pentagram askew?”
“Because it is a clock – the synodic pattern of Ishtar and Lucifer form a pentangle, and this is a clock, the two are in conjunction when the pentangle points directly down.”
“So it is a long count calendar?”
“Yes, and it has revolved nearly 200 of the long counts – 2600 annae. It is the one of the first that our people built, thought it is modeled on ones that your people set in megaliths, even farther back in time. The water rushing through turns the clock every so slightly, and that turns the outer wheel.”
“But rock would have…”
He took her hand, and drew it to touch the outer circle, it was not cold like rock, but an impossibly smooth. He was careful to press, rather than rub, and she could feel that there were needle lick shards that raised out of the surface, one created a pinprick of blood from her finger. She withdrew her hand and sucked on the finger, and then pressed it against her thumb to stop the bleeding.
“There is one kind of rock that does not wear away, it is made of diamond, though too small of fragments to cut gems out of, still, this wheel is the reason for Teleoikopolis, and the true source of the cities wealth: far below us, far far below us, people you have never seen dig for diamonds.”
He paused.
“Now do you want answers or not?”
She nodded, and followed him, he took the steps easily, with practice. She followed with that floating litheness that the young seem to have, and curved up and around, the fountain now below and to her left.
She asked “My people?”
“The Kymre, who the Latins call Gauls. An ancient people who sailed the seas in small boats, and build monuments to time the sun and planets. From them my people learned the art of astrology, which we combined with the wisdom of Kush and Urakkadia to create astronomy, and geonomy.”
He pressed the door to open inwards, and covered the orb. She stepped into the darkened tunnel, her eyes adjusting to real dark. The fear that here, rather than elsewhere, is where he would do violence to her passed so quickly as to be forgotten on what she saw next.
Or rather, what she sensed next: it was that dank grotto smell from her cave dream, with the exact texture of moss. She felt, almost, as if she had been in this very spot before. Her eyes at this point resolved the tracings on the walls: they were the helmeted and tangled figures that she had beheld in that dream.
“My dream…”
“Yes, you didn’t foretell these, you remembered them. You have been here before – your psyche passed out through this passage way and out into the world, my predecessor released it from the cistern below, a well of souls, where those taken are kept, until it is time to scatter them.”
She looked at the figures, the matching was too exact, the colour, the shape, the style. She did not know what to believe, but she knew that she believed.
“But these are of a different style…”
“Yes, they are old, but only just, than the clock. The clock was built here, because this shaft was found to be one of the places where there is a passage between two of the worlds of man.”
She continued to stare at the figures, growing in vividness as her eyes fully found themselves in the light.
“So my psyche came out through here?”
He touched the wall with his staff, pointing at a woman warrior figure.
“You were from this one. And it was very long ago that your psyche came to this world, and for a long time it swirled in the cistern, jumping out for a time, and then being drawn back in. Now was the time of its coming. I said that nothing is foretold. I will tell you why: it is because it is remembered. The psyches with sight hold on to that which they have passed through or by, or inhabited before they found a body. They remember.”
She turned “towards” him, though he was only a black form blocking the light from the walls.
“And so I am one of those who remember. Chosen?”
He shifted and began opening a second door. “One of many. You must understand, that there is not one chance alone, but many. There are many like you who have been taken into this world. We are all chosen for something, we are all particular miracles. This one, however, is the miracle you were sent to work, of that, I am certain.”
“And of the others?” She almost brought her hand to touch the figures. “Most will fail?”
“Some will fail, some will die, some will merely pass through without ever knowing their talent, and live and die as ordinary people. That is why finding those with talents, any talents, is so important. This is yours.”
She looked again.
“You said between the two worlds. Which two worlds?”
“This world, which we call Ishtar, and another, which is named for the element – whose sun is hotter than ours - it is Earth, and the cradle of mankind.”