A Thousand and One Leagues

Chapter I – The Elevator August 12, 2009

“‘Lo and behold,’ spoke the jester and revealed a thousand glories to his king. ‘These all are naught in front of the triumphs you will have in the name of the Almighty.’ As the king sat, bedazzled by that which only he could see, the trickster stole the shine from his daughters’ eyes and the smiles from their mouths, leaving no more than ache and yearning in their hearts.”

-Ending of the play “The King of Nosht,” penned by Malcom Drefey after the collapse of the Onlon dynasty.

—

The room was brightly lit now that the door had shut itself behind the young woman and her guide. The light seemed to emanate from the floor and the ceiling, though they were easy on the eyes unlike a bright flame or the sun. Most of the space along the pale grey walls was occupied by shelves climbing their whole height, the only exceptions being small statuettes in the middle of the walls and the doorway itself. In the centre the floor raised slightly in an octagonal shape, forming an empty dais save for a carving of yet another eight-angled symmetric shape. Off to the sides were groups of comfortable looking chairs, eight in total, carefully arranged to balance one another. After taking in all these details in, Exa noticed that behind the low platform there was a slightly taller one that seemed to be covered by a score of buttons.

The reason this pedestal caught her attention did not occur to Exa immediately: although the contents of the room were otherwise harmoniously arranged in patterns of eight, this block was rectangular, its breadth was more than its length and that in turn greater than its height. As she approached it across the room and over the dais, her curiosity overriding the attention she had been giving to Takhris amidst her observation. He noticed this and fell quiet with a smile in the middle of a sentence explaining the nature and properties of this room. Crouching to study it with Takhris by her side, she ran her hand over the prismatic surface, feeling it to be a material she had never encountered before. Exa realised that despite being well-educated and having travelled quite a bit in her family’s duchy and to some of the major cities outside of it, she nevertheless did not know many things, especially in a place such as this where stories did not escape. The old wisdom of the wilderness no doubt applied here as well: ignorance brought nothing but grief.

“It’s made of a substance your people have no name for,” Takhris spoke from behind her shoulder. “You could say it’s a mix between glass and metal, being partially transparent yet durable.” He crouched next to her and pointed at a cyan oval slightly to the left of the middle of the field. “Press that.” Exa glanced at him and, hesitating only the tiniest fraction, obeyed, her first two fingers easily sinking the button a good inch. As nothing appeared to happen, she turned to look at her guide who was now staring at the middle of the room. Turning fully around to see what was attracting his attention, Exa was amazed to see the eight-cornered low-rise raising itself silently toward the ceiling. Naturally their palace had many hydraulic systems, but none of them were nearly as quiet and somehow she knew that this was not being powered with normal steam turbines or even elemental-enhanced ones.

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