Even from my cursory search, I gained some notion as to the contents of the vast librarium, and learned nothing of what I sought. Most of the volumes were tomes of a metaphysical nature, pondering the verities of the universe, and composed in a language so highly technical or symbolic as to be virtually incomprehensible. I found few books devoted in any degree to the physical sciences—and wondered thereat. For how had Sarchimus managed to find the key to the lost science magic of the Ancients, without a text?
Some of the tiers of the tower were devoted to understandable uses, such as sleeping apartments and the vast librarium. There were also galleries and arcades given over to collections of artifacts. The immense sophistication of the Ancients was visible in their art as it was in their remarkable technology; for here were mosaics and frescoes which would not have looked out of place in Terrene museums devoted to the avant-garde—geometrical abstractions, pure studies in tonal values, nonobjective works in which meaningless organic shapes of color contrasted subtly with each other.
But other art works, perhaps dating from an earlier and less intellectual era, were representational in nature, although seemingly allegorical in theme. These invariably depicted a race of winged beings whom I at first assumed to depict angels or genii.
While some apartments of the Scarlet Pylon were devoted to obvious uses, others were enigmatic and mysterious. For what conceivable use, for example, had the Ancients constructed that central shaft that ran from the bottom of the tower to its utmost crest? A mere hollow tube it was, with sliding panels that opened onto each and every floor of the tower. I wondered if it could be something in the nature of an elevator shaft; as it lacked either car or cables, I soon abandoned this thesis, and simply set it down as yet another in a world of many mysteries.
Some of the suites Sarchimus had reserved for his own uses. There was an immense laboratorium filled with crystal vats and sparkling tubework, wherein he spent a considerable portion of each day. Another lengthy hall was filled with gleaming machines of unfamiliar design and unknown purpose. And there was also a circular rotunda wherein abstract shapes of solid crystal stood on plinths of copper, jade, and iron. Lights moved and shimmered through these masses of shaped crystal, each differing from the other. One towering ovoid contained an inner structure of minute and starlike points of light which flickered from light to dark in a complex rhythm all their own—for all the world like a string of Christmas tree lights draped about an invisible armature!
Another bulbed crystal glowed with a sourceless aura of dire radiance that pulsed slowly in throbbing rhythm, like the beating of a gigantic heart somehow rendered visible rather than audible. And there was also a soaring, curved shaft which seemed to contain captive lightnings, for long crackling sparks of blue-white fire, intolerably brilliant, searing to the eye, sped randomly from top to bottom of the monolith.
The purpose of this rotunda of irradiated crystals was just one more mystery.
But there were greater mysteries to come!
At length I came into an enormous hall of many levels; that is, curved balconies, three in number, encircled a vast open space three full stories in depth.
This was one of the unrefurbished portions of the Scarlet Pylon, and it was one of the strangest areas I had yet explored. All furniture, draperies, and hangings had been stripped from the circular tiers and the vast floor below—or had perhaps crumbled into dust through the passage of time, for the glimmering pave was strewn most oddly with heaps and mounds and swaths of powdery dust, amid which were small odds and ends of dry and porous wood and morsels of some ceramic substance that resembled potsherds.
Within this vast place were over one hundred statues.
I have remarked on the art works left behind by the extinct Sotasprans earlier in this narrative, and I have mentioned their principal sculptural motif is that of allegorical or mythological figures that are winged, like angels or demons. Well, all of the immense number of statues wherewith this enormous room was thronged were in the likeness of these remarkable winged genii, or whatever they were. They stood about seven feet tall and were depicted in a variety of amazing tasks—amazing not because of the unusual nature of the tasks, but of the extremely commonplace nature of them!
That is, some were pictured as sitting—although there was no furniture for them to sit upon—while others leaned against walls or columns. A dozen or so had been carved as if they were leaning on their forearms against the balustrades of the upper balconies, staring down into the vast hall beneath. More than a few had been sculpted in a recumbent posture, as if they were supposed to be sprawled about or stretched out on divans or couches. These lay flat on the floor amid mounds of dust and decaying wood.
It was all most remarkable. I have never before seen a sculpture gallery composed of figures designed in such lifelike detail, depicted in some ordinary and mundane occupations. They were, also, carved from a most peculiar substance, like white chalk, which seemed to my untutored eye an unlikely substance for sculpture, as the lightest blow could break away an elbow or a finger; in fact, many of the figures, particularly those depicted as stretched out on nonexistent couches, were broken.
It was merely another mystery.
But one I was later to remember…
Chapter 7
THE CITY OF MONSTERS
If I have given the impression that I had no commerce with my master during this period, let me correct it here. Although for the most part Sarchimus left me to my own devices, busying himself with abstruse researches and experimentations which required privacy, I was occasionally summoned to attend him and from time to time performed small services for him, such as the running of errands.
The first of these meetings came at the terminus of my period of convalescence, when the science magician demonstrated to me how to use the automatic food machines and the sanitary conveniences. During that interview he also gave me to understand the limits that he imposed upon my movements. I could go where I wished, save for those rooms whose portals were sealed with the mark of the Hand, these being and these I was to consider as his private domain; any intrusion would be at peril of his ill will. This insignia, by the way, denoted Sarchimus himself and was in the nature of an heraldic blazon—the mark of a human palm, with fingers widespread, in crimson. This was the seal of Sarchimus.
During this first interview I was given to understand that to attempt to leave the Pylon by any egress was to imperil my life; the bottommost seven tiers of the Scarlet Pylon were somehow hostile to humankind, or so it was explained to me. I was not long in discovering the truth of this in my own way.
My search for some manner of map or atlas of the World of the Green Star had soon exhausted all of the chambers of the tower, save for those sealed with the Scarlet Hand and the lower seven tiers of the structure itself.
One day I decided to descend by the series of sloping ramps and explore the base of the Scarlet Pylon. I think I disregarded the warnings of Sarchimus as an attempt to hold me prisoner through superstitious fear. I think I can also explain my rashness in venture to ignore his warnings as the actions of a restless and reckless boy—for at this point I had not yet managed to establish an inner balance between my youthful body and juvenile emotions and the sober maturity of my intellect and spirit.