Yeva said, "Light! Why didn't you summon that earlier? And I see you've changed your likeness..."
Anusha asked, "Do you like it?"
Yeva laughed in her curt manner, then grew serious. "Your dream is stronger than mere fancy, I sense. What is the secret of your power, Anusha?"
Anusha said, "If I knew that, perhaps I could figure out how to get us out of here." Her thoughts darted to Japheth, and how he'd tried to pull her free. And failed. She knew his game, and it offered her nothing except her current circumstance. She wouldn't let her guard down again, regardless of his charm. And good looks. She frowned and tried to shove thoughts of Japheth from her mind.
They walked on in silence. Even their footsteps made no sound. Because we're not really here, of course, Anusha thought.
Then her sword's light revealed a wall. It was carved from obsidian, obsidian that was not merely glassy black but stained with reflective hues of red, brown, gray, and green. The wall receded to the left and right, and upward.
"Which way?" said Anusha.
Yeva trudged right. Anusha kept pace.
They walked along the slightly curved wall for some time, though it was probably much shorter than it seemed.
Suddenly the mottled woman stopped and said, "By Diomar's Black Ring. We're walking in circles!"
"What?" "This is the second time we've passed here. See how the red splotch on this outcrop makes a shape like a tree? I noted it last time we passed—it reminded me of an old shadowtop. And here it is again." The woman traced the line of color on the wall. Anusha saw that the pattern in the stone resembled a sprawling, shadowtop tree.
A new thought came to Anusha. She slapped her forehead. "Why are we letting a simple wall stop us? We've no bodies to be trapped!"
Anusha made as if to walk into the glassy surface, but Yeva grabbed her armored arm.
"Wait! What are you doing?"
Anusha smiled and said, "We're dreams, Yeva. We can pass through doors and walls as easily as thinking about it."
Yeva gave a half shake of her head but said, "I suppose that must be true. But isn't it dangerous? What if the wall is like the ice?"
Anusha paused. She said, "I don't get that feeling. Nor do I see any shapes of people stuck inside..."
Yeva took a deep breath and slowly nodded.
Anusha grabbed the woman's hand. "Don't worry. We'll go through together."
They walked into the opaque obsidian. She pushed through what felt like the filmiest of veils, drawing her companion behind her.
After just three paces, they were through.
There was no ground beyond the wall, and Anusha fell. She screamed despite herself. She released her hold on Yeva and her sword, scrabbling for purchase on the surface from which she'd just emerged. That turned out to be as easy as wishing it—Anusha immediately stopped sliding.
Yeva popped out of the wall and reacted similarly, though she didn't scream. Anusha had collected herself just enough to reach out and snag one of Yeva's flailing wrists before the woman dropped away. She yelled, "Grab onto the wall! It will hold you if you believe it can!"
Yeva slapped her other hand to the slick, obsidian surface. Whether because of her own force of will or Anusha's, the woman stopped sliding.
Anusha's shining sword was gone, but it would return if she imagined it. However, the area was illuminated by a dim, directionless light.
Open air stretched away around them. Grinding, scraping noises echoed through it, and after a moment, Anusha saw their source.
Long stone spans arched out across the area, many apparently extending from above. As each span curved outward, its diameter narrowed. A sphere hung at the end of each stone beam, attached by some sort of elaborate harness. Some spheres were large as houses. Most of the largest orbs sprouted smaller stone arms of their own, to which much smaller spheres were attached. Each globe seemed carved of a different material, some stony, others metallic. The golden sphere not more than a hundred feet from them looked like yellow calcite, while its smaller moon looked like sandstone. More distant spheres had textures and hues reminiscent of jasper, silver, and other minerals and metals.
"It moves!" Yeva exclaimed.
Anusha saw the woman spoke true. The great arms advanced slowly, ponderously, but noticeably around the immense space, transcribing great circles. The smaller stone spans protruding from the largest spheres visibly spun so that the least orbs nearly whipped around the larger ones like... moons, in truth.
Encompassing the entire vast space were walls that extended from a pit of darkness below up to more indefinite gloom high above. The walls were illuminated by huge patches of what Anusha guessed might be mold that glowed pale and icy.
She looked at the obsidian surface they'd emerged from. It curved away in all directions.
"We're on a sphere too," Anusha said. "The largest, around which all these others spin."
They watched the stately rotation of the great mechanism. They were like flies on a waterwheel, and just as ignorant of its function.
Yeva said, "It seems like a god's orrery. But it doesn't track the motions of any stars or heavenly bodies I'm familiar with."
"An orrery? What's that?" Anusha asked.
"It is... an apparatus that shows the positions and motions of objects in the night sky, usually through clever wheelwork, though I've seen versions, that move through magical or psionic impetus. But this one... This orrery dwarfs all others I've witnessed or heard tell of. And by the random way the arms of this mechanism rotate, I almost suspect they do not correspond to heavenly shapes at all."
"Mmm," responded Anusha. She'd never spent much time studying the points of light in the night sky, other than to remark from time to time on the beauty of Sehlne's Tears.
"Look at that," Anusha said, pointing. One of the orbs, this one bluish red, wobbled violently. As she watched, her mouth falling open in surprise, three stone arms sprouted from the orb's elaborate harness. The new-birthed stone spans reached outward like plant seedlings nuzzling up from the soil, but far more quickly. As the stone lengths unfurled, a "fruit" swelled and ripened at the end of each, fiery red at first, but cooling even as growth ceased.
Newly minted globes began to rotate around the larger sphere, each on its own connecting arm. One seemed mottled quartz, the other two dull copper.
"What's that?" said Yeva.
Wormlike glyphs crawled across the newborn orbs, then faded to invisibility.
Anusha said, "Writing of some kind?" She turned her gaze from the echoing spectacle to Yeva.
The woman's yellowish skin was noticeably paler. She gave a sharp nod. "I saw it. The glyphs were of a script that seemed familiar, but they faded before I could read them. But I think—"
A screech ripped through the chamber, jerking their attention toward the ceiling.
Three unsupported shapes materialized from the gulf of darkness enshrouding the air overhead. Anusha immediately saw the newcomers were not birds—they were too squat and lacked wings.
As the objects grew closer, they reminded Anusha of fish. They undulated through the air as if swimming. One's coloration was mottled quartz, and the other two were dull brown... like copper.
Anusha said, "What—"
"Aboleths," whispered Yeva "but not close kin of those I'm familiar with. And these fly." She said the last as an accusation.
Anusha said, "They have the same color as—" Yeva put a finger to her lips and shook her head. She whispered, "We might live if we remain beneath their notice."