Prism

by Matthew D. Ryan

Chapter 8

  The light revealed a complicated landscape. It was largely flat, but populated with a vast number of geometric figures fashioned from quartz lying about in virtually every direction imaginable. There were natural tetrahedrons, hexahedrons, and other perfect solids. There were truncated octahedrons, snub cubes and a vast array of varied imperfect arch-solids. Finally, there was a multifarious collection of more common shapes—rhombohedrons, spheres, and cylinders. Altogether, it looked as if some mad Shardshaper had gone to work to shape as many geometric variants as could be imagined. All the formations were made of pure quartz and were of differing sizes. Some towered above Akarra; others were small enough to trip over. Some of the crystals looked clear; some fogged; and even others bore colors: red, purple, blue, and yellow.

  Almost immediately, Akarra could sense her goal. In the distance, some two hundred yards away stood a massive angular formation of quartz. It consisted of all gradients; some parts looked clear, some looked white, and still others looked cracked and fissured. The formation drew Akarra’s gaze as soon as she exited the Labyrinth. Something was there; some presence, some aura, perhaps even an intelligence. She felt her Heartshard grow warm of its own accord and she knew immediately that she could have found that mound of quartz even with her eyes closed. She started walking in that direction.

  Thaygos moved up beside her, his spear at the ready. “Where are we heading?”

  Akarra nodded toward the mound. “There,” she said.

  Thaygos looked around. “All these formations. Were they formed by ...?”

  “Same as before, just more abundantly,” Akarra said. “Light from—”she pointed to three nearby Lightshards in rapid succession—“those, refracted by the many natural prisms. It’s amazing that it produced so many different forms. We’ll have to be careful. We might get exposed to deathlight here.” But even as she said it, she knew it to be untrue. This ... this ... garden of quartz stones was not a random thing; no, it may have relied upon the natural characteristics of light and quartz, but some intelligence had played a hand in forging it.

  She looked down at a beautiful orange twinned formation consisting of two six-sided prisms joined together along one face. It was neither a perfect solid, nor an imperfect arch-solid—it wasn’t even an ordinary polyhedron—but its beauty and elegance were well-suited to this place. Akarra stooped down to trace a finger across one of its planes; it was warm to the touch, of course, and her finger slid smoothly across the glassy surface. She straightened then continued on, threading her way through the many formations. “I wonder why this was built?” she asked, rhetorically.

  “Built?” Thaygos answered. “I thought you said—”

  “No,” Akarra said, “something this abundant must have had a maker, a designer. It’s beautiful.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Thaygos said. “There’s something wrong here.”

  They approached a tall cylindrical pillar of quartz—something unheard of—and the angular white-colored mound drew near. Akarra stopped long enough to study the mound from a distance. It rose high—nearly one hundred feet—but was equally wide. It consisted of myriad angles and crevices and broken pillars of glass; some of the pillars were encased in the sides of the quartz mound and yet others stood out tall on their own. Three different caves led within, each one shaped like a different polygon—a triangle, a square, and a pentagon.

  “Which one do we try?” Thaygos asked.

  “I don’t know,” Akarra replied.

  “Pick one,” Thaygos said.

  Akarra glanced back at the triangular passage of the labyrinth then said, “Well, we started with a triangle, let’s try the square.” Boldly striding forward she stepped into the tunnel.

  Thaygos started to follow her, but then he drew to a stop at the edge of the passage.

  “Are you coming?” Akarra asked, looking back at him.

  Thaygos lifted a hand and pressed it forward. It stopped in mid-air as if it had met some kind of resistance, an invisible wall of sorts. Akarra turned around and stepped out of the tunnel. “What is the problem?”

  “I don’t think I can enter,” Thaygos said. He pounded his fist against an inviolable barrier to no avail.

  “Here,” Akarra said, handing him the Heartshard. “Try now.” He stepped forward and immediately ran into resistance again. She stepped to his side then moved forward again. “Well, it’s not the Shard. Let’s try the other passages.”

  They tried both the triangular shaped passage and the pentagonal shaped passage. Neither one allowed Thaygos entry.

  “Well, I guess you’ll have to wait here,” Akarra said, retrieving the Heartshard from Thaygos and returning it to the folds of her yenshi robe.

  “I don’t think you should go in,” Thaygos said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Who rescued whom from the Light-eaters?” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t like it,” Thaygos said.

  “It is my quest,” she said. “I will see it through to the end.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll be okay,” she said, then, turning to him, she lifted both palms up facing toward him. Her antennae glowed pink with love. He returned the gesture and they touched, palm to palm, antenna to antenna. For a moment, their thoughts were one and she sensed a transcendental togetherness that defied all explanation. Oh, how she yearned for this he-quartz. And to think, this would be their last chance to bond like this. She was about to enter the Cave of the Heart Crystal. When she came out, she would be bonded to her own Heartshard, and no longer available to any he-quartz. He sensed those thoughts as well and for a moment their pink love was tinged with blue.

  They broke contact.

  Struggling to keep her emotions in check, she turned back to the square-shaped passage and stepped inside. She walked forward resolutely refusing to look back. This was her quest; her ambition; there was no more room for love.

  The corridor led downward at a gentle angle, a very gentle angle—which was fortunate because the floor, even though covered with cracks and fissures, had been polished until it was as smooth as glass. Several times, she came very near to slipping and falling in an undignified manner. But each time she managed to twist her feet until her yenshi shoes caught against the floor. The natural fibers and bark of the root gripped polished quartz much more effectively than her bare feet.

  As she regained her footing, she took note of a handful of Lightshards lying horizontally and buried beneath the surface of the floor. They provided copious light for her journey, but their unusual positioning and placement piqued her curiosity. Why had the Lightshards been buried? What had caused it?

  No obvious answer presented itself.

  It didn’t matter. She wasn’t here to solve a riddle. Ignoring the Lightshards, she continued down the passage. It banked first left, then right, and soon the opening where Thaygos waited was no longer visible.

  She entered a large chamber and immediately noticed several things: first, she saw that the chamber had been hollowed out in the shape of a dodecahedron—a uniform twelve-sided figure; second, she saw that all the quartz of the chamber was foggy white. This indicated that the chamber should be incredibly warm—hot, even—but that was not the case; in fact, the chamber was cold, and it grew even colder as she entered—so cold, in fact, that her quartz hide grew cloudy to compensate, generating heat from her precious lifelight.

  Buried in the floor she saw two more Lightshards, glowing brilliantly and spreading light throughout the room. In the back of the chamber, attached to one of the walls, she saw a large blue quartz crystal shaped much like an icosahedron—a perfect twenty-sided figure—except not so perfect: one of the faces on the crystal was missing as if someone had cut out a tetrahedron-shaped piece of quartz.

  She pulled out the Heartshard: it was a tetrahedron in shape, made of transparent blue quartz, and just about the right size. What had Yridia said? Restore her Heartshard to its former place
? Clearly that was what she was meant to do: return the Shard to the missing section of the Heart Crystal. But something held her back, uncertain. Now that she was here, after her long journey and struggle, she once again recalled the haunted look that had hid in Yridia’s eyes and the silent fear that had flowed from Yridia’s antennae. What about this place had her late mentor found so disturbing?

  She continued her inventory of the room.

  A large stela of carven quartzite stood in the center, looking odd if for no other reason than the material from which it had been fabricated: quartzite—a type of rock formed from super-heating quartz. It sprouted from the floor with a surface of cracked and shattered glass, fused together as if also transformed by great heat. She walked over to the stela.

  There was writing on it made by the contortions of several lines of black glass. The writing covered the stela from top to bottom in four demarcated sections. The first section read: Greetings, Shardshaper. Behold the Heart Crystal. The source of your power. Restore your master’s Heartshard to the Heart Crystal and claim your own. Half a hand’s breadth lower it read: Power comes and power goes. Until your living essence is not your own. In her current mood, that sounded particularly sinister, but Akarra could not quite figure out what it meant.

  She continued reading. The next section read: Five we are in number. Revered by the councils of the wise. The very building blocks of all that is. Designed in defiance of all lies.

  “A riddle?” she said out loud. “I came all this way and you are wasting my time with children’s games?” As she spoke, her voice echoed back to her. Then, a cavernous hum started, rumbling forward from the back of the room, its ultimate origin a mystery.

  She continued reading the next section. It, too, was a riddle. The faces of the forms are few in number; their beauty, unparalleled. Of these faces, I am both least and most, a shadow of the complexity I allow. What am I?

  By the sacred songs of her ancestors, what was going on? Her gaze lifted back to the top of the stela. That line at least was clear. If she followed the instructions, she should move up and return Yridia’s Heartshard to the empty space in the icosahedron. But the next line seemed to be a warning of some sort. “I mean, ‘Until your living essence is not your own?’” she said aloud again. Power comes. Power goes. What did it mean?

  Just then, the vibration in the room rose a pitch, drawing her attention to the back of the room and the Heart Crystal. The Heart Crystal had started to glow, dark morbid colors, that seemed somehow menacing. Great, she thought, riddles with a time limit. Even as she thought the words a change manifested in the depths of the giant jewel.

  A shadow formed within, dark and sinister. Then, the shadow rose and emerged from its surface, an all too familiar thing of twisted black light and wings: a Light-eater. Akarra took a step back as her innermost lifelights started pulsing in fear. A trickle of black light emerged from her antennae. She lifted the Heartshard and said, “At least there’s only—”

  But even as she spoke, a second Light-eater emerged. Then, a third. Horror entered her heart as realization dawned. The Heart Crystal was the home of the Light-eaters. It was their very source. Why hadn’t Yridia told her?

  Because, perhaps, she hadn’t known. Regardless, it didn’t matter now. Akarra had a problem.

  Akarra looked down at the Heartshard in her hands. The container for Yridia’s life essence. She took another step back. If she placed Yridia’s Heartshard back in its respective place, what would happen to her life essence? Until your living essence is not your own. The words of the stela, the threat it bore, became all too clear.

  The first Light-eater flowed forward its hideous mouth opening to form words. “Give us our sister, young one, and we will spare your life.”

  Akarra froze in utter horror. Their sister! Yridia, a dead Shardshaper, was the Light-eaters’ sister. That meant that the Light-eaters were ...

  Dead Shardshapers.

  No, she thought. It can’t be. She took another step back. That meant all her years of training, all her hard work, had been preparation for the most horrible fate she could imagine: becoming a Light-eater when she died. She turned, about to run only to find one of the Light-eaters sweeping in to block her egress. She was trapped. Trapped in a chamber with three Light-eaters.

  No. There had to be a way out.

  The riddles.

  They must hold the clue!

  She glanced back at the stela. The gravity and meaning of the first riddle was all too apparent: to obtain the power of a Shardshaper one must sacrifice one’s living essence. Only a warning, no help there.

  The first Light-eater floated forward. Akarra activated the Heartshard and blasted the creature with a beam of pure deathlight. It shrieked and turned away.

  “You cannot stop us all,” another hissed. Two more Light-eaters emerged from the Heart Crystal, living shadows of darkness.

  Think quickly! Akarra thought. She glanced back at the stela at the second riddle: Five we are in number. Revered by the councils of the wise. The very building blocks of all that is. Designed in defiance of all lies. What could it mean? Five things.

  Five things.

  From learned affairs. The building blocks ... the elements! The five elements. Represented by the five perfect solids, maybe? Designed in defiance of all lies? The opposite of a lie is the truth and ... and ... the most perfect truths are those found in mathematics. Pattern matching was a sub-discipline of mathematics. So, it is the five perfect solids.

  Two of the Light-eaters charged her, hurtling through the air like deadly spears. She dove to the side and rolled—a difficult task for any quartzian, but even more so for one in such dire straits as she! She shot a beam of deathlight at one of the Light-eaters, but missed.

  A second later she heard a rumbling from the square-shaped passage that led out.

  She clambered back to her feet just as the tunnel started to collapse. Slabs of quartz and shattered glass rained down to choke her exit. There was no running now. What had happened? She glanced at the Heart Crystal. Perhaps she had hit the Heart Crystal with the deathlight and it had scattered it back across the room. Fortunately, it had struck the tunnel and not the roof of the ceiling here or, worse yet, herself.

  One of the Light-eaters sank down into the floor where a Lightshard lay buried. Almost immediately, it began to grow dim.

  No! Akarra thought. If I lose the light, I’m finished. Frantic now, she glanced back at the stela. If the answer to the second riddle was the five perfect solids, what did that mean? There were only two such perfect solids nearby. The first was the room itself, shaped like a perfect dodecahedron—a twelve-sided figure. The second was the Heart Crystal, shaped like a icosahedron—twenty sides, well, nineteen as this one was missing a face. Missing a face? Did that mean something?

  She glanced at the final riddle: The faces of the forms are few in number; their beauty, unparalleled. Of these faces, I am both least and most, a shadow of the complexity I allow. What am I?

  Okay, she thought as she backed toward the wall. The Light-eaters swarmed about her. If the forms are a reference to the perfect solids, because they are the most beautiful of all geometric solids and they were also the answer to the previous riddle, then we are talking about the faces of the perfect solids. Tetrahedrons bear triangles; hexahedrons bear squares; octahedrons, triangles; dodecahedrons, pentagons; and icosahedrons, triangles. Least and most? Triangles, she thought, have the least number of sides yet account for the most number of faces.

  So, the answer to the second riddle is a triangle, she thought. What does that give me?

  Again, two nearby Light-eaters charged her. She dodged to the side; the first Light-eater passed by her, but as she tumbled and rolled, she scrambled to her feet right in front of the second. It swept straight through her. Fortunately, it was going too fast to stop and engage her directly, but it still made contact. She shrieked in agony as the Light-eater dragged a trail of glittering pieces of light—her lifelight�
�behind it.

  She collapsed to the floor, pain seizing all her joints. She was going to die, she knew. There were no two ways about it.

  No, I can’t give up, she thought. She struggled to her feet. There is only one triangle of any significance in this room. The empty face on the Heart Crystal where Yridia’s Heartshard is supposed to go.

  Turning, she gripped the Heartshard with both her aching hands, lifted it to her chest, and summoned its power. There. The open triangle.

  The Heartshard began glowing red, then orange, then yellow. The first Lightshard in the room went out. The other one—all her remaining light—started to grow dim. Three Light-eaters swept toward her, moving in for the kill. Green. Blue. Indigo.

  The Light-eaters were upon her. Agony flared through her body. She crumpled to her knees, using all her strength to steady the Heartshard.

  Violet. Then ... a beam of deathlight flashed from the Heartshard and struck the Heart Crystal in its open void. A resounding crack sounded. The Light-eaters shrieked in unison.

  And the Heart Crystal exploded.