Existence

pin down without pseudo-parallax. Still, Hamish followed it into a small alcove lined with dusty tomes, many of them surely more valuable than his house.

The globe transformed into the image of a floating, disembodied human hand-wearing a zardozian white glove- that turned with a magician’s flourish and pointed to some ornate carvings, surrounding a book case made of dark wood.

Pull this vine toward you, please. The unit should open.

Then step through very quietly, closing it behind you ALMOST all the way. Do not let it lock in place.

Although his heart was pounding, Hamish found it reassuring that the vaice was being so careful to leave him a way out. That made it seem less like a trap.

His hand stroked curving vines that climbed the bookcase, and Hamish wondered if anything like such delicate woodwork could be produced today. Of course, zealots of the so-called Age of Amateurs claimed that every art, craft, and skill of the past could now be duplicated-not by machine, but by passionate hobbyists.

Hamish found that assertion painful, arrogant, even disgusting.

He pulled where the floating hand indicated. Without creaks or stiffness, a lever slid down around a hinge and-with a click-the entire case popped out a few centimeters. It swung fairly easily, even while supporting heavy volumes-evidently on smooth, modern bearings-whereupon Hamish found a dark passageway inside.

His right eye could make out nothing in the gloom. But in his left-hand field of view there appeared faint, glimmering outlines that told him where floor met walls, guiding his footsteps. Hamish pulled the case after him… almost shut, and turned to shuffle softly forward, thinking about stories by Poe.

There is a heavy wooden panel, set in the wall at eye level, just ahead.

Two meters. Now one.

Put out your arm to where mine points.

Hamish felt a faint nervous tremor in his fingertips as he reached. Even knowing what to expect, he experienced a faint frisson when his hand passed through the ghostly white glove without any physical contact. Million-year-old instincts were hard to overcome.

Grab the slider bolt.

Now push the panel gently to the left until a gap appears.

After a pause, there came an added caution.

You may watch, but make no sounds.

He shoved aside the wooden insert at the indicated spot, and brought his head down a bit, scrunching uncomfortably.

Eye level. Right. Maybe for normal people.

It was dim in the large chamber beyond, though he adapted quickly, even with his unassisted right eye. Soon made out another richly paneled room with a stonework dome, like the library behind him. In this one, however, there were no books, only statuary. Dozens of marble or bronze figures posed in alcoves lining the walls below, and above in a second story balcony colonnade. It was from that upper level that he now peered downward past one nearby piece of sculpture-some Hindu dancer or goddess, with a voluptuous figure, tiny waist, and only one pair of arms.

Gazing past her provocative navel, he spied a couple of dozen figures below, on the first level, gathered around a single tabletop source of illumination. Radiating like petals of a dark flower, their fleeing shadows crossed the floor then climbed the walls, interspersing warped, elongated human silhouettes among the onlooking statues. Low murmurs of conversation were too hushed for Hamish to make out clearly, though he swiftly recognized the hawklike features of Tenskwatawa and those of his host, Rupert Glaucus-Worthington, along with several other eminences from both factions, their faces pale and dim, but eyes glittering in the soft-sharp light.

I thought they were heading off to negotiate details of the alliance, Hamish mused. Vital matters of how power will be apportioned and which policies to pursue. Instead, this looks like some kind of ceremony.

Could I be watching secret initiation rites of the Illuminati?

Hamish felt a thrill. I was pretty much convinced that such things were just lurid rumors or romantic exaggerations, foisted by my fellow sci-fi writers. Could this mean the oligarchy really does have an inner, ritualized core? One the Prophet is now invited to join?

But not me?

Hamish quashed his sense of pique, focusing instead on curiosity, wondering-How could my sources have steered me so wrong?

Only… Hamish soon found himself revising that first impression. There seemed to be no pattern, no orderly arrangement of people crowded around the table below. No symbolic regalia. No rhythmic chanting. Just a murmur of worried wonder.

One of them, the owner of this vast palace, raised his voice a bit in answer to a question. A tone of querulous anxiety colored Rupert’s tone as he waved an arm in response, gesturing toward the table. And Hamish managed to pick out a few snippets.

“… in my family for three centuries…”

and then,

“… suddenly started, last night…”

and finally,

“… never did anything like this, before!”

Abruptly, Hamish realized, Glaucus-Worthington was talking about the object that lay before them at the center of the gathering. What Hamish had first taken for a simple-if somewhat dim-tabletop lamp, he now realized was something else entirely. A roundish lump of glass, about the size of a human head, and-he realized with a chill- rather shaped like one. It seemed to glow from within.

The contaict lens covering his left pupil kicked into operation, responding to his interest, performing some wizardry of magnification and image enhancement, zooming in toward the object. Image dissonance between his two eyes briefly sickened Hamish, till he shut the right one. Even looking only at the enhanced version, it took several moments to sort out the glitters and complex refractions before realizing.

It’s a crystal skull. One of those weird relics that people get all mystical about, in films even sillier than mine. Though most proved to be modern hoaxes.

Of course, “most” was not the same as “all.” Archaeologists did admit that a few seemed genuinely ancient, but still just works of art-natural chunks of quartz that had been laboriously chiseled and rubbed by artisans in olden times-showing no sign of mystical properties. Yet, some of the strange skullptures had never been put under public, high-tech scrutiny, allowing fervid tales to keep swirling.

I recall, one of them was kept in Switzerland, in private hands.

He never cared enough to learn more than that. Ancient occult artifacts were never a propelling topic for Hamish. Not as much as dangerous scientific innovations and Things Man Was Never Meant to Know. Nevertheless, there had always been something alluring about the works of authors and sceneasts like Joanne Sawyer and Ari Stone-Bear, who spun tales of mystery and wonder around arcane objects from the enigmatic past.

Someone-Tenskwatawa-reached out to touch the translucent cranium-pushing with a fingertip. Turning it till the rictus grin and sunken eye sockets almost faced Hamish, glowing with an expression of fey amusement…

… when a sudden shaft of brilliance gleamed, spearing him right through the contaict lens with a shrapnel- clutter of overlapping images-

– a planet of dark continents and narrows seas, conveyed in murky tans and grainy grays, except for a single, wavy band that flickered with detailed color, from azure seashore to snowcapped, purple peaks-

– a jumbled, jigsaw cityscape that stirred together a tangle of mud huts, skyscrapers, stilt houses, and gleaming domes, topped by thatched roofs-

– a crumpled mosaic of faces, jaggedly combining beaks and jaws and fluted stalks that, while twisted together unnaturally, seemed to snort and cry out with some kind of delirious urgency.

The impression lasted only a couple of seconds. Then it was gone. Benumbed with shock, Hamish sought refuge in logic. In scientific speculation.

That jumble of degraded images… mixed and overlapping chaotically… they could be remnants of