This hall was filled with shadows, striped with bands of pale, soft light, so details were not clear. But he had the impression there were large square stones, perhaps columns, to the right of the hall, reaching high to the cathedral ceiling.
Mauve-tinted sunlight streaming in through tall stained-glass windows to his left fell across his face, producing a sensation of velvet warmth and melancholy pleasure. When he stood, he could feel the muted sunlight slide across his cheek like a caress.
He stood, surprised to find himself represented as wearing his armor of black and gold-admantium. His helmet and gauntlets were retracted, so that his face and hands were exposed. The texture of the air as he breathed produced a gentle and powerful delight, like wine, in his mouth, nose and lungs. The simple objects his eye fell upon, the chair, the white lilies, the dark marble luster of the hall beyond the door, all these things seemed charged with a wonder and sad beauty he could not name.
The touch of the chair arms on his palms as he leaned
forward to stand, the hint of fragrance from the lilies, sent a mild thrill of ecstasy through him, but the pleasure was fragile, and transitory. As he stood, in the distance, he heard or thought he heard the trembling, low echoes of a gong, which almost brought tears to his eyes, so plaintive and mournful was the note. Like a tingle on his skin (another transitory pleasure) he felt the sound wave ripple over him.
Phaethon was not unfamiliar with this style of dreamscape; it was typical of the Red Manorial group (to which Daphne had once belonged) to exaggerate the sensual sensations. Red protocols allowed the introduction of new sense impressions (such as, for example, an ability to feel the texture of sunlight, or of gong notes) that had no counterpart in reality.
He was not sure if he was in Surface Dreaming, in which case all the objects around him had real-world counterparts, or if he was partway into the Middle Dreaming, which allowed the thought-environment to project additional information into his memory. Silver-Gray and White sense-filters were normally tuned to exclude anything other than information from being inserted through Middle Dreaming channels; but the Reds allowed emotions, conclusions, and states of mind to be altered by information fields attached to sense-objects, like a type of psychic aura, as if hints and colors of childhood memories were being stirred deep within him, reminders of other lives, perhaps, or of forgotten dreams.
The gong had summoned something. Phaethon could feel a Presence, a pressure on the wine-sweet gloom of the air, a thrill in his nerves that sent his heart beating in his throat. In the distance, down the hall, hovering above its reflection in the dark green marble floor, came a figure of silver, bright within the gloom.
She was something like a butterfly, or an angel, a shape of subtle lacy lights. Like a queen she came foreword, with solemn music trembling in the floor before her as she came. Her face was grave and remote, solemn, sweet and sad, with ancient wisdom deep within her eyes. On her brow was bound a pale star.
Phaethon stepped forward, one hand before his face to
guard his eyes. It was not that the light was bright, it was that it was so beautiful and holy that the sight was sending shivers of pleasure through him, as if each silver ray were a sword. He crossed the threshold, and heard his golden boots chime on the marble, a lovely sound. As he turned his head away from that too-beautiful light, he saw that the columns to the right embraced a mausoleum.
Here were a dozen caskets of dark crystal, half-upright, projecting from the far wall, like cocoons of living diamond set in marble housings. All but one of the surface of the caskets were polarized against him; all but one were velvet-black; but one was clear, the color of pellucid arctic water. Inside was Daphne. A single ray of light touched her face and shoulders; the rest of her body was obscured by gloom and filmy cloud trapped in the casket surface.
The Presence approached; silver light caressed Phaethon even through his armor; a sense of awe and mystery and sorrow beat inside his body like a second heart. The emotion was more than he could tolerate; he sank to one knee, his hands still before his face, tears streaming. The kneecap of his armor chimed against the stone, a ghost of sound.
He called out: 'I am Phaethon, scion of Helion, of the House of Rhadamanth. I am come to demand the restoration of my wife. Deny me at your peril! I would speak with Ev-eningstar.'
The presence spoke in a voice like a harp: 'Eveningstar is before you. We know who you are. Weep, Phaethon, for your wishes shall not prevail.'
A stab of melancholy lanced his heart at those words; he knew their certainty and truth.
Or did he? 'You are manipulating my nervous system. Stop at once. I am of the Silver-Gray; politeness demands that you abide by my protocols.'
In the time it took for his heartbeat to slow, and for him to wipe his tears and rise to his feet, the chamber around him faded in vividness. There was still a marble floor, and gloomy caskets of diamond, tall pillars, and muted sunlight; but the textures no longer trembled with melancholy, the sunlight
could only be seen, not felt, and the angelic form dwindled, became a woman dressed in silk evening gown the hue of deep twilight. A long train curved behind her in many satiny folds, and looped into her left hand. She still wore a coronet, and this crown bore a star sapphire on her brow, which was one of the heraldic symbols of the Eveningstar Sophotech.
But the rest of the scene remained the same. Daphne was indeed here, locked in a coffin of spun diamond, asleep, a look of peace on her face.
The Sophotech image said in a soft voice: 'Forgive any impoliteness; since you project yourself here from an Eleemosynary public basic-casket, and do not have Rhadamanthus with you, there was no one to translate our dreamscape to your format. We are not required to reorganize to your preference. Nonetheless, we do so out of a sense of charity and good fellowship; the expense, while small for us, is more than you can bear. You have troubles enough to endure.'
Phaethon was not listening. He stepped over to that casket, and stood with his hand on the glassy surface. There, two inches below his hand, was the quiet face of his wife. He had seen that face so often, with so many moods and thoughts and emotions on her features. It seemed strange and impossible to see her so still. It was only two inches, a few microns of diamond, an inch and a half of transparent nanomedical medium. Two inches.
'Wake her,' said Phaethon. He was looking a Daphne's profile, at the way her lashes almost brushed her cheeks. He concentrated on the curve of her cheek, the delicacy of her nose, the sensitive fineness of her lips. Her skin was pale as a porcelain doll's; her hair a black cloud, floating in the liquid substance trapping her. 'Phaethon knows we cannot do so.' He spoke without turning. 'Is there a hidden command or j contingency for waking her? She would have asked for you to wake her up if she knew I were here. She would have thought to put such a
