Chapter 34: The Glimmering Echo
The descent into the Glimmering Deeps was like sinking into the skull of the world. The air grew cool and carried a strange, metallic tang, like the taste of a spent lightning bolt. The walls of the narrow passage, at first rough granite, soon began to glimmer with embedded veins of cobalt and amethyst crystal. Then, the crystals themselves began to change. They no longer grew in random clusters, but in deliberate, echoing patterns fractal repetitions of fern fossils, the spiral of a nautilus shell, the distinct, repeating arches of a long-drowned bridge.
Master Thaddeus led the way, his lantern held high, its flame causing the crystals to throw back not just light, but faint, skittering shadows of color that seemed to move with a life of their own. "Piezomnemonic resonance," he muttered, half to himself. "The pressure of the signal is literally reshaping the crystal lattice, imprinting it with geometric memories."
