Tomb - Entrée
Treats of Eyes in the Walls
You’re snacking on In Different Color, a fairy tale.
Missed the Appetizer?
See The Menu for more treats.
The door rumbled closed with decisive sound, like an earthquake’s final throe. The crackling howl of the Wind’s glassstorm existed ephemerally in echoes on the smooth walls. Then the echoes faded. Sightless, thick silence governed once more the crystal tomb.
“Which one of you shut the door?” asked Honeydew. She spoke in a whisper. But the gemstone halls caught her voice, transforming it, adding a facet of solemnity. The words sounded like the last rasp from a sick man’s throat.
“I shut out the glass,” said Tom. He sounded defensive. His words also took on the hollow rasp.
“And the Sun Fish light. Now you’re bumping me.”
“I cannot control my size.”
“You can control it. You can eat less food.”
“Why don’t I try for some light?” Mr. Grey said quickly. Of the three, his voice travelled the most agreeably through the tomb; stoic words, matching low tone, matching solemn setting. “Hold this candle, Tom.”
The shuffle of feet rebounded off the gemstones. Then the click of an unbuckled coffin. A few sparse squeaks from tuning strings, followed by gentle taps as shiny pebbles were set down - one at a time - on the smooth floor. A peal of notes broke the silence. They burst from the violin as an industrious toccata, flicking through the dark. As the notes roused the hushed tomb and ran off into the unseen, they warped and warbled; as though another, older instrument were joining in on the melody, from deeper within.
As the last notes rolled from string and bow, a tiny light blazed to existence on the wick of the candle held by Tom. At first the light overwhelmed the three sets of eyes. But after this initial blinding flash on the gemstone, the radiance softened into a tiny, spherical glow. In the jet walls and floor, mirrored candles found shadow-existence; imprisoned behind the smooth facets.
Tom, Mr. Grey, and Honeydew stood alone in the tiny light. On one side, a seamless crystal door sealed them from The Wind and her glass storm. On the opposite side, a long tunnel vanished into ink.
Each of them performed a quick inspection of their robes and body in the dim candlelight. Tom dabbed at one large shoulder-cut with his handkerchief, adding a blush to the fabric. Other than that wound, the wind’s glass had inflicted only minor scratches and clothing tears.
“What about the partisans?” asked Mr. Grey. “Did they get inside, by a separate way?”
Tom shook his jowls. Honeydew made an uncertain half-click. She peered down the dark tunnel. The candle flame reflected like intrigue in her eyes.
“We should rest in here,” suggested Tom. “It seems like an okay spot.”
Mr. Grey added, “And The Wind can’t go for long. Not at that temper.”
The candle flickered: on its wick, in the shadow-candles on the walls, and in the reflection of Honeydew’s eyes. She said, “If we’re loafing here, we could peek at what’s inside.”
Mr. Grey listened as her words stalked away, like burglars, into the dark. “The partisans might show up,” he said. “They’d need a light source. We should wait for them.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”
“The dark’s not scary. But, you know, well Tom looks tired.” Tom gave an agreeing nod.
“Fine, then stay here,” Honeydew opened her suitcase, took out a candle of her own, lit it against Tom’s, and walked into the dark. Her shoes clicked against the gemstone.
Mr. Grey looked at Tom. He drew his ticker from its pocket, checked the time, watched its small hands tock for a spell, looked back at Tom, and finally said, “Well, we should stick together,” He clamped his violin between chin and shoulder and kept his bow tight as he followed Honeydew’s light. Tom heaved himself off the wall and followed Mr. Grey.
The noise of their strides walked ahead of the three in the heavy, hot, midnight tunnel air, long before their lights found the walls. Like footsteps echoing up a blind cobblestone alley in a quiet city street at night, the distinct treads tattled on the personalities of those who trod. Honeydew’s steps were those of a soldier in a platoon of 1; her steps saying the walker had purpose; declaring with certainty that the alley goer knew their destination, and meant to get there. Tom’s steps didn’t walk as much as lumber; like some enormous animal pounding heavily over the cobblestones, so that any pedestrian passing near the alley might think, ‘what local zoo has been so careless with their clutch of grizzlies?’ And then there were Mr. Grey’s steps; those of the graveyard-shift ghoul; the stranger approaching, hand in pockets, head under hood, intent unknown; you cannot see his face, but he can see yours.
Such were their steps. They drew together - these three sets - as they echoed in the pitch dark. The distinct paces became uniform. But each step still had its own gusto, its own sound. Each still bore its maker’s mark. And before the trio brought light and revealed themselves, any observer sitting blindly ahead might well have thought, from the noise they made, that a soldier, a bear, and an office zombie marched together through the tomb.
When the three came presently to the places their steps-sounds had already passed, the tunnel then shone like starry midnight. The wall facets captured both Honeydew’s and Tom’s candles together behind their glassy surfaces. Thousands of twinned flames surrounded the intruders; milky behind their gemstone prisons; like sets of eyes, burning but blind. The milky facet-eyes glowered at the three from all angles as they walked upon the tomb’s sacred stillness.
The eyes at first only closed when the twin candles carried their light around a geometric warp in the tunnel. First one eye winked shut, followed sharply by the other. One by one the milky flames vanished behind, replaced by fresh eyes flashing wide on new facets.
Gradually the walls of burning, blind motes began to sport eyeless blemishes. Honeydew and Tom brought their candles close to a wall - their footsteps leading the way before them - and examined one such patch. The candles’ reflection on the surrounding facets tracked the three as they came closer. As a crowd in a quiet auditorium turns their faces inward, in one body, to set a communal glare on a central member who has just sneezed at a pause in the concert; just so did the gemstone candle eyes glare at the trio.
On the facet of the wall which gave no existence to candle eyes, cuneiform letters marred the smooth surface. The letters - unreadable to the three - surrounded a variety of tiny icons: pufferfish, manta-rays, prawns, plows and spades, oars, coral, cotton, cows, sows and horses all distinct from each other. The candles hadn’t failed on this facet by any lack of luster; thick dust gathered on the tiny ledges made by the letters, and stole the candles’ shine. Nor did this facet of the wall lose its smoothness. The letters and icons didn’t look scored, as though by chisel. They seemed rubbed in, as though by strong, determined hands over epochs and epochs of time; or as though some ancient author found the gemstone in a jellied state, like wet concrete, and embedded the words and icons before it dried.
Honeydew reached out and swiped dust off the lines. Two new eyes flamed on the surface, warped by the writing. As softly as he could Mr. Grey said, “Maybe we shouldn’t touch it? Best to leave as is.”
For a moment, Honeydew’s eyes glittered. The candle lights sank into the wall, lost some shine, reflected back, and flared again on the oil of eyes. She said, “I wanted to see… Now this took time to create,” She shook her hair and looked at Mr. Grey and Tom. “Let’s see what’s deeper,” Honeydew set a breathless pace through the heavy tomb air. Their footsteps ran ahead once more into the void.
As they ventured deeper, the pockets of marked, unreflective, dust-laden surfaces grew larger. The walls spread up and away. The three passed into an enormous interior space. Pillars of worked gemstone lifted the ceiling of eyes far above. Other branching tunnels huddled like pockmarks on the walls, giving a porous, volcanic-rock texture to the gemstone. By then the candle eyes only shone in small clusters.
“Hold the light high Tom,” said Honeydew, doing so with her own candle. Tom obliged. “Let’s have the full view.”
Huge, flat facets of carven gemstone dominated the walls, ceiling, and floor, thick with absorbing dust. The carvings showed a broad range of subjects: idlers in a rooftop garden standing on a bridge over smooth water, a man squeezing an oyster to see if lived, hooded worshippers in tall armchairs around a circular table and a tiny glass bottle. There were also scenes of preservation, wrapping, and interment; for those who were… not existing, Mr. Grey decided.
The three passed from the huge pillared gallery. Many tocks of the ticker passed, and many footsteps echoed in the many tunnels at once. They entered a smaller room. They entered a burial chamber.
Coffins of hollowed crystal jutted from the floor, like tumorous growths in the main gemstone body. The candlelight flashed on the boxes as on the hallway walls. But the light stuck fast inside the hollows of the caskets; stuck on skinny, desiccated, wrapped bodies. All three felt their neck hairs stiffen. They stared at straw-like things in their gemstone coffins, shaped like humans, but made featureless by their linen wraps; like giant dolls.
Mr. Grey, in his most-inside voice yet, said, “Don’t you think we’ve seen enough?”
Honeydew’s breath came shallow, but Mr. Grey saw a glint of defiant bravery enter her eye. At that moment Mr. Grey knew, somehow, exactly what Honeydew would say. He knew as well the consequences her words would carry. But his own voice, choked with fear, and his muddled thoughts, made him slow. Mr. Grey couldn’t stop her.
Honeydew said, “What, do you think they’re going to jump at you?”
Of course, king’s law required that, after just such a question - asked in any graveyard, or tomb, or city morgue - a minimum of one body must animate, and jump at the asker.
In this case, one of the wrapped doll-mummies sat up. It turned its dry head to the three with a sound like snapping twigs. From behind the linen, a voice screamed, “PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!”
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
Ready for Dessert?
Still hungry? See The Menu.