Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 304
make it out, though it felt like there was something else down
there, a unique presence deep below the earth.
There was no indication that anything supernatural dwelt
here.
He sat down, mind empty for the first time in days, and
watched the water for a while. Gradually, without really
trying, he began hearing the voices of the waves.
They trilled like little birds as they approached the shore.
Each had its own name, but otherwise they were impossible to
tell apart. They rolled humming towards Jordan, then fell
silent without fanfare as they licked the sand. It was like solid
music converging on him where he sat. He had never heard
anything so beautiful or delicately fragile.
sat transfixed. His mind could not remain focussed forever,
though, and after a while he made up a little game, trying to
follow individual waves with both his eyes and his inner sense.
He tried to follow the eddies of a particular wave as it
broke around a nearby rock, and in doing so discovered
something new. It seemed like such an innocent detail at first:
as the wave split, so did its voice. From one, it became many,
then each tinier individuality vanished in turbulence. As they
did, they cried out, not it seemed in fright, but in tones almost
of... delight. Urgent delight--as if at the last second they had
discovered something important they needed to tell the world.
If he closed his eyes, now, he could see the waves and
the lake, finely outlined as in an etching, grey on black. Many
words and numbers hovered over the ghost-landscape, joined
by lines or what looked like arrows to faintly sketched features
of the shoreline or lake surface. If he focussed on one of those,
it instantly expanded, and he was surrounded by a swirl of