Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 349
tube strange images were appearing and vanishing, like moving
frescoes.
I cried and tried not to watch, hiding my face in my
hands, but I was afraid of I knew not what. I felt compelled to
look around myself, at least to look up in case something came
down that well at me. I imagined all kinds of terrors from
above--giant pistons, water, or monstrous arms lowering to
retrieve me. Nothing occurred, except the ongoing panoply
unfolding on the walls around me. I could not for long avoid
looking at the moving pictures.
Hypnotized, I watched a pictographic catalogue of the
world unfold. Sketchy images of thousands of things rolled
forward and back. The images were whirling towards some
apocalyptic conclusion. The dizzying motion and flickering
lights became too much for me. I thrust out my hand and cried,
"Stop!"
My open palm slammed against the wall. Miraculously,
the pictographs I had struck froze in place, as if painted. The
rest continued to move around this sudden little island.
I snatched my hand back. The pictographs remained
motionless.
Had the priestess seen what I was seeing? Perhaps this
was how the desal had chosen its ministers in the past. I could
well imagine those other women cowering as I did, watching in
incomprehension as the pictures flew by--maybe to be ejected
later by the desal into the arms of waiting awestruck people.
The villagers would have demanded to know what the pictures
meant. It would be as if you were given a book in an unknown
language, and threatened with death unless you explained its
meaning.
Maybe none of those other women had the courage or
anger to try to touch the pictures. Then they would never have