The Pleasure of Memory by Welcome Cole

ordinary cave. This was a chamber crafted by mortal hands, a chamber as wide and deep as the nave of a great cathedral, a cathedral made completely of crystal.
    He edged forward, his knife at the ready.
    As the light gradually filled the dome above him, the room’s shadows dissipated, and the contents of this great space made themselves known.
    In the very center of the wide room stood four towering pillars, each as clear and luminous as ice, each the girth of an ancient tree. They stood in a square thirty or so feet across, and in the midst of them rested a low dais that connected them at each corner. It was like a glass barge adrift on a frozen black sea. Perched in the center of the dais was a great chair with a high back and scrolled legs and arms. It was as elaborate as a throne, and it was carved from the same clear material that composed the walls, ceiling, pillars, and dais.
    He tracked the pillars up to the ceiling towering high above him. Detailed images of pagan gods, demons, and angelic patrons completely filled the smooth surface of the expansive dome. They sprawled across one another, men and women, soldiers and maidens, all naked and youthful and robust. There were hundreds of them with their limbs and bodies tightly entwined. Illuminated by the crimson light, they looked like the constellations of young gods shimmering against the summer night sky, and as he looked from one divine face to the next, he saw them shift.
    At first, he was sure it was an illusion, a trick of light, or perhaps a hallucination brought on by a damaged head. Then their glimmering faces turned collectively toward him. They smiled down at him like old friends welcoming him home. They began inching their way across the ceiling, moving with the hesitancy of a dream, their naked bodies sliding sensuously across each other in an erotic dance. It was so fluid, so natural; it seemed as if they might leap to the floor and surround him in their lust
    He threw his hands to his face. No! This wasn’t possible! It had to be the result of his confinement fear, or maybe a side effect of the bloody elixir, but nothing more. He ordered himself to be calm, to be sensible, rational. It was not real. There was an explanation here somewhere, there always was.
    When he finally lowered his hands, the figures were once again as still as the crystal from which they were carved. It was exactly as he expected, a trick of light and nothing more. Satisfied, and more than a little relieved, he steadied himself before moving deeper into the chamber. There was still someone hiding here in this nightmare, and he was determined to find her.
    This grand space surrounding him was incredible. Near perfectly round, the room was easily two hundred feet in diameter. The smooth circular walls were also dressed with images of pagan gods and ancient champions similar to those on the ceiling, though smaller, less commanding, and fully robed. Elaborate chairs, narrow tables, and shelves crowded with scrolls, oil lamps, and bottles lined the circular walls. Dressing the spaces between these items were exotic sculptures of men and women standing on waist-high foundations, all crystalline, all burning with the brilliant red light.
    Only the floor remained as black and bottomless as a frozen lake. In fact, there was no sense that a surface to the floor even existed. If not for the twin of himself dropping away from his feet into the dark depths below, he may have been walking on air.
    There were no signs of anything living.
    He made his way further in and walked around to the front of the dais. Three wide, deep steps led up to the landing. The riser of each stair boasted elaborate runish engravings of some language he could never begin to read, and the surface of each step curled at the lip like a glassy scroll. The chair sitting in the midst of this ethereal barge was exquisite and enticing, like a mystical throne carved of pure ice and engraved in limpid flowers, vines, and oak