ribbed and strangely
symmetrical---smooth porous gray, but bathed in a strong golden light,
inexplicably tinged dark crimson where it met a rise of stone. He was
only vaguely aware that beyond this antechamber the ceiling warped high
and huge, above a valley that dwarfed even the place of his birth. For
here, as nowhere else beneath the surface of his world there were
shadows, lengthening toward him to either side of the shallow, widening
staircase. And for all the desperate haste of his journey, Simin could
not yet go forward. He stood looking down at the two pillared
sentinels in awe, the vast spherical expanse beyond. He little thought
that he himself, standing before the rim of the long tunnel he had just
traversed, his upper body and underside wreathed in red, formed an
equally stunning and unlikely visage of life against the Void.

Assimilation.

Two stone sentinels stood in perfect symmetry, like Roman statues, atop
the angling walls that rose to either side of the stairway's end. The
sunken plain lay beyond. Whether these silent watchers had been carved
by Nature or intelligence it was impossible to say: perhaps meant to
connote angry, reptilian merman rising out of the stone, perhaps
roughly shaped bodies whose accidental carving held no meaning at all.
Here all boundary between the spiritual and the meaningless faded.
They stood silent, faces outward, guarding the plain below. He
descended slowly until he stood between them, on the ripple of stone
looking down.

The plain lay before him like a massive wrinkled dish, bone-white and
barren. He breathed deeply several times, not knowing why. His
objective was a clear as the tolling of a bell.

A broad crater rested in the center of all, sinking out of sight, and
from it came the deep tremor of sound, the slow throbbing of light that
pervaded the underground vastness with its certain and unnerving
presence. Everywhere the edges of floor and ceiling glowed red, as if
from heat, and the brightness of yellow gold folded over and through
him like a liquid current of sun and air, warming. Simin had not the
heart to remain there long; he must descend now, or turn back in
defeat. This place was the very nexus of his unspoken fears.

He descended into the Valley, and almost at once the wailing of
human voices erupted in his ears, rising and falling in a discordant
terror of mutilated passions, scales without notes or boundaries. He
moved on, oblivious