Part Eight
~Fan Fiction~
Tewa's Journal
161.2.15
What an exciting day it's been! I was chosen with one other to accompany Senior Guildsman Neferus to make sketches of the New Cavern, as it's being called. The Cavern is someday to be the center of another large city, and the foundations of the city will shortly be laid. Our assignment was to make sketches of the Cavern as it exists now, both for posterity and for members of the Council, most of whom have not personally seen it.The New Cavern is situated under a great mountain in the middle of a plain at a great distance from New D'ni. The Surveyors are in the process of creating a direct route to reach it, though it seems there are many challenges to that and the route will likely have to be partly above the ground at first. Until this means of access is finished, those who wish to travel to the New Cavern have to go by means of Linking Books, linking first to another Age, and then back again to the New Cavern on Araya'dora.
We three artists were escorted through the links by Messengers, who have such systems of Linking Books available for most places. This is the first time I've seen one of their Equiquays. The chamber we linked to was dim, covered with a low vaulted ceiling, and divided up into areas with a maze of grillwork in between them. Each area has three Messengers on guard and we had to wait to be escorted from our entry point to the next area, where the Book to the New Cavern was kept. They are careful to assure that no one has unlimited quick access between Ages. The Fall has made us all more cautious, so the elders tell us.
The New Cavern is very spacious. I'm told it's size even surpasses the Old D'ni Cavern on Earth. They say the old cavern had a lake in it. I can only imagine how beautiful that must have been from what I've read and heard of it. This New Cavern has a river flowing through it. How dull those words sound! I can't do its beauty justice even as an artist, though I can't help frequently trying! I can describe it as broad, and say that it flows at a gentle, but steady pace, but how to convey the light that emanates from it, how it fills the cavern with reflected brilliance? How convey the soothing effect of its gentle rippling and sweet pure scent or the magnificence of the its entry and exit from the cavern?
The river flows into the cavern at it's north western end from a fall of 98 meters. The falls themselves are liquid light that illuminates the cavern from that side like a fluid sun that waxes and wanes, but never sets. The path of the river divides the cavern with a thick ribbon of light at an angle from NW to SE. The harder stone to the west resisted the wearing of the water better than that on the right, which wore away to the deeper bedrock unevenly, allowing a pooling affect that created little shallow harbors, channels and tiny islands.
To stand at a height on the western side of the cavern and take in the panorama is indescribably breathtaking to me. The falls on my left, the river curving away to my right, the dark islands set in the glowing channels, the graceful scoop of the largest bay towards the southeast... how I wish I could capture it on canvas!
Several monumental pillars of stone flank the river on the southwest, each looking as if it could house a city were it chiseled into dwellings. The walls of the cavern are within a few hundred meters behind these pillars, near enough that I can make out some of the formations from my vantage point. On the eastern side, across the river, the cavern floor rises slowly and unevenly from the level of the water to the cavern wall, so distant that it is hidden in inky darkness.
After millenniums of the refining operation of the flowing water, the banks of the river are worn down to strong solid stone in most places. Stone of various kinds, most of it very hard and stable, make up the entire area as far as has been explored. There are smaller caverns and many natural tunnels leading off in all directions. I've heard there is an impressive mountain of stone sitting above it as well, but I haven't been to the surface here.
Every aspect seems to make the New Cavern a perfect dwelling place for D'ni people, and thus a very great discovery. New D'ni is terribly small in comparison and the prospects of opening up other caverns in that area are slim. Geological conditions don't favor it. I doubt we'd worry much about that, normally, as we have not reached anything like capacity in New D'ni, but the population seems to be growing more swiftly than has apparently been the case in the past, and most people would much rather live underground in spite of the friendly surface conditions.
Our far sighted Council has always tried to plan ahead to meet our needs, and there has been a trend recognized, really the beginning of a trend, that only the more affluent seem able to find accommodations in New D'ni, and this is something to be strenuously avoided. Such conditions could cause schisms among the people. The feeling is that we are what we are, because we are united and because we've always dwelt within the rock. It seems such an important part of our heritage and culture, that we are loath to change it, and doubly loath to divide our people between surface and cavern.
If the new city is to be as beautiful, functional, and lasting as we D'ni insist upon, the plans for its development must be carefully made. I've been told that a committee of Grand Masters from the High Council has been considering submissions for a general plan, as well as guidelines for important buildings and other necessities for many weeks. They say that there will be several plans chosen from different Guilds for different parts of the development, and these will be brought together to form one grand design executed by all the Guilds in cooperation.
The Surveyors have planned tunnels, excavations, and travel conduits. The Stonemasons and Engineers have provided designs for the public buildings, and the divisions of districts, guild, private and business. The Mechanists have designed machinery of all kinds for the building work and for the general use of the future inhabitants. Miners and Cartographers have provided maps of the natural resources and plans for their development. Every guild has contributed in some way.
It was terribly exciting to see guildsmen from many different guilds working so diligently side by side on such an important project. On this trip I've had many opportunities for my art, and the activity here is nothing to what it will be once the plans are all finalized and the implementation begins. I do hope I'll be here then, too.
I have become known in my guild for my ability to quickly and accurately sketch a scene, a face or any form. Guildsman Neferus told me that this was why I was chosen for this assignment. I am to look for interesting activity and quickly capture the moment before it fades away. We then take or send our sketches back to our Guild Master, who chooses the ones that will be sent on to the Council. Since this project is so very important, the Guild will likely also commission important works depicting activities of historical significance. Special artists will be brought in for those events as they happen. These are exciting times for our Guild!
We artists are such a common feature as we sit on the sidelines sketching away, that most guildsmen don't consciously see us anymore. They just go about their business. This is wonderful in some ways and dangerous in others. It's so much easier to get our work done when we aren't interrupted by onlookers, but we have to be very aware of our surroundings so that we don't accidentally get in the middle of some activity and become hurt.
I was perched upon a small stack of boxes this afternoon, machine parts of some kind, so as to get a better view of some activity down by the river, and had I not been quick, I'd have been carted off with the equipment when the guildsman slid the lift under the bottom most box! It wasn't dangerous, but it was a good reminder to both me and the guildsman to double check our surroundings often.
I've had such a long day! We are camping out in an eder tomahn tonight and I am practically asleep already, but couldn't rest until I'd captured this moment of my life here in Grandfather's gift.
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