"Any two ords are incident with just one streak."

-- The Cosmogon Codex, Leaf 1, Branch 1, Verse 11.

Yesterday morning I got up early and sought out Drum Storm after my ablutions. The novices in his dorm said he had gone to clean out the high hall in the slab just adjacent to this one, in the Wet Direction.

I found that this was true. Drum Storm held a wide broom, vigorously sweeping sand to an opening, shoving it off to join the other grains many man-heights below. Upon my entrance, he frowned at me briefly before returning his heed to the floor.

I asked if he might rest for a while and join me at the spring tap in the Thin Rotunda to break fast, if he had not done so already.

Drum Storm is a small and serious lad, so I took no offense at his uncouth manner when he responded that he must complete his work anon, for he had many theorems to memorize upon that day, and idling time away with me was the lowest of priorities.

That was perfectly understandable, I replied to him and then stood there in unsickerness, watching him sweep. After a shortlog or so, without interrupting his motions, he asked about my offsights.

I answered that lately, after the hapless departure of Hearsome Cloud, I had been thinking much about the bedestow--namely, those parts to which we never venture, with the thought that there might be things of interest in those places.

He shook his head, responding that most of the bedestow is inaccessible because of sand drifts and the invasion of wild beasts--and that my talk is very childish and that I should not bother him with such immaturities.

This, to me, sounded like something a megaschema would say, as only the tone was consistent with Drum Storm's personality--not the content. But I did not say this; I left him to go find Dune Song.

He was in one of the dining halls, the center of heed at the table as he told one of his outrageous stories of the faithful heroes expelling the heathens from our temples so long ago. The traditional oral tellings of this kind of story have become rather outlandish, spiced with quite a bit of jest. Though in some of the older, written versions I've read, they were unwaveringly serious.

I broke the night fast, and by the time I had finished, Dune Song was bidding good day to his brethren at the table. I caught his attention and he lumbered over to my stance by the taps.

He asked if I could smell the cactus-fruit scent wafting from the apertures, for this was how he knew it would be a fine day.

I replied that I did not smell anything, and that it would only be a fine day if he were to defend my side during a perhaps imprudent tramp down the dark tunnels.

He arched his brows and seemed to be without words for a moment--and Dune Song is rarely in short supply of words. But his face smoothly melted into something pensive, and he agreed to come along, though he might regret the use of time, provided he could bring a big stick with which to smash things that needed to be smashed.

I requested that he meet me at the mouth of a certain passage after the evening meal, and that sometime before then he persuade another agreeable fellow to join us, such as Drum Storm.

He nodded and guffawed, perhaps at my poorly chosen word "agreeable" to describe Drum Storm. Then he went off to his daily awefast duties, and I did likewise.

Shortly before sunset, after a meal of saguaro and dates, I went to the appointed meeting place. In a few shortlogs, Dune Song came bounding into the chamber, thumping a hollow tube of palm wood like a walking stick. Drum Storm came nipping after him on short legs.

I lowered my hood and smiled at them, and then asked Drum Storm what made him change his mind. He explained that Dune Song argued they should see more of the bedestow because it was a part of the Triad, after all--and by knowing the Triad we get impressions of the Dyad, and thus also the Monad.

I raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly at Dune Song in appreciation, though I was secretly thinking this might edge close to blasphemy, since the argument was usually applied to mathematical explorations, never to something so crude as the world of stone and air we inhabit. But it worked on Drum Storm, whom I knew to be singularly devoted to the Monad and Its emanations.

I handed them unlit torches to carry, but I kept the sparking stones. We trooped down the same passage Hearsome Cloud had chosen to begin her investigations, though this was only symbolic: I could have chosen any of the unused passages.

After a while I deviated from the path I had taken a few days ago and entered one of the many narrow side-passages. After not too long, this led to another, much wider passage with a low ceiling, and here we had to light our torches. We entered this area with some excitement, for it began to slope gently downward (a somewhat unusual feature). After the floor leveled out again, Dune Song speculated that we were underground, heading towards another building.

I agreed with him, but added that thinking of the bedestow as many connected buildings is not quite accurate, though that is how it appears, as it is half-buried in sand; rather, it is more accurate to describe it as one massive building. He replied that he did not see a substantive difference, and that I was perhaps splitting sand-grains. Drum Storm payed no heed to this conversation, as he was absorbed in watching the odd surface features of the tunnel walls as we strolled by.

We were led to a large rotunda, then took another connecting passage, and ended up in a strange shaft. The domed ceiling was not far above, but the floor was lost in darkness far below; we stood on a ledge jutting from the door. Our fires were insufficient to take the measure of this realm, but there was a small oculus at the apex of the dome admitting dim sunlight.

Dune Song raised his hollow walking staff and put his lips into the top hole, then blew a tone which echoed down the shaft. He lowered his staff and laughed, though I did not apprehend the humor. Drum Storm yanked my sleeve and pointed. Upon the sounding of the note, a blue glow appeared on the far side of the chamber. We followed the ramp that led from the ledge, spiralling around the wall.

The blue lights were on the wall above another ledge. These inthralled us, for it likely indicated spirit-stuff, as the only other place in the bedestow containing similar wonders is the hall of the Mouth. Timidly, I reached up to touch one of the lights; as soon as my fingertip brushed the surface, the complex filigree of lights turned from blue to red. This pattern then flowed like a shadow down the wall to the floor of the ledge. We hopped aside to avoid touching it again. The pattern reshaped itself into something similar, but different--I cannot remember the specific shape of the original pattern.

Dune Song squeezed my arm painfully and pointed down the shaft. Something was coming up the shaft, emerging from the darkness. Two things, actually, sliding up the wall on opposite sides. They were about half the size of a man, conical in shape. They stopped at eye-level, and then red lights emitted from their bottom tips. The movement of the objects had kicked out clouds of fine dust from the walls, and these now drifted into the center of the space, revealing that the red light was finger-thin all the way across, connecting the cone-tips, and reflected from the particles more strongly than sunlight.

As we stared in wonder at this inexplicable oddity, I got the prickly feeling that we were being watched. Raising my eyes to the ledge upon which we had entered, I saw a robed figure in the doorway.

~ Path Dust

Upon the Hour of the Camel, Sandstorm Day, First Moon, in this the 17,622nd Year A.R. ~