Mesopotamia

The world had changed since the reawakening of the Master Resonator. Across mainlands, old tabernacles stirred, long-dormant vestiges hummed, and people — from scientists to growers, from monks to schoolchildren — began passing dreams and perceptivity not born from their own minds, but from a participated harmonious field now still connecting all of humanity. 

The wind swept across the thirsty plains of the Taklamakan Desert, a ocean of golden stacks that rumored stories long buried beneath their shifting forms. Ancient caravans formerly marched through this unfaithful breadth, their camel trains laden with silk, wanton, spices, and scrolls signed with forgotten wisdom. 

In the heart of North Africa, along the broad Mediterranean seacoast, the ancient megacity of Carthage rose like a phoenix from fire and swab. Born from Phoenician roots, it was a megacity erected on commerce, culture, cunning, and subjection. Its people were mariners and strategists, crafters and astronomers, romanticists and doers.

Beneath the scorching sun of the Egyptian desert, a golden haze lustered above the horizon, as if time itself wavered in the heat. The Conglomerations of Giza stood recalcitrant and eternal, their limestone faces bruiting to the welkin in a lingo long lost to man. 

The swash that had spoken to Egypt also rumored in India. But then it was n't one swash but numerous, platting through the land in sacred figure. The Indus. The Ganga. The Sarasvati, lost but not forgotten. 

The swash spoke before the people did. Long before the First Tongue took form, the Nile sculpted its words in green along the desert’s silent mouth. Layla felt that ancient truth as she stepped off the battered skiff and onto the old dam, the slimy slush clinging to her sandals like the stink of empty memory. 

The desert did n't drink them. It rumored, it lustered , but it did n't invite. The wind swept across the stacks like a broad encounter over old diploma, uncovering nothing and everything at formerly. Layla shielded her eyes as the heat pressed down on them like a memory that refused to fade.

Morning spread through the ruined tabernacle like revealed gold, illuminating busts that had slept for centuries beneath ground and coral. Layla woke to the hush of wind through bamboo, to the dry crinkle of the fire’s last embers. She sat up sluggishly, stiff from the cold gravestone beneath her, and looked around.

The dawn crept vocally over the recently revealed remains, brushing ancient gravestone with tender gold. Layla woke to the hush of wind against the tabernacle columns, her breath white in the cool air. 

The land stretched vast beneath the sky, an endless mosaic of gutters sculpturing denes , mountains rising like ancient guards guarding secrets rumored through the periods. Layla stood on a scraggy peak, wind lugging at her cloak as the Fifth Language palpitated vocally beneath her bases, weaving itself into the earth, the air, and the sky.

The night sky above the line was unlike any Layla had ever seen. Stars flitted in strange patterns, constellations she could n't name lustered like silent guards watching over the vast ocean below. The connection forged by the Fifth Language stretched between the vessels like vestments of light, weaving a shade that palpitated with ancient measures and rumored secrets aged than the swell.

The ocean behind them boiled with memory.The line moved sluggishly now — deliberate, doubtful. Dozens of vessels from forgotten worlds, half- ruined vessels and living crafts sutured from coral and bone, all sailed in uncertain conformation, not by command but by recognition.Not trust yet.But commodity close.Layla stood at the helm, no longer surprised that she knew how to steer.

The night above the tabernacle remains was silent, but it was n't still. The stars had changed. Layla satcross-legged beside the blank tablet, fritters resting on its cool face. The others slept in uneasy packets of cloth and packs, but Layla kept her surveillance. The tablet was empty, yet bucketed with a slow, steady twinkle she could feel in her bones. When she looked up, the sky was a black ocean. 

The rain came vocally — suchlike memory returning after silence. It fell over the Gathering with hushed asseveration, sheeting canopies, hair, and tablets with a shimmering film. Layla stood still beneath the first drops, head listed back, arms relaxed by her sides. She had forgotten the last time she truly noticed rain.   

The world was light. A sphere of it, horizonless and light, pressed in on all sides. It was n't the light of fire, nor of sun. It was the light of memory, of possibility, of a thousand paths clustering at formerly.

The Watchers handed them sanctum for the night — an underground den concealed within the atrophied remains. As the others rested, Layla unrolled the scroll Rami had given her. Three characters. Three destinations. The first mark was in Anatolia, buried beneath Mount Nemrut — a place of forgotten lords and false gods. The Watchers called it The Echoing Tomb.