In the Age of Dream

One night, several years past, I dreamt of a vast library. I walked for miles over blond maple planks polished to shine and climbed grand, serpentine staircases that wound from floor to floor at impossible angles, stretching toward the heavens. The stairs never went where they ought, and never to the same place twice.

Such is the way of dreams.

Dark glyphs carved in relief adorned massive alabaster support pillars sandwiched between floors, and while some of their shapes seemed familiar, I could glean no meaning from them.

The stacks wrapped in concentric arcs around a great open space filled with mahogany tables and chairs of the finest craftsmanship. A piano sat upon a curved rostrum, an Erard half-grand, also of mahogany, with a fruitwood veneer inlay depicting the final moments in the life of a swan. Behind the rostrum, a Firmentium barrier rose and curved inward to form an indestructible dome, clear as glass, protecting the library from the sea of stars that shone beyond it. And at the center of that open space, sat a large mechanical contraption with many dials and levers. Ever prudent, I resisted the urge to pull them and discover their purpose.

There were no people or creatures present upon my arrival. No signs of life. Not even dust. I remember that silence. And the tranquility of it.

Then a shadow slid across the room. I turned in search of it's source and discovered I was being watched.

Some things are better left unsaid

Age of Dream is a dark speculative fiction series of epic scale, based upon an entirely new cannon of characters, worlds and technologies.