9.

Tanu spent more time with Ishnu, learning what he could from the astronomer of the exact nature of the energy interactions that stirred the world to life. Then he returned to his home in Eridu and let it be known that he would be traveling, and prepared himself for his journeys, formally turning his other duties over to Dannu.

For many great-moons thereafter, all through the remainder of the reconstruction and through much of the time of revelry that followed he walked the long straight roads that linked the great cities of the world, Larsa, Lagash, Tibira and others. In his capacity as Hereditary Architect he took note of the work that was being done wherever he went, and spent time with the crews whether they were restoring the roads he traveled or rebuilding the surface structures in the citadels he visited. He watched with new interest as a dozen of his clansmen inserted their crystalline tools into sockets cut in a huge block of stone, and with their combined wills summoned an energy that allowed them to raise the stone and guide it into the place they had chosen for it. With his new vision Tanu saw an electric blue haze vibrating about the stone as they worked, and he sensed the deep tendrils of energy that had formed in the ground as if called to their aid.

But always it was the deep chambers he came to see. He would ask his local clansmen which chambers were warm longest or most suitable in other ways, and these he inspected with great care. He would run his hands over their walls, feeling with his inner senses for the vibrations of the energy-responsive channels in the stone. There were many variations, many differences, but gradually he came to expect certain similarities, to single out certain features common to all the chambers. These he studied even more carefully, divining their nature down to the smallest nuance that his senses could discern.

He made notes, cataloging in great detail the crystal structure, mineral content, and geophysical orientation of every seam. And he compared notes from one chamber to the next, and to the next, and to the next, until he was certain that he knew not only what was creating the effects, but which configurations of crystalline seams created it most efficiently, and how those configurations could be enhanced or reproduced.

Tanu had been musing for some time over the design of the chamber itself, but once again it was the crystals that inspired him. He held a perfect zircon crystal, which he had extracted from a strong crystalline seam running close to the warmest deep chamber he had inspected. As he toyed with the crystal, its pyramidal points oriented upward and downward, he slowly rotated it in his hand. He already felt energies interacting with it, but as he rotated it the intensity of the vibrations increased. Every quarter turn he felt the energy peak and wane. Carefully, he rotated the crystal until the energy peaked again, then he set it down, its lower point in the sand on the floor of the chamber, without changing its orientation. Then he stood and contemplated what he had done.

With sudden excitement he gathered up his notes. The deep chambers themselves, caverns carved by nature, had shape and orientation in addition to the crystalline seams that ran through their walls. These natural features were rough, and apparently random, but as he pictured those chambers in his mind he began to see a pattern to them. Thumbing rapidly through his notes he examined sketch after sketch. He was right! The shape of the zircon, the pyramid, was to some degree common to all of them. And in the warmest chambers the correspondence was most evident.

Then Tanu had another inspiration. The crystalline seams, too, he realized, followed this pattern. The strongest chambers had four seams, in a roughly pyramidal configuration. Under the floor the pyramid was inverted, meeting at an apex somewhere below the chamber.

Tanu put away his notes and picked up his zircon crystal. He would hollow out the rock where he wanted the center of the chamber to be, then he would hold the zircon crystal there and rotate it until he found the strongest orientation. He would have the interior of the chamber shaped exactly like the pyramidal apex of the zircon crystal. The hard part, he thought, was going to be to implant the crystal seams around the chamber in the form of the inverted pyramid that would draw in power. He did not yet know how right he was.

Now he was ready, and he set his feet on the long miles homeward. By now the auroras were beginning to fade, the air was turning chill and the ices were beginning to encroach. Time was growing short.

Tempers were growing short as well. Once again the alive time was ending sooner than before. Tanu was not caught unaware by the shortened span of time, Ishnu had predicted this for him, but there were those who felt cheated when it began to be apparent and vented their frustrations with ever more violent revels. Tanu often encountered these rowdy bands of revelers as he walked the long road home, but as he approached Eridu they seemed to grow worse, sometimes shouting taunting insults at Harvesters at work in the fields gathering the soon to be needed provisions. The sight of this disharmony angered Tanu. He felt all the more frustrated now that he understood the cause and had the knowledge to cure it. But speaking of his plans to these rowdies would accomplish nothing, he knew, and in any case they seemed constrained to stop short of physical violence. Sometimes they looked his way with apparent recognition, but always they turned away again without speaking to him.

Tanu felt himself under pressure, knowing that he held hope for improving the situation that was aggravating these tensions, but knowing also that it would be premature to make it known until it was proven and there was time to upgrade the chambers. This would have to wait for the next cycle. Now it was time to meet with the council and propose his plan.