Early Summer, Charcoal Sketches by Stormlight

The storm arrived shortly after midnight.

It announced itself quietly at first. Distant thunder rolled somewhere beyond the sea cliffs while rain gathered against the conservatory glass in a slow, steady rhythm that gradually blurred the gardens into little more than shifting shadows beneath the lanterns. I lay awake listening for some time before finally admitting that sleep was unlikely to return.

The Archive felt unusually alert.

Over the past several nights I have become increasingly aware of a peculiar pressure throughout the halls whenever storms pass overhead. I hesitate even to describe it, as I cannot point to any sensible cause, yet it often feels as though something deep beneath the foundations becomes more attentive whenever thunder reaches the cliffs. Whether that impression belongs to the building or simply to my imagination, I cannot say.

Rather than continue pretending I intended to sleep, I carried a drawing board, charcoal, and a lantern to the observatory landing. Sketching has always settled my thoughts more effectively than lying awake waiting for exhaustion to arrive, and I hoped that a few simple studies would occupy my mind until morning.

Clio followed almost immediately.

She settled beside the lantern with her tail wrapped neatly around her paws while I arranged the paper on the board. Every so often lightning brightened the tower windows just enough for her violet eyes to catch the light before the room fell into shadow again. Muninn remained outside throughout most of the night. I could hear him moving across the gutters and rooftop from time to time despite the steadily increasing rain, although he never appeared at the windows.

The first sketches were entirely ordinary.

I drew lantern hooks, the timber framework supporting the observatory roof, sections of the upper stairwell, and the familiar stonework surrounding the tower windows. They were nothing more than quick charcoal studies made to quiet restless hands, and for a while they succeeded admirably.

Without noticing precisely when it happened, however, I found myself drawing arches instead.

They descended beneath the tower in long, narrowing sequences that bore no resemblance to any architecture I consciously intended to record. The proportions reminded me immediately of the impossible geometry carved into the Archive Tablet. The inward curves were identical, and the perspective refused to behave according to any ordinary rules of construction.

I attempted to correct the drawings several times.

Each attempt produced the same result.

By the time the storm had fully reached the Archive, thunder was shaking fine dust from the rafters while rain streamed continuously down the observatory glass. Every flash of lightning briefly illuminated the sea beyond the cliffs before leaving the tower in darkness once more.

It was during those flashes that I began noticing something even stranger.

The sketches themselves did not appear to move, yet after each burst of light the staircase seemed slightly more complete than before. More steps emerged from the darkness. Additional lanterns appeared farther below. Details I did not remember drawing quietly accumulated within the charcoal as though the image were continuing itself while my attention was elsewhere.

Near the end of the night I realised there was someone standing upon the staircase.

The figure had not been there when I first began.

Of that I remain certain.

This time the silhouette stood much nearer than before, partway up the descent rather than waiting at its foot. The face remained obscured beneath layers of charcoal, yet the eyes seemed unusually bright beneath the painted lantern light, giving the unsettling impression that the figure was looking upward rather than downward.

Clio rose without hesitation after the next lightning strike.

She was not watching the drawing.

She was listening through the floor.

Only moments later the bells sounded beneath the thunder.

There were three deep tones, close enough that the lantern flame trembled against the walls.

The charcoal snapped between my fingers.

For the briefest instant I remembered the staircase.

Not imagined.

Remembered.

I was descending through rising water with a lantern held before me while another figure walked a short distance ahead. I could not distinguish their face, yet I remember following without hesitation because I trusted them completely. There was no fear in the memory, only the quiet certainty that they knew the way.

The recollection vanished almost immediately.

It left behind only the sharp certainty that it had once been real.

Before dawn I burned every sketch except the final page.

I told myself I kept it only because it might prove useful later, though I suspect that explanation satisfies me less than it ought to. The drawing now rests beneath black cloth inside the western desk alongside the covered paintings, where I hope it will remain until I understand why I cannot bring myself to destroy it.

The storm has almost entirely passed now, leaving the Archive smelling of wet stone, damp timber, and charcoal dust. Clio has remained near the observatory stairs since sunrise, quietly watching the landing whenever she believes I am not paying attention. Muninn returned shortly before morning with seawater still clinging to his feathers despite the rain having already ended, although where he had been flying I cannot begin to imagine.

While closing the tower shutters this afternoon, I noticed a series of charcoal fingerprints upon the inner wall beside the stairwell.

They were not mine.

At least, I do not believe they were.

They appeared older than the fresh dust covering my own hands, and for a moment I found myself wondering whether another artist had once stood in this very place during another storm, trying just as unsuccessfully to draw those impossible stairs.

It is a strangely comforting thought.

I only wish I understood why it feels so familiar.

— M