At the center… there was a base. Not a raised pedestal, not a placed altar, nor even a constructed object. No. It had always been there.
Carved directly from the rock, sculpted into the very material of the ground, like a logical excrescence of the place, a slow thrust of the world toward a fixed point. It did not stand out. It did not disturb. It was part of the whole.
Melded into the mass, embedded in the geological memory of the sanctuary, it was neither ornament nor symbol. It was. Simply. Present. Offered.
And yet… in its absolute muteness, something vibrated. An expectation. A mute recognition. As if this base, this fragment of truth in the middle of silence, had waited for me. As if it had never been meant for anything else. As if it had always known I would come.
On this base… lay an object.
And instantly, my whole body tensed. I refused to name it. To give it a shape, a function, a weight. I did not look at it yet — not directly. Not frankly.
