Mycenae

Davion found himself standing on a cliff overlooking the sea. The dawning sun sent cascades of light across the waves. The wind whipped his clothes.

He turned, slowly, taking it all in. He saw a road meandering off to the horizon along the coastline. In the other direction, it led to a hill, where it spiraled up to a great walled city. Davion stared in awe, thought for a moment, then followed the road.

The city was larger than any he’d seen, but he saw no sources of food or wood around it. Not one forest or farm. Was this a ruin?

The rusted gates were open. Wrought-iron runes spelled something atop the gate in an ancient language he didn’t recognize. He walked through them with caution and pause.

Winds blew dust through empty streets. Massive stones formed the buildings of the city, too massive for a score of men to lift. The buildings seemed made for giants. Doors were fifteen feet tall.

Davion wandered the deserted city up towards the center. Water flowed through the city via aqueducts. The trickle of water was the loudest thing present, other than his heartbeat. There was no one around.

He reached the center. A massive hall stood before him, with oaken doors twenty feet high. As he stared in wonder, one of the doors opened.

Before him stood a giant. It was twelve feet tall, and must have weighed a thousand pounds or more. In the center of its brow sat one huge eye. "Welcome, Davion," it said.

Davion furrowed his brow. "You know my name?"

"I’ve been expecting you," said the cyclops. "My name is Acmonides. I have things to show you."

Davion crept up the stairs towards him. "What is this place?"

Acmonides gave a gentle smile. "Your use of 'this' is ambiguous," he said. "So I will give multiple answers."

"You are on the Astral Plane — the plane of experience. It’s the first level up from the Physical Plane. It’s where memories and experiences live. You come here when you dream and when you die."

"Am I dead?" asked Davion.

The cyclops shook its head. "Dreaming."

Davion’s face showed noticeable relief. "It felt like dying."

"You had to shed your physical form," said Acmonides. "As for this city," he said, waving his arm in a grand sweeping motion, "it’s called Mycenae. It’s the memory of a city that once was."

"And this," he said, indicating the massive hall, "is the great library."

Davion eyes widened. "A library?"

The giant nodded. "It contains more scrolls than you could read in a hundred lifetimes."

Davion stared in amazement.

"Fortunately," said Acmonides, "I’ve chosen a few for you to help narrow it down. Come."

Davion hesitated, sighed, shook his head, and followed the cyclops inside.

Acmonides sat Davion at a human-sized desk and placed three scrolls before him. "Read this one first," he said, pointing to the one on the left. "It contains the basics of logic, geometry, and mathematics. Some of it will be review for you, but much will be surprising."

"You’ll need to digest that one to understand the next one," he said, indicating the scroll in the middle. "This one is about physics."

"Physics?" asked Davion.

"A subset of natural philosophy focused on the fundamental forces and energies of the world. This one will be eye-opening."

"The last," said Acmonides, pointing to the scroll on the right, "is about computation. It’s the border between the ideal world of mathematics and the physical world you inhabit. It’s math bound by hard physical limits."

Davion furrowed his brow and looked at the scroll. "How do you mean? Limits?"

"For example," said Acmonides, "You can think of any number in an instant. You can think of two, three, five, seven, or two-thousand three hundred fifty-seven, and no number takes longer than another. They are ideas fixed in place."

"But," he continued, "if you want to count a certain number of physical objects, be they rocks or sticks or rabbits, it would take some amount of space and time. Counting one thousand rocks takes greater time and space than counting ten. Computation is the study of that."

"Hm," said Davion.

"Go on," said Acmonides. "I’ll leave you alone for a while."

Davion picked up the first scroll and unrolled it. The first part defined basic arithmetic. Nothing in it was new to him except the concept of zero, which surprised him.

As he read on, he encountered much that was new. He scrolled past strange formulas with terse explanations that he committed to memory even as he struggled to grasp their meanings. Polytopes, rates of change, and vectors entered his mind.

When he reached the end, he turned to the second scroll. It described the foundation of physical reality. He read of the fundamental forces of the world. He learned the geometry of space and time. The prose was terse; most of the explanation was mathematical. Davion saw that these equations could let one predict and control such forces. He devoured the scroll in awe.

Finally, he picked up the third scroll. It spoke of algorithms to do calculations in physical space, and the different trade-offs of space and time between them. He read of abstraction, of giving equations names so they can be referenced by other equations. He imagined the interplay of expressions and the environment they inhabit.

He put the scrolls down and stared into space. How long had he been reading?

"Finished already?" asked Acmonides.

Davion started. He’d been so engrossed in the scrolls that he had failed to notice the cyclops in the room. "Yes," he said, still staring into space. "But I’m not sure how much of it I comprehend."

"Let it sink in," said the cyclops.

"How long have I been here?" asked Davion.

"Time works differently here," said Acmonides. "Time is part of the physical world; there’s but an echo of it here in the Dreamlands. Go further up the ladder of abstraction, and it ceases to have any meaning."

"How long can I stay?"

"A while longer," said Acmonides. "These scrolls are but a brief introduction. You’ll need to learn more when you return."

"How?" asked Davion. "These scrolls seem to have knowledge beyond anything I’ve encountered."

"Ask the star folk," said Acmonides. "They know these subjects."

"Really?"

"They do," said Acmonides, smiling. "You should speak to them when you get home."