# Nameless Labyrinth

The nameless stone labyrinth consisted, for the most part, of walls from ten to
one hundred and fifty feet in ice-clear height, and of a thickness varying from
five to ten feet. It was composed mostly of prodigious blocks of dark
primordial slate, schist, and sandstone—blocks in many cases as large as 4 x 6
x 8 feet—though in several places it seemed to be carved out of a solid, uneven
bed rock of pre-Cambrian slate. The buildings were far from equal in size,
there being innumerable honeycomb arrangements of enormous extent as well as
smaller separate structures. The general shape of these things tended to be
conical, pyramidal, or terraced; though there were many perfect cylinders,
perfect cubes, clusters of cubes, and other rectangular forms, and a peculiar
sprinkling of angled edifices whose five-pointed ground plan roughly suggested
modern fortifications. The builders had made constant and expert use of the
principle of the arch, and domes had probably existed in the city's heyday.

The whole tangle was monstrously weathered, and the glacial surface from which
the towers projected was strewn with fallen blocks and immemorial debris. Where
the glaciation was transparent we could see the lower parts of the gigantic
piles, and we noticed the ice-preserved stone bridges which connected the
different towers at varying distances above the ground. On the exposed walls we
could detect the scarred places where other and higher bridges of the same sort
had existed. Closer inspection revealed countless largish windows; some of
which were closed with shutters of a petrified material originally wood, though
most gaped open in a sinister and menacing fashion. Many of the ruins, of
course, were roofless, and with uneven though wind-rounded upper edges; whilst
others, of a more sharply conical or pyramidal model or else protected by
higher surrounding structures, preserved intact outlines despite the
omnipresent crumbling and pitting. With the field glass we could barely make
out what seemed to be sculptural decorations in horizontal bands—decorations
including those curious groups of dots whose presence on the ancient soapstones
now assumed a vastly larger significance.