By now it was dusk and the sky above the dome was already slightly dark.

Meia was alone and could have a look around in peace. But of course, the huge tree remained in her focus for the time being.

She went down a small flight of steps, between two tables, up to it, as close as she could get, all the way to the round stone base. This alone was already up to her hips. First she looked at the roots, because the trunk was still too far away. Even if she leaned on the pedestal and stretched out her arm, she could not come close to reaching it. For that, she would have to crawl all the way up onto the base. If she did, she could lie full length between the roots, that is how big the tree was. The whole piece had to weigh tons. This fake tree was almost twice as tall as the real tree at her house. Normally she would like to touch it. The finely worked texture of the bark looked very inviting to run her hand over it once. However, the fear of accidentally breaking something was greater than the desire and so she limited herself to looking. When she looked up at the tree, she could see the early evening sky through the glittering crown. Almost automatically, her mouth fell open in amazement. The sight was surreal and indescribably beautiful. This was because krystafei had another special property, without which the tree would not be half as impressive. It was the property that had made it coveted and famous.

It glowed.

The tree in front of Meia gave off light. It reached every corner of the room and shone out from the top of the dome.

Krystafei had the property of absorbing and emitting light. In itself, this would not be a reason for excessive enthusiasm. There were several such minerals. Krystafei, however, had an extreme efficiency that pushed the limits of physics to the breaking point. It was enough to let a lamp made of it come into contact with sunlight for only a few hours and you already had a light above the level of an oil lamp for a full night. Coloured by the mineral, it was also a pleasantly warm light. Because of this property, the fake tree also had to be under a glass dome. It needed the sunlight to shine.

Nevertheless, the tree was only glowing dimly at the moment. If it were already deep night, Meia would suspect that its light was slowly coming to an end. The real reason, however, was different. Krystafei only ever emitted its light in proportion to the existing darkness. The darker it became, the stronger it shone. Unfortunately, it included all light sources, not only sunlight. If Meia lit an oil lamp, the tree would become darker. If the tree were made of two pieces instead of one, even then it would be darker in the room than it is now. Any light that did not belong to a whole was an alien source of light. So if you hung a lot of krystafei lamps in one room, you would end up with a weaker light than with just one. Simply put, krystafei only shone strongly when there was not much of it present. Why it was like that, Meia did not know, and perhaps no one did.

If the tree was really made of two pieces and they were moved far enough apart, the light output would be about the same as it was now. However, you would no longer have the same illumination. Due to these characteristics, it often required precise planning in the positioning and size of the lamps to illuminate a room evenly. But there was also a trick that made it at least a little easier.

If Meia were to throw a blanket into the treetop from the upper circular path, the free part of the tree would shine more strongly than it did now. The krystafei would make up for the loss of its surface. Krystafei was strange. It always tried to maintain the same light level in the immediate vicinity of its whole.

In summary, krystafei glowed depending on the darkness, its volume and its surface.

Apart from the complicated handling, it had other disadvantages as well.

It only works after contact with sunlight and therefore not in rooms without windows. If you still wanted to use it in such a room, you had to take the lamps off to charge them.

In this house, the lamps in the hallway were all gas lamps. Anything else would certainly be too much trouble. Krystafei had to be charged, candles had to be replaced, but oil and gas could simply be fed in through pipes and turned up and down as one wished. Which led directly to the third disadvantage.

Krystafei always glowed. So you had to cover the lamps when you did not want any light and if you did not do that properly, it only made them brighter. It was a chore.

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But the biggest disadvantage of krystafei was its popularity. Compared to light produced from combustion, krystafei had a one-time purchase price with a stronger light output and, depending on the application, without any effort. This reading room, for example, was perfectly illuminated at all times. Therefore krystafei quickly became a sought-after light source. However, it was very rare. In Jena, there were only a few deposits from the beginning and these were used up just as quickly as the demand increased, with which the price also rose and with the price also the value of krystafei as a status symbol. It was no longer affordable for anyone outside the upper classes. All the deposits Jena still had were in the conquered territory of the neighbouring Ceramare. The krystafei was one of the reasons why this territory was conquered in the first place.

The fifth and final disadvantage of krystafei had helped fuel this whole development.

If you told Meia this tree was the most valuable single object on the planet, she would believe it. From the effort she imagined it would take to make even a single one of these branches, this tree was undoubtedly a life's work - a life's work that could be ruined by just one carelessness.

It was logical that no one was allowed to enter this room.

If Meia were to take a poker from the fireplace and strike it once against the tree, it would flash and burst from one piece into billions of tiny splinters. Within an instant it would be completely worthless. The krystafei would be ruined. It could never be put back together again. Everything would be nothing but glimmering waste.

Krystafei was as fragile as glass. It was a finite commodity that diminished with each passing year.

However, this fact had only made it more popular with the nobility. They had all sorts of decorations made from it. This house was no exception, but the complete opposite. The lanterns above the table in the courtyard were luminous flowers. The long mirror in the guest toilet was decorated with glowing vines. The many animal sculptures scattered around this room, they all glowed. To the left on the balustrade sat a glowing owl. On the right, near the fireplace, hid a glowing fawn. Everything was made of krystafei. Everything was worth a fortune. The tank they had to afford, even as expensive as it was, was far cheaper than even one of the flowers hanging carefree on strings in the wind outside. The nobility was obsessed with krystafei. Even the country's princess was named after the mineral.

But there was one person who dared to defy the opinion of the masses. At Meia's home, there was only one such lamp. It hung in the centre of the ceiling in her father's study. At night, the corners of the room always remained dark. Her father blamed the krystafei and mentioned it whenever the opportunity arose. In reality, it was just a welcome excuse as to why they, as nobility, did not have such lamps. The truth was, the lamp was just far too small for the room.

While Meia was thinking, she looked down and noticed the gold plaque on the stone base.

On the plaque was the text that the maid had mentioned:

'◊ ◊ ◊

The tree as a symbol of nature.

The tree as a symbol of power.

The tree as a symbol of knowledge.

The tree as a symbol of weakness.

The tree as a symbol of ignorance.

The tree as a symbol of transience.

The tree of the day as the guardian of life.

The tree of the night as herald of death.

Trees of white blossoms as bearers of all colours.

Trees of gold to remember the beginning.

Trees of coal to proclaim the end.

This luminous tree as the hourglass of the world.

Should its glow ever end, so will all things.

This tree is made of krystafei. When darkness befalls it, its glow becomes brighter and brighter. The more impenetrable the darkness seems, the more it will shine. However, if it lingers too long, its glow will diminish over time until it seems to disappear altogether. But it will only disappear to the eye. The invisible part of its light continues to assert itself to the darkness. But if it is not freed even then, this part will also fade out eventually. Slowly it will lose more and more of its colour. In the deep black, it itself will become darker and darker until it sinks completely into darkness, until it itself becomes the true darkness.

Its body will be a pure black.

A black that had laboriously absorbed every spark of light.

A black that wanted to hide its true face from the world.

A black that adorns itself with alien colour from stolen light.

A pure black that masquerades as light.

Krystafei is the lightest material, but also the darkest. It gathers light when it can and as much as it can. It uses light when it must and as much as it must. It is a shadow born of light. Theoretically, it behaves like this. Realistically, it is impossible to bring it into this state. After all, light is present everywhere, even in the night, even in the earth, and even in the vacuum of the void. Light permeates everything and is omnipresent. In a place where there was no light, there would be nothing, not even time. Therefore, krystafei can keep on collecting and using, so that this luminous tree is an ever-filling hourglass, just like all things.

Everything is an hourglass.

◊ ◊ ◊'

~Everything is an hourglass?~

Meia already knew the part about krystafei, but she did not understand the rest. Surely light did not penetrate everything? If it did, there would be no night, would there?

.../ End Part