[right][h3][color=cyan]PROLOGUE[/color][/h3][hr][/right]It appeared in the night.

A moonlight fisherman discovered it in the early dawn, heavy in the sand on the quiet Weod coast. In the dim gray light, the etchings glowed faintly blue from deep within and cast bright shimmers on the frothy tide.

With each rush of foam on the beach, water seethed and spun round and round the great stone, clockwise, as if stirred by the wind, though the air was still. A bowl of spun sand had formed at its base.

With each crash of the incoming tide, drops of saltwater leaped high and were ensnared in a spinning fugue that danced high above the Mote. Like an intricate mobile set in motion, the constellation of glinting water-drops turned and whirled in perfect suspension -- a column of perpetual motion high above the etched stone -- though there was no wind at all.

The first curious visitors arrived out of the nearby fishing village of Laku, with wide eyes, quiet voices and uncertain footsteps.

Eventually the first brave one stepped forward, leaving his footprints in the wet sand, and poked at the stone with a stick.

Nothing happened.

He whacked at it, with a sharp clap of sound.

Nothing happened.

A child, heartened by the Mote's inanimate nature, tossed a seashell into the air above it.

The shell was swept up with the water-drops in perfect spinning circles, suspended as it whizzed round and round like a halo.

The child's delighted laughter brought more villagers onto the sand. A stick, then a pebble, then a shoe, then a glass bottle, were all tossed up into the spinning column -- and one by one, no matter how very high they were thrown, they all joined the perpetual turn.

A youth laid his hands on the stone and, using the blue-soft etchings as footholds, clambered up the side of the Mote in order to retrieve his spinning shoe. Before his grasping fingers could reach it, his own body was swept up in the dance -- the villagers watched while his helpless body was spun round and round in the air, and he made unintelligible noises of surprise and uncertainty. Finally, after he'd attempted and failed to stop himself, another villager caught him by the ankle as he spun past and yanked him out of the Mote's whirling hold. He had, at least, retrieved his shoe.

After a few days, the swirling column of old pots and fish bones and wood-shavings and hats and shovels had lost its novelty, and the villagers' attention directed instead to the trickle of visitors come to see the new phenomenon. A few had appointed themselves experts, and for a few coin would offer tours of the scenic coast and invite customers to toss things into the towering swirl of detritus.

But at night, the blue-glow etchings cast a haunting shine across the ocean -- beckoning.