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I do not know how long I have been here, but I am well and truly transfixed by the sight before me. Across billions of years and almost as many worlds, it is the most beautiful, most insulting thing that I have ever seen; Superlative art, and an abomination without peer.
I am looking up at a plane of concave stone the size of a stadium– an inclined wall of a cavern: dark, rough and unshaped by any force save time and the cold, weathering winds that twist and howl through this underground chamber. It is but one facet of a massive, irregular space fit to swallow a small city. It is not the geology, however, that so captures my attention: Except when it melts, cracks, boils or explodes, geology is just about the most boring thing there is. No, what enraptures and infuriates me, an assault upon the senses, and indeed upon sense itself is what lies embedded within.
It is a monster, in the most glorious and terrible sense of the word. Three serpentine necks coil within the stone, only partly exposed to the air, but I know that each one is as wide as a riverbed and long enough to wrap several times around a skyscraper (such an arrogant word for so fragile and earthbound a structure, and such a vividly remembered sensation). Each neck terminates in a reptilian head, a proud, sneering countenance crowned with twisted horns; a heavy brow over crimson eyes, a sneering muzzle lined with jagged teeth several times the size of the average tool-using sophant’s entire body. Two of them dangle, slack-jawed and lolling softly in the moaning wind. The third is half-turned, embedded in stone. At the other end, the necks are all three attached to a single golden torso, a glittering expanse of armored, overlapping scales.
Every other aspect of the thing comes in pairs. Two massive, predatory legs: defined, articulate and ending in grasping talons. Two mighty tails, sinuous and strong, terminating in spiked clubs. Two shining, leathern wings, each fit to cast a township into shadow. The entire body gleams with a soft, golden light, the only source of illumination in the cavern – everything else is cast in shades of dim yellow radiance and dancing shadow. It is glorious – peerless. And it is dead.
The legs are twisted – broken, compressed into the stone. The eyes are clouded to a muddy brown, and blood, shining electrum, drips from its jaws, creating a scintillating metallic lake upon the floor. Its wings, what little is visible of them, are in tatters, bent, battered and shredded. Effulgent, impenetrable scales lie cracked and shattered, the exposed flesh beneath shrunken and dry. Armored hide hangs in strips, like banners from rafters of exposed bone.
It reeks of ozone, of burning meat, electric vengeance and old rot. The smell fills the cavern, so dense it resists even the churning howl of the breeze.
The work of my life, if something I have so thoroughly enjoyed can truly be called work, has been the true appreciation of all that is great and good, all that is complex and beautiful within the universe. Likewise, it is my firm and cherished belief, my most certain knowledge, that the worth of a thing can only be known when it is wrecked, ruined and gone. That moment – that destructive illumination, gives me peace, purpose, and unparalleled joy. Typically, to see so mighty and exquisite a creature brought low, reduced to rot and ruin, even after the fact, would be a divine privilege.
There’s just one problem, one thing that paralyzes my mind as aesthetic serenity and apocalyptic outrage clash. That corpse up there is me.
I am looking up at a plane of concave stone the size of a stadium– an inclined wall of a cavern: dark, rough and unshaped by any force save time and the cold, weathering winds that twist and howl through this underground chamber. It is but one facet of a massive, irregular space fit to swallow a small city. It is not the geology, however, that so captures my attention: Except when it melts, cracks, boils or explodes, geology is just about the most boring thing there is. No, what enraptures and infuriates me, an assault upon the senses, and indeed upon sense itself is what lies embedded within.
It is a monster, in the most glorious and terrible sense of the word. Three serpentine necks coil within the stone, only partly exposed to the air, but I know that each one is as wide as a riverbed and long enough to wrap several times around a skyscraper (such an arrogant word for so fragile and earthbound a structure, and such a vividly remembered sensation). Each neck terminates in a reptilian head, a proud, sneering countenance crowned with twisted horns; a heavy brow over crimson eyes, a sneering muzzle lined with jagged teeth several times the size of the average tool-using sophant’s entire body. Two of them dangle, slack-jawed and lolling softly in the moaning wind. The third is half-turned, embedded in stone. At the other end, the necks are all three attached to a single golden torso, a glittering expanse of armored, overlapping scales.
Every other aspect of the thing comes in pairs. Two massive, predatory legs: defined, articulate and ending in grasping talons. Two mighty tails, sinuous and strong, terminating in spiked clubs. Two shining, leathern wings, each fit to cast a township into shadow. The entire body gleams with a soft, golden light, the only source of illumination in the cavern – everything else is cast in shades of dim yellow radiance and dancing shadow. It is glorious – peerless. And it is dead.
The legs are twisted – broken, compressed into the stone. The eyes are clouded to a muddy brown, and blood, shining electrum, drips from its jaws, creating a scintillating metallic lake upon the floor. Its wings, what little is visible of them, are in tatters, bent, battered and shredded. Effulgent, impenetrable scales lie cracked and shattered, the exposed flesh beneath shrunken and dry. Armored hide hangs in strips, like banners from rafters of exposed bone.
It reeks of ozone, of burning meat, electric vengeance and old rot. The smell fills the cavern, so dense it resists even the churning howl of the breeze.
The work of my life, if something I have so thoroughly enjoyed can truly be called work, has been the true appreciation of all that is great and good, all that is complex and beautiful within the universe. Likewise, it is my firm and cherished belief, my most certain knowledge, that the worth of a thing can only be known when it is wrecked, ruined and gone. That moment – that destructive illumination, gives me peace, purpose, and unparalleled joy. Typically, to see so mighty and exquisite a creature brought low, reduced to rot and ruin, even after the fact, would be a divine privilege.
There’s just one problem, one thing that paralyzes my mind as aesthetic serenity and apocalyptic outrage clash. That corpse up there is me.
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