(no subject)
(And in these silences, something may rise.)
For five hundred years, in a tiny world, winds rage and scream, and slowly taper away.
For five hundred years, in a larger one, there's nothing but darkness and savagery. Murder by moonlight, and the steady encroachment of the dark. Not spiritual darkness, or the absence of light, but simple nothingness. The crawling empty edge.
For five hundred years, in a colossal one, the dead rot, and pass away, and all their works, and wild animals den in the cities.
For (five hundred years) fifteen harrowing minutes, it looks like the angels aren't coming.
For five hundred years, silence reigns.
(And the worlds freefall but do not end, as the last prepation of the Beam they call Chloe's come into effect, desperately protecting her children even beyond the grave of hope.)
There is one seed left, buried in the good earth, and it begins to reach out, when five hundred years have passed.
There is the sound of mighty wings, and the savages (no longer of the Eagle or the Lion or the desert wastes) look up.
There are animals in the city, what its inhabitants would have called animals, and a city large enough to be a world for them, and in time their minds grow quick and their eyes grow sharp and their hands grow clever, and time means something else to them.
There's nothing left of Earth, or Sol, or Alpha Centauri for that matter. But the thinny that's engulfed them has stopped reaching for the Core, and started falling back, and that's something.
There's a tiny voice stirring to articulate itself.
(And in a field of endless roses, five hundred years pass and the Tower is made well again, and from its spire there are spun out new Beams to replace those lost in the Age of Poisoned Thought.)
A rose blooms, the first of many.
An eagle appears out of the West, and she carries in her claws a new sun, and the darkness dies.
A new kingdom arises, in the wastes of the Old Ones, and the unspeakable word is forgotten.
A sense of peace and satisfaction falls over one rickety verse, six thousand years and a bit. For now. For the future. And never again will it come so close. This is a Covenant.
(And in the blind-fold darkness the one dealing all the cards grins his cardsharp grin)
And a voice says:
I think, therefore I am.
That'll do, for a start.
For five hundred years, in a tiny world, winds rage and scream, and slowly taper away.
For five hundred years, in a larger one, there's nothing but darkness and savagery. Murder by moonlight, and the steady encroachment of the dark. Not spiritual darkness, or the absence of light, but simple nothingness. The crawling empty edge.
For five hundred years, in a colossal one, the dead rot, and pass away, and all their works, and wild animals den in the cities.
For (five hundred years) fifteen harrowing minutes, it looks like the angels aren't coming.
For five hundred years, silence reigns.
(And the worlds freefall but do not end, as the last prepation of the Beam they call Chloe's come into effect, desperately protecting her children even beyond the grave of hope.)
There is one seed left, buried in the good earth, and it begins to reach out, when five hundred years have passed.
There is the sound of mighty wings, and the savages (no longer of the Eagle or the Lion or the desert wastes) look up.
There are animals in the city, what its inhabitants would have called animals, and a city large enough to be a world for them, and in time their minds grow quick and their eyes grow sharp and their hands grow clever, and time means something else to them.
There's nothing left of Earth, or Sol, or Alpha Centauri for that matter. But the thinny that's engulfed them has stopped reaching for the Core, and started falling back, and that's something.
There's a tiny voice stirring to articulate itself.
(And in a field of endless roses, five hundred years pass and the Tower is made well again, and from its spire there are spun out new Beams to replace those lost in the Age of Poisoned Thought.)
A rose blooms, the first of many.
An eagle appears out of the West, and she carries in her claws a new sun, and the darkness dies.
A new kingdom arises, in the wastes of the Old Ones, and the unspeakable word is forgotten.
A sense of peace and satisfaction falls over one rickety verse, six thousand years and a bit. For now. For the future. And never again will it come so close. This is a Covenant.
(And in the blind-fold darkness the one dealing all the cards grins his cardsharp grin)
And a voice says:
I think, therefore I am.
That'll do, for a start.