04.10.08
On the Arch.
“I figured I’d find you here,” Arawn said. “Do you come up here every day?”
Cain glared at him. The wind, pesky thing, blew his hair in front of his face and ruined the effect.
Arawn ambled up beside Cain and turned to look out over Glass Washington, his hands in his pockets. The mosaic had sunk into geometric abstractions for the evening; far below, the other lights went about their business, ignoring the two figures standing on the Arch. Neither of them spoke for a long time.
Finally, Cain spoke. “I wonder what would happen if I jumped.”
Arawn turned towards him slightly, his eyes glinting green. He said nothing.
“Can we die here? I don’t think anyone’s managed it yet, but I don’t know everything.”
“You still haven’t found yourself yet, have you.” It wasn’t a question.
“It is so obvious?”
“It is, especially when you retain a name you hate.”
“I hate all my names.”
Arawn turned to face the smaller man. Cain’s black eyes remained fixed on the city below.
“You’ve never been able to see yourself as anything other than a born traitor, have you?”
That wasn’t a question, either. Cain refused to answer it. A gloved hand gripped his chin and forced him to look at the other man.
“You’re forgetting the simplest of choices, my friend. This or not this. You don’t want to be a traitor? Choose not to be. You can work on the rest later.”
Cain was doing his damndest to avoid Arawn’s eyes. The Fool raised his other hand and gently brushed back Cain’s red hair.
“You weren’t always a traitor,” Arawn said softly. “In fact, I can remember one life in which you most certainly weren’t.”
Cain straightened, then met Arawn’s now-rose eyes. Hesitation came and went, and then they kissed.
Kaela backed away from Arawn and smiled softly. “I still need to think about things.”
Arawn gave an answering smile that said, I know, and the former Dr. Cain turned away from the man who was once her husband and came down from the Arch.
The Fool watched her light up as she went.
12.30.07
Glass Washington.
First, picture Washington, D.C. Got it? The Capital Dome, the White House, the Washington Monument, maybe some memorials; if you’re a bit of a nut like me, maybe some of the museums, or the Mall, or the Reflecting Pool. Now hold onto that image for a moment.
Have you ever seen those kids’ toys that are a set of (thankfully dull) pins set in a frame, so that an object pressed into one side of the pins is modeled by those displaced pins on the other side? Imagine Washington, D.C. as a pin model.
Now imagine it made of glass.
Add one final image: a huge smoked glass arch that spans most of the city.
Welcome to Glass Washington. The memorials are faceless, the Washington Monument has eyes, and strange burrowing creatures snake through what in our world are the Metro tunnels. The city itself is devoid of almost everything save for famous landmarks and touristy sites; the wider world is almost nonexistant. If you brave the rose- and tree-covered wilderness beyond the River, you may make it to the wraith-haunted fields of an otherworldly Arlington Cemetery, with its mirror-bright and perfectly blank headstones.
But if you stay in Glass Washington (which you should), climb the Arch. Then look down, and see the great mosaic of the lights laid out before you in patterns of sun and shadow, and grow wise.
Or go mad. It’s your choice.
Maybe (Travel Guide).
Maybe if you go far enough, you’ll find places that either appear to be ruins of a civilization or just an empty, pristine location.
Maybe crossing out of the District to the north, you’ll run across a valley with a river at some ill-defined point, and you’ll find a ghost town near the valley’s mouth, with an empty, marbled university standing across the river.
Maybe farther north still, you’ll find an icy, windswept, walled fortress and, incongruously, a fertile green plain next door.
Maybe, veering south across some unmeasured expanse of sea, you’ll come across some henge-spotted islands, one with empty castles still bearing red dragon pennants, the other dotted with hollow hills, and across a little stretch of icy sea, there will be the sunken ruins of some gaudy city.
Maybe further south, the continent loses itself in a lifeless forest, made mostly of trees but partly of bare pikes, and more southerly still you’ll find sunny hills covered with olives and exotic fruits, and split by five rivers.
Maybe, if you go west a bit, you’ll find a series of strange castles, each more fantastic than the last, half in ruins, and veering south again, you’ll find arid steppes dotted with monumental gates and complex burrows.
Maybe, if you sweep west overland, staying near the salty sea, you’ll find the crumbling remains of brick cities, out of which rise perfect ziggurats, and further you’ll find a stretch of great walled cities and fortified islands, and further still you’ll find temples and pyramids inlaid with the faces of half-human creatures.
Maybe, if you sweep back east a bit to a dune-covered, desolate peninsula, you’ll find a thousand rotting pillars jutting out of the desert sand, and a trinket or two if the wind blows right.
Maybe, if you go far to the south, beyond all reasoning, you’ll find great stone formations jutting like teeth from the ocean floor, and a green, warm land where by all rights only ice should be, with great black mountains rising in the distance.
Maybe, if you veer north from there in the correct direction, you’ll eventually run across a tropical rainforest and an arid, rocky desert, and between them, a lifeless city on a lake, and then maybe, if you turn east and go north, you’ll find yourself back at Glass Washington, and you’ll find a dozen newer patches of land in the meantime.
