The Withered Land, The Empire Falls: ABYSSIUM

ABYSSIUM, Part Nineteen

It was different from the way it had been before, so very different. Where once there had been clear, crystalline rivers, lush forests and verdant plains upon which mighty cities of glistening alabaster spires had been built, there were now deserts and areas of stark, brambly tundra surrounded by geometrically sharp-edged cliffs and mesas. The cities were now hard-faced and ugly, more utilitarian and machine-like than artistic or inspired. The air itself had changed, too, as if the passage of Time had sapped it of its vitality.

Possibility had dried up. That which had once been rife with Magycke had faded. Gone. Evolution had reached its zenith.

One could feel the inevitable onset of decomposition, the descent into the downwards spiral. The dying had started.

His time was now ascendant.

The giant breathed in great gulps of the night's air and felt the ground beneath his feet tremble as he walked...

He heard the screams. He saw the fires. He could see the slow collapse of several of the tall buildings that surprisingly rose to a height even with his own chest and shoulders. He felt the fear and the hysteria of the tiny creatures swarming near him.

Interesting. So, through the long ages, THIS was what had become of his children...

The massive eyes of Dekalorgan'Arvyk opened to survey a rugged and underdeveloped worldscape he did not remember. From the dire moment of his enforced torpor, a punitary sentenced passed upon him by his so-called peers, those peers being the other Xherim'efarr Lords with whom he had originally traversed this backwater physical dimension, Dekalorgan'Arvyk had harbored regrets about the evolutionary limitations of the partly-decimated celestial body they'd explored. The catastrophically deformed remnants of a moon that had suffered a collision with another solar orbital body, the moon was cursed with little in the way of mineral resources, though there was a surfeit of mesophilic, polymer-like, carbon-containing tholin compounds. The other Xherim'efarr had always been suspicious of his goals and motivations, seeing him as unusually and stubbornly independent in thought and compulsion. He had been excogiated by his culture's Bio-Ethicstician Supremor, Skaxduran'Mygon, as a hyper-heuristic autonomous Intelligencer, like most his brethren HyperLords, and was assigned the responsibility for Analysis and Categorization. His official title was that of "The Designator". But something about the planet Teshiwahur, its mismatched set of suns, and its disk-moon had entranced him, mesmerized him more so than any other celestial system had done in millenia. Perhaps it had lain in the star system's rogue, majestic wildness. Or maybe he'd grown tired of playing the limited role that had been assigned him by the coldly officious and inscrutably ultra-logical Xherim'efarr Supremor. Regardless, anyway one cared to perceive it, The Designator Dekalorgan'Arvyk had taken the opportunity to break his culture's guiding Directive of Obtrusion and had bypassed the laws of evolution for bio-organisms living on the moon -- he had purposefully interfered with the natural course of evolution and had guided the development of organic animal life on Pex'Insava. He'd done what was forbidden, broken their precious code, dared to follow his own judgment. To his brethren he'd become a rebel, an outlaw, and finally, as deduced through the prism of their short-sightedness, a criminal, in the pursuit of his own personal goals.

Even his contrarian elder brother, an arrogant and scornful species-supremacist named Dessimathiah, had christened him an idealistic fool. The Bio-Ethicstician Supremor had assigned Dessimathiah to evaluate the technological advancements and general developmental state of the sprawling sentient civilization on the gargantuan motherworld of Teshiwahur. It was a task that should have been assigned Dekalorgan'Arvyk, but, at the time, he'd gladly stepped aside to let his hubristic brother have it.

On further reflection, he'd come to understand that this had been a damning error. The Supremor had already divined that he was acting in a capricious way, his manner inconsistent with the larger philosophies and paramount mission of the Xherim'efarr Lords. Shirking his responsibility had separated him from his place in the ruling body of the tight-knit exploratory squad and served to highlight his insubordinate intention to enact his own agenda.