more changeling

[aumentou]

Here is a Land of Storms. Jagged waves meet a barren and rocky shore. Jagged mountains rise above the inhospitable sea. Jagged clouds rise above the mountaintops. Jagged lightning arcs from amongst the clouds, discharging against rock or wave, leaving scorched rock or boiling water as the only sign of its passing.

Nothing lives here. Nothing can.

The lightning is remarkably frequent, which would be useful if anyone did live here. Between lightning strikes it is almost pitch black. It is always night, and the moon is almost always hidden by clouds. There are stars, but they are strange. They can be seen, sometimes, but while lit themselves do not seem to cast light down here.

Nothing lives here. Nothing can.

The wind whips in from the sea, bringing spray that's strong enough to flay skin. Or would be, if there were any skin to flay. A human would be deafened by it, if there were any humans. It drops only very occasionally, and not far. At its lowest an adult human would still have some difficulty standing. At its highest they would fly.

Nothing lives here. Nothing can. This place is Harm expressed as geography, designed to kill anything foolish enough to enter it.

And yet...

and yet here, yes look, up here among the clouds! As that large thunderhead edges right a gap opens and here can be seen a light. A constant light. An actinic glow, floating in the storms some half mile above sea level.

Closer. Head towards that light. It's the only thing here not trying to kill you. Get closer and you can see it is not just one light. A cross-shaped platform floats in the sky, and at the corners of the platform are huge lights, giant coils coruscating with energy, waiting to be unleashed. In the centre of the platform is an even larger shape. A stone building, a castle, dark and brooding. The windows are dimly lit, compared with the show outside. As we approach we will see, the giant coils arc, and discharge downwards. This is the source of the lightning.

What lives here? What could?

If we watch closely enough we might see, the lightning is not the only effect of the discharge. Each massive arc downwards is preceded by a tiny arc upwards, a purple flash that zigzags up through the clouds and out of sight. We might also watch the building, see the lights go off or on as the denizens go about their business. See the gargoyles on the outside. See them fly. See them leaping off their perches and soaring lazily on the thermals made by such huge electrical discharges.

Perhaps we were wrong about this castle not trying to kill you.

Closer. Move in closer. Where else can you go, back to the surface? There's nothing here but this. This is the centre. Somehow you know, if you see it. Move in closer. Ignore the gargoyles. They would probably kill us, but they can't tell we're here. We aren't, really, how could we be? So move in.

Here... here are the gates. Two, on opposite sides of the castle. One of horn and one of ivory. Both are huge, and both are guarded by beasts larger than any that ever walked on Earth. Worry not about whys and wherefores, just enter the castle. We'll use a window, some of them are open. Best not to disturb the gates or their guardians. The gargoyles didn't see us, but these might.

Here is a vast room. The ceiling rises far above the heads of the hundreds of inhabitants. These are human-sized and for the most part human-shaped, pallid of skin and malnourished of figure. Each sits alone at a desk, focussed on a mirror or a crystal. Every five desks or so is an overseer, a large muscular humanoid standing, whip in hand, making sure the smaller creatures are working.

Within the mirrors, within the crystals, are images of other times, other places, other lives. Each holds a coil, attached to the desk. Hand rests close to coil, moving slowly around, and when it is close enough electricity arcs between the two.

Watch a mirror. Watch a crystal. You'll see the scene inside shifting with the movements of the hand. The electricity arcs and something changes. Subtly so, but the scene is less pleasant. One arc, then another, then another, and gradually the scene is perverted from happy to horrifying.

Yes, this is a factory. They make horrors here. But these are merely the workers, who else lives here? Can we meet the management?

Over here is a huge door, leading to a carpeted corridor the same height as this room. But over there is a series of smaller doorways that look far more used. Through there we can find smaller spaces where the workers eat and sleep. Through there too we can find the cooks, the cleaners, the maintainance staff, all in a warren of tunnels rooms and niches. There too are barracks, where the guards and overseers live. This castle is vast, and there is more than one barracks on each working level.

Here though is the huge door, and here the corridor, vast in size and with expensive decoration. A dual row of pillars rise along its length, with decorated plinths and finials. And yet it looks little used. Dust is evident on carpet and drapes. There is a hum of activity from the shop floor behind, and the distant sound of lightning, but the corridor itself is silent.

Roam the halls. There are four grand staircases in a square. The gates lead to corridors on that square, and more corridors branch off sideways in the castles wings. Take the staircase up, and you'll see more levels on the same plan. Take it far enough and the wings will stop, while the central block continues to rise. On these levels there are no shop floors like below. Here the workshops contain skilled craftbeings making incomprehensible objects of all sorts you can imagine (and some you will wish you hadn't). These are then stored. We could wait to see what for, but aren't you in a hurry to find the management?

Rise even further, and the staircases stop. The central block narrows to a round tower, with a single staircase up its centre. Doors lead off this to laboratories, where liquids in vessels labelled with the names of concepts or emotions are simmered or combined or frozen or carefully mixed with powders labelled with date, name, and memories. What is this all for? As we pass by, we can hear one of the hunched workers here asking another where the Master might be found, and being told he is not to be disturbed as he is in the Observatory.

At the top of the tower is a battlement, and above that rises a bartizan, a smaller tower. From the battlement we can see a globular construction mounted on an arm at the top of the bartizan. It is the smallest single feature of the architecture, and yet the globe is still a hundred yards across. It is an ever-so-slightly stellated dodecahedron, made of triangular clear crystalline plates held together by a regular web of golden metal. From each vertex projects a metallic coil, and around the exterior is a glowing field of flux - so many tiny electric arcs as to make a glowing spherical effect.

That is the observatory.

Through the flux haze and the crystal, something can be seen moving inside. Something huge enough to need nearly all the space inside. Something powerful enough to make all this. Something that can work in metal and crystal and stone and lightning and emotions and concepts and mmeories. Something that controls all this for its own purposes.

That? That is the Master. The Master of the Citadel of Nightmares.