Pictures by kawkawpa
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And lo! of a sudden I did know that there was something in the night. And I stared, with a very keen and anxious look. And behold, there was the black shape of a great pyramid afar off in the night, that did show against the shining of the distant light; for it did stand between me and the far-off fires. ... |
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"I was a youth, seventeen years grown, and my memory tells me that when first I waked, or came, as it might be said, to myself, in that Future, I stood in one of the embrasures of the Last Redoubt -- that great Pyramid of grey metal which held the last millions of this world from the Powers of the Slayers." |
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Now... when that I was come properly a great way up the Gorge, and had come among the fire-holes, there was no more an utter darkness, for the dull red glare of the pits beat upward upon the black sides of the rock-mountains, that did make the sides of the Gorge; so that oft I did see both sides very plain in the lower parts; yet of the height of the Gorge, who might know aught; for the black sides did go upward for ever into the everlasting night.... |
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As I crouched there within the moss-bushes, there came again the large voice, and it was answered by a second voice; and thereupon there arose, as it did seem, the speech of Men that must have the bigness of elephants, and that did have no kindness in all their thoughts; but were utter monstrous. |
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I saw that there was facing me, a great line of quiet and lofty figures, shrouded unto their feet; and they moved not, neither made they any sound; but stood there amid the greyness, and did seem to make an unending watch upon me so that my heart went unto weakness, and I did feel that there was no power of the moss-bushes to hide me; for, in verity, they that stood so silent were certain of the Silent Ones; and I was very nigh to the Place of Destruction. |
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click for fullsize All was utter wildness of a dark desolation; for the Mighty Slope did seem to go nowhither but into an everlasting night. And there was no fire down here, neither light of any kind; but only Darkness and, as I did feel, Eternity. And downward into that Blackness did the great slope seem to go for ever. |
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click for fullsize And then I saw plainly that I knew the thing that lay upon the standing Rock; the thing was one of the olden flying-ships there were certain of in the Great Museum of the Mighty Pyramid.
I wondered why I had not seen the thing plain before that moment; yet it was likely because there was a shadow upon the other side of the great Rock, as I first beheld the thing. But on this side, there was a little fire-hill a way off from the cliff edge, and this did throw a warm light that made a glimmer upon the dull metal of the ship’s bottom, which was uncovered to my sight, and was surely of that same deathless grey metal that made the Great Redoubt.
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click for fullsize My spy-glass showed it to me with clearness - a living hill of watchfulness, known to us as The Watcher Of The South. It brooded there, squat and tremendous, hunched over the pale radiance of the Glowing Dome. |
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click for fullsize "This is something I've been wanting to do for ages - for one thing, to get a visual of the shape of the pyramids in William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land". . . ." "The Night Land" sure IS a great novel! I can't think of another novel I've ever read where the protagonist skulks and hides in abject fear, even literally crawling on hands and knees, as a normal condition of travel throughout the quest. :) That taps into primordial depths of absolute terror - the kind that pervades my being with full, thickly rich horror that freezes action and makes me incapable of rational thought. Yet the protagonist DOES think rationally. It's his accepted reality, that environment; nothing more threatening not only to life but to the eternal existence of personal awareness as the soul. The accepted normalcy allows the character to experience the full range of human emotion, including - incredibly - curiosity, and ACTING ON its impulse! Skulking on hands and knees in abject soul-risked fear and following through with the impulse of curiosity! Is there a genre of Heroic Horror? This would be its definition... :) |
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