Let’s try approaching over the water. Let’s imagine we’re in a boat, pushing off the deep wilds of the silver and black ocean heading east and south, east and south. For many days we see nothing but dirty brown sky and drifts of coal-black seaweed floating by. The seas are rough and black and the tides pull in all directions.
The first inkling we have of land is the sight of huge rocks jutting like needles out of the ocean. The water weaves through these as the wind blows through the pine forest. We slip through them, holding our ears against the shriek of the wind as it catches and eddies. Birds and huge sea-bats swarm in among these pillars, screaming from the rocks and flashing past your boat in wild cursing mobs. Occasionally, we can see a holy man perched still at the top of one of these rock towers, baked black by the sun and rubbed bloody and raw by the wind.
After several days of this the rock towers start to get bigger and more frequent. Now we have real islands, thousands of them. There are no tropical atolls, though, these are rocky and fierce. The tides batter the rocks and throw old fishbones on to the high rocky beaches. The waves fire through deep holes in the rocks, cannoning foam into the sky. The long tails of iguanas hang off the rocks like stony vines. On a few islands live thin and miserable human beings, the remains of once proud tribes now living off bird carcasses and eggshells. These humans do not speak with one another, nor can they be taught to speak. The gift of language was taken away from them, long ago, in punishment for crimes they do not remember.
Now the islands grow larger and larger and begin to fit together into a huge rocky mosaic. We could say that at last we have reached the shore. But even though it’s more complete, still this huge landmass is cracked and scabbed with deep cuts and sores. Through these slashes run countless rivers, from the huge channels and inland seas to tiny streams and rivulets lurching down from the mountains. We will follow one of these, poling our boat upriver towards its source.
Here we pass the lesser kingdoms of the crabs. These are the sea crabs, smaller and less sophisticated than their mountain brethren. Still, they are fast and dangerous, and any one of them can out-think a human in a battle of wits. They are willing to trade, though, for spices and grains that they cannot grow on their tidal farms.
We pole upriver past the broken landscape of the fast volcanoes. New mountains bubble up from beneath the earth every year, and the steam pours upwards through the gaps in the rocks. We pass over massive lakes, utterly still and carrying a thick, glossy image of the sky. Several thousand geese take flight over the water, dragging trails behind them as they run across the surface.
We push past the decayed farmlands of the old empire, the dry soil, huge herds of dusty red kangaroos chipping away at the last dying weeds. We pass the rusty barbed wire around the old deathcamps. The sun beats down on piles of old shoes, on the broken brick cubicles of the gas showers, on the piles of bones stacked like firewood.
Now we are close. One night while we push endlessly upriver we see a mountain made of glistening green rock. Behind it the stars leap up, then fall. There is no sound in the air but a tightness pulls at our skin and we cannot sleep. We lie on the bare boards of our boat and feel the river suck at us through the cracks in the hull.
In the morning we see stairs and walls and houses climb out of the river on both sides of us. Everything is splashed with green, pitted with moss. Under the water we can see an army of statues; ten thousand terracotta warriors, blank-eyed with jagged mustaches, all facing one direction. The boat passes over them. Shadows climb up their legs, close over their shoulders and eat their heads.
All around us now is the ruined city, gradually crumbling under an empty white sky. Huge stone friezes of bearded centaurs lean under weary stone arches. Out of the rubble rise huge pillars, holding up nothing. Ornate metal stairways lead up into the empty air. Huge trees grow out of stone temples. Underneath, old tunnels and courtyards are choked with vines. It is a jungle of rock as far as the eye can see. It is 32-20.
Now we pole the boat to the cluster of small rowboats bumping into each other by a set of shallow stone stairs. A small bonfire burns untended on the cracked flagstones by the water. Thin white streamers of smoke blow through the archways and empty windows of the buildings. We tie the boat to a thick tree root jutting out of the river mud and splash on to the shore.
