An Object both Beautiful and Foul

--- General Buck Turgidson, on the telephone after General Ripper launches a nuclear strike, in Dr. Strangelove

Chucky and Flucky entered a vast cavern. There were tiers and tiers of benches arranged in an immense circle, each tier coming to the gnomes' waists. The seats were built of a marble transversed with red veins, and were highly polished. There was a steady light shining from the walls and ceiling, giving the ampitheater a feeling that one was outside. The ceiling was in the form of a vast dome. The gnomes could see what were once murals, but they had been vandalized, perhaps by the dragon of the Southern Caves. At the base, hundreds of tiers down, there was a vast stage area, but there appeared to be nothing there. Around the top tier, where gnomes were, there was a multitude of exits.

Chucky looked at the surroundings closely. He observed the wall of the ampitheater. Every three meters it contained niches where there may have been statues at one time, but most of these lay empty. A more valuable veneer had plated these niches, but now the crumbling exposed concrete rock of the recesses contrasted unfavorably with the polished marble of the tiers, the damaged, but still fine, granite of the rest of the walls, and the ruined mosaics in the great dome of the ceiling. Checky observed the exits. Some were blocked by debris, and others had plain, heavy doors that marred the design of the ampitheater.

Flucky's attention was focussed on an exit on the far side of the room. Walking around the top tier while Chucky observed the theater, he approached two great bronze statues of a man lifting a great globe, with a map of one hemisphere on each globe. Gnomes may not have the most exquisite feel for beauty amongst the creatures of the Havnheim, but Flucky was transfixed, for he felt that these statues must have once been beautiful, and had been wantonly vandalized.

Flucky could see the outline of a great continent - as far as he was concerned, the known world, etched on one great brass globe, with place names in some foreign language engraved in graceful, ornate, lettering. When he looked closely, he saw little glass bundles embedded in the bronze emitting a pure light, giving an otherworldly effect. For example, in the south, around Aqualaria, the light was a tranquil shade of yellow or a strong and pure blue. On the islands, great and small, and the strange landmasses on the other parts of the globes, the lights glowed in soft, pale, pastel colours. The Havnheim, by contrast was lit brightly, garishly, and grotesquely.

Most noticable was a deep violet (or "black") light that veined through Allaria, Hespan, and the adjacent lands like the veins in a bloodshot eye. The little threads that piped the light in had loosened, and wiggled in a slight draught of wind like phosphorescent worms. This garish light was especially strong in Gana, around Camelyn, and in the Hespan marches. A competing light of crimson red existed in the Fey Wood and in the Western Reaches of the Havnheim, around Vjorica, as well as some other places. A few flickers of a pale green light were almost drowned out by the competing snaky black light in the Duchy of Trescant. There was also green light peeking out from the few threads that existed in the desert, in Greyhawk, and in other scattered places. Most menacing of all was a thin whiff of acrid smoke, like that of burning garbage, that could be seen over the Havnheim. Flucky thought that the globe reminded him of a beautiful and ripe orange, festering on one part with worms and mold, an object both beautiful and foul.

Chucky walked around the ampitheater to join Flucky. "I had a theory that a cavern like this may have existed. This used to be the room of the war cabinet. These globes reflect the world situation. The more heavily populated areas have a greater density of these funny glass threads, and the more powerful ones shine more brightly. The black light has to be that of the forces corrupted by or allied with the little girl. The red does not necessarily represent the forces of good, but they oppose the little girl for their own reasons. The green, blue, and yellow - the purer colours - oppose the forces of cruelty and lawless exercise of power. Sadly, they look rather weak in the Havnheim. And if the united Havnheim falls under the sway of the one represented by the black light, how can Aqualaria, and the less powerful lands on the periphery, long stand?

"WhathappenedintheWest, Chucky?" Flucky pointed to the area in the Western half of the continent. This area was most thickly threaded with the glass threads, but no light shone from them. The bronze here was corrupted by a rusty substance, and was deformed, as if Flucky's flamethrower had singed the area.

"I do not know. There are many tales told of what happened there, most of them tragic."

"Sowhatdowedonow?"

1. "You dance, you pair of twits", shouted the little girl shrilly from the ampitheater stage.
2. "Now you will see the true purpose of the flamethrower, lead pipe, and this soft metal called solder that I got from Bert," explained Chucky.
3. "The dragon's library has to be near here. Follow me."

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