Clockwork: City of Gears
#10 of Poems
This poem is based off of a story idea of the same name that I came up with yesterday. It's a fantasy/science fiction world that stretches the limits of the imagination. I hope that I'll be able to turn it into a full length book one day!
A city made up of gears. Small ones that could fit in your palm. Large ones that stand as large as towering skyscrapers.
There are no buildings or homes here. At least not the kind that you would be thinking of.
Gear driven machines tangle and weave together until they stretch down so far that everything turns pitch black and the earth itself falls away.
Tread carefully among the moving catwalks for if you fall then some say that you will fall forever until you reach the heart of the earth.
Towers of gears and metal sides reach up into the heavens not quite able to touch the sky.
Clock towers ticking away at the hours lift their heads up above the sprawling mechanics. Forever staring towards a horizon where the sun never fully rises but never seems to set.
Some say they are counting down but to what? No one can say. Is it to the birth of a hero? Or to Clockwork's final day?
Listen closely in the twilight to the birds of gears and wire. For they tell of a dark day coming and a chilling threat most dire.
Bathed in the eternal twilight haze the gears turn on and on. Unaware of what they count down to. Or the fate that looms ahead.
Water to drive the gears. Gears to draw up the water. Everything runs in a cycle around the pulsing energy of Clockwork. A beating heart that turns countless gears.
But beware the mighty Drakenguard. The great dragon mechs who guard the gears. For they have long forgotten their purpose for creation and now forge a new one based around little knowledge they have left.
Protect the humans. Guard them at all costs. Do not allow them to be exterminated.
Live quietly and obey the strict rules of your masters if you wish to live to see another day.
For the Draken may be harsh masters, but they shall fight with dying breath to fulfill their duty and guard those few humans who remain.
Slavers, overlords, call them what you will, but they are nothing compared to the evils they keep at bay.
Wedged in among the gears in constructs of ancient metal is the last settlement of humans that yet remains.
Carefully watched over by the sentient machines who control every aspect of their lives from birth to death.
But fear not the Drakenguard and do not disobey. For they are the guardian angels who shall keep the darkness away.
Great evil is coming closer their lust for power growing stronger. Do not let them near the heart of Clockwork or another city shall come to a stop.
Frozen in time for all eternity.
You see Clockwork is not a true city at all at least not the kind you might imagine.
It is quite literally a machine. An endlessly moving mechanical structure blow up to massive proportions.
Each corner of it pulsing with power and smoothly turning on in precisely the right rhythm. Each and every gear interconnected with all the others around it.
A sprawling, interconnected machine that stretches on for miles both around and below. Each piece set exactly in the right order. Each gear operating smoothly. From those that fit in your hand to those that tower larger then mountains.
Ancient does not even come close to describing the great majesty of the City of Gears.
A place that counts time yet is older then time itself.
Listen to it hum and shudder turning and clicking around the tiny lives making their way inside its metal structures.
Search to the ends of the planet to the farthest corners of your imagination but there is none other like it and never will there be again.
Because for all the great cities that exist like the most priceless and unique artwork...
..there is not a single one in the world that operates just like Clockwork.