Keith Baker - The Gates of Night

Daine sprinted over to their position. “What is it?”

Lei pulled her goggles down over her eyes and adjusted the lenses. “There’s thousands of them,” she said. “Tens of thousands. Maybe more. I see … circles, glass rings set into the ground, maybe forty feet across.”

The legions of Dal Quor prepare for battle. I remember when my people gathered around our gates . Shira’s thought was touched with sorrow and shame. Song filled the air, and our crystal banners made the plain an ocean of stars. We served the great light. We thought ourselves the heralds of glory, perfect embodiments of wisdom. But the people of Xen’drik spurned our guidance and refused to be hosts for our people. And when they would not shield us from our destruction, we turned to war. We struck at their dreams. We tore at the fabric of reality itself. And these horrors down below will do far worse. There is no mercy in them, only malice. I can feel it .

“Flame,” Daine murmured. “We can’t fight that.”

“We don’t have to,” Lei said, pushing back her goggles. “All we need to do is find that orb and destroy it. That’s what my mother said. She’d send us where we needed to be . The only question is what we do now.”

“Turn around?” Jode said.

Pierce followed Jode’s gaze but saw only stone and sky.

“What are you talking about, Jode?” Daine said.

“There, in the center of the plateau. Can’t you see the tower?”

He is correct , Shira said. There is a force that seeks to deceive your senses, to hide what lies before you. Look beyond the lie .

Pierce studied the plateau. A tower , Jode had said. If there was a tower in this place, what might it look like? He let the image drift into his mind, a dark spire set against the starless sky … and it appeared. A tower of teeth. Four massive tusks reached into the night, supporting a single spire of ivory and raw flesh. Dozens of mouths adorned walls of dark muscle, and the jaws of an ancient dragon stood in place of a gate, grinning at the top of a short flight of stairs.

“What is it?” Daine said, studying the tower. “Is it alive? Can it see us?”

“It is one manifestation of the Dreaming Dark,” Pierce said, allowing Shira to speak through him. “As is the stone we stand on. In some ways, the tower will behave like a living creature. Pierce a wall, and it will bleed. But there is no intelligence behind its actions, and it cannot sense our presence.”

“It’s the Tower of a Thousand Teeth,” Lei said. “That’s where the dragons told us the orb was hidden.”

“So where are the guards?” Daine said. “I don’t like this.”

Once again, Pierce gave voice to Shira’s thoughts. “The guards are all around us, Captain. The quori don’t believe that it is possible for anyone to teleport to this place. We are at the heart of an army, and any intruder would have to fight his way through thousands of nightmare spirits. With luck the lords of this realm will have seen no need for additional security.”

“Let’s not rely on luck,” Daine said, as he examined the tower. “It’s small, so prepare for close quarters. Pierce, ready your flail. Lei, how are you holding up?”

“Close to the edge,” she replied. “Fighting Harmattan took a lot out of me.”

“Jode?”

Jode rubbed a hand across the top of his head. “I’ve got a little more magic in me, I think. Just try not to lose a limb.”

Daine nodded. “Lei, get Pierce patched up as best as you can, then take a look at the path. It’d be a fool’s death to come this far and then step on a blast disk.”

There are no blast disks, or mystical wards of any sort .

“There are no blast disks,” Pierce said.

“I’d like to hear that from Lei,” Daine said.

He doesn’t trust me , Shira thought. Perhaps he is wise. I can feel the darkness growing within me. But I will die before it turns me against you. And I will die soon .

Pierce felt a pang of sorrow, but he knew nothing could be done. He could feel Shira’s thoughts growing weaker every time she communicated. Once her presence had been as strong as his; now her thoughts were faint echoes in the back of his mind.

Stay close to Lei , Shira told him. My strength fades quickly, and should you stray too far from her, the connection will be lost .

Lei finished her work on Pierce and turned her attention to the plateau, taking a few steps in the direction of the tower. “No blast disks, nothing at all,” she said. “It’s clear from here.”

“Then I suggest we get inside,” Jode said. “We may be far from that army below, but some of my nightmares have wings, and I don’t want to be standing here in the open when one of them comes along.”

“Agreed,” said Daine. He drew his sword, and the Watchful Eye engraved on the hilt flashed in the night. “Pierce, at my side. Lei, directly behind, and watch for wards.”

No threats emerged from the darkness as they crossed the plateau; no horrors fell from the sky or rose from the plains below. There was only one problem: opening the dragon’s jaws. Teeth and fleshy walls resisted both Lei’s magic and Daine’s adamantine blade.

This is the dream of the darkness itself , Shira told him. Force will not avail you here. Only willpower can open the gates. Imagination is the key .

Daine looked skeptical when Pierce relayed the message, but Jode understood.

“All the pieces are in place,” he said. “Daine, I don’t understand this power we seem to have, but we are stronger together. Lei’s mother said you’d have to ‘use your gift to the fullest measure.’ I think we can make the jaws open.”

“Just by thinking about it?” Daine said.

“Just by thinking about it.”

“It’s worth a try,” Daine said. He looked at each of them in turn. “This is it, then. I don’t know if we’ll all come out of this alive-”

“I doubt I will,” Jode said. He sighed. “Sorry, I know, not a moment for levity.”

“No, you’re right, Jode,” Daine said. “You’ve already sacrificed your life, and now I’m asking you to risk your soul. But look off the edge of that cliff. I thought the Mourning was the worst disaster I’d ever see. But I’ll be damned to Dolurrh before I let that horde reach Khorvaire.”

He turned to face Pierce. “When I first met you, I knew little about the warforged. I’m ashamed to say I thought of you as an object. A weapon.”

“As did I, Captain.”

“Tonight, just make it Daine. You’ve been a good soldier, Pierce. The best I’ve ever seen. But you’ve been a better friend, and I count myself lucky to have known you.”

“We are equally lucky, Daine,” Pierce said. “And I do not intend to let you die tonight.”

Daine smiled. He looked at Lei and opened his mouth to speak, but she kissed him before he could utter a word.

Watching the two, Pierce felt a twinge of envy. For all that he had a sense of touch, he would never know what this moment felt like for them. Then he thought of Indigo, and the pleasure he’d found in her company … and simple satisfaction when Lei had held his hand. He might never know what love felt like for a human, but he knew what it was for a warforged.

“Don’t tell me goodbye,” Lei said, when they broke apart. “I’m not letting you go.”

Daine looked into her eyes in silence, and finally turned away. “Well, Jode,” he said. He reached down and took the halfling’s hand.

And slowly, very slowly, the jaws of the dragon opened wide.

“With me, Pierce,” Daine said. And together, they walked into the Tower of a Thousand Teeth.