Richard Baker - Final Gate

“At last,” grunted Donnor. Carrying fifty pounds of steel and sixty more of pack down the miles-long stairs had brought the human warrior to the very end of his strength, and he literally swayed with fatigue. “I am sick and tired of these damned steps. Anything would be better than more of this.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Maresa told him. “The stairs might not look so bad once we get to the bottom.”

The staircase began to cut through a serried row of terraces that overlooked the city proper. Araevin found something profoundly out of place. In the terraces stood the bare skeletons of trees, pale and leafless. He turned aside from the continuous descent, though it took a surprising effort of will to do so, and stiffly walked over to the nearest of the dead trees. He brushed his fingers over the desiccated bark.

“Apple trees,” he breathed. “Impossible.”

Jorin joined him, his face set in a thoughtful frown. “How in the world did these get here?”

Araevin glanced at the terraces, stretching for hundreds of yards to each side before vanishing into the dark. “I think they grew here.”

“In this cold and lightless sepulcher? I can’t believe that,” Jorin replied. He shook his head. “They must have been brought down from the surface and planted here. But why go to such trouble to plant so many trees in a place where they would only die?”

“Because this place may not have always been as cold and lightless as it is now. Maybe it was not always like this.”

“Then what happened to it?” Maresa asked.

Araevin shrugged. “I suspect we’ll find out below,” he said. He smoothed his hand over the dry, crumbling bark of the dead tree one more time and turned back to the steps. “Come on, we are almost there. Not many more steps now.”

From the terraces overlooking the city, the great stair finally ended in a small plaza or square where one of the city’s boulevards met the wall. Even with the gray light to lessen the darkness, the place was uncannily still and cold. They staggered out onto the square, stumbling and lurching as legs inured to step after downward step fumbled for the feel of level ground again. Araevin set his hands on his knees and rested for a long time before he decided he was ready to look around.

Jorin was right to call this place a sepulcher, Araevin decided. The place had all the animation and warmth of a thousand-year-old tomb. Empty black windows and doorways yawned on all sides, silent streets and alleyways rambled off into the shadows, and the pale and broken limbs of dead trees jutted up over the stone streets. The stonework was strange to him. Like the pillars marking the steps and the way posts on the road far, far overhead, they were marked with intricate geometric patterns-zigzags and squares, triangles and trapezoids.

“Is this dwarven stonework, Araevin?” Maresa asked.

“None that I recognize, not that I am any expert in such things.”

“Who else would live down here?” the genasi asked. “Who were these people?”

“I don’t know, Maresa. It’s beyond my experience.”

“They were humanlike, at least,” Nesterin observed. “They cut steps to suit the legs of people five or six feet tall. And the windows and arches in the buildings look like they’re proportioned for humans, orcs, or elves.”

“Not the giants, then,” said Donnor. “They would have built the place to suit their own size, not ours.”

“Well, which way from here?” Maresa asked Araevin.

The sun elf surveyed the silent boulevards leading off into the shadows. Arbitrarily, he decided to follow the largest of the boulevards their staircase met. It marched off into the darkness as if the maddening descent above simply continued straight on in a level road.

With a few creaking joints and stifled groans, they set off into the cold ruins of the city. But they had only traveled a block or two when two of the pallid, crouching giants padded into the road ahead. Araevin set his hand on the wand holster at his hip, and his companions rustled softly as they eased weapons from sheaths and spread out, ready for a fight.

“Do we strike first?” Maresa asked.

“No,” Araevin decided. “Let’s see what they do.”

The dark-eyed giants moved closer, eyes fixed on the small party but not a trace of expression on their faces. They wore sarks of small stone discs and carried enormous hammers like the giants Araevin and his companions had fought on the ledge watchpost. For a moment Araevin feared that they were simply going to lumber up and attack, but the creatures halted a good distance short of them and silently beckoned.

“It seems we’re expected,” Maresa observed. “Good. I think I’m too tired to fight anyway.”

The giants turned and led the way, guiding the mage and his companions through the empty streets of the city. They walked for a few hundred yards, following twists and turns of the road. Then the strange creatures brought them out into a square before a large, rambling palace. A whole row of columns carved in the likeness of ancient human warriors fronted the citadel, looking out over the city beyond like a phalanx of stone. And standing beneath the columns, a company of human-seeming guards stood quietly before their stone champions, imitating their impassive watch. Two more of the giants waited there as well, but the whole assemblage stood motionless, speechless, simply watching Araevin and his friends approach.

“I don’t like this at all,” Maresa murmured. The genasi scowled, searching all around for easy avenues of escape.

“Araevin, the guards are not alive,” Donnor Kerth said. The Lathanderite stared at the warriors in their ancient armor, his face set in a determined scowl. “They are undead of some kind, I am sure of it.”

“I can see it,” Araevin answered.

In fact, Araevin could clearly distinguish the necromancy that pulsed in their cold veins in place of living blood. He hesitated, unwilling to approach any closer. He had never held with necromancy, and in fact had avoided the study of the black arts for all the long years at Tower Reilloch. It was an unwholesome thing to make the dead answer one’s bidding. Yet having come so far, they did not have any choice other than to go on.

“I think that someone here wishes to parley, not fight,” he told the Lathanderite. “But remain on your guard nonetheless.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Donnor said with a snort.

They followed the two giants into the square before the palace, and there six of the cold warriors took up the task of escorting them into the palace proper. They climbed up a wide set of shallow steps leading to the palace’s gate, and followed them inside. The interior was resplendent. Columns of beautiful pale marble veined with gold marched through the halls, and richly appointed rooms gleamed in the dim light of low-burning lanterns worked in the shape of flowering vines.

They came to another great hall, and found a pale queen waiting for them on a small dais.

She was white-skinned, with a complexion that reminded Araevin of snow on some distant mountaintop. Even Maresa was not so perfectly colorless, since the genasi possessed the faintest tinge of blue-white, like a high cloud in a springtime sky. The queen’s flesh, on the other hand, had a strange cold luster like polished marble. Her hair was long, black, and straight, bound by a simple fillet of silver on her brow. She wore a flowing gown of white that was gathered at the torso in an ornate silvered brocade, and a long, slender rod of black platinum lay across her lap.

“Welcome to Lorosfyr, Araevin Teshurr,” she said. Her voice was soft and rich, with a purring accent that Araevin had never heard anywhere else. “I am Selydra, whom some call the Pale Sybil. May I offer you refreshment? The Long Stair is a difficult path.”