Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Fire

Freelorn turned to Herewiss, almost in triumph. 'There.
You want to live in a place where things like that happen?' 'Lorn, we're not even there yet.' 'I know. I know.'
They sat on their horses in a tight little group before the place, and stared at it.
It was built all of shining gray stone that looked like granite, sparkling with deeply buried highlights. The outer wall, perfectly square and at least forty feet high, completely surrounded the inner buildings, an assortment of keeps and towers, some leaning at crazy angles as if half-toppled by an earthquake. Some were seemingly unfinished, having great gaps in them. Some were shorn off oddly at the top, as if the stone had been sliced by giant knives. Nowhere were seams or jointures apparent at all; the place seemed to have been carved from single blocks of stone. And though there were windows in the inner buildings, there was no opening in the outer wall anywhere. It towered up before them, slick and unscalable as glass.
'Well,' Freelorn said with scarcely disguised satisfaction, 'now what?'
Herewiss made an irritated face, but Sunspark laughed privately, unconcerned. (I think,) the elemental said, (it is time to disabuse them of the idea that I am a horse.)
(What? You're going to jump it?)
(No, nothing like that. Just inside the wall I can sense a courtyard. I will take part of the wall away.)
(Can you do that?)
(It'd be silly to suggest it if I couldn't,) Sunspark said, amused. (Get off and take everyone back a good ways, a quarter of a mile or so. I'm going to have to exert myself a little, but the stretch will do me good.)
Herewiss dismounted. 'Lorn,' he said, 'let me up behind you, will you? We're going to have to back off a little.'
'Uh, look,' Freelorn said, sounding a little alarmed, 'I don't want you to strain yourself—'
'Let's go.'
Herewiss put his foot in Blackmane's stirrup and swung up behind Freelorn. He was aware of Segnbora regarding him with a small and secret smile; he winked at her. 'Back the way we came,' he said to Freelorn, 'a quarter mile or so.'
'But your horse—!'
'Sunspark is going to take part of the wall away,' Herewiss said. 'We'd better back off.'
'Sunspark is—'
With Freelorn in the lead, shaking his head, the group rode back into the desert. After a while Herewiss stopped them.
'Far enough,' he said. 'Now then.' (Are you ready, Spark?)
(Yes.)
(Will it be all right for us to look?)
(Mmm– yes, I'll damp the light a little. You'll probably feel the heat, though.)
'It's going to be hot,' Herewiss said, 'and bright. Be warned.' (Go ahead,) he told Sunspark.
For a few seconds there was nothing, only the sight of the high towers peering over the wall, and the small red-brown horse-shape standing before the stone. Then Sunspark reared.

little red horse-shape, standing before a huge gap in the wall.
Freelorn turned to look over his shoulder at Herewiss. 'You were riding that?'
Herewiss smiled at him. 'Let's go see what the inside of the place looks like.' They rode back to the wall, and dismounted, looking at it in wonder. About a hundred feet of the wall's four-hundred– foot length was gone. The edges of the sudden opening were perfectly smooth, though slightly duller than the slick polished stone of the wall's outer surfaces; the seared stone was crackling as it cooled.
Sunsparks walked over to Herewiss, its eyes glittering with pleasure. (That was fun.)
(The stone, Spark, where did it go?)
(I consumed it. Anything'll burn if you heat it enough. It made a nice meal.)
(But stone—?)
Sunspark smiled at Herewiss in its mind. (I have to eat sometimes.)
'Lorn?' Herewiss said.
'Yeah, what?' Freelorn was gazing in through the opening at the courtyard. It was paved in the same shining gray stone, and at the other side of it was a low, oblong structure like a great hall.
'Let's have a look.'
'You first,' Freelorn said.
'All right, me first—'
Herewiss walked cautiously through the opening. Immediately it was much quieter; the sound of the wind seemed muted and far away. There was no dust on the pavement at all, and like the walls it stretched without a seam or crack from one side of the courtyard to the other. Sunspark's hooves clattered loudly on it as it followed him in.
Freelorn and his people came close behind Herewiss. No-one spoke. Though the place was quieter than the surrounding desert, that was not what was oppressing them. The sheer stone walls and the crazily tilted towers rising above the central hall seemed to be ignoring them somehow – as if nothing human beings could do there would ever make a difference, as if the suddenly breached wall were a matter of no consequence at all. The place had an aura
about it as of impassiveness and unconcern – as if it were alive itself, in some way, and did not recognize them as living things.

'This paving,' Lang said softly,
'Yes it is,' Harald said, almost is—'
'it isn't level.'
whispering. 'You can see that it

'It doesn't feel that way.'
'No, it doesn't,' Herewiss said, very loudly. 'And why are we whispering?'
A ripple of nervous laughter went through the group.
'There's something about this place,' Segnbora said. 'Some of these towers, the – the perspective of them seems wrong somehow. They're off. That one over the big square building, it should look closer than the other one behind it, tilting off to the left – but it doesn't.'
'Let's see what the inside is like.' Herewiss headed toward the opening in the building before them, wide and dark.
They left the horses hobbled in the courtyard and followed him in. It wasn't as dark inside as they had expected. They stood at one side of a great square room, with a huge opening in the stone of the ceiling, like a skylight; it was positioned directly over what appeared to be a firepit raised some feet above the floor on a platform. Around the walls of the hall were doors opening on to vaguely lit passageways. Through one of these they could
see a flight of stairs leading upward. The stairs were uneven, one broad one being staggered with two steep narrow ones as far up as they could see.
'Well,' Herewiss said, 'if this is the dining hall, I wonder what the bedrooms are like? Let's look.'
The group went slowly across the hall, clustered together. 'I keep expecting something to jump out of one of those doors,' Freelorn said, as they started up the stairs.
'Well, I doubt it would be one of the original inhabitants,' Herewiss answered. 'The lack of furniture makes me think they moved out permanently – unless they have very severe tastes in decor.'
At the top of the stairs they paused for a moment. There was nothing to be seen but a long, long corridor full of open doorways into dark empty rooms. One door, the fourth or fifth one down on the left, must have opened to a room with a window; sunlight poured out through it and on to the opposite wall.
'We could look at the view,' Herewiss said, and started down the hall. He looked into the first door he passed—