T Lain - City of Fire

Pressed deep into the stone of the arch, each emblem looked identical to every other. Naull confirmed from the notes that the right thing to do was place the key into one of these emblems. That would open the arch and let them into the city… but which one should they choose? Krusk had no more information from Captain Tahrain. He stood before the gate, sweating and staring at the flames.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Naull,” Regdar complained. “Could we at least move away from this thing while you figure it out?” He’d stripped off his helmet and poured water down into his armor. Alhandra did the same, but they didn’t dare use any more of the precious liquid that way. “Should we go back to the stairs?”

The wizard sat before the fiery gate, laying some of the papers out before her. She found a diagram of the arch and it had small symbols on it she guessed were the key sigils. Naull shook her head once, sweat from her head spattering the ground.

“No… no,” she said, “there has to be a clue.”

“Well, what do you know so far?” Alhandra asked.

She stood by the right side of the arch, running her hand over the stone. Her face glistened in the light. Naull resisted the urge to scream at her.

It’s the heat, she thought. Regdar’s right—we should move away from the arch, but didn’t the paladin ever…?

“Wait…” Naull said. “I think I’ve got it.”

She jumped up, clutching one of the pages in both hands. Moving quickly to Alhandra’s side, she pointed to the sigil there.

“Look! Here, the tail of the flame goes up and to the right.”

She jogged over to the other side of the arch, the others following tiredly, and Naull indicated the emblem there.

“Here,” she said, “it points to the left. On the other side—” she moved around the arch—“it’s reversed, and upside down. It’s the same sigil but it’s oriented differently, relative to where you are near the arch.”

Shaking his head, Regdar asked, “What does that mean?”

“Don’t you see? The key can be placed in any of the emblems, but it has a different function depending on which you use.”

“All right, I guess that makes sense,” the fighter mused, rubbing his goatee thoughtfully, “but why four emblems? What does each one do?”

Naull grinned as she suddenly realized the answer.

“That’s what hung me up for so long,” she said. “Two sigils would make sense—one to open the gate and one to close it—but four? That’s what had me puzzled.”

She started chuckling, shaking her head. When she looked up, even the paladin stared at her with a twinge of impatience.

“Oh, sorry,” Naull laughed again. “Look up at the sky; what do you see?”

They all looked up and Krusk, surprisingly, was the first to answer, “Fire.”

Alhandra and Regdar gaped, but Naull nodded sagely and said, “Right. Fire. That isn’t a red sky up there—that’s actual flame.”

It took a moment for the import of that statement to sink in.

“No wonder it’s so hot,” Regdar added lamely.

“It was Krusk who made me think of it, actually,” Naull said. Stooping, she picked up a handful of sand—or tried to; she dropped it almost immediately. “It’s really hot. But now feel the air.” She breathed in, deeply. The others followed suit. “I know it’s hard to tell, but the air isn’t hot. It’s certainly warm, but most of that’s emanation from the sand. I bet the air’s no hotter than it was back in Durandell.”

The others agreed, but they still didn’t understand.

Naull continued, “Before we opened the door back there, this area was part of the Elemental Plane of Fire. In fact, I’m betting it still is—but it’s been changed, magically, to someplace we can inhabit. That’s why there are four symbols on the arch.”

“All right,” Regdar said, following Naull to the left side of the arch. “I understand. So a few hours ago, this area was completely covered in flame.”

“I guess.”

“And it’ll be covered in flame again?” Alhandra ventured.

Naull shrugged and said, “I guess so—probably when somebody closes that door.”

They all looked nervously back at the hole in the sand.

“So how do we open this gate?” asked Regdar.

“Krusk, will you loan me the key for a second?” Naull asked.

She stepped up to the left side of the arch and the half-orc handed her the golden disk. It flashed with its own light when she held it up to the archway, but didn’t touch the emblem.

“See, I figure that two of these symbols are for us—people from our world—to use. The other two are for denizens of the Elemental Plane of Fire to use. Secrustia Nar doesn’t lie on our plane, or the Plane of Fire, but between, remember? You’d need a key to get in or out, from either place.”

“So all you have to do is try each of the symbols, and the gate will open,” Alhandra said.

“Well… yes,” Naull allowed.

Regdar caught the uncertainty in her voice and asked, “What’s the catch?”

The wizard sighed, “The catch is, if we put the key in the wrong symbol and it thinks we’re coming from the Elemental Plane of Fire, I think the magic will… adjust to make us more comfortable.”

It took a moment, but even Krusk got the idea.

“Krispy Krusk,” he said.

The joke was so unexpected, Regdar barked with laughter and slapped the barbarian on the back. “Well, we can’t have that. So which is the right one, Naull?”

She looked up at the symbol before them and said, “It’s really the right pair we have to worry about, Regdar. If we put the key in the wrong keyhole, so to speak, as long as it’s one of the right pair, we’re all right. It’d be like trying to lock a door that’s already locked—no harm done.”

“So we have a fifty-fifty chance,” Alhandra observed helpfully.

“Somewhat better than that, I hope,” Naull answered. “No, I’m pretty sure we want to use the symbols with the tail going up and away. Think back to the symbol on the floor and the others we’ve seen. Even all the inscriptions on these papers always present the image of the key in pretty much the same way. The ball is at the bottom, the tail at the top. The sigils on the other side of the archway are the first time we’ve seen them upside-down.”

The party began to breathe a little easier. It made sense.

“And, as far as which is the right one to open the door,” she said, standing on her toes and placing the key just above the symbol but not pressing it home, “Draconic is a very left-first sort of language. It reads left-to-right, important words are arranged in the beginning of sentences, and so on. I think this—” she looked at the others, who nodded—“is the correct one to choose.”

She pressed the symbol home and flames belched from either side of the archway as a deep rumbling shook the sand under their feet. The party scrambled away from the archway moments before fire erupted outward. The shaking of the ground threw them off their feet and Naull scrambled to a sitting position.

“Of course, I could be wrong…” she shouted over the tumult.

Down in the circular room the gnolls heard the rumbling and felt the ground shake. A few yelped in panic and ran for the stairs.

“Stay!” Grawltak snarled.

He tore his bow off his back and strung it in an instant. Kark followed his lead. The younger gnolls saw their leader’s eyes flash in the dark and they stepped back down, away from the stairs. He growled at them and they whimpered, baring their necks.

“Something’s happening,” Kark supplied unhelpfully. Grawltak barked in annoyance.

“Go—find out what,” he said. “Take these cowards with you. I must summon my mistress.”