The wall tilted away from him, its peak lost high above in the clouds. It was truly immense, both in height and girth - the walls built from massive blocks of smoothly cut stone...their marbled surfaces polished to perfection and immensely hard. The joints between each block were almost perfect, with no outward sign of any window or door in the entire wall. Wing was now weak beyond measure, hardly able to stand on his feet, growing closer now to the point of despair. Had he really come so far to be now denied what he took to be his right? The entrance inside this hallowed place and the subsequent glory this would surely bring?
Wing focussed his eyes on the cylinder to his left, the closer of the two visible, which wound like a great worm over the lip of the hollow which lay behind him. There was something visible to him, appearing to join the tube at its end - leading up across the wall at a shallow angle. A thin line that was ill-defined. No more than a narrow ledge perhaps, as seen from the side. Another similar ridge led upwards from the cylinder to his right, rising up to double back on itself and subsequently disappear near the top.
There was no other choice; this had to be an entrance.
Chapter 8 - Climb to the Summit
He had lost all track of time, not knowing how far or how long he had walked - finding the dry air uncomfortable upon his straining lungs. The pain in his leg burned like fire, sapping him of all remaining strength.
The cylinder now lay nearby - massive, glinting with the sparks from above. The ledge ran down the huge building to meet up with the tube at ground level, a stepped boundary wall constructed at its lip. Wing dragged himself slowly up the steps to look over the edge and saw a tumult of froth and splashing foam as the rushing rainwater from beyond the barrier raced down the inside of the cylinder - thundering at speed into the large open holding chamber at the base of the rising shelf.
Wing smiled to himself, his pain momentarily forgotten; he pictured the reaction of the people in his village as he told them of the wonders he was now beholding. Tired and yet excited, he began to climb up the wall by the outer steps... oblivious to the fact that the churning waters appeared to be climbing up from the holding chamber and along the sloping viaduct channel - seemingly defying the usual forces of gravity itself.
The youth climbed higher and higher and soon found the pain in his torn body returning as he grew more tired. He now realised that he was nearing the point of despair - the far summit seemingly not growing any nearer as he climbed. He took each painful step carefully - soon losing count as he forced himself forward, upward - ignoring the reeling, whirling sensation in his head, while also fighting the impulse to leap off and jump into space as he progressed higher. The air appeared to grow thinner for some reason as he neared the peak - his breathing was shallow, laboured and heavy, difficult to cope with. Many times he stumbled, either toward the raging torrents of water or the open space on his other side. Wing glanced down with exhaustion in his eyes, his body growing weaker with every step. A trail of blood had been left upon the stones as he climbed. He wrapped his wound more tightly, his leg now deadened so much that he could feel little of the pain within his wound or anything else. Wing forced himself onward.
The roar of the raging torrent beside him grew, appearing to swell. The brilliant flashes of light from above cast down harsh shadows onto the plains far below; creating beautiful rings of coloured light which winked and danced through the suspended water droplets in the air around him. As Wing neared the summit he found his waking mind firing questions at his subconscious self. Seeds of doubt grew within him and he began to be convinced that his quest was doomed to failure and that he would expire - almost certainly to be vaporized in the electrical maelstrom which existed above him. However, such was his pain and exhaustion, he found that he had now passed the point of really caring. He moaned softly; beginning to falter; secretly wishing that he had stayed at home in his village and chosen an easier way of proving himself.
Before too much longer he had reached the final lift.
Each step now became almost impossible - one flight, two, three. He has to force himself to lift each foot away from the stone, his muscles as stiff as rock, his bad leg now as heavy as solidified lava. Wing staggered as his head swirled, weak with pain and sickness - his stomach retching as it now began to twist in convulsive spasms. He began to hallucinate, seeing a vast pit ahead - as dark as the deepest cavern and yet with walls veiled with rainbow colours which ran like glimmering threads through the blackness. He saw a giant thunder cloud above the forest roof, flinging down lightning bolts onto the vast expanses of sand below. A huge desert bordered the forest and he saw it all from above - flying, dipping, diving across its expanse - looking down at the thin slivers of silver and blue which cut across the vast yellow wastes. His foot suddenly slipped off the wall to his right, jarring him suddenly back to full consciousness and reality.
Wing halted to get his breath, finding himself now near the summit.
Chapter 9 - Khnom Lach Faa
Wing looked in wonder as the uprising waters disappeared inside the wall of the structure through a diminutive channel - the pathway continuing up to the flattened top of the construction.
He heard a deep throated roar as he dragged himself up onto the rim. Its wide square form was outlined by an open paved area, decorated with large coloured tiles - depicting pictures of animals, people and places which Wing had never before seen. In the centre of the huge patio was a small opening surrounded by a tiled wall. By the roaring sound which issued from it, Wing assumed this to be the way down into the building and the churning waters below.
Pausing, the youth reached down into the channel beside him and scooped up a handful of cooling water to wipe down his head and eyes. He needed to rest and he walked slowly around the edge of the structure, drinking in the view and surveying the landscape below him.
It was as though he looked out through a transparent gourd which had been fully immersed in a torrent of glistening rain, the water running down from the cloud covered top to its base. Wing shook his head, blinking hard at the sight before him. The giant cylinders emerging from the forest, finally reaching their destination after twisting across the landscape for hundreds of miles. The immense bulk of the structure which stood so impressively before him. But what was it for? Why was it there? Wing understood nothing of the workings of this Gate; had been told nothing by his peers that would explain anything he had so far seen, but yet was now convinced that it had a definite purpose - more fantastic than anything which he could hope to have imagined. It certainly did not exist purely as an object of veneration and legend for his people. In this, his elders had definitely been wrong. Those who had constructed khnom lach faa had purposes of their own which did not include his tribe into its scheme of things. Wing could not grasp why this was, but he felt the impression rise strongly within him. He looked down below to the far corners of the building - each fitted with a huge cylinder, bringing rainwater to this place from all four directions - a network of finer pipes unseen by the youth, feeding into the larger ones from under the roots of the far-flung mountains to the north.
If his strength did not give out beforehand, he was determined to seek out the answer.
There was a sudden loud crack from behind him - he turned to see a brilliant flame leaping out from the central core of the Gate to lick across the interior of the barrier directly above him.
The control matrix drew strength from the discharge as it had always done, and was again reassured that it had conducted itself well - as it had been doing through the aeons before. The semi-sentient field acknowledged the compliment and settled down again to its calculations - still rather puzzled and trying to establish how its lower screen had been penetrated again by yet another primitive life-form.
Wing was unaware of this happening and held his hand above his eyes as he stumbled slowly toward the centre of the Gate. The orange glow shone upward, casting long shadows behind him which shimmered a
nd shook, until eventually the discharge spark died away. Intrigued, Wing felt safe enough to approach.
His tired body trembled with anticipation and the surge of excitement and consequent rising of adrenaline caused his pain to subdue in intensity. He moved toward the gap. The crashing of the waters on the other side of the wall reverberated within his chest causing his legs to quiver. For an instant he felt as if he wanted to turn back, his fur pulsating with crackling static, short tail hanging tattered and torn behind him. But somehow he reached within himself and pulled forth a determined burst of courage which swamped any rising doubt he might have felt. Taking a deep breath, Wing climbed the final step up onto the topmost edge of the tiled wall and leaned over - peering down into the depths of khnom lach faa.
The probe felt the creature's presence immediately. Compensating for any variables caused by the excessive static charges held within its cells, the probe decided to cut power to the singularity vortices to only 0.05 percent of their normal operational levels. It hoped therefore to lessen the shock of Wing's entry across the plane of the vent.
Wing stared down into what seemed like a pale shimmering pool of still water, which wavered gently a little distance below him. The image was not as he expected, for the sound of rapidly churning water was everywhere around him. The image suddenly appeared to blur and turn back on itself, causing his sharp eyes to try and refocus on what he was seeing. The sound of racing water filled his head until he felt that it would almost burst.
The probe felt the water pressure across the absorption plane falter slightly, the life-form's very presence affecting the way the singularity was operating. The probe had to compensate. Its action would, of course, be unfortunate for the life-form; however the probe had little choice for it could not risk a reverse slippage of the singularity while its vortices’ tolerances were so low. Without another thought it increased the singularity power back to its nominal value.
Wing felt his upper body suddenly dragged forward and looked directly down into the singularity vent, not having a clue what it really was. For a brief millisecond he saw his own image reflected back, surrounded by a hundred or more others of his own kind - their eyes filled with terror, fright and confusion. Then it was gone, reversed, the vent shooting away from him at a vast speed until he stood looking directly up within a slender column which pierced the very centre of his world. Wing screamed out aloud, the image of the youth recorded for all time with the others at the point of the event horizon - the anti-matter vortices dealing with him simply and quickly, spitting him out harmlessly at its opposing end. The vent closed and the vortices slowly returned to normal.
The image of Wing and his tribes-people screamed on.
Chapter 10 - Afterword
The hooded figures looked kindly upon the distorted and misshapen body of the your alien as a drone picked him up from the desert at the edge of the river, carrying him away to be laid in honour with the remains of those others of his kind upon the peak of Dom'chkk, ready for the reclamation. The Glo'thaar conducted the ceremony without complaint for it had been their own ancestors who had constructed the artificial gravity singularity set within the forests of the Wetworld, and therefore they alone could be blamed for the subsequent alien deaths. A trifling mistake perhaps, but it had been an unfortunate one. A pity they had not remembered that uninhabited worlds may not remain so indefinitely. Perhaps, as a gesture, they should now return to that place and tutor the creatures they found there?
The race entered the thought into the record for later consideration.
Amongst a range of distant mountain peaks the receptor chamber stood - a monument perhaps to those dead who had sought their own truths. The structure shone like fire beneath the garish red glare of the planet's supergiant sun - a truncated pyramid holding an artificially constructed event horizon - just like its twin on the Wetworld, more than sixty-thousand light years away, across the other side of the galaxy. The array of distributor pipes ran in all directions down the mountainside, splitting up to pass the life-giving waters of the planet of perpetual rain out to all four corners of this previously dying world as they crashed out from the event horizon.
Rejuvenating - refreshing - bringing forth life.
This then was the secret of the Gate of Paradise.
Dying world, Wetworld, New World...
Perhaps now Wing could finally understand the secret of his quest.
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