Unkarra Gate (1st draft)

Chapter 12.1

It took them only a short while to cross the high alpine meadow to reach the ruins. As they came closer, they could see more details. It was made of black material, as though it were a black stone. It looked smoothed, like a polished rock. But it also look worn, having faced countless years of the elements. The plants and shrubs gathered at its base, but nothing touched the smoothed sides.

The tower was broken not far from the base, judging by how tall it might have once been. Sections of it lay strewn some distance away, once the time was taken to carefully survey the landscape. The mountainside had slowly absorbed much of these pieces; it was clear they had laid there for an immense amount of time.

There was an opening to the inside of the tower ruins, through which the children could not resist climbing into. Bogrel's attention was split between studying the craftsmanship of the tower and watching behind. Ezrik had already left the tower, climbing up a near rise, and Ezara had joined him. Dara too studied the tower, squinting as she looked up, but also forced to pay most of her attention to young Marik, who demanded she lift him into the tower to join the other children. They all ran about inside, trampling the bushes that struggled to grow inside.

"Bo!" called Ezara from the nearby top of a ridge. "Bo!" she called again.

Bogrel walked into view and waved, and she waved him over in response.

They both turned and looked eastward again, over the ridge, down into the distance. Once he himself gained the apex, he could see what the siblings were mesmerized by, and his own jaw dropped just the same. There on the other side of the mountain was a sight unlike any other in his long life.

First, they could now see how close they had come to the chasm, the great bottomless canyone that split the world at the eastern edge of Geberra. It carried around both sides of the mountain, around a piece of land in front of them, creating a hidden vale below them, cut off from any other land, just the chasm on either side. But at the tip stood a structure of impossible proportions.

It was a massive tower, attached to a bridge or passage that stretched out and up, over the chasm and to the other side. The other side of the chasm was raised from the edge of Geberra quite a bit, and no one had ever looked upon the land beyond. This massive thing was made of the same black stone-like material as the tower, seemingly. The towers at the base stood much taller than the tallest trees about them, and had squared sides. There was a pair, each scarcely separated by any amount, but still rose high from the ground as twins.

The expanse of the chasm was not easily spanned, and the piece of the structure that did so was even more impressive than the huge towers. It stretched across the distance without any support below it. On the far side, another twin towers stood in the distance to mark the end of the passage.

"What is that?" asked Bogrel aloud in astonishment.

They were left with only a dumbounded look in reply, as they had been expecting to ask that of Bogrel. They all stood in silence until they heard Dara calling from down below; the wind carried away the words.

"Are we going to go to it?" Ezrik asked.

"We're not going to go backwards," Bogrel said, tearing himself away to go to Dara, to help fuss with the smaller kids. Next it was Sara and Damar who came to see what Ezara and Ezrik were looking at. And then came Michelle, Reyelle and Garik. Last to arrive was Marik, being carried by Dara, and Bogrel again, leading the aurochs and wain up the incline.

"What are you all looking at?" asked Dara, finally given a moment's reprieve from Marik's needs.

"Um, it's a big thing," said Ezara, often used to helping her friend with descriptions, but caught with a loss for words.

"That's the chasm in front of us," filled in Bogrel. "But what we're all staring at is a massive bridge or something, stretching across the chasm, with two huge towers at either side."

"Oh..." said Dara softly, squinting to make out any of what had just been described to her. "Is it the black thing?" she asked after a minute.

"Yeah, it's black," said Ezara. "Just like this tower here, isn't it. They must have been made by the same people." But even as she said it, nothing about the statement made sense. Who could ever build such a structure? Who was ever at the reaches of Geberra so long ago?

Such questions ran through everyone's minds, except for Garik, tailed by Reyelle, who came over to Dara.

"Dara, I'm hungry," he complained. Reyelle echoed the words, and then so too did his little brother Marik, who still clung to her legs after having been carried up to the spot where they all stood.

Dara sighed and looked to Bogrel. "Can we stop to feed them?" she asked.

Bogrel looked behind them, down the alpine to where he had faced down the soldiers. He could not see all that way, but from the vantage point he could see very far. "I suppose now or later makes no difference," he said.

Dara organized the kids to sit, and she doled out leftover porridge from the morning and some dried meat. They were running low on their food, but still their supply of porridge held up.

Bogrel took some of the meat and walked about with it, taking inventory of his liquor as he did every time they ate. He had been far more disciplined imbibing it since leaving the farm, but still couldn't stay away from it most times of the day, taking at least a mouthful. As he did so now he caught a disapproving glare from Dara.

When they were ready to move on, Bogrel stayed until the last. He looked back down the alpine to where they had left pursuit behind, convinced himself there was no pursuit any longer, and began the descent down the other side of the mountain, leaving the view of Geberra behind.