Ragnarok

Chapter 69 - Door of Light

Though the chanting continued to increase in volume behind her, there were no obvious changes to the Gate of the Gods itself. There was no great window of light that opened in front of her, or tremors in the ground, though Mia did feel a certain charge to the air itself. If the ceremony was doing anything, it was more subtle than sight or sound. A drum beat had started, and she swayed a little bit with the rhythm.

She held the silver case with the keystone in both hands, and though it may have been just her imagination, she thought that she could feel a gentle pulsing coming from within the case. It synchronized with the drumbeat, so that she felt every pulse of sound first with her ears, then with her palms. She closed her eyes, trusting Joseph to let her know if anyone signaled her to step forward, concentrating on what she was feeling rather than what she could see.

Once her eyes were closed, she felt as though other eyes opened in her mind. She was still facing towards the Gate, and in her mind's eye, she felt like she could see a diffuse glow forming in the shadows of the alcove. It pulsed in time to the drumbeats, and as it slowly grew in intensity, it spread outwards. Through cracks and fissures in the rock it spread outwards to the deeply-set lines of the Gate's edge, until the entire structure was outlined in glowing mist.

Even as the edges of the giant doorway were beginning to shine in Mia's internal vision, the glow in the doorway itself was starting to spin in a counterclockwise direction, dragging the mist ever inwards towards a growing center point. The glow there grew ever stronger, until the center seemed to be a sphere of light at the center of a great spiral of mist. It was quite beautiful, like watching a galaxy being born in miniature, and as the music and chanting swelled to a crescendo, the light grew so brilliant that her reflex was to close her eyes, though of course they were closed already. So instead, she opened them.

Through her actual eyes, she saw a beautiful sunlit day, but no brilliant sphere of light in the alcove or glowing outline to the door. Although ... when she looked directly into the alcove, she could still feel a kind of pressure on her inner eye, like she had turned her closed eyelids towards the sun.

As she was pondering this, the chanting and drumming came to a halt. She glanced over at Ibis, who nodded to her. Mia took a deep breath, adjusted her glasses, and stepped towards the massive Gate and the smaller depression at its base. The bottom edge was raised several inches from the surrounding dirt, and she stepped up into the shadowed doorway, the top of her head nearly brushing the roof of the little depression. The alcove was less than a foot deep into the rock, and at the rough center of the far wall was a hand-sized circular depression for the disk. As she looked down at that circle, she felt certain that this was the point where the mist had come together into that miniature sun. There was no question what she should do next.

With no small degree of reverence, Mia slowly opened the silver case, and pulled out a golden disc that was perfectly shaped for the depression in the center. As she held it in her hand, she could feel it pulsing, like it had its own heartbeat. She was willing to bet that, though the drumming had stopped a few minutes before, it was still pulsing in time to that same beat. The tension in the air was palpable, and she could feel the eyes of everyone assembled on her as she held up the disc in both hands. She breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself for whatever was about to happen.

"Here goes nothing," Mia whispered, and leaned forward to press the golden disc into the depression in the rock.

For a long moment, nothing happened... long enough for Mia to wonder if she had done something wrong, or if this whole thing had been some bizarre, elaborate prank for a naive Moonie girl. Then she heard the assembled crowd gasp as an unearthly blue light began to fill the alcove, seeming to come from the rock itself. Her instincts told her to flee, but she would do no such thing. Now that it was starting to work, she would be damned if it was going to stop working just because she got cold feet and panicked.

The blue light was growing stronger, and the pulsing was definitely back. Though most of the crowd was silent, the drummers began to pick the rhythm up again. Soon the light itself began to pulse in time with the drumbeat, casting strange flickering shadows on the mountain scree behind them.

Then, the wall that was in front of her ... suddenly wasn't there. The disc was still held in both of her hands, but she no longer felt the resistance of the rock on the other side. Instead she was now standing at the entrance to a tunnel of blue light, stretching deep into the stone of the Gate. She could not see the far end of the tunnel, and she had a definite feeling that whatever was on the other side was not the same world as the one behind her.

She cast a look over her shoulder. Behind her, the crowd was staring with reverence at the glowing Gate. A few of them were quietly chanting prayers of guidance and good fortune. Ibis caught her eye, then bowed at the waist, an elaborate but well appreciated sign of thanks. With a smile, Mia turned back towards the tunnel, and started forward into the light.