When he reached the end of the visible stone path, more sprang up before him. The grass crawled away, and these flat, clean stones beckoned him to follow their winding path. The stones wound like a serpent between the derelict guard-houses while long-unlit torches snapped into vibrant life. They lived only as long as he was near them, for if Berdini turned to look toward his horse, he'd find the light lacking and the torches snuffed. All that lingered was the stink of their smoke.
The path wound suspiciously close to the edge of the Golben pit, but never near enough to threaten a fall.
Fireflies flared their beacons in the night, their silent pulses of green and sometimes orange light forming wild, criss-cross patterns that littered the sky. Though the pit itself yawned below, black and limitless, there was no glimpse of its bottom: only this legion of a thousand fireflies seeking out their mates in this place of desolation.
Among those innocent insects, there danced little sparks of pale blue, devoted to an altogether different path and pattern. They kept their light ashine and whipped through the air in great arcs and circles until, right before Berdini, they splashed against the darkness and their embers scattered into the vague, faceless figures of men. Before Stefan Berdini's eyes, a transparent theatre of light and shadow came to life.
The counterfeits brought with them smells, too: of aromatic wax burnt on candles long-lived into the night; of boiled leaves and dried blossoms consumed by men and women with too much money from cups too tiny for their great hands. And of lust and sweat and sex.
The figures spoke agreeably. And conspiratorially.
I find myself in need of an intelligent, imaginative, truly open-minded soul, and I think you fit that description utterly.
One should be careful about having confidants, my Governor.
Oh, Stefan...there is no one else I think I would rather speak about this than you.
There were vague, murmuring gaps in the conversation, but the two glowing silhouettes continued to speak.
One cannot govern Myrken without control, over them, over myself, over eventualities far and wide and horrific. So, I have...excesses and urges, and I control them.
And what sort of excesses do you intend to cater to, Good Governor?
In a gust of wind, the bright figures blew away like luminescent vapors. The stones continued to forge their path until they came abruptly to the edge of the vast pit.
A wooden scaffold, still present from the Golben pit's grand construction, was there, and its ladders, platforms, and stairs descended down into the darkness. Pinned on one of the handrails was a lone paper snapping and crackling in the wind. At first it bore no message, until torchlight bled into the parchment and revealed an ink that had not been there moments before:
To meet one's Creator is to come face-to-face with a god.