Immortalys

Chapter Five: The Deceptive Gate

Willow examined the door curiously. She already preferred this to the strange mind-bending test they had just gone through, but it did seem deceptively simple. The gate looked at least a century old, its door crusted shut and its handle bent a little out of place, as if from frequent use. Brittle patches of rust sprinkled all the way up its face like a dark archipelago.

Is this really the best they could do? Willow couldn't help thinking, I thought this society was the most advanced race that ever walked this planet... Then, instantly she knew it must be a scheme. How could that magnetic barrier, placed and used so purposefully, say otherwise? Willow's mind was now refreshingly clear: she could reason again, and she knew this door was a deception.

She nodded to Friction. "...Should we try going in?"

"Well... I'm not going back through that magnetic field thing in any case." Friction cautiously put his hand on the door latch, and looked amazed that he was actually touching something solid. He pushed down slowly with his thumb. "...It's unlocked."

Willow swallowed. "...open it." Her hand tightened on a foot-long wrench in her tool belt. This was it: the gate to the hidden city.

With a drawn-out, squealing creak, the door swung open at Friction's pull. It was pitch black inside, but Willow and Friction's ears were instantly met with the ominous sound of continuous clicking and churning of machinery.

They looked at each other wordlessly, and Willow pulled out a flashlight. They slowly stepped inside, knowing this was the only way into the secret city of Immortalys.

Just by the openness of the air and the echoes, Willow could tell that the space inside was large, or at least deep. But most of it was filled with machinery: the clicking and groaning filled their ears, sounding nearby and all around, as if it were closing them in.

Willow turned on the flashlight, and the white beam glared off of hundreds of gigantic cogs and wheels, turning, creaking, squealing. Some were large and heavy and slow, and others were smaller and silver, sparkling in the gleam of the flashlight. Stacked on each other, some vertical and some horizontal, they filled the room, towering to the ceiling and disappearing into the shadows, holding black caverns between them as they all churned like one huge ambiguous clock.

Friction and Willow again shared a glance.

"Um," Friction began loudly in order to be heard over all the din, "there's no forward pathway."

Willow pointed the flashlight beam all around them, but Friction was right: there was no clear walkway between the machinery. Yet, ahead, deep through all the crevices and canyons of the cogs, Willow could make out a green light illuminating a doorway. It looked so far away, storeys beneath them, deep within the gate, but it was so clear, so tantalizing. With a shiver, she realized all at once this was not built like this by accident. They would have to climb through all the cogs and wheels to enter, to prove their worth. This entrance was about survival, and they were being anticipated, whether knowingly or not, at the other side.

"Friction..." she said, looking at him in concern, her eyes narrowed, "...I think we have to climb through."

Friction peered around into the darkness, searching in vain for an easier route; but there was none. "...Okay," he finally said, swallowing nervously. He found a flashlight of his own and clicked it on. "Let's go."

Her heart rate beginning to increase, Willow tackled her first obstacle. She stepped upon a gigantic horizontal ratchet that was inching clockwise, and grasped the rod in the center. She ducked to avoid a bar at shoulder height, and stepped nimbly over a second cog that rested above the first. Willow didn't dare look back over her shoulder, but she called, "Come on, Friction!"