The Pearl Fox

The Eagle Stairs

Zara showed him the way. She had a key to the door that led to the topmost tower of the small room of the pinnacle. There were no windows but a door leading to the outside parapet, and they got access into the tall spire made of green bricks. Inside there, a narrow spiralling staircase went up to a space, no bigger than the inside of a cupboard. There was a hatch bolted up that was easily opened. Zara enthusiastically climbed up through the hatch and out into cold draughty sky. The wind blew her yellow wheat coloured hair and her blue gown flapped around her legs. She wore soft slippers and had removed her jewels before embarking on this walk. She walked on the glassy parapet and found the shining stairs, leading up into the bright sky. Clouds sailed by like ships. Topaz soon climbed through the hatch, then gazed at the view around him. The city below was tiny and they were up in the clouds. Large puffs of clouds approached them and the light darkened, and the city faded from view. Both of them were covered in a gentle spray of damp. 

"Is this what you wanted to show me?" he asked her, feeling eager to return to his guard post before anyone noticed him missing.

"No, this is just the top of Green Rose Towers, but those eagle stairs will take us to the crystal corridors," she showed him the transparent stairs made of tough metallic crystal and diamond glass, fused and layered with opaque bricks of graphene. During daylight, the stairs were only slightly visible as pale white outlines, but from the ground, it was totally unseen. 

"Those are impressive!" Topaz felt amazed to see that so much craftsmanship and sorcery had gone into building an extension of the castle that went higher into the sky. Green Rose Towers was said to be the tallest castle in Diaphry. However, he knew there were much bigger structures in the country and he'd heard that the ancient pyramids were bigger. He never anticipated this sneaky adventure happening in his life as a house guard. Yet it was all too much and this felt wrong. He didn't like coming up here as this wasn't where either of them were supposed to be. "Let us go back, Zara. We shouldn't even be up here."

"You wanted to look at the sky corridors and I'll show it to you. We're nearly there and it's just up those stairs." 

Topaz watched her swaying her hips as she climbed a few of the crystal steps of light. He had her, twice in his bed, and loved her in those dusky hours of night in his narrow bed, while they pleasured one another as other guards slept in the room. A part of him longed to be back in bed with her. Another part of him remembered her saying that she'd slept with Binofft while he was staying there. His friends boasted that they've shared her and the other Green Rose maids. Now she wanted him to reach the tallest regions of the sky bridges that he was still not convinced were real. The stairs went up into clouds. It had to be a suspension to another higher tower, or just an illusion. She walked on those steps, dancing and climbing up and down. He didn't like it. 

"I'm going back, you silly bah!" he laughed mockingly in his Nee Town accent. A bah was a sound a ewe made and he let Zara know that she was a foolish woman. Zara took the insult in her bejewelled manners, as she vain and a rich merchant's daughter from Whispering Village.  

"Come to me then, my soiled ram of the red hair, and I will show you the cloud corridors."

He ignored her. He turned and went back inside the hatch, then closed it and left it unlocked for her to return. He waited there a while, and then never heard her come back. She was up in the sky, no doubt. He decided to check on her, and hoped that she was sulking on the stairs. He lifted the hatch and only peered out of it. Zara wasn't there. He squinted as the sunlight shone where the stairs vanished towards it, going behind luminous clouds. He was disappointed that she had gone up, and it wasn't his intention to follow her this far upstairs. 

After Topaz left, Zara was already climbing the vast crystal staircase that went up into high clouds. It was very cold and her hair turned wet. She came to a door made of icy glass, and gently turned the handle made of platinum and diamonds. The door opened inwards, and she  found herself standing now on a cloud corridor, that resembled a bridge made of pure sugar and water, except that it was made entirely of metal, and hardened with a substance that kept it formed. There was a railing that seemed frosted and icicles formed. The clouds that floated by were cold and filled with ice crystals, and the air up this far was tight. Zara saw that the end of the cloud corridor produced light, and it was almost violet and yellow. She was afraid.