The Gate

The ground slept. The occasional tickle of a hammer or pick did not disturb its slumber, nor did the echoes of falling feet. The ages of the world passed by the ground unnoticed. It was eternal and uncaring.

One day, the faint sensations of hammer and pick grew louder and more focused. Something was different. A part of it was becoming more defined, more isolated. An individual was separated from the whole.

The stone towered over the masons who had carved it from the earth, who had given it form. They were tiny, whimsical things, here one century and gone the next, but they seemed serious now. More serious than the stone or its fellows had ever known them to be.

Something else different – motion. The stone was rolling. The tiny things were pushing it somewhere. Off to one side some of the earth had been removed save for a number of smaller stones, hollowed out and shaped into hard angles. Every other direction, including up and down, was more stone. More tiny things came out of the hollowed stones to watch it roll.

The motion slowed. Was this the stone’s destination? It was in a long tunnel that stretched uniformly straight and level for miles. On the far end of the tunnel, the end now separated from the space where the tiny things lived by the stone, something was drawing nearer. The tiny things grew more agitated. The stone studied them more closely. They were tired. They were frightened. They were mourning. They were dying.

Impact. The stone could roll no further. It sealed every inch of the massive tunnel.

It was a gate.

But the tiny things were not finished. They began to carve the stone again. This time, they were not shaping – they were writing. The stone felt them etch into it ancient runes, symbols of power written in the language of reality. And because the language was reality’s own, reality was subject to its commands. The stone’s nature was changed. It felt . . . different. Stronger. It knew nothing could harm it now. Secure in that knowledge, it fell asleep. Pounding came from the other side of the sealed tunnel, but it could not break the stone, and so the stone continued to sleep. At length, it dreamed.

The seasons passed, first in their tens, then in their hundreds. The tiny things grew more whimsical and more numerous, as did the hollowed out stones in their cavern. Even in its dreams, the stone could hear the tiny things – at first just words, but with the passing of the seasons came laughter, and then songs, songs of honest work and warm fires and golden halls. The stone slept more deeply. The passing seasons went from hundreds to thousands.

Suddenly, sensation. The tiny things had gathered around the stone again. They were different. They looked strong, happy, confident. Above all, they looked purposeful. The sensation grew stronger. The stone began to understand; the tiny things were making it ready.

The gate would soon be opened. The tiny things were going back out. Back into the darkness.