Lord of Light

Telltale scratches about the lock plate testify that some have actually sought entrance. Equipment sufficient to force the great door could not be transported or properly positioned, however. The trail that leads to Hellwell is less than ten inches in width for the final three hundred feet of its ascent; and perhaps six men could stand, with crowding, upon what remains of the once wide ledge that faces that door.

It is told that Pannalal the Sage, having sharpened his mind with meditation and divers asceticisms, had divined the operation of the lock and entered Hellwell, spending a day and a night beneath the mountain. He was thereafter known as Pannalal the Mad.

The peak known as Channa, which holds the great door, is removed by five days' journey from a small village. This is within the far northern kingdom of Malwa. This mountain village nearest to Channa has no name itself, being filled with a fierce and independent people who have no special desire that their town appeal on the maps of the rajah's tax collectors. Of the rajah, it is sufficient to tell that he is of middle height and middle years, shrewd, slightly stout, neither pious nor more than usually notorious and fabulously wealthy. He is wealthy because he levies high taxes upon his subjects. When his subjects begin to complain, and murmurs of revolt run through the realm, he declares war upon a neighboring kingdom and doubles the taxes. If the war does not go well, he executes several generals and has his Minister of Peace negotiate a treaty. If, by some chance, it goes especially well, he exacts tribute for whatever insult has caused the entire affair. Usually, though, it ends in a truce, souring his subjects on fighting and reconciling them to the high tax rate. His name is Videgha and he has many children. He is fond of grak-birds, which can be taught to sing bawdy songs, of snakes, to which he occasionally feeds grak-birds who cannot carry a tune, and of gaming with dice. He does not especially like children.

Hellwell begins with the great doorway high in the mountains at the northernmost comer of Videgha's kingdom, beyond which there are no other kingdoms of men. It begins there, and it corkscrews down through the heart of the mountain Channa, breaking, like a corkscrew, into vast cavernways uncharted by men, extending far beneath the Ratnagari range, the deepest passageways pushing down toward the roots of the world.

To this door came the traveler.

He was simply dressed, and he traveled alone, and he seemed to know exactly where he was going and what he was doing.

He climbed the trail up Channa, edging his way across its gaunt face.

It took him the better part of the morning to reach his destination, the door.

When he stood before it, he rested a moment, took a drink from his water bottle, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, smiled.

Then he sat down with his back against the door and ate his lunch. When he had finished, he threw the leaf wrappings over the edge and watched them fall, drifting from side to side on the air currents, until they were out of sight. He lit his pipe then and smoked.

After he had rested, he stood and faced the door once again.

His hand fell upon the pressure plate, moved slowly through a series of gestures. There was a musical sound from within the door as his hand left the plate.

Then he seized upon the ring and drew back, his shoulder muscles straining. The door moved, slowly at first, then more rapidly. He stepped aside and it swung outward, passing beyond the ledge.

There was another ring, twin to the first, on the inner surface of the door. He caught at it as it passed him, dragging his heels to keep it from swinging so far as to place it beyond his reach.

A rush of warm air emerged from the opening at his back.

Drawing the door closed again behind him, he paused only to light one of the many torches he bore. Then he advanced along a corridor that widened as he moved ahead.

The floor slanted abruptly, and after a hundred paces the ceiling was so high as to be invisible.

After two hundred paces, he stood upon the lip of the well.

He was now in the midst of a vast blackness shot through with the flames of his torch. The walls had vanished, save for the one behind him and to the right. The floor ended a short distance before him.

Beyond that edge was what appeared to be a bottomless pit. He could not see across it, but he knew it to be roughly circular in shape; and he knew, too, that it widened in circumference as it descended.

He made his way down along the trail that wound about the well wall, and he could feel the rush of warm air rising from out of the depths. This trail was artificial. One could feel this, despite its steepness. It was precarious and it was narrow; it was cracked in many places, and in spots rubble had accumulated upon it. But its steady, winding slant bespoke the fact that there was purpose and pattern to its existence.