The Sultan's Gate

Virginia Frances Sterrett
http://cizgilimasallar.blogspot.com/2011/09/
virginia-frances-sterrett-arabian.html

The Embassy Tower is surrounded by a cast iron fence. It is three men tall. The fence rose from the ground just hours before the Embassy Tower did. The main path to the Tower grounds is ungated.

But directly behind this open path, on the opposite side of the Tower, there is a tall ornate gate of the same design as the fence.

This is The Sultan's Gate.

Touch the gate. Push it. There is no locking mechanism, and yet it remains shut. A closer look reveals two lesser gates on either side of The Sultan's Gate. They are hiding in plain sight. These two are also fixed shut.

One lesser gate leads Below to The Demon Sultan's caverns. The other leads Between, opening on a grave-narrow twisting path between the worlds - a stumbledown path with a thousand branches and dead falls.

The center gate leads to the Beyond. It is the only gate that has never been re-opened. Clever hands and minds have successfully opened the Gate Below and the Gate Between. But no one yet has opened the Gate Beyond.

People do try. An entire clan of assassins waits and watches for them.