Chapter 54: Nothing More Than That

The man had barely reached the doorway when three figures dropped from the sky. All three wore close-fitting black, and a murmur rippled through the crowd. Dawn had broken by then. The thick fog that had rolled in earlier had thinned, and the halo of first light painted the rim of the sky with a blaze of color. Evan Gates finally saw it clearly: the doorway sat at the base of a sheer cliff face, a natural rampart straddling the valley. The gate looked as if it had been carved straight into that...