Skythane by J. Scott Coatsworth

Author:J. Scott Coatsworth [Coatsworth, J. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-63533-404-3
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen: Waygate

“MORGAN’S MISSING.” Xander looked around for any sign of where the boy had gone. A neat set of bare footprints led into the House of the Sky. How had the boy managed that? Xander had been staring at the place practically the entire time.

“He won’t have gone far,” Quince said.

Xander nodded and pulled out a glow sphere, following the boy’s footsteps into the maw of the House of the Sky.

They searched the courtyard first. It was roughly fifty meters wide and half that deep. It was paved with stone, but the surface had been covered over the centuries with muck and dirt. A few of the paving stones showed through here and there, the same black rock as the walls.

Three blueoaks had grown up through cracks in the pavement and now dominated the space. Hanging from them were some of the citrone vines, weighed down with their bright yellow fruit.

“Morgan, where are you?” he called, holding up the glow sphere to light up the darker recesses of the courtyard. “This isn’t funny.” He shared a worried glance with Quince.

“Maybe… maybe it’s better if he’s gone?” she suggested.

He glared at her, and she turned away.

“Morgan!”

There was no response other than the whistling of the wind.

There was nothing else to do but to search the House of the Sky itself.

He climbed over a fallen tree, pulling back the vines and branches that almost covered the doorway. He shone the glow sphere inside. It was hard to make out much detail through the small opening, but the hall looked empty. “He must have gone inside. Is it dangerous?”

“Only because it’s so old,” Quince said.

Xander pushed his way through the entangling vegetation, getting some leaves and twigs stuck in his hair for the trouble. He brushed them off, starting to get annoyed. “Morgan, are you in here?”

He was in a large open space. He rubbed the glow sphere to brighten it, and threw it up in the air. It floated up to about three meters above his head and stopped, lighting up the entire room.

It must have been a grand hall at one time. The floor beneath his feet was tiled in a checkered black-and-white, placed in a spiral pattern that started on the edges and ended at the center of the room. A spiral staircase hugged the edge of the room, doing a half circle and ending somewhere up above.

Windows let in the diminishing daylight from outside.

Quince gasped behind him. “The waygate is open.”

“Waygate?” Xander’s eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light. He called the glow sphere down and closed his hand around it. It went out, extinguishing the light. He shoved it into his pocket.

She pointed. “We can open them once a day, at noon, when the sun is directly overhead. It shouldn’t be open now….”

Xander looked across the room. Set into the back wall of the grand chamber was a stone archway. He’d thought it was just a doorway, but there was something strange about it. It glowed with a pink light, and the space under the arch seemed to shimmer.

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