Book Of Gates Novels & Stories

The mark that had made every person in that room rearrange their posture without being asked. Our convoy slowed. I looked out the window as the gates began to open, slowly and without any apparent effort, the way things moved when the mechanism behind them was very large and very certain of itself. Beyond them a city unfolded. I forgot to breathe. It was not what the stories had built. The stories about the Northern Gates were the stories of something cold, ancient, feared, the kind of territory that existed in people's understanding as a warning rather than a place. What I was looking at was alive. Stone streets winding between buildings with silver rooftops that caught the afternoon light.

“Do not.” My eyes burned. “Mama.” “I stayed long enough to warn you.” Her form flickered. “The Gate is not a door to the dead. It is a mouth that learned to wear the faces of those who fed it. I am only the first course it still remembers how to taste.” “Then how do I shut it?” Her mouth trembled into something like a smile. “You don’t shut it with power.” The light began to eat her edges. “You shut it with a refusal it cannot digest.”

I stepped closer. The space beyond was cavernous, the air filled with the smell of wet earth and the scent of melted wax that clung to the stone walls, flickering candlelight casting long, restless shadows. Then I saw them. Tombs. Rows of them, stretching into the dim light. Some had names, letters carved deep into the stone. Others were so worn with time they had become nothing but faceless slabs and a shudder ran down my spine. I barely had time to take it in before I saw him.

Breaking the Eight Trigrams Manifestation required precision instead of force. The path led from the East Gate of Life through the Southwest Gate of Rest, finally striking through the North Gate of Opening. But this was not just about breaking a manifestation. The lock had eight marks—Life, Rest, Harm, Block, Vision, Death, Awakening, and Opening. These were the eight gates within the manifestation. As Aria studied the corresponding numbers, she was suddenly struck with inspiration. Following the sequence, she pressed them. The lock then opened with a click.

“Do you have somewhere in the house that is private?” “Mack, I think you came to the right place.” Haven laughed, and she looked at him with a smile. She took his hand and started walking to the back of the house. When he walked into the furthest room in the house, he thought something was slightly off about the room, but he couldn’t figure it out. When she walked to the sidewall, though, she moved the book on the bookshelf, and soon there was a door that was open, and she was pulling it open.

That's what he thought. "Samara is the keeper of the Gate of Praeterium. It is the gate to the past, the present and the future. She holds the three keys called praeteria. It would not work when one of the keys is missing. Keter is a sphinx who guards the Gate of Dimensia. It is the only way to travel to other dimensions, alternate reality, to different places and times. Cosmos is the keeper of the Gate of Caelum. The only gate for mortals, demons and dark creatures to enter the place of the Gods."

The gate loomed above us like a monolith of power and peril. Its surface shimmered with shifting symbols, flames, serpentine patterns, eyes that seemed to follow my every movement. The air around it vibrated, thick with a tension that made my chest ache. This was no ordinary door, it was a test, a trap, a reflection of everything I had ever desired, feared, and longed for. Elliot’s hand found mine instinctively. His eyes, dark and unwavering, scanned the gate as if he could see through its illusions. “We can’t hesitate,” he murmured. “Every second of doubt will give it power. We step forward together, or we fail together.”

No movement in the grass. The only noises broke from their own progression and the quiet melody of flame, seed, and the inward movement of the path. At midday, they came to something they had not seen before. A gate. No walls surrounded it as it lifted from the ash. It was simply a broad stone arch, reaching up as high as a tree, with the same spirals as the one on Renak’s stone. “This is it,” Arden said. “The Gates of Ash.” Lucian walked up and reached into his pouch for the spiral stone. The stone’s light grew soft in his hand, while it started to make a low, steady sound. The gate pulsed in answer.

Just then, a commotion erupted at the front gate—followed by the butler's frantic, stumbling announcement. A lavish carriage had pulled up to the door, its polished walnut body inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gemstones that glittered in the lantern light. The curtain was pushed aside by a well-manicured hand, a gold signet ring gleaming on the finger. A young man stepped out, assisted by two servants, dressed in embroidered gold brocade and wearing a jeweled circlet.

This place seems more extensive than on video. "Fuck, this place is a total wreck," Gunnar proclaims. "It's like a hurricane hit here." "Kendall, got on a reading?" I ask her. Her infrared gadget tells us it is beeping if anybody is done here. "I see four live bodies, but they are strapped on the other side of that door straight ahead." "There are more?" Gunnar says softly. We approached forward towards a keycard door. I stepped back, let Gunnar implant a C4 paste on the handle, and pressed the button. As we took a step back a few feet while the bomb beeps, it gave out a soundless explosion and opened the door.