A Door Facing Both Ways

The blue light stayed behind Sella when she stepped through it.

She stopped on the stair. The opening stood upright in the black shape of her shadow, showing the landing she had just left. Its edges shifted when she moved, but the view did not. Brannoc’s shield lay across the stone. Tassa’s dagger was still wedged beneath its rim, and Iven’s spell-light hovered near the ceiling.

The door itself pressed against Sella’s back, heavy enough to pull her shoulders out of line. Its latch rested near her left hand. The stair descended ahead, where the two trails had merged into a line of wet prints pointing down.

Behind her, Brannoc’s voice came through the opening. “You took long enough.”

Sella turned her head toward the sound. The landing remained in view. Brannoc was nowhere on it.

She looked down at the footprints. The first one held the shape of her boot over a smaller heel. A second print had appeared ahead of it, toes turned toward the blue light.

“Say something useful,” she called.

“Your left shoulder’s slipping,” Brannoc answered.

The door’s weight pressed harder against her back. Sella shifted it with her shoulder and found the latch. The voice had noticed a real thing. That was the trouble with the false ones. They used what was true until a person supplied the rest.

She turned, bringing the shadow-door around. The view of the landing swung with her, though the light above the shield stayed in the same place. When Sella faced downhill, the opening showed the landing as if she were standing at its far wall. She faced uphill again. The view held steady, framing the shield and dagger.

A threshold that followed her, carrying the same piece of floor wherever she pointed it. That was either a useful trick or an invitation to use it badly.

“Iven,” she called. “Can you hear me?”

The hovering light dimmed. The ring around Iven’s throat was a black line at this distance, almost lost in the blue light. He stood with one hand at his neck and the other held out beneath the spell-light, as if keeping it from drifting away.

“Sella,” he said. “The door’s facing the wrong direction.”

“Which way should it face?”

“Toward the landing.”

She looked through the opening. It showed the landing already.

Iven’s mouth moved again. “Turn it back.”

The command landed with the familiar weight of the ring. Sella’s fingers tightened on the latch. Her shoulders started to turn before she stopped them. The blue doorway shivered in her shadow, its light stretching thin across the stair.