Story

I started climbing a mountain because I was told to meet a girl and my family to stay at an inn. I started by hiking up a small mountain path, pleasant, the sun was on me and the weather was wonderful. I saw birds go by and it was simply beautiful. After hiking for I'm not sure how long I came to a sheer rock face. My family wasn't there, so I waited there for them a while expecting someone to come with climbing gear, but no one came. So I decided to try climbing the sheer face alone. (Picture a huge black granite mountain worn smooth, and shiny by time) It was a very sheer face and as I went up it got colder and colder, and my fingers started to feel numb but not too numb so I continued to climb, till I finally came to a snow covered path about as wide as the path I was previously on. It was quite cold, but knowing there was no way I was going back down I continued.

I hiked along the path for a long time with my only comfort of anything being the footprints on the ground, there were about two other tracks and many small animal tracks though no animals to be seen. After hiking for what seemed forever I came to a stair case carved into the rock face it was about large enough for two people to go up in a pinch; it would be rather crowded if you did that.

On the stair case there were two other pairs of foot prints going in up, so feeling a sense of purpose in there being anyone that would be going up the stair case at all I continued up.
The traversal of the stairs felt very very long and very hard in the frigid air and snow being two and a half centimeters high. The snow only got higher as I continued further and it also got colder.
Once the snow was about eight centimeters high (for I had lost all sense of time) I came to a landing if you can call it that. It was where the stairs stopped and two other staircases started, and the two paths of footprints went separate ways. I was the prints had not changed since I saw them start so they had to be fresh. I picked the path going on the left of the landing. The wall of the stare was the left edge of the landing and it was just large enough for one person to climb, it was very narrow. It wound and twisted and turned left and right continuing up up up. Till I finally was rewarded for my efforts by a landing with a door, and old worn door greenish as old as the mountain as it looked. The snow was just higher than my ankles by this time. I was freezing cold.

There was a stranger standing there in a black cloak and black broad brimmed hat, so one couldn't see the strangers face. I asked the stranger:
“Is this the entrance to the... um uh er” I stubbed in my speech
“Yes,” the stranger said quizzically.
“Er uh, the inn?” I asked. “I was to meet my friends at the entrance of the inn” I continued “but I don't wish to wait for them out here it is so cold.”
He gave a slight incline of the dark hat as if to think for a split second then responded; “Oh yes, quite.”
I inquired of him, “Since my friends aren't here, may I ask how many entrances there are?” The man's hat tilted back a bit further this time for a second longer than the first time; “Eight” the stranger replied.
“Eight! How am I supposed to go all the way down the mountain again and find one of the other eight entrances to find my friends. Can you please let me in this door?”
The stranger seemed to look me up and down for a moment, then asked; “Can you see the door.”
This had the be the last question one would want to be asked while in the bitter cold with a wind chill.
“Yes,” I said, “I can see the door!”
“What does it look like” the stranger continued.
It didn't matter anymore at all I cared only about getting in. So I decided to just tell the stranger what the door looked like. So I replied:
“It's a dark greenish snow covered door that looks as old as the mountain.”
The stranger seemed to give me a look to make sure I was for real and not making up a story.
“All right,” the stranger said and opened the door.

It was bright and warm beautifully tiled with reds and browns and golds, but I didn't care I was too cold to I spotted a desk and asked the man there to help me.
“C-can you please help me?” I asked.
The man quickly turned and gave me a look of you shouldn't be here.
The man was tall lanky with a red, with a uniform like the floors and walls with a feather that appeared to be died three colors, in a diagonal pattern. The top was a warm earthy red which came down almost half way and then sharply in a 45-degree angle to the left with an earthy tan stripe in the middle, not more than at half a centimeter in width. and the rest of the feather was an egg yoke yellow the color it is before it is cooked.
“Who are you?” He asked sharply
“I-I'm I'm A-Ari” I stuttered out of fear and cold.
“Who did you come with?” was the next question shot at me equally sharp. I had to think for this one under the incredulous gaze of the man boring into me threatening to put me out in the cold I just came from I knew it, if I answered wrongly or in not enough time.
“I, I, I came with um, I came with um er a, uh a, a, a girl a-about my age you know?” I said.
The man behind the desk straightened up as if I was where his superior he stood there like a soldier awaiting an order.
“Oh. ah yes sir. I apologize for my impudence”.

Just then a call of my name came to me from behind me and just to my right.
“Ari”!
It was female
“Ari”!
The girl that was going me meet me at the mountain was coming towards me. She stopped out of breath in front of me, she put her hands on her knees out of breath.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “I told you to meet me and everyone else at the bottom of the mountain, it’s been five hours what happened to you?”
“Can't that wait for later!” I said. “I just got here and the man at the desk just made it clear that he knew you.”
“He did?”
We both looked his way, he seemed to straighten up even more than he had before.
“I came in through the snow and wind,” I said.
She began “So you came in through the summer pa... winter pass?”
“Yes, I came in through the winter pass if that is what you call it?” I looked back at the door I had entered (or where it had been), it looked at the rest of the corridor I was in, guided with reds and golds and browns. All the shapes were right triangles.
“Porter?” she asked, “How did he come get in this door”.
“That man in the dark cloak and hat ma'am” the porter replied.
“I see,” she said.
She turned to the man clad in black
“I owe you a debt of gratitude for letting my friend in from the summer pass,” she said
“I wish to extend you an invitation to stay with me and my friends to repay you.” the man stood there silent as a shadow.
She turned to me “I told everyone where to meet, but you weren't there? Why didn't you just come to the meeting place?”
“Oh yes, it's very obvious, isn't it. Come and we will meet at the bottom of the mountain very set directions” I said sarcastically.
The girl was getting an impatient look, and started to lecture, “they were set directions, now how did you find the wint-summer pass.”
“Same way I guess any one would I guess?” I said, “You find a mountain path and start following it.”
“What did the door to this hall look like,” she asked.
I answered her the same as the last time I was asked “Dark green” I said “snow covered and as old as the mountain” She looked me over as the man in the cloak and hat had earlier but it seemed more distasteful this time.
She turned to the porter, “Porter.” she said in a stern direct voice “How did he find the summer pass?”
“I guess just as he said?” the Porter replied, “I can't think of any other way?”
She looked at me, she looked at the porter
“I have a question?” I said. “Why do you seem to keep calling where I came in the summer pass and not the winter pass?” She looked shocked and the porter just stood there resolute but without showing expression.
“Can I talk with you privately porter, about him,” she said she said in a cool voice.
“Certainly.” the porter said seeming surprised as a soldier at attention could.
“In the other room please,” she said with a back glance at me, and in a more distasteful voice.
“Of course,” the porter said.
“Um!” I said and looked towards her. She looked distastefully at me, but ready to listen.
“What's you name again I asked, I forgot it after my long hike up the mountain and through the snow and wind?” I looked at the ground. There was a short uncomfortable silence till “La Dana” she said with haste.
I looked up and said “thank you!” to her back as they went into the porter's office.

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This section is written from the girls point of view and what she hears.
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I sat in the porter's office. “How did he find the door here porter?” I inquired.
“I guess can how he said?” the porter replied.
“But none have ever come up the summer pass before?” I kept on “And my grandfather said the penalty for people coming here by that pass is death!”
“But he didn't come by that pass miss, he said he came by the Winter pass, not the summer pass, he should be commended for such strength, not punished?” the porter said.
“But he came up the summer pass what's the difference?” I said.
“Your grandfather never told you about the winter pass?” the porter asked.
“No!” I said impatiently standing up from my chair and starting to pace, “Why should he have! There is no such thing!... is there?” I was standing by the door in the porter's office when I asked this and turned to look at him.
The office was dark in comparison to the hall. Lit by a single window small window with a ray of sun coming in as if in the middle of the summer. It was about two meters by one and one-fourth meters by three meters. With the same patterns as everywhere in the hall.
The porter had fair skin yellowed, though the yellow color only really showed in this darker light. Also the uniform he wore made the yellow tone of his skin look more white in the bright light of the hall out side the small office.
“Yes miss there is.” the porter said calmly “They are one in the same.” he continued; it is dependent upon the intent of the climber.
“Intent of the climber? What does that have to do with anything?” I queried, with an eyebrow raised.
“If your heart is just, you are tested, if not, you are killed. It is always summer on the pass on the way down. Never on the way up if you have never been here.”
My now wide and stirring “But... why? Why didn't Grand tell me?”
“Have you ever seen the pass yourself miss?”
“N-no,” I said in a small voice. Then I panicked “Oh no! The family waiting to be brought to their rooms and I'm here talking to you I have to go!”
“No,” the porter said sternly looking at my face directly. I couldn't leave the small porters room. I turned from my struggle with the door, to see his eyes were red as many of the tiles of the walls and floors. I was scared of a porter of the first time in my life. “The other porters have and are taking care of them.”
“B-Ari then,” I said frantically. “He is waiting for you out side this office” the porter turned his head and I had the creepiest feeling that he could see him through the wall. He then turned to me and looked me in the eye with his red eyes, as red and dark and the wall in the office. I sat in the chair across from the porter. His eyes then turned their normal placid blue green which had no appearance of seeing through a wall no matter how they looked at you, or how angry they got.

The porter stood, “My apologies Miss La' Dana” he said gave a deep bow and sat again.
I looked around the room for the first time since she came in. It was a deep red, full of right angle triangles of red, gold, brown, but in the office, the triangles had silver trim around each of them. I had gone cold. I shivered and trembled a little. I hugged my self as a chill went through me.
“What is the winter pass?” I asked looking up at the window with sun light streaming through with it came warmth as it crossed my face.
The porter replied, “I shall let Ari tell of it, I shall tell you why it is there and why the summer and winter passes are one and the same.”
My eyes went wide as when I became scared, and I felt my skin begin to prickle.
“Your grand is was a sorcerer.” the porter said.
I stared wide eyed, but this time with lost their fear and were replaced with the wonder of a child “A sorcerer?” I said.
“Tell me then, child, how does one build a grand inn into the face of a mountain.” The porter was not but 10 years older than she, it was the response that was important not the age difference though. I remembered my child hood till becoming an adolescent. Playing in grand hall ways, accepting them, accepting what they were, not looking at them, not questioning them. For 26 years I had seen these walls, not even looking at them. My grandfather had been a man of simplicity, elegance, and grandeur though how he acted. Looking at the walls of the room reminded me of him. A giant red right triangle appearing scarlet red in the light, on the lower right was another right triangle this on gold. They were both concentrically filled with smaller brown and gold or red right triangles, though the red one resonated red and the gold resonated gold through the triangles with in where either brown and gold and brown and red, with silver trim around each of the triangles. My eyes wandered back to the porters cool blue green eyes. I remembered the man clad in black out with Ari, how he seemed to blend with the walls so bright though he wore black. I thought of a shadow.
“The shadow man out there with Ari” I said quickly ”he's”?
The porter shook his head, “I know not who he is.”
I looked down at my hands in my lap. “Tell me more about grand then, please?”
I looked up at the porter.
“As I was saying” the porter continued. “How do you build a grand inn into a mountain?” The porter asked again. I searched the walls again as if they had the answers written on them or in them somewhere.
I asked; “Have you ever been on the pass porter?” and I was feeling a bit lightheaded.
The porter looked a bit shocked at this question.
“No,” he said. “A porter of the inn can only do as he is told or what the rules allow.”
I continued; “The sun through the window is so warm on my face” the porter looked behind him at the windows of the room, and looked back at me.
“Are you alright miss?” he said.
“The winter pass is there to keep people out, and the summer pass is to keep people in so they always will enjoy they're stay here is what I've heard Grand say once.” La' Dana seemed to start to recite to herself “Why conger a mountain to keep people in and others out, and two strangers have now come to this keep. Why?”
“Let's go out and hear the story from our guests. Maybe that will help you?” replied the porter in a worried sounding voice.

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I saw them emerge from the office after a short time the man in the cloak was still there. We had said nothing since the two entered the office. I had been standing at the desk since they left the office. looking at the walls and their ornate and careful workmanship. First La' Dana emerged then the porter. The porter was holding her shoulders and she looked as if she had an epiphany or some profound thing had happened to her like she was in a daze. He guided her around the desk. We, the three of us; me, and man in black and her, were all standing on a right triangle on the floor. Each of us at a corner. The porter went back into his office and closed the door. She turned to the man in black and addressed me and asked what it is like outside on the summer pass, as I experienced it. I told her all that had conspired up till she came out of the office. “So neither of you spoke a word?” She said again addressing me obviously but facing the stranger.
“So...” La' Dana said.

If you could hear the silence echoing in the hall it would have defended you as the three of us stood there saying nothing.
The man spoke in a way as if to amplify the silents, we jumped.
“I'll leave you two,” he said. He turned to my left, his right and started walking.
La Dana started as if to tell him to stop, but stopped as she saw him continue walking forward. She turned back to her previous positions and looked at her feet. I looked down the hall the way the strangers back was facing as if looking for him in that direction then looked back at him as he continued forward down the hall. For the first time, I looked at the hall which he had gone down and realized that there was a mirror the height of the hall there.
La Dana turned and ran to the mirror and touched it. I came to examine the mirror next to her and watch the stranger walk away from us.
“Grand? Is that you?” she said.