Anam

  The mountain speared the sky, a towering monolith that stood alone in the middle of a vast plain.

  Snow and cloud capped the unnatural feature.  Its base was smooth, solid granite, that rose without crack or chip.  Steel could not penetrate, neither could the spells of wizards who had died trying to bring down the vast fortress.

  It had been created six centuries before by the dark sorcerer Ydd, during the elven wars and the creation of the empire.  Magic had created it, and magic protected it.  From it, Ydd ruled.

  The single entrance, a full mile up, could only be reached by a spiralling walkway, that hung in the air as impossibly as the mountain it circumvented.  Sideless, and barely wide enough for a cart, people had been blown off by the wind, while attempting to reach the top.  In winter, it was suicide to try, for the ice meant a traveller would slide and fall.  To fall off the walkway meant the ground was the next stop.

  The very top of the walkway was a platform a little wider than the walkway itself.  Eight guards stood there, shivering in the cold icy wind, for this winter was particularly bitter.

  Behind them, steel doors which never rusted stood barred from the inside.  Above the door were several narrow slits, where seven more guards with crossbows waited.

  Few had made the perilous journey up the mountain, and the survivors had all been invited.  The only men guaranteed to read the top alive were the Emperor's hand-picked guards - soldiers that had displayed a way of fighting that was dirty and evil-minded.  The emperor had occasion to pit his men against one another.  The losers were thrown off the mountain.  The winners were promoted.

  The approach to the platform was the one part of the walkway that was straight.  It stretched five-hundred feet out, and the Emperor's magic ensured the air, at least from the point of view of the guards, was clear.

  Now it was dusk, and with the approach of darkness flame sprang up around the platform.  Chill wind brushed the guards but did not touch the flame.

  She had waited, patiently, for the changing of the guard, which came with the sunset.  The guards had not seen her approach, even for all the distant she was under their gaze on the walkway.  She had reached the top, and waited, resting, unseen.

  One of the steel doors opened, pushed from the new shift within.  Anam could see the wedge shape, could see that the doors, if pushed on from without, would only jam against itself.  With an approriate gap in the guards, she slipped through, and breached the first of Ydd's defences.

  The room beyond was large and hollow.  Two-dozen guards lounged on a floor without furniture, playing dice or cards.  There was no fire.  Above the door a ladder led up to the platform and thus to the arrow-slits.

  At the far end of the room a single, narrow stone staircase led up to another door.  Above the door, mounted on a ceiling sixty feet high, were two pulleys to aid in hauling up supplies.

  Moving carefully, silently, Anam made her way to the staircase.  The guards from outside had stopped momentarily to talk to the others in the room, but Anam would need to be swift.  She could not get caught on the narrow stairs.