The threshold of the Hive Sanctum was a monument to megalomaniacal biology.
Rising before Arthur Vance and his squad were thirty-foot double doors assembled not from stone or load-bearing steel, but from the stone-hard pelvic plates of a deep-sea giant beast. Thick, hardened cords of living fungal cordage twined through the marrow cavities like tensioned bridge cables. He anchored the ivory bone directly into the dark rock footings of the floating mountain. Embedded where the two titanic leaves met sat the locking gearwork. A three-foot ball-shaped node of dark purple fungal tissue that pulsed with the sluggish rhythm of an exposed heart.
Around that living core, twenty-four linked hard-shelled ribs extended like deadbolts, seating deep into heavy limestone sockets.
With each contraction of the central node, a wave of violet eerie glow washed over the polished black glass steps. The light carried a heavy psychic deep ring that shook in the marrow of the jaw, tasting of copper shavings and stale swamp air.
From the shaking stone archway came the voice of Apostle Vespera Nyx. The sound didn’t originate from physical throat cords. It radiated from millions of tiny hyphae embedded in the stonework. It projected a layered sound rhythm that made the lantern glass tremble in Arthur’s chest harness.
