They stood before the gates of the woman who had sealed the third universe.
The portals of Entry hall 850 rose eighty arm-lengths above the black glass terrace, flanked by two huge pylons of star-fallen iron whose fluted surfaces were crusted with thick, diamond-hard crystals of starlight rime. The doors themselves were not bronze like the outer gates. They were cast from solid, non-magnetic star-fallen iron, thirty inches thick, polished to a dull, charcoal-grey finish that absorbed the amber light of their lantern without reflecting a single ray.
Across the top door beam of the portal, carved in deep, solemn relief and inlaid with plates of pale star-sapphire, ran the final royal decree of the Yan-Luo Dynasty:
The Sanctuary of the Ten Thousand Sleepless Sovereigns. Here lies the Mother of the Outer Gates, who took the cold into her bosom so that the Seed of Man might endure the Night.
Cold radiated from the iron leaves with the crushing, physical weight of a mountain. The air at the threshold stood at ninety-six point two degrees below zero—the total nadir of heat-powered frozen stillness. Even with the golden caulking of sheep fat and sea-silk protecting their skin, Qiao Ming and Yan Zhiqiu could feel the deep, spirit pressure of the void pressing against their temples, demanding that all movement, all thought, and all mortal life cease its shaking and enter the peace of the stone.
