In an earlier time, in a different life, only weeks but eons ago, Jonas had hesitated for a long time when he saw his first Gate open before he followed the Wanderer in to the other Side. Now he hesitated only long enough to gather five good throwing-sized stones. He stored three in his pockets, carrying one in each hand, then leapt nimbly up the mound, his bare calloused island feet hardly protesting, and waded into the warm red glow of the Gate, and out of this world.

Two moons. The shock paralyzed him for a moment before he surveyed his new environment. There were two of them, one large, pale blue, white at the poles like a small planet. The other a sickly yellow-orange, the color of cut apples left uneaten. In their combined glow, eerie twilight shadows fell double from every object, like an old 70’s-style chintzy nightclub.

He stood on the glistening marble steps of a domed ruin, cracked like a dropped punch bowl, in a massive courtyard, the broken pillars of which gnashed the empty sky; images of gigantic winged serpents, eroded from age-old exposure to wind and rain, writhed in a contorted sinuous embrace of each column. Jonas sucked the damp air in between his teeth. Ages lay on this place in uncounted layers, but the marble of the pillars and dome twinkled in the icy glare of the twin moon half-night, undimmed by dust or time: unnatural, ethereal.

The steps led up to a black iron gate, a dark mouth opening in the ivory dome, and as Jonas drew near, he saw that it was made of metal serpents woven together, meshed by some long forgotten craft. Snake-headed handles glared at him with dark blue jewels set deep in the eye sockets. He dared not touch it; it seemed altogether loathsome to him for reasons he could not articulate, and he stopped, fearful of he knew not what, of myths undreamed, of nightmares unremembered.