7
The hall into which Baradir stepped lacked distinguishing features, save for the uniformity of its black, polished onyx-stone. No windows lit the walls, and no furniture adorned the stark, echoing space within. All that met Baradir’s eye was a spiralling stair set into the centre of the wide room, leading to somewhere above.
Baradir paused at the foot of those stairs, and gazed upwards. Something with the substance of storm-clouds obscured his view; no rain fell, to his gratitude, but to look up at that moment was to stare into the very heart of a vicious storm. The dark, roiling maw of it gazed back at Baradir, ablaze, now and then, with scattered sparks and searing bolts of lightning.
Baradir had the sense to look away.
He sought for some other means of progressing either forward,
