The passage in the tomb corridor was empty, desolate, and long, as though it would never come to an end.
The never-dying, wavering firelight cast the pairwise-facing stone pillars into heavy shadows on the ground, one after another, crossing over the King's body. Barbaltan looked in silence at those cold stone statues: Aizhuo, Katan—the figures of maidens carved from indifferent rock, the two Vassal Gods of Androma.
The Gatekeepers of death; in myth they stand at the entrance to the Land of the Dead, waiting for the Souls that journey to the world of the deceased. The steps before that Gateway are paved with Obsidian, cold to the bone.
