Inside the tower the air was thicker than water.
Sound moved slowly, as though afraid.
The walls pulsed like veins; every pulse whispered a word—his name, over and over, in voices he recognised and could not bear.
The passage led upward in a spiral of glass.
Each step he climbed, mirrors bloomed from the walls, hundreds, thousands, until the tower's heart became a hive of faces.
Every reflection spoke.
Some begged.
Some mocked.
Some recited his own writing back to him, twisted until the meaning curdled.
Every one believed itself the original.
"These are your unburied selves," God said.
"Every opinion, every defence, every mask that ever protected you. They're tired of being silent."
The reflections stepped out from the glass, forming a circle around him.
Seven stood nearest, each distinct:
the Saint, hands bleeding light;
the Warrior, jaw clenched;
the Scholar, eyes of ink;
the Trickster, smiling with all teeth;
the Lover, radiant and ruined;
the Judge, carrying scales that never balanced;
and the Child, weeping quietly.
Each claimed to be the true one.
Each reached for the sword at his side.
"You crowned your own reflection," said God. "Now see what worship builds."
The circle tightened.
Voices rose until they braided into a single shriek of argument.
The air vibrated so hard that the tower itself began to ring.
He tried to speak, but there were too many mouths.
Then something in him remembered the lesson from the first gate: truth survives the cut.
He drew the blade and let its light fall across the faces.
"Enough," he said. "Weakness wears wisdom's mask. Fear dresses as thought."
He swung once.
The strike was not against flesh but against noise.
Every syllable that pretended to be certainty split apart.
The Saint's light dimmed; the Scholar's ink ran; the Trickster's smile cracked into understanding.
Only the Child remained untouched.
He knelt.
The Child looked up, tears turning to small mirrors as they fell.
"What are you?" he asked.
"The one who still feels," said the Child. "If you kill me, the tower falls."
"Then live," he answered. "But don't lead."
The Child nodded and stepped back into his chest, vanishing like a breath into lung.
The other reflections followed, fading one by one until the glass was empty again.
"Two truths can cut," God murmured. "Hold both blades, or miss the point."
He looked down: the sword had split along its edge, twin lines of light twisting together—decision and doubt in perfect balance.
The tower's walls shimmered, then opened like eyelids onto a horizon of storm.
Beyond lay the sixth circle of flame—the Wall of Shadows—its surface alive with whispering silhouettes.
"Next gate," said God. "Cut what speaks too sweetly."
The scholar stepped through, and the tower closed behind him like a throat swallowing silence.