Where Stone Meets Steel

"The moment you think you've got something figured out is usually the moment right before you discover you were looking at it completely wrong."

The path grew steeper.

The grey laboured now, its breath coming harder, its steps more careful as it navigated terrain that seemed to tilt upward with every metre. I felt the change in my body—the way I had to lean forward to maintain balance, the way the straps dug into different places as the angle shifted.

Around us, the walls of rock rose higher. So high that I could barely see the sky anymore—just a narrow ribbon of pale blue far above, growing dimmer with each passing moment. The twilight had deepened into something that was almost night, the natural light fading to a level where I could barely see the rocks around us.

But the Scouts moved without hesitation. Their clothing glowed brighter, their mules' harnesses pulsed with increased luminescence, and the formation flowed forward through darkness that would have left me blind and helpless.

This is their world, I thought. This is where they belong.

I didn't belong here. Didn't understand the rules, the rhythms, the thousand small details that made survival possible. I was a creature of sunlight and open air, of cities and roads and the mundane comforts of civilisation. This place—this darkness, this cold, this landscape of stone and shadow—was as foreign to me as the surface of the moon.

How long before they realise that? I wondered. How long before they decide I'm not worth the trouble?

The path levelled out. We emerged from the narrow passage into something wider—a natural platform of stone that jutted from the mountainside like a stage built for giants. The formation spread out, riders and walkers taking positions around the edges, the mules clustering near the centre.

And then I saw it.

The entrance.

I'd been expecting a cave mouth. A hole in the rock, rough-edged and natural, leading down into darkness. What I saw instead made me forget, for a moment, the pain in my arms and the cold seeping into my bones and the desperate uncertainty of my situation.

It was massive. Twenty metres wide at least, and perhaps fifteen high—a great arched opening carved directly into the cliff face. The stonework was old, clearly old, the kind of weathered surface that spoke of centuries rather than decades. Symbols and patterns had been chiselled into the rock around the arch, worn smooth by time but still visible—spirals and geometric shapes that might have been writing or decoration or something else entirely.

But that wasn't what made me stare.

The arch was framed in metal. Steel, or something like it—thick beams that reinforced the ancient stonework, bolted into the rock with industrial precision. And set into those beams, at regular intervals, were lights. Not the soft organic glow I'd come to associate with these people, but actual electric lights—bright, white, humming faintly with power.

What the hell?

They'd fought us with knives. Travelled on mules. Communicated with hand signals and clicks and whistles. Everything about them had screamed primitive, ancient, pre-industrial. And yet here was an entrance that wouldn't have looked out of place at a mining operation back home—ancient architecture married to modern engineering in a combination that made no sense at all.

The leader had dismounted. He approached a panel set into the rock beside the entrance—a metal box, I realised, with buttons and switches and what looked like a speaker grille. He pressed something, spoke into it. His voice was formal, clipped, words I couldn't follow in that blended language.

"Escuadra Montero, retournant avec prisonniers. Deux captifs—un Pirata confirmé, un autre en attente d'évaluation. Demande d'accès."

A pause. Static crackled from the speaker. Then a response—a different voice, equally formal.

"Confirmé, Capitaine Duval. Accès autorisé. Équipe médicale en attente pour les blessés."

Radio, I thought numbly. They have radio communication.

The leader—Duval, apparently—stepped back from the panel. Somewhere inside the entrance, machinery began to move. I heard it before I saw it—a deep mechanical grinding, the whir of motors, the clank of something heavy being displaced.

Gates. There were gates inside the arch—massive things, steel and stone combined, that had been invisible in the shadows. Now they were swinging inward, driven by mechanisms I couldn't see, opening a passage into the mountain.

Beyond them, light. Not electric white, but that softer luminescence I'd seen in the clothing. It spilled out from the opening like liquid, pooling on the stone platform, pushing back the darkness.

The formation stirred. Voices rose around me—quick exchanges in their language, the tone shifting from the tense alertness of the journey to something else. Relief, maybe. Or anticipation.

"Bougez-vous. On rentre."

"Enfin. J'ai les pieds gelés."

"Les prisonniers d'abord. Gardez-les séparés."

I caught fragments. Prisonniers—prisoners. Séparés—separated. They were talking about us. About Nelson and me.

Duval turned. His eyes found mine across the gathered formation, and I saw something in them I hadn't seen before. Not cruelty, exactly. More like... assessment. The calculation of someone deciding what to do with an unexpected problem.

"Welcome to Xylora," he said. His English was heavily accented but clear. "You will not leave here until we decide you may. Cooperate, and your stay may be comfortable. Resist..." He didn't finish the sentence. Just let it hang there, heavy with implication.

Then he gestured, and the formation began to move.

The mules went first. I felt the grey step forward, felt it carry me toward that impossible entrance—ancient stone and modern steel, luminescent glow and electric light, everything I thought I understood about these people crumbling with each step.

We passed through the gates. The metal was thick—thicker than I'd realised from outside. Half a metre at least, maybe more. The kind of thickness designed to stop something. Or keep something in.

The passage beyond was wide enough for three mules abreast. The walls were carved stone, clearly old, decorated with those same weathered symbols I'd seen outside. But cables ran along the ceiling—actual electrical cables, bundled and secured with modern clamps. And every twenty metres or so, a light fixture had been mounted to the rock. Some electric. Some filled with that softer luminescence. A hybrid system, ancient and modern intertwined.

Who are these people? I thought. What is this place?

Behind me, I heard Nelson's stumbling footsteps, heard the scrape of his boots on stone as he was dragged forward. I wanted to turn, to see his face, to know if he was as confused as I was. But the straps held me rigid, facing forward, watching the passage unfold before me.

We descended.

The passage sloped downward, curving gently, taking us deeper into the mountain with each step. The temperature dropped. The air grew damper. And the sounds of the outside world faded into silence.

All I could hear was the clop of hooves on stone. The creak of harnesses. The occasional murmur of voices in that language I couldn't understand.

And somewhere ahead, growing louder, the sound of something else.

Voices. Many voices. The hum of activity. The distant clang of metal on metal.

A city, I realised. There's a city down here.

The passage opened onto a ledge, and the world fell away.

Not metaphorically. Literally. The stone floor ended, and beyond it was space. A cavern so vast that the far walls were lost in haze, the ceiling an unseen darkness hundreds of metres above. The ledge we stood on was carved into the upper reaches of something that made the term "cave" feel laughably inadequate.

And below us, filling that impossible space, was a city.

I couldn't take it in. Couldn't make my mind accept what my eyes were showing me. Lights—thousands of them—tracing the contours of structures that climbed the cavern walls like something organic, something that had grown there over centuries. The glint of water far below, threading through what might have been streets or plazas. Figures moving, tiny with distance. The hum of voices and machinery rising up to meet us, the accumulated sound of lives being lived.

My hands were shaking. I couldn't feel them—couldn't feel anything except the mule's warmth beneath me and the cold air on my face and the absolute, overwhelming weight of what I was seeing.

This is real, I thought. This is actually real.

The grey stepped forward, following a path carved into the cavern wall. A switchback, I realised dimly. Descending toward the city below in long, shallow curves.

Someone behind me laughed—a Scout, relieved to be home. Someone else called out a greeting to figures I couldn't see. The formation loosened, the military precision giving way to something more relaxed as we began our descent.

But I barely noticed.

I was staring at the lights. At the impossible, beautiful, terrifying lights of a city built inside a mountain.

And all I could do was hold on.