The Spire

The Spire
Part 1 – The Weary Traveler
He approached the dark iron gate. The whole spire looked blurred in the gray just before dawn. It rose up out of the forest like a large blade that was just waiting to slash open the sky, and without proper light the entire structure looked like a single black mass against the horizon. The gate outside the spire grounds however was open, and nothing too ominous other than the appearance itself spoke to say that travelers were not welcome.
He was certainly tired as he decided about three hours ago walking through this dark forest with no real destination, just on a journey to see what the world held. As he approached the spire he sighed and shifted his weight uncomfortably, he had a short sword on his left hip and his rough linen tunic was splattered with mud and stained with many old meals and the smell that roiled off it spoke to how much work it had really been trudging through the narrow seemingly long forgotten trail he had found in the woods.
After a long pause he let out a sigh and brushed his sandy blond hair out of his eyes, he set his pack, which seemed to have only gotten heavier by the outside of the wall. He figured if he needed to leave this spire in a hurry best not have the added weight. With a last glance out into the foreboding forest he decided to try his luck with whoever resided in the spire. It can’t be so bad, he thought to himself as he strolled through the gate and towards the large wooden double doors with huge metal supports and a very large metal dome at about chest height on each door with a rung that served as a knocker. I mean the worst that will happen is whoever lives here will just tell me to shove off, he reassured himself as his feet came to the first stone step up to those doors.
As he approached the details came into a bit more focus the haze of morning twilight not effecting things so much up close. Nothing about the spire seemed so dangerous, there was a nice garden on either side of flagstone walkway up to the spire and the spire itself wasn’t actually as dark as the silhouette seemed to imply, it actually looked like rather nice gray stone with kind of cheery ivory vines growing up it with small red flowers budding every so often. Smiling to himself for immediately thinking that a strange, isolated tower inside a dark, lonely, forgotten forest would be evil he politely pulled back on the knocker and let the metal rung slam against the dome and echo the sound into the vast corridor beyond.
As if of its own free will the door swung inward without the slightest creak. He smiled and stepped in. Inside was quite cheery he couldn’t help but smile and feel his weariness wash away. The corridor was rather dark but it was very fragrant smelling and all along the walls was as if it was a great exotic flower garden, all up the walls and ceiling hung and clung all sorts of vines with beautiful flowers budding all along it and many flowers of all colors hung down into the corridor from the ceiling still high enough up to leave a few inches for even the tallest man. As he started down the corridor he swore he saw some of the vines wriggle, he chalked it up to exhaustion and a draft from the door. As he turned to confirm that a breeze had followed him in he realized a bit shocked that the door had closed just as silently as it had opened. He blinked and turned around almost bumping into a nearly chest high pedestal that he hadn’t noticed before due to his enthrallment with the plants.
The pedestal had an open book on it and a quill with an ink pot. The top of the page said, “Please write down your name before continuing.” So he picked up the quill and scratched rather messily down on the paper:
Sedari
After he had written down his name the book slowly flipped to the next page without so much as a whisper of a draft. Sedari was most confused by this and when he tried to flip the page back so that he could be sure someone would see he had left his name in the book the pages and the book seemed all glued together and transfixed to the pedestal making it impossible for him to turn the page back. Bewildered he stared at the page as words slowly leaked up to the surface of the new page.
Welcome indeed Sedari to this fine spire. You are welcome to stay, but be warned this is not free. The cost of your company is as follows, you must tend to the flowers in the main hall, you must clean yourself in the baths and when that is finished you will keep me, the keeper of this spire company for no less than three hours per night you plan to stay, it is not often I get visitors. The main hall is directly ahead, you’ll find the bathhouses are to the right and left from the main hall, and when you are ready to see me just come to the top of the staircase.
L
Sedari blinked in awe a few times and rubbed his eyes to make sure they were working properly before reading the loopy, very proper handwriting over two or three times. He then smiled and said aloud to no one in particular, “Well that doesn’t so bad, he certainly is a kind man.” With that Sedari continued down the path of the corridor, trying to ignore that now he swore he was seeing more of the vines wriggle, as if shuddering with glee. He chased the thought of moving plants out his mind as he entered the main hall. It was a circular room that could have easily fit a small house inside of it, directly across from the entrance corridor was the start of a long elegant stone staircase that spiraled along the inside of the circular wall all the way to the top.