The gardener woke to a chorus. As if there had been voices, an infinity of voices, singing words that were not words. He slipped from its bed, picking shoes in the darkness and finding a candle and match by touch. His wife did not stir from her place, burrowing deeper in the bed. The near-freezing of the late Pluviôse did not help.

When the gardener left out of his small house at the edge of the Gardens, lantern in hand, he immediately found out the source of the chorus. In the middle of the central row stood a circle, glowing like a forge. It seemed like molten metal was pouring out from an invisible furnace, running down an unseen mould. As he reached the path, he couldn’t feel any heat against the winter cold and ground freeze. Despite the glow, the metal didn’t felt like it was coming from a real crucible.

He held in his curious gaze the flowing metal. It looked like it was filling details, artwork like the many bronze statuary that filled the Palace’s gardens and plazas. And the chorus kept on as if it were singing in strange voices while working.

The gardener felt a presence and turned to see his wife, joining him wrapped in her bedsheets. He reached out to her, reassuring her. Then they turned to watch the spectacle.

The metal stopped flowing and started to darken. To their curious gaze, the gate was only silhouetted against the clear night sky and the glow of the last quarter Moon. That, and words that were in their sight, yet not in the world itself.

Transit: Earth 113 – Argenmart

Integrity: 100%

Initialisation

Stability: 100%

The centre of the circle suddenly filled with intermittent streaks of glowing light, growing agitated.

When the first of the guards stationed at the Palais de Versailles came out of the rear door to investigate the detonation-like noise, they found an empty courtyard with a strangeness glowing in its middle.

“So, that is what appeared yesterday?” Bonaparte asked.

“Yes First Consul. The guards reported some strange sounds, like an explosion of some sorts in the distance and found it when they came into the gardens,” Lieutenant Barrault answered.

“And nobody saw anything when it was erected… or how it was?”

“No. Although it is possible that the head gardener did. He and his wife have disappeared. Their house was found open and their bed disturbed, but no one has seen them since.”

“And they might have gone into that… gateway,” a voice added from Napoleon’s side.

The First Consul turned toward the newcomer, recognizing from memory Noel Dumoulin, one of the savants from the Egypt Campaign under Monge’s authority. Many had remained in Egypt to measure and catalogue the exotic wonders of that ancient land, but a handful had come back to France with him when he ran back to France as the Second Coalition started to threaten it.

“Gone?”

“It is a strange thing. The central disc, which you can see is filled with something like soft sunlight, acts as a kind of gate, we think.”

Seeing the First Consul frown, Dumoulin quickly elaborated.

“If you go into the disc, most of the time, you end up walking back out of it the same way you went in. People report that they simply see their surrounding flip as they come back from exactly where they went. But a few people have gone in and not come out.”

“How so?”

“We do not know. Not yet. But the fact that some people get turned back and some do not makes us think there’s something special about them that let them cross whatever gate this is.”

“And what do you think this is a gate to? It does not look like the gates of heaven that the priests describe. You can make camels go thru it easily.”

“It is far too solid to be those, I think,” Dumoulin smiled.

“What do your colleagues think.”

“I do not know. I am not getting close… the two other savants that came with me went to check the gate, and they both disappeared inside. So I can hardly ask them.”

“They disappeared? Interesting,” Napoleon commented drily.

He started down the stairs, going toward the Gate.

“Who else did go through, besides the savants?”

The Lieutenant answered this time.

“Three of my men. There’s Jacques Deschanel, a sergeant, a veteran of the Army of Italy. He had a lamed left hand during the war and was transferred to guard here. Two young privates, Marcel Vachon and Marcel Paoli.”

“Corsican?” Bonaparte asked, curious.

“Yes. He always insists he’s not related to the traitor, though.”

The three men reached the front of the gate. There looked like a stonework ramp, allowing one’s to walk to the light disc.

“No one else?”

“None so far.”

“And it’s only some specific people?”

“Yes. I’ve tried to walk through the gate many times now, and I always end up back,” offered Barrault.

He turned and walked up the ramp. Napoleon saw him get to the liquid light, and suddenly, without the slightest delay, coming out and going down the ramp.

“See?”

“I see,” said the First Consul.

He moved up the ramp, looking at the ornaments. They looked like beast heads. Some wolf, some horned goat or mouflon, some…

The light reached out and swallowed Napoleon Bonaparte without a sound.

Both Barrault and Dumoulin looked at the place where the foremost man of France had stood. Then Barrault swore loudly.

“Shit. France is fucked.”