Author's Preface
The Gate of Candles , its bulk and thousand spicules of unquiet wax-fire, beetling grim.
A great onyx protrusion overhanging the unfolding settlement.
Past the way-markers and shrines, low abodes of polished salt and pepper granite and thick-curtained pavilions and tents pile on in increasingly close procession, up to the very foot of the looming Gate .
It is here that they begin at last to pass other figures, in singles and couples and small groups.
For the most part moving unhurriedly about their unknowable business and unremarked upon purposes. Colours muted and furtive, bundled against the fog and cool that drifts off the Great Lower Sea .