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It was an easy descent. Once over the lip of the cliff he kept to shadows and crevices in the uneven rock face. Loose rubble slid under his soles and cascaded down to shatter at ground level, a hundred feet below. The lord made it to the base and his heavy midnight cloak had come down along with him miraculously untouched by pointed edges aiming to snag and tear. Smoothing palms down his front and adjusting his belted pants, Primus stepped out of the cliff's gloomy cast and paused.

He waited.

The roaring commotion overhead was somehow deafened in his concentration, but now that he stood still it came back like the breakwaves of an ocean rushing forth. A sudden flash dazzled him and he threw an arm up to protect his sight, deep red spots dancing before his irises. Narrowing his field of vision to mere slits, Lord Primus started forward again. His heels kicked up glittering swirls of dust. The earth over which he tread was brutally fractured; slim darkened canyons tunneled endlessly south at random intervals. Once he had to jump to avoid being swallowed by one. A few times he was forced to zigzag his course to avoid stepping in the cracks.

Just before impatience ruined his perfect control, Primus made a few rediculous hops, alternating his landing on either foot over several unstable islands, and found himself a few feet from the rock he'd pitched earlier. A sleek whiplike tail unfurled from the folds of his garments and snapped behind his form in agitation. Another blast of heated wind lifted his cloak and he felt a pull as it fought to free itself from his shoulders and obey the rush of air.

Hardly distracted, the Demon studied the strange bars that kept him just outside the heartland's boundaries. Looming a dozen feet over his head and fashioned with a metal he'd never before seen the gates stretched, uniting flawlessly with tipped bars driven cruelly into place to form an unforgiving fence. It spread out before him like a massive spiderweb to keep him from whatever it was compelling him to move on.

Now that he thought about it he wasn't sure where he was or how he'd gotten there. He wasn't sure if he even cared. Once an insatiable desire to know what was beyond these gates had seized him, he'd surrendered to it and somehow found himself atop a cliff.

Another few paces closer until he was near enough to touch the strange material.

Up close, the gates seemed to pulse with hidden life. Every little curve and dip in their frames glowed subtly with an energy that flowed like water. The longer he stared at a spot the faster it seemed to go. A particularly powerful tremor set them rattling and his ears filled with an eerily high pitch. Without thinking he grabbed the metal to steady himself and the indistinguishable note trickled from his palm to his elbow, numbing as it went.

Snatching his hands back, arm tingling, Primus scrutinized them with mistrust.

The ringing faded and sensation was returning to his arm. Flexing his fingers, he leaned forward until his face was barely more than a foot from the gate and stared at it intently. From this range he could see flickers of iridescence. What relevance the spectral range had he didn't know, but he assumed, judging by his mishap, it was transferrable to a body through direct skin contact.

Wrapping his newly recovered limb in his cloak, he hesitantly reached out and allowed his palm to hover just above the metal. A high pitch sounded. It was so faint he had to strain to hear, but he'd been listening for it. With his palm protected it wasn't nearly as sharp.

Drawing a breath, lord Primus grasped a solid curved piece and froze. Thunder broke overhead and the crimson sky bubbled, if possible, more ferociously than before. A darkness began to trickle over the face of the clouds like old blood stains doused with water.

The ringing didn't increase. His hand wasn't posessed with numbness but a certain heat radiated from the metal that increased by minute degrees. With a morbid grin he tilted his head and wondered if it would get hot enough to actually burn him.

Triumph flashed across his face as Primus leaned his full weight against the gate. He was rewarded by an ominus squeal of hinges lain long untouched, and followed as the mass moved inward to admit him.

Only several inches later he halted; something black and linked stopped the two halves from separating.