Kaelen and The Wandering Staircase of Silmaroth

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The Wandering Staircase of Silmaroth
The entrance was nothing more than a ledge of rock amidst crumbling walls. Kaelen would have missed it if not for the humming—a faint, vibrating sound, like a string untouched. Varaan stayed behind. "Only one can enter it," he said. "It tolerates no shadow but its own." Kaelen approached. The air was still, but the light trembled. And then she saw it: the staircase. It floated freely in space, made of stone and roots, metal and memory. Some steps were overgrown with moss, others glittered like water in the moonlight. And as she watched Kaelen, it changed—step by step, the forms shifted, exchanged places, disappeared, and returned. It was as if the memory of an entire world were dissolving into steps. Kaelen took a deep breath and placed her first foot on the bottom step. Instantly, the floor vanished. Not beneath her, but behind her. Before her now lay a corridor—not a corridor of stone, but of sound. She heard footsteps, the crackle of a fire, the soft dripping of water. A voice called a name she didn't recognize. And yet—it felt as if it had once been hers. She continued climbing, and with each step the world around her changed. A door opened onto a dusty attic full of books whispering in a language that seemed to come from dreams. Kaelen read a sentence—and suddenly remembered a story she had never written, but knew nonetheless. Then the attic was gone. The next step led into an alley, rain-soaked and deserted. A small child ran past her, looked at her—and had her eyes. Kaelen stopped. A moment, then the scene dissolved like smoke in the wind. "Where am I?" she asked aloud. The stairs didn't answer. But they led on. She walked through a song she knew as a lullaby, through a snowfall she had never experienced, through a feast she never attended—and yet her heart was shaken by every moment, as if they were fragments of her own life. Then a step that made her hesitate. Black, smooth, cold. As she stepped onto it, there was silence. No light. No sound. No feeling. Only a state—without name, without time. Kaelen felt her memory crumble into individual drops. What was yesterday? What was her? What hadn't happened yet? She heard her own voice say, "You are not lost. You just aren't now." With a cry, she continued climbing—and stepped into the light. The last step led back to Varaan. He was still standing at the edge of the ruins, but Kaelen stopped. For at the top—where the stairs disappeared into the mist—stood someone. A silhouette. Human. Broad-set. A backpack on his back. Motionless. The figure was too far away to make out its face. And yet a thought flashed through Kaelen's mind: I don't know you... but perhaps you saw me before I saw you. She raised her hand. The figure didn't move.