Illariu propped up her crook and stretched out in the shade of the gargantuan tree the people in the village called the Eternal Oak. Its canopy of leaves, larger than the village green in the tiny hamlet she came from shielded her from the midday heat.

Not a single cloud floated in the bright blue summer sky and no bird was foolish enough to venture out during the hottest time of the day. Her flock took shelter wherever they could find it, only the most hardy cropping listlessly at the drying blades of grass.

Yet not a single sheep went even near the large stretch of shadow on the other side of the meadow. Like their masters, the animals feared anything to do with the monstrous tower that cast it. Of mind-boggling height and blacker than the shadow it cast, it made the Eternal Oak look a sapling. It had stood there since long before anyone could remember. Nobody knew who had built it or how or why, for it was made of a stone that no tool made by mortals could chip and the large door at its base was closed and it had neither lock nor keyhole.

In the distance Illariu could the the tiny needle of another tower, the twin of the one before her and she knew that in the distance behind her there was another. Nobody knew how many of those towers there were. Then again, what did it matter? The tower had always been there and it had always been locked and it would always be. And that was that as far as Illariu was concerned.

And then she felt the tiniest tremble in the ground. Illariu opened her eyes. The trembling grew and the earth started to shake. The sheep that had lain beside her in the shade of the oak's leaves bleated in fear an ran. She made to follow them, when the hand of a giant grabbed her and cast her aside like a toy.

She landed hard on the cracked ground among her flock, who pressed together for safety from a danger neither they nor she could understand. Spots of colour danced before her eyes and her head hurt. 

When the world finally reemerged from the blinding colours, she could not believe what they showed her. The Eternal Oak lay a few feet away, torn out with root and stem like a daisy. The trembling flock stared at something behind her. Slowly she turned around, dreading the monster that had caused this havoc. It was a wall. A wall that had apparently sprung from the earth. Illariu followed it with her eyes. It ran into the distance, straight as her sight, to where she knew the other tower stood. And on the other side was another wall. She had no doubt about where that went to.

Yet it was the tower before her that worried her more than anything else. For the door at its base had opened.