The House of Dust

The Month of the Falling Star

The water is cold. Frozen tendrils crept through his legs. Death is close at hand. The river was not fast flowing or deep, but wide and would take some time to cross. And this is only the first. The second river lay glistening in the distance, the light of the perpetual sun sparkling off it. West, beyond the rivers, sat the Enkindled Mountain, the tallest peak in the ring that enclosed the valley of the people, and on its reverse hidden in constant shadow, the House of Dust where Sha-Le will find her doom. A shudder ran down his back, to meet the icy fingers of the river’s grasping hands.

A sudden cacophony of noise rose all around, brass and bass, percussion and string, the boom and doom of drums, striking up the victory lament as the people began to sing. I cannot sing for this, why do we celebrate this?

“That is quite the funeral song. But tell me wife, why, why such effort for such a fleeting moment? Why do we choose it so?”

Sha-Le’s laugh rumbled over the ensemble,

“Because it is fleeting.” Her voice as soft and innocent as the first time they met, but the tone was that of a teacher. “Nine hundred and ninety-nine years to your name and you still do not understand, Zel-Af. My Zel-Af the Questioner. We have the potential for an endless span before us, but what use is time unending if we do nothing of value, nothing of beauty with it. It is a cruel jape, a punishment.” She looked off into the distance, eyes resting on the mountain looming ever closer,

“You know why we were given the gift of life unending by Daf-An the Glorious?” she continued, gaze still fixed on the mountain and the sunlight crowning its summit. “Because of our refusal to grasp the chance at everlasting fame and glory by taking the path to death. So now we are all given the choice, live unending, unknown lives of little value, or choose a beautiful death and the chance to be remembered for eternity. It is an easy choice for most I know, but you have always questioned.” She paused, Is that a moment of hesitation? “I do worry for you. Your thousandth-year approaches and your death day with it, and yet you have made no preparations. After today, when I have had my fleeting beauty, I will not be here any longer to put you on the right path. Do not become a whisper, another Shenz-El The Unending, trapped forever in the ignominy of this existence.”

Her voice echoed through the gold mask, embossed with an eight-pointed star at its centre and covering her face, sounding as though she already spoke from beyond the grave. Her maroon skin hidden by the gold, as she wished for her immortal memory to hide the humdrum of the thousand years of existence that led to this one day of glory.

“Who is to say what is right and what is wrong? Why do we strive for fleeting beauty and unending glory? Why does a procession such as this guarantee that?” His voice sounded forlorn. And what do I do when I lose you?

“You ask too many questions, Zel-Af. Can you not look around you and see the answers for yourself? Will you not remember this day? Will I not achieve an immortality through the memory of such a procession rather than unending life of humdrum and misery?”

An immortality that you will not be here to see or remember.

Trumpets took up a triumphant call as the procession stepped its way into the second river. Narrower and faster flowing, soon they would reach the other side. Then the looming mountain waited.

The slopes of the peak came on quickly. Thousands of feet trudged up the dry and desolate mountain and through the pass. Not once did the song and music let up, the lament reaching a fever pitch as they descended the intricately carved stairs that led into the desert of the shadow lands below, locked in a perpetual twilight in contrast to the lands on the other side of the rivers, forever bathed in the light of the endless sun. To their front soared the seven gates of the House of Dust. The first of gleaming marble, carved with reliefs of the war of Daf-An the Glorious against the pale demons that led the people to this fate. Above the first gate, a statue of a beast sat waiting, the gateway guardian carved from a single piece of black rock, its eyes flame red gemstones, glowing despite the darkness.

The procession stopped; a haunting silence fell over the shadow valley. Sha-Le approached the first gate. Slowly she hammered on the burnished bronze door and the boom echoed around the quiet valley.

“Let me enter the House of Dust.”

“Why do you come?” the voice seemed to resonate from the creature.

“To answer the call of Daf-An and witness my funeral rites, to hand my body over to become dust, so that my memory may live on immortally and remembered.”

“You cannot enter dressed as such. You will not need luxuries in the House of Dust.”

Sha-Le unpinned the rosette at her shoulder and let her purple cloak fall to the floor. As it hit the ground the gate rumbled open. With that each man and woman in the procession released the dove they carried and a flutter of wings filled the air.

The gates open and today I lose my wife. How many of the people have unquestioningly taken this path? Who is to say this is not one big folly, to waste our potential in this way?

The first gate passed them by, then a second came, and a third. Each time the beast was waiting, each time it demanded its price and Sha-Le dropped an element of her fine garb. Still the lament rang out. At the seventh and final gate, the golden mask was all that remained and still the demon demanded its price.

What comes next is the hardest part to endure.

A ripple of emotion ran through him, like the river of time that each of those he had held most dear had willingly decided to dam. The procession marched on, into the House of Dust.

They passed by the lavish tomb of Daf-An the Glorious. The man who led the people to victory. Despite opposition from within the community, he assembled an army of five hundred companions and threw down the pale old ones who threatened the people with slavery and torment. With his dying breaths he had gifted the people unending lives so they could learn what glory there was in choosing the path of death.

Then they marched by Shimaf-Al the Legislator’s tomb. He had worked to bring laws and good governance to the people, an order that brought prosperity.

Then Shali-Af the Chanter’s resting place. The first to carry out the ritual in the form it now took. A process to ensure all the people had a death day that would echo down the ages.

Felthi-Mi the Prosperous was the next in line. His death day had been the most lavish of any of the people as he had used his thousand years well.

Thelpa-Di the Hedonist’s day had been three days in truth. A celebration like no other. Delthalf-Al the Mighty’s statute towered over the others and Dza-Thi the Golden’s was gilded to the point that it sparkled, even in the dun surroundings of the House of Dust.

Mother and father are in this place. My brothers and sisters also. Cousins, uncles, and distant relatives whose names I never knew. What glory does this really bring? What everlasting fame?

And now Sha-Le’s choice comes.

The trumpets echoed in the House that sat perpetually in the mountain’s shadow and their procession halted. Before them rested the tomb, the place that had been prepared over the last thousand years. I will admit that Sha-Le has done well, her tomb will certainly be impressed upon my mind.

The stone entrance led to a staircase and a platform where Sha-Le’s remains would be on display to all who remembered her name. But do people not remember deeds rather than ritual and a moment of death mimicking the countless generations before us?

Sha-Le showed no sign of questioning her purpose though. Already she solemnly ascended the steps as great pits were opened either side of her tomb for those who would join her in this moment, frozen in time for all the world to see and remember.

Sha-Le knelt and placed the firewood and liquid that would see her go to her end neatly next to her. So meticulously had she planned this, so many times rehearsed over a millennium of life that she could have done it in her sleep. And what kind of life is that? One lived only for this moment, only to see her in to death?

Hours passed as they stood and watched in perfect silence, waiting for the moment that the flames would light and Sha-Le would take up her death song.

*

The Month of the Missing Star

“Where did he go?”

“Brother, I have told you before, it is just a story. A legend told to scare children, before they are old enough to understand why we must end.” She answered with a dismissive distain. “Why do you ask about such foolish things? One year that is all you have left, one year to the day will be your death day, and yet you have made no preparations. Your death will not be beautiful and your sacrifice not remembered.”

She does not understand, why does no one understand? Even the sister I grew up with cannot see it.

“Ok it is a story, but indulge me. The end of the tale where does it say he went? He must have gone somewhere, if he truly is unending and did not choose the path of the people, then he must still live.”

“Yes, yes more children’s stories though. To the edge of the world and time itself, beyond the mountains of fire, passed the lions of life and the valley of vitality. Did you never pay attention as a child?”

“Ok, ok could the Burning Peaks be the same place?”

“It is just a story. Centuries, you have done nothing with your life for centuries, only tend to your flock, your simple life as a shepherd, and now in your final year you suddenly show interest in something, but why interest in this?”

“Yes, interest in this, there is nothing else to be interested in. Surely there must be someone who would know if these two mountain ranges are one and the same?”

Shela-Fi sighed, “It is an old story, older than any living memory. You may find something in the archives I suppose. There are many scrolls in the lower levels that even I have not explored.”

Of course, the archives. My people aren’t so foolish as to let all memories and records die with them.

*

How long has it been, hours? Days? I have lost track. How deep does this cavern go?

The depths of the archives were something to behold, if you could get enough light in there to see. Piles of dusty old scrolls hidden in the cave like depths, a contrast to the clean and pristine order of the rooms above. Though both were filled with records of the people and their deeds, the records of their beautiful ends, meant to preserve their names and memories for posterity.

The evidence must be down here though, buried somewhere along with all these other memories.

He picked another dusty manuscript from the bundle he had salvaged from a fallen shelf. The others he had searched through lay strewn all around him. Again nothing, nothing of any value in here, just more prose on the glory of so and so’s end. He pulled another volume from the scattered texts, but a dusty covered pile in the corner of the room seemed to beckon. This tome offers little, a dry genealogy of one of the clans, those look intriguing though. The pile was old and clearly had not been touched for many eons, the tangle of spiders webs was a mark of that. Carefully does it, these things feel old enough to crumble to dust at the touch.

Slowly and with painstaking difficulty the first scroll unravelled. Old words, that have been twisted as time moved on, but I think I can make out the meaning. An old tale telling some story about the time before the gift. Not what I was hoping for but an old story that I do not know, I may be close.

The second scroll crumbled as it was lifted, but the third allowed itself to be eased open.

‘Unending.’ The word at the top of the parchment made his heart skip a beat. Is this it?

*

The Month of the Star’s Rise

What madness got into my spirit to make me conceive of this? Still hundreds of feet yet to climb and I am exhausted.

A lizard leapt out from beneath the rock where his hand had been placed, startling him. I wish I could hide under a rock to get out of the endless sunlight.

Wearily his feet continued to drag him ever upwards. I am at the limits of my people’s knowledge now. Beyond that peak all I can rely on are old children’s stories and half-forgotten legends. Even the Burning Peaks seems like the wrong name for these mountains, they teem with life.

The scurrying of some small animals drew his eye, into a line of dense shrubs. He followed and, as he did, the peak finally became visible. At last, the end of the climb in sight and a lone tree stands there resplendent, as if waiting for me to sit and rest.

The scramble to the top sapped the last of his energies, but finally rest was close as the tree cast a shadow over him. A plum tree, that is a welcome sight indeed. Dropping his cloak to the ground and slumping under the branches, weariness was easily succumbed to and the view, across both the lands he knew and the lands he was yet to discover, was a welcome sight.

How many leagues have I journeyed? And I am still yet to understand what it is that compels me to chase this tale. Am I running from the inevitable? Or from having to face the loss of Sha-le? Or am I seeking validation from another for my revulsion of our devotion to this absurd practice? No, it must be more than that, why else would I travel so far in search of a whisper?

Too many questions for a weary mind to answer. But maybe I will find a purpose at the end of this path. His eyelids were being dragged down by a gentle, invisible hand. Sleep fell upon him quickly.

*

The heat of the sun this high is intense. I hoped the tree would offer more protection. Standing slowly in the scorching heat, his error became obvious. From below the surface of the summit bubbled hot, liquid fire and it was creeping closer and closer. Already the way back down the mountain was blocked. Time to move, you fool. I knew you should have investigated the name, Burning Peaks for a reason and that reason is about to swallow you whole.

The weariness in his legs was trumped by the urgence of his flight as he leapt down the mountain side. Jumping from rock to rock, from ledge to ledge, as if scrambling down a staircase carved by giants. He came screeching to a halt at the bottom.

The gateway to the land you were seeking lays before you. Somewhere beyond here The Unending lives. Or I am a fool on a foolish errand and I will be lost in this place.

*

The Month the Star enters the Heavens

The star moves towards the heavens. Months I’ve been on this journey and still I feel no closer to my goal.

This land is verdant, vibrant, and filled with life. A veritable paradise. Why have our people not ventured here before? So caught up in our own dreams and desires for renown that we have not stopped to explore our world. Maybe I should give up on this foolish quest and discover more of this lush land?

Descending the mountain passes was a dangerous journey. Caught in the wonder of the land below, his attention was not on his footing. Left, then right, slowly putting one foot in front of the other. But the ground was uneven and crumbled under his plodding steps. He slipped, and fell. Suddenly the floor plummeted towards him, his hands flew out to stop his fall and a jolt of pain shuddered through his arms. His blurred version cleared just in time to witness his shoe bouncing down the mountain side with the fall of rocks and onto the valley floor below. That could have been me. Take more care else you will find your death with no questions answered and no one to witness it.

There is no evidence of the people here at all. This path is barely one to speak of. Scrambling over a rock fall to clear the final hurdles before entering the valley was exhausting and his shirt was ripped as he jumped the final boulders. No matter, I am here now. I’ve passed through the gates into this strange new realm.

*

What plants are these? Nothing like this grows in the valley of the people. And those birds? I have never seen their like. My sister would adore this place. The importance of my quest seems to diminish the longer I explore this garden. Maybe I was being foolish, maybe this is all the meaning I need in the world?

The gentle splash of a nearby river drew his eye. Leisurely, he approached and stared into the clear crisp waters.

The climb over the mountains has done me no favours. Maybe I should rest here for a while and regain my strength.

Kneeling, he splashed the cool, crisp waters over his face and looked back at his reflection.

No better, now I just look tired and wet…What’s that?

Over his shoulder, reflected in the settling waters, the image of a bright-eyed beast, mantled by a flame red mane, stared back at him. The hairs on the back of his head immediately stood on end. The initial inertia dissipated quickly as his heart sprung from a gentle canter to a mad gallop. Suddenly he found himself running, splashing through the waters. Without stopping to discover what foul creature was lurking behind him and if it had pursued, he tore into the woods on the far bank, ripping his clothes on the sharp, stinging branches and struggling through the boggy, swampy ground.

What was that thing? Is it chasing me? Keep going, find somewhere to hide.

In that moment, his foot disappeared below the surface, squelching into the mud. As he struggled to raise it, he felt his other shoe slip away.

No matter, keep going, you can’t get stuck here.

Step by arduous step he dragged himself through the swamp, heart pounding in his chest with every noise echoing from the surrounding trees. At last, the forest opened into a clearing where a small gorge cut through the land.

Nothing for it, I must go forward.

Finding an open, solid stretch of land was harder than he imagined, but finally he found space large enough to take a run up.

Deep breath, its one small leap.

Discarding his heavy, sodden jacket, he breathed deeply and began to run. The moments in the air felt as though he lived another millennium, before the feeling was shattered as he crashed painfully into the cliff side opposite.

Don’t stop here.

One heave, his muscles straining, he managed to pull himself onto the cliff top, but not before ripping again what was left of his shirt.

A cave, there is a cave ahead. Perhaps I can hide and rest in there.

*

The Month the Star Converses with the Sun

“What is this?”

Who is that? Am I dreaming? Or have I entered the House of Dust?

“I did wonder what had caused all that commotion in the valley. The people certainly know how to make a scene.” The voice echoed off the rocky walls. A lit torched flickered.

“Who are you? Have I succumbed?” It was a struggle to form the words. A laugh answered him,

“No, I am quite real and very alive. Come, you foolish boy, I suppose I can’t just leave you here.”

An arm slid under him and he began to rise.

“No, I cannot go. I must seek out The Unending. I need to understand.” Those words came easier and more urgently.

“You are going nowhere for the moment. Not in this state. The people may live forever, but only with food and sustenance and you look as though you’ve had neither in weeks, and you are barely clothed. I’m sure The Unending will not end before you can seek him out.” The voice sounded even more amused now as he was being dragged toward the cave mouth.

“You do not understand, I need to know.” Suddenly his head was awash and his vision blurred.

*

“Drink this and wrap this cloak around you, boy. I will get the fire going.” The mysterious man said as he dumped him unceremoniously into a chair and a puff of dust was thrown in to the air.

The stranger blew some more dust away from an ancient looking fire place and began to strike some flint. The flames whooshed as Zel-Af touched the liquid to his lips. It warmed his aching body as it slid down his throat.

“What is this?” his voice was coming back to him now.

“The fruit of the Shila tree. You only find it in this land, it will warm and revive you like nothing you know.” What a strange accent he has. Almost like how grandfather spoke.

The man took a seat opposite. As the liquid and the fire slowly restored his wits, he finally took a good look at the stranger.

“You are one of the people!” How is one of our own out here on his own? The stranger smiled.

“I am. And what brings you to my secluded valley, boy?”

“I am seeking out Shenz-El The Unending. I must understand his purpose, and do not call me boy, I am in my nine-hundred and ninety nineth year, my death day fast approaches.”

“I see. Still a boy in my eyes though. What makes you think this Shenz-El can be found here?”

“The old legends say he came this way. Children’s tales I know, my sister said how foolish I am to follow them, but they are all that is left. That and some old crumbling scrolls I found in the archive. But Shenz-El is the only one who can answer my questions, so I had to seek him out, for surely, he must still live, he chose the path of life unending and exile after all. I did not know any of the people lived beyond the valley. What brings you here?”

The stranger smiled as he answered.

“This is my home, away from the absurd rules of the people. Here I can live in unending peace. What questions would you like to put to this Shenz-El? You put yourself through so much to get here, it must be of great importance.”

“The upmost importance. As I say my thousandth-year fast approaches and along with it my allotted death. But I have made no preparations, nothing to make it a memorable event to ensure my immortal memory. Instead, I found myself questioning why. Why do we do this, we who have the potential to live unending lives, why do we choose to end our own after one thousand years, without question? All in an attempt to make our deaths beautiful and memorable? And so, I decided to seek out someone who might be able to help me, the only other person who seems to have questioned this practice. Shenz-El The Unending. Though many scoffed at the notion, my own sister even denied his existence. A children’s tale she said, told as a warning to those who would question the path and give in to the temptation of life unending. But I have found scrolls that hint that he was real, very old, but very real and that he travelled this way into endless exile.”

The stranger smiled in an odd way, showing all his teeth but concealing his thoughts. His eyes staring, a piercing penetrating glare.

“But there is more to it than that. Nine hundred and ninety-nine years and only now you seek the truth. The pressure of your death day is one thing, but what else spurred this journey?”

Does he know? How does he know? Is it written so clearly upon my face.

“I…I do not understand.”

“Yes, you do. What is it that drove you to take such drastic action? I found you half dead in a cave in my secluded valley. The people never seek to venture beyond their valley, not since Daf-An pronounced his curse of everlasting life of ignominy. Since Shimaf-Al worked to establish the laws and Shali-Af worked to enshrine the rituals that would see our names remembered. No, they are too busy preparing for their deaths, preparing for the lavish parades and spectacles that will accompany their ending. Such terror at being forgotten, but you. You have forsaken all of that, run from it even. Some great motivation must have driven you to it.”

“My wife.” The words came out unexpectedly. “Sha-Le. Her death day came, not two months past. She went to her death willingly, with delight even, as the people are expected to. Eager that her name will live on. I marched in the procession with her, over the twin rivers and the peak of the Enkindled Mountain. The music played and the people danced as we descended into the desert of the shadow land. Sha-Le bashed on the doors and demanded to enter the House of Dust. I stood there in silence as the gateway guardian demanded her garments to enter, I was silent at each of the seven gates. Then I watched motionless for hour after hour as the people danced, the sacrifices were made, and my Sha-Le carried out the ritual. The flames rushed up and her song drifted over me, and now all that is left is dust. All so that she may not suffer unending obscurity, so that her death may be remembered. And it will, by me, it is burned into my soul, but for how long? And for what? We have no children to carry on the celebration, so the death day becomes a fleeting moment, a celebration drowned out by all the others, and washed away by the passage of time. Then one-year flies by and my death day comes. We both go to the House of Dust and all memory of us is blown away. Why is this such a sought after prize among the people?...How did you know?”

The stranger smiled again, but a kind smile this time.

“I know the look. It was once plastered all over my face, endless centuries ago. It is the same reason why I chose an unending exile rather than a beautiful death, as had been decreed.”

*

“My quest is at an end. I have so many questions. How did you come to live in this valley? What was it that drove you to make such a choice?”

Shenz-El slowly stood and paced towards a dusty bookshelf. Brushing the powder off one of the tomes. He lifted it and turned.

“The curse of Daf-An, the cruellest and most spiteful act in the people’s history, that’s what led me here.” The book was old, impossibly old. “Oh yes, he is seen as the great man by the people now. He achieved his goal; I will give him that. An immortal legacy that shapes the lives of the people millennia after his death. But think about what he did, and tell me it was not cruel and vindictive. Cursing us all because we would not follow him into a vainglorious war, giving us unending life, but this absurd desire for a different kind of immortality; a legacy and a reverence for our memory that can only be achieved in death. But the people fell for it. They call it a gift, not a curse.”

Shenz-El was slowly leafing through pages of the tome, plumes of dust being ejected with each turn of a page.

“But not you? Why did you not fall for it?”

Shenz-El’s laugh was full of bitter melancholy,

“Oh I did at first. For almost a thousand years I watched with an almost eager joy as Shimaf-Al made his laws and Shali-Af formed the rituals, and all the while I planned and prepared for my own end.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Shenz-El suddenly caught his gaze, a mesmeric stare.

“Why did you not prepare? Why did you come to seek me out and hear my sorry tale?”

“I have told you why.”

“You have told me the trigger, nothing more.”

“I…um, I am unsure.”

“You are not, you have just never had the chance to articulate those thoughts, those feelings. Instead, you waited one thousand years before the pressure triggered this fool’s errand.”

“You did the same, you fled when your time came.”

“I did and what has it won me? Loneliness, sorrow, boredom, and ignominy.”

“More than that, your name is as known as Daf-An’s.”

“As a half-forgotten children’s tale, you said as much yourself. Whereas Daf-An is the great hero of our people. But you avoid my question.”

“I have never understood the custom, never understood why we sacrifice our unending lives to grasp for immortality. Especially to be remembered among our people when we could all choose to live on and there would be no need for memory.”

“Ah, now we get closer to the truth. But there is more than that.”

“Of course, there is more. Even accepting the premise of the need to end our lives after a millennium, we do so little with that time, we are so fixated on the end, for planning for our deaths. And what is that end anyway? An act that has become so ritualised, so obsessed with process and protocol that they are not memorable in the slightest. And so many too, the House of Dust is overflowing, inside is a desert of the dust of our dead. How will any of them be remembered amongst all of that?”

“Yes, at least in the early years those we remembered could be said to have achieved great things. Many of them even died whilst striving for those deeds. Even Daf-An himself, loath him as I do, at least he did things in life worthy of being remembered, or scorned. But that period did not last long, quickly the goal became the end itself, the most elaborate and confected funeral rites and rituals were seen as the way to be remembered. When this realisation came to me, my life’s purpose suddenly dissipated, lost all meaning, the work I had laboured on for centuries now seemed meaningless, a pointless folly. And so, I fled. Away from the House of Dust, the great chamber the people had constructed in the shadow lands to house our remains, the place where our bodies would become dust whilst all memory of us soared. Instead, I chose to seek out a place to live. Not to be remembered by people I have never met countless centuries hence, but to live for my own sake. A quiet life of ease and solitude.”

Shenz-El stood slowly and replaced his weathered book upon the shelf, brushing dust from the others that he had gathered there. With his back turned, he let out a sigh.

“So, I chose life, life and to be forgotten. As you see, I am alone here. No wife to share the evenings with, no children to raise to teach right from wrong. This was a choice, and it is a choice I would make again given the chance. However, that is not to say it was an easy choice, or indeed has given me all that I want. I am alone, I am tired and I have no one to share it with. My people have all but forgotten me, and those that do remember me, do so with scorn. They use my name to scare small children. It is not simple a thing to flee from our people’s absurd rules and expect life unending to offer you all the answers. It does not, it merely poses you a different set of questions. The first of which you are about to encounter.”

“What do I do? Which path do I choose?”

“Precisely. Do you return to the people and accept your lot, or do you flee into the world and see what it has in store for you, for good or ill?”

*

The Month the Star Decides

Why do they all gather?

A sea of faces confronted him, more of the people than he had ever seen gather in one place, even for the death days of the richest and greatest.

“He’s back” A voice shouted.

“Where have you been?” Another echoed.

Are they talking to me?

“What did you find beyond the mountains?”

“Did you meet the Unending?”

A shudder rippled through him. Stopping his progress and facing the crowd, words suddenly came to him,

“I met the Unending and he is so much more and yet so much less than we imagine. His life is a lesson we should all learn, should all contemplate before accepting the prescriptions of our laws, or rituals and the so-called gift of Daf-An. Now if you will allow me, I must leave you for there is something that I must do.”

The mountain looms less large than I remembered and the twin rivers shallower and less fast flowing.

Despite his weariness his legs moved eagerly, and the echo of a thousand feet behind him, following him actually gave him courage.

The waters are warm and teem with life.

Crossing the rivers flashed by. Ascending the mountain was as if taking a stroll through a flowering meadow. Even descending into the shadow lands did not shake him from his stride, and still the people followed on behind.

At the first gate to the House of Dust he finally paused. Raising his hand as he stared into the flame red eyes of the gateway guardian. Three times he knocked.

“Why do you come?” the guardian asked.

Why am I here? Which path do I choose?

***

Lewis D’Ambra is an author from South Wales and comes from a mixed Welsh and Italian background. Studying History at university, he went on to join the British army, whilst also studying for a Master’s degree in International Security and Development. Moving on from the army, Lewis moved into the political world working in the UK Parliament. In this role he honed his skills as a writer having to produce everything from reports, policy documents, through to political speeches. Lewis then went to work for various Government bodies in senior communications roles, work that included writing newspaper articles, hosting round-tables and giving presentations to large and diverse audiences.