As they hurriedly approached the Great lodge, feeling relieved, the place they had come many times before, they didn't know why all of them shuddered and felt a chill running down their bodies, no… it was more like coming from their soul.
The massive, ironwood double doors of the Great Lodge loomed before the trembling delegation like the jaws of a slumbering behemoth.
Carved deeply into the blackened surface were primeval reliefs: great horned serpents coiling around jagged mountain peaks, winged terrors diving through tempestuous skies, and at the very center, the gaping maw of a white tiger whose hollowed eye sockets seemed to follow every shuddering step the emissaries took.
To the shivering foreign envoys, climbing those wide, limestone stairs felt less like an approach to an audience hall and more like a forced march up the steps of an executioner's block.
