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Two gates there are, north and south, for entering into the underground realm. Ancient portals made in ancient times. Not the sort of swinging barrier you might imagine with hinges fastened to a frame and a latch to secure it. Nor are they barricades as might lock a fortress, nor towering doors to mark the threshold of palace or cathedral.
The gates are primitive access points, holes through which the mortal traveler must squirm in a way guaranteed to damage one’s dignity. And why not? You are descending first into the region of blind rot — worms and fungi and shit-eating bugs. Here creatures burrow that are translucent, eyeless, slippery. Dead matter is embraced and made to ooze in oily, fetid clumps that stain the layer below, the stony depths of congealed magma. This is not a dignified place.
The south gate is of horn and the north gate of ivory. Both materials are harvested from mammals, and both represent an odd interface between the living and the not-living — between those organized cells that metabolize versus mineral lattices that crystalize.
south gate of horn
Horn is a stiff, dense, fibrous covering for bones growing out of the skull. Horn is skin really, but tough, scaly skin hardened to rock and no longer sensitive. Those who enter by the southern gate of horn are fixed by honesty, enchanted during their passage so they may speak only what is verifiable and true. The imps are ordered to approach via the gate of horn, as Lord Judas routinely directs His guests.
north gate of ivory
Ivory is organic connective tissue that has mineralized. Ivory is living protein transmuted to stone and enameled as if with porcelain. Those who enter Jude’s realm through ivory are smooth and slick, known to be false. They lie without shame. Whenever Love visits They enter and leave by the northern gate of ivory. Always have and always will.