Mericlou followed closely behind, treading through the sweet smelling grass of the forest glade. Branches were entangled high above, but the smaller of Vinta's enormous boughs dipped low through the canopy, to where she could almost touch them. Everything about this place was enchanting, from the stream over which grew a large tree root bridge, to the ever-present chords of chimes that sung in counterpoint to the breeze that blew through the canopy.
Aldrec stopped in front of a massive doorway at Vinta's base: an arch that was covered with runic script. He brought Mericlou closer, and then indicated a specific rune in the center of the door. It resembled a short line cut through the center by the top half of a circle.
"Touch it, and say, Rirvuo," Aldrec said, placing her hand on the symbol. He smiled as she shrank back as if it would burst into flames. Seeing no reaction, Mericlou was reassured enough to tentatively reach out and touch it.
"Go ahead," he said encouragingly. "It's perfectly safe. Just be sure you pronounce it just as I said: Rirvuo."
Her hand fully on the rune, Mericlou repeated the word that Aldrec said.
"Rirvuo."
The rune came alive with green light, which spread to the other runes like flowing links of chain, until the doorway burned bright with the chain of script. Afterwards there was a sound of a large steel lock falling open. The door then creaked ajar on ancient hinges.
For some reason, Mericlou had expected the inside to be dark. But like the dwarven caverns that contained Aldrec's secret garden, a hanging wooden cone in the middle of the ceiling, covered with brilliant white runes brightly illuminated the inside.
The inner chamber was circular, and nearly featureless like Aldrec's silence room, although much, much bigger, and with lines of vines that grew from the doorposts and clung to the walls like manicured kudzu. Two large decorative chairs sat on either side, and two carpeted staircases on the chamber's far side led upwards towards opposite sides of the tree.
"This is the main sitting room," Aldrec explained as the entrance door behind them closed of its own accord. "The staircase on the right leads to the master bedroom, guestrooms, and bathrooms. The staircase on the left leads to all the utility areas of the house: kitchen, office, library, reading room, game room, my silence room …"
"Hold it," Mericlou said. "Back up. You said that the guestrooms are on this side," -she pointed towards the right staircase- "and that the silence room was on that side?" She then indicated the left staircase. "The room where I woke up was a guestroom, right? If so, then how could we have passed instantaneously from one half of the house to the other without using any conjoining hallway, or going back to the sitting room to take the second staircase?"