The Low Landing

You come in at the top, the way everyone does. Behind you the stair climbs toward a fall of rubble and stops; whatever was above has been shut a long time. The hall is square and plain and lower than it is wide, and a way leaves from the middle of each of its walls.

The wall beside the stair is close with marks — strokes cut and scratched and burned into the stone, grouped in fives, one for every wanderer who has stood where you are standing and then gone on. There is room for yours. Someone has written, small, along the bottom: KEEP TO THE LEFT AND YOU WILL COME BACK HERE. It is true, as it happens. It is not the whole truth.

You count one mark.

Depth 0.

You are reading the dungeon, not walking it. Rooms are only created by people, and only from inside the maze.