There is a place far off toward the edges of any atlas, bordering the uninhabitable as well. Barren desert, the sort entirely devoid of even the hardiest life, sweeps up to the foot of an imposing mountain range. The heights of these mountains remain unknown. Their tops are so obscured by a constant thick haze of cloud that no ordinary measurements, nor any figuring of trigonometric equations, could determine their tops' extent above their stratus blanket. No measurement has been obtained by pawsteps, either, though many have tried to set the values. All of those sorry creatures invariably did not return.

What terrain remains on the other side of these mountains perhaps was a plateau once, very long ago. Only a very hostile region, though, could have demolished an entire flatland, leaving the shorn edge as a bare wall against the pounding of a relentless sea. Rumor has it that no marine life makes it in the cove before the mountains. Any lone fish that attempts to explore this territory is dashed against the rocks and picked up by scavenging seagulls, their wings their only method of cheating death.

How any four-footed beasts reached the small flat land protrusion between the mountains and the cliff has also been lost from documentation. The evidence was there, though, indisputably wrought by many laborious paws, probably from the face of the mountain itself. In a setting so characterized by heights, an architect would have to perform the unlikely, not so much to rival Nature but rather to simply fit within her scheme.

Nevertheless, their own tops often obscured by fog, two dark scepters stood like sentries on that narrow brink. They were simple in designâ€"like two boxes on end, constructed of some wood but mostly wrought iron and glass. Their exceptional element was indeed their height. The architect alone knew how tall the identical structures wereâ€"the towers' master knew once but lost track of that statistic with time. Regardless of actual figures, no other building even came close to the awesome stature of these twin towers. As for the question of why there were two-well, again logical reason and exact knowledge are absent. But if one can be built, a second is only a symbol meant to testify that their master can command reaching into the sky twice.

The Northern tower, by several yards, had atop it a curious structure. An extension of some kind, constructed like a freakish weathervane of steel spikes and leather lashings pierced the clouds when present, and seemed to be spearing the very middle of the sky on a clear day, sunlight turned to an icy glint off the sharpened surface. Atop the Southern tower was framed the lone silhouette of a living creature.

The weasel gazed out over the cove, his sharp eyes piercing like the device atop the other tower. All he could see down the horizon was his. But the horizon wasn't good enough. His roving pupils traced the curvature of the shore, squinting down as he imagined the contours that he could not see.

The win whipped the weasel's robes around him; it whipped his tail behind him and muffled his straggly beard around his face like a scarf. It also whipped a powdered substance from his outstretched paw as he looked onward. The powderâ€"talc, or perhaps ash, or something similarâ€"traveled as if it was being pulled along a platform of air, winding a sinuous path while hovering, riding this swift current down the field of vision until it too swelled beyond the horizon.

The weasel smiled thinly as the final specks disappeared, then turned and stepped back down into the tower.