He stepped through.
The passage was instantaneous in one sense and not instantaneous in another. His foot crossed the threshold defined by the standing-person silhouette and the potential-color that had been the environment above the Fifth Gate closed behind him, the Lower Domain's atmosphere present on one side and whatever the Middle Domain's atmosphere was present on the other, and the transit between them was a single step that took as long as a step took and also felt like the step had been the entire journey.
He stood on the other side.
The Middle Domain was not what he had constructed in his mind during the ascent.
He had not constructed much. He had been careful about that, the Fifth Gate's lesson about the limits of anticipation still present. He had let the unknown be unknown and had climbed toward it rather than toward a version of it he had imagined.
