Ladder of Heaven

The Ladder of Heaven was a great staircase constructed by the priesthood of Saint Sabbat in the Sacred Hills of the planet Hagia sometime in the 35th millennium as an act of faith.^[1]

The staircase measures some 50km and ascends to around 4km in height, with the top exit just below the Saint's Shrinehold. Each of the 25,000 steps that make up the staircase is 16cm high and, with the exception of the steps that turn, roughly two metres deep. The average pilgrim took five or six days to ascend the Ladder, assuming that they were fit and able.^[1]

As the trip up the Ladder was extremely arduous, pilgrims used to consider travelling to the Shrinehold via the staircase to be an act of chastening. By M41 very few people made use of the Ladder, preferring to instead take the easier route along a section of the Tembarong Road.^[1]

Sources

• 1: Honour Guard (Novel) — The Saint (Omnibus), Chapter Fourteen