Crystal lamps hung lifeless above RKC’s dark lobby. No sun shone through the doors. Faint ghostlights set into floor and baseboard runners were the only source of illumination; they traced a branching red labyrinth that connected elevators and stairwell to the entrance. Bas-reliefs glowered from the walls—gods in agony, the King in Red triumphant, hearts torn from chests and altars split to shards.
Demons wandered through the foyer, their footsteps like glass on stone. They took many forms: a looming silent shade whose five arms ended in scalpel forests, a spider with legs six feet long. A bus-sized centipede tasted the air with tremulous antennae.
Caleb’s lungs and stomach tried to squeeze into his throat. Teo cursed in High Quechal.
The demons did not attack, or seem to notice them. Nor did they intrude on the labyrinth. A giant spider crossed one crimson path, but it lifted each leg well clear of the red lines and did not step between them.
Simple enough. Stay on the path, and remain safe. Stray, and be devoured. Strange to have a security system that posed no danger to any intruder with eyes.
Caleb stepped forward, but Temoc gripped his arm like a vise. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“There are demons here.”
“I can see that.”
“They haven’t attacked yet. We don’t know what might set them off.”
“It looks like we’ll be fine if we stick to the path.”
“What path?”
“That path.” Caleb pointed to the floor, to the red ghostlight lines—the red ghostlight lines, which cast no shadows. Oh. “You can’t see any light on the floor, can you?”
“I see a small red circle around us. You were about to cross the circle’s edge.”
“Ah. What about you, Teo?”
“I see green lines.”
“Damn.”
“Exactly. My lines turn left after five feet.”
Caleb’s red path remained straight for ten feet, then curved sharply to the right. “So there’s a safe path for you, and a safe path for me, and none for Temoc.”
“Makes sense. It can tell that we’re supposed to be here, and he isn’t.”
“RKC has fed upon both of you for years. The beast knows your taste, and hungers for fresh meat.”
“You’re a creepy man,” Teo said.
“This,” Temoc said, indicating the demon-filled room with a wave of his hand, “is your office building.”
Caleb tried not to think about teeth and claws and legs and pincers. “Dad, I don’t suppose you can fight them off?”
“This would not be a battle,” Temoc said. A thing like a crystal mantis scuttled up to the edge of the red circle, and stared at them with mirror eyes. “I would disappear under claw and fang.”
“Can you climb the pyramid from outside?”
“Perhaps. But there will be defenses outside as well.”
“Okay. Then I’ll carry you.”
“You’ll carry me?”
“If the demons can’t cross my path, we have to make it so they can’t attack you without attacking me.”
“Your carrying me will not solve that problem.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Another silence of legs and claws. “No.”
“So we do it this way. Straight to the lift.”
“Not the lift,” Teo said. “The stairs.”
“You want us to take the stairs up twenty-nine floors?”
“If the lobby looks like this, do you trust the lift?”
“Stairs it is.” He bent his knees and surveyed his skeleton. “Watch my ribs. I think I broke one earlier, or bruised it. Breathing hurts.”
Temoc grunted, grabbed Caleb’s shoulders, and lurched onto his son’s back.
In that first moment, struggling to balance Temoc, Caleb almost stumbled into demon-haunted dark. The world pitched and righted itself, heavier. Temoc was muscle, sinew, and bone, nothing light or soft. Caleb’s first step fell so heavily he feared it would break the marble tiles. Temoc kept his muscles tight, at least, which made him easier to balance.
They crept into the labyrinth.
The first ten steps were the hardest, except for the next ten, and the ten after that. His father’s living weight pressed him into the floor. Demons writhed half-seen about them, enraged by Temoc’s scent, repelled by Caleb. In a paradox of obligations they gathered, champing teeth and flicking long tongues. Teo walked her own path with ease. Caleb felt a pang of envy that broke his focus, weakened his arms, bent his knees. The horrors of the night drew close.
The floor was dark as the inside of Mal’s mouth.
Caleb shook.
“You know,” Temoc said with a conversational air, “there’s a Telomere legend about this.”
“About—” Caleb sucked in breath. His arms burned, and his back trembled. “About what?”
“The Empire of Telomere traced its origins to a city near the mouth of the Ebon Sea. When that city was destroyed, the future founder of the Empire fled his enemies through the burning wreckage, bearing his father on his back. That father, too, carried the gods of their people.”
Two more turns, and ten feet. “Nice story, Dad.” Gods, how much did this man weigh? Did being a priest-king make your bones more dense? Were outlaws’ muscles heavier than those of normal people?
“Take strength from the story. Stories give us direction.”
Turn. His hip twitched, and his hand slipped on Temoc’s left leg. He lost time struggling for a better grip. “This hero’s father—did he weigh as much as you?”
“I do not think so. The man in the story was old, and frail.”
“Encouraging, thanks.” I bet his gods were more helpful, too, Caleb thought, though he didn’t say it. If Temoc started an argument about religion, Caleb might buck him into the demons, and to hell with Dresediel Lex and the Serpents.
He took the last curve with arms and legs of molten rubber. His lungs ached, and his ribs felt as if they might break through his skin. Mal—no, Mal wasn’t there, that was Teo, opening the stairwell door. Blinding light streamed through. The concrete steps beyond were free of demons. He lifted a silent prayer of thanks for office health and safety rules: in an emergency the stairs had to be safe to travel, no matter the security risk.
He staggered the last three steps across the threshold, tripped, and fell to his knees. Temoc pitched to one side and slammed into a wall. Caleb’s burned right hand struck the floor. The world shimmered with pain. He tried to breathe, and choked.
Teo closed the lobby door. The scuttle of demon claws dwindled to a crinkle of torn paper. Caleb sank against the wall, let his lungs fill with air, expelled it all, and let them fill again.
Time passed. How much time, he did not care. When the world settled, Temoc was waiting. Caleb read no sympathy on his face.
“Are you all right?” Teo asked.
“Yeah,” he said, more to reassure himself than her. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” Temoc glanced up the gap at the heart of the turning staircase. “We have nine hundred steps to climb.”
“Hells.”
“The trouble with atheism,” Temoc said, “is that it offers a limited range of curses.”
Caleb ignored him, and started climbing.
* * *
Heavy footsteps echoed up and down the stairwell. No doors opened or closed. Caleb, Teo, and Temoc climbed alone.
After the tenth story, they rested, though not for long. Teo’s watch read quarter past eleven. The eclipse was due shortly after noon. Temoc claimed he could draw fossilized souls from the altar in ten minutes. On schedule. Barely.
Caleb swayed. Teo draped his arm over her shoulder. At first he tried to walk on his own, but around the fifteenth floor he trusted her with his weight. She bore it without complaint or comment, and they climbed together. Temoc sprinted each flight of stairs alone, and waited at the landing for them to catch up.
“Not much of a team player, is he,” Teo asked when Caleb’s father was out of earshot.
“He had a team,” Caleb replied. “Most of them died.”
“He could at least act like we’re on the same side.”
“We’re not.”
“Maybe you’re not.” Teo grunted as Caleb’s leg gave out and she took his full weight. “He’s trying to save our lives, which puts him on my side.”
“No. It puts you on his side, for the moment.”
At the twentieth floor they allowed themselves another short rest. Caleb sat on a step and leaned against the cool railing. He had slept in beds less comfortable. Teo crouched beside him. Temoc did not sit. Tensed like a spring, he scanned walls, ceiling, and lower floors for threats.
Temoc broke the silence.
“You know,” he said, “these stairs weren’t a part of the original pyramid design.”
“What was here earlier?” Teo asked.
“An empty shaft descending into the sub-basement.”
Don’t ask what they used it for, Caleb begged Teo with his eyes.
“How would they use something like that?”
“We threw bodies down the shaft,” Temoc said, “after the sacrifice. There was a fire at the bottom, for the corpses.”
Teo looked as if she might reply, but did not. Caleb stood, and turned from Temoc to the steps.
They climbed the rest of the way without speaking.