Lulah looked past Ramus. “Well,” she said, “it's no longer our choice. Come on, you go first.” She held out her hand.

Ramus heard the calls of those things as they emerged from the woods behind them, the clicks and hoots, and then the slap slap of their feet on the smooth glassy surface.

This time, he accepted the Serian's help.

The steps were the height of his eyes. He had to place his foreams flat on the next step, heave himself up, swing a leg and roll. After doing it four times he was exhausted, and he guessed there were a hundred more to go until they reached the top. He went on—heaving, lifting, rolling—and the exhaustion in his bones, the pains in his muscles, the throbbing in his head, urged him on. They marked what he had been through to get here and he welcomed them, because they gave him the impetus to climb. He could not believe that he had come so far only to be stopped now. I'm coming for you, he thought, and nothing answered. Not in words, at least. But something else climbed with him, settled in a dark corner of his mind that he felt would open up to him soon. It waited there and exuded a dream of freedom. For a beat he lay back on a step and looked up at the sun, and it was as if he were seeing it for the very first time.

Never wake, he had read in his journal and on the parchment. And at the thought of those words, the thing in his mind touched the cancer and threatened to squeeze.

“Keep going,” Lulah said, rolling gracefully onto the step beside him. “We have a chance.” Ramus glanced to his right and down. There were maybe twenty of those tall, gangly creatures down there, all of them holding back from the building. They clicked and grumbled, heads twitching left and right as if looking for a way around, and sometimes they looked up at Ramus and Lulah. They seemed angry when they saw them—their hands clawed, mouths open in grotesque growls—but something prevented them from advancing.

“Maybe they can't come,” Ramus said.

“We can hope.”

As Ramus stood to climb the next huge step, one of the things screeched. He could not help looking, and he saw a creature stalk forward, reach out and touch the cool gray stone of the building's edge. It jerked its hand back as if stung, then reached out again, slower this time, stepping aside so that the others could see its hand pressed flat against the stone.