Teshub came to a halt at the top of the incline. He let go of Arinna's hand and ran his fingers over the wall blocking their way.

"Did you see any other passages leading away from this one?" he asked as he searched for a niche, or an indentation, something, anything to deny what his eyes were telling him: A dead end stood before them, when there should have been an opening and a chamber ahead.

Arinna shook her head. "Nothing." She edged closer, watching his fingers as they slid over the engraved symbols, written in a language she had never seen. "In Thoth's pyramid, wasn't there a chamber at the end of this incline, where he kept one of the cores?"

"There was," Teshub muttered. He stepped back, annoyed, feeling cheated. The pyramid was keeping something from them, he could feel it. He continued to prod at the wall, determined. Nothing. The barrier with its asymmetrical golden symbols remained silent, obstinate, unwilling to give up its secrets. Behind, the corridor glowed, bathing his shoulders in bright white light, lit all the way back to the entrance.

"Teshub. Look at this."

He turned. Arinna unfolded her fingers. In her hand, the relic brightened, its inner white light pulsing with a quiet beat. He lifted his brow, caught his consort's eye and shot her a look loaded with vindication. He knew there had to be more. A place like this didn't finish with dead ends. Arinna eyes widened. She caught her breath and tilted her head at the wall.

He cut a look over his shoulder. The wall shimmered, reminding him of the flicker of fish scales under sunlight water. In total silence a massive section collapsed inward, morphing from a white wall into a floor, black as polished obsidian. In the blink of an eye, the opening unfolded itself in complete silence, revealing a vast corridor which sloped downward, burrowing deep into the pyramid's heart.

Teshub edged closer to examine the opening. The floor and ceiling mirrored each other, a dense, glossy black, while the walls gleamed with their own inner light, granting the corridor a dull internal illumination—

"Those walls are solid gold," Arinna breathed.

His flesh prickled. Something was wrong. He couldn't get his bearings. In one heartbeat, he felt both peaceful and euphoric, as he once did in the presence of the Creator, and in the next, the deepest, starkest despair dragged at him, stripping him of hope.

"Are you feeling this too?" he asked, his soul roiling with the agony of the fruitlessness of his battle to overcome Marduk.

"Feel what?" Arinna murmured, reaching out to run her fingers over the wall, wondrous. "My love, the wall . . . it's warm." She knelt and touched the floor. "And the floor it's . . . cold. I have never seen anything like this before. There is something about this place. I cannot tell if it is dangerous or a blessing. Perhaps we should find Horus and Baalat so if anything happens . . ."

Her word washed over him, tendrils of smoke, ephemeral. But she wasn't looking at him, her attention was fixed on the corridor, her fingers running over its seamless golden surface, rapt, reverent. Teshub struggled to keep his thoughts straight as he suffered through a fresh avalanche of conflicting emotions. They slammed through him, jagged icicles of love and bleak stones of hate.

His consort tore her attention from the corridor and looked back at him, calm, composed, the relic glowing in her palm. Through the chaos of his heart, a flicker of understanding, brief, bright. He held out his hand to her. "Take my hand," he whispered, as hope fleeted from him like a frightened doe and another savage roil of despair tumbled through him scouring him of purpose. He need only lay down. Succumb. Eventually the dark would consume him, and he would be free. Yes, it would be a relief, to escape, to no longer feel the pointlessness of his being—

Arinna's fingers slid between his, her hand enfolding his. Calm washed through him, a tide of serenity, the cacophonic disorder of his existence vanishing as fast as it came. He leaned back against the opening. "Thank the Creator's light," he panted. "That was . . . unpleasant. Whatever happens," he said, eyeing her from under his brow, "do not let go of the relic, or let go of my hand."

"What happened?"

"Something I never want you to experience," Teshub answered, harsh. He turned his attention to the corridor, and eyed it, wary. It could swallow them whole—refold itself back together with them buried inside, crushed in its implacable grip for eternity. The relic's pulse deepened, as though answering a call from deeper within the structure, its light reflecting against the glossy dark of the floor and ceiling, brightening the dull gold of the walls. No, he reasoned, they would be safe so long as they had the relic. Hadn't it opened the way for them? The miseries of his earlier despair yielded, as mists of dawn fall to the pure light of a new day, and hope touched him anew. Somewhere down there, the Creator awaited them. He had given them the key, now Teshub need only use it. His hand tight against Arinna's he stepped onto the glistening gold-dark and didn't look back.

The corridor cut a channel far below the foundation of the pyramid before their descent ended and the way ahead leveled off. It stretched away, a perfect, straight line. Far in the distance, just visible, a pinprick of warm golden light beckoned. Teshub's heart hammered, so hard it hurt. He tossed a look at Arinna, but she didn't need any encouragement. She bolted ahead of him, pulling him with her. They ran, reckless, ecstatic, like children returning from the fields to find their father home after years spent at war. The black floor slipped away under their feet, the distance shortening with every heartbeat.

Soon, he would see the one who had left the message emblazoned on his arm, the one who had sent him to reprieve Urhi-Teshub from death, and who had granted Teshub a second chance to defeat his nemesis. He had so many questions he wished to ask, they piled up inside him, clamoring against the walls of his mind, aching for their liberty.

Halfway to the end of the corridor, a brilliant burst of clean light erupted from within Arinna's hand. Between her fingers, the relic glowed a dazzling white, its pulse, steady, strong, sentient, guiding them to their goal, encouraging them.

They ran on, panting. Teshub's lungs ached, but he ignored the pain. In mere heartbeats he would be in the Creator's presence. Ahead, the golden light took shape. It didn't come from the Creator, but from another chamber, further in, down another golden tunnel. The Creator's warm light poured out of the opening, its edges sparkling, limned with tendrils of golden light.

Arinna staggered to a halt just before its threshold, her chest heaving, and her face flushed. Teshub looked back along the length of the corridor. Without the brilliance of the light beckoning them he realized the distance of the long, dim corridor. They had run far, at least half an iter, the promise of their father's presence driving them on, relentless.

He waited for Arinna to catch her breath. She stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his, breathless and giddy with joy. He kissed her back, hard, triumphant. They would win. This was it. Marduk was finished if they had the Creator on their side. He had thought telling Thoth about the pyramids would shut him up. But this. This would silence that annoying pedant for a week at least, maybe even a month.

He pulled back and tilted his head at the opening, its light washing over Arinna's crown of blonde hair and her delicate, fragile features, illuminating her pale skin from within, just as he remembered her when she had been the goddess of the sun, her light endless, perfect, his.

Her eyes alight, Arinna nodded her agreement to continue onward, and together, side by side, reverent, they entered the brilliance of the tunnel. Teshub tightened his grip on Arinna, his heart tumbling, riotous. Soon now.

They emerged from the tunnel into an obsidian-floored chamber so vast Teshub couldn't see its opposite end. To either side, golden walls curved away, stretching into the distance. He looked up. The chamber's endless reaches screamed back at him, dizzying, punishing, humiliating. He staggered.

Ahead, in the distance, the source of the light. He lifted his hand, shielding his eyes, the glare almost blinding him. Through the gaps of his fingers, he tried to make sense of it. His mind clawed at its edges, recoiling. He couldn't look at it as a whole, but only in its parts. Together, it burned his thoughts, seared his soul.

In the center of the chamber, a sphere of golden light rotated, its depths too vast to comprehend, as though a mere drop of it could contain a billion universes. It rotated, stately, and so overwhelming it seemed impossible for it to remain within the constraints of the chamber, yet at the same time, it pulsed at a frightening speed, a fragile, tiny thing, no bigger than a toy, lost within the depths of the yawning void. Golden tendrils of light swarmed over it, streamed away from it, bathing the barren golden walls with the Creator's life-light. Within the sphere's interior, an endless array of sparkling, blistering pinpoints of light washed the chamber's floor in a shower of starlight. With each passing instant the span of a cosmos ignited and died.

It processed, haughty, playful, deadly, a friend. Both massive and miniscule, wild and tame, dangerous and sheltering. His eyes aching, Teshub looked up, seeking relief from its blinding, boggling light. The sphere greeted him. He gaped. It had moved without moving at all, as though it had always been there, yet he was sure it hadn't been. He tilted further back and pulled his hand away. He was certain darkness had clouded the chamber's heights. Brilliant light erupted into his eyes. The sphere continued to rotate, ambivalent to his creeping insanity. Quick as he could, he looked back down again. The sphere greeted him again, implacable, unforgiving, its light streaming over the obsidian floor, as though it had always been there, for eternity, and he had only imagined it elsewhere.

"My love," he whispered, his senses raw, screaming in rebellion, begging him to flee. He kept his attention fixed on the sphere hovering over the floor, daring it to move. "Do you see the sphere?"

"Yes," Arinna answered, awed. "It's beautiful."

"Where are you looking at it?"

At the edge of his vision, she pointed to the heights. "As high as I can see." She paused, continuing, uncertain: "Why does it not get smaller with distance?"

He didn't answer. Something new had taken his attention hostage. Perhaps he had begun to adjust to the sphere's brilliance or perhaps his mind had reached the final limits of its sanity, but as the sphere turned, something other skimmed against his peripheral vision. He narrowed his eyes, looking but not looking. There. A thin sheath of darkness surrounded the sphere, cradling its outer surface. He followed its contours, careful, willing himself only to see the large sphere, refusing to allow it to collapse into the small one. He dared not even blink as he traced the darkness to the top of the sphere. The darkness slid up into a point, resembling an invisible thread, pulled taut—He looked up, eager. The sphere moved. He bit back a curse and started over, cautious, careful, following the brilliant, thin line of darkness, edged in white light, its elegance drawing him in, sinuous and glossy in the heat of the light. At the top, he concentrated his will on focusing on the edge of the sphere, so it would not shift again. Keeping his gaze fixed on the sphere, he sensed rather than saw the darkness slide free of the sphere. It soared up, lost in the heights, an endless thread of liquid obsidian. His eyes began to water. It was enough. He pulled his gaze from the impossible thing and looked at the floor under his feet, his skull aching.

"We're in the tower," he said. His voice echoed, lost in the infinite space. And then, the light died.

Only the light of the relic continued to beat its siren song, blinding now in the sudden well of black. It faded, gentle, then it too, winked out.

"Teshub?" Arinna whispered, her breathing turned ragged, bearing the taint of terror. He reached out and drew her against him, encircling her in his arms. He turned. Utter darkness, as thick as a tomb bore down on him.

"We'll go back," he said. "The way was straight. It will not be difficult."

"But the walls," Arinna panted. "Won't they close in on us?"

"No," Teshub answered, taut. "The relic will protect us." He turned, pulling her with him, reaching behind him for the opening of the tunnel out of the chamber. Nothing but emptiness greeted him. A thump of fear beat into him. They had only just stepped past the threshold when they entered the chamber. The opening should have been right behind them. He took a tentative step, his arm outstretched, expectant. His fingers swept against nothing.

"My love," Arinna whispered. "Someone is coming."