224

As Claudia was barfing into her handbag, she reflected on her life and was rather disappointed.  Women in their late 30s should not be barfing without the influence of the stomach flu or undercooked meat, yet here she was, shoulders hunched over her cheap, gold purse, trying not to barf so loudly that the cabbie would kick her out.

Pulling up to her apartment building, Claudia handed the cab driver a twenty with two fingers.  The ride only cost ten, but since all her money smelled like vomit, she thought he could use the tip.  Claudia fumbled with the door handle and slumped halfway out, knock-kneed in her short skirt and heels.

223

Grit blew across the sidewalk and Shell squinted her eyes against it.  The wind seemed to blow constantly through the canyon-like streets, hot, usually, when it wasn't freezing.  The sharp shattering of glass had Shell crouch and scuttle towards the triangle zone against the nearest building, but it wasn't a falling panel this time; it was some jerk throwing a chunk of concrete at a rusted car.

222

A long time ago, in a room a lot like this one, an adventure began.  Ben didn't know it was an adventure, most adventures start without much fanfare, but that evening was the beginning.  If Ben had known it, he would have prepared better, but what can you do?  Living your life on your toes is no way to live.  Not all the time, anyway.  It's very tiring.

Ben was, as a matter of fact, the opposite of prepared.  He hadn't showered, he had fought with his younger brother, and he didn't come down to dinner when called, so he was hungry.  Ben thought he had lost his house key, which he kept on a blue lanyard, and he knew his father would be furious if he couldn't find it.  Ben was tearing apart his room.  In the initial flurry, he had covered the key and lanyard with a dirty t-shirt and now, in his frustration, he kicked the dirty shirt, including key, under his bed.

221

The crowd moved like one monstrous being.  It jumped in time to the thumping, driving music and undulated.  Individuals were lost in the group and each person became a cell in the whole.  The band on stage was the heart, pulsing and driving the life, but separate from the body.  Sweat poured from the dancers, the screamers, the leapers, the lovers and they all thrummed to the same beat.

220

The wizard was dying, and he knew it.  It was slow, but he could no longer ignore that it was happening.  On his knees in his workroom, the cold from the flagstone seeping into his bones, Cal wondered who would ever find his bones.  After some moments, he was able to heave himself up by the edge of the wood table and stood, breathing, Yes, I'm still breathing, till his heart stopped its murderous thundering.

"Help," he whispered.  "Who will help me?"  The wizard Cal could not find an answer.

219

I was fourteen when my dead grandmother began following me.  I thought it must have been part of "the curse", which I had gotten for the first time that same month.  I knew it wasn't the normal course of life to start menstruating and then have the dead appear; I was fourteen, not stupid.  I knew it was a part of my life, triggered by my first month on the rag.  I had been warned by my mother that it could get weird.  I didn't feel right telling my mom exactly how weird, though I'm sure she suspected.

218

At three hundred steps, Joshua stopped and sat on the stone bench the creators of this treacherous staircase had thoughtfully provided.  Plenty of people had made it down this far; he saw that in the wear of the steps.  He knew at five hundred steps, tourists were given a way out, and most people took it.  At one thousand steps, there was another option, and if anyone made it down that far, their ears popping at the depth, most of them took that way out, too.  Joshua had no intention of stopping before he found the bottom and explored to his heart's content.  His heart had been discontented since the age of fourteen, when he had learned of the Tombs of the Forgotten.  More than twice those years passed before he was able to finally make the journey, and he thought he was well-prepared.  Right at that moment, however, Joshua had wished he had prepared more than just his mind because his body was already winded and slightly dizzy.

217

It was a strange sensation, being out of time.  Clare knew her body stayed within time, but if she concentrated hard enough, her mind lifted and removed itself from the world.  She felt sensations on her skin and she felt herself breathing and she felt her blood flushing in her veins, but she was detached.  The world spun around her and time, as a force, held no sway on her mind.  Clare always felt on the verge of a Great Thought or Universal Idea when she stepped out of the stream, but, so far, it hadn't come.