Thirty
The apocalypse began without warning.
Zee was on his feet before his eyes were open. The chamber shook in the grip of a giant spasm. Chunks of stone rained down from the high carven ceiling and shattered on the stone below. The earth groaned and creaked. A crevice opened in front of his feet.
Pressing his body back against the wall to avoid the falling debris and keep his balance, Zee waited for the earthquake to settle.
It didn’t.
A chunk of stone the size of a small car plummeted down onto the dais in the center of the chamber with a deafening crash, sending a cloud of dust and debris into the air that set him coughing.
And then the locked door burst open and a man dashed through it, rending long crimson robes and wailing, “The dragon is dead. The end of all things is at hand!” He scrambled up the stone steps to the ruined altar, a flaming torch in one hand, a long staff in the other.
The earth shook with new intensity, flinging Zee sideways. With both hands pressed against the still-solid wall at his back, he kept his feet, but the man on the stairs stumbled and fell. The staff rolled away from him, clattering down the stairs, but he managed to hold on to the torch.
Zee edged toward the open door.
The man clambered up the rest of the stairs on hands and knees, hampered by his long scarlet robe and the torch he continued to clutch in one hand. He picked his way to the top of the fallen rubble, spread his arms wide in a gesture of invocation, then held the torch to the flowing sleeve of his robe. The fabric combusted, instantly turning him into a pillar of flame. The earth shook once more, and a wide crack opened in the stone floor. The priest dove, flaming and screaming, down into the chasm.
Zee reached the door. He was through, scrambling up a steep stone staircase that gaped and cracked beneath his feet. Chunks of stone fell around him. Flying shards struck his face, stinging, drawing blood. The step directly beneath his feet cracked and fell away. A sickening moment of nothingness, and then his upflung hands caught on the step above. He clung there by his fingers, refusing to fall. Hope drove him on and he found the strength to swing himself up to safety.
Just a few more steps. Almost there. And then a dead end—a solid obstruction at the top of the stairs.
It must be a door, but there was no handle and it was locked, or blocked. Beneath him, what was left of the staircase swayed like a rope ladder in the wind. Steps cracked and broke in chain reaction, stone fragments bouncing and rattling into the killing drop. Zee pressed his back against the wall as though he could stick to it, like Velcro, eyes scanning for a way out, one last escape.
As the step beneath him broke in three places, he unwrapped the thing that George had given him, because he couldn’t see any way that this was not the end. Then, falling, he whispered one last word.
“Vivian.”