"You know," Truth said to her companion Fisticuff, "if this is a magic construct, it's possible that it doesn't follow the ordinary rules of spacetime."

"What?"

Fisticuff had already said that he wasn't a thinker, or something like that.

"It could be bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.  It could have Escher stairways or halls.  Rooms could appear to be different shapes than they actually are."

"How?"

Truth shrugged.  "I haven't learned any magic, but from what I know it's possible to distort reality.  It can confuse time, space, direction, create images or even solid objects of just about anything.  Doors could be portals, and they don't necessarily have to lead to the same place twice.  I remember one movie where the dwarf opened the door one direction and it was a closet, then he closed it and opened it a different way and it was an exit.  If you walk through a door from one room to another, and then you walk back through it, there's no guarantee you'll wind up in the first room.  You might even wind up still in the second room."

Fisticuff was silent for a moment, then said, "Well, it doesn't make sense, but it does explain a few things.  But people actually work here--that is, I've seen workers entering the building in the morning and leaving in the afternoon.  So they have to be able to do fairly ordinary things in here."

"Maybe.  Have you identified or recognized any of these people?  Do you know of a certainty that they are real?  Did you ever see any of them leave in the middle of the day, go to lunch, anything that suggests they're ordinary workers?"

He seemed to have no answer.

"Even if they are ordinary workers and for some reason they all eat in the cafeteria in the building and none of them have ever had any reason to leave for a doctor's appointment or a family emergency or something, it's still possible that most of the building seems ordinary enough, and that the people who aren't in the know simply aren't permitted in the places where things are strange.

She saw him bite his lip.

"So," he asked, "what do you suggest?"

She shrugged.  "The utmost care?  I've not actually been in a magical building before, and I have enough trust in God to believe that He will take care of me, but at the same time I don't really like taking unknown risks, and the risks here are completely off the unknown chart."

He nodded.  "O.K., let me show you what I've already found," and he headed toward the elevators.

"Where are you going?" she called.

"Elevators?  It's a pretty tall building."

She shook her head.  "I just mentioned that you might enter a room through a door which then when you left through the same door would take you somewhere else.  Elevators are supposed to do that.  How would you know whether you've gone to the floor you expect, or been magically transported somewhere else?"

He nodded.  "O.K., then, the stairs.  You up for the climb?"

She smiled.  "Climbing is what I do."

There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with ten other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #542:  Verser Initiatives.  Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter.  It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.

As to the old stories that have long been here:

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