Mexico is hot.

Not exactly expert analysis but it’s what you feel.

It’s too hot to do anything in this glorified metal oven so there is relative silence as the bus trundles along. Half an hour until the Steps to Heaven.

Seated in the back, you are far out of sight from the other passengers. No one is willing to expend the energy to even move their heads. Long bus rides will do that.

It seems safe to open the bag.

There is not much to see anyway, the light from the sun disguises the glowing nature of the several instruments. Before you just kept them if they glowed, but now you’ve had half a day to examine each item, puzzling over what each could do.

You make a list, ticking off items as you run your fingers over them, feeling the warmth from whatever they have stored inside.

Items:

Four Stones

Grave Dirt

An Hourglass

A Bronze Looking glass

The Map (charged)

A Compass (charged)

The wooden figure in a bottle (charged)

A ceremonial dagger (charged)

You touch the sheath of the dagger and shiver. It is the only item that you found extensive notes on, notes and scrolls researchers dismissed as religious nonsense. You kept it as a joke. But the el-Arak isn’t funny anymore.

Nothing has changed on the outside of the dagger, but when you unsheath it a millimeter, it is no longer the rusted mess of before. It is razor sharp now, made of a metal so black it seemed to suck the light from around it. You hide it near the bottom of the bag, fingering your necklace fretfully.

But that is it. All you have to your name besides a few notebooks and pens. You maxed your company card at the ATM in a moment of pure spite and threw it away. Fuck Dr. Caville.

You have no gun, not that you would know what to do with one anyway. It was easy to get one in Arizona, but you never had a need. He was right about one thing; you’re a file, not a hammer

The bus stops suddenly and the driver calls back in rapid spanish. An archaeologist like you knows spanish almost better than english. The latin roots made it a matter of a few weeks to learn and a few months to master.

You get off the bus, blinking in the sunlight, immediately immersed in a crowd.

It’s a busy little town. Having a well known ruin does that to you. There are a variety of buildings in the square where the bus dropped you off, each fighting for space, the new crowding out the old. Venders attempt to sell you everything from cheap sunglasses to meat on a stick.

The press of the crowd is headed to the ruin so you let yourself be pulled along, jostled from all sides by young men and sweating tourists. Just like the square, the new crowding out the old.

The Steps to Heaven are less impressive than advertised, at least for the tourists. It’s a crumbling thing, basically a big pile of old rocks shaped into stairs. Left to such weather and time, there isn’t much to do besides climb into the sky. Undoubtedly a marvel many years ago, skyscrapers have all but fazed out humanity’s wonder at such heights. The interior is little better, damaged as it is by the parade of man.

The map could be wrong. You’ve already been here to test for magic and had found nothing, the four stones had sat forlornly under the night sky.

Your friend John always had an obsession with this ruin. He was a professor at the nearby university and was constantly taking his class here, talking for hours about different rock laying techniques and the history. It was a boring ruin to dedicate your life to, but John had always treated you well enough.

It is cool under the stairs. The peak hiding several rooms split between two levels. There is a long hallway connecting everything, twisting and turning like a maze. The few people scattered around are resting out of sight of the sun more than they are looking at the broken and faded symbols on the walls. Some even keep their sunglasses on, not bothering to feign interest.

You think about taking the map out, but it is too public a place. It’s hard to be incognito while oogling a map, arms as wide as they go. You look instead at the symbols, feeling your body relax into the rhythm of habit. There is a lot of damage here, almost nothing has escaped time and the irreverent masses.

“Professor Knight!”, a voice calls out from behind you.

You turn quickly, it’s John. Of course it’s John.

He is built like a tank, every time you see him you swear he has gained another ten pounds of muscle. He is spanish, with dark eyes and darker hair, currently sporting a pair of sunglasses on the back of his head, out of the way.

“Good to see you John,” You say and it really is good to see him. It’s been a while and friends are a welcome sight right now.

“What brings you back to my house?” he laughs.

“Looking for something new, I guess” you deflect, unwilling to think about your current flight.

“Let me give you a tour, I have eyes everywhere.”

You decline politely, having been on the same tour three times now. Even as someone dedicated to the minutiae of life, you aren’t able to summon even a tenth of John’s enthusiasm for a thousand year old staircase. He 3D scanned every inch of this place in his free time.

“Let me give you a tour,” He repeats, unmoving, “I insist”

A tourist with dark sunglasses jostles you from behind. John steadies you with a hand, the other on your back, propelling you toward the nearest wall. So be it.

He starts talking about foundations and stone cutting and you listen politely.

It is somewhat helpful. The mental map that you make as you walk allows for several places where a secret room could hide. Unfortunately, you aren’t even sure if you are looking for a secret room.

What you wouldn’t give to have your instruments back, measuring doors and carbon aging each wall, trying to determine if the ruin is covering something older. Thermal imaging would show disparate temperature sections of the walls.

You sigh inwardly, those were for a world that made sense. Now you have to pretend you need a monocle and look for glowing rocks. You think about how to bring that up.

Halfway through a sentence, John pauses, cocking his head to the side. You follow his gaze and see nothing but more old stones.

“Sorry,” He says, apologetic but distracted, “I forgot I was supposed to do something with the admissions department” He hurries away.

You shrug, that works.

With a casual air, you reach into your bag and produce the bronze glass. There is the warping of reality as before, but you adjust quickly and look around.

Everything looks the same. The walls are the same dull, faded stone. The moss looks no more blue than it usually does. You move further in and see nothing, no sign of magic anywhere.

The sound of footsteps behind you heralds a group of tourists so you quickly tilt your head to the side and hide behind a hand, scratching your forehead until the voice of the tour guide passes you. You look up as they walk around the corner checking to see if they are all out of sight.

A flash of light that disappears immediately behind the wall.

It could have been a flashlight, but the fluorescent lights of the ceiling leave no need for personal devices. You quicken your steps, looking at every inch of the corridor as you pass through it.

The group is fast, unconcerned about the ruins around them, an attitude that made a lot more sense to you a moment ago. When you finally catch up to them, you see nothing out of the ordinary, just a bunch of tourists on a tour they undoubtedly paid too much for.

Then the group shifts and you see the guide.

Sickly green light permeates his body, barely muffled by his clothing and the mirrored lenses he has over his eyes. Your body goes cold and you put a tourist in between you, uncertain if it noticed you.

“Professor Knight?” John’s voice sounds behind you, back from checking on admissions. He must really know these ruins if he was able to find you so quickly.

You look at your feet quickly, palming the monocle in one hand.

“Everything ok?”

“It’s been a long day,” you say, letting the exhaustion show in your voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He pats you on the back, giving your close fist only a brief glance. You flee to the nearest hotel.

The clerk gives you a problem at first, “We don’t accept dollars,” He says in english, for you are obviously an uneducated American tourist.

“Ahora hazlo tú,” You do now, you respond, handing him triple the cost of the room. Impolite but effective. You don’t even have to give him a name.

You close the door behind yourself and lean your back against it. Exhaustion looms. You barely slept on the bus ride and fear has robbed the rest of the vigor from your bones. You close the door and heave the drawers in front of it, then draw the blinds.

The bed is uncomfortable, but it feels like a paradise now, the perfect trap to allow Morpheus to drag you to oblivion.

As you fade, one thought circles your mind. You never paid admission.

The Law of Monuments of 1972 stated that the ruins were owned by the national government. And the national government had never charged admission for the Steps to Heaven.