Hermes walked until the stairs bent sideways, then upward, then downward again. His knees ached though he could not say if he was climbing, descending, or running in circles. The maze shifted when he blinked, folding into shapes that belonged more to sketches in a madman's notebook than in any real world.
It reminded him of Escher's painting of stairs that led both ways at once, a cruel joke that repeated itself in living stone.
He pressed a palm to the wall. Cold marble. Or perhaps glass. When he pulled his hand away, it was damp, as though the wall had wept. A laugh echoed, the laugh of the little girl who called him Father.
"Always running, never asking why. Isn't that so?" she sang.
Hermes ignored her at first. He kept walking, testing turns, tracing paths, muttering to himself under his breath. But each corridor led him back. Each staircase spat him out at the same landing. The maze was no place for reason.
