The building in which they sat was sinking. The foundations bad been filled with garbage, with substandard materials; the ground itself had been soft. The building was vanishing into the ground. Nothing strange about it, nothing magical, merely inadequate building procedures. Frank Stierman had pocketed almost two million dollars from the construction costs of the building, and it had showed up in the final product.
The second floor was now below street level. Access to the Stierman Building was obtained by entrance through a hastily-cut door in the side of a second-floor office. From the foyer and the basements, one had to take an elevator upstairs to get out at the ground floor. The tenants had all vacated. The corporations and professional men bad fled. Stierman’s seven partners were on the verge of ruin, and the insurance companies had already laughed in their faces.
“Speak up, you sonofabitch!”
Stierman knew he had to bluff it out.
At least till he could get out of the country. Brazil. Then Switzerland. Then…anywhere.
“My God, you men have known me fifteen years—have you ever known me to do a dishonest thing? What the hell’s wrong with you?” Charm. Trust. Frank Stierman.
He’s had an amazing career. Came out of nowhere. One of the biggest developers in Manhattan. Zeckendorf looks like a kid making sand castles next to Stierman. Trust him all the way. Helluva guy. Charming.
Sand in the cement. Quite a lot of sand.
Specifications cut close to the line. Quite close.
A little juice to the surveyors.
A little juice to the building commission.
A little juice to the councilmen.
Oversubsidized. Oversold. Overworked.
Trust and charm. Frank Stierman.
It was working. The wide blue eyes. The strong chin. The cavalryscout ruggedness. It was working. Which two are patched into the Organization? Work, mouth, work this man out of the East River where fish eat garbage.
“Okay, so we’ve got a situation here. We’ve got a contingency we never expected. The ground is settling. Okay, we’re losing the building. Maybe.
“And…”—he paused, significantly—”maybe not!”
They listened. He dredged lies from the silt of his mind. “I had half a dozen structural engineers in here today, land assayers, men who know what to do with this kind of situation. Now, I’m not going to tell you that we’re out of the woods…Jesus, we’ve got some rough sledding ahead of us. But we know there was faulty workmanship in the construction, we know the damned contractors who sank the pylons shorted us on the quality of the fill…we know we’re going to have some losses…but we’re friends! That counts for a lot. We’re going to have to—”
Dis stirred.
Frank Stierman, naked save for loincloth, found his back against a rock wall, found a bronze blade in his right hand, found himself staring across what had been the conference room of his office at a creature of scales and fish-gills that writhed on eight legs with a head of vapor and eyes in the vapor that burned into his own.
He screamed and threw the sword at the thing….
Seven men were staring at Frank Stierman. He had no idea what had happened, but he knew he had lost all ground. In the middle of an impassioned plea for reason and patience, he had suddenly fallen back against a wall, screamed like a madman, and lost all tonus in his face. Whatever Frank Stierman had been a moment before, now he was unreliable…perhaps insane. Seven men stared back at him, their resolve now solidified not by anger and suspicion but by the realization that they were dealing with a lunatic.
The connecting door to Stierman’s private office opened, and a woman entered.
“Frank, can I see you for a moment?”
Stierman was trembling. The creature. That head, made of…of some kind of vapor…what was happening to him? “Not now, Monica. This is very important.”
“I agree, Frank. Important. I have to speak to you now. “
“Monica, I—”
“Frank, don’t make me talk here, in front of these men!”
“You’d better go on, Frank. We want to talk about all this in private for a moment, anyhow. “
“Yes. Go ahead, Stierman.”
“It’s all right. Go ahead and talk to her.”
Oh my God, dear God, it’s falling apart!
When the door was closed behind him, Stierman turned to his wife and said, “Why are you doing this to me? You know what’s at stake in there.”
“I’m getting out, Frank.”
“Don’t be a bitch!”
“I’m getting out. That’s the bottom line, Frank. I was served today, by the District Attorney’s office….”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I had structural engin—”
“Don’t lie to me, Frank. I know you too well.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I’m going to help them, Frank. They said I wouldn’t be held responsible. They know you got me to sign my name on the contracts as a dodge. I can’t go through any more of this with you, Frank. After that southern thing, I thought—”
“My God, Monica, don’t do this to me! Look, I’m begging you.”
“Stop it, Frank.”
“You’re pregnant, you’re going to have my child, how can you do this to me?”
“That’s the reason, Frank. Because I am pregnant, because I can’t let a child come into the world with you for its father. I’m getting out. Now, Frank. I came down to tell you, so you wouldn’t count on me when you talk to those men. Save yourself, Frank.”
She turned to go. He reached across the desk and lifted the obsidian bookend and took three steps behind her. She turned just as he raised the weight. Her eyes were cool, waiting.
He slammed the bookend across her forehead.
She stumbled back, head jerking as though struck from three different directions. Her head opened and the white ash of bone was suddenly coated with blood. She flailed back, eyes glazing, and crashed into the dark window. Then the glass bowed, gave, and she was gone, silently, into the night.
Stierman dropped the bookend. His arms came up and his hands groped out before him, shaking violently. He twitched with cold, a sudden cold that came from a place he could not name. Gone, she was gone, he was alone.
The words burned on the teakwood wall.
He wanted to scream, but the trembling was on him, the insane twitching that he could not stop. His body was helpless in the spastic grip of the seizure. Gone, she was gone, they were in the next room, the building going down down into the earth, those words, what were those words…
“Ah-wegh thogha!” His throat had never been shaped to form those words, but it did.
Dis woke.
He hungered for his body.
Time is a plaything for the gods. It only has substance for those who use it. Men fear time and bow to it. Gods cup it and mold it and use it.
Time ceased its movement.
Dis called for his body.
From seven far lands they came with the stones. From deep within the earth two of them were brought, by creatures that did not walk. From Mecca the worshippers defiled their own temple with theft, and brought it. From across the lost snow lands of Tibet they came with yet another. Seven great religions were gutted. Seven sources of power were lost. All in the moment without time.
Came, and brought with them the seven stones of power, the body of Dis.
To the skyscraper in Manhattan.
And Dis took back what had always been his.
Within the cornerstone the black soul mote glowed and pulsed with the undying fire that lived within. The mote grew, and absorbed the cornerstone. It flowed black and strong, mighty and changing, absorbing the skyscraper as it had absorbed the bulk of Stonehenge.