Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Fractal Palace

The stairs twisted as they climbed higher. We had walked for what seemed like miles.

"Where are we?" Tulip asked.

"The Fractal Palace," the writer said. "The House of Forever. And I'm afraid this is just the beginning. I told you it would be complex. It's a complex complex." He chuckled.

"How complex?" I asked.

"Well," he looked up the spiral staircase, "technically, the Fractal Palace is infinite. You could keep walking and walking and walking and never go anywhere at all. Something about Zeno's paradox and infinite regression."

"So we're stuck here?" Tulip said.

"No," the writer said, "because there is always a way out." He took out his notebook and wrote something in it.

The staircase began to move. The steps climbed themselves like an escalator. We pulled ourselves away from the railing and tried to keep our balance. "Here we go," the writer said.

The stairs led up higher and higher until we emerged into a room made up entirely of stairs. The ceiling, the walls, everything was steps and stairs, all of them merging and dividing, going up and down and sideways. "Ah," the writer said, "l'esprit de l'escalier!"

"Funny," Tulip said.

The stairs moved themselves, twisting and turning, until they were part of a giant spiral, a spiral that went upward, upward into the twisting ceiling and into the sky.

"That's where we're going?" I asked.

"Away from the House of Forever," the writer said, "and into the House of Fortitude. It will take bravery and cowardice."

"Bravery and cowardice?" Tulip said. "How?"

"Bravery to go in," the writer said, "and cowardice to come back out."

And so we went up, up, and away.