They had been walking, without much rest, for seven hours. They had stopped once, after four hours, at Craig’s insistence, to eat some granola bars he had stuffed into his pocket. To quench thirst, one simply took a handful of snow and swallowed.

James had been occupying himself with getting one of the handheld radios to work, but had met with an utter lack of success. None of the hails he issued ever reached ears other than their own. What initially had been a calm, cool, collected voice had gradually evolved into a harsh, desperate one, which had gradually faded into one bored by utter monotony.

Timothy had merely been walking, thinking, and constantly scanning the ground for a location to set up a tent for the night. The sun was soon going to dip below the horizon, and it was imperative to set it up before then. Arctic nights were, to say the least, brutal.

Then, crossing over a snow bank, they first sighted it, and came to a dead halt.

For there, impossibly, loomed a gargantuan obsidian ziggurat.