Marco stood before the gate and blinked. It was hardly a gate, in reality it more closely resembled a bricked-up archway covered in the same white china tiles that paneled the rest of the tunnel maze behind him. He was no less than four miles beneath the chambers street subway station, and the walls were still broken up by mosaic eyes. They seemed wrong though. There was something not quite human about the color of the skin and the slitted irises. He could feel them watching him
	Two pillars made of blackened I-beams flanked the arch. They were the same pillars that lined the path through the twisted nave and narthex of the chamber he stood in. Around each was coiled a serpent of brass. Serpent was the only word he could think of to describe the statues, which had the body, fangs and hood of a cobra, the head of a sewer gator, and three pairs of spread wings.
	Marco noted that the statues would have looked right at home in the 14th street station, and then briefly wondered if he his descent had taken him that far north. He had traversed the whole labyrinth on foot, the whole time haunted by phantom hisses that he had hoped were just steam pipes in the walls. At first Marco had gotten himself hopelessly lost, but by keeping on hand on the wall to his left at all times he had found his way to the antechamber. In the archway, written on a black slab in white helvetica were these words
	Beyond this door lies the realm of Serapsis, the serpent beneath the unsleeping city. Bear witness to the father of seraphs, he who sees all. Your quest begins here.
	Marco read the inscription again. Bullshit, he thought, my quest ends here. It did not escape his notice that one of the tiles beneath the plaque was marked with dozens of finger prints marked with dried blood. Pulling out his pocket knife, Marco pricked the tip of his finger and pressed it firmly to white tile, which sunk deeper into the wall. There was a grinding of gears, and then the bricks filling the arch began to twist and fold into one another in impossible ways. A gap opened in the wall, and then grew until the wall was no longer there.
	The serpent’s crypt was dim and drafty, and it reminded Marco of something he had seen a dozen times in another state. In the darkness he could make out pillars of sandstone brick holding up a vaulted ceiling that was full of stars. It took Marco a moment to realize the stars were moving across the ceiling slowly. They were fireflies.
	There were raised aisles on either side of the room which met in the middle at a grand staircase. Marco looked down the stairs and saw a clock post wrought from brass with four faces, one on each side. At the furthest end, which he could barely make out, there was another tunnel descending deeper into the earth. It shone with a red light and he knew then that nothing awaited him down there but fire and suffering. A hiss rose from the pit and Marco was surprised he understood it. It wasn’t a threat, but nor was it an invitation. It was a sign of acknowledgement. Cold and heavy, the weight of a presence more real than himself pressed against him.
	He descended the staircase, his gaze darting back and forth between features of sandstone and bronze, wondering where he had seen this room before. He looked up again at the fireflies, and saw the ceiling beyond them had been cut into a single arched slab of turquoise, with gilded images of the constellations embossed across a dotted line. This looks exactly like Grand Central Station he realized, or does Grand Central Station look like this? The resemblance was uncanny, but in the sense that a mannequin resembles a man. Where there should have been a certain element of vitality, there was only the span of silence between the drumbeat of cardiac muscles. He could never have imagined it empty of people and flags, with the lights off and the windows opening on a lightless expanse. It was like a dream.
	The hiss grew loud, loud enough that he could only be in reality. Marco realized his escape route had been cut off, and he was surrounded. Surrounded by a single serpent the size of a train which had slithered up from the pit and coiled around the room.
	Serapsis looked everything like his statues, and somehow so much more terrific then he could have imagined. A crocodilian head the size of a garbage truck hovered over Marco, with a forked tongue flicking back and forth. The hood on its neck unfurled into an immense tapestry of scales that shone a thousand colors at once. Between those were more scales as black as cut pitch. The two were arranged in a way that reminded Marco of a thousand dispassionate eyes watching him. They flowed down his body in twisting wreaths and arcs. It was hot beneath the earth, but their gaze caused his skin to prickle and chill.
	Coils of muscles beneath the surface of his form pulsed and flexed, grinding flared scales across the floor and shedding a sound like the tearing of girders and the subterranean dirge of tectonic upheaval.
	Marco had frozen in place. He had been vain, he knew that now. He was a just an insect who had strode into the domain of a god as if it was his right, and it was only by that god’s curiosity that he had been allowed to exist. If he were to survive the next few minutes, the least he could attempt would be to make an introduction.
	“O great lord Serapsis,” Marco began, unsure of how formally to speak. “I have come here today to humbly request your audience!”
	The serpent hissed and bared his fangs. The whipping of its tongue whispered ashy and paper-thin words in a language Marco understood but had never heard before. Something deep and old resounded in him, as if tapping into the primal words contained in the heads of men and beasts.
	It told him in a primordial language few would ever hear that his request for an audience had been granted, but with that promise came a warning. He was an ancient snake, whose memory traced back to before the first lie had ever been woven, and he had no patience for dishonesty. In mincing words, Marco had lied by omission. He would be wise to mean what he said and say what he meant.
	Marco gulped. The god beneath the city had spoken to him, and in its vast and inconceivable mind it was already passing judgement. His legs were shaking, and no matter what he told them they would not stop. He had awakened a wrathful god, and he could not risk to anger it again.
	“It’s my sister, Mina. She’s been blind all her life and the doctors don’t know why or how to fix it. I’ve come to barter for her sight.”
	In words of dust and chthonic steam the father of all seraphs made his intentions clear. He did not barter, not with mortals and not with gods. Any being wise enough to find him would know that well. Marco tried in vain to fight back tears. He had come all this way for her, and now not only would he be unable to help her, but he would die trying to do the right thing. Or so he thought.
	Serapsis spoke again. This time, his words were not ones of derision, but ones of hope. While no one would ever mistake him for a generous spirit, the god beneath the rails was not cruel by law. In exchange for their wish, the king of serpents would issue a challenge to anyone who sought him out. If Marco could survive his challenge, Lord Serapsis would see to it that he was given the means to fulfill his wish.
	“I accept,” Marco said solemnly. His choice had been made the minute he hopped onto the subway tracks and entered the tunnel on foot. Sunken cost fallacy or not, he had to see this through.
	The serpent opened his maw wide enough that Marco’s mouth hurt in sympathy. Two fangs unfurled from the roof of his mouth and began to spill forth bubbling ichor the sickly black-green of squid ink. Marco instinctively took a step back and tried to cover his nose and mouth. It stank like chlorine, rotten eggs and gasoline. He had to fight to keep the bile from rising in his throat. Through eyes that stung as if filled with salt, he saw droplets leap from the puddle as it roiled and spat. Ropes of it took the form of large snakes only to sink back into a layer of fluid no thicker than a nickel.
	Something large was rising from the surface of the ichor, a rectangle five feet wide and twice as long. The center was sunken at least two inches into the mass, and six holes arranged three to each side seemed to have no bottom. As the coating of ichor evaporated in a noxious cloud, Marco realized he was looking at the felt bedding a pool table. Hanging on a rack at the side was a cue of wood that had been stained the same color as the venom it arose from and in a slot at his end of the table were 16 balls.
	Marco reached for the slot but the balls receded from his hand and retreated into holes carved into the side of the chamber. As if breaking in reverse, all 16 balls floated up from the pockets and bounced around the edges before finally coming to rest in a triangle pointing towards him at the far side of the table. The cue ball rolled to a sudden stop right in front of him.
	There was a flicker in the corner of his eye, something slick and black and very, very fast. A rope of ichor leapt from beyond the edge of his sight and wrapped around his arm. It was a creature half like a snake and again like a lamprey, greasy with mucus and tight on his arm as a blood pressure cuff. Two fangs extended above his wrist but did not sink in. A few drops of clear liquid landed on the skin of his forearm, which immediately blistered and burned. The pain was like lemon juice on a raw wound. It was accompanied by a greasy sour smell that made Marco’s throat tug violently. He was sick upon the marble floor, and then again more violently when he noticed a milky film on his burn that he though to be his own fat.
	His wrist grew cold, and when gathered the courage to look at it again he saw the snake had become a bangle of weightless, silvery metal. The two fangs still hovered over raw skin bearing a warning. This, he realized was the risk he incurred. No game with as much to gain would come without a risk twice as costly. A loss would mean a solitary, excruciating death separated from humanity by vertical miles.
	Marco picked up the lone pool cue and turned it over in his hands. It felt heavy enough to break through an inch of glass but he had no trouble holding it steady. He wasn’t bad at pool. Although he had never pursued playing billiards as anything other than a hobby, Marco was a natural. Geometry had always come easy to him, and billiards was all geometry. He doubted the game had been chosen at random. That and the fact that his opponent lacked arms gave him an advantage.
	After taking a breath to rest his heart, which had been pounding against his ribs as if it intended to break them down, he took aim and prodded the cueball into the pyramid. With a crack the pyramid broke, and the colored balls spilled out across the bed of the table.  The two ball rolled immediately into the near-right pocket and the twelve soon joined it through the center left.
	Marco stepped around the corner and took aim at the 4-ball, which had found itself quite conveniently barring the path between the center-right pocket and the cueball. The two balls connected with a crack, causing the cueball to ricochet back and forth across the felt. The purple ball disappeared into the pocket. “I was surprised when you turned out to be real.” He said, pacing. He looked over the cueball with one eye closed, trying to decide whether to aim for the six or one. The serpent remained silent. Marco supposed he wasn’t much for idle chat, but decide to continue anyway. “When I was a kid, I read about you in a picture book, The Myths of Old New York.” Serapsis gave a soft hiss of acknowledgement. “It was an old book from the library, and the cover said it was originally a story told by the Manhatto tribe. I guess that would make you older than this city.” The hiss in response was louder than the first, and caused Marco’s cue-stick skipped a few hairs to the side. The arcane words his god whispered made a phrase Marco could translate, but not one he understood. This city on a pit, it has always been. The cueball glanced the 1-ball towards the lower right pocket, but it missed the hole by half an inch and rolled to a stop on the lower edge. His turn was over.
	Wisps of lime green smoke danced around the cueball, which then flung itself at the 11, burying it in the far left pocket. That answered one of Marco’s questions. Before he could ask another, the serpent spoke again. My existence had been proven true to you, and yet you doubted it. The cueball lunged, pocketing the 9 and nudging the 15 into position. The cueball rolled into the corner pocket. It was Marco’s turn again.
	What had the god beneath the city meant by that, he wondered as he lined up his shot? “I think I would remember seeing a cobra the length of the Brooklyn Bridge.” Marco hoped he hadn’t overstepped his boundaries by calling his god a cobra.You enjoy stories, it hissed matter-of-factly. Marco pocketed the 1-ball. As above, so below. “Marco stared down his cue with one eye closed and took aim at the 7-ball. “That was a hermetic phrase wasn’t it? Or did they get it from you?” Serapsis said nothing. Marco pocketed the 7, and the cueball along with it. It was now the serpent’s turn.
	There was a time, it whispered as if lost, searching its vast mind for a single file, only instants ago in the eyes of a god but much longer for your kind. There was a child, a boy, who had spent all of his life in this eternal city upon a pit. This boy had been fortunate, more so than many of his kind. His parents were loving, his body was sound, and he would never know true hunger or loss. In addition, the gods had blessed him with the gift of a brilliant mind, one that would eventually allow him to learn my name. Of course, the gods do not give gifts freely, and their blessings hide barbs and thorns. His mind granted him awareness of the world around him, and showed him the gifts all men possessed that he had never been granted. In time his hunger for knowledge starved him with envy.
	“You’re talking about me,” Marco interrupted. “You are, aren’t you? I can’t see how some other random guy would factor into our meeting”
	He is not you, and you are not him. It would be many years before he became you, and you have not been him for much the same length of time. The cueball collided with the 15-ball, which sunk into the tunnels running beneath the table.
	”Why are you telling me about my own life?”
	This vain and jealous boy knew of all his own gifts, but would not treasure them until he had seen them lost. He resented the parents who offered him everything, but sought their love again when part of was given to a new life. Consumed by his envy, he prayed to every god he knew to smite the one who would become his sibling. Perhaps he never expected one to answer him.
	The cue ball zig-zagged across the table, interring the 10 and 14 beneath the felt. It rolled to an intended rest behind the 12, which sat on the lip of the corner pocket. Marco waited for his body to respond, for tears to roll down his face onto the felt, for his hair to be torn out by the handful, for a moan of regret to escape him, but nothing came. He wasn’t even sure he was able to cry or scream in anguish. It had been his fault. All of it had been his fault and now most of the balls left on the table were his. His mouth tasted like copper, and he realized that he had bitten half way through his own lip.
	This is not solely your story, nor is it hers or even mine. It is a web of over 108 billion paths, and even in my omniscience I cannot follow all of them.
	“How many do you follow?” Marco heard himself ask
	They are three in number. Three in my infinite awareness that I judge to be the most entertaining. Green smoke coiled around the cue ball and struck, leaving only the 13 and the 8. You feel regret. It is something my kind do not experience. We do what we must, because we can. We will look forward, we will look back, but we never question our own decisions. They are of our own making. Humans are different. I have told the story of what you once were. What if I told you of an omnipotent boy who freed the stars from the street lights? What if I told you of an omnipresent girl who hatched what was never an egg? What if I told you of an omniscient child who rose temples from watery depths?
	“Who are they” Marco said. It came out more as an angry whisper than he had intended, but he had never wanted to know something more than he did at this moment.
	They do not exist yet. The children who will one day become them are present, and all but one have made their choices. These decisions will risk their lives, and the lives of many others. There will be trials, quests, deaths. The cue ball began to smoke.
	Marco remained silent. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but somehow he knew what he said next would make all the difference.
	Do you still desire to give your sister sight? Cloudy green vapor wrapped itself around the cue ball, which spat and hissed like water in a hot pan.
	“Yes!” The cue ball lurched forward, and knocked the 8 ball into a corner hole. The game was over. The 13 had not been pocketed. Marco had won.
 	Marco opened his mouth to speak, but only dead air came out. Gradually he managed to make noises, but there was no pattern or meaning to them as his mind had voided itself. His mouth was dry and sticky, and the only moisture he tasted was the saline taste of tears. He had started crying without realizing it, and he was grateful that his journey was over.
	Serapsis made a sound deep inside, the same chthonic groan of cinderblocks against asphalt. I have given my word child, and my word is law.
	Marco rubbed hot tears from his eyes and looked back at the god. A change was overtaking the serpent, starting at the hood and working its way down to the tip of the tail. The color that filled the iridescent eye spots upon its skin seemed to be draining away like a tank of liquid hallucination emptying itself.
	Something slippery rubbed against his palm, and he realized the serpent on his wrist had resumed its existence. It coiled back against him and sprung towards his face. Marco grabbed at it, but his hands found only air as two fangs pierced his corneas. At the time, the pain in his wrist had been an unparalleled experience. To compare it to anything he had ever felt would be like comparing a desert to a grain of sand. Now that desert was a small patch of dust on the surface of a tiny blue spec in the vast substratum of reality. It was dark and empty place where the only sound was the grinding of two sickles of enamel against the back of his eye sockets, the sound deepened and intensified by the filter of bone conduction.
	It only took a few moments for him to grab the tube of mucus and muscle and tear it off his face, and action that was accompanied by a wet sucking sound and an excruciating tug on his eyes, but the anguish would be remembered for a lifetime.
	Marco blinked back vitreous fluid and against his better judgement he experimented with opening his eyes. He had hoped desperately that he would see something — anything really — but as he did he prepared to see nothing. When his eye lids did finally heed his orders however, he saw something he couldn’t have possibly expected to see. He saw everything.
	Marco saw the chamber he was in. He saw the sandstone walls, the marble floors, the turquoise ceiling and the fireflies buzzing about it. He saw each and every one of them with their glossy compound eyes, their orange thoraxes and semi-translucent abdomens that looked like half burnt grains of rice that glowed from within with a citrine light. He saw where they once were and where they would be, and where they existed in realities parallel, tangent and skew to our own. He saw the webs of chitin chains that made up their carapaces and wings, and in the ripple of each link he observed popcorn-shaped valence clouds and the location and momentum of each electron. He saw pairs of photons and gluons burst split from nothing into something only for the pieces to reform and return from whence they came. He saw with his own eyes the width of each neutrino and the foam and fibre of reality which existed in both one and eleven dimensions at once.
	He saw this city on the pit as it is and was and always had been, and he saw that it had always been meant to be, reality or timeline be damned.
Marco shut his eyes and tried in vain to cover them with his hands. In loops of string he saw distant galaxies and the hum of quasars that do, will, have, and will never exist. He saw the fabric of space turn and stretch in ways that could only resolve in a hernia. He saw reality tear and pucker and twist and watched until he fell to his knees and wept sticky black tears that prickled and shone like the night sky.
	Marco knew exactly how long he kneeled there by the phase transitions of a single electron on the back of his left thumb nail. 26 minutes, 34 seconds, 842 milliseconds, and so on. Eventually, by letting his eyes go slack his sight returned to a semblance of normality.
	“We had a deal,” he mumbled. “We had a fucking deal!” Something was building up in him. Something hot and ashy was swelling in his chest and bursting out in a fury than almost burnt his throat. “You were supposed to fucking help her! What the fuck did you do to me?”
	You asked for a way to restore your sister’s vision, and by our covenant I provided it. The scope of my abilities is limited, for I am bound to this place, and as a god my role can only ever be a passive one. I cannot restore the girl’s eyes, but I have provided you the means to resolve your conflict by your own hand.
	“Bullshit! You made a promise!”
	I have fulfilled my end of the bargain. If you wish to move forward you only need look for an answer.
	Marco shook. Every muscle and tendon in his body was wound tight enough to snap. He wanted to run. He wanted to throw himself and the serpent and flail his limbs against it. He wanted to bite and punch and claw and kick, but he did not. Instead, he looked.
	Before you are trials, ten in number. You will be provided the gift of omniscience, but it will be your resolve that will determine your success or failure, not your sight.
	“And if I complete them, Mina will be able to see again?”
	You know the answer to that. These trials are a formality. Your participation is not required, but you can see with my own eyes that her fate is tied to them. There are possible realities where she sees without your participation, and ones in which she is blind despite your victory. I have given you omniscience, and with them the reins of fate. You must choose the correct path, and you must be willing to make the necessary sacrifices. Without my eyes, I do not know which path you will choose to take. I hope your story will be an interesting one.