The Road to the Golden Prize

A night world offers a golden prize at the end of a contract, and the people who want it are not starting from the lobby. The climb runs through rooms where favors are priced and names are traded. Useful people are kept close until the prize is near, and then they are easy to drop. He can sign and become one of them. / Or he can learn, before the last door, who actually owns the road. The contract explains the reward. It does not explain the owner. That silence is the darkest clause on the page.