Unholy

Still, Bareris had tossed all the dubious stories into his head like the ingredients of a stew. Somehow the mixture was supposed to cook down to a measure of truth, or perhaps a better word was inspiration. Then magic would lead the singer to the spot he needed to find.

Let it be so, Mirror silently prayed. I don't know how it can be, but let it be so.

Day gave way to night. Light flickered on the northern horizon as, somewhere in that direction, a volcano belched fire and lava. The ground rumbled and shivered, and loose pebbles clattered down the slopes.

Some time after, Bareris abruptly halted and sang the brief phrase necessary to give his song some semblance of a proper conclusion. "We're close." His voice and expression were keen, purged of the dreamy quality the trance had imparted.

Mirror cast about. "I don't see anything."

"I don't, either, but it's here." The slope above this narrow length of trail was steep enough that an ordinary man might well have hesitated to climb on it. But Bareris scuttled around on it quickly, with minimal concern for his own safety. Since a ghost couldn't fall, Mirror tried to examine the least accessible places and spare his comrade at least that much danger.

Neither found anything.

Mirror looked down at the bard. "Should we go higher?" he asked. "Or investigate the slope beneath the trail?"

"No," Bareris said. "It's here. It's right in front of us."

Or else, Mirror thought, you simply want it to be. But what he said was, "Good enough." They resumed picking over the same near-vertical stretch of escarpment they'd already checked,

Until Bareris said, "I found it."

He was standing-or clinging-beside what appeared to be just another basalt outcropping. Mirror floated down to hover directly in front of him and still couldn't see anything special about it. "You're certain?" he asked.

"Yes. Last year or the year before, this stone was higher up the mountain. Then a tremor shook it loose, and it tumbled down here to jam in the outlet like a cork in a bottle. For a moment, I could see it happening."

"Let's find out what I can see," Mirror said. He flew forward into the solid rock. For a phantom, it was like pushing through cobwebs.

Almost immediately, he emerged into empty air. A tu

He turned, flowed back through the stone, and told Bareris he was right.

Bareris sang a charm. He vanished, then instantly reappeared. "Damn it," he growled. "Even this far under the castle, I can't shift myself inside."

"But I can go in," Mirror said. "I'll explore the caves and find a second outlet. Then I'll come back here and fetch you."

Bareris shook his head. "If the stories are true, there are things lurking in the tu

"What's the alternative?"

"Yank the stopper out of the jug."

"I know you're strong, but that stone is bigger than you are, and you don't have any good place to plant your feet."

That made it sound as if Mirror's only worry was that the boulder wouldn't pull free. In truth, he was equally concerned that it would, suddenly, and carry Bareris with it as it tumbled onward. The bard knew a spell to soften a fall, but it wouldn't keep the rock from crushing, grinding, and tearing him to pieces against the mountainside.

"I can do it," Bareris said, "or rather, we can. You'll help me with your prayers."

Mirror saw that, as usual, there was no dissuading him. So he nodded his assent, and while Bareris sang a song to augment his strength, Mirror asked his patron to favor the bard. For an instant, the god's response warmed the cold, aching emptiness that was his essence even as the response manifested as a shimmer of golden light.

Still singing, Bareris positioned his feet on a small, uneven, somewhat horizontal spot unworthy of the term "ledge." He twisted at the waist, found handholds on the boulder, gripped them, and started straining.

At first, nothing happened, and small wonder. Standing as he was, Bareris couldn't even exert the full measure of his strength. Then the stone made a tiny grating sound. Then a louder one.

Then it jerked free, so abruptly that it threw Bareris off balance. The stone and the bard plummeted together, just as Mirror had envisioned.

For the first moment of the stone's fall, Bareris was more or less on top of it. Its rotation would spin him underneath an instant later, but he didn't wait for that to happen. He snatched at the mountainside, and his left hand closed on a lump of rock. He clung to it, and the boulder rolled on without him, bouncing and crashing to the floor of the gorge far below.

Mirror floated down to the place where Bareris dangled. "Are you all right?"

"Fine." Bareris reached for another outcropping with his free hand, revealing the tattered i

The tu

Perhaps perceiving his impatience, Mirror said, "You could try to bring Aoth and the zulkirs to us now. They might know magic to guide us all through."

"I thought of that," Bareris replied. "But what if these caves don't actually link up with the dungeons?"

"Then perhaps they can blast a way through."

"Perhaps, but I imagine that would ruin any hope of taking Szass Tam by surprise."

"by surprise."

"by surprise."

Startled, Bareris turned to Mirror and saw that the ghost, who currently resembled a smeared reflection of himself, looked just as surprised. He knew he hadn't truly repeated himself nor spoken loud enough to raise echoes in the sizable cavern he and the phantom were traversing. Yet he had an eerie sense that something-or everything-had repeated, as if the world itself were stuttering.

He and Mirror had hiked a long way without encountering any of the long-buried perils for which these depths were infamous, but he suspected their luck had just run out. He drew his sword, and the ghost's shadow-blade oozed outward from his fist. Pivoting, they looked for a threat. It might be difficult to spot. Too many fallen boulders littered the cave floor. Too many alcoves and tu

"Do anything? You see," said Mirror, his voice rising at the end of the second word. "Bareris, I swear, I said that properly. Or at least, I didn't feel that I was jumbling the words."

"I believe you," Bareris said.

"What's happening to us?"

"us."

"I don't know, but maybe…"

"maybe"

"maybe"

"… we should keep moving."

"Way? Which."

Good question. More than one passage appeared to run northeast, and the magic pointing in the direction of the arch couldn't differentiate between them. Bareris chose at random.

"Let's try this one."

He took a stride, and the darkness deepened.

Only a supernatural manifestation could account for such a thing, because here in the heart of the mountain, the dark had already been absolute. The undead enjoyed a measure of vision even so, but now Bareris couldn't see as far as before, and even nearby objects looked hazy, as though he were viewing them through fog.