Mirror waited for the patrol to trek farther away, then whispered, "It's a good thing neither of us sweats."
Bareris didn't answer. That wasn't unusual, but the reason was. Crooning to himself, he was already slipping back into his trance. He started to straighten up.
"Wait," Mirror said. "Give the ghouls another moment."
Bareris froze in a position that would have strained a living man.
"All right," continued the ghost, "that should be long enough."
Bareris finished rising and continued onward, straying from the trail as often as he walked on it, halting periodically to run his hand over a stone or a patch of earth. Prowling behind him. Mirror watched for danger and tried to believe this scheme might actually work.
He told himself he should believe. He had a century's worth of reasons to trust Bareris, and even were it otherwise, faith had been the foundation of his martial order and his life. Still, his friend's plan seemed like a long shot at best, partly because Mirror had never seen the bard do anything comparable before.
Rumor had it that the cellars of the Citadel connected to natural caverns below. Bareris reasoned that the caves might well let out somewhere on the mountainside, and Mirror agreed the notion was plausible.
It was his comrade's strategy for finding an opening that roused his skepticism. Bareris had collected stories concerning killings and uncanny happenings on the slopes. Some of those tales were surely false or had become confused as they passed from one teller to the next. Even the ones that were accurate didn't necessarily reflect the predations of creatures that emerged from the catacombs to hunt. The desolate peaks of the Thaymount were home to a great number of beasts likely to devour any lone hunter or prospector they happened across.
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 tunnel ran away before him, twisting into the heart of the mountain.
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 tunnels that could hurt even you. Things you might not be able to handle by yourself. Besides, what if there isn't another opening, or we run out of time while you're looking for it?"
"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 inner surface of his leather gauntlet and the shredded skin and muscle beneath.
The tunnels were lava tubes or splits in the stone, produced by earthquake and orogeny. Unlike limestone caverns, they had no stalactites or stalagmites to hinder Bareris's progress. But that was the only good thing about them. They were a maze of unpredictable twists and cul-de-sacs stretching on and on in the darkness, and, unsurprisingly, the stories that had enabled him to locate the entrance were of no use at all when it came to finding his way inside. He'd sung a song to locate worked stone-specifically, whatever archway was closest-and it gave him a sense that the nearest such feature lay to the northeast. But that didn't guarantee he'd be able to grope his way to it anytime soon.
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?"