Si glyph [https://i.imgur.com/mHhTdaF.png]

One moment the cage was falling smoothly through the darkness, then iron screeched on rock. White sparks flew. The cage crashed into the shaft wall, throwing them all to the floor. Simon clutched the cold-lamp to his chest with one hand, gripping the floor of the cage with the other.

With a final loud bang, the cage juddered to a halt.

‘What in Light’s name…’ Jonas sat up. ‘Anyone hurt?’

Shakily, Simon got to his feet. The cage had stopped at an angle, its top canted into the shaft wall. He peered between the bars. ‘There’s some sort of damage to the shaft. The cage has jammed, I think.’

‘So what do we do?’ Riga asked.

‘Climb,’ Simon said.

The cage door was partly wedged against the shaft wall. Riga and Jonas hauled it open.

Simon leaned out and looked around. The rock of the shaft wall bulged inward irregularly, as if it had been squeezed in the fist of a giant. It should be wide enough for both lift cages with room to spare — now even one couldn’t pass. Below, the shaft widened as it dropped away from them into pitch darkness.

‘Climb? I’m not climbing down there.’ Holomy wrung his hands. ‘We must return to the surface.’

‘I’ll make steps in the rock,’ Simon said. ‘And we’ll rope ourselves together for safety.’

He sat in the open doorway of the lift cage, his legs dangling, and took his stylus from his pack. Behind him, Riga had taken charge of the ropes. He let their voices fade into the background. The situation was strange, but this was work he’d done all his life. He reviewed the glyphs he needed, then set the stylus point to the rock face.

One careful glyph at a time, he built the sigil. His steel fingers held the stylus firmly; though they had no life, no feeling, he could almost forget they weren’t his own, that they didn’t move of their own volition. It occurred to him, in passing, that if he made a point on one of the metal fingers, he wouldn’t need a stylus…

The elemental Power of earth answered him, the same as it ever was: vast, slow, inexorable, yet familiar too. He hadn’t exaggerated when he said he knew every rock. Twenty years working in the mine counted for something. He knew every strata, every plane, every force, and they knew him. Though he was only an Adept, here his experience made him closer to a Master.

The earth answered, and he imposed his will. Steps — no, a ledge, raised from the shaft wall, continuous… The rock flowed smoothly, a slight grating noise the only sound as the Power rippled down the shaft. Not far, of course — his control faded quickly, and after fifty yards the new ledge narrowed and petered out.

Jonas peered over his shoulder. ‘Nice work.’

The lift cage swayed as Simon climbed to his feet. ‘It should do. I’ll need to repeat the invocation on the way down.’

Roped together in a line, they descended, Simon going first with the cold-lamp. His ledge was a little over a foot wide, sloped more steeply than he liked. To his left, the open shaft breathed warm air from the depths.

On the next invocation, he made the ledge wider, and ridged for better footing.

‘This is a miserably slow business,’ Riga said. She gazed down the shaft, as if contemplating jumping. ‘How long will it take to reach the bottom?’

‘Another hour, I think,’ Simon said. In the white light of the cold-lamp, her hair shone liked polished copper. ‘Cultivate patience.’

She grimaced in disgust. ‘Just get on with it.’

One invocation after another, they trudged down the shaft.

When they reached the bottom, Simon sank to the ground and stretched his stiff leg. The constant strain of the descent had drained him physically and mentally. He’d rarely, if ever, performed so many invocations in close succession. Though each was simple, each demanded total concentration.

Holomy sat beside him. The scriver was grey and shaky, probably unused to so much exercise. Jonas leaned against the shaft wall, while Riga simply shook herself, stretched, and looked around.

‘Before we move on, I have something to say,’ Simon said. Riga’s eyes met his without expression. ‘The mine is dangerous. I know this place, you don’t. So I’m in charge. You do what I say without complaint, question, or hesitation. Can you all do that?’

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Jonas shrugged. ‘Fine. You’re the boss.’

Riga didn’t quite nod. ’Is that all? How far to the tomb, now?’

‘No, it’s not all.’ Simon got to his feet. ‘The straight route to the tomb is a couple of miles, and it’s normally pretty safe, but these aren’t normal circumstances. I don’t know what might have changed. In places the ceiling is low; keep your head down. The floor can be uneven; mind your feet. In case we get separated, everyone should carry a lamp. But try not to get separated.’

Riga snorted. ‘We aren’t children.’

‘Could it have been an earthquake?’ Jonas said. ‘The damage to the mine shaft, I mean, and the town?’

Simon stared at him. ‘This isn’t Athanor. Geologically, the area’s solid as a… well, rock.’

‘Yes, but maybe—’

Simon handed him one of the miner’s lamps. ‘Light this, will you?

Simon led them along the inclined haulage road, a wide, arched passage with iron tracks for ore trucks. The tunnels of the new working were narrower and water puddled on the floor, ankle-deep in places.

The sound of their boots echoed down empty tunnels. Tools and lamps lay abandoned, as if their owners had fled in panic, but there were no miners. When Simon had first seen the damaged mine shaft, he’d hoped they would find men alive, trapped in the mine by the disabled lift. But there had been no one waiting at the bottom of the shaft, and since then, they had neither seen nor heard any sign of life.

They were alone.

Where the new workings broke through into the cavern, there was a sharp scramble down over jutting rocks. Ropes had been rigged to make access easier.

‘Careful here,’ Simon said. ‘Hold the rope.’

Jonas stopped halfway down and stared. ‘Wow. This cave is huge. I never imagined anything like this.’

Riga jumped the last few feet. ‘Is that a body over there?’

At the edge of the cold-lamp’s light, a dark lump huddled against a ridge in the cavern floor. Simon’s heart froze. He advanced slowly, followed by Riga and Jonas. Holomy was still climbing down.

It was one of the miners, a man, and certainly dead. Blood glistened dark in the white glare of the cold-lamp. Simon knelt and gently turned him over. The head lolled at an unnatural angle.

He didn’t recognise the man, and that was some mercy. There was little left to recognise: his face had been torn off, and his body slashed almost in two. Bile stung the back of Simon’s throat; he turned away.

‘Light,’ Jonas said. ‘What did this? Something ripped him apart. Like a bear, maybe.’

Simon shuddered. The granite under his hand was uneven. His fingers lay in parallel grooves, an inch deep and a foot long, in an otherwise flat rock surface. It looked like huge claws had scraped the stone.

He stood.

‘Where is this tomb?’ Holomy said. The scriver didn’t look at the corpse. Perhaps he was too tired to care, or simply uninterested in anything not written down.

Simon scanned the area with the cold-lamp. Flat planes of red granite stretched away into darkness. ‘It’s this way. Stay close. Whatever did this might still be around.’

Jonas swallowed. Riga put her hand on her sword hilt.

Simon led them across the cavern floor. The ceiling lowered until they had to stoop. He stopped at the low point. ‘You have to crawl though here.’

Jonas eyed the two foot gap without enthusiasm. ‘Oh. Great.’

‘I’ll go first,’ Riga said.

Stone grated on stone. Simon turned, raising the cold-lamp. The noise had come from a distance, from the darkness beyond the light’s reach. ‘There’s something out there.’

Riga joined him. She drew her sword.

Again came the scrape of stone. Something moved out there in the dark, something large and heavy. Simon’s heart thudded. ‘We should get into the tomb. We can defend ourselves there.’

Riga nodded. ‘Jonas, Holomy, go.’

She glanced at Simon. Together, they backed toward the low point.

Out in the blackness where the noise had come from, two sparks of light gleamed, reflecting the lamplight. Eyes.

Rock pressed against Simon’s bent back. He had retreated as far as he could go. The eyes shone pale in the distance, unmoving. He dropped to his knees and crawled through the gap. Riga followed, her breathing loud, the sword in her hand scraping the rock.

When Simon reached the other side and got to his feet, Jonas and Holomy were not in sight. Presumably they had already entered the building carved from the cliff-face. Quickly, he led Riga across the open space and through the doorway.

They descended the sloping tunnel, and saw the other two ahead of them, on the steep stairway that led down to the tomb. In single file, they climbed down the steps to the door of the ante-chamber.

‘The tomb is through here,’ Simon said.

Riga gazed back at the long straight stairway, sword in hand. ‘No other entrances?’

‘This is the only way in or out.’

She grunted.

Holomy set his pack on the floor and pulled out writing materials. ‘Since we appear to be trapped here, I may as well do what I came for. The tomb is through that doorway?’

‘Be careful,’ Simon said.

Holomy scowled. ‘I do know what I’m doing, Adept.’

‘Will it take you long?’ Riga asked.

‘How can I say before I’ve seen it? Some hours, I expect. I will inform you if there’s any difficulty.’

The fussy stoop-shouldered scholar entered the painted room with the sarcophagus. Simon, Jonas, and Riga gathered at the foot of the stairs. No sound came from above.

‘What do we do, if it comes after us?’ Jonas said.

Riga hefted her sword. ‘Kill it before it kills us.’

‘I’ve never really practiced combat magic,’ Jonas said. ‘But I know the theory. I could prepare some sigils.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Simon said. ‘But I can block the tunnel. We’ll be safe then, at least until we want to leave.’ He took his stylus from his pocket and turned to the passage wall, the required glyphs already lining up in his mind, and stopped. Something was different, he realised, something had changed since the last time he’d been down here.

The last time, the first time he’d seen the tomb, Lorie and Sam had been with him, and they’d approached the ante-chamber, not knowing what they would see inside, and he had said— ‘Stone-wyrms.’ There had been two stone-wyrms, one either side of the doorway. He stretched out his hand to touch the perfectly smooth stone beside the door.

The stone-wyrms had gone.