“But it grew faint on the plains!” Gregor said.

“Yeah,” Terry said. “And we were going the wrong way. We couldn’t find shelter, we collapsed where we stood, and that horrid giant snatched us up. If Maurice hadn’t found us, we would have been goners.”

“So you think we should turn around?” Maurice said, incredulously.

“I don’t know!” Terry said. “Hang on.”

She turned around, as an experiment, and began to walk back down the rocky, winding path. Sure enough, the light increased as she descended.

“This is definitely the wrong way,” she said.

“So what if it is?” Maurice responded. “if the ball is lighting our way to the suncaves, then of course this visit to the hermit is a detour.”

“And where else will we sleep tonight?” Gregor added. “We can’t walk all night.”

“Okay,” Terry sighed, and the three of them kept going. Soon enough, they came upon a ledge with a massive cave. But it was dark—no fire lit the interior, and the ball at this point emitted no glow at all.

“He must be dead,” Terry said, and Gregor grunted his agreement.

“Well, shall we sleep in the cave?” Maurice said.

“No,” Terry responded. “I’m not sleeping next to a dead hermit. I’ll camp out here,” she said.

“Don’t you even want to build a fire?”

“No,” Terry said. “It would only attract mountain wraiths, and I’m too tired.”

“Me too,” Gregor said, and stretched out under the stars. He began snoring immediately. Terry removed her helmet and rapier, wrapped her arms around her legs, and put her head on her knees. In a moment, she was asleep.

Maurice looked from the cave to his dozing companions several times, then decided to camp out on the ledge beside them. The three of them slept heavily as the moon set in the sky above them, then the cold of deep night descended, and the even colder gray dawn. When the three awoke, their muscles were stiff and they were cross. Without a word, Gregor descended the rocky path to find wood for a fire. Maurice and Terry gnawed on a bit of bread and a hunk of cheese as they awaited his return. When he came back, he lit it skillfully with a bit of needles for kindling. Only then did Maurice decide to enter the cave.

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He came back outside with a kettle and an armful of papers.

“Is he—” Terry asked.

“Dead, yes,” Maurice responded. “Must have died in his sleep, quite a while ago. His bones are tucked into a cot in the back of the cave, with a blanket over him. The blanket crumbled away when I touched the edge of it, so I did not disturb him.”

“The kettle’s handy,” Gregor responded, filling it with water from his skin. “What else did you find?” Gregor said.

“These papers,” he said. “Some of them are just his life story or philosophy, but others describe the area around here. I’m hoping we’ll get some clue as to where to go next.”

“We can also just follow the ball,” Terry observed.

“We can do both,” Maurice responded.

Gregor boiled up some water, and the three sipped at coffee in the crisp sunny mountain morning. It made all three of them feel better. Terry and Gregor stretched their legs and arms, and sparred with each other a bit while Maurice pored over the papers. When midmorning was close, he gathered up the pages conclusively.

“Well, it’s settled,” he said. “We need to go up from here.”

“What?” Terry said. “Go up from here? What makes you say that?”

“In his writings, the old hermit said, ‘Great glory is above me.’ So we should look for the suncaves above him. The path goes on from here, up. And we already know there’s caves. So we should keep going up.”

Terry shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “First of, all that’s a really ambivalent statement. He could’ve meant all sorts of things by that. Metaphorical things—they way hermits talk. Second, why would he be in this cold old cave if some fabulous suncave was right above him? Third! The! Golden! Ball!”

“Hermits are supposed to stay in cold old caves, even if something fabulous is available,” he said. “He didn’t come out here to live in luxury. This was a spiritual decision.”

“Fine, but the ball does not think this is the right way,” Terry said.

“The ball didn’t help me find you on the plain,” Maurice responded.

Gregor sighed. “Stop it,” he said. “Maurice, why don’t you put on your sandals, and zip up the trail a little bit. We’ll wait here for you.”

“No!” Terry said. “No more separations.”

But Maurice pretended not to hear her. “Excellent plan,” he said to Gregor, slipping on his sandals. Then before Terry could protest further, he was gone in a flash.

“Don’t be mad,” Gregor said, as Terry stared into the fire, stone-faced, sipping the dregs of her coffee. “It was just an idea.”

Terry sighed. “It’s done now,” was all she said.

The two of them sat by the fire for the rest of the morning, idle and frustrated about it.

“My brand is healing,” Gregor offered. “I think it was fighting the mountain wraiths. I feel really strong after that.”

“Me too,” Terry said.

“I don’t feel so much like a woodsman anymore,” Gregor offered. “I feel more like—a centurion. Using this armor and fighting. It feels good. Do you feel more like a warrior?”

“I do,” Terry said. “But I’ve got to be more of a leader. For Maurice to have run off like that—I don’t blame you, Gregor, you were just trying to find a compromise—but we have to be together in our decisions. And I did not want that to happen. And I had good reasons.”

“I get it,” Gregor said. “Anyway, he’ll be back soon.”

“I hope so,” Terry said. But as morning turned to noon, then afternoon, he was nowhere to be found.

“Well,” Terry said. “I guess we better go find him.”

They gathered their things and began to climb further up the winding mountain trail. It wound up the small peak, growing narrower and narrower. It only took an hour or so to reach the peak, and to their surprise, Maurice was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” Terry said, looking around the tiny summit.

“I have no idea,” Gregor replied. “It’s a nice view, though—”

“Isn’t it?” Terry said, and turned around to agree with Gregor. But he was nowhere to be seen.

“Gregor!” she shouted. “Where did you go!”

Her voice echoed in the mountains that surrounded him. Then she felt a pair of strong claws grab both her shoulders, and her feet left the ground.