While Sidri went down into the village, Jiriga walked along the ridge towards the main entrance to the mine. The yawning mouth accommodated

three separate cart tracks; he could picture how lively the town must have been with a mine that active. On top of the sense of danger and mystery, it made sense that young men who'd been boys back then be drawn to the mine. As he walked into the tunnel, he noticed that there

were iron hooks and looks embedded in the walls; electric lights and the wires that fed them had once hung here.

A few paces into the dim, each cart track wandered down its own tunnel to be swallowed by the darkness. From one, he heard the faintest echo

of voices; since it came with no inexplicable compulsions or feelings of breath on his neck, it was made by the living. He followed it into the black, keeping a hand on the wall to follow its turning. After a long, gradual arc in the path, he could see a faint light spilling out from a gap in the wall.

Not torchlight, judging by the color, he thought. The echoes were louder, and he could make out distinct voices--young, raucous. Jiriga paused for a moment to consider how he held himself. He decided to rest a hand on his rifle strap, and put extra length in his stride, swaggering up to the opening.

Daylight fell into the dome-shaped chamber through an aperture slightly wider than a man's shoulders; by it, he could see six boys. Two were play-grappling with each other; three cheered them on from the sidelines, while the last--the smaller boy he'd chased off the night before--was watching with less enthusiasm.

"Who's there?" one of the boys shouted. The grappling and cheering came to an instant stop; the others looked to him, then followed his

eyes.

Jiriga reckoned that must be the leader--Mutar, was it? He stepped into the light and smirked. "I come in peace," he said, raising his

hands and looking around casually.

"You're one of the bounty hunters," Mutar said, folding his arms over his chest. "Aren't there bandits you should be going after?"

"Sure, and having a look around the mines is part of that. All sorts of shady folks use abandoned mines," Jiriga said. "Bandits, spies,

revolutionaries. Necromancers and sorcerors, even."

"Whoa, really?" one of the grapplers asked, eyes widening.

"Idiot, there's no such thing as sorcerors, he's messing with you." Mutar said. The other boys, their curiosity stirred, were suddenly

shamefaced. Only Jawal was unresponsive, studying Jiriga closely, showing neither interest nor dismissal.

"Hmm, you think so?" Jiriga said, shrugging. Mutar was already defensive for some reason, and would do his best to keep the boys from

opening up, he realized. 'War stories,' Sidri said. Some good that will do me now. New approach. "I'm going to have a look around the

mines. I heard you boys know them well and spend your time here, so I thought I'd throw a little money your way to help me out. If one of

you guides me, I'll give you twenty bits each."

Mutar turned that thought over for a moment, murmuring something that drew the other boys to him. They started whispering back and forth. Jiriga studied the aperture over the center of the chamber; from further in he could see it was a shaft that reached up at least eighty paces to the open sky. He remembered Sidri telling him that in some places, temples and shrines to sky gods had such openings in the ossuaries so that the god would be able to look down on the remains of their followers. He noticed compartments carved into the rock faces, but without a single bone decorating them. Whether they'd been taken to a new shrine or thrown down a mineshaft by Ekbenan soldiers, he could imagine the dead not taking that kindly.

"All right, deal," Mutar said, thrusting an open hand at Jiriga's face. "Half up front."

"Look at you, the budding merchant. Fine, but I get to pick my guide." Jiriga shed his rucksack and after some fishing produced copper coins

worth sixty bits. He put them in Mutar's hand, but held him firmly. "I'll take the little one. He looks like the weakest one, less likely to try anything funny."

"Fine. Jawal, show him around. Just be quick about it." At a nod from Mutar, one of the other boys fetched a torch, lit it with a flint, and handed it to Jawal.

"S-sure," Jawal said, bowing his head and staring intently at the floor, clutching the torch handle too tightly. "Let's go."

They'd barely stepped outside the chamber when the sounds of grappling and cheering started again. Jawal's shoulders bunched up for a moment, then he released them with a sigh. Jiriga followed a few paces behind, watching his beaten demeanor. A scenario pieced itself together easily enough: here was the son of the man who, more than even Dinchal, represented the Ekbena to the villagers. When things had been good, Jawal's father would have cast glory on everyone around him; with the mines dead and the father missing, Jawal was the soak for all the

anger and disappointment.

When they'd gone far enough that echoing words couldn't be distinguished, Jiriga checked behind them; he was almost disappointed in Mutar for not thinking to have them followed.

"Your friend doesn't seem to like me," he said. No response. "Or you, for that matter."

Jawal flinched, but kept leading the way. "No. He's . . . he's my best friend."

"I still think he's hiding something. He knows about whoever's behind the disappearances."

"It's the ghosts," Jawal said, softly, as though he expected a rebuke. Jiriga imagined Sidri would be moved to some pity, but the boy's weakness would start to annoy him at this rate. They wandered for a time in silence, Jawal tracing the twisting tunnels with certainty despite his skittishness. His father had had a map, according to Dinchal. How many hours had the boy spent poring over the map, etching it into his mind and body?

"I did hear that you'd seen a ghost in here," Jiriga said. "You think that's who's causing everything?"

"N-no!" Jawal paused, turning to face him. There was a flash of anger in his eyes. "I saw my dad. He'd never try to hurt anybody. It has to

be someone else. Whatever. You don't believe me anyway."

The tunnels of the hill branched in many directions; it was easy to tell where there had once been rich copper veins, heavily worked. But

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there were also subtler signs here and there; gouges in the rock that, taken individually could have been made by nature or a clumsy swing of

a miner's pick. But they were too consistently shaped, and small enough that someone without his years of tracking wouldn't notice them.

Signs only meant for people who know to expect them. There may well be bandits using this cave, Jiriga thought. Question is what connection

it has to the haunting, or the boy's father. If he was the only villager seeing ghosts when awake, he was somehow unwittingly caught in this web. They passed another long stretch in silence. He noticed Jawal stopping short as they reached another fork in the tunnel. There was a single bare lantern hanger driven into the stone ahead of them; Jawal looked at it, paused and then turned.

"There's nothing to see past here." Jawal did a poor job masking the uncertainty and fear in his voice, hoping that walking back the way they came would smooth it over. Jiriga put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Is one of these tunnels where you saw your father's ghost?" Jiriga asked. "I'm not mocking you. I believe you."

"No. I saw my father in the room with the skylight. Nobody else was . . ." The boy went stiff, and he dropped the torch. Jiriga grabbed it

off the floor and studied the boy's eyes in its light; they were fogging over and his jaw hung slack. He took a slow, plodding step down the left branch of the tunnel, showing no sign that he noticed Jiriga holding him back.

They've taken a hold of him, Jiriga thought. Just then, he felt the air grow colder, and though the darkness beyond the torch's light was

absolute, he could tell there were forms shifting, writhing within it. Something had provoked the dead to such a furor that even he could

almost see them, but what? Not their mere presence, or else Mutar and his boys would have already gotten themselves killed. There was no

time to ponder further; he gripped Jawal's wrist as tightly as he could and pulled the boy after him, retracing their steps. The pull on the boy's body grew stronger by the breath; before long he could not be moved.

"Fight them, damn you," Jiriga said, having to set down the torch and put his whole weight into keeping Jawal in place. The forms in the

darkness would soon reach them. Sidri was not with him; there would be no way to stop the dead from having their way. He felt a sinking in

his stomach and began to loosen his grip. "I'm sorry."

But Jawal went limp, falling onto Jiriga as the cold receded and the darkness grew still. Jiriga counted out a few breaths; whatever it was, it was over. He stood up slowly, hefting a groaning Jawal up after him.

"My head . . ."

"You're all right now," Jiriga said. He watched the look in Jawal's eyes change as his wits returned to him. He gave him a brief pat on

the shoulder, bending down and handing him back his torch. "You were possessed, but for some reason the ghosts let you go."

"H-how--"

Jiriga shook his head. "Not now. This is what's going to happen. We're going back to your friends. You're going to tell them that you showed

me around, I tried to wring some information out of you, and you told me . . . well, I'll leave it to you to come up with that. No mention

of what just happened, and don't think I won't find out."

He put an edge on his last words and hardened his face for a moment. When Jawal nodded, he offered him his hand.

"When you're done here, come by the shack where my partner and I are staying after dark, and we'll explain what we can. Deal?"

They shook hands, and after Jawal had a moment to gather his composure, led the way back to the ossuary. Jiriga put on an annoyed

act, threatening to withhold the other half of the fee because Jawal had been unhelpful, but ultimately giving in. Mutar grinned as though

he'd won a great victory. As he left the mine, he was etching the map of it into his memory; best would have been to get the boys to help,

but all that their mistrust meant was that he'd have to sneak in when they weren't around to avoid drawing too much attention.

He found a path up the hill that led him to a bramble-covered rise; it was a sheer drop down to the main entrance of the mine, and he'd be

obscured from sight. He staked out the position for near an hour, but there was no sign of the boys. Likely they would stay there until

dinner time, he thought. He climbed back down and made for the shack, intending to rest for a few minutes, gather his thoughts, and figure

out his next move. Instead, he found Sidri poring over a thick book.

"Found something?" he asked.

"I'd say so," Sidri said, not looking up from her reading. "This is a record of the entire history of the shrine, from the year it was established. The names of every person who ever served the shrine are written here, and judging by the reaction when I found it, at least some of them are among the ghosts haunting this place."

"Reaction?" Jiriga asked. "The book is haunted?"

"It was, strongly enough that they started pulling me across the boundary. I managed to persuade them to let me go, but who knows how

long their patience will last."

"That explains what set them off," Jiriga muttered. He told Sidri what had transpired during his time in the mines and the deal he'd struck

with Jawal; she told him what she'd heard from the goatherd and how she'd come by the book and decided to take it.

"Things have gotten complicated," Sidri said, leaning back in her chair to study the ceiling. "So far I've already counted seventy-one people who served the shrine in its first hundred years, but there aren't that many ghosts, let alone enough for the rest of the shrine's history. There are enough of them that they can possess people and act through objects, but mostly are only causing people nightmares. They're interested in Jawal, but he says he saw his father."

"Remember when you told me that I was starting to see the dead because I've been around you too long? I'm wondering if the same thing could

happen if someone got too close when one of our friends was up to something."

Sidri was quiet for a long moment; though she would not meet his eyes, he could see that the thought pained her. "It's possible." She returned her attention to the book; there was more for them to discuss, but Jiriga thought better of it. They sat in silence, she reading the shrine's history, he trying to conceive a story that made sense.

He was just beginning to doubt that Jawal would show when they heard a knock on their door. The boy threw a furtive glance over his shoulder

before stepping into the shack. He looked run down, and his breathing was ragged.

"Nobody knows I'm here," he said. "I think I'm getting sick, though."

Sidri rose from her seat and put a hand to his forehead. "The ghosts are working on your body. They're trying to weaken you so that it's

easier to pull you into the land of the dead."

Jawal blinked at her, uncomprehending.

"I'm a necromancer, not a shaman," she said. "The good news is, that means I can help you. But I want you to promise not to tell anybody."

"Why? Everyone would be happy to have a necromancer to get rid of the ghosts."

"There are people after us." Jiriga pulled up a chair and sat facing Jawal. "And people we're after. Either way, we don't want word getting around about us. You can't even tell Mutar and the others. That's why we wanted you to come in secret."

Jawal swallowed hard, but nodded. Sidri gently took him by the wrists and closed her eyes, whispering her incantations. Jawal shuddered, and

as soon as Sidri released him, he felt his face and gawped at her.

"I've weakened their hold on you, but I couldn't break it; you've already been pulled part way across the boundary between life and

death."

"Does that mean I'm g-gonna--"

"No, it doesn't mean you're going to die," Sidri said, smiling gently. "But ghosts can't do this to the living on their own, that's why they mainly show up in dreams; that's when your soul is least tied to the land of the living. I'm guessing that something strange happened to you, or maybe you saw something right around the time the haunting started."

Jawal said nothing, but Jiriga knew how someone looked when recalling something they'd rather forget. Sidri recognized it too, and rose, fetching their skin of sour goatsmilk, pouring some out and offering him the cup. He drank it all in one swig, and after he'd finished coughing, he met her eyes.

"I saw a sacrifice."