Jig had no illusions about his skill with a sword. A day ago, he would have taken the dwarf’s advice and thought himself a match for any wizard. Like Porak, he had believed that a good weapon made a good warrior. But Porak now resided in the belly of a carrion-worm. Jig had seen Barius and Darnak in combat, and next to them, he was nothing. Even Ryslind was a more skilled fighter, and he was a wizard. What hope did Jig have, sword or no sword?

“What about your magic?” he asked, searching for another option. “Won’t Earthmaker help you beat the Necromancer?”

“Doesn’t work that way. Earthmaker wants us to choose our own path. He can guide us and give us strength, but where mortals come into conflict, he’ll not interfere.” Darnak stopped and cocked his head. His face wrinkled like a raisin. “Something’s not right. The tunnel changes up ahead.”

“How can you tell?”

“He’s a dwarf,” Riana answered, as if that explained everything. She hurried up to tell the others.

They soon found that Darnak was right. Barius and his brother stopped, lantern held in front of them. When Jig caught up and saw why they had paused, it was all he could do to keep from throwing up.

Not only did the tunnel change, it ended completely. The walls and ceiling stopped, and the cramped passage opened into a huge cavern. The top was too far to see, and the bottom . . . Jig’s stomach knotted just thinking about it. At the far side, he could just see a glimmer of reflected light, presumably from the marble paneling the Necromancer seemed to like so much. All they had to do was cross.

“Bottomless pit, you think?” Darnak asked.

Barius nodded. “ ’Twould be my guess.”

That was when Jig decided they were both as mad as the wizard. They talked about this chasm as if they crossed bottomless pits every day before breakfast. Worse, as he looked at the others, he had no doubt what they were about to say.

“Let us be on our way,” Barius said, right on cue.

“Over that?” Riana demanded.

Good to know that Jig wasn’t the only one who had problems with this. True, the paneled floor continued across the pit, creating a sort of bridge. The problem was that only the panels continued. As far as he could see, they rested on nothing but air. Only thin lines of silver mortar held the panels together. Although Jig knew nothing about bridges, he guessed this wasn’t how they were supposed to look.