Now the passageway was widening out and taking on a different look. Stalactites appeared on the ceiling, each larger than a man, great stone spears on which mineral deposits had found purchase, their encrusted lengths shedding water in slow drippings that stained the tunnel floor. A forest of these formations filled the spaces above her head and left her feeling as if she were in a deadly trap with jaws that might close on her at any moment.

She quit looking up, directed her eyes straight ahead, and pushed on.

When the tunnel finally ended, she was standing at the opening of a massive cavern, a chamber so vast she could not see its far walls and could only barely make out the stalactites clustered on its ceiling. Torches burned through the darkness like tiny fireflies, their glow revealing bits and pieces of the chamber’s terrain. A lake at its center dominated everything, broad and sprawling, its waters a strange greenish color, their surface flat and still, mirroring the ceiling and parts of the walls. Massive rocks chiseled into rectangles and pillars rose here and there along the perimeter, remnants of another age.

But what drew Phryne’s attention instantly were the tombs clustered around the lake’s edge, markers and sepulchers of all sizes and shapes, some with script cut into the stone bold and deep, some with tiny runes she could only barely make out, and some with nothing more than one or two huge letters carved in the ancient Elven language. She had studied that language and learned its characters, and so she could identify what she was looking at, even if she could not interpret its meaning.

She stood for long moments at the cavern entrance, trying to decide what to do next. Then slowly, cautiously, she began to make her way down toward the edge of the lake.

But she had not gone more than a dozen yards before the hissing that had tracked her progress with its steady, insistent buzzing—the hissing she had gotten so used to she had almost forgotten it was there—suddenly increased in intensity. The volume rose abruptly, as if to acknowledge her presence and make known that it recognized her purpose. She stopped where she was, realizing suddenly what she was hearing.

It was the sound of voices whispering—hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, all speaking at once.