Shouldering his pack and taking a fresh grip on his staff, he started down the stairway.

He descended many steps, winding his way downward in circular fashion, water dripping, splashing on his face and hands and soaking his clothing. He listened carefully for voices, but the only sound he heard was a strange hissing, something that resembled the breathing of a huge creature. He recalled the dragon in Aphalion Pass and wondered if it were possible that it made its home this far under the earth. He wondered what he would do if he found it.

At the bottom, he found another passageway, this one with its ceiling clustered with stalactites, puddled below with small pools of the mineral-infused water they had shed. He continued on, moving carefully, quietly through the near-darkness. The hissing sound was growing louder; whatever its source, it lay not too far ahead. A snake? He didn’t care much for the thoughts that image conjured, imagining how large the snake would have to be to make a sound of that size. No, it was something else. More like a waterfall. Or steam escaping from a vent.

Finally, he arrived at a massive cavern dominated by a lake that was ringed by hundreds of tombs and markers stretching away for as far as the eye could see. Phosphorescence infused the walls here, too, illuminating the stone garden and casting shadows in strange shapes and forms.

He walked forward cautiously, wending his way into the burial ground, through the clusters of tombs and markers, down toward the edge of the lake. The hissing grew louder, and suddenly he could discern voices. He recognized now what he was hearing. It was whispering, a vast collection of hushed voices all speaking at once. He could catch snatches of words and phrases, but not enough so that any of it made sense. He wondered where the voices were coming from, and an instant later knew the answer.

He was listening to the dead speaking to one another.

A moment after that, he saw Phryne.

PHRYNE. WAKE UP.

She heard her grandmother’s voice from a long way off, from far down in a warm drowsiness that wrapped her like a blanket. She tried to ignore it, anxious to be left alone, content in her sleepy world. But the voice became more insistent, a barrage of words that prodded like sharp sticks.

He is here. The boy you hoped would come. I have brought him to you.

Phryne responded, knowing at once that her grandmother was speaking of Panterra Qu. She had told her grandmother of him, tested her command of the Elfstone magic by finding him, and Mistral Belloruus would have been quick to recognize the attraction. But why would she bring Pan here? He would want to help, but he was no match for a creature like Pancea Rolt Gotrin.