Finally the land rose in a series of more substantial hills and still the train had kept its course. Ahead of us a circular hole waited, punched into the hillside, ten yards in diameter and blacker than sin. The rain strengthened, trickling down my neck and carrying its own cold and peculiar misery with it.

“Yeah . . . I’m not going in there, Snorri.” Sir George might have followed his dragon into the cave, but damned if I was hunting train down in the bowels of the earth.

“Ha!” Snorri punched me on the shoulder as if I’d made a joke. It really hurt, and I reminded myself not to make any actual jokes with him in arm’s reach.

“Seriously. I’ll wait here. You let me know how it went when you come back.”

“There are no trains, Jal. They’re long gone. Not so much as a bone left behind.” He looked back across the rough country behind us. “You can stay here alone, though, if you like, while I go in to see Skilfar.” He pursed his lips.

Something in the word alone, spoken in empty country, made me change my mind. Suddenly I didn’t want to be left standing out in the rain. Besides, I needed to hear what this witch had to say about the curse, rather than whatever Snorri might remember of her words or choose to share. So together we went in, Snorri taking the lead and me guiding Sleipnir behind.

Within a hundred yards the circle of light to our rear did little but offer a reminder that once upon a time we could see.

“I’ve still got two torches.” I reached for my pack.

“Better to keep them,” Snorri said. “There’s only one way to go.”

Horrors stalked us in the dark, of course. Well, they stalked me. I imagined the pale men from the forest padding behind me on quiet feet, or waiting silent to either side as we marched past.

We walked for miles. Snorri trailed a stick along the wall so he wouldn’t lose contact with it, and I followed the sound of scraping. Sleipnir clip-clopped along behind. In places the roof dripped or slime hung in long ropes. Every five hundred yards or so a shaft led up, no thicker than a man and offering a pale glimpse of sky. Strange plants clustered around these openings, reaching for the light with many-fingered leaves. In other places partial collapses saw us clambering up mounds of loose rubble, Sleipnir’s hooves dislodging small avalanches of broken rock. In one section some huge piece of Builder-rock blocked all but a narrow gap to one side and we had to edge through. Snorri allowed me to light the torch for that transit but had me quench it in a standing pool thereafter. I didn’t argue—both torches would most likely have been burned out along the path we’d taken so far, and what the light revealed looked boring enough, with no monsters on show, not even a discarded skull or shattered bone.