“It’s…a…cursed…staircase,” Barrick said, fighting for breath. They had been marching without a rest for hours, and each step was a formidable obstacle. “Like the one in front of the great temple back home—but monstrously big.” He fell silent except for his ragged breathing as he labored up two more steps behind Vansen. All around him the other prisoners were struggling at least as badly—some were simply too short to get up without help. The Longskulls clambered in and out of the procession, jabbing with their sticks and making irritated honking noises. “Gyir says that this is it,” Barrick reported at last.

“This is what, exactly?”

“Greatdeeps. The entrance to the ancient mine.” Barrick closed his eyes for a moment, listening to that silent voice. “He says we must hold hands, because to get separated here might be worse than death.”

“A cheery thought,” said Vansen as lightly as he could, but his own heart was like a stone. They continued up the great staircase, which seemed wider than the Lantern Broad in Tessis. At the top yawned a great doorway, high as a many-storied house. Compared to the twilight in the valley and on the stairs, its interior was dark as night.

“There will be a fight here, mark my words,” Vansen whispered to Barrick. It felt strangely natural to hold the boy’s hand, as though this topsy-turvy land had given him back one of his younger brothers. “No creature would let itself be driven into that without a struggle.”

But there was no struggle, or at least not much of one. As the prisoners bunched in the doorway, some moaning and slumping to the ground, some actively trying to turn back, the Longskulls charged. They had been prepared, and now they leaped up the stairs and onto the landing as a unified force, shoving, kicking, poking, and even biting until all those who could do so clambered to their feet and staggered through the door. Many were trampled, and as Vansen let himself and Barrick be drawn into the darkness, he wondered if in the long run those lying bloody and crushed on the top step might not be the lucky ones.

“Should we have tried to get away?” Barrick whispered. “Before they shoved us in here?”

“No, not unless your Gyir says we must. We do not know what is inside, but we might find a better chance for escape later on.” Vansen wished he believed that himself.

They allowed themselves to be dragged along in the river of captive creatures, out of the initial darkness into sloping, timbered tunnels lit with torches, then down, down into the heart of the mountain.

He did not notice it at first, but after a short time of trudging through the dank, hot corridors Vansen began to realize that some of the other prisoners were disappearing. The group in which they traveled was perhaps half the size now that it had been when they had first been driven through the great doors, and as he watched he saw two of the Longskulls roughly separate a group of perhaps a dozen captives—it was hard to tell in the flickering shadows, because the prisoners were of so many odd sizes and shapes—and drive them away down a cross corridor. He whispered this to Barrick, and saw the prince’s eyes widen in alarm.