“I promise,” Farshaun agreed at once.

He started inside, groping his way forward with Khyber Elessedil right on his heels, leaving Skint and Garroneck behind. The strange light held steady as they advanced on it, but when they got close enough they could see it was a flameless torch of the sort favored by the people of the Old World. Immediately, it began to recede into the gloom.

“Come this way,” the voice called back to them.

They went deep into the cave, following a passageway that frequently branched in more than two directions. The cave was a honeycomb of tunnels, and Khyber knew that if she’d had to ferret out the Speakman on her own, it would likely have taken a very long while. If ever, she amended, because she was willing to bet there was more than a single entrance and exit, too.

Finally, they reached a place where the light stopped moving as they caught up with it. They were in a wide space empty of everything but themselves and the light. The flameless torch was wedged into the rocks on one wall, but Khyber had to search the blackness to find the Speakman. He was sitting off to one side, obscured by gloom and shadows. She could not see his features at all and could only barely make out that he was tall and skeletally thin, his hunched-over body with its long legs and arms and oddly elongated head giving him the look of a praying mantis.

“Sit,” he whispered to her. “Tell me of your vision.”

She did as he asked. Seated on the cave floor, wrapped in her black robes, she recounted everything she could recall of the memory she had skived from Aphenglow. She described it all, from the peculiar landmarks to the colors she had seen and sounds she had heard. She described it all carefully, trying hard not to leave anything out save the identity of what it was she was seeking. The insect in the dark shifted its long limbs now and again, but otherwise sat quietly and said nothing.

Even after she had finished, the Speakman remained silent. And when she started to ask him a question, Farshaun quickly held up his hand to silence her. Wait, he mouthed silently.

The seconds ticked away, becoming minutes. Not a sound broke the deep stillness.

And then suddenly the Speakman shifted just enough to bring his angular features into the light, his body swaying slightly as he spoke in ragged, jumbled sentence fragments.

“Dark ways … dreams of death in death’s own realm … all swept away but one … lost to the vision …” He went still, then began to sway once more, his voice ephemeral and ghostly. “Not strong enough to weather … such deep places, all in shadow … spikes and iron plates … stairways … that don’t come out and …”