We ran for the stairs to the undercity, the cries of the harbingers growing louder and louder, carrying through the storm clearly now. Water ran down the stairs in a flood, and we slid down barely able to remain standing. At the bottom the water was up to our ankles.

“It’s flooding!” I said. “We need to go up!”

But I could see nothing, the corridor was pitch black without our lamps. The sapphire at my chest began to glow.

“That way,” said Buro, pointing to a passage down.

“How do you know?”

“Any of them will be fine, but that one is the least flooded.”

He was right, the passage dipped up slightly and not so much water was flowing down it. We descended into a blue-lit stone corridor, indistinguishable where I’d had my trial. It was warm, damp and smelled of mushroom and old lizard meat.

Halfway along the tunnel, a crop of glowing mushrooms sprouted from a pile of old bones. Buro knelt down and picked one large enough to fit in his hand comfortably.

“Take one,” he said.

“Why? We have the sapphire.”

“The King does not like doing things that are not strictly necessary.”

“What King?” said Tradfast, as I knelt down to pull out a mushroom. It made a nasty ripping sound as I plucked it, and the sapphire winked out.

“The King inside the sapphire,” I said. “The one who’s going to save the dwarfholds from the Gods, and make me the richest dwarf alive in the aftermath.”

“Another fucking ghost.”

“Yes,” I said. “But he’s been a help so far. He saved me from the rest of the ghosts back in the hall of pillars. We have to trust him.”

“You’re a fool to trust anything dead.”

“We don’t have anyone else to trust. Everyone else has been taken.”

I wished they hadn’t been, especially Captain Lorsson, who used to annoy me so much. Even the other miners, as much as they had hated me. If anyone else had survived, we might stand a chance against the priest-ghosts. Now we were hopelessly outnumbered.

The floor began to slope up gently. Still we walked, my feet beginning to ache and twinge. After a particularly violent spasm, I cried out and put one hand against the stone wall.

“Enough! I need a rest.”

“We don’t have much time to waste, Stony,” said Buro. “You can re--”

“Let him rest,” said Tradfast. “Just for five minutes.”

“Thanks,” I said, and slid down to sit on the floor. I took my sorer foot in one hand and began to massage it.

“Why did the ghosts possess the dwarves?” I asked. “Why not just fly around and do what they need to do that way?”

“Because being a disembodied spirit is horrible,” said Buro, voice devoid of emotion. “You feel every cold particle of air going through you, and you can’t touch or feel or smell, and you can barely hear. It’s constant torment.”

“Why aren’t you crazy then? You must have spent thousands of years in that sapphire. The King too.”

“Inside the sapphire is different. It’s a ghost world in of itself, a residence fit for a king, and as natural to live in as the material world is for the living.”

“Must be nice, living in a palace for ten thousand years.”

“You can’t fathom it.”

I grunted. Lucky bastard really, if I thought about it a certain way. Day after day in the biggest house imaginable, carpets and fine food and everything. They must have had those, surely. Although did they even eat? Maybe they had ghost food.

“I don’t like ghosts,” said Tradfast. “You should be long dead. It’s not right to stay in this world.”

“There is no other world,” said Buro.

“Uri- Buro, why was Airon still in there while Urist is dead? “ I asked. “We saw the ghost possessing him leave for a moment, but I’ve never seen that with you.”

“There are a few rules for possession. The most important of which is that the closer in character the two souls are, the shorter a time it will take for the original soul to be eaten. If Airon is a polar opposite to the fanatic priest that possessed him, he will still be mostly intact, in body as well.”

“It destroys the body too?”

“Yes.”

“Why aren’t you falling apart then?”

“I have a strong bit of gem anchoring me inside here. It’s keeping the body alive.”

“Disgusting,” said Tradfast.

I ignored the Overseer.

“So if we remove the bit of gem in him, Airon should come back?”

Buro paused for a second.

“Yes, that’s right.” He spoke in a tone that revealed nothing, and I had no idea if he lied or not.

“So we need to come up with a plan to get it out of him.”

“Him and all the other miners,” said Tradfast. “Airon’s no more important than the rest

of your comrades. They’re my responsibility and I won’t watch them die.”

“Fine, if you can come up with a plan for that as well.”

“Are you ready to walk again, Stony?” asked Buro.

My foot still hurt.

“Yes,” I said.

After an hour we found a crop of edible mushrooms, and stuffed them into our pockets, as many as possible. We found a hole from which relatively clear water poured too, and Buro and Tradfast filled up the canteens they’d thought to keep on them. I was glad they had, because I hadn’t any water on me, apart from that soaking my clothes.

The tunnel began to slope up more steeply, and the air, which had been so moist and lively before, started to take on a harsh dryness. But no matter how much saliva I layered over my lips, all moisture evaporated within minutes. The ground lost its slipperiness too.

I glanced back at Tradfast, and he was pale. His hands were clenched into hard fists, vibrating slightly. Buro’s advanced slowed, as if some wind pushed him back. Deep in my heart, some primal instinct lurked, telling me to stop and go back. But I had to advance. But how far?

“How high are we climbing?” I asked Buro.

“All the way.”

‘All the way? What do you mean all the way? Where is this treasure anyway?”

“In the King’s tomb at the top of the tallest mountain.”

I stopped still.

“No, we can’t go there. Not outside. We’ll burn and die!”

Tradfast’s huge hand pushed against my back.

“If that’s the way to save the miners, we have to. I’ve been outside before. If we move at night, we’ll be fine.”

“No! I’ve seen what the sunlight does!” I turned and smacked Tradfast’s hand away. “I saw outsiders in town. They were barely dwarves anymore!”

“The cancers don’t come until you’ve been exposed for a long time. A year, maybe. As long as we don’t stray into direct sunlight, we’ll be fine. ”

“He’s right,” said Buro. “You don’t have to worry, Stony.”

“But-”

Tradfast shoved me hard in the chest.

“Do you want to save the miners or not? Get moving.”

“Fine! Damn it, fine.”

I took another step forward into the dry air. Up and up we climbed, until the ramp turned into a set of spiral stairs. The steps were not smooth, but harsh-edged and gritty underfoot. All mushrooms had long since disappeared. This place was a tomb, a dead place where the living were not mean to tread. No wonder a King lost ten thousand years to time hid his treasure so far up. The mountain peaks were a place where very few were stupid enough to adventure, and those who did never returned.

Dim light appeared, and after another turn of the stairs, a square cut in the rock. Buro stepped out, but I hesitated, scared to even look out.

“Come on, Stony. It’s still cloudy outside. You won’t burn.”

I took a deep breath, and stepped onto the mountain path by the square. Even dimmed by the clouds, the glare watered my eyes. I rubbed the tears away.

A vast emptiness met me, twin planes of yellow and grey, totally lifeless, stretching endlessly into the distance. To the left and right of me was barren white-brown mountain, but they were pitifully small in the face of the infinite desert, like tiny crinkles on a flat sheet spreading over the whole world. A feeling tugged on me, threatening to pull me out and over the edge, and scatter my every particle into the dry air. Not of my own will, I leaned forwards, over the edge of the mountain path.

Tradfast grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me back.

“It’ll pass,” he said. “You managed better than some. I once saw a couple soldiers drop dead on the spot from the shock.”

I shut my eyes and drew in a shaking breath. I had never realised the world was so vast, and so dead.

“Come on,” said Buro. “We need to move quickly now, and find a crag to shelter under before the clouds disappear. They will now the God has gone inside the mountain.”

I nodded, but kept my eyes shut. I couldn’t face the desert again, not yet.

Tradfast pushed me gently forwards.

“Go on,” he said. “Just follow the sound of Urist’s footsteps. We used to do this in the army, when the moon was so bright it could damage your eyes.”

Buro’s footsteps were crunches, breaking the brittle ground. I felt my own feet crush the sun-bleached stone to splinters, the hearty slap of boot on stone I had known all my life absent here. I cleared my mind, but I couldn’t clear the prickling on my skin, nor the dryness on my cracked lips. Of all the marches I’d had since leaving the mine, this was by far the worst.

“We can shelter here,” said Buro, a couple hours later. I opened my eyes, keeping my head turned away from the side where infinity lurked, and saw a crag of rock. It hung precariously off the mountain track. The top of it was near white, and the underside a pale brown.

“Are you sure it won’t fall on top of us?” I asked.

“It’s this or burn. The clouds are already beginning to clear.”

He was right, even without braving a look at the sky, I could feel the sun burn hotter, and my skin was beginning to shine white in the light. Pain stabbed at my eyes when they strayed from the shadows.

Buro took to the shelter first, and Tradfast and I followed. I should have felt relieved at the cool and dark, but my heart was still a whirlpool of fear and worry, and could do nothing but stare restlessly at the wall.

“We have no weapons, apart from Stony’s knife.” said Tradfast. “We need more.”

“Yes,” said Buro. “There should be plenty not far from here.”

“Where?” I asked, gripping the hilt of my dagger.

“In the olden times, Kings had their tombs placed on the highest mountain tops. The King of All That Has Worth has his at the highest peak, which is where we have to go. But there are at least a dozen on every mountaintop.”

“How do you know all this?” demanded Tradfast. He had a rock in one fist which he was grinding to dust and gravel with naught but his fingers.

“Because I am very old, and this was my world when it still lived. Before the priests and their ritual that scoured every last dwarf from these mountains.”

“How far away is it?” I asked. “We need to get there soon.” I had only been sitting down for twenty minutes and was already itching to do something, anything to hurry the journey along.

“Maybe two hours walk away, there is a small one. We should get some sleep, and wake at nightfall. I will keep watch.”

“No,” said Tradfast, letting go of the handful of sand in his fingers. It ran smoothly onto the cracked stone ground. “I will keep watch. I won’t trust a ghost-murderer to keep my back safe.”

“Fine by me,” I said, and took a sip of my canteen before closing my eyes.

I’d spoken casually, but Tradfast was acting awfully hostile to Buro, and it worried me. If the two fought, nothing good would come of it.

I could not sleep for a long time. It was too dry, too hot, and my heart thumped too loudly. But I nodded off eventually.

“Wake up,” said Tradfast, in what he might have considered a quiet voice. My eyes shot open almost of their own accord, and I crawled to my feet. Buro was already awake, wearing Urist’s face as an emotionless mask. I brushed grit off me.

Buro led the way. The road stretched up, into the sky. I kept my eyes aimed low, but at either edge of my vision, an endless plummet crept in. We had come to where two sides of the mountain met, and the path to the peak was a straight line along with drops at either side. A dry wind tried to push me to one side, but it was nothing compared to the gales the God of storms down below had created. Even the air up here was dead, and thin too. I had to take breaths twice as deep as normal to keep me going, and even then the occasional spell of dizziness washed through my head. Occasionally boulders blocked our path, and we had to edge around them.

“Look!” cried Tradfast. “Over there, it’s the rest of them!”

I turned. Below a black void studded with diamonds was the army of possessed dwarves, marching along the side of an adjacent mount in a haze of brown dust. Although they looked nearly as small as ants, their armour glinted in the soft starlight so there was no mistaking them.

“Why are they over there?” I asked. “And why are they heading downwards?”

“They’re heading somewhere else first,” answered Buro. “To the second highest peak.”

“I thought we were going to the same place as them?”

“We are, but both of us are taking detours first. Them to their temple to call for the Gods to come closer. They have arrived on the world, but the priests need them right here.”

“How do you know so much about these Gods?” asked Tradfast.

“Know your enemy,” said Buro. “It’s the first lesson a Royal Guard learns.”

Tradfast’s mouth twisted into a grimace. He stared for a while, as if trying to figure out if the ghost in Urist’s skin was lying about something.

I looked back down at the soldiers. They marched in single file along a thin path. Horir, black beard distinctive even from here, was at their head, and I wondered if some kind of leader had taken his body. A few figures did not glint. Which one was Airon? I moved my eyes further down the line, searching for him. Captain Lorsson was near the back, easily recognisable from the long sword at his hip.

“Come on, Stony,” said Buro. “We’ll get a closer look at them soon enough.”

I kept staring. There was a figure in front Lorsson with blonde hair, was that Airon? But there was another figure with blonde hair too, a few paces behind the Captain.

For the briefest second, I thought I felt a gaze upon me, then a bright spray of crimson against the dusty brown dryness splashed down the hill. Dust was kicked up in a cloud, steel flashing within it. Right where Lorsson had stood.

“Look!” I cried. “They’re fighting each other!”

A figure in pure red came running from the cloud of dust, a length of vaguely glowing steel in one hand. Buro’s mouth dropped open.

“It’s the Captain!” I cried. “He’s not a ghost!”

“Over here!” screamed Tradfast, jumping up and waving his hands, voice echoing a thousand times around the mountainsides. “Captain Lorsson!”

But Lorsson had no attention to spare. A dozen steel-clad figures broke from the army to give chase, and they were fast. All restraint placed by mind on body was gone; the possessed ran like they would never need to use their legs again.

“Lorsson!” I screamed. “Get away from them!”

I felt as if everything hinged on this moment. Well, maybe it did. If he had escaped the ghosts, and possession, surely he must know how the rest could do it.

He turned and swung up at the closest pursuer, taking his feet from under him, sending the soldier tumbling down the mountainside in swathes of dust, but there was no time to watch the possessed fall. Another three attacked the Captain, and three heads flew off three bodies. A few seconds later, Lorsson’s cry of despair and regret and fury reached us.

The other possessed dwarves faltered, then turned and fled.

“They’re cowards, aren’t they?” spat Buro. I looked at him, and swallowed when I saw hate on Urist’s face like I had so many times before. Perhaps possessed and possessor weren’t so different. Buro just kept his rage chained away.

Tradfast continued to shout, and I joined in.

“Captain Lorsson! Over here!” we screamed.

The Captain stopped, and I thought I saw him turn his head side to side, although he was really too far away to tell. It had been a minor miracle he’d seen us in the first place; in our dusty clothing, we must not look much different to the mountainside. Now he’d lost us. Tradfast darted back down the path we’d come.

‘What are you doing?” I asked.

He squatted beside a huge boulder on one side of the track.

“Oh,” I said.

Fingers firmly below it, he tensed every muscle in his body, face going crimson. He cried out. For a few seconds the boulder did not move, and then Tradfast shot up straight, and the boulder tumbled from its perch and down the mountainside. It cracked and crumbled, and sent sheets of loose rock tumbling down with it. The crash of stone on stone rumbled around the mountain.

“Captain Lorsson!” I screamed.

This time I was sure he saw me, waving my arms frantically above the avalanche of stone Tradfast had set off.

“Buro! We’re going to the top of this mountain right?”

“Yes,” came the reply.

I jabbed wildly at the peak above us with my finger, only a few hours walk away now. Captain Lorsson pointed there with his sword in affirmation.

“We’ll meet there!” yelled Tradfast.

After a few seconds came the faint reply.

“Yes!”