The air grew thinner as we climbed, until it was a struggle to take in any at all. Spells of dizziness came more and more frequently, although not all were from the lack of air. The path grew thinner, and the awful drop on either side crept closer until my feet were mere centimetres from death, and my head spun whenever I slipped slightly on the dust. All smell and sound disappeared, and all I could taste was blood as my dry lips cracked and flaked.

Why was I even here? To save Airon, of course. That was the thought that sustained me, that kept me going after every near fall to death. But why did Airon even need saving? Why did any of us have to be here, in this life and death struggle against monsters from the distant past? I knew the answer, and had always done so. It was the dwarves at the top who wanted gems for themselves when they already had enough to last anyone else a hundred lifetimes.

“Nearly here, Stony,” said Buro. “I can see the entrance.”

Head spinning, I dared to look up a little. Two pillars flanked a black square, inside which I saw a faint white glow. This dwarf king’s tomb must have been a different age to the one in my pocket, an even older time, for there were no God motifs here. Frescoes of trees and rivers and dwarves dancing among them decorated the pillars and entranceway, the stone pockmarked and diseased from untold thousands of years of poison sunlight.

“What’s that glow?” said Tradfast. “Another ghost?”

I drew my knife. The glow didn't look like it came from a ghost, but then again who could know that? It shone dimly like the mushrooms below had done, but its light was purer, and somehow more magical.

“It’s just something old and harmless,” said Buro. “Not a ghost.”

Another ten minutes of walking, and we stepped through the entrance. The tomb was smaller than I had expected, the whole thing was perhaps no bigger than my childhood home had been. The white glow revealed itself to be from a pillar of crystal set at the centre of the room, octagonal in section and perfectly clear. Strangely, despite the intensity of the light, the walls of the room remained swathed in shadow.

“What is the crystal for?” I asked, but I had the feeling I already knew.

“It’s much like the sapphire, Stony. But it’s a whole city.”

“Of ghosts,” said Tradfast. He vanished into the darkness at the edge of the room, there was a cracking sound, and he came back with a sword, covered in runes even odder than those on my knife.

Eyes grim, he raised it above his head to strike.

“Tradfast, stop!” I said. “What if you let them out?”

An image of the hundreds of silently screaming phantoms descending upon us in the hall of pillars rebounded around my brain.

“I’ll destroy them before they get the chance.”

“The souls inside won’t harm us,” said Buro. “Unless we harm them. Why would they leave their afterlife to attack us? They are in paradise.”

Tradfast took in a deep breath, and he looked away from the pillar, unwilling to keep his eyes on it for a second longer than he needed to. Then he lowered his sword.

“I’ve got my weapon. You two hurry up and get yours’.”

He stalked off to stare out the entrance to the tomb.

But I wanted a closer look at the crystal, and I took a gingerish step forward to kneel down beside the crystal column. From a below angle it was no longer perfectly clear, but filled with little lines and boxes, somehow very familiar. I took out my sapphire and held it so the light shone through. The green pattern inside was just the same, but smaller.

“The miracle of the crystals,” said Buro. “Not one dwarf every truly died in my day, nor in many days before that. Once your body fell apart, your soul was put into one of these.”

“Did the priests take offence to that?”

“Quite the opposite. They planned to rest in them until the Gods arrived and remade the world. Then they would emerge with new bodies, into a verdant paradise.”

“New bodies?” An ice shiver ran down my neck.

“They were not selfless dwarves. They planned to harvest the bodies of the few still living.”

I frowned at the sapphire.

“So why didn't the priests get into the gems? And why are there gems embedded in the hall of pillars? The emerald was, and so was this sapphire.”

“They planned to escape to them, but their victims managed to get in first after the ceremony.”

“What kind of ceremony was it, anyway?”

“You’re happier not knowing, Stony.”

I put the sapphire, colder and heavier than ever, back into my pocket. Usually I wouldn’t ask questions, but I still didn't understand why the sapphire had been in the hall of pillars with all the priests. If the King had hated the priests so much, why would he put his vessel of immortality in the same room as them? Especially on the very day the Gods were called back to the world.

“What else is in here?” I asked. “Just these old statues?”

Now I took my eyes from the pillar, I saw the outlines of dwarf statues standing around the walls, stone eyes blank and sightless. Each one grasped some weapon, apart from one whose hands lay on the ground in splinters, and whose sword was now Tradfast’s.

“There should be some gold and gems too,” said Buro, as he took a sword of his own down. “An extra reward if you like, Stony.”

I perked up a little.

“Where?” I asked.

He led me behind the crystal pillar, and to a set of stairs cut into the stone behind. A soft green glow emanated from them, nearly the colour of forests I’d seen on school picture tablets. The vagues pattern of leaves brushed the wall.

“You should get your knife out,” he said, and I drew it. .

Buro started down the spiral stairs, and I was relieved at the sound of his footsteps, solid and firm. The sun had never been able to scar and crumble the stone down here. The air grew cooler as we descended, and in a minute we reached the bottom and a small doorway.

I peered into the chamber over Urist’s shoulder, and my eyes widened. Over a hoard of small gold trinkets and carved green rocks, stood a statue of marble with emeralds for eyes, not cut into facets but somehow moulded into perfect spheres. His arms were spread as if to embrace us, and his immoving mouth was an eternal smile. Now there could be no doubt that whatever culture made the city down below did not make this tomb. Not a single statue, of lizard or dwarf, had smiled there.

“Is this what dwarf kings used to be like?” I asked.

“Perhaps. I can’t tell from just a statue.”

“I’m surprised no one ever robbed this place. If the mining company knew about these tombs, not a single one would contain a mote of gold by the end of the year. No matter how hard this place is to get to.”

“The Royal family was highly respected in my time. No one would dare touch anything of a king’s, even a dead one.”

I squeezed past Buro and leaned in to get a better look inside the tomb, and the treasure over which the king stood. It was not quite on the scale I’d been expecting - a mere carpet of gold rather than a mound - but still impressive. A sword lay buried under some gold coins, a curved one with large, flowing runes along the side. And next to that a gold necklace looking like it’d fit me perfectly.

I took a step forward. Just one trinket wouldn’t hurt.

In a blaze of white, a ghost appeared, and I fell to my knees, too shocked even to cry out. It was the dwarf the statue had depicted, but in exquisite and real detail. He wore a crown of vines - not the straggly things grown in the upper caves now, but thick luscious ones - and was draped in a cloak of pale green and gold. His armour underneath was made of scales in the shape of leaves, and he was as tall as Tradfast.

I jumped back, swallowing and stuttering an apology,

“I’m sorry, I- um, ah-”

“Ghazar ku knor?” he said genially, gesturing at the treasure with an open hand, smiling.

I took another shocked step back, and the ghost king faded from existence.

“What language was that?” I asked, shaking. “And how could a ghost speak?”

“I don’t know. But your knife should be able to kill him, if you still want the treasure.”

I let out a long breath.

“No, I’ll leave him alone.”

Hand shaking, I put my weapon away and walked back up the stairs. Questions ran around my head, but I think of no answers.

Tradfast was waiting upstairs, staring at one of the statues..

“I took a look outside and saw the Captain,” he said. “He’s not far away.”

“Good,” said Buro. “We can start towards the King’s tomb once Captain Lorsson gets here.”

We spent the next ten minutes without talking. Buro and I stared at the crystal and Tradfast at the sky outside. Then a call from down the mountain broke the silence.

“Hello? Are you there? Tradfast? Stony?”

I dashed to the entrance and looked down the steep path. There, a lone figure amongst the stars and brittle crags, walked the Captain, red as a flayed thing. He was clearly exhausted; his usually confident stride was reduced to a hard-going trudge, and he had his hands on his knees, and breathed with great heaving gasps.

“Captain Lorsson!” I shouted. “We’re right here.”

He looked up, and I saw that his face was as red as his armour.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said, struggling up the last few metres to stand in front of me. He smelled like blood, and blinked dry flecks of it from his encrusted eyelids.

“Captain,” said Tradfast. “We don’t have much time. We need to come up with a way to save the miners.”

“We can still save them?” said Lorsson, hope dawning on his exhausted face.

The hope fell off mine. Hadn’t he managed to save himself?

“O- of course,” I stammered out. “If you threw off the possession, surely the others can throw theirs off as well.”

Lorsson frowned.

“They never got me,” he said. “They sliced everyone else open and put in whatever makes them crazy, but I managed to fake it. But I think there is a way to save them. If we just take whatever was put inside them.”

My heart sank, but then Lorsson smiled, that same old Lorsson smile I’d seen so many times before.

“Whatever was done to our friends, I’m sure we can reverse it. Did you say they were possessed by the ghosts? In that case, we have killed ghosts before.”

“Yes,” I said, forcing a grin onto my face. “That must be the way. Right, Buro?”

“Buro?” said Lorsson. “Who’s Buro?”

I explained what had happened in the trial, as well as about the King and the Gods. When I had finished, Lorsson sat down on the dusty ground and took a deep breath, and a sip from his canteen.

“If we had known it would come to this, my family would never have sponsored this expedition.”

“Why did you sponsor it in the first place?” I said. “What for? Isn’t your family rich enough already?”

Captain Lorsson bowed his head, and Tradfast strode up to loom behind me. He looked down at Lorsson.

“I want to know the whole story Captain. Why you knew where to look for the gems. Why you have a map.”

“Alright,” said Lorsson, wiping some of the crusted blood his eyes and face with a scrap of cloth. “I’ll tell you from the beginning.”

“A few years ago, some gems came through the rock. Melted through, in fact, not too far from where your mine was. Small ones, our runesmiths unable to make much of them. So we had some dwarves explore, and they found the underground city, and the hall of pillars.”

“It became something of an obsession for my father, and he wanted to keep it to himself. He’d enjoyed exploring old caverns in his younger days, I suppose he wanted to feel that thrill again, even from behind his desk.”

He reached into his armour and pulled out the battered map. It was crinkled and the ink smudged from being soaked in the storm and then dried out in the desert air here, but I could make out the general plan when he handed it to me. Tradfast leaned over to take a look as well, and traced our path from the hall of pillars to the cavern city.

“The first explorers made this map. They never reported any ghosts. But the next few expeditions never returned. So my father decided to buy the mining company off, have them tunnel through to where the hall should be, so we could send a proper force through.”

So we hadn’t been digging out apartments. For the last five years, I’d been part of a plot to reach the hall of pillars and its awful secrets. Whatever. We were all part of some plot or another, in the end. If our mission to the King’s tomb didn't succeed, we’d all be victims of the priests’ plans.

“So that’s when you roped the mining company in,” said Tradfast. “Offered bonuses to whichever Overseer was willing to dig for the cavern.”

“You were the only one who took us up on the offer.”

“I thought I could make something of it. Thought I could get out of my miserable life in the mines. Just like Stony, I suppose.” He sighed and cast his eyes to the ground.

So he hadn’t just helped me out of obligation. He had seen something of himself in me, and had helped me out of kindness. I wasn’t sure about what to think of that either.

“I never expected the damn wall to fall on top of us,” Tradfast continued. “And for fucking ghosts to attack us. I’d expected a couple lizards at most. Well, here we are now. How are we going to save the miners?”

“We’ll need to ambush them,” said Lorsson. “Attack them while they’re distracted, and tear the gems out of as many of them as possible.”

“But the moment we take the gems,” I said, ‘The ghosts will fly out and attack us. We should grab them one by one, kidnap them while they’re distracted.”

“It would take too long. And besides, I don’t think the ghosts will fly out if we do it outside. I don’t think they can exist anywhere exposed to the sun, nor the moon or the stars. That’s why they had to possess Horir and the others before they could enter the city.”

I turned to look at Buro, who had been watching the conversation blankly.

“Is that true?”

He narrowed his eyes, and touched his had to the wound where the bit of sapphire was embedded.

“Yes, it’s true,” he said reluctantly. “Captain Lorsson’s plan should work, if you perform it well enough.”

“All that’s left is to get moving again,” said Lorsson. “If we can get to the King’s tomb before they do, we can set up an ambush, and find the weapon to defeat these ‘Gods’ too. How far away are we, Buro?”

He pointed to the mountain opposite us, a large sloping thing.

“It’s behind that mountain. There are two peaks, and the entrance to the King’s tomb is at the highest one. The priests’ temple is on the lower peak. We should make it there first, in about a day if we stick to the fastest paths.”

“Alright,” said Captain Lorsson. “Are we ready to go?”

“Stony and Buro need to get a weapon first,” said Tradfast.

Buro took his sword from the statue closest to the entrance. But I went down, down to the chamber with the treasure.

The ghost did not appear again, even as I took the sword there. Maybe it had been his face, or more likely the way he smiled, but I knew he never intended to harm me. The emerald eyes glinted knowingly. Perhaps the old king was happy to see a visitor after all these years. I promised myself that I’d return the blade after all was well again, and the Gods and their priests defeated.

I ascended to the main tomb, then the four of us began our final journey.