The trees about me now grew carefully. Leaving room for the light. One day they would be a great forest, with roots reaching all around the world and beyond, but I’d taught them. Never choke out what came before. No matter how great and how tall, the albatross flew above, and the light was forever needed.

  The sun rose.

  The pixie and I woke at the exact same moment, evident by watching his eyes flutter open at the same time as my own.

  After taking care of my own needs, I did something a little unusual for spell craft. I created a spell I already had, but I took no shortcuts. Instead of casting the spell to duplicate it, I recreated it from ground principles.

  The risk was a variance in spells, which was very little risk at all. The reward was not losing a spell every time I recorded one anew.

  Barricade II: The caster is protected by an invisible stone wall, 10 feet thick and 15 feet high and up to 100 feet in length.

  Attar woke while I was writing. By the time I was finished he was ready to go.

  “Lead the way,” I said, stepping well back from the door before the pixie could open another pendulum into our faces.

  The door squealed like a pig, but the little pixie got it open without any effort.

  “Just through here,” he called, “On the left, not stopping to see the sights.”

  So saying he darted away out of sight to the left as he’d said.

  The heavy staccato of drums filled the air, then a single, searing, sharp, *TWANG*.

  Attar and I exchange a look.

  “Better him than me,” Attar said with a grin.

  I laughed. It was rare to hear Attar, or Attart for that matter, joke. The ridiculousness of the situation must have brought it out in him, even with the threat of danger looming ahead. Perhaps because of the danger.

  “Be ready. I’ll lead the way through the door and we’ll see who and what have caused the pixie mischief.”

  I readied my spear and spellbook and activated the full suite of my ring’s senses, then hurried to the door.

  I stopped at the dark threshold, lit by my own peering face, to see if I could ascertain the sound of the drums.

  A wall of extended swords, a mesh of metal grasping like dry spruce branches, took up one wall, and had enveloped the pixie.

  The room otherwise appeared empty, though I was certain the sounds originated from within. I was reminded of the screaming corner, and even more strongly, the strange ghosts whose feet were always behind me on the first floor.

  “Can you see anything?” I asked Attar.

  “There are phantoms—memories of the dead—playing those drums we hear. Nothing more. Not even a ghost. Closer to an illusion. A voice on the wind.”

  “Harmless?”

  “Not even a risk of deafness. They resonate with the memory of ourselves which dwells within ourselves. There is no sound.”

  And yet, my spider sense still felt the minute tremor of the drums echoing off the stone. Whatever the memory was, it was a true one, not simply explained away as something hiding in our minds.

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  The world was far more vast than even a Magus could comprehend after a lifetime of study. Instead it was in our nature to understand the broad strokes, the systems which rippled through reality and danced off one another. It was, on reflection, the same sort of understanding any would uncover in this room. I understood the noise, and therefore I could hear it, even if I didn’t know why.

  Why was tricky business. The foundation of magic was on the what. Magi understood that clouds brought rain, that seeds would grow into flowers and grain, that evil was temporary, that courage was imperishable. Every truth gave us master, allowed us to work with nature rather than against her.

  Why was an endless road upon which one need tread with absolute caution lest they fall to the disastrous rocks which shored it far below. There was no magic in why, but there was power. It was the source of both temptation and humanity. Something which could not be shunned nor embraced, for we were neither angels nor demons.

  I left the drummers to their endless drumming. Pixies were ageless, and even they did not dwell on mysteries. I was mortal.

  ***

  I had to pull the pixie free from the wall of blades he’d gotten himself trapped in. It would have been delicate business for one with weaker skin than my own. I made sure to shuck my robe before wading into the metal rushes. The pixie’s clothes were torn to shreds.

  Pixie freed and myself re-robed, the pixie magicked open the door immediately to our left as I retreated back to the pyramid quarter. The door opened safely, but not onto safe environs.

  “More food comes this way.”

  Some other creature snorted in negative, “It’s a pixie. He’ll stick like gristle in your teeth. Can’t be swallowed. Wide Mouth failed.”

  A third, “You smell that?”

  Loud, wet, snuffles echoed from the room beyond, “Man flesh.”

  “Two men,” a fourth voice agreed.

  “No,” said the second, “Not man.”

  “Woman?” asked the third.

  “No,” said the first, “Magus,” she spat, “Necromancer.”

  “Magus?” said the fourth. Was that a hint of fear in her voice? “Magus killed our magus.”

  “Man things!” called the first, “Our hunger is lessened today. Choose which one of you will be eaten, and the other may pass.”

  Ogres.

  “There will be no sacrifices today, man-eaters.”

  A storm of rumbling rolled in from the other room. Attar and I still hadn’t approached the entrance, instead choosing to hide behind the wall of blades just outside the pyramid’s exit.

  “Necromancer,” called the second, “bring us the Magus’s body, and the way is yours.”

  “Never,” Attar’s reply was so quiet I doubted the ogres heard it, but it was unshakably sure.

  The ogres waited in silence for only several seconds. Their appetites didn’t allow for patience.

  “The way is barred,” called the fourth, “you may return when you have paid the price.”

  “Return, pixie, that we may speak with you,” I called

  The pixie gathered back behind the wall of spikes with Attar and I.

  “Is there no other way?”

  “I know of one other, though other paths may be hidden to me.”

  “Is it safer?”

  “I know only the way, not what dangers lie ahead. The path I have chosen is shorter, with less room for disasters.”

  “How much shorter?”

  “The other way requires passing through an additional chamber, however now it is two, for we have already braved the dangers of this drumming room.”

  Turn back and risk the unknown, or continue along the path we’d already half conquered?

  My fingers flipped through my spellbook; habit rather than necessity.

  Could we defeat at least four ogres? If one was a... they’d called him a mage, hadn’t they? If one was a mage, could I slay him while contending with the others? Attar’s ghosts were weakened, and ogres overpowered them one for one.

  Two or three more chambers of potential centipedes, vs 4 guaranteed ogres.

  The centipedes’ poison was no small thing. The spiders’ traps were plentiful and deadly. More toad-dragons, perhaps in greater numbers, could wait ahead.

  I’d rather face four ogres than a warlock.

  I’d rather face a warlock than an ogre mage.

  Still, the odds were in my favour. The ogres hadn’t spoken as if a mage was among them, and they were afraid.

  “We’ll fight the ogres.”

  Attar didn’t argue. The pixie didn’t care.