then wound its way around the southwest edge of the mountain. Then the cobblestones abruptly ended, as if the builders had simply decided they couldn’t be bothered with continuing to build the road. They had even left behind cobblestones stacked like cordwood against the mountainside.
“I wonder why they didn’t take those,” Angus asked. “Wouldn’t they have been able to use them on the other roads?”
“Who knows?” Hobart said. “They’ve been here a long time,” he added. “Something must have kept them from doing it.”
“There’s plenty of granite around here,” Giorge suggested. “It may have been simpler to abandon them here and cut new pieces where they were needed. They are pretty heavy.”
“I don’t know,” Angus said. “You saw that work crew south of Wyrmwood, didn’t you? It had taken them days to carve up just half of that rock. I think it would be cheaper and less time-consuming to transport already fashioned ones to where they were needed than it would be to carve new ones.”
“That may be,” Hobart agreed. “Does it matter?”
“It might,” Angus suggested. “It could indicate what it was that led them to abandon the construction project.”
“Whatever it was,” Hobart said. “We must be close to it.”
“Not yet,” Giorge corrected him. “If they had given up here, they wouldn’t have kept cutting away at the mountain. It’s carved at least as far as that outcropping up ahead, and probably quite a bit further.”
“That may be,” Hobart said. “But it still won’t be much further. As I recall, the cobblestones always trailed behind the men building the roadbed, and the men building the roadbed were behind the ones carving into the mountain. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got all the way around the mountain before they stopped carving into it, but the roadbed won’t go that far. Something stopped them.”
“Whatever it was,” Ortis said from near the neatly stacked pile of cobblestones, “it was significant enough to compel them to abandon their materials instead of working around it. There are a few rusted tools over here. Mallets, picks, chisels—the wood has rotted away, but the metal is still here.”
“They must have left in a hurry then,” Angus agreed. “But that doesn’t explain why they didn’t come back later to reclaim those stones. Something has kept them away.”
“I’ve heard tales of dragons,” Giorge offered.
“Bah,” Hobart snorted. “Not this close to Hellsbreath. They prefer the wilder lands.”
“These are the wilder lands,” Angus muttered, glancing at the cloudless sky, looking for any small—or large—speck that didn’t belong there.
“At least we don’t have to worry about loose cobbles anymore,” Giorge said, grinning and spurring his horse to a light trot on the level roadbed about a foot below the edge of the last cobblestone. Plants were growing in small clumps here and there, where dirt had accumulated on top of the stone.
“We’d better keep pace,” Ortis said. “There’s no telling what he’ll run into up there.”
“Not much, surely,” Angus said. “There can’t be too many dangers on the side of a volcano, can there?”
Hobart looked at him, shook his head, and spurred Leslie after Giorge.
“Falling rock, lava flows,” Ortis began, as he followed after them. “Mountain giants, spiders, snakes, wyverns—” The second Ortis continued as he passed. As his voice trailed off, the third one continued the list as he approached Angus “—dragons, nymphs, ogres, mountain cats. Those are only a few of them.” He paused only long enough to add, “We better catch up with them.”
Angus nodded, clicked his tongue, flicked the reins, and urged Gretchen into a light trot. Ortis fell in line with him at his side, but they didn’t have to go very far past the sharp outcropping. It hovered above them, a high overhang that made Angus feel as if a giant bird’s beak was about to snap down on him. He hurried through it but slowed his horse when he saw Giorge and the others stopped in front of a tall black wall. It was about twenty feet high and propelled out beyond the road dozens of feet, eventually curving back into itself and dangling over the mountainside.
“We know what stopped them,” Giorge said as Angus and Ortis joined them.
“It has stopped us, too,” Hobart said, dismounting and walked up to the bulbous black wall blocking their path. He lightly rapped it with a mailed fist, sending a shattering of glass-like black shards to the ground. “It’s recently formed.” he said. “There’s no way we can take our horses over it. Even if we could somehow climb up to the top, they couldn’t walk on it without falling through this fragile stuff. There will be too many air pockets in it.”
“We’ll have to turn back and try the valley,” Giorge said, nudging his horse to the edge of the mountain. “It does not look promising. If it would have been easy to go through the valley, they wouldn’t have bothered cutting up the mountain. See that?” he gestured, bringing the others closer to the edge. “There’s a bottleneck. The valley ends at that cliff face, and there’s no way out of it.”
“Let’s look at that map, Angus,” Hobart said. “Before we head back, we need to know what direction to take, and we’ve got a pretty fair view of things up here. If there are any other major obstacles, we should be able to see them.”
“I’m not convinced we need to go back,” Angus said, dismounting and walking up to the smooth black wall. “I wonder how wide this flow is?”
Hobart nodded. “It’s one of the volcanic rocks that can form when the lava cools. It’s brittle, and when it breaks, it forms sharp edges. I’ve seen people use it for knife blades; that’s how sharp it is. But you can’t fight with them very well; a blow from the side can snap the blade in two.”
“Well,” Angus said. “Giorge can tell us how thick it is, can’t he?”
“Me?” Giorge replied. “I’m seeing the same thing you are.”
“You can climb it, can’t you?” he asked.
“Not that stuff,” Giorge said, pointing at the black wall in front of them. “It will crumble in my hands.”
“The mountain isn’t. You should find much better handholds and footholds up there,” he pointed at the steep slope of the mountain heading up toward its summit, “than you had at Fenbrooke’s Inn. Surely you can climb up there and take a look for us?”
Giorge studied the mountainside for a few seconds before nodding. “I can climb up there,” he said, “but the horses can’t.”
“They don’t need to,” Angus said. “I need a sense of how thick this fragile wall is and what’s behind it.”
“A lava flow like this,” Hobart said, “is generally not the only one. They seep out periodically, and then go dormant again. There will probably be several layers, with this being the most recent one. They started rebuilding this road about two hundred years ago, and if they stopped because of the volcano back then, and if it recently vented again, there’s almost certainly quite a few eruptions in between.”
“Giorge?” Angus repeated.
Giorge hesitated only long enough to glance at Hobart, who nodded slightly, and then dismounted and began free-climbing up the slope. It wasn’t quite vertical, and when he began to slide, he was able to stop himself by flattening his body against the slope and pawing for handholds.
“All right, Angus,” Hobart began. “You obviously have something in mind. Care to share it with us?”
“How do you feel about flying?” Angus asked, his eyes still on Giorge.
“Flying?” Hobart repeated, his voice almost a squawk. “I—” He looked keenly at Angus, his light brown eyes half closed. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” Angus said. “It isn’t the way the spell is normally done,” he admitted. “But I think I can manipulate it safely enough to fly all of us and the horses over this if it isn’t very far. I’ll need some time to think through the alterations, though, and even then, I wouldn’t risk going very far.”
“It’s dangerous,” Hobart said, reaching up to push his l
ong blond hair back. “More dangerous than you’re telling us.”
Angus shrugged. “All spells are dangerous,” he said. “It’s always a question of mitigating those dangers. But, yes, this is more dangerous than the typical spell.”
“Why not use the wand?” Ortis suggested. “It poked a hole through Hellsbreath’s wall easily enough, and that was made from granite.”
“It will depend upon what Giorge sees,” Angus hedged. “But I don’t think the wand has enough range to make it through it.”
“You can find out,” Ortis almost demanded.
The muscles in Angus’s jaws tightened as he remembered the recoil, being flung backward, hitting the wall.... If he braced himself, could he handle that recoil here? He should be able to; wands were not supposed to kill the one employing them. It would be useful to know the precise range….
Giorge reached a point well above the lava flow, steadied himself on a narrow ledge, shielded his eyes, and studied the landscape. Then he started back down, feeling for footholds and handholds as he went. He slid down the last few feet and turned around, brushing the dirt from his tunic.
“Well?” Angus asked.
“It’s too wide,” Giorge said. “There are several older flows on the other side of this one, but the roadbed continues beyond them.”
Angus frowned and asked, “How far is this flow,” he said, gesturing at the glass-like black surface.
“This new one goes back maybe ten feet, but it