Andrei slid his foot through the air. The sole passed over the floor, pressed, rested. Again. Not a pebble rolled. Not one grain of sand scraped against another.

  He did the same with his hand against the wall. No brushing, no sliding, nothing that would twitch a listener's ear. Andrei rested his hand on letters, incised and indecipherable, breathing through his mouth.

  This wouldn't be enough. Andrei could do nothing to stop the air from parting around him or the pounding of his pulse in his throat.

  Not to mention the fact that you are lost.

  Andrei looked up. Had he spoken that thought aloud? Had someone else heard? Even his own thoughts sounded loud in this hollow blackness.

  Did you think you could navigate the Mountain alone? Fool.

  But he'd had a plan. There was a draft he could follow. Chilly, clean air, which Andrei had followed from the infirmary up the corridor. And it had been up! He had climbed carved stairs, their beginnings and ends helpfully signaled by grooves cut into the floor. Andrei had made turnings, moving ever upwards towards warmer, sweeter air, until he had reached the ventilation grate.

  Of course a tunnel system this large would need fresh air pumped into it! Of course, the grate was far too small for Andrei to fit through and now it was only a matter of time until the cave-Thracians noticed his absence and came hunting.

  What was that?

  Andrei held his breath, foot frozen in the middle of its descent like the hoof of a timid deer. Had that been the tap of a mad priest's slipper? The click of a tongue? An evil eye, blinking sightlessly in the dark?

  Andrei wanted to shudder. He wanted to scratch under the headband of his lantern on his forehead to turn it on and see. He couldn't. The light would only advertise his presence. Andrei could only press his foot against the floor again. One more agonizingly careful step toward nowhere.

  He had tried to backtrack, to make it to his infirmary or his cell, where he could pretend he'd been all night. No escape attempts for this doctor, no, sir!

  Andrei knew the feel of the letters carved out of the stone around the doors to both rooms, but he couldn't drag his fingers along the wall to find them. Either he'd happened to not press his palm against the right section of wall, or he was in the wrong corridor entirely.

  Another twitch in his ear. Had that been a sound behind him? Ahead of him? Inside his own skull? Checkerboard patterns spun in his light-starved vision. God damn it.

  This was worse than the war. At least there you could see, most of the time. Here it was all whispers and shadows.

  Everyone under this mountain was insane, with the possible exception of the girl with scarlet fever. She'd be fine, and Andrei would be a fool indeed if he ignored this opportunity to run.

  Since running worked out so well for you last time, Doctor? Maybe now you'll get yourself captured by an even deeper cult.

  There! An intersection. The corridor opened to the right and left as well as ahead, and the right-hand passage had stairs leading down.

  Andrei had already placed his foot on the grooved uppermost step when it occurred to him to wonder how he knew the shape of this corridor. He hadn't touched the walls, and he couldn't see them. The mountain was as pitch-black as ever. Had some change in the floor or the air—

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Again, the steps flared in his awareness. They were stone, steeper than he would have liked, and bowed at the center where countless footsteps had worn them away. The impression faded. Checkerboards spun again in Andrei's inner vision.

  His ears itched, and this time he understood. This time, he noticed the tongue-click.

  There was someone was behind him, hunting with echoes.

  Andrei couldn't run. What if his foot came down wrong on the slippery stairway? But he couldn't scrape his feet along the floor, either, because that would make noise. He compromised on a balletic sort of tiptoe run. Short steps, feet off the floor as much as possible.

  A downward step. Andrei managed to bring his other foot down in time to catch his forward fall. Next step, next step. Ow!

  He'd reached the bottom. As always when descending stairs in the dark, Andrei felt as if he'd somehow stepped through the floor. As if solid stone was mist, or not seeing something made it unreal.

  The pain was real enough. His ankle creaked, but Andrei shifted his weight in time to avoid twisting anything. He stood at the foot of the stair.

  With his enemies right behind him.

  A rising patter of un-tacked slippers. A triumphant intake of breath. A swish of air like a sickle-shaped blade sweeping out. Andrei could almost see the flight of three or four steps between them, and the attacker reaching forward, out of balance.

  Andrei didn't know why he jumped. Several realizations just hit him, even as his legs flexed and his mouth opened. One was that the priest was just as blind as he was. Another was a reflection on the dangers of slippery stairs in the dark, and how it felt to step onto a floor that one didn't expect to be there.

  Andrei jumped straight up. His clothes floated up around him as he reached the apex and, for the span of a heartbeat, Andrei's feet were at the same level as his attacker's. Andrei spoke.

  "Bréma."

  He could not see the priest's face snap up. He could not see the confusion as the man recalculated: My echoes rebound off stairs, but I can hear where my victim's mouth is. He must be standing on the floor, at the same level as I. And I know where his throat is. There!

  The blade whispered over Andrei's head as he fell.

  So did the priest.

  Thinking he was leaping over a flat floor, the priest dove down the stairs as if through water. The sickle went clattering down the corridor and its wielder let out a short cry, cut off with two thumps and a crack. Elbows, Andrei diagnosed, and forehead.

  Excellent job, Doctor. You probably gave him a concussion.

  What of it? This man was Andrei's enemy.

  How many more concussions can you distribute? A whole Mountain's worth?

  More echoes tumbled down the hallway. Andrei's face was angled down, useless eyes staring at the blackness where the injured man lay, breathing badly. And yet Andrei could visualize all around himself. Behind his back lay the bowed steps, the letters carved into the walls.

  The other figure at the top of the stairs.

  The ball of Andrei's foot pressed into the floor. Holding his breath, he shifted his weight forward. He would silently tiptoe past the concussed man and away down this corridor.

  Another tongue-click. A slight crunch, as if of grit grinding under a heel. This second priest was being more careful.

  The injured priest gasped like a landed fish. Was he having a seizure? Damn it! The patient might well die.

  And another tongue-click sounded from down the corridor. A third priest.

  Sweat pooled above the band of Andrei's head-lamp. His hand went to it.

  Plan B then, he thought to himself. Hopefully this will work better than plan A.

  And his own thoughts answered. Surely you can do a better job of prayer than that, Doctor.

  The founds of breathing grew louder, audible even over the shoulders of the downed priest.

  That task suddenly became easier. A flurry of tongue-clicks, foot-taps, and metallic pings swept over him and Andrei could visualize the men, both of them, the smoothness of their foreheads, eyes, and hands, the muffled fuzz of their robes and hair. Teeth lined the hollows of their mouths. Blades rang in their hands, curved like crescent moons.

  Andrei braced himself like a boar at bay. Where would be the best place to stand? Here.

  Please let this work.

  He pressed his finger against the wheel. It slipped. Please!

  Getting closer, Doctor, but still not a prayer.

  Andrei tried again and managed only to push the miner's lamp down his forehead.

  The tallest priest descended the steps, clicking with his tongue and slowly raising his sickle. Promising himself that if he lived through the next ten seconds, he would never run away from another patient again, Andrei dug his thumbnail into the lighter on his lantern. He flicked downward and felt the steel scrape against flint. Sparks flew.