The dark unicorn shook his head, not understanding. His companion chatted on.

“All summer we forage the lower scarps, where the bristlepine and the rock lichens green. Each winter we climb to the cave-mouth and take the netherpath to a Congeries, where we feed upon the cave straw, the waternuts and milky white mushrooms that flourish below. Many pass the time in the Hall of Whispers, singing of Halla and of other heroes for our own and dragons’ ears.”

“The red dragons,” Jan murmured. Hunger and thirst had fogged his memory. Slowly, he recalled. “They who once cherished our enemies the wyverns before those wyrms rebelled and fled, seeking refuge in our Hallow Hills, which they overran. Before that battle, Halla sent her scouts to consult the dragons’ queen, Mélin… Mélintél…”

“Yea, Queen Mélintélinas,” Oro exclaimed. “You do wit of our red dragons, then.”

“Too little,” the dark prince of the Vale replied. His mouth tasted of cobwebs and dust. “Tell me of them.”

“They be vast,” the young maroon responded, “and spend their lives underground, lost in what we deem slumber, but they call contemplation. Betimes they wake, but only rarely do they stir.”

Jan turned to study his comrade. “Will I see them?”

Oro sighed and shook his head. “Unlikely. Most of my kind live whole lives without setting eyes on them, so deep do our dragons lie. No unicorn could pass into these mountains’ fiery heart unscathed.”

The dark unicorn considered. “How do you know of them, then?” he asked his shaggy guide. “And they of you?”

“We hear them,” the young stallion replied. “They speak to us at Congeries. Their words reach us in the Hall of Whispers. All winter they hark our songs, our tales, while they meditate and dream.”

Jan found himself scarcely able to take in his companion’s words, so far had thirst and hunger dulled him. The maroon-colored scout rattled on, and the dark unicorn of the Vale heeded as much as he could. This descent by what Oro called the netherpath was often precipitous. The tunnels themselves looked like gigantic worm hollows eaten into the dense black rock.

Lightwells provided illumination. From time to time, the tunnels passed beside breaks in the outer wall, allowing views either of sheer canyons or drifting cloud. Once from such a view, Jan spied distant fountains of steaming water shooting skyward, accompanied by rumbles like thunder. The tunnels themselves occasionally shook. As Jan and his companions descended deeper, the lightwells grew rarer, then altogether ceased. Soon the only light came from cave lichens, glowing pale shades of blue and amber, yellow and mauve. In places, small luminous creatures like crickets meandered the walls.

Though Jan frequently heard the soft plash of water, the tunnels themselves were warm and dry. A gentle heat radiated from the black rock itself, which carried sounds softly yet distinctly—over great distances, it seemed. Several times, the party passed cavernous cracks lit by a shifting, reddish glow. Gazing down into one, Jan saw very far below a sluggish river of fiery stuff. When he asked what it was, Oro responded, “Dragonsflood.”

The path they traveled, though steep, was well worn. Generations of hooves had smoothed even so hard a surface as the ringing black stone. Other tunnels beside which they passed seemed long abandoned, coated along their interiors with pale, smooth, crystalline stuff. Lichens did not grow there, nor cave crickets crawl, but the iridescent crystal conducted light, providing a ghostly glimmer along such tunnels’ length. Passing the first of many, Oro snorted as if catching wind of something foul.

“Those hollows once were wyvern ways, before our dragons cast them out. Slithery wyrmskin contains a volatile oil which rubs off as wyverns glide, leaving behind a shining trail which hardens over time. “

Jan nodded, little needing the other to tell him so. He had discovered as much during his first pilgrimage, when a wyvern queen had lured him underground and tempted him to betray his folk. The wyvern dens underlying the Hallow Hills were thickly coated with such shimmering crystal.

“We do not tread there,” Oro added, hurrying past along their own dark, winding path. “Wyrmsoil be flammable, the hardened residue as well. During their sojourn here, the wyrms lay ever in danger of fire.”

Jan stumbled, sluggish. The trail led endlessly down and down. Unlike the pliant heels of Oro and his fellows, his own fire-hardened hooves clanged and sparked against the ringing black rock. He marveled at these small unicorns’ deft maneuvering along the rocky steeps. They seemed more shaggy, curl-horned sheep than unicorns. He himself had to place each step with utmost care lest he plummet into crags the bottom of which he could not see but which sounded, from the echo of falling scree, interminably deep.

At last the trail leveled off. Before them lay a great cavern, vast in its expanse. Entering, Jan could not discern whence the dusky illumination came. Much of the dimly lit chamber was shrouded in darkness. Oro’s companions hurried to either side where, the prince of the Vale realized, a large assembly of other unicorns waited expectantly among the shadows. All faced inward, toward the chamber’s heart, and all, so far as Jan was able to discern in the murky light, resembled one another as closely as Oro and his band: small, dark, shaggy brindles, dapples, and roans with half-standing manes.

His maroon-colored guide was leading him forward, out onto the chamber’s wide floor, which, Jan saw, was littered with great pebbles, all roughly round, some smooth as riverstones, some faceted as bees’ eyes. Of many colors they gleamed—deep amber, darkest blue, violet so pure it was nearly black, swarthy gold—but reds predominated. Most, especially the larger stones, ranged in hue from dark crimson to wine red, from russet and ocher to vermilion and scarlet. They reminded Jan of the dim, smoldering coals of a fire long perished.

Among the stones lay crystalline pillars, smoothly irregular in shape, all fallen on their sides, some with bulbous knobs at either end. Other crystal forms resembled rotted treestumps, overturned. These squat, pearlescent masses were full of openings. A long trail of them wound snakelike across the chamber’s length, most nested one against another, others lying askew. Large, semitransparent leaves or shells lay everywhere, brittle as fanclams and more numerous than the jewels. They, too, were mostly red, looked almost like enormous fish scales. Blearily, Jan’s eyes swept the trove, unable to take it in.

“What place is this?” he mumbled, stumbling to a stop as Oro halted at the chamber’s heart.

Magnified, the echo of his voice leapt away from him on every side, less jarring than a shout, but just as penetrating. Jolted, Jan listened to the sudden sound’s reverberations, already dying. Leaning near, the maroon stallion scarcely breathed, though the prince of the Vale heard him distinctly as mothwings beating against a leaf.

“The queen’s vault,” he answered, “known as the Hall of Whispers. Peace, now. I must announce you.”

They stood among the jewels and shards and crystal boles, very near a massive oblong boulder. One end formed a great flattened dome. The other tapered to a ragged, broken point. Two smooth, symmetrical hollows gaped from the translucent dome, one on either side of the tapering cone. At dome’s crest, between the hollows, dipped an oval depression. It was filled with clear fluid, sparkling though absolutely still, its dark, reflective surface smooth as skin. Jan gazed longingly at the well-spring. His parched throat burned.

“Hail,” Oro beside him said, without so much as raising his voice. Nevertheless, his words filled the chamber. Those assembled at the chamber’s periphery responded, “Hail.”

Each must have spoken no louder than a murmur, yet the collective ring was strong and clear. Jan thought he detected other voices, too—deeper and more resonant than unicorns’—lost among the rest.