Not knowing why they were placed, the stars had guided them by luck onto a small band set into the ridge, only twice their number. There were eight of them, cold, exhausted, and half-mad from three nights without sleep.

The ledge was scarcely wide enough for a man to turn around. Below it, the mountain fell away into a black ravine whose bottom no living eye had yet seen.

They had been told there was an old mining road across the ridge, a forgotten trail marked on a map that was older than the town itself. Their guide had vanished the previous evening after claiming he heard someone calling his name from inside the mountain.

The others had laughed at him until the mountain answered. It had answered with a sound like breathing.

Now they crouched together beneath an overhang while the wind moved around them. Above, the stars shone with unnatural brilliance. No moon was visible, yet the rocks were silvered as though beneath daylight.

“Those stars were not there before,” whispered Mara.

No one laughed.

She pointed toward the northern sky. A cluster of stars had formed a shape resembling an enormous eye.

It was not an ordinary constellation. The stars were too bright, too close together, and seemed to tremble independently of the heavens.

Then the eye blinked. Every man on the ledge froze.

Something moved far below. At first they thought it was an animal.

Then they realized it was much too large. A pale shape crawled slowly along the opposite cliff face, its limbs bending in places where limbs ought not bend. It had no head, or perhaps its head was turned away.

The thing stopped. It raised one long arm and pointed directly at them.

Their lanterns went out simultaneously, then someone screamed. In the darkness came a sound of stone scraping against stone. The creature was climbing toward them.

They scrambled along the ledge, stumbling over one another, but there was nowhere to go. Ahead stood a narrow opening in the rock, scarcely visible beneath the stars.

Mara reached it first.

“There!” she shouted. “A cave!”

They crowded inside. The entrance vanished behind them.

Not closed. Vanished.

There was simply no opening anymore, only smooth stone. Their panic lasted until they discovered the tunnel descending beneath the ridge.

Strange markings covered its walls. They resembled letters, but whenever anyone stared at them too long, the symbols seemed to rearrange themselves.

Their guide had warned them never to follow voices underground. They heard one immediately.

“Come deeper.”

It was the voice of their guide. They followed.

The tunnel opened into a cavern so vast their lantern light could not find its ceiling. At the center stood a circular pool of perfectly still water.

Around it were eight stone chairs. Eight. Mara counted them twice.

“No,” she whispered.

From somewhere above came a low, distant rumble. The stars were moving, not across the sky, but downward.

Through cracks in the cavern ceiling, points of cold light descended like sparks falling from an invisible fire. One by one, they settled into the empty chairs.

The others backed away. Mara could not.

Something was rising from the pool. A face emerged first, pale and ancient, with eyes filled not with darkness but with stars.

Its mouth opened impossibly wide. “You came,” it said.

Mara shook her head. “We didn’t know where we were going.”

The thing smiled. “That is why you were chosen.”

Behind them, the stone wall began to breathe. Eight figures appeared within it, pressed beneath the rock as though buried alive.

Their faces were familiar. The missing guide was among them.

So were the seven who had vanished from the expedition three days earlier.

Mara turned toward her companions. There were only seven now.

The eighth chair was occupied. And the person sitting in it was her.

She looked down at herself. Her body stood several feet away, staring back in horror, then the cavern went dark.

Above the ridge, the stars returned to their proper places. And none of them remembered what they had been before they became stars themselves.