Myth-ion Improbable by Robert Lynn Asprin

“Map,” Aahz said.

Tanda moved up and the two of us crowded with Aahz so that we could see the map in the torchlight and swirling dust. It showed that we had reached the bottom of the tunnel. I glanced around at the rock walls and ceiling. We were under thousands and thousands of body-lengths of rock. I couldn’t imagine how much weight was pressing down on the ceiling of the tunnel above us right at that moment.

The thought sent a shiver through me, and a touch of panic. “Can we keep going?” I asked.

Tanda took the map and Aahz smiled at me, his green scales covered in dust, his eyes yellow holes in the dirt. I must have looked as bad as he did, maybe worse. “A little claustrophobia?” he asked.

“I don’t know about that,” I said, not having a clue what the big word meant. Sometimes Aahz just didn’t remember what a backward part of a backward world I came from.

“Feeling the pressure of all this weight over us?” Tanda asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “more than I want to think about right now, thank you very much.”

Aahz laughed. “We don’t have that much farther to go.”

“Then let’s go,” I said, fighting against the panic at the walls closing in.

Aahz gave me a long look, then turned and headed along the flat part of the tunnel. I kept the golden shovel clutched in front of me. At least if the tunnel came down, I’d be buried with something worth digging up. After a hundred paces the tunnel started back up. Stair after stair after stair. Up and up and up.

I forgot to be afraid of the tunnel coming down on me because I was so tired from the climbing.