Once upon a time…

They said the stone halls were older than kings. In those halls, two friends worked as torch-bearers for the night watch. Milan was tall and careful. Petar was quick and bold. They had grown together like vines on the same wall. Each knew the other’s step in the dark.

The halls were cut like a maze. Arches bent back on themselves. Doorways swallowed sound. The townsfolk had a custom for moving through it. They called it the Drinking of the Echo. Before a journey, a group would stand at a crossing and drink water from a chipped clay cup. Then they would sing a short call and listen. If the echo came back once, the path ahead was safe. If it came back twice, there was a turn. If it came back three times, they would not go, for the third echo meant a false wall that moved when no one watched.

One autumn night, a mason vanished. He had gone to measure a fallen lintel near the heart of the halls. The captain asked Milan and Petar to find him. They took the clay cup, a coil of rope, and a small flute the mason had left in the guardroom. The air was cool. Their torches spat.

At the first crossing, they drank from the cup and sang. The echo came back twice. They turned left. The second crossing gave them one echo. They went on. At the third, they heard three echoes, but the last one sounded like a breath. Petar frowned and said the third echo lied. Milan said a lie might still kill. They tied the rope around their waists and went forward anyway.

Soon they found a chalk mark on the floor. It was a mason’s mark, drawn like a fish with a broken tail. They followed more marks, spaced like steps. The marks ended at a wall that seemed new. The flute in Milan’s pouch shook as if someone plucked it. He took it out and blew a note. The note hung and did not return. Petar pressed his ear to the wall and heard a faint scrape.

They sang again. This time the echo returned once, then a second time, then, softly, a whistle that was not theirs. Milan pressed the flute into a crack and blew. The wall sighed and slid aside. The mason lay within, tired but alive. He had been trapped by a shifting panel.

They led him home with slow feet. At dawn, they poured the clay cup into the ground. Folks said the halls had eaten the echo and spared the men. Milan and Petar kept the flute. When lost souls wandered, they would drink, sing, and listen for that third whisper, which only true friends could hear.