Beyond the Hanging Wall

Like his father, Garth Baxtor has the Touch; by laying his hands on a person, he can sense the specific illness within and in most cases heal the ailment. A royal decree in Escator requires physicians to spend three weeks each year attending to the needs of criminals who labor in the Veins, a labyrinth of tunnels deep under the earth where gloam -- a valuable commodity -- is mined. Garth's father decides that his son is old enough to accompany him into the nightmarish Veins, where the worst convicts labor until they're dead. But while Garth is deep underneath the earth healing doomed men, he meets an almost forgotten legend.