Coldspray looked a question at Bluff Stoutgirth. When he nodded, she ordered a rest.
Gratefully Frostheart Grueburn sloughed Linden onto a boulder. Cirrus Kindwind put Jeremiah down beside Linden, stood straighter to ease the tension in her back. As Coldspray settled Covenant nearby, the Anchormaster arranged Stonemage, Bluntfist, and his crew, some standing to their chests in the pool, others leaning on boulders or propped against the walls. Then he asked for food and clean water.
Sailors unpacked chunks of cured beef and mutton, rinds of cheese, bread with the texture of hardpan, dried fruits, waterskins. As they did so, Linden accepted the Staff of Law from Jeremiah and assumed the whole task of purifying the air so that he could rest and eat. He had not questioned her assistance earlier: he was not loath to trust her now. Apparently he was learning to believe that she would not recant her gift.
While she had the opportunity, she extended other forms of refreshment to the Giants; eased the trembling of Covenant’s muscles; nourished Jeremiah’s strength. As if to himself, the boy murmured, “That’s a neat trick. I want to learn it.” But he did not reach for the Staff. Images of the Worm seemed to glide like ravens across the depths of his gaze.
Some of the waterskins held diluted diamondraught. When Linden had swallowed enough to wash the taste of pollution out of her mouth and throat, she joined the Giants eating.
She had not heard Hurl’s voice for a while. Surely he was able to stay above the lake? But if the Anchormaster felt any anxiety on Hurl’s behalf, he concealed it with jests.
“Thomas?” Linden asked. “What do you think? How high can that monster lift so much water?”
He opened his mouth to answer; closed it again. After a moment, he said, “By damn.” Surprise and relief. With the index finger of his halfhand, he pointed down the chute.
In the distance below the pool, unsteady emerald reflected wetly on the walls.
The fires of the Feroce were still some distance away, but they were coming closer. And before long, Linden made out Hurl’s bulk looming behind them. In the green glow, he looked somehow ghoulish, like an avatar of the Illearth Stone. His grin resembled the grimace of a fiend. Nevertheless he was unharmed.
The condition of the Feroce was more difficult to gauge. Linden had never been able to sense the nature of their magicks. From her perspective, they seemed smaller, weaker, as if they had been reduced by their immersion in the lake. And when they finally waded into the pool, she saw that they had indeed shrunk. Although they floated effortlessly with their arms and flames above water, they appeared to have drawn into themselves as if their encounter with their High God’s god had shamed them.
“They rose with the lake,” Hurl proclaimed in a tone of wonder. “I had surrendered all hope of them. Yet when the lake began to hint that it might recede, the Feroce emerged.”
The creatures faced Covenant; but now they did not flinch or cower. Nor did they ask his pardon for their absence. “We are merely the Feroce,” they stated. “We serve our High God. We do not question our worship. Commanded, we obey.” The strangeness of their shared voice seemed to accentuate the corruption of the atmosphere, the taint of the river, the slick sheen of the walls.
“But we have beheld our High God’s god. He is lessened. Perhaps he is lessened.” They regarded only Covenant. Even their flames appeared to focus on him. “Perhaps the Pure One is also lessened.” Their emerald shone in his eyes. It gleamed like spray on his scarred forehead. “You must hasten again. We do not question. Commanded, we obey. Yet doubt infects. It spreads. An end draws near. We fear it. It gladdens us.
“You must hasten.”
“Or what?” Covenant asked carefully.
The Feroce were no longer afraid—or their fear had become a different form of apprehension. “We are naught,” they answered. “Worship is all things. Or it also is naught.”
“Mom?” Jeremiah breathed. “What’s going on?”
Linden touched his shoulder to quiet him. She tightened her grip on the Staff.
“Then forget your High God,” Covenant said almost calmly; almost mildly. “Forget our alliance. Forget that Clyme died for it, and the Worm is going to destroy every god you can imagine.” He did not raise his voice, but his tone became thicker, harder. “Remember that the jheherrin saved the Pure One. They were weaker than you are, and maybe more scared, but they helped him anyway. Then he set them free.
“Try remembering that. If doubt infects, so does courage.”
Linden held her breath. If the Feroce turned back now—
For a long moment, they were silent. They did not move. Their large eyes remained fixed on Covenant. Nevertheless they conveyed the impression that they were conferring with each other.
Covenant faced them steadily, waiting.
Finally they sighed like slumping mud. “We are the Feroce. We are ignorant of courage. We obey because we must.”
They did not urge haste again. Instead they drifted away from Covenant, gathered in the center of the pool. There they faced each other, holding out their fires like questions for which they had no answers.
“Thomas?” Linden asked.
He frowned at her, or at his own thoughts. “I know. Not exactly reassuring.” Then he grimaced. “So what else is new?
“We should go,” he told Rime Coldspray. “We’re running out of time.”
Yet doubt infects.
It was contagious.
Nodding, the Ironhand addressed Bluff Stoutgirth. “Anchormaster?”
“Aye.” Stoutgirth grinned. To his crew, he said as if he were jesting, “Come, sluggards. Have done with feasting and sloth. While we dally, the world’s doom grows fretful. Soon it may set its sails and depart unopposed.”
His crew responded with snorts or groans, or with ripostes; yet they immediately began packing away their provisions. Soon they were ready.
Linden hesitated, unsure of her son. But Jeremiah asked for the Staff without prompting. “I feel better now,” he assured her. “I want to practice.” He faced her squarely, held her gaze. “But maybe you shouldn’t help me anymore. You make it too easy. I don’t have to push myself when you’re doing half the work.”
She winced. He was right, of course. He had to make himself stronger; had to earn his inheritance. But she already knew that she was going to abandon him again. She was even going to abandon Covenant. And when she did, she would leave without any hope that she might ever return.
Her hands shook as she passed the Staff to her son. Unclosing her fingers required an act of will.
His attention shifted at once to the wood; but she continued to gaze at him, clinging. Carefully she said, “I’m proud of you. Do you know that?”
“Sure, Mom.” His tone made it clear that he was not listening.
The theurgy which he summoned from his hands and his violated heart was as black as anything that she had ever done.
ed by the Feroce, the company struggled upward. Emerald oozed like infection down the river. The light of the krill seemed to lurch from place to place as it struck irregular facets of stone. The channel felt interminable. Its twists and bends through Mount Thunder’s gutrock blocked Linden’s view ahead. She could not guess how far the company would have to climb.
Fortunately Jeremiah’s use of Earthpower and Law was improving. The Giants were able to breathe more easily. And the hints of She Who Must Not Be Named which Linden had felt earlier were lessened by midnight fire in the confines of the flume.
Blustergale continued to support Scatterwit. A few of her comrades took turns holding the rope tied around her. Like them, she labored ahead, striving toward an untenable future.
So suddenly that Linden only had time to flinch and grip, Grueburn slipped: she started to plunge. But Stave stopped her by anchoring her foot. She caught herself on her hands, regained her balance. Muttering rueful apologies, she bore Linden onward.
Other Giants slipped as well. As their weariness grew, they lost their footing more often. M
ost of them recovered quickly, or were secured by their comrades. But one of the sailors fell hard enough to take Keenreef with him. Threshing their arms, they were swept downward. However, Wiver Setrock dropped to his knees below their rush, spread his arms, snagged his comrades before they collided with Grueburn and Kindwind. With another sailor and Onyx Stonemage at his back, Setrock helped the Giants find their feet.
Anxiety and jests echoed down the chute. Coldspray and Stoutgirth shouted unnecessary warnings. Jeremiah looked around wildly for a moment: the only sign that he had noticed what was happening. Then he returned his attention to the Staff.
Darkness. Green glaring dully. Flashes of argent. Loud water acrid with minerals and pollution. Treacherous rocks and mosses. More darkness. Covenant clung like a penitent to Coldspray’s back. Jeremiah half knelt behind Kindwind, gripping the Staff across her cataphract. Linden listened to the effort of Grueburn’s breathing, felt the strain in Grueburn’s muscles, and could do nothing.
She had given up looking ahead when she heard the Anchormaster call, “And not before time! Doubtless all things must have an end. After such an ascent, however, I would lief have gained a less ambiguous summit.”
Linden jerked up her head; saw that the fires of the Feroce no longer reflected on the walls. The krill’s illumination seemed to imply an open space ahead. She tried to extend her discernment upward, but she could not. Her senses were blocked by Giants and fouled water, Earthpower and exertion. Even Loric’s gem had the effect of obstructing her percipience.
None of the Giants spoke as they hurried to reach a place where they might be able to rest again.
Like the Feroce, Coldspray and Stoutgirth had moved out of sight. Holding light for the sailors and the Swordmainnir, Branl stood at the edge of the channel-mouth. Now Linden was able to see that the river ran from another large cavity in the gutrock; but the scale of the space was still hidden from her.
As Grueburn labored upward, however, Linden heard more complex tones in the water’s turbulence, new pitches and timbres. Another waterfall? No. The sounds lacked that deeper resonance. After a moment, she realized that she was listening to more than one torrent. From beyond the immediate rush and spray came the turmoil of other streams, two distinct sources of water, neither splashing from any considerable height.
Half a dozen sailors reached the Humbled. They passed him leftward, clambered out of sight. As Stonemage and Setrock gained the opening, they led Keenreef and more of Dire’s Vessel’s crew to the right. Together Grueburn and Kindwind carried Linden and Jeremiah to smooth stone at the rim of the tunnel.
Linden peered out at a large cave like a bubble in Mount Thunder’s igneous substance. By the measure of the lower cavern, its dimensions were modest. She could have hit the ceiling with a rock, or skipped a pebble halfway across the dark water in front of her: a diminished lake now little more than a pond marked by rancid strands and stains higher on the walls. At the water’s former height, the rocks piled around the cave’s bottom would have been covered, useless to the company. At the pond’s present level, she could have scrambled anywhere in the cave.
Nevertheless the air was viscid, thick with omens. The hurtful tang of She Who Must Not Be Named was stronger here. Suggestions of ire and ruin felt like insects on Linden’s skin, tangible and feeding. Without Jeremiah and Earthpower, she might have whimpered aloud.
But then Grueburn carried her aside, out of the way of the Giants behind them; and Linden noticed the water’s inlets.
There were indeed two, one diagonally across from her on the left, the other opposite her and somewhat to the right. The stream on the left tumbled from a fissure in the wall, a crack barely wide enough to admit a Giant. The water frothing there conveyed the impression that it cascaded from somewhere far above the cave. In the krill’s light, its spray shone silver.
The other stream boiled out of an opening beneath the lake’s surface. Apparently it came from the base of a subtle flaw in the stone, a seam where distinct forms of rock had been reluctantly fused. Under the pressure of its own weight, water seethed into the pond.
Only the fissure on the left offered the company an egress. An ascent there would be difficult. If the crack narrowed, it might become impassable. But the water there was fresh.
God, it was fresh—It came from a clean spring, or from several. And the fissure was accessible. The company could reach it without enduring an immersion in the pond; without subjecting Linden to more of the bane’s touch.
The Cavewights were entirely unlike the Feroce. Surely they required sources of clean water? Surely a source this abundant would lead toward the Wightwarrens?
Her heart seemed to beat in her throat as she turned toward Covenant.
Rime Coldspray had set him down on the far side of the cave’s outlet. Stave and all of the Giants had now emerged from the tunnel, and Cirrus Kindwind had already lowered Jeremiah to the rocks. He leaned on the Staff, resting, but he did not relax his efforts. Stark strands of power fluttered around the company, softening the atmosphere.
He was the only one not looking at Covenant. Stave, Branl, and the Giants watched the Unbeliever, the Timewarden, waiting for him to make a decision. As if there could possibly be any doubt—
But he ignored them. Instead he faced the Feroce.
Wreathed in green, they clustered a few paces beyond him. Some of them stood with their feet in the pond, but they did not sink away. Again they appeared to commune with each other. Their fires danced like language in their hands.
Linden winced at the sight. They were definitely smaller. Shrinking. Losing faith.
Covenant’s impatience showed in the clench of his shoulders, the rigidity of his back. He seemed to want some form of confirmation from the creatures, even though the company’s path was obvious. After a tense pause, he demanded, “Now what? We can’t just hang around here. We don’t have time.”
The Feroce did not look at him. Their voice quavered as if they expected to be struck down.
“You will be wroth with us. You will not heed.”
“What?” Covenant’s surprise echoed faintly around the walls. “I’m going to get angry because you’re trying to help? Why?”
Two of the creatures pointed at the fissure. “You must not enter there. It misleads.” Two others indicated the rank moil of the second inlet. “You must follow richer water.” Then they crowded closer together. “Now we perish. You will not suffer us.”
“Thomas!” Linden protested. She gestured urgently toward the crack. “That water is fresh.” It did not stink of threats.
Giants nodded their assent.
“Oh, stop,” Covenant growled at the Feroce. “I’m not going to do anything to you. None of us are.” He squinted over his shoulder at Linden, then addressed the creatures again. “But we need an explanation. ‘Richer’ water? I assume you mean water with more crud in it. That doesn’t make sense. Never mind that it’s likely to poison us. Suppose you’re right. Suppose it does run closer to the Wightwarrens. Even Giants can’t swim against that kind of pressure. And we sure as hell can’t hold our breath long enough to find air.”
“Wait a minute,” Jeremiah murmured. Ebony tendrils curled across the pond. They searched along the far wall. But he did not say more; and the alarm clamoring in Linden’s ears prevented her from heeding him.
“So tell me,” Covenant continued. “Why that water? Why is a trail we can’t even follow better than one we can?”
The creatures flinched. Their fires guttered. “We are the Feroce. We obey, as we must. We cannot answer ire.”
Covenant swore softly.
Quivering, the damp voice said, “We do not know your goal. We do not know the mountain. But we taste the memories mingled here. Those waters do not hold the Maker’s scorn. Other powers enrich them, yes. They urge false worship, abhorrent to us, seductive.” The Feroce shuddered. “Yet we are certain. Memory is certain.”
“Wait a minute,” Jeremiah said again.
Ev
eryone ignored him.
“The stream of mere water. The plain path. It misleads. It does not recall light. No light has shone upon it. No sun. No flame. No magicks.”
No light—?
“Stone and Sea!” rasped the Ironhand. Other Giants muttered their chagrin.
The Haruchai watched and listened as if they were drawing different conclusions.
“The richer waters,” said the Feroce, “remember much. They recall darkness and horrible strength. Strange theurgies. Time without measure. And light. Light! In a distant age, they have known the sun. They have not forgotten.
“The memory is there.”
As one, the creatures pointed at the turbulence spewing from beneath the surface of the pond.
Oh, God. Floundering, Linden thought, Light—The cascade of fresh water had never seen torches. It had never felt the ruddy glow of rocklight. Therefore its long plunge did not intersect the catacombs. Even Cavewights needed illumination.
But the other stream—Ah, hell. That impassable gush came from the Soulsease. It had once traveled the Upper Land. It had known the warmth of the sun. And far to the west, the Soulsease entered the Wightwarrens. But only a few days ago, it had lost its way through the mountain. Now it plunged toward the Lost Deep. For that reason, it was fraught with the anguish and rage of She Who Must Not Be Named.
“Thomas.” Linden’s voice had fallen to a whisper. She was too frightened to raise it. “I can’t. There’s no way—”
She could not submerge herself in water that reminded her of the bane. She would go mad.
In a taut rumble, the Anchormaster remarked, “We know little of these Feroce. We of Dire’s Vessel have heard your tale, but we have not lived it. Is it conceivable that they have turned aside from our purpose? If they are no longer ruled by their monstrous deity’s will, it may be they who mislead, rather than the waters.”