The First joined him without hesitation. But Pitchwife looked toward Linden as if he wanted confirmation from her. She saw in his gaze that he was prepared to find some way to delay the company on Covenant’s behalf if she believed it necessary.
The question searched her; but she met it by rising to her feet If Covenant were exhausted, he would be more easily prevented from destruction.
At once, her thoughts shamed her. Even now—when he had just given her a demonstration of his deliberate acquiescence to death, as if he wanted her to be sure that Kevin had told her the truth—she felt he deserved something better than the promises she had made against him.
Mutely Findail bore his light into the next passage. The First shouldered her share of the company’s small supplies, drew her longsword. Muttering to himself, Pitchwife joined her. Vain gazed absently into the unmitigated dark of the catacombs. In single file, the questors followed the Appointed of the Elohim onward.
Still his route tended generally downward, deeper by irregular stages and increments toward the clenched roots of Mount Thunder; and as the company descended, the character of the tunnels changed. They became more ragged and ruinous. Broken gaps appeared in the walls, and from the voids beyond them came dank exhalations, distant groaning, cold sweat. Unseen denizens slithered away to their barrows. Water oozed through cracks in the gutrock and dripped like slow corrosion. Strange boiling sounds rose and then receded.
With a Giant’s unfear of stone and mountains. Pitchwife took a rock as large as his fist and tossed it into one of the gaps. For a long time, echoes replied like the distant labor of anvils.
The strain of the descent made Linden’s thighs ache and quiver.
Later, she did hear anvils, the faint metallic clatter of hammers. And the thud of bellows—the warm, dry gusts of exhaust from forges. The company was nearing the working heart of the Wightwarrens. Sourceless sounds made her skin crawl. But Findail did not hesitate or waver; and gradually the noise and effort in the air lessened. Moiling and sulfur filled the tunnel as if it were a ventilation shaft for a pit of brimstone. Then they, too, faded.
The tremendous weight of the mountain impending over her made Linden stoop. It was too heavy for her. Everywhere around her was knuckled stone and darkness. Findail’s light was ghostly, not to be trusted. Somewhere outside Mount Thunder, the day was ending—or had already ended, already given the Land its only relief from the Sunbane. But the things which soughed and whined through the catacombs knew no relief. She felt the old protestations of the rock like the far-off moaning of the damned. The air felt as cold, worn, and dead as a gravestone. Lord Foul had chosen an apt demesne: only mad creatures and evil could live in the Wightwarrens.
Then, abruptly, the wrought passages through which Findail had been traveling changed. The tunnel narrowed, became a rough crevice with a roof beyond the reach of Linden’s percipience. After some distance, the crevice ended at the rim of a wide, deep pit. And from the pit arose the fetor of a charnal.
The stench made Linden gag. Covenant could barely stand it. But Findail went right to the edge of the pit, to a cut stair which ascended the wall directly above the rank abysm. Covenant fought himself to follow; but before he had climbed a dozen steps he slumped against the wall. Linden felt nausea and vertigo gibbering in his muscles.
Sheathing her blade, the First lifted him in her arms, bore him upward as swiftly as Findail was willing to go.
Cramps knotted Linden’s guts. The stench heaved in her. The stair stretched beyond comprehension above her; she did not know how to attempt it. But the gap between her and the light—between her and Covenant—was increasing at every moment. Fiercely she turned her percipience on herself, pulled the cramps out of her muscles. Then she forced herself upward.
The fetor called out to her like the Sunbane, urged her to surrender to it—surrender to the darkness which lurked hungrily within her and everywhere else as well, unanswerable and growing toward completion with every intaken breath. If she let go now, she would be as strong as a Raver before she hit bottom; and then no ordinary death could touch her. Yet she clung to the rough treads with her hands, thrust at them with her legs. Covenant was above her. Perhaps he was already safe. And she had learned how to be stubborn. The mouth of the old man whose life she had saved on Haven Farm had been as foul as this; but she had borne that putrid halitus in order to fight for his survival. Though her guts squirmed, her throat retched, she fought her way to the top of the stair and the well.
There she found Findail, the First, and Covenant. And light—a different light than the Appointed emitted. Reflecting faintly from the passage behind him, it was the orange-red color of rocklight. And it was full of soft, hot boiling, slow splashes. A sulfurous exudation took the stench from the air.
Pitchwife finished the ascent with Vain behind him. Linden looked at Covenant. His face was waxen, slick with sweat: vertigo and sickness glazed his eyes. She turned to the First and Findail to demand another rest.
The Elohim forestalled her. His gaze was shrouded, concealing his thoughts. “Now for a space we must travel a common roadway of the Wightwarrens.” Rocklight limned his shoulders. “It is open to us at present—but shortly it will be peopled again, and our way closed. We must not halt here.”
Linden wanted to protest in simple frustration and helplessness. Roughly she asked the First, “How much more do you think he can take?”
The Giant shrugged. She did not meet Linden’s glare. Her efforts to refuse doubt left little room for compromise. “If he falters, I will carry him.”
At once, Findail turned and started down the passage.
Before Linden could object, Covenant shambled after the Appointed. The First moved protectively ahead of the Unbeliever.
Pitchwife faced Linden with a grimace of wry fatigue. “She is my wife,” he murmured, “and I love her sorely. Yet she surpasses me. Were I formed as other Giants, I would belabor her insensate rather than suffer this extremity.” He clearly did not mean what he was saying: he spoke only to comfort Linden.
But she was beyond comfort. Fetor and brimstone, exhaustion and peril pushed her to the fringes of her self-control. Fuming futilely, she coerced her unsteady limbs into motion.
The passage soon became a warren of corridors; but Findail threaded them unerringly toward the source of the light. The air grew noticeably warmer: it was becoming hot. The boiling sounds increased, took on a subterranean force which throbbed irrhythmically in Linden’s lungs.
Then the company gained a tunnel as broad as a road; and the rocklight flared brighter. The stone thrummed with bottomless seething. Ahead of Findail, the left wall dropped away: acrid heat rose from that side. It seemed to suck the air out of Linden’s chest, tug her forward. Findail led the company briskly into the light.
The road passed along the rim of a huge abyss. Its sheer walls were stark with rocklight; it blazed heat and sulfur.
At the bottom of the gulf burned a lake of magma.
Its boiling made the gutrock shiver. Tremendous spouts reached massively toward the ceiling, then collapsed under their own weight, spattering the walls with a violence that melted and reformed the sides.
Findail strode down the roadway as if the abyss did not concern him. But Covenant moved slowly, crouching close to the outer wall. The rocklight shone garishly across his raw face, made him appear lunatic with fear and yearning for immolation. Linden followed almost on his heels so that she would be near if he needed her. They were halfway around the mouth of the gulf before she felt his emanations clearly enough to realize that his apprehension was not the simple dread of vertigo and heat. He recognized this place: memories beat about his head like dark wings. He knew that this road led to the Despiser.
Linden dogged his steps and raged uselessly to herself. He was in no shape to confront Lord Foul. No condition. She no longer cared that his weakness might lessen the difficulty of her own responsibilities. She did not want her lot eased. She wanted him whole and strong
and victorious, as he deserved to be. This exhausting rush to doom was folly, madness.
Gasping at the heat, he reached the far side of the abyss, moved two steps into the passage, and sagged to the floor. Linden put her arms around him, trying to steady herself as well as him. The molten passion of the lake burned at her back. Pitchwife was nearly past the rim. Vain was several paces behind.
“You must now be swift,” Findail said. He sounded strangely urgent. “There are Cavewights nigh.”
Without warning, he sped past the companions, flashed back into the rocklight like a striking condor.
As he hurtled down the roadway, his form melted out of humanness and assumed the shape of a Sandgorgon.
Fatal as a bludgeon, he crashed headlong against the Demondim-spawn.
Vain made no effort to evade the impact. Yet he could not withstand it. Findail was Earthpower incarnate. The shock of collision made the road lurch, sent tremors like wailing through the stone. Vain had proved himself stronger than Giants or storms, impervious to spears and the na-Mhoram’s Grim. He had felt the power of the Worm of the World’s End and had survived, though that touch had cost him the use of one arm. He had escaped alone from Elemesnedene and all the Elohim. But Findail hit him with such concentrated might that he was driven backward.
Two steps. Three. To the last edge of the rim.
“Vain!” Covenant thrashed in Linden’s grasp. Frenzy almost made him strong enough to break away from her. “Vain!”
Instinctively Linden fought him, held him.
Impelled by Covenant’s fear, the First charged past Pitchwife after the Appointed.
Vain caught his balance on the Up of the abyss. His black eyes were vivid with intensity. A grin of relish sharpened his immaculate features. The iron heels of the Staff of Law gleamed dully in the hot rocklight.
He did not glance away from Findail. But his good arm made a warding gesture that knocked the First backward, stretched her at her husband’s feet, out of danger.
“Fall!” the Appointed raged. His fists hammered the air. The rock under Vain’s feet ruptured in splinters. “Fall and die!”
The Demondim-spawn fell. With the slowness of nightmare, he dropped straight into the abyss.
At the same instant, his dead arm lashed out, struck like a snake. His right hand closed on Findail’s forearm. The Appointed was pulled after him over the edge.
Rebounding from the wall, they tumbled together toward the center of the lake. Covenants cry echoed after them, inarticulate and wild.
Findail could not break Vain’s grip.
He was Elohim, capable of taking any form of the living Earth. He dissolved himself and became an eagle, pounded the air with his wings to escape the spouting magma. But Vain clung to one of his legs and was borne upward.
Instantly Findail transformed himself to water. The heat threw him in vapor and agony toward the ceiling. But Vain clutched a handful of essential moisture and drew the Appointed back to him.
Swifter than panic, Findail became a Giant with a greatsword in both fists. He hacked savagely at Vain’s wrist. But Vain only clenched his grip and let the blade glance off his iron band.
They were so close to the lava that Linden could barely see them through the blaze. In desperation, Findail took the shape of a sail and rode the heat upward again. But Vain still held him in an unbreakable grasp.
And before he rose high enough, a spout climbed like a tower toward him. He tried to evade it by veering; but he was too late. Magma took both Elohim and Demondim-spawn and snatched them down into the lake.
Linden hugged Covenant as if she shared his cries.
He was no longer struggling. “You don’t understand!” he gasped. All the strength had gone out of him. “That’s the place. Where the ur-viles got rid of their failures. When something they made didn’t work, they threw it down there. That’s why Findail—” The words seized in his throat.
Why Findail had made his final attempt upon the Demondim-spawn here. Even Vain could not hope to come back from that fall.
Dear Christ! She did not understand how the Elohim saw such an extravagant threat in one lone creation of the ur-viles. Vain had bowed to her once—and had never acknowledged her again. He had saved her life—and had refused to save it. And after all this time and distance and peril, he was lost before he found what he sought. Before she understood—
He had gripped Findail with the hand that hung from his wooden forearm.
Other perceptions demanded her attention, but she was slow to notice them. She had not heeded the Appointed’s warning. Too late, she sensed movement in the passage which had led the company to this abyss.
Along the rim of the pit, a party of Cavewights charged into the rocklight.
At least a score of them. Upright on their long limbs, they were almost as tall as Pitchwife. They ran with an exaggerated, jerky awkwardness, like stick-figures; but their strength was unmistakable: they were the delvers of the Wightwarrens. The red heat of lava burned in their eyes. Most of them were armed with truncheons: the rest carried battle-axes with wicked blades.
Still half stunned by the force of Vain’s blow, the First reeled to her feet. For an instant, she wavered. But the company’s need galvanized her. Her longsword flashed in readiness. Roaring, “Flee!” she faced the onset of the Cavewights.
Covenant made no effort to move. The people he loved were in danger, and he had the power to protect them—power he dared not use. Linden read his plight immediately. The exertion of will which held back the wild magic took all his strength.
She fought herself into motion. Summoning her resolve, she began to wrestle him down the tunnel.
He seemed weightless, almost abject Yet his very slackness hampered her. Her progress was fatally slow.
Then Pitchwife caught up with her. He started to take Covenant from her.
The clangor of battle echoed along the passage. Linden spun and saw the First fighting for her life.
She was a Swordmain, an artist of combat. Her glaive flayed about her, at once feral and precise: rocklight flared in splinters off the swift iron. Blood spattered from her attackers as if by incantation rather than violence, her blade the wand or scepter by which she wrought her theurgy.
But the roadway was too wide to constrict the Cavewights. Their reach was as great as hers. And they were born to contend with stone: their blows had the force of granite. Most of her effort went to parry clubs which would have shattered her arms. Step by step, she was driven backward.
She stumbled slightly on the uneven surface, and a truncheon flicked past her. On her left temple, a bloody welt seemed to appear without transition. The Cavewight that hit her pitched into the abyss, clutching his slashed chest. But more creatures crowded after her.
Linden looked at Pitchwife. He was being torn apart by conflicting needs. His eyes ached whitely, desperate and suppliant. He had offered her his life. Like Mistweave.
She could not bear it. He deserved better. “Help the First!” she barked at him. “I’ll take care of Covenant!”
Pitchwife was too frantic to hesitate. Releasing the Unbeliever, he sped to the aid of his wife.
Linden grabbed Covenant by the shoulders, shook him fiercely. “Come on!” she raged into his raw visage. “For God’s sake!”
His struggle was terrible to behold. He could have effaced the Cavewights with a simple thought—and brought down the Arch of Time, or desecrated it with venom. He was willing to sacrifice himself. But his friends! Their peril rent at him. For the space of one heartbeat, she thought he would destroy everything to save the First and Pitchwife. So that they would not die like Foamfollower for him.
Yet he withheld—clamped his ripped and wailing spirit in a restraint as inhuman as his purpose. His features hardened: his gaze became bleak and desolate, like the Land under the scourge of the Sunbane. “You’re right,” he muttered softly. “This is pathetic.”
Straightening his back, he started down the tunnel.
&n
bsp; She clinched his numb halfhand and fled with him into darkness. Cries and blows shouted after them, echoed and were swallowed by the Wightwarrens.
As the reflected rocklight faded, they reached an intersection. Covenant veered instinctively to the right; but she took the leftward turning because it felt less traveled. Almost at once, she regretted her choice. It did not lead away from the light. Instead it opened into a wide chamber with fissures along one side that admitted the shining of the molten lake. Sulfur and heat clogged the air. Two more tunnels gave access to the chamber; but they did not draw off the accumulated reek.
The roadway along the rim of the abyss was visible through the fissures. This chamber had probably been intended to allow Mount Thunder’s denizens to watch the road without being seen.
The First and Pitchwife were no longer upon the rim. They had retreated into the tunnel after Linden and Covenant. Or they had fallen.
Linden’s senses shrilled an alarm. Too late: always too late. Bitterly she wheeled to face the Cavewights that thronged into the chamber from all three entrances.
She and her companions must have been spotted from this covert when they first made their way past the abyss. And the brief time they had spent watching Vain and Findail had given the Cavewights opportunity to spring this trap.
In the tunnel Linden and Covenant had used, the First and Pitchwife appeared, battling tremendously to reach their friends. But most of the Cavewights hurried to block the Giants’ way. The Swordmain and her husband were beaten back.
Pitchwife’s inchoate cry wrung Linden’s heart. Then he and the First were forced out of sight. Cavewights rushed in pursuit.
Brandishing cudgels and axes, the rest of the creatures advanced on Covenant and Linden.
He thrust her behind him. took a step forward. Rocklight limned his desperate shoulders. “I’m the one you want.” His voice was taut with suppression and wild magic. “I’ll go with you. Leave her alone.”
Rapt and grim, the Cavewights gave no sign that they heard him. Their eyes smoldered.
“If you hurt her,” he gritted, “I’ll tear you apart.”