Passing through the company, he strode into the dark maze of the Wightwarrens. And as he walked the midnight stepped back from him. Beyond the reach of the rocklight, his outlines shone like the featureless lumination of Elemesnedene.
“Damn it!” Covenant spat. “Now he wants us to trust him.”
The First gave a stem shrug. “What choice remains to us?” Her gaze trailed Findail down the tunnel. “One brand we have. Will you rather trust the mercy of this merciless bourne?”
At once, Linden said, “We don't need him. I can lead us. I don't need light.”
Covenant scowled at her. “That's terrific. Where're you going to lead us? You don't have any idea where Foul is.”
She started to retort, I can find him. The same way I found Gibbon. All I need is a taste of him. But then she read him more clearly. His anger was not directed at her. He was angry because he knew he had no choice. And he was right. Until she felt the Despiser's emanations and could fix her health-sense on them, she had no effective guidance to offer.
Swallowing her vexation, she sighed, “I know. It was a bad idea.” Findail was receding from view; soon he would be out of sight altogether. “Let's get going.”
For a moment Covenant faced her as though he wanted to apologize and did not know how because he was unable to gauge the spirit of her acquiescence. But his purpose still drove him. Turning roughly, he started down the tunnel after the Appointed.
The First joined him. Pitchwife gave Linden's shoulder a quick clasp of comradeship, then urged her into motion.
Vain followed them as if he were in no danger at all.
The tunnel went straight for some distance; then side-passages began to mark its walls. Glowing like an avatar of moonlight, Findail took the first leftward way, moved into a narrow corridor which had been cut so long ago that the rock no longer seemed to remember the violence of formation. The ceiling was low, forcing the Giants to stoop as the corridor angled upward, Findail’s illumination glimmered and sheened on the walls. A vague sense of peril rose behind Linden like a miasma. She guessed that more of the Despiser's creatures had entered the tunnel which the company had just left. But soon she reached a high, musty space like a disused mustering-hall; and when she and her companions had crossed it to a larger passage, her impression of danger faded.
More tunnels followed, most of them tending sharply downward. She did not know how the Appointed chose his route; but he was sure of it. Perhaps he gained all the information he needed from the mountain itself, as his people were said to read the events of the outer Earth in the peaks and cols of the Rawedge Rim which enclosed Elemesnedene. Whatever his sources of knowledge, however, Linden sensed that he was leading the company through delvings which were no longer inhabited or active. They all smelled of abandonment, forgotten death-and somehow, obscurely, of ur-viles, as if this section of the catacombs had once been set apart for the products of the Demondim. But they were gone now, perhaps forever. Linden caught no scent or sound of any life here.
No life except the breathing, dire existence of the mountain, the sentience too slow to be discerned, the intent so immemorially occluded and rigid that it was hidden from mortal perception. Linden felt she was wandering the vitals of an organism which surpassed her on every scale-and yet was too time-spanning and ponderous to defend itself against quick evil. Mount Thunder loathed the banes which inhabited it, the use to which its depths were put. Why else was there so much anger compressed in the gutrock? But the day when the mountain might react for its own cleansing was still centuries or millennia away.
The First's bulk blocked most of Findail's glow. But Linden did not need light to know that Vain was still behind her, or that Covenant was nearly prostrate on his feet, frail with exhaustion. Yet he appeared determined to continue until he dropped. For his sake, she called Findail to a halt. “We're killing ourselves like this.” Her own knees trembled with strain; weariness throbbed in her temples. ”We've got to rest.”
Findail acceded with a shrug. They were in a rude chamber empty of everything except stale air and darkness. She half expected Covenant to protest; but he did not. Numbly, he? Sighing to himself, Pitchwife rummaged through the packs for diamondraught and a meal. Liquor and food he doled out to his companions, sparing little for the future. The future of the Search would not be long, for good or ill.
Linden ate as much as she could stomach, but only took a sip of the diamondraught so that she would not be put to sleep. Then she turned her attention to Covenant.
He was shivering slightly. Findail's light made him look, pallid and spectral, ashen-eyed, doomed. His body seemed to draw no sustenance from the food he had consumed. Even diamondraught had little effect on him. He looked like a man who was bleeding internally. On Kevin's Watch, he had healed the wound in his chest with wild magic. But no power could undo the blow which had pierced him back in the woods behind Haven Farm. Now his physical condition appeared to be merging with that of the body he had left behind, the torn flesh with the knife still protruding from its ribs.
He had told her this would happen.
But other signs were missing. He had no bruises to match the ones he had received when Joan had been wrested from him. And he still had his beard. She clung to those things because they seemed to mean that he was not yet about to die.
She nearly cried out when he raised the knife be had brought from Revelstone and asked Pitchwife for water.
Without question, Pitchwife poured the last of the company's water into a bowl and handed it to the Unbeliever.
Awkwardly, Covenant wet his beard, then set the knife to his throat. His hands trembled as if he were appalled. Yet by his own choice he conformed himself to the image of his death.
Linden struggled to keep herself from railing at his self-abnegation, the surrender it implied. He behaved as if he had indeed given himself up to despair. It was unbearable. But the sight of him was too poignant; she could not accuse or blame him. Wrestling down her grief, she said in a voice that still sounded like bereavement, “You know, that beard doesn't look so bad on you. I'm starting to like it” Pleading with him.
His eyes were closed as if in fear of the moment when the blade would slice into his skin, mishandled by his numb fingers. Yet with every stroke of the knife his hands grew calmer.
“I did this the last time I was here. An ur vile knocked me off a ledge. Away from everyone else. I was alone. So scared I couldn't even scream. But shaving helped. If you'd seen me, you would've thought I was trying to cut my throat in simple terror. But it helps.” Somehow, he avoided nicking himself. The blade he used was so sharp that it left his skin clean. “It takes the place of courage.”
Then he was done. Putting the knife back under his belt, he looked at Linden as if he knew exactly what she had been trying to say to him. “I don't like it.” His purpose was in his voice, as hard and certain as his ring. “But it's better to choose your own risks. Instead of just trying to survive the ones you can't get out of.”
Linden hugged her heart and made no attempt to answer him. His face was raw-but it was still free of bruises. She could still hope.
Gradually, he recovered a little strength. He needed far more rest than he allowed himself; but he was noticeably more stable as he climbed erect and announced his readiness.
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.