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 fearlessness 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 labour 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 sulphur 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 travelling 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 me rim of a wide, deep pit And from the pit arose the fetor of a charnel. 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 colour of rocklight. And it was full of soft, hot boiling, slow splashes. A sulphurous 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 belabour 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 sulphur.
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.