Lord Foul's Bane

Twenty Two: The Catacombs of Mount Thunder

DROOL'S moon embittered the night like a consummation of gall. Under it, the river thrashed and roared in Treacher's Gorge as if it were being crushed. Spray and slick-wet moss made the stair down from the Look as treacherous as a quagmire.

Covenant bristled with trepidations. At first, when his turn to begin the descent had come, his dread had paralyzed him. But when Bannor had offered to carry him, he had found the pride to make himself move. In addition to the clingor line, Bannor and Korik held his staff like a railing for him. He went tortuously down into the Gorge as if he were striving to lock his feet on the stone of each step.

The stair dropped irregularly from the cliff into the wall of the Gorge. Soon the company was creeping into the loud chasm, led only by the light of Birinair's torch. The crimson froth of the river seemed to leap up at them like a hungry plague as they neared the roadway. Each step was slicker than the one before. Behind him, Covenant heard a gasp as one of the warriors slipped. The low cry carried terror like the quarrel of a crossbow. But the Bloodguard anchoring the line were secure; the warrior quickly regained his footing.

The descent dragged on. Covenant's ankles began to ache with the increasing uncertainty of his feet. He tried to think his soles into the rock, make them part of the stone through sheer concentration. And he gripped his staff until his palms were so slick with sweat that the wood seemed to be pulling away from him. His knees started to quiver.

But Bannor and Korik upheld him. The distance to the roadway shrank. After several long, bad moments, the threat of panic receded.

Then he reached the comparative safety of the ledge. He stood in the midst of the company between the Gorge wall and the channel of the river. Above them, the slash of sky had begun to turn grey, but that lightening only emphasized the darkness of the Gorge. Birinair's lone torch flickered as if it were lost in a wilderland.

The Questers had to yell to make themselves understood over the tumult of the current. Briskly, Quaan gave marching orders to his Eoman. The warriors checked over their weapons. With a few gestures and a slight nod or two, Tuvor made his last arrangements with the Bloodguard. Covenant gripped his staff, and assured himself of his Stonedownor knife-Atiaran's knife. He had a vague impression that he had forgotten something. But before he could try to think what it was, he was distracted by shouts.

Old Birinair was yelling at High Lord Prothall. For once, the Hearthrall seemed careless of his gruff dignity. Against the roar of the river, he thrust his seamed and quivering face at Prothall, and barked, “You cannot! The risk!”

Prothall shook his head negatively.

“You cannot lead! Allow me!”

Again, Prothall silently refused.

“Of course!” shouted Birinair, struggling to make his determination carry over the howl of water. “You must not! I can! I know the ways! Of course. Are you alone old enough to study? I know the old maps. No fool, you know-if I look old, and”- he faltered momentarily- “and useless. You must allow me!”

Prothall strove to shout without sounding angry. “Time is short! We must not delay. Birinair, old friend, I cannot put the first risk of this Quest onto another. It is my place.”

“Fool!” spat Birinair, daring any insolence to gain his point. “How will you see?”

“See?”

“Of course!” The Hearthrall quivered with sarcasm.

“You will go before! Risk all! Light the way with Lords-fire! Fool! Drool will see you before you reach Warrenbridge!”

Prothall at last understood. “Ah, that is true.” He sagged as if the realization hurt him. “Your light is quieter than mine. Drool will surely sense our coming if I make use of my staff.” Abruptly, he turned to one side, angry now. “Tuvor!” he commanded. “Hearthrall Birinair leads! He will light our way in my place. Ward him well, Tuvor! Do not let this old friend suffer my perils.”

Birinair drew himself up; rediscovering dignity in his responsibility. He extinguished the rod he carried, and gave it to a warrior to pack away with the rest of his brands. Then he stroked the end of his staff, and a flame sprang up there. With a brusque beckon, he raised his fire and started stiffly down the roadway toward the maw of Mount Thunder.

At once, Terrel and Korik passed the Hirebrand and took scouting positions twenty feet ahead of him. Two other Bloodguard placed themselves just behind him; and after them went Prothall and Mhoram together, then two more Bloodguard followed singly by Manethrall Lithe, Covenant, and Bannor. Next marched Quaan with his Eoman in files of three, leaving the last two Bloodguard to bring up the rear. In that formation, the company moved toward the entrance to the catacombs.

Covenant looked upward briefly to try to catch a last glimpse of Foamfollower in the Look. But he did not see the Giant; the Gorge was too full of darkness. And the roadway demanded his attention. He went into the rock under Foamfollower without any wave or sign of farewell.

Thus the company strode away from daylight-from sun and sky and open air and grass and possibility of retreat-and took their Quest into the gullet of Mount Thunder.

Covenant went into that demesne of night as if into a nightmare. He was.not braced for the entrance to the catacombs. He had approached it without fear; the relief of having survived the descent from the Look had rendered him temporarily immune to panic. He had not said farewell to Foamfollower; he had forgotten something; but these pangs were diffused by a sense of anticipation, a sense that his bargain would bring him out of the dream with his ability to endure intact.

But the sky above-an openness of which he had hardly been aware-was cut off as if by an axe, and replaced by the huge stone weight of the mountain, so heavy that its aura alone was crushing. In his ears, its mass seemed to rumble like silent thunder. The river's roaring mounted in the gullet of the cave, adumbrated itself as if the constricted pain of the current were again constricted into keener and louder pain. The spray was as thick as rain; ahead of the company, Birinair's flame burned dim and penumbral, nearly quenched by the wet air. And the surface of the roadway was hazardous, littered with holes and rocks and loose shale. Covenant strained his attention as if he were listening for a note of sense in the gibberish of his experience, and under this alertness he wore his hope of escape like a buckler.

In more ways than one, he felt that it was his only protection. The company seemed pathetically weak, defenceless against the dark-dwelling Cavewights and ur-viles. Stumbling through night broken only at the solitary point of Birinair's fire, he predicted that the company would be observed soon. Then a report would go to Drool, and the inner forces of the Wightwarrens would pour forth, and the army would be recalled-what chance had Foamfollower against so many thousands of Cavewights? — and the company would be crushed like a handful of presumptuous ants. And in that moment of resolution or death would come his own rescue or defeat. He could not envision any other outcome.

With these thoughts, he walked as if he were listening for the downward rush of an avalanche.

After some distance, he realized that the sound of the river was changing. The roadway went inward almost horizontally, but the river was falling into the depths of the rock. The current was becoming a cataract, an abysmal plummet like a plunge into death. The sound of it receded slowly as the river crashed farther and farther away from the lip of the chasm.

Now there was less spray in the air to dim Birinair's flame. With less dampness to blur it, the stone wall showed more of its essential granite. Between the wall and the chasm, Covenant clung to the reassurance of the roadway. When he put a foot down hard, he could feel the solidity of the ledge jolt from his heel to the base of his spine.

Around him, the cave had become like a tunnel except for the chasm on the left. He fought his apprehension by concentrating on his feet and the Hirebrand's flame. The river fell helplessly, and its roar faded like fingers scraping for a lost purchase. Soon he began to hear the moving noises of the company. He turned to try to see the opening of the Gorge, but either the road had been curving gradually, or the opening had been lost in the distance; he saw nothing behind him but night as unmitigated as the blackness ahead.

But after a time he felt that the looming dark was losing its edge. Some change in the air attenuated the midnight of the catacombs. He stared ahead, trying to clarify the perception. No one spoke; the company hugged its silence as if in fear that the walls were capable of hearing.

Shortly, however, Birinair halted. Covenant, Lithe, and the Lords quickly joined the old Hirebrand. With him stood Terrel.

“Warrenbridge lies ahead,” said the Bloodguard. “Korik watches. There are sentries.” He spoke softly, but after the long silence his voice sounded careless of hazards.

“Ah, I feared that,” whispered Prothall. “Can we approach?”

“Rocklight makes dark shadows. The sentries stand atop the span. We can approach within bowshot.”

Mhoram called quietly for Quaan while Prothall asked, “How many sentries?”

Terrel replied, “Two.”

“Only two?”

The Bloodguard shrugged fractionally. “They suffice. Between them lies the only entrance to the Wightwarrens.”

But Prothall breathed again, “Only two?” He seemed to be groping to recognize a danger he could not see.

While the High Lord considered, Mhoram spoke rapidly to Quaan. At once, the Warhaft turned to his Eoman, and shortly two warriors stood by Terrel, unslinging their bows. They were tall, slim Woodhelvennin, and in the pale light their limbs hardly looked brawny enough to bend their stiff bows.

For a moment longer, Prothall hesitated, pulling at his beard as if he were trying to tug a vague impression into consciousness. But then he thrust his anxiety down, gave Terrel a sharp nod. Briskly, the Bloodguard led the two warriors away toward the attenuated night ahead.

Prothall whispered intently to the company, “Have a care. Take no risk without my order. My heart tells me there is peril here-some strange danger which Kevin's Lore names-but now I cannot recall it. Ah, memory! That knowledge is so dim and separate from what we have known since the Desecration. Think, all of you. Take great care.”

Walking slowly, he went forward beside Birinair, and the company followed.

Now the light became steadily clearer-an orange-red, rocky glow like that which Covenant had seen long ago in his brief meeting with Drool in Kiril Threndor. Soon the Questers could see that in a few hundred yards the cave took a sharp turn to the right, and at the same time the ceiling of the tunnel rose as if there were a great vault beyond the bend.

Before they had covered half the distance, Korik joined them to guide them to a safe vantage. On the way, he pointed out the position of Terrel and the two warriors. They had climbed partway up the right wall, and were kneeling on a ledge in the angle of the bend.

Korik led the company close to the river cleft until they reached a sheer stone wall. The chasm appeared to leave them-vanish straight into the rock which turned the road toward the right-but light shone over this rock as well as through the chasm. The rock was not a wall, but rather a huge boulder sitting like a door ajar before the entrance to an immense chamber. Terrel had taken the two warriors to a position from which they could fire their shafts over this boulder.

Korik guided Prothall, Mhoram, and Covenant across the shadow cast by the boulder until they could peer to the left around its edge. Covenant found himself looking into a high, flat-floored cavern. The chasm of the river swung around behind the boulder, and cut at right angles to its previous direction straight through the centre of the vault, then disappeared into the far wall. So the roadway went no farther along the river's course. But there were no other openings in the outer half of the cavern.

At that point, the chasm was at least fifty feet wide. The only way, across it was a massive bridge of native stone which filled the middle of the vault.

Carefully, Mhoram whispered, “Only two. They are enough. Pray for a true aim. There will be no second chance.”

At first, Covenant saw no guards. His eyes were held by two pillars of pulsing, fiery rocklight which stood like sentries on either side of the bridge crest. But he forced himself to study the bridge, and shortly he discerned two black figures on the span, one beside each pillar. They were nearly invisible so close to the rocklight.

“Ur-viles,” the High Lord muttered. “By the Seven! I must remember! Why are they not Cavewights? Why does Drool waste ur-viles on such duty?”

Covenant hardly listened to Prothall's uneasiness. The rocklight demanded his attention; it seemed to hold affinities for him that he could not guess. By some perverse logic of its pulsations, he felt himself made aware of his wedding band. The Droolish, powerful glow made his hand itch around his ring like a reminder that its promise of cherishing had failed. Grimly, he clenched his fist.

Prothall gripped himself, said heavily to Korik, “Make the attempt. We can only fail.”

Without a word, Korik nodded up at Terrel.

Together, two bowstrings thrummed flatly.

The next instant, the ur-viles were gone. Covenant caught a glimpse of them dropping like black pebbles into the chasm.

The High Lord sighed his relief. Mhoram turned away from the vault, threw a salute of congratulation toward the two archers, then hurried back to give explanations and orders to the rest of the company. From the Eoman came low murmured cheers, and the noises of a relaxation of battle tension.

“Do not lower your guard!” Prothall hissed. “The danger is not past. I feel it.”

Covenant stood where he was; staring into the rocklight, clenching his fist. Something that he did not understand was happening.

“Ur-Lord,” Prothall asked softly, “what do you see?”

“Power.” The interruption irritated him. His voice scraped roughly in his throat. “Drool's got enough to make you look silly.” He raised his left fist. “It's daylight outside.” His ring burned blood-red, throbbed to the pulse of the rocklight.

Prothall frowned at the ring, concentrating fiercely. His lips were taut over his teeth as he muttered, “This is not right. I must remember. Rocklight cannot do this.”

Mhoram approached; and said before he saw what was between Covenant and Prothall, “Terrel has rejoined us. We are ready to cross.” Prothall nodded inattentively. Then Mhoram noticed the ring. Covenant heard a sound as if Mhoram were grinding his teeth. The Lord reached out, clasped his hand over Covenant's fist.

A moment later, he turned and signalled to the company. Quaan led his Eoman forward with the Bloodguard. Prothall looked distracted, but he went with Birinair into the vault. Automatically, Covenant followed them toward Warrenbridge.

Tuvor and another Bloodguard went ahead of the High Lord. They neared the bridge, inspecting it to be sure that the span was truly safe before the Lords crossed.

Covenant wandered forward as if in a trance. The spell of the rocklight grew on him. His ring began to feel hot. He had to make an effort of consciousness to wonder why his ring was bloody rather than orange-red like the glowing pillars. But he had no answer. He felt a change coming over him that he could not resist or measure or even analyze. It was as if his ring were confusing his senses, turning them on their pivots to peer into unknown dimensions.

Tuvor and his comrade started up the bridge. Prothall held the company back, despite the inherent danger of remaining in the open light. He stared after Tuvor and yanked at his beard with a hand which trembled agedly.

Covenant felt the spell mastering him. The cavern began to change. In places, the rock walls seemed thinner, as if they were about to become transparent. Quaan and Lithe and the warriors grew transparent as well, approached the evanescence of wraiths. Prothall and Mhoram appeared solider, but Prothall flickered where Mhoram was steady. Only the Bloodguard showed no sign of dissipating, of losing their essence in mist-the Bloodguard and the ring. Covenant's own flesh now looked so vague that he feared his ring would fall through it to the stone. At his shoulder, Bannor stood-hard, implacable and dangerous, as if the Bloodguard's mere touch might scatter his beclouded being to the winds.

He was drifting into transience. He tried to clench himself; his fingers came back empty.

Tuvor neared the crest of the span. The bridge seemed about to crumble under him-he appeared so much solider than the stone.

Then Covenant saw it-a loop of shimmering air banded around the centre of the bridge, standing fiat across the roadway and around under the span and back. He did not know what it was, understood nothing about it, except that it was powerful.

Tuvor was about to step into it.

With an effort like a convulsion, Covenant started to fight, resist the spell. Some intuition told him that Tuvor would be killed. Even a leper! he adjured himself. This was not his bargain; he had not promised to stand silent and watch men die. Hellfire! Then, with recovered rage, he cried again, Hellfire!

“Stop!” he gasped. “Can't you see?”

At once, Prothall shouted, “Tuvor! Do not move!” Wheeling on Covenant, he demanded, “What is it? What do you see?”

The violence of his rage brought back some of the solidity to his vision. But Prothall still appeared dangerously evanescent. Covenant jerked up his ring, spat, “Get them down. Are you blind? It's not the rocklight. Something else up there.”

Mhoram recalled Tuvor and his companion. But for a moment Prothall only stared in blank fear at Covenant. Then, abruptly, he struck his staff on the stone and ejaculated, “Ur-viles! And rocklight just there as anchors! Ah, I am blind, blind! They tend the power!”

Incredulously, Mhoram whispered, “A Word of Warning?”

“Yes!”

“Is it possible? Has Drool entirely mastered the Staff? Can he speak such might?”

Prothall was already on his way toward the bridge. Over his shoulder, he replied, “He has Lord Foul to teach him. We have no such help.” A moment later, he strode up the span with Tuvor close behind him.

The spell reached for Covenant again. But he knew it better now, and held it at bay with curses. He could still see the shimmering loop of the Word as Prothall neared it.

The High Lord approached slowly, and at last halted a step before the Word. Gripping his staff in his left hand, he held his right arm up with the palm forward like a gesture of recognition. With a rattling cough, he began to sing. Constantly repeating the same motif, he sang cryptically in a language Covenant did not understand-a language so old that it sounded grizzled and hoary. Prothall sang it softly, intimately, as if he were entering into private communion with the Word of Warning.

Gradually, vaguely, like imminent mist, the Word became visible to the company. In the air opposite Prothall's palm, an indistinct shred of red appeared, coalesced, like a fragment of an unseen tapestry. The pale, hanging red expanded until a large, rough circle was centred opposite his palm. With extreme caution-singing all the while-he raised his hand to measure the height of the Word, moved sideways to judge its configuration. Thus in tatters the company saw the barrier which opposed them. And as Covenant brought more of himself to the pitch of his stiff rage, his own perception of the Word paled until he saw only as much of it as the others did.

At last, Prothall lowered his hand and ceased his song. The shreds vanished. He came tightly down the bridge as if he were only holding himself erect by the simple strength of his resolution. But his gaze was full of comprehension and the measure of risks.

“A Word of Warning,” he reported sternly, “set here by the power of the Staff of Law to inform Drool if his defences were breached-and to break Warrenbridge at the first touch.” His tone carried a glimpse of a plunge into the chasm. “It is a work of great power. No Lord since the Desecration has been capable of such a feat. And even if we had the might to undo it, we would gain nothing, for Drool would be warned. Still, there is one sign in our favour. Such a Word cannot be maintained without constant attention. It must be tended, else it decays-though not speedily enough for our purpose. That Drool set ur-viles here as sentries perhaps shows that his mind is elsewhere.”

Wonderful! Covenant growled corrosively. Terrific! His hands itched with an intense urge to throttle someone.

Prothall continued: “If Drool's eyes are turned away, it may be that we can bend the Word without breaking.” He took a deep breath, then asserted, “I believe it can be done. This Word is not as pure and dangerous as might be.” He turned to Covenant. “But I fear for you, ur-Lord.”

“For me?” Covenant reacted as if the High Lord had accused him of something. “Why?”

“I fear that the mere closeness of your ring to the Word may undo it. So you must come last. And even then we may be caught within the catacombs, with no bridge to bear us out again.”

Last? He had a sudden vision of being forsaken or trapped here, blocked by that deep cleft from the escape he needed. He wanted to protest, Let me go first. If I can make it, anybody can. But he saw the folly of that argument. Forbear, he urged himself. Keep the bargain. His fear made him sound bitter as he grated, “Get on with it. They're bound to send some new guards one of these days.”

Prothall nodded. With a last measuring look at Covenant, he turned away. He and Mhoram went up onto the bridge to engage the Word.

Tuvor and Terrel followed carrying coils of clingor which they attached to the Lords' waists and anchored at the foot of the bridge. Thus secured against the collapse of the span, Prothall and Mhoram ascended cautiously until they were only an arm's length from the invisible Word. There they knelt together and started their song.

When the bottom of the Word became visible in crimson, they placed their staffs parallel to it on the stone before them. Then, with torturous care, they rolled their staffs directly under the iridescent power. For one bated moment, they remained still in an attitude of prayer as if beseeching their wood not to interrupt the current flowing past their faces. A heart-stopping flicker replied in the red shimmer. But the Lords went on singing-and shortly the Word steadied.

Bracing themselves, they started the most difficult part of their task. They began lifting the inner ends of their staffs.

With a quick intake of wonder and admiration, the company saw the lower edge of the Word bend, leaving a low, tented gap below it.

When the peak of the gap was more than a foot high, the Lords froze. Instantly, Bannor and two other Bloodguard dashed up the bridge, unrolling a rope as they ran. One by one, they crawled through the gap and took their end of the lifeline to safe ground beyond the span.

As soon as Bannor had attached his end of the rope, Mhoram took hold of Prothall's staff. The High Lord wormed through the gap, then held the staffs for Mhoram. By the time Mhoram had regained his position beside Prothall, old Birinair was there and ready to pass. Behind him in rapid single file went the Eoman, followed by Quaan and Lithe.

In turn, Tuvor and Terrel slipped under the Word and anchored their ropes to the two Lords beyond the chasm. Then, moving at a run, the last Bloodguard slapped the central lifeline around Covenant and made their way through the gap.

He was left alone.

In a cold sweat of anger and fear, he started up the bridge. He felt the two pillars of rocklight as if they were scrutinizing him. He went up the span fiercely, cursing Foul, and cursing himself for his fear. He did not give a glance to the chasm. Staring at the gap, he ground his rage into focus, and approached the shimmering tapestry of power. As he drew nearer, his ring ached on his hand. The bridge seemed to grow thinner as if it were dissolving under him. The Word became starker, dominating his vision more and more.

But he kept his hold on his rage. Even a leper! He reached the gap, knelt before it, looked momentarily through the shimmer at the Lords. Their faces ran with sweat, and their voices trembled in their song. He clenched his hands around the staff of Baradakas, and crawled into the gap.

As he passed under the Word, he heard an instant high keening like a whine of resistance. For that instant, a cold red flame burst from his ring.

Then he was through, and the bridge and the Word were still intact.

He stumbled down the span, flinging off the clingor lifeline. When he was safe, he turned long enough to see Prothall and Mhoram remove their staffs from under the Word. Then he stalked out of the vault of Warrenbridge into the dark tunnel of the roadway. He felt Bannor's presence at his shoulder almost at once, but he did not stop until the darkness against which he thrust himself was thick enough to seem impenetrable.

In frustration and congested fear, he groaned, “I want to be alone. Why don't you leave me alone?”

With the repressed lilt of his Haruchai inflection, Bannor responded, “You are ur-Lord Covenant. We are the Bloodguard. Your life is in our care.”

Covenant glared into the ineluctable dark around him, and thought about the unnatural solidity of the Bloodguard. What binding principle made their flesh seem less mortal than the gutrock of Mount Thunder? A glance at his ring showed him that its incarnadine gleam had almost entirely faded. He found that he was jealous of Bannor's dispassion; his own pervasive irrectitude offended him. On the impulse of a ferocious intuition, he returned, “That isn't enough.”

He could envision Bannor's slight, eloquent shrug without seeing it. In darkness he waited defiantly until the company caught up with him.

But when he was again marching in his place in the Quest-when Birinair's wan flame had passed by him, treading as if transfixed by leadership the invisible directions of the roadway-the night of the catacombs crowded toward him like myriad leering spectators, impatient for bloodshed, and he suffered a reaction against the strain. His shoulders began to tremble, as if he had been hanging by his arms too long, and cold petrifaction settled over his thoughts.

The Word of Warning revealed that Lord Foul was expecting them, knew they would not fall victim to Drool's army. Drool could not have formed the Word, much less made it so apposite to white gold. Therefore it served the Despiser's purposes rather than Drool's. Perhaps it was a test of some kind-a measure of the Lords' strength and resourcefulness, an indication of Covenant's vulnerability. But whatever it was, it was Lord Foul's doing. Covenant felt sure that the Despiser knew everything-planned, arranged, made inevitable all that happened to the Quest, every act and decision. Drool was ignorant, mad, manipulated; the Cavewight probably failed to understand half of what he achieved under Lord Foul's hand.

But in his bones Covenant had known such things from the beginning. They did not surprise him; rather, he saw them as symptoms of another, a more essential threat. This central peril-a peril which so froze his mind that only his flesh seemed able to react by trembling-had to do with his white gold ring. He perceived the danger clearly because he was too numb to hide from it. The whole function of the compromise, the bargain, he had made with the Ranyhyn, was to hold the impossibility and the actuality of the Land apart, in equipoise-Back off! Let me be! — to keep them from impacting into each other and blasting his precarious hold on life. But Lord Foul was using his ring to bring crushing together the opposite madnesses which he needed so desperately to escape.

He considered throwing the ring away. But he knew he could not do it. The band was too heavy with remembered lost love and honour and mutual respect to be tossed aside. And an old beggar

If his bargain failed, he would have nothing left with which to defend himself against the darkness-no power or fertility or coherence-nothing but his own capacity for darkness, his violence, his ability to kill. That capacity led-he was too numb to resist the conclusion-as inalterably as leprosy to the destruction of the Land.

There his numbness seemed to become complete. He could not measure his situation more than that. All he could do was trail behind Birinair's flame and tell over his refusals like some despairing acolyte, desperate for faith, trying to invoke his own autonomy.

He concentrated on his footing as if it were tenuous and the rock unsure-as if Birinair might lead him over the edge of an abyss.

Gradually the character of their benighted journey changed. First, the impression of the surrounding tunnel altered. Behind the darkness, the walls seemed to open from time to time into other tunnels, and at one point the night took on an enormous depth, as if the company were passing over the floor of an amphitheatre. In this blind openness, Birinair searched for his way. When the sense of vast empty space vanished, he led his companions into a stone corridor so low that his flame nearly touched the ceiling, so narrow that they had to pass in single file.

Then the old Hearthrall took them through a bewildering series of shifts in direction and terrain and depth. From the low tunnel, they turned sharply and went down a long, steep slope with no discernible walls. As they descended, turning left and right at landmarks only Birinair seemed able to see, the black air became colder and somehow loathsome, as if it carried an echo of ur-viles. The cold came in sudden drafts and pockets, blowing through chasms and tunnels that opened unseen on either side into dens and coverts and passages and great Cavewightish halls, all invisible but for the timbre, the abrupt impression of space, which they gave the darkness.

Lower down the sudden drafts began to stink. The buried air seemed to flow over centuries of accumulated filth, vast hordes of unencrypted dead, long abandoned laboratories where banes were made. At moments, the putrescence became so thick that Covenant could see it in the sir. And out of the adjacent openings came cold, distant sounds the rattle of shale dropping into immeasurable faults; occasional low complaints of stress; soft, crystalline, chinking noises like the tap of iron hammers; muffled sepulchral detonations; and long tired sighs, exhalations of fatigue from the ancient foundations of the mountain. The darkness itself seemed to be muttering as the company passed.

But at the end of the descent they reached a wavering stair cut into a rock wall, with lightless, hungry chasms gaping below them. And after that, they went through winding tunnels, along the bottoms of crevices, over sharp rock ridges like aretes within the mountain, around pits with the moan of water and the reek of decay in their depths, under arches like entryways to grotesque festal halls-turned and climbed and navigated in the darkness as if it were a perilous limbo, trackless and fatal, varying only in the kind and extremity of its dangers. Needing proof of his own reality, Covenant moved with the fingers of his left hand knotted in his robe over his heart.

Three times in broad, fiat spaces which might have been halls or ledges or peak tops surrounded by plunges, the company stopped and ate cold food by the light of Birinair's staff. Each meal helped; the sight of other faces around the flame, the consumption of tangible provender, acted like an affirmation or a pooling of the company's capacity for endurance. Once, Quaan forced himself to attempt a jest, but his voice sounded so hollow in the perpetual midnight that no one had the heart to reply. After each rest, the Questers set out again bravely. And each time, their pooled fortitude evaporated more rapidly, as if the darkness inhaled it with increasing voracity.

Later old Birinair led them out of cold and ventilated ways into close, musty, hot tunnels far from the main Wightwarrens. To reduce the risk of discovery, he chose a path through a section of the caves deader than the rest-silent and abandoned, with little fresh air left. But the atmosphere only raised the pitch of the company's tension. They moved as if they were screaming voicelessly in anticipation of some blind disaster.

They went on and on, until Covenant knew only that they had not marched for days because his ring had not yet started to glow with the rising of the moon. But after a time his white gold began to gleam like a crimson prophecy. Still they went on into what he now knew was night. They could not afford sleep or long rests. The peak of Drool's present power was only one day away.

They were following a tunnel with walls which seemed to stand just beyond the reach of Birinair's tottering fire. Abruptly, Terrel returned from his scouting position, loomed out of the darkness to appear before the old Hirebrand. Swiftly, Prothall and

Mhoram, with Lithe and Covenant behind them, hastened to Birinair's side. Terrel's voice held a note like urgency as he said, “Ur-viles approach-perhaps fifty. They have seen the light.”

Prothall groaned; Mhoram spat a curse. Manethrall Lithe drew a hissing breath, whipped her cord from her hair as if she were about to encounter the stuff of which Ramen nightmares were made.

But before anyone could take action, old Birinair seemed to snap like a dry twig. Shouting, “Follow!” he spun to his right and raced away into the darkness.

At once, two Bloodguard sprinted after him. For an instant, the Lords hesitated. Then Prothall cried, “Melenkurion!” and dashed after Birinair. Mhoram began shouting orders; the company sprang into battle readiness.

Covenant fled after Birinair's bobbing fire. The Hirebrand's shout had not sounded like panic. That cry- Follow! — urged Covenant along. Behind him, he heard the first commands and clatters of combat. He kept his eyes on Birinair's light, followed him into a low, nearly airless tunnel.

Birinair raced down the tunnel, still a stride or two ahead of the Bloodguard.

Suddenly, there came a hot noise like a burst of lightning; without warning a sheet of blue flame enveloped the Hirebrand. Dazzling, coruscating, it walled the tunnel from top to bottom. It roared like a furnace. And Birinair hung in it, spread-limbed and transfixed, his frame contorted with agony. Beside him, his staff flared and became ash.

Without hesitation, the two Bloodguard threw themselves at the fire. It knocked them back like blank stone. They leaped together at Birinair, trying to force him through and past the flame sheet. But they had no effect; Birinair hung where he was, a charred victim in a web of blue fire.

The Bloodguard were poised to spring again when the High Lord caught up with them. He had to shout to make himself heard over the crackling of power. “My place!” he cried, almost screaming. “He will die! Aid Mhoram!”

He seemed to have fallen over an edge into distraction. His eyes had a look of chaos. Spreading his arms, he went forward and tried to embrace Birinair.

The fire kicked him savagely away. He fell, and for a long moment lay facedown on the stone.

Behind them, the battle mounted. The ur-viles had formed a wedge, and even with all the help of the Bloodguard and warriors, Mhoram barely held his ground. The first rush of the attack had driven the company back; Mhoram had retreated several yards into the tunnel where Birinair hung. There he made a stand. Despite Prothall's cries and the roar of the fire behind him, he kept his face toward the ur-viles.

Heavily, Prothall raised himself. His head trembled on his tired old neck. But his eyes were no longer wild.

He took a moment to recollect himself, knowing that he was already too late. Then, mustering his strength, he hurled his staff at the blue coruscation.

The shod wood struck with a blinding flash. For one blank instant, Covenant could see nothing. When his vision cleared, he found the staff hanging in the sheet of flame. Birinair lay in the tunnel beyond the fire.

“Birinair!” the High Lord cried. “My friend!” He seemed to believe that he could help the Hirebrand if he reached him in time. Once again, he flung himself at the flame, and was flung back.

The ur-viles pressed their attack ferociously, in hungry silence. Two of Quaan's Eoman were felled as the company backed into the tunnel, and one more died now with an iron spike in his heart. A woman struck in too close to the wedge, and her hand was hacked off. Mhoram fought the loremaster with growing desperation. Around him, the Bloodguard battled skilfully, but they could find few openings in the wedge.

Covenant peered through the blue sheet at Birinair. The Hirebrand's face was unmarked, but it held a wide stare of agony, as if he had remained alive for one instant after his soul had been seared. The remains of his cloak hung about him in charred wisps.

Follow!

That call had not been panic. Birinair had had some idea. His shout echoed and compelled. His cloak hung about him

Follow!

Covenant had forgotten something-something important. Wildly, he started forward.

Mhoram strove to strike harder. His strength played like lightning along his staff as he dealt blow after blow against the loremaster. Weakened by its losses, the wedge began to give ground.

Covenant stopped, inches away from the sheet of power. Prothall's staff was suspended vertically within it like a landmark. The fire seemed to absorb rather than give off heat. Covenant felt himself growing cold and numb. In the dazzling blue force, he saw a chance for immolation, escape.

Abruptly, the ur-vile loremaster gave a barking shout, and broke formation. It ducked past Mhoram and dashed into the tunnel toward the fire, toward the kneeling High Lord. Mhoram's eyes flashed perilously, but he did not turn from the fight. He snapped an order to Quaan, and struck at the ur-viles with still fiercer force.

Quaan leaped from the fight. He raced to unsling his bow, nock an arrow, and shoot before the loremaster reached Prothall.

Vaguely, Covenant heard the High Lord gasp against the dead air, “Ur-Lord! Beware!” But he did not listen. His wedding band burned as if the defiled moon were like the rocklight on Warrenbridge-a Word of Warning.

He reached out his left hand, hesitated momentarily, then grasped the High Lord's staff.

Power surged. Bloody fire burst from his ring against the coruscating blue. The roar of the flame cycled upward beyond hearing. Then came a mighty blast, a silent explosion. The floor of the tunnel jumped as if its keel had struck a reef.

The blue sheet fell in tatters.

Quaan was too late to save Prothall. But the ur-vile did not attack the High Lord. It sprang over him toward Covenant. With all his strength, Quaan bent his bow and fired at the creature's back.

For an instant, Covenant stood still, listing crazily to one side and staring in horror at the abrupt darkness. Dim orange fire burned on his hand and arm, but the brilliant blue was gone. The fire gave no pain, though at first it clung to him as if he were dry wood. It was cold and empty, and it died out in sputtering flickers, as if after all he did not contain enough warmth to feed it.

Then the loremaster, with Quaan's arrow squarely between its shoulders, crashed into him and scattered him across the stone.

A short time later, he looked up with his head full of mist. The only light in the tunnel came from Mhoram's Lords-fire as he drove back the ur-viles. Then that light was gone, too; the ur-viles were routed. Tuvor and the Bloodguard, started after them to prevent them from carrying reports to Drool, but Mhoram called, “Let them go! We are already exposed. No reports of ur-viles matter now.” Voices gasped and groaned in the darkness; soon two or three of the warriors lit torches. The flames cast odd, dim shadows on the walls. The company drew together around Lord Mhoram and moved down to where Prothall knelt.

The High Lord held Birinair's charred form in his arms. But he brushed aside the sympathy and grief of the company. “Go on,” he said weakly. “Discover what he intended. I will be done with my farewells soon.” In explanation, he added, “He led in my place.”

Mhoram laid a commiserating hand on the High Lord's shoulder. But the dangers of their situation did not allow him to remain still. Almost certainly, Drool now knew where they were; the energies they had released would point them out like an accusing finger. “Why?” Mhoram wondered aloud. “Why was such power placed here? This is not Drool's doing.” Carrying one of the torches, he started down the tunnel.

From his collapse on the stone, Covenant replied in a grotesque, stricken voice. But he was answering a different question. “I forgot my clothes-left them behind.”

Mhoram bent over him. Lighting his face with the torch, the Lord asked, “Are you injured? I do not understand. Of what importance are your old clothes?”

The question seemed to require a world of explanation, but Covenant responded easily, glib with numbness and fog. “Of course I'm injured. My whole life is an injury.” He hardly listened to his own speech. “Don't you see? When I wake up, and find myself dressed in my old clothes, not this moss-stained robe at all-why, that will prove that I really have been dreaming. If it wasn't so reassuring, I would be terrified.”

“You have mastered a great power,” Mhoram murmured.

“That was an accident. It happened by itself. I was-I was trying to escape. Burn myself.”

Then the strain overcame him. He lowered his head to the stone and went to sleep.

He did not rest long; the air of the tunnel was too uncomfortable, and there was too much activity in the company. When he opened his eyes, he saw Lithe and several warriors preparing a meal over a low fire. With a trembling song on his lips, and tears spilling from his eyes, Prothall was using his blue fire to sear the injured woman's wrist-stump.

Covenant watched as she bore the pain; only when her wrist was tightly bandaged did she let herself faint. After that he turned away, sick with shared pain. He lurched to his feet, reeled as if he could not find his footing, had to brace himself against the wall. He stood there hunched over his aching stomach until Mhoram returned, accompanied by Quaan, Korik, and two other Bloodguard.

The Warhaft was carrying a small iron chest.

When Mhoram reached the fire, he spoke in quiet wonder. “The power was a defence placed here by High Lord Kevin. Beyond this tunnel lies a chamber. There we found the Second Ward of Kevin's Lore the Second of the Seven.”

High Lord Prothall's face lit up with hope.