harried by unseen wings in Mount Thunder's immeasurable midnight. As her senses hunted the way ahead for peril or guidance, she began to mutter-to herself or to him, he could not tell which.
“They're wrong. They don't know enough. Whatever they brought back from the dead, it wasn't going to be Drool Rockworm. Not just another Cavewight. Something monstrous.
“Blood brings power. They had to kill someone. But what Caer-CaveraI did for Hollian can't be done here. It only worked because they were in Andelain. And Andelain was intact. All that concentrated Earthpower- Concentrated and clean. Whatever those Cavewights resurrected, it was going to be abominable.”
When he understood that she was not talking about the Cavewights and Drool-that she was trying to say something rise entirely-Covenant stumbled. His throbbing arm struck the wall of the passage, and he nearly lost his balance. Pain made his arm dangle as if it were being dragged down by the inconceivable weight of his ring. She was talking about the hope which he had never admitted to himself-the hope that if he died he, too, might be brought back.
“Linden- ” He did not wish to speak, to argue with her. They had so little time left. Fire gnawed up and down his arm. He needed to husband his determination. But she had already gone too far in his name. Swallowing his weakness, he said, “I don't want to be resurrected.”
She did not look at him. Roughly, he went on, “You're going to go back to your own life. Sometime soon. And I won't get to go with you. You know it's too late to save me. Not back there. Where we come from, that kind of thing doesn't happen. Even if I'm resurrected, I won't get to go with you.
“If I can't go with you”- he told her the truth as well as he could- “I'd rather stay with my friends. Mhoram and Foamfollower. Elena and Banner. Honninscrave. And the wait for Sunder and Hollian would not seem long to him.
She refused to hear him. “Maybe not,” she rasped. “Maybe we can still get back in time. I couldn't save you before because your spirit wasn't there-your will to live. If you would Just stop giving up, we might still have a chance.” Her voice was husky with thwarted yearning. “You're bruised and exhausted. I don't know how you stay on your feet. But you haven't been stabbed yet.” Her gaze flashed toward the faint scar in the centre of his chest. “You don't have to die.”
But be saw the grief in her eyes and knew that she did not believe her own protestation.
He drew her to a halt. With his good hand, he wrested his wedding band from its finger. His touch was cold and numb, as if he had no idea what he was doing. Fervent and silent as a prayer, he extended the ring toward her. Its unmarred argent cast glints of the wavering torchlight.
At once, tears welled in her eyes. Streaks of reflected fire flowed down the lines which severity and loss had left on either side of her mouth. But she gave the ring no more than a glance. Her gaze clung to his countenance. “No,” she whispered. “Not while I can still hope.”
Abruptly, she moved on down the passage.
Sighing rue and relief like a man who had been reprieved or damned and did not know the difference-did not care if there were no difference-he thrust the ring back into place and followed her.
The tunnel became as narrow as a mere crack in the rock, then widened into a complex of junctions and chambers. The torch barely lit the walls and ceiling; it revealed nothing of what lay ahead. But from one passage came a breeze like a scent of evil that made Linden wince; and she turned that way Covenant's hearing ached as he struggled to discern the sounds of pursuit or danger. But he lacked her percipience; he had to trust her.
The tunnel she had chosen angled downward until he thought that even vertigo would not be strong enough to keep him upright. Darkness and stone piled tremendously around him. The torch continued to burn down. It was half consumed already. Somewhere beyond the mountain, the Land lay in day or night; but he had lost all conception of time. Time had no meaning here, in the lightless unpity of Lord Foul's demesne. Only the torch mattered-and Linden's pale-knuckled grasp on the brand-and the fact that he was not alone. For good or ill, redemption or ruin, he was not alone. There was no other way.
Without warning, the walls withdrew, and a vast impression of space opened above his head. Linden stopped, searched the dark. When she lifted the torch, he saw that the tunnel had emerged from the stone, leaving them at the foot of a blunt gutrock cliff. Chill air tingled against his cheek. The cliff seemed to go straight up forever. She looked at him as if she were lost. The scant fire made her eyes appear hollow and brutalized.
A short distance from the tunnel's opening rose a steep slope of shale, loam, and refuse-too steep and yielding to be climbed. He and Linden were in the bottom of a wide crevice. Something high up in the dark had collapsed any number of millennia ago, filling half the floor of the chasm with debris.
Memories flocked at him out of the enclosed night: recognitions ran like cold sweat down his spine. All his skin felt clammy and diseased. This looked like the place-The place where he had once fallen, with an ur vile struggling to bite off his ring and no light anywhere, nothing to defend him from the ambush of madness except his stubborn insistence on himself. But that defence was no longer of any use. Kiril Threndor was not far away. Lord Foul was close-
“This way.” Linden gestured toward the left, along the sheer wall. Her voice sounded dull, half stupefied by the effort of holding onto her courage. Her senses told her things that appalled her. Though his own perceptions were fatally truncated, he felt the potential for hysteria creep upward in her. But instead of screaming she became scarcely able to move. How virulent would Lord Foul be to nerves as vulnerable as hers? Covenant was at least protected by his numbness. But she had no protection, might as well have been naked. She had known too much death. She hated it-and ached to share its sovereign power. She believed that she was evil.
In the unsteady torchlight, he seemed to see her already falling into paralysis under the pressure of Lord Foul's emanations.
Yet she still moved. Or perhaps the Despiser's will coerced her. Dully, she walked in the direction she had indicated.
He joined her. All his joints were stiff with pleading. Hang on. You have the right to choose. You don't have to be trapped like this. Nobody can take away your right to choose. But he could not work the words into his locked throat. They were stifled by the accumulation of his own dread.
Dread which ate at the rims of his certainty, eroded the place of stillness and conviction where he stood. Dread that he was wrong—
The air was as damp and dank as compressed sweat. Shivering in the chill atmosphere, he accompanied Linden along the bottom of the chasm and watched the volition leak out of her until she was barely moving.
Then she stopped. Her head slumped forward. The torch hung at her side, nearly burning her hand. He prayed her name, but she did not respond. Her voice trickled like blood between her lips:
“Ravers.”
And the steep slope beside them arose as if she had called it to life.
Two of them: creatures of scree and detritus from the roots of the mountain. They were nearly as tall as Giants, but much broader. They looked strong enough to crush boulders in their massive arms. One of them struck Covenant a stone blow that scattered him to the floor. The other impelled Linden to the wall.
Her torch fell, guttered and went out. But the creatures did not need that light. They emitted a ghastly lumination that made their actions as vivid as atrocities.
One stood over Covenant to prevent him from rising. The other confronted Linden. It reached for her. Her face stretched to scream, but even her screams were paralyzed. She made no effort to defend herself.
With a gentleness worse than any violence, the creature began to unbutton her shirt.
Covenant gagged for breath. Her extremity was more than he could bear. Every inch of him burned for power. Suddenly, he no longer cared whether his attacker would strike him again. He rolled onto his chest, wedged his knees under him, tottered to his feet. His attacker raised a threatening arm. He was battered and frail, barely able to stand. Yet the passion raging from him halted the creature in mid-blow, forced it to retreat a step. It was a Raver, sentient and accessible to fear. It understood what his wild magic would do, if he willed.
His half-hand trembling, he pointed at the creature in front of Linden. It stopped at the last buttons. But it did not turn away.
“I'm warning you.” His voice spattered and scorched like hot acid. “Foul's right about this. If you touch her, I don't care what else I destroy. I'll rip your soul to atoms. You won't live long enough to know whether I break the Arch or not.”
The creature did not move. It seemed to be daring him to unleash his white gold.
“Try me,” he breathed on the verge of eruption. “Just try me.”
