They had not been burdened by flesh. Their makings, the Demondim, had seldom troubled to inhabit bodies. And with the exception of their loremasters, the ur-viles that had once labored in the loreworks were hands shorter than Covenant; more slight than even Pahni. The Waynhim were smaller still. None of them had needed a sturdy bridge.

But the white shining of Liand’s Sunstone reached farther. In spite of his dismay, he extended light into a vast space that made the figures on the bridge seem tiny by comparison.

Overhead a crude dome formed the ceiling of an immense cavern. From the gutrock depended a number of tapering stalactites massive as towers, knaggy as gnarled wood. They glistened with moisture. Among them, spangles of quartz and other crystals cast giddy reflections, as elusive as wheeling stars. None of the stalactites hung directly over the bridge. Yet they looked so ponderous that the mere wind of their passing if they fell might crack the span.

From their tips, streams of water trickled downward, pulling Covenant’s gaze with them.

Downward.

Downward.

Into an abyss that seemed to have no bottom. If those delicate rivulets struck rock somewhere far below the bridge, their plash was too distant to be audible.

The depths called to Covenant. Dizziness clutched at his stomach; his head. Involuntarily he stumbled. Galt’s hands gripped his arms like iron bands, but he did not feel them. Everyone around him seemed to recede until they were beyond reach; unable to aid him. Coldspray rasped questions that had no meaning. His mind whirled, sucking away its own substance.

His spirit had forgotten vertigo: his flesh had not. It urged him to pitch himself into the chasm; to satisfy this whirlpool of nausea by falling and falling like the water, endlessly, until his body redeemed itself in the depths.

If Galt had given him a chance—

“No,” the Ardent wheezed, straining for air. “I cannot. The Harrow has misled himself.” Fright ached in his voice. “The span is warded. We must not fall!”

Like a mirage of himself, the Insequent fled toward the safer rock of Mount Thunder’s roots, away from the portal.

“Withdraw,” Coldspray commanded through her teeth. “Follow the Ardent. Now. With care. This stone is seamed with age, ancient beyond reckoning. Our weight may surpass its endurance.”

The sound of her voice seemed to spread cracks through the rock, flaws like the fissures that riddled Covenant’s thoughts. He imagined bits of granite breaking off from the edges of the span, following threads of moisture down to their eternal end. The bridge had begun to fail. Or it would fail. Vertigo reduced his friable balance, his human awareness, to rubble.

“No,” countered Clyme. “The Harrow will forsake us, as the Ardent has done. This mad endeavor will accomplish only ruin if we permit the holder of Staff and ring to precede us.”