He considered for a moment, then added, “Yet we must not tarry. There is evil here. Its malice lacks the distinct malevolence of Corruption, but it is malice nonetheless.”

Linden believed him. She felt only the seduction of the plunge below her; but she trusted his perceptions.

The light continued to weaken as the span rose. The dead air became an ache in her lungs. With every step, she moved deeper into memories of winter; of killing cold fraught with manipulation and treachery, and full of Jeremiah’s enslavement.

As her percipience waned, she lost her ability to locate the Harrow. His dun raiment had become indistinguishable from the dark portal. If he had found his way inward and gone ahead without her, she would not have known the difference. But Stave would have told her—And the Insequent had given his oath. The same strictures which had doomed the Mahdoubt ruled him as well.

On both sides of the Hazard, water trickled incessantly down the sides of the stalactites and fell like omens; promises of plummeting.

Then she and Stave passed the crest of the bridge and descended into shadow.

She was effectively blinded. An irrational certainty that she had begun to drift toward the unguarded rim of the span clutched at her. Fingers of ice reached through her clothes to torment her flesh. A whimper that she was barely able to contain clogged her throat.

But Stave took hold of her arm to steady her. “Calm your heart, Chosen,” he said as though he feared neither echoes nor banes. “The Harrow awaits you. It appears that he has ceased his own efforts, whatever they may have been. Now he regards you with suspicion and hope. I deem that he dreads the consequences of error, and that his dread has defeated him. He will accept your aid, for his alternative is humiliation and death.”

Linden trusted his reading of the Harrow. She had no choice. His firm grasp was all that kept her from hastening toward the relative sanctuary of broad granite at the foot of the bridge. She wanted to get off the Hazard. As her steps descended from darkness to darkness, her visceral conviction that the span would crack and collapse increased until it affected her more than bad air or cold or stifled percipience.

Through the drumming of her pulse, she hardly heard Stave announce, “The Chosen comes to proffer her assistance, Insequent. A courteous man would welcome her with light to ease her way.”

“And do you now consider yourself an arbiter of courtesies, Haruchai?” the deep loam of the Harrow’s voice replied. “You who only give battle or show disdain, disregarding the stature of those whom you encounter?

“My knowledge of courtesy exceeds yours, as does my prowess. Thus!”

Directly ahead of Linden, and no more than a dozen paces away, an umber illumination appeared as all of the beads on the Harrow’s doublet began to glow simultaneously.