Would Stum be still alive when we found her? Thissa offered us nothing about that. But few of us thought so, and I for one hoped she was not. By now the power of that hot glowing thing which Min had called the Source must surely have transformed Stum into something that was very little like the good sturdy Carpenter we had known. Better by far that she had perished at their hands, or found some way of doing away with herself. Yet if there was any chance at all that Stum lived, it would be a sin to leave her behind, however altered she might be; and even if she were dead, honor required us to make an attempt at retrieving her body and giving it a proper burial.
So we broke camp and set out toward the cave of the Source along the route that Thissa had shown us.
Despite my fears the Melted Ones offered no opposition. Our bold decision to march on once again into their midst appeared to stun them, as it had before when we were on the other side of the river. They fell back once more like mere phantoms of air as we advanced, glaring at us in suspicion and hatred but retreating steadily with every step we took, Kath and a few of the others wondered out loud if we were marching into a trap. This is too easy, they said. And of course Muurmut let his doubts be heard also. But I ignored them all. Sometimes a time comes when you must simply go onward.
The soil here was dry and hard, gray and lifeless, with a disagreeable powdery crust. There was a distinct upward trend to the land: as I have said, we were nearing the end of the plateau at last, after all these weeks of flatness, and the next vertical level of the Wall, which once had been nothing but a rosy glow on the horizon, now was so close that it seemed we could reach forward and touch it. It soared above us in the sky, rising to some immense disheartening height, its lofty upper reaches lost in the clouds. But we could not allow ourselves to think about that now.
“There,” Thissa said, pointing. “Over there. We go that way.” And Min, who for all her weariness had insisted on walking at the front of our line of march, nodded and said, “That’s the cave they took us to, right there. I’m certain of it.”
I saw a dark round opening in the side of the Wall, a little less than twice the height of a man above the ground. A narrow pebble-strewn path led upward to it. It was like the sort of hole that you see sometimes in the trunk of a great tree, where a swarm of stinging palibozos will make its nest. Crowds of Melted Ones had followed us here; they spread out now to both sides and watched uneasily to see what we would do.
“Six of us go inside,” I said. “Who volunteers?”
Min was the first. “No,” I said. “Not you.”
“I must,” she said, with great force.
Kilarion stepped forward also, holding his cudgel high. Galli followed, and Ghibbilau, and Narril the Butcher, with six or seven others after them. Traiben was among them, but I shook my head at him.
“You mustn’t go in,” I told him. “If anything bad happens to us in there, your cleverness will be needed to guide the others afterward.”
“If anything bad happens in there you may wish you had use of my cleverness then,” he said, and shot me such a poisonous look that I relented. So it was Kilarion and Galli and Traiben and Ghibbilau and Min and Narril and I who entered the cave.
The place was wider and deeper than I had expected, a great roomy cavity with a high irregular ceiling. There was a small semicircular chamber at the opening, and a larger one beyond. An eerie green glow suffused everything, as though a fire fed by some strange wood were burning in back; but we smelled no smoke and saw no sign of flames. The light was rising through an opening in the floor of the rear chamber. It was clear and steady, not flickering as bonfire-light would be.
“The Pit,” Min said. “Which leads to the Source.”
Warily we went deeper in. Min would have moved more hastily. I wouldn’t let her, catching her by the hand when she made as though to go plunging forward. A few of the Melted Ones came in with us; but they hung back, staying well out of our way. There was no immediate sign of Stum. I posted Narril, Galli, and Ghibbilau as guards between the two chambers, and went on inward with Min and Kilarion and Traiben.
“Look there,” Traiben said. “Behold the Nine Great Ones of this miserable race!”
At the back of the cave, where the green light was strongest, the upper part of the cavern wall was furrowed and groined by a group of sharply outlined natural arches that sprouted just above the hole in the floor. Each one formed a kind of craggy perch; and from each a sleeping birdlike creature of great size was hanging head downward deep in dreams, with its huge shaggy wings wrapped close about its body. So far gone in their slumbers were they that our intrusion disturbed them not at all. A dozen or more of the Melted Ones knelt in pious postures below them, gazing up worshipfully at the dangling sleepers.
“The air-demons!” Min whispered. “The blood-drinkers!”
“Yes,” said Traiben. “But the demons are at rest, now.”
How peaceful they seemed, basking in the warmth from below! But I could see the dreadful wide-nostriled faces and the great curving yellow teeth, and what held them so tightly to their stone perches were the hooked talons that had gripped the victims whose throats they meant to rip. So this was how they spent their days, hanging in placid sleep above the Source that sustained them, before emerging at dusk to feed upon the blood of their faithful followers.
“Stum?” Min called. “Stum, where are you?”
No answer came. Min took a step forward, and another, until she was almost at the rim of the Pit. Holding one hand over the maimed side of her face as though to protect it from the force from below that had changed it, she looked over the edge of the abyss.
Then she uttered a sudden sharp cry and a moan; and I thought she was going to cast herself in. Quickly I seized her by the wrist and pulled her back. Kilarion took her from me and gathered her against his broad chest and held her fast. I went to the edge and peered down.
I saw a long sloping narrow-walled passageway, descending farther than I could measure. There was something that might have been a stone altar down at the bottom of it, with something dark and squat, like an idol, seated upon it. Pulsating waves of brilliant light radiated from it, crashing against the walls of the shaft and blurring my sight with its tremendous dizzying force. And I knew that the tales of change-fire we had heard during our training were true, that this must be one of the places where it radiates from the bowels of the mountain, that terrible force that we are shielded against in our snug village at the bottom of the Wall, because we live so far from its source. I felt the powerful warmth of that light licking against my cheek; I could feel the shapechanging power within my body instantly awakening and unlimbering itself, and fear ran through my soul. We were at risk here, I knew; and would be, I suspected, all the rest of the way to the Summit.
I saw one other thing before I pulled back from that dread abyss: something lying sprawled at the foot of the altar, something shapeless and puddled and terrible which might once have been alive.
“Poilar, what do you see down there?” Kilarion asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Is it Stum? Is she dead?”
“Yes,” I said. “At the bottom. They must have thrown her in. Come on: let’s get out of this place.”
At that Min let out a piercing wail of such power and fury that the startled Kilarion let go of her. I thought that what she intended to do was to hurl herself into the Pit after Stum, and I braced myself to block her; but no, no, she went around to the other side, snatching Traiben’s cudgel from his hands and running up a little ridge in the cave wall to a place where she would have access to the sleeping Great Ones. With a swift vehement swing she knocked the nearest one from its perch. It dropped with a thump and lay on the stone floor, feebly fluttering. Swinging again, Min smashed it a crushing blow across the middle of its back and kicked its broken body behind her toward the abyss. Kilarion, with a cry of glee, picked it up by one scaly taloned leg and flung it over the side.