Covenant gazed about with undisguised wonder; but when he started to ask a question, Hamako gestured him silent, and led him into the garden.
Slowly, they walked among the flowers and trees. The murmurous chanting of the Waynhim filled the air; but none of the creatures spoke to each other or to Hamako; they were rapt in the concentration of their work. And in their concentration, Covenant caught a glimpse of the prodigious difficulty of the task they had set for themselves. To keep such a garden healthy underground must have required miracles of devotion and lore.
But Hamako had more to show. He guided Covenant and Vain to the far end of the cavern, into a new series of corridors. These angled steadily upward; and as he ascended, Covenant became aware of a growing annual smell. He had already guessed what he was about to see when Hamako entered another large cave, not as high as the garden, but equally broad.
It was a zoo. The Waynhim here were feeding hundreds of different animals. In small pens cunningly devised to resemble their natural dens and habitats lived pairs of badgers, foxes, hounds, marmosets, moles, raccoons, otters, rabbits, lynx, muskrats. And many of them had young.
The zoo was less successful than the garden. Animals without space to roam could not be healthy. But that problem paled beside the amazing fact that these creatures were alive at all. The Sunbane was fatal to animal life. The Waynhim preserved these species from complete extinction.
Once again, Hamako silenced Covenant's questions. They left the cave, and continued to work upward. They met no Waynhim in these tunnels. Soon their ascent became so pronounced that Covenant wondered just how deep in the Earth he had slept for three days. He felt a pang over the insensitivity of his senses; he missed the ability to gauge the rock weight above him, assess the nature of the vitrim, probe the spirits of his companions. That regret made him ache for Linden. She might have known whether or not he could trust Vain.
Then the passageway became a spiral stair which rose to a small round chamber. No egress was visible; but Hamako placed his hands against a section of the wall, barked several Waynhim words, and thrust outward. The stone divided along an unseen crack and opened.
Leaving the chamber, Covenant found himself under the stars. Along the eastern horizon, the heavens had begun to pale. Dawn was approaching. At the sight, he felt an unexpected reluctance to leave the safety and wonder of the Waynhim demesne. Grimly, he tightened his resolve. He did not look back when Hamako sealed the entrance behind him.
Vague in the darkness, Hamako led him through an impression of large, crouching shapes to a relatively open area. There he sat down, facing the east. As he joined Hamako, Covenant discovered that they were on a flat expanse of rock-protection against the first touch of the Sunbane.
Vain stood off to one side as if he neither knew nor cared about the need for such protection.
“Now I will speak,” Hamako said. His words went softly into the night. “Have no fear of the Sunbane-warped who sought your life. Never again will they enter this place. That much at least of mind and fear they retain.” His tone suggested that he held the area sacred to some private and inextinguishable sorrow.
Covenant settled himself to listen; and after a deep pause Hamako began.
“A vast gulf,” he breathed, a darker shape amid the dark crouching of the night, "lies between creatures that are born and those that are made. Born creatures, such as we are, do not suffer torment at the simple fact of physical form. Perhaps you desire keener sight, greater might of arm, but the embodiment of eyes and limbs is not anguish to you. You are born by Law to be as you are. Only a madman loathes the nature of his birth.
"It is far otherwise with the Waynhim. They were made-as the ur-viles were made-by deliberate act in the breeding dens of the Demondim. And the Demondim were themselves formed by lore rather than blood from the Viles who went before them. Thus the Waynhim are not creatures of law. They are entirely alien in the world. And they are unnaturally long of life. Some among this rhysh remember the Lords and the ancient glory of Revelstone. Some tell the tale of the five rhysh which fought before the gates of Revelstone in the great siege-and of the blue Lord who rode to their aid in folly and valour. But let that pass.
“The numbers of the Waynhim are only replenished because the ur-viles continue the work of their Demondim makers. Much breeding is yet done in the deeps of the Earth, and some are ur-viles, some Waynhim-and some are altogether new, enfleshed visions of lore and power. Such a one is your companion. A conscious making to accomplish a chosen aim.”
In the east, the sky slowly blanched. The last stars were fading. The shapes around Covenant and Hamako grew more distinct, modulating toward revelation.
"That is the Weird of all Demondim-spawn. Each Waynhim and ur-vile beholds itself and sees that it need not have been what it is. It is the fruit of choices it did not make. From this fact both Waynhim and ur-viles draw their divergent spirits. It has inspired in the ur-viles a quenchless loathing for their own forms and an overweening lust for perfection, for the power to create what they are not. Their passion is extreme, careless of costs. Therefore they have given millennia of service to the Despiser, for Lord Foul repays them with both knowledge and material for their breedings. Thus comes your companion.
"And therefore the Waynhim have been greatly astonished to find no ill in him. He is an-an apotheosis. In him, it appears that the ur-viles have at last transcended their unscrupuling violence and achieved perfection. He is the Weird of the ur-viles incarnate. More of him I may not say.
“But the spirit of the Waynhim is different entirely. They are not reckless of costs; from the great Desecration which Kevin Landwaster and Lord Foul conceived upon the Land, they learned a horror of such passions. They foresaw clearly the price the ur-viles paid, and will ever pay, for self-loathing, and they turned in another way. Sharing the Weird, they chose to meet it differently. To seek self-justification.”
Hamako shifted his position, turned more squarely toward the east.
"In the Waynhim tongue, Weird has several meanings. It is fate or destiny-but it is also choice, and is used to signify council or decision-making. It is a contradiction-fate and choice. A man may be fated to die, but no fate can determine whether he will die in courage or cowardice. The Waynhim choose the manner in which they meet their doom.
“In their loneness, they have chosen to serve the Law of which they do not partake. Each rhysh performs its own devoir. Thus the garden and the animals. In defiance of the Sunbane and all Lord Foul's ill, this rhysh seeks to preserve things which grow by Law from natural seed, in the form which they were born to hold. Should the end of Sunbane ever come, the Land's future will be assured of its natural life.”
Covenant listened with a tightness in his throat. He was moved by both the scantness and the nobility of what the Waynhim were doing. In the myriad square leagues which comprised the vast ruin of the Sunbane, one cavern of healthy plants was a paltry thing. And yet that cavern represented such commitment, such faith in the Land, that it became grandeur. He wanted to express his appreciation, but could find no adequate words. Nothing could ever be adequate except the repeal of the Sunbane, allowing the Waynhim to have the future they served. The fear that their self-consecration might prove futile in the end blurred his vision, made him cover his eyes with his hands.