for many hours, using the ledge-and-rope scheme. Erasing the ledge behind them apparently required some effort on Pick’s part, and so after it seemed they’d put a safe distance between themselves and the Beedles, he gave up on that and just left it there.
So they were going now toward the interior of the Asking, both in the sense of getting farther from the coast and, as gradually became impossible to ignore, in the sense of getting deeper belowground. Their movement seemed mostly on the level, but the mountains were ramping higher and higher above them as they moved away from the coast.
Which raised the question of what, if anything, might be coming up from below to meet them. They knew that the fault had not been equipped with a bottom; that once you descended, or fell, beyond a certain depth you entered into the nothingness of chaos. But where was that depth? Was chaos like water, which had everywhere a constant level?
That topic of water was much on Prim’s mind, and she knew the others had to be thinking of it as well. They had only brought so much of it with them, and none was to be had on the surface of the Asking. So the only way in which this journey could not lead to their all dying of thirst was if Pick was leading them toward some subterranean spring.
Prim began imagining a hidden cavern, deep belowground, whose floor was a lake of delicious fresh water, gathered slowly over thousands of years. She wanted it so badly she could smell it. More than that, she could feel its humidity in her nostrils, which had become so accustomed to dry air. And she could hear the teeming of the water—like waves brushing a shore, or rain falling on a lake—condensation, perhaps, dripping down from the cavern’s roof? And some kind of faint luminescence emanating from the water itself?
“I see light,” Corvus said. “Put out the candle!”
Querc, ahead of them, was carrying it in a lantern. She did not snuff it out but closed the lantern’s shutter to make nearly perfect darkness. They rested in silence for a time. Pick let out a long sigh. He must have needed rest more badly than any of them. Prim had no idea how Lithoplasty worked but it obviously required effort.
As their eyes got used to the darkness, there was no question but that they were seeing something. But it was diffuse and indistinct, and as usual, opinions varied.
“It is the light of day, far above us,” opined Lyne.
“It can’t be day yet,” Mard objected.
“Time is tricky down here.”
“There is no light. It is a trick of the mind,” said Fern.
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Prim, “since a minute ago my mind was tricking me into dreaming of a lake where waters glowed faintly in a dark cavern.”
“That was not just a dream,” said Fern, “there is no question I have smelled fresh water. Not all the time. Whiffs of it here and there.”
Prim was becoming concerned about Corvus. He had never spent so long in his human form. He had spoken many times of how much he disliked being in confined spaces. He did not like being in the dark or unable to see for a distance. He had now been suffering all of those for a long while. In quiet tones that only Prim could hear, he kept insisting that he saw a light ahead of them—either showing them the way or beguiling them into a trap. She was more and more certain that Corvus was not in his right mind. But she kept smelling lake water where quite obviously it was not possible for a lake to exist, so who was she to judge?
All of these considerations became moot when they traversed round a bend and came in view of an expanse of frank open chaos that after those hours in total darkness seemed as big and bright to them as the night sky above the desert, and as loud as a waterfall. But it was more brilliant and more lively than the dim and almost imperceptible stuff that Pick had kept in his adamant drawer. Light shone from this, or rather shone through it, here and there at different times. It would flare in one place and draw their gaze, and it would seem for a moment that they could almost perceive forms in it. Then the light would flee as if it knew it was being looked at.