There was a low vibration, not quite a noise, in the rock of the walls and floor and vaulting. It was like distant thunder, like something huge falling a great way off.
The hair on her head rose up, and without stopping to reason she blew out the candle in the tin lantern. She heard the man move behind her; his quiet voice said, so close that his breath stirred her hair, “Leave the lantern. I can make light if need be. What time is it, outside?”
“Long past midnight when I came here.”
“We must go forward then.”
But he did not move. She realized that she must lead him. Only she knew the way out of the Labyrinth, and he waited to follow her. She set out, stooping because the tunnel here was so low, but keeping a pretty good pace. From unseen cross-passages came a cold breath and a sharp, dank odor, the lifeless smell of the huge hollowness beneath them. When the passage grew a little higher and she could stand upright, she went slower, counting her steps as they approached the pit. Lightfooted, aware of all her movements, he followed a short way behind her. The instant she stopped, he stopped.
“Here’s the pit,” she whispered. “I can’t find the ledge. No, here. Be careful, I think the stones are coming loose… No, no, wait -it’s loose-“ She sidled back to safety as the stones teetered under her feet. The man caught her arm and held her. Her heart pounded. “The ledge isn’t safe, the stones are coming loose.”
“I’ll make a little light, and look at them. Maybe I can mend them with the right word. It’s all right, little one.”
She thought how strange it was that he called her what Manan had always called her. And as he kindled a faint glow on the end of his staff, like the glow on rotting wood or a star behind fog, and stepped out onto the narrow way beside the black abyss, she saw the bulk looming in the farther dark beyond him, and knew it for Manan. But her voice was caught in her throat as in a noose, and she could not cry out.
As Manan reached out to push him off his shaky perch into the pit beside him, Ged looked up, saw him, and with a shout of surprise or rage struck out at him with the staff. At the shout the light blazed up white and intolerable, straight in the eunuch’s face. Manan flung up one of his big hands to shield his eyes, lunged desperately to catch hold of Ged, and missed, and fell.
He made no cry as he fell. No sound came up out of the black pit, no sound of his body hitting the bottom, no sound of his death, none at all. Clinging perilously to the ledge, kneeling frozen at the lip, Ged and Tenar did not move; listened; heard nothing.
The light was gray wisp, barely visible.
“Come!” Ged said, holding out his hand; she took it, and in three bold steps he brought her across. He quenched the light. She went ahead of him again to lead the way. She was quite numb and did not think of anything. Only after some time she thought, Is it right or left?
She stopped.
Halted a few steps behind her, he said softly, “What is it?”
“I am lost. Make the light.”
“Lost?”
“I have… I have lost count of the turnings.”
“I kept count,” he said, coming a little closer. “A left turn after the pit; then a right, and a right again.”
“Then the next will be right again,” she said automatically, but she did not move. “Make the light.”
“The light won’t show us the way, Tenar.”
“Nothing will. It is lost. We are lost.”
The dead silence closed in upon her whisper, ate it.
She felt the movement and warmth of the other, close to her in the cold dark. He sought her hand and took it. “Go on, Tenar. The next turn to the right.”
“Make a light,” she pleaded. “The tunnels twist so…”
“I cannot. I have no strength to spare. Tenar, they are- They know that we left the Treasury. They know that we’re past the pit. They are seeking us, seeking our will, our spirit. To quench it, to devour it. I must keep that alight. All my strength is going into that. I must withstand them; with you. With your help. We must go on.”