Darksiders: The Seed of Knowledge

Chapter Ten

Faith spent most of the morning washing away the sweat and Watcher blood that had formed a thin, irritating crust on her skin overnight.  Fury agreed to keep watch while she stood under the waterfall.  Once clean, Fury helped her deal with that universal, feminine problem, and only when the nausea passed did Faith dry off, dress and fasten her armor.  The men returned just as she finished a light breakfast of berries and roasted squirrel.

With them was a Watcher, not one from the night before, but another sent to give the information Faith would find to the Charred Council.  It wasn't too thrilled to obey these orders—what Watcher would want to be anywhere near Faith after she'd so easily killed one of them?  But with the Horsemen failing to give frequent reports of their current missions, someone had to play messenger and spy.

After dousing the fire, Faith sat cross-legged on the ground between the fire pit and the river, then placed her hands on her knees and looked up at the Horsemen.

"I don't know how long this will take," she told them, "but I'll go as fast as I can.  You'll know I've entered when it looks like I've fallen asleep.  Once that happens, I won't be able to hear you, and I probably won't feel anything, either.  If something goes wrong, War knows how to pull me out."

War said nothing, even as his siblings looked at him skeptically.

"This better work, human," the Watcher said, hovering to Faith's right.

The girl gave the creature a blank look.  "If you don't shut up and let me get to work, we won't know if it'll work.  Also," she added, looking calmly at Death, "if Dust squawks and breaks my concentration, can Fenrir bite his head off?"

The bird actually glared at her.

"He can try," Death said, a hand on his weapon.

Nodding, Faith closed her eyes and turned her palms skyward.  She took several deep breaths, using the sound of the waterfall as a focal point while tuning out everything else.  After a few minutes, her head drooped and her shoulders slumped a little, the sign that she had entered the required meditative state.

Everyone remained silent while Faith conducted her search.  They were patient, but the anticipation was almost palpable.  Ten minutes passed, then twenty.  The Watcher started flitting around irritably, as if pacing.  At twenty-five minutes, Faith's nose started bleeding.

War immediately knelt in front of her and placed his hand under her chin, tilting her head upwards so he could better see what was wrong.  It looked like a regular nosebleed, but the movement behind her eyelids suggested otherwise.  And though Faith's expression was calm, the Horseman knew, somehow, that she was in danger.

Teeth grinding as he grimaced, he pulled his hand away and let her head droop again, then coiled that hand into a fist and struck the sensitive spot on her abdomen.  He had to pull his punch, of course, but what he considered a gentle tap was more than sufficient to wake her.  A moment later, her hands flew to her head as she curled up and cried out in agony.

Her shriek only lasted a few moments.  Then she was lying on her back and merely complaining about her headache.

"Holy crap, that hurts!"

"Considering the blood," said Strife, "that shouldn't be so surprising."

Faith groaned in reply and wiped the blood from her nose, then pressed the heels of her armored hands to her forehead and grimaced.

"Did you find anything helpful?" Death asked her.

"Barely," she said.  "Most of the information was blocked, and I didn't want to risk going too deep to find a way through the barricades.  Someone or something really doesn't want Beelzebub to be found."