Against All Things Ending (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 3)

11.
Private Carrion
020
Here it comes.
Stupefied by shock, Linden gaped at Covenant. They are impotent in my presence. Her companions stared at Esmer in dismay. The consternation of the Giants was too great for protests or curses. Mahrtiir ground his teeth helplessly. Tears started in Pahni’s eyes as she clutched Liand’s urgent hand. In the nacre glow of the walls, Bhapa looked pallid and stricken, as if he were about to faint. But the eyes of the Humbled held vindication. From the first, they had opposed the decisions which had brought the company here.
Despite the threat of the krill, the croyel grinned with all its teeth. Entirely possessed, Jeremiah looked as vacant as Covenant’s home on Haven Farm. His slackness seemed to imply bonfires; conflagrations.
She Who Must Not Be Named was rising from the abyss. Linden had sensed that dire evil. Against Her ire, only white gold may hope for efficacy. Nevertheless her attention was fixed on Covenant. She could not look away.
Here it comes—?
In the appalled silence, she asked, “Did you know about this?” Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. “Why didn’t you warn us?”
Covenant shook his head. “I guessed.” Residual excruciation sawed in his tone. His eyes searched the walls as though they were all that remained of his memories; as though he sought salvation in recollections which eluded him. “He promised more treachery. I assumed he was hiding something.”
“If you desire to flee your doom,” said Esmer sternly, “you must cross the Hazard and discover some passage upward. Here you must perish. There is no escape from the Lost Deep.
“Behold!” He indicated the ur-viles with a dismissive flip of his hand. “Even now, they implore you to follow them.”
“The mere-son speaks sooth.” The Ardent trembled, anticipating terror. “I am defeated, blocked from use and name and life. This, too, is added to the sum of my failures. The knowledge and purposes of the Insequent are made naught by the mere-son’s presence. I am an empty vessel awaiting only the fulfillment of death.”
“Linden Giantfriend!” Coldspray demanded. Her fists clenched combatively. “What is your will?”
“Chosen,” Stave urged before Linden could find her voice. “We must make the attempt. If we do not, we grant to Corruption a triumph which he has not yet won.”
With an effort of will that seemed to tear her heart, Linden wrenched her gaze away from Covenant. Instinctively, however, she avoided Stave’s steady stare and Coldspray’s tension. Instead she looked at Mahrtiir as if only his blindness could counsel her.
Attempts must be made, even when there can be no hope. The Manethrall had told her that. And betimes some wonder is wrought to redeem us.
Even the loss of his eyes had not destroyed his spirit.
Against innumerable obstacles, Linden had found her son. Now she needed to save him. Somehow.
She was breaking; drowning in defeats. She felt it. But she also knew that Mahrtiir was right. Long ago, Covenant had taught her the same lesson.
Braced in Frostheart Grueburn’s arms, she drew more light and health-sense from the Staff. Then she forced herself to meet the Ironhand’s gaze.
“Run,” she breathed. “I trust the ur-viles. I trust the Waynhim. They want to lead us. Let’s go.”
Her company had to get past the Hazard before She Who Must Not Be Named rose high enough to strike—and the portal of the Lost Deep was a considerable distance away.
Without hesitation, Rime Coldspray shouted, “Swordmainnir!” and at once, Latebirth wheeled to carry Mahrtiir into the passage taken by the Waynhim. Onyx Stonemage followed immediately with Liand. Goaded by dread, the Ardent went next, supporting himself in a flurry of cloth that filled the corridor because he could not run fast enough. Grueburn crowded close behind the Insequent: Stave trotted at Linden’s side. Carrying Covenant, Cirrus Kindwind hurried after Grueburn, guarded by Clyme and Branl. As Linden was rushed into the tunnel, she felt the other Giants gather with their burdens. At the rear of the company, Galt pushed Jeremiah and the croyel into motion. Coldspray stayed with them to ensure that they did not lag—and that Galt did not lose control of Jeremiah’s possessor.
Among them all dashed the ur-viles, barking encouragement or warnings. Without apparent effort, Esmer kept pace with the Ardent and Grueburn.
Linden wanted her son near her; but she understood why Galt and Coldspray came last. The croyel was not powerless: it was only afraid. If it decided to risk an attack, its place at the rear would limit its ability to hurt the rest of the company.
The Giants ran with giddy speed. The flawless passage was a moonstone blur. Staring forward, Linden concentrated on the Staff and percipience; extended Earthpower like sunlight to enclose all of her companions. They needed health-sense as badly as she did.
The ur-viles flinched at the Staff’s strength. A few raced ahead: others dropped back. Law was inherently inimical to them. But they had demonstrated time and again that they could withstand its effects, at least briefly. Linden counted on that. She was not confident that she or any of her friends would be able to resist the seductions of the palace without fire and Law.
The bane’s advance had become a visceral pounding. Its pulse thudded in Linden’s bones. She half expected to feel the walls of the passage shake. But the roused evil’s force was not physical: not yet. It was a drumbeat in the spirit rather than the substance of the stone. Without percipience, she might not have sensed it at all.
As if from a great distance, she heard Covenant mutter, “Hellfire! This is going to be close. We have to hurry.”
The Giants were already running hard. The harsh strain of Grueburn’s breathing rasped in Linden’s ears. She could not imagine how Stave kept up with her. Galt and the Ironhand were falling behind with Jeremiah and the croyel. Yet Esmer matched the haste of the Swordmainnir easily.
Ahead of Linden, Latebirth and then Stonemage burst through curtains of ensorcelled water into the intricate wonders of the palace. On one of the crystal stairways, the two Giants were joined by the Waynhim, less than a dozen of the grey creatures: all that survived of their kind. As the Ardent and a number of the ur-viles entered the chamber, the Waynhim scampered downward, urging Linden’s companions to follow.
An instant later, Grueburn rushed past the curtains; and Linden felt a jolt along her nerves, as if she had been plunged into the frigid waters of Glimmermere. She was exerting far more Earthpower than Liand had summoned earlier: her fire should have sufficed to shed any confusion. But the magicks which sustained the palace were obdurate and enduring. For a moment, her concentration faltered, and the effects of the Viles’ eerie lore nearly caught her. Rugs as sumptuous as tapestries. Immaculate marble. The fountain and chandeliers—the mosaics—Then she tightened her grip on herself; on the Staff. While Grueburn took the stairs four at a time, Linden strove against achievements that surpassed her comprehension.
Kindwind descended the stairs almost on Grueburn’s heels. Ahead of Linden, Latebirth was halfway to the egress from the palace. Behind Kindwind, Branl, and Clyme, Giants and ur-viles ran downward in a clamor of heavy feet and a scatter of lighter bodies. Lit by braziers of water and flame, Halewhole Bluntfist bore Bhapa between the curtains. They appeared to be the last—
The Ironhand, Jeremiah, and Galt had dropped so far back that Linden could barely descry them.
“Wait,” she panted to Grueburn. “Wait. We’re too far ahead. I can’t protect them.”
If Galt and Coldspray lost their way, the croyel might break free. The krill’s force was not Earthpower: it would not anchor the senses of the Master and the Ironhand. The croyel was strong enough to kill them both if Galt’s threat slipped.
In response, a few ur-viles turned back, yelling as they raced up the stairs.
“Be reassured, Wildwielder.” Esmer visibly loathed the contradiction which required him to translate for the Demondim-spawn. “The ur-viles will ward the Haruchai and your son, and also the Giant. The croyel will not elude the krill.”
“Let them take care of it, Linden,” urged Covenant. “We’ll all be safer when we get past this place. You won’t have to work so hard to keep us from drifting.”
Linden had said that she trusted the ur-viles—Surely those creatures knew how to counter the theurgies of their makers’ makers? Surely they retained enough of that imponderable lore? Biting her lip, she forced herself to leave Jeremiah’s fate in the hands of the Demondim-spawn.
Grueburn and Kindwind ran after the Ardent, Latebirth, and Stonemage as if they were still pursuing Longwrath.
They seemed to cross the rich floor in an undifferentiated swirl of glances and imagery. Lights and jewels wheeled like a catastrophe of stars. The palace had appeared vast when Linden had wandered among its amazements earlier; but the speed of the Swordmainnir made it as transient as a mirage. Half obscured by the Ardent’s apparel, Latebirth and Onyx Stonemage disappeared into the corridor ahead. Bluntfist pounded down the last stairs to the beat of the bane’s hunger. Gradually Linden lost her awareness of Jeremiah altogether. She could not discern the ur-viles that had hastened to preserve him.
A moment later, Grueburn carried her into the next passage. Marble and mosaics disappeared suddenly, completely, as if they had been cut out of existence with a knife.
A storm of incipient hysteria pressed against Linden’s self-command; her concentration on Earthpower. She was leaving her son behind—She did not trust anyone or anything enough to relieve her instinctive alarm.
Ahead of her, the Manethrall sat, watchful and ready, on Latebirth’s arms as the Swordmain followed the Waynhim. Energized by the vitality of the Staff, Liand grew palpably stronger, shedding the aftereffects of his wounds while Stonemage ran. The Ardent deployed his ribbands in a frenzy like the fever of his timorous heart. Covenant seemed to be failing. Bit by bit, the hurt of his burns gnawed at his self-command. Nevertheless he clung grimly to his present.
Like Stave, Clyme and Branl looked impervious to any doom. At Linden’s side, Esmer radiated a chaos of conflicting passions: anger and disdain, anticipation and abhorrence; a chagrin as immedicable as his wounds.
Behind them, Anele’s head jerked anxiously from side to side. His whole body emitted a sharp gibber of fright. But he did nothing to hinder Galesend’s steps.
Pahni’s aura was a vivid ache of concern for Liand. Yet her Ramen discipline held. And Bhapa had regained his determination to face any peril for Linden’s sake, and for Mahrtiir’s. In spite of his naked apprehension, he sat leaning forward on Bluntfist’s forearms as if he were prepared to fling himself bodily into the chasm of the Hazard; the maw of the bane.
For Linden, this tunnel passed like the previous one: a torrent of pearlescence and panic and Earthpower; curses and dread. By the simple lore of long strides and haste, the Giants foreshortened the distance.
Grueburn carried Linden into the next chamber before Linden realized that Latebirth, Stonemage, and the Ardent had reached the immaculate hall which contained the jut of rock like a misshapen throne.
In the center of the floor, jagged stone gaped like fangs at the ceiling. Even now, the maimed seat seemed indefinably abominable, as if here the Viles had sculpted an image or replica of something far more bitter and brutal.
Linden had reached the limit of her endurance: she could not abide her separation from her son; her bone-deep conviction that she was abandoning him. “Stop!” she called to the Giants. “I can’t go on like this. I need to wait for Jeremiah!”
Already Cirrus Kindwind had brought Covenant into the chamber. Galesend, Cabledarm, and Bluntfist were close behind her. But Jeremiah remained beyond the reach of Linden’s senses.
“Lady, we must have haste!” Words frothed on the Ardent’s lips. “If any hope remains to us, it lies beyond the Hazard. Within the Lost Deep, we may be hunted and devoured at leisure. We must pass the abysm!”
Ur-viles and Waynhim shouted like dogs or crows; but Linden did not know how to heed them.
“And if She rises between us?” she retorted. “If we’re on one side of the Hazard, and Jeremiah is on the other? I won’t do it! We have to stay together. Everything we’ve done is wasted if we don’t stay together.”
Before the Ardent could protest, Mahrtiir put in, “I stand with the Ringthane, Giants, as I have done from the first. Also we have cause to consider that there may be no salvation for the Land if we do not redeem her son.”
“If you fear to remain among us, Insequent,” Stave added without inflection, “depart. I stand with the Chosen as well. And I deem that the Swordmainnir will not consent to abandon any member of their company.”
“Aye,” Frostheart Grueburn panted. “We are Giants, are we not? Having joined our fate to that of our companions, we will endure or perish with them. Also,” she added, “children are precious to us. We cannot gainsay Linden Giantfriend in this.”
The other Swordmainnir nodded; but Clyme stated flatly, “We concur with the Ardent. To delay here invites calamity. If the Land can be redeemed, its salvation lies with the Unbeliever, not with Linden Avery’s boy.
“In addition”—his tone sharpened—“we question whether Esmer’s presence is potent to quench wild magic when white gold is held by its rightful wielder. Linden Avery,” he commanded, “release the ring to the ur-Lord. Let us discover whether he is as powerless as this scion of merewives wishes us to believe.”
Oh, God. Clyme’s order stung Linden to the heart. He might be right. The ring—In the wrong hands, it’s still pretty strong. But it doesn’t really come alive until the person it belongs to chooses to use it. Esmer’s influence might not suffice to block the true white gold wielder.
Twisting in Grueburn’s arms, Linden turned to Covenant. Days ago, unaware of Roger’s glamour, she had declined to surrender the ring. In Andelain, struggling, she had sacrificed it to the Harrow. Now she did not hesitate. With one hand, she swept the chain over her head, extended Covenant’s wedding band toward him.
“Here,” she demanded; pleaded. “Take it. It’s too dangerous for me. Even if Esmer weren’t here, I couldn’t save us.”
Not from She Who Must Not Be Named.
Until that moment, Covenant had seemed preoccupied with pain, too hurt to react. Yet he heard her appeal. Meeting her gaze, he gave her a look of anguish, stricken and faltering, as if she had asked him to betray himself—or her. His hair resembled a silver conflagration, as if his thoughts burned with dismay.
Nevertheless he did not refuse. He may have believed that he was responsible for her plight; and he was not a man who shirked. Trembling, he reached out with his charred hands.
He would not be able to grip his ring, but he could cup it in his palms. Branl or Clyme would loop the chain around his neck.
Spitting spume like nausea, Esmer said, “You regard my treacheries too lightly.” So swiftly that Linden hardly saw him move, he swept toward Covenant.
Branl and Clyme snatched at Esmer: Stave tried to catch him. They were too late. Unhindered, Cail’s son tapped the scar in the center of Covenant’s forehead with one finger. Then he let the Humbled and Stave drag him back.
Instantly Covenant’s eyes drifted out of focus. As though he had been caught by a question that no one else could hear, he frowned. His arms dropped.
Esmer had not harmed him physically: Linden could see that. Covenant’s scar glared whitely for a moment, stark as an incision. Then it faded, leaving no sign of any new injury.
Still Esmer had done enough. Swallowing gall, Linden fought her need to vomit.
Covenant’s eyes rolled back, and his head lolled against Kindwind’s armor, as he toppled into the maze of his fissured memories. Oh, he was not hurt: even his mind was not. Nonetheless he was gone. He had lost his grasp on the present. Instead of regarding Esmer or the Haruchai or even Linden, he wandered among the depths of Time.
While the Giants gathered protectively around Linden and Covenant, Esmer announced, “Now is the toll of my crimes complete.” Mourning frayed his tone. “I need only remain among you to satisfy Kastenessen’s malice and the merewives’ loathing. She Who Must Not Be Named cares naught for any deed of mine, but other powers will exult in your ruin.”
A scream rose in Linden’s throat: enough Earthpower to shatter the ceiling; rain down rubble.
Before she could release it, however, Liand shouted her name; and the simple humanity of his cry stopped her. It reminded her that the danger was too great. She could not afford overt despair. Not now: not while the croyel still ruled Jeremiah.
Yet she required some form of release for her dismay, her baulked love. They were too extreme to be contained. Covenant was gone. He was gone again. Reflexively she dropped his chained ring. She did not see Stave catch it before it struck the floor. Between one instant and the next, she transformed her force.
Instead of wasting her strength on screams, she aimed her fire at Covenant’s hands; tuned it to the pitch of healing. With a supreme effort of percipience and will, she set everything else aside in order to finish the necessary—and necessarily partial—restoration which the loremaster had begun.
If only for a moment, the chamber and the throne and her friends and even Esmer seemed to vanish. She forgot Jeremiah and the croyel. Every aspect of herself, every attainable resource, every baffled passion, she concentrated on Covenant.
The ur-vile had made a good start: it had secured the underlying integrity of his bones; preserved shreds of muscle and sinew; kept mutilated scraps of skin alive; sealed his palms. But the worst effects of his burns remained. Necrosis had already corrupted the ends of his fingers and thumbs. Soon that mortification would spread inward, rotting his tissues, poisoning his blood. If it went far enough, it would send sepsis throughout his body. Given time, it would kill him.
Lost in recollections and leprosy, he could neither protest nor grieve as Linden used her Staff to excise the ends of each finger and thumb, one after another, cutting them off at the knuckles. When she was done, he would still have digits. He would still be able to use them. Because his nerves were dead, he would not feel the ache of amputation. If he did not look at himself, he might forget that she had made him more of a halfhand than he had been before.
During moments that stretched for her, although they must have been brief, she labored over Covenant as she had once worked on her son. She cauterized exposed blood vessels, cleaned away potential infections, urged circulation back into his fingers. Separated dead flesh from living. Encouraged the formation of scabs. Gently she filled his veins with flame that mimicked hurtloam.
Everything was irrevocable. He would never regain what he had lost. But she did what she could. For a short time, she became a physician again, and did not count the cost.
But then she heard Liand repeat her name; and the part of her that had not forgotten Jeremiah reasserted itself.
In a burst of barking from the ur-viles and Waynhim, Rime Coldspray and Galt of the Humbled entered the chamber of the throne with Jeremiah and the croyel.
Galt appeared to concentrate exclusively on controlling his prisoner. But the Ironhand scanned the rest of the company; and as she did so, her expression asked them why they had stopped. Then she noticed Covenant, and her shoulders sagged.
“The Timewarden is lost to us again.”
Fiercely Cirrus Kindwind answered, “This is the mere-son’s doing. He avers now that the tale of his treacheries is complete. I hear no falsehood in him. Nonetheless I will credit no promise of his.”
Esmer flinched as if Kindwind had hit him harder than any tangible blow. His eyes were the color of drizzling rains. But he did not protest.
The clamor of the Demondim-spawn mounted, incomprehensible as gibbering. Then it subsided to a low mutter.
Linden studied Jeremiah; searched him for signs that he had suffered during their separation. But he seemed unchanged. The krill kept the croyel’s teeth away from his neck. That small reprieve, at least, he had been granted. The creature no longer drank his blood. Nonetheless its claws still dug into his flesh: its power still possessed him.
As she regarded the croyel, it turned its head to gaze at the malformed throne with malignant rapture. A grin bared its fangs.
Involuntarily, as if the monster’s attitude compelled her, Linden asked, “That thing.” Her voice shook. “That throne. Do any of you recognize it? Do you know what it represents?”
She did not expect a reply from Esmer, although she felt sure that he or the Demondim-spawn could have answered her. But perhaps the Ardent—
The Insequent shook his head with an air of misery, as if he could sense dangers worse than jaws crowding toward him. Flatly Branl said, “The Haruchai have seen or heard nothing to account for it, or for any secret hidden within the Lost Deep.”
Abruptly Jeremiah raised his head. Grinning like the croyel, he said, “It’s a copy of a-Jeroth’s throne in Ridjeck Thome. An exact copy. It might as well be the place where Lord Foul sat while he still thought he could get what he wants with armies and war. The Viles made it after they stopped worshipping themselves and started trying to do something useful with all that power.
“It’s homage.”
The croyel’s grin was as feral as its desire for Jeremiah’s blood.
Instinctively Linden shied away from the sight. It hurt her more than Covenant’s fragmented absence.
Homage? she thought bitterly. No. Jeremiah’s possessor was lying again—or distorting the truth. The Demondim had been used by Lord Foul. The ur-viles had served him for centuries or millennia. But she had met Viles: she did not believe that they had ever bowed down to the Despiser.
Above Glimmermere, Esmer had asserted as much.
“Linden Giantfriend,” insisted the Ironhand. “I fear that the Ardent’s alarm augurs ill for us. We must attempt to cross the Hazard ere She Who Must Not Be Named rises.
“And”—she turned to Galt—“we must not be slowed by the boy. Master, I acknowledge your devoir. I honor it. But it impedes us. If you will permit me, I will hold the krill in your stead, bearing Linden Giantfriend’s son as I do so. Doubtless there is evil in any contact with the croyel, but I am armored against it.” She tapped her cataphract. “And we will no longer lag behind our companions.”
Like Covenant, if in a different fashion, Linden was losing her grip on the present. She had struggled for too long; had depleted herself over and over again—Remembering the Viles, who had once been worthy of admiration, she also remembered her parents, from whom she learned her deepest nightmares. She did not know how to endure the croyel’s rapt avarice.
Briefly Galt appeared to hesitate. Presumably he, Branl, and Clyme were debating the implications of Coldspray’s suggestion. Then the Humbled reached a decision.
Nodding to the Ironhand, Galt shifted to make room for her.
Quickly she stepped behind Galt. Reaching past him, she placed her hand over his where he gripped the krill. Her hand dwarfed his: when she took the dagger’s guards between her thumb and forefinger, he was able to release his grasp without removing the protective cloth. Then he dropped his other hand to Jeremiah’s arm so that the boy—or the croyel—could not twist away before Coldspray secured her clasp.
A moment later, Coldspray stooped to wrap her free arm around Jeremiah. Hugging the croyel against her armor, between her and the boy, and holding the edge of the krill steady at the creature’s throat, she lifted her prisoners from the floor.
The croyel continued grinning as though it had seen a promise of rescue in the jagged throne.
After a glance at Linden, the Ironhand addressed her comrades. “Now, Swordmainnir, we must run indeed. If we do not cross from the Lost Deep before the chasm’s bane assails us, we will not behold sunlight or open skies or hope again. We will not live to witness the outcome of the Earth.”
“Aye,” growled Grueburn past Linden’s head. “No being who survives to hear our tale will say that we did not run.”
Without a word, Stave raised Covenant’s ring, urging Linden to reclaim it. But she shook her head. It belonged to Covenant: in Esmer’s presence, it was useless to her. And it would be safer with Stave.
He would give it to her if or when she could use it.
The Waynhim sprinted ahead with the Ardent sailing close behind them. At once, the Giants followed, but in a new formation. Frostheart Grueburn went first, with Stave at her side and Rime Coldspray at her back. Then came Cirrus Kindwind and Covenant, with the Humbled arrayed around them, and Esmer gliding nearby. Next ran Stormpast Galesend and Onyx Stonemage carrying Anele and Liand. Behind them, at Mahrtiir’s request, were Pahni and Bhapa, Cabledarm and Halewhole Bluntfist. The Manethrall and Latebirth brought up the rear. Clearly he considered the Ramen the most expendable members of the company—and himself the least valuable of the Ramen.
Among them all sped the ur-viles as if they were herding the Giants and the Humbled. But the black creatures kept a little distance between themselves and Linden’s shining Staff.
By degrees, Linden absorbed new urgency from the rushing Giants. Her heart pounded to the subterranean rhythms of She Who Must Not Be Named. Sweat gathered on her palms. Behind her, the krill’s radiance cast dim shadows through the glow of the immaculate stone and her own illumination. Ahead, the Ardent’s fright felt more and more like a wail. But it was not loud enough to muffle the growing ferocity of the bane’s emanations. Linden could not seal her nerves against that massive pulse.
The Swordmainnir ran as though they intended to fling themselves down the throat of a volcano. Linden should have been preparing herself for She Who Must Not Be Named, sharpening her percipience to the exact hue and timbre of the bane. How else could she fight? But she already knew that she was too small to combat such forces. And Esmer had assured her that Against Her ire, only white gold may hope for efficacy.
Instead of bracing herself for battle, she tried to think of some way to sway Cail’s son.
If Esmer departed, the Ardent would be able to convey the company to safety. Or Covenant might rediscover his connection to the present. With wild magic, he might be able to accomplish what Linden could not.
Sensations of immanent malice confirmed that Coldspray was right.—we will not behold sunlight or open skies or hope again. The entire company would die if Linden could not think of an argument persuasive or insidious or hurtful enough to change Esmer’s mind.
021
Harried by barking and desperation, the Giants ran, flashing through tunnels like hallucinations. They reached the cavern of the outlined castle and passed through it as though the elegant faery edifice were trivial. As they raced toward the portal of the Lost Deep, they did not slow their strides.
The Ardent’s febrile haste blocked Linden’s view ahead. Nevertheless she knew that the portal was near. She felt the shape of the stone, the vast spaces and stalactites; the inexorable ascent of the bane. Dark hungers became a roar that swelled as though some innominate hand swung wide a huge door.
Moments now: only moments. The hourglass of the company’s fate was almost empty.
Then an impression of openness flared across Linden’s senses. Riding his raiment, the Ardent followed the Waynhim onto the broad shelf that footed the slender span of the Hazard.
The Waynhim dashed up the bridge. Floating higher to distance himself from the depths, the Insequent pursued them. But Linden panted to Grueburn, “Stop. Stop.”
As Grueburn cleared the entrance to the Lost Deep, she wrenched herself to a halt near the rim of the abyss to await Linden’s instructions and the rest of her comrades.
Far below her, Linden saw the bane rising like an eruption of fire.
At first, its force was so great that she could not discern it clearly. It resembled a shapeless maw of flame so wide that it filled the chasm from wall to wall. But as she forced herself to concentrate, she realized that She Who Must Not Be Named was neither a maw nor shapeless. The monstrous being was not even flame: She resembled fire only because Her power was so extreme. And She had faces—
Oh, God, She had faces. Dozens of them: hundreds. Features articulated the rising puissance in lurid succession, all of them different; all so huge that only three or four of them were formed at a time; all stretched and frantic as if they were howling in torment. And all women. They modulated constantly, harshly, changing from one tortured visage to another without surcease. But they were all distinct, recognizable. If Linden had known them, she would have been able to say their names.
Instinctively she understood that if the bane caught her and her companions, the men would be slaughtered; torn to scraps. But the women would be devoured, every one of them. She and the Swordmainnir and Pahni would become part of that—that—
She Who Must Not Be Named was the source of Kevin’s Dirt. Manipulated and shaped by Kastenessen and Esmer, Her energies cast the pall that hampered percipience. She emitted the sorcery which disguised Law and obstructed Earthpower: to Her, the natural forces of life were mere detritus. Yet She was not drained or diminished. She had the power to uproot mountains. Apparently She lacked only the intention.
So close to that evil, Linden’s efforts barely kept her Staff alight. After the battle of First Woodhelven, she had dreamed of being carrion. The bane made her feel that she was already dead; dead and rotting.
One after another, Giants emerged from the portal, flanked by snarling clusters of ur-viles. The ur-viles beckoned raucously for the company to cross the Hazard; but Coldspray and Kindwind paused beside Grueburn and Linden. The Humbled kept watch over Covenant. As Stonemage followed Galesend onto the ledge, she asked why her comrades had stopped; but no one answered. Like Linden, the other Giants were transfixed by the bane’s virulence.
Glancing downward, Stave remarked impassively, “Mayhap it was for this that the Unbeliever spoke of Diassomer Mininderain. Mayhap he wished that we might comprehend our peril.”
The Ardent must have heard Stave in spite of the distance. From high above the crest of the span, the garish man called, “She is the Auriference as well! One of the Insequent suffers among those who will destroy us! It was to avoid her doom that so many of my people have eschewed the Land.”
Sternly Esmer added, “Kastenessen’s mortal lover also participates in She Who Must Not Be Named. She was Emereau Vrai, daughter of kings, and she dared to draw upon this ancient need for the creation of the merewives. Therefore she was consumed.”
Linden could believe that the bane was Diassomer Mininderain as Covenant had described her, The mate of might—If so, its powers—Hers—were beyond measure. She had gone mad and slumbered, instead of tearing Her way out of the depths to ravage the Earth, because She did not crave simple destruction. She hungered instead for mortal lives that could love and be loved.
And She was too close. Surely She was too close? Linden and her company would never be able to cross the Hazard in time.
She needed to persuade or banish Esmer. Now or never.
Many of the ur-viles had run up onto the span. Those that remained gathered in a wedge to ward themselves from the Staff. They all gestured furiously, cawing or snarling for the company to ascend the bridge.
“Linden!” Liand shouted, pleading with her. “We must run!”
Grimly Linden turned to Esmer. Inspired by the distraught legacy of her parents, she asked the most cutting question that she could imagine.
“Does it bother you that Cail would be ashamed of his son?”
Esmer faced her like crashing surf. His eyes seemed to weep storms. “And does it trouble you, Wildwielder,” he countered, “that you have at hand the means to end my interference, and yet do not avail yourself of it?”
Linden gaped at him, dumbfounded.
Groaning, he explained, “The krill of the High Lord, Wildwielder. It is puissant to sever my life.”
In spite of their peril, the Swordmainnir stared. Linden felt Liand’s distress. The shock of the Ramen slapped at her nerves.
“If you do not crave the deed for yourself,” Esmer continued, “command some Haruchai to perform it. With my death, the effects of my presence will end. The Insequent will recover his efficacy. The Timewarden’s notice will emerge from its confusion. The gift of tongues will return to the Giants. White gold will become capable in your hands.
“Slay me, Wildwielder. Grant an end to my suffering. If you find worth in your life, mine must cease.”
“You’re—” Amid the distress of her companions, Linden floundered. “That’s—” But then she rallied. “Oh, sure. Kill you. With the krill. Perfect. Except that then the croyel gets away.” Freed, the creature might be strong enough to shove her and even the Giants over the precipice. “I’ll lose my son.”
Esmer shrugged. “As you say.” His gaze did not relent. “No deed is without cost or peril. But you must act now. Have I not said that I yearn for an end? And the opportunity fades with every passing moment. My death will not turn She Who Must Not Be Named from Her prey.”
For no apparent reason, he added, “The ur-viles and Waynhim still desire to serve you. They are not without cunning.”
“Linden Giantfriend!” snapped the Ironhand. “I do not seek to sway you. But you must choose quickly! The bane draws near!”
For a moment—no more than a heartbeat—the implications of Esmer’s appeal paralyzed Linden. She could recover Covenant. She could recover wild magic. The Ardent’s given powers would return. Then her heart beat again, echoing the life-pulse of dozens or hundreds of tortured women; and she saw that her choice was no choice at all. All of her options were intolerable.
Murder Esmer in cold blood. Lose Jeremiah again. Or face unanswerable carnage.
The Demondim-spawn still urged her toward the Hazard.
“Go!” she cried at Rime Coldspray. “Covenant first! Then Jeremiah! Get as many of us across as you can! I’ll go last. I’m no match for that thing, but maybe I can distract it.”
Instantly the Ironhand wheeled away; rushed Kindwind and Covenant onto the span. As Kindwind and the Humbled sprinted ahead, Coldspray ordered Stonemage and Galesend to follow one at a time, with Cabledarm, Bluntfist, and then Latebirth behind them.
Barking tumult, the rest of the ur-viles ran as well. In moments, only Stave and Esmer remained with Grueburn and Coldspray; Linden, Jeremiah, and the croyel.
“Coldspray—!” Linden protested.
“No, Giantfriend.” The light of battle shone in the Ironhand’s eyes. Her grin was ferocious. “You have chosen. I also choose. While the mere-son abides with you, I will do what your need requires of me.
“Mayhap,” she added quickly, “your son is safer at your side than elsewhere.”
Linden thought that she understood. If Coldspray struck Esmer while she, Jeremiah, and the croyel were exposed on the span, the creature would have no chance to harm anyone else. And with the Staff, Linden might be able to contain the croyel’s magicks long enough for Coldspray to regain control.
A slim chance.
Better than none.
“Go,” Linden panted, choking on nausea. “Now. I’ll do what I can.”
With a nod, Coldspray ran for the Hazard.
Grueburn and Stave followed immediately. Esmer stayed near Linden.
She had forgotten how narrow the span looked; how fragile—She had forgotten the mass of the stalactites, tremendous and threatening. As Grueburn carried her onto the bridge, the gulf seemed to leap open as if it sprang from her darkest nightmares. And the bane: God, the bane! Excoriated faces gaped upward in insane succession, straining to devour fresh life.
She Who Must Not Be Named did not rise swiftly, but Her approach was as ineluctable as the forces which had riven Melenkurion Skyweir.
With the Staff’s insignificant light in her hands, Linden ascended into an altogether different dimension of feeling and perception: a dimension of undiluted irrefragable terror.
She understood now why her parents had preferred death. Any other end would be better than a fall into this unfathomable abysm; this corrupt distortion of love and lust.
Somewhere the Ardent screamed for haste. From the fan of obsidian—the cavern’s only egress—Giants shouted encouragement. Struggling for courage, Linden tried to tally the members of her company who had reached momentary safety; tried and could not. The yowling of the ur-viles and Waynhim sounded like despair.
At the crest of the Hazard, some signal passed between Coldspray and Grueburn. They were not Haruchai: they could not hear each other’s thoughts. Nevertheless they had trained together for centuries. They moved as if they shared one mind.
Suddenly Coldspray spun. At the same instant, Grueburn jerked to a halt, jumped backward a step.
Keeping her hold on Jeremiah, gripping the krill less than finger’s width from the croyel’s throat, the Ironhand flung a kick at Esmer.
Apparently he also could not read minds, despite his many powers. Coldspray’s kick caught him squarely. And she was a Giant, twice his size, far heavier. In the Verge of Wandering, he had endured Stave’s blows with visible ease; but he could not withstand the Ironhand of the Swordmainnir.
She knocked him off the span, sent him tumbling headlong toward the voracity of Diassomer Mininderain and Emereau Vrai and uncounted numbers of other betrayed women.
In a different reality, one of them could have been Linden’s mother. Or Joan.
Coldspray did not pause, not for the flicker of an instant. Finishing her spin, she sprang into a run. Behind her, Grueburn started forward again, pounding for speed.
Linden heard shrill alarm in the baying of the Demondim-spawn. Involuntarily she watched Esmer’s plummet. She saw jaws stretch to bite him out of the air—
—saw him vanish before the teeth could close.
The Ironhand could not have believed that he would perish. He was descended from Elohim: she must have known that he would evade the bane. She was simply trying to create an absence that might allow Covenant or the Ardent to recover themselves.
But before she and Grueburn or Stave had taken two strides, a hand of theurgy flashed upward to grasp the Hazard. Irrefusable might closed around the slim stone and pulled.
For an instant, less than an instant, no time at all, Linden felt the span quiver and shriek. Then the whole crest of the bridge exploded into splinters.
Substantial reality seemed to disappear as though it had ceased to exist. The recoil of the bane’s power pitched Coldspray, Grueburn, and Stave upward. When they came down, there was nothing under them.
Nothing except a rain of shattered granite—and She Who Must Not Be Named.
Coldspray, Jeremiah, and the croyel, Grueburn and Linden, Stave: together they fell like rubble.
Esmer had already reappeared at the foot of the bridge between Covenant and the Ardent.
Someone wailed. The croyel? Linden herself? The chasm was full of voices. She had looked into the heart of the bane: she knew that she was not going to die. Stave and Jeremiah would be slain instantly. The croyel would be torn apart. Linden’s end would be worse.
In those screaming faces, all of them, she saw her fate, the outcome of her failed choices. The bane’s victims had fallen to evil, not because they sought evil—some had not—but because they had made mistakes. Now their legacy was endless agony for every woman who could love as they had once loved.
They would eat Linden and Coldspray and Grueburn, and relish the taste.
Linden’s soul was already carrion. She Who Must Not Be Named would savor her more than any Giant.
But faster than she plunged, a torrent of vitriol shot past her. Somehow the ur-viles had formed a wedge to concentrate their lore. Their ebon fluid struck downward.
When the acid hit, the bane released a roar that shook the cavern. The seethe of faces flinched. The hand of theurgy burst into ineffective mist.
At the same time, a frenetic skein of ribbands snatched at Linden and Grueburn; wrenched them back. The jolt cracked through Linden like the snap of a whip: she nearly dropped the Staff. More cloth caught Coldspray, Jeremiah, and the croyel: a score of brightly colored strips. Other bands yanked Stave away.
Taut as cables, the Ardent’s raiment reeled his fallen charges upward.
Liquid power plunged into the tortured moil of faces. It erupted like thunder amid the screams.
A few dozen ur-viles could not hope to hurt She Who Must Not Be Named: they must have known that. But they distracted her.
And they were not alone.
A smaller blast of power crashed and volleyed among the stalactites. The Waynhim—! They were too few to equal the harsh strength of the ur-viles. And they had modified their lore to match their Weird; had taken it along different paths than those followed by their black kin. Still they hit hard—and the stalactites were fragile, made brittle by weight and age.
In an earsplitting crack and crash, titanic spires began falling like spikes into the faces of the bane.
Any mistake would have rent the Ardent’s ribbands; crushed Linden and Jeremiah. But the Waynhim knew what they were doing. Their projectiles fell from the far side of the cavern.
The Ardent’s efforts tested the limits of his strength. Linden rose with fatal slowness. Spots of darkness bloomed in her vision like detonations, echoing the yell of stone as stalactites broke. Grueburn hugged her tight: she could not breathe. But she did not notice the corded pressure of the Giant’s arms. She had lost the light of her Staff; lost her health-sense. The bane was imprinted on her nerves. Through blackness and bits of distortion, she recognized nothing except shrieks. The lip of the precipice where the rest of her companions stood or crouched was still too far away. She would never reach it.
Then the Insequent had help. Bluntfist and Cabledarm released Bhapa and Pahni. Braced by their comrades, the two Swordmainnir grabbed at the Ardent’s ribbands and hauled on them as if they were hawsers.
Thrashing in fury, She Who Must Not Be Named surged upward. Bluntfist, Cabledarm, and the Ardent heaved harder.
A moment later, other Giants were able to catch hold of Grueburn and Coldspray. Trusting Mahrtiir to hang on, Latebirth gripped the edges of Grueburn’s cataphract and tugged her past the edge of the chasm. Onyx Stonemage held Liand with one arm while she helped the Ironhand. When the weight of the Giants was taken from him, the Ardent pulled Stave to safety.
In spite of his weakness, Liand summoned radiance from his orcrest. Its pure light pushed against the bane’s savagery. With Earthpower, he supported the Swordmainnir and the Ardent.
The Insequent gasped as though he had borne Giants on his shoulders. A dangerous pallor sickened his face: his legs wobbled under him. Reflections of the bane’s power made the sweat streaming on his cheeks look like cuts.
For a moment, Linden did not realize that she could breathe again. No doubt her ribs would hurt later: she could not feel them now. Black blossoms expanded across her sight. The roaring of She Who Must Not Be Named filled the world.
Esmer stood among the Giants, regarding them with disdain.
From somewhere nearby, Galt announced, “We need no gift of tongues to comprehend that the Demondim-spawn beseech flight. Already the Waynhim run to guide us. We must follow swiftly.”
The Ironhand may have panted, “Aye.” Linden was not sure. Serpents of nausea and dread writhed in her guts. As Grueburn struggled upright, the blots on Linden’s vision grew until they covered everything, and the world was gone.
022
For minutes or hours, Linden lived in a realm of death. She had seen too many agonized faces. They left her at the mercy of carrion-eaters. For her, the bane had become crawling things, venomous and noisome. They gnawed their way out of her flesh, reveling in rot: centipedes and spiders, long worms. She wanted to claw off her skin to be rid of them. But her nightmares had claimed her. She was dead: she was death. Responsible for slaughter—
Then she was roused by the jolting of Grueburn’s strides, the stentorian rasp of the Swordmain’s breathing. In terror, she returned to herself. Sensations of crawling and poison clung to her like muck sweat. Pincers and fangs bit into her under her clothes. She wanted fire; ached to scour herself with flame. But there were no spiders, no centipedes, no vile insects. She only felt them. Grueburn’s stubborn struggle did not redeem what Linden had become.
Past Coldspray’s bulk, and Cirrus Kindwind’s, white flickers of Liand’s Sunstone reached Linden. He and Stonemage were leading the company after the Waynhim. But they no longer ran. The tunnel leading away from the chasm and the Lost Deep had become a narrow split with a floor like strewn wreckage. The Giants still carried all of their human companions except the Haruchai; but they had to move with care. At intervals, protrusions of rock constricted the passage, forcing them to squeeze through sideways.
Linden had no health-sense and no power. Stave still carried Covenant’s ring. She was being eaten alive: everyone she cared about was going to die. Devoured faces and centipedes were promises that would not be broken. And Esmer stayed close to her, ensuring her futility. His many wounds looked as septic as plague-spots.
She expected to sight the Ardent ahead, with Liand. But the Insequent was not there. Only the Humbled escorted Liand and Stonemage, Covenant and Kindwind, Jeremiah and the croyel and Coldspray.
Without percipience, Linden could not gauge Covenant’s condition. She could not cleanse herself of corruption. But she had no reason to think that he had escaped the chaos of his memories: not while Esmer remained nearby.
Grueburn’s broad chest and thick shoulders blocked Linden’s view to the rear. But when the Swordmain turned to push past an obstruction, Linden scanned the figures behind her.
She saw them limned in fire and apprehension, dark shapes lurching ahead of the bane’s rage. Apparently the constraints and twisting of the split did not hinder She Who Must Not Be Named. Despite Her terrible size and Her throng of identities, She seemed able to alter Her form as She wished. She was like spiders, roaches, beetles: there was no crack too small for Her to enter, no cave too immense for Her to fill. No mere physical barrier could restrict Her. The things that fed on carrion were venomous in every crevice and cranny. The width of the passage might compel Her to pick off Linden’s companions one at a time; but it would not hamper the bane’s seething energies.
In silhouette, Linden saw Stormpast Galesend carrying Anele, Cabledarm with Pahni, other Giants—presumably Bluntfist and Latebirth bearing Bhapa and Mahrtiir. As far as she could tell, none of the Swordmainnir had fallen. But her impressions were too indistinct for certainty. The jagged path of the crevice cast too many shadows. The Giants fleeing behind her resembled stilted menhirs, distorted and ungainly.
Of the Ardent—or the ur-viles—she saw no sign.
Then Grueburn turned ahead to move more quickly, picking her path over the refuse of ages, and Linden could not look back.
“The Ardent?” Hysteria scraped her voice raw. Uselessly she slapped at the crawling inside her shirt, her jeans. “Where is he? Have we lost him?”
Esmer would know, if Grueburn and Stave did not.
Without the Ardent’s powers—
Cail’s son did not answer. “The Insequent,” panted Grueburn, “vowed to aid the ur-viles. How he thought to do so, I cannot conceive.” He could not resist She Who Must Not Be Named with ribbands. “Nevertheless he remains behind us.”
“Can you tell what he’s doing?” Linden asked.
“I cannot. The bane fills my senses.”
“He exceeds all expectation,” stated Stave. Orcrest or his inborn wards against Kevin’s Dirt preserved the former Master’s percipience. “His fright is plain. Nonetheless he joins his knowledge to the efforts of the ur-viles. His apparel does not harm the bane. The ur-viles do not. Yet when it extends its force, their lore and his garment turn the theurgy aside. Together they slow the bane’s advance.”
Linden understood fright. She could not have done what the Ardent was doing. She was covered with gnawing and toxins; hungry ruin. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw horror below her; watched hideous strength destroy the Hazard; felt her fall—
She had killed her own mother. She deserved whatever happened to her.
Staring wildly, she tried to focus her attention on the rough walls of the crevice. She wanted to believe that it would hold. That the world would hold. But she could not. Soon a monster that relished anguish and despair would consume the roots of the mountain. She slapped at her chewed skin and achieved nothing.
Beyond the fragments of Liand’s light, the entombed darkness was absolute. Immeasurable leagues of granite and schist were veined with obsidian and quartz and strange ores like the slow blood of Gravin Threndor. Long ago, she had believed that the Wightwarrens ran deep; that the cave of the EarthBlood was deep. But until now she had failed to grasp the true meaning of depth. Breathing should have been impossible. The air here must have been trapped for eons, too stagnant to sustain life. It was no wonder that Grueburn had to fight for breath.
Presumably Liand was refreshing the atmosphere with Earthpower. But he could not do enough. Moment by moment, suffocation crowded around Linden. The stone itself was reified asphyxia. Her lungs labored in her chest as if they were being crushed by panic and granite.
In Revelstone long days ago, Liand had taught her that she could draw Earthpower and Law from her Staff even when Kevin’s Dirt had blinded her completely. At that time, however, Kastenessen’s bitter brume had hung high above her; and she had been perhaps two hundred leagues from its source, protected by enduring barricades of gutrock. Now She Who Must Not Be Named was close—Frayed and terrified, Linden did not believe that she would ever be able to overcome the bane’s dire magicks.
And without the benign fire of her Staff, she could not drive the sensations of insects from her nerves and skin. Before long, she would go mad.
She needed help, but no one could help her: not now. The progress of the Giants was too arduous to permit succor. And her fragmented glimpses of the way ahead suggested that the crevice was about to become impassable. It was beginning to cant to the side, narrowing and twisting as it followed a line of weakness through limestone and brittle shale. Beyond Liand’s Sunstone, the split tilted at an angle that became sharper by sudden increments.
Linden trusted the Waynhim. She tried to trust them. But they appeared to be leading the company along a path which only they could follow. Perhaps she, the Haruchai, and the Ramen might contrive to creep after the smaller creatures when the crack leaned close to the horizontal. But the Swordmainnir would be trapped. And if Coldspray released the croyel—
“Ha!” Liand’s call echoed down the split: a shout of relief. “The Waynhim have not misled us! Here is the way!”
As the crevice tilted farther, Rime Coldspray squatted abruptly, set her back against the lower wall. Clutching Jeremiah and the croyel with one arm, and holding the krill with the other, she used her legs to thrust herself headfirst along the split. The stone looked too rough to permit skidding in that fashion, but her cataphract served as a sled. She was able to keep moving.
Ahead of the Ironhand, Kindwind used one shoulder and her maimed arm to shove herself forward, still clasping Covenant. At a word from Grueburn, Linden turned so that she could grip the Swordmain’s breastplate with both hands, hook her heels around Grueburn’s waist. The Staff she carried pressed between her chest and Grueburn’s as the Giant braced her hands on the lower wall and scuttled along on all fours.
Every point at which Linden’s body touched Grueburn was a torment of maggots.
Behind them, Galesend followed Grueburn’s example. Anele’s eyes glared in brief glints from the orcrest and the krill, but he appeared to understand Galesend’s intent. The constriction of the split did not allow Linden to see past the old man’s protector.
Then Liand’s light was cut off as though he and Stonemage had fallen out of reach. A rush of failure filled Linden’s lungs. Sickening swarms of creatures had burrowed too deeply into her: she feared that she would never breathe again.
Somehow she clung to Frostheart Grueburn.
“Here!” Kindwind shouted. “A clear passage! If the Ardent and the ur-viles endure, they will gain a more defensible path.”
Through bites and squirming that had no tangible form, Linden seemed to catch a memory from Covenant, as if pieces of their past had leaked out of his chaotic recollections. When they had first come to the Land together—when they had been gaoled in Mithil Stonedown—Sunder had touched Covenant’s forehead with the Graveler’s Sunstone at Covenant’s urging. By that action, Sunder had awakened Covenant’s ring, triggering wild magic with orcrest.
Linden might be able to do something similar—if she could get close to Liand. Any hint of health-sense might rebuff her dismay; her accumulating collapse. Then she might be able to choose Earthpower and Law instead of carrion. She could use the flame of her Staff to scour her flesh clean.
If only she could breathe—
“As soon as you can,” she gasped with her last air. “Take me to Liand. I need his orcrest.”
Grueburn nodded. She was panting too hard to speak.
Kindwind and Covenant were gone. With her arms rigid around Jeremiah and the croyel, Rime Coldspray skidded farther. The monster gazed straight at Linden. Its grin showed its fangs.
Then Coldspray stopped. When she heaved herself and her burdens upright, she did not collide with the upper wall of the split. Instead she and they vanished into a break in the stone.
Half a dozen heartbeats later, Grueburn carried Linden there; and Linden snatched scraps of better air from the Sunstone. As Grueburn turned her back to the lower wall, Linden shifted to face upward. Past the Giants ahead of her, she caught a brief dazzle of purity.
Here a wider fault intersected the split. The new crevice was level at first: then it ascended steeply into the immured dark. Shards of orcrest-light showed the Waynhim scrambling at the slope. Their hands and feet dislodged clots of ancient dirt like scurrying beetles. Stonemage and Liand had already neared the foot of the climb. But behind them, behind Kindwind and Covenant, Coldspray had paused to rest. There she held her burdens with the croyel’s visage turned away from Linden. The Ironhand’s grip on the krill did not waver.
She must have heard Linden’s appeal. Linden would have to pass her in order to catch up with Liand.
He was too far away.
In that position, the dagger’s argence shone straight into Linden’s face. It shed stark streaks along the stone; found sudden gleams like inspirations on facets of mica and quartz; exposed the sullen sheen of moisture oozing downward.
The sensations of scurrying in Linden’s clothes intensified. Scores of biting things sought tender flesh hidden from the light. She could not endure it; could not wait for Grueburn to reach the Stonedownor.
Halfway between Kindwind and Coldspray, Esmer stood watching as if he had no real interest in anything that transpired among Mount Thunder’s roots.
“Hurry,” Linden pleaded: a raw cough of suffocation.
Groaning for air, Grueburn thrust herself upright, strode toward the Ironhand.
Millennia ago, wild magic had destroyed the original Staff of Law; but Linden was too desperate to care. As soon as she could, she extended her own Staff. Frantically she jabbed one iron-shod heel into the heart of the gem’s radiance.
For a terrible instant, she felt nothing. After all, why should she? The krill was not orcrest: the Staff was not white gold. And she had no health-sense. She could not focus her needs. She could only try to pray while imminent wails bubbled in the back of her throat.
Then a gentle surge of energy touched her hands, a palpable warmth—
Quickly she jerked back the Staff, hugged it to her chest; concentrated every supplication of her life on the runed black wood.
Hindered by proximity to the bane’s magicks, flickers of new life leaked into her aggrieved nerves.
She clung to that vitality, stoked it. Demanded. Cajoled.
By small increments, it grew stronger. A flame as evanescent as a will-o’-the-wisp slid along the shaft. Too frail to be sustained, it evaporated. But another took its place, and another—and the third spread. Briefly it traced the runes as if the wood had been etched with oil. Then it lit other fires. A tumble of flames leapt out as if they sprang from Linden’s chest.
Light as kindly and sapid as sunshine cascaded into the crevice. Soon she stood in the core of a pillar of fire; of Earthpower and life.
On all sides, Kevin’s Dirt restricted her strength. Her power was a pale mockery of the forces which she had summoned on other occasions. Nevertheless it fed her spirit; implied possible transformations. It would suffice.
It had to.
Febrile with haste, she pulled flame tightly around her; clad herself in conflagration. Then she began scrubbing every distressed inch of her body with cleanliness.
The gnawing and pinching, the crawling, the quick slither of hysteria: they fell away one by one, incinerated or quashed. When she had burned them all to ash, however, she found that nothing had changed. The conviction that she had become carrion, that she bred only death—her true despair—lay too deep for any anodyne that she knew how to provide for herself. A sickness of the soul afflicted her; and the devouring faces of She Who Must Not Be Named drew closer by the moment.
Nevertheless she could breathe easily again. She could see. The revulsion of centipedes and spiders had been banished. Her companions sucked fresh air into their lungs. Coldspray offered her a grin of gratitude.
Stave’s flat mien betrayed no sign of doubt. But Esmer regarded Linden as if her ailment were his.
Climbing higher, the Waynhim had ascended past a bulge in the fissure’s wall. Below them on the slope, Stonemage waited with Liand, beckoning urgently. In the illumination of his Sunstone and her Staff, Linden saw that Kindwind and the Humbled had also stopped. They must have felt Coldspray and Grueburn halt.
Linden studied Covenant long enough to confirm that he remained lost in the world’s past. Then she turned to gauge her other companions.
Anele’s fright cried out to her nerves. Galesend’s alarm mounted as her comrades gathered at her back. Nevertheless Linden ignored them; forced herself to cast her senses farther.
Beyond the Giants, she tasted the rank vitriol of the ur-viles in rabid bursts. Among them, the feverish gibber of the Ardent’s incantations added his support against the baleful gnash of teeth and pain—
She Who Must Not Be Named was too close.
Fresh panic stung Linden. “Oh, God.” She had taken too much time for herself. “We have to go.”
“Aye,” growled the Ironhand. She needed no urging. Bearing Jeremiah and his doom and the eldritch threat of the krill, she headed for the slope. In spite of her long weariness and her exigent burdens, she managed a brief sprint.
Grueburn followed immediately, hurrying over the damp grit and scree of the crevice floor. At her back came Galesend and the rest of the Swordmainnir.
As Grueburn heaved her bulk up the loose surface of the ascent, Linden felt the Ardent squeeze out of the canted split. She perceived him clearly now. His wheeze of effort scraped along her nerves as he lifted himself into the air on strips of fabric that clung to the crude walls. Rising, he made way for the ur-viles below him.
Then Linden smelled burning—
—from the Insequent. His raiment had lost many of its colors. Scores of his ribbands had been charred black, or scorched to brittle threads. She tasted his sweating frenzy like iron on her tongue; his sharp fear and fraying resolve; his desperation. Yet he did not flee ahead of the ur-viles. Instead he braced himself high above them, guarding their retreat.
As they straggled out of the split, the creatures seemed ragged and unsteady; routed. The narrowing of the passage had forced them to disperse their wedge: they had been unable to combine their theurgies. As a result, some of them had been horribly damaged. Linden sensed creatures with cleft hands or feet, missing limbs. She felt a few ur-viles collapse on the damp dirt and fail to rise. Through the bane’s ferocity, she smelled the acrid pulse of unnatural blood.
They were the last of their kind. One by one, they were being decimated.
Floundering, they formed a new wedge in the crevice. She could not guess how many of them had been lost. Ten? More? Nevertheless they prepared to continue fighting. After a long moment, their loremaster appeared out of the split, wielding its ruddy jerrid. As the largest and strongest of the creatures reclaimed its position at the point of the wedge, the power of the whole formation snapped into focus.
A turmoil of screaming faces thrust into the crevice. It filled the fault from wall to wall.
The ur-viles responded with a spray of fluid force, bitter and corrosive. Their magicks were too puny to injure the bane; but they made the faces pause—
While She Who Must Not Be Named summoned Her many selves in pursuit, the creatures backed away.
The bane must have been certain of Her victims. She did not deign to hasten. The Demondim-spawn were able to put a little distance between themselves and their chosen foe.
Distracted by alarm, Linden’s concentration slipped. Her fire faltered.
At once, she felt renewed squirming inside her boots, along the waist of her jeans, across her breasts. Nightmare spiders and centipedes as avid as rapine resumed their interrupted feast.
She heard herself whimpering: a thin frail sound like the cry of a dying child. She tried to stop, tried to close her throat against a surge of hysteria as sour as bile, and could not. She was an unburied corpse ripe with rot, helpless to refuse any dire appetite.
Abruptly a different scream shocked the air: a howl of such extremity that it seemed to draw blood from the Ardent’s throat. In a display of strength that staggered Linden, his ribbands wrenched huge chunks of rock out of the walls.
No, he did more than that. He did not merely tear boulders loose. Somehow he pulled the walls themselves toward each other, heaved on them until they shattered.
In an instant, an avalanche destroyed the entire opening of the crevice. The sheer mass of the rockfall shook the standing walls. Moist grit and debris slid under the feet of the Giants, poured them downward. The very gutrock groaned like an echo of the Ardent’s scream.
Tons of granite and malachite, schist and travertine, crashed onto the bane. Rubble buried every raving face.
In panic, Linden forgot the Ardent and the ur-viles; forgot the bane and insects and gnawing; forgot her failing grasp on Earthpower. Without transition, she became an eruption of flame. If the slope slipped too far, it might bury the Giants. Certainly it would make the ascent impossible. Unless she caught it with fire and Law, forced it to hold—
The earth slide should have been too heavy for her; but she ignored its fatal weight, its impending rush. Hardly aware of what she did, she anchored the slope until the convulsion of the avalanche passed.
Mahrtiir tried to shout Linden’s name, but air thick with new dust clogged his throat. Gasping, Latebirth called upward, “We are unharmed! As are the ur-viles!” A tattered breath. “I cannot discern the Ardent!”
More strongly, Stonemage responded, “We also are unharmed!”
The bane was not gone. She had not perished or suffered. She had only been thwarted. Already Her puissance reached through the rockfall; yowled against Linden’s abraded nerves. In moments, She would force open a passage—
Crawling things in the privacy of Linden’s flesh brought her back to herself. Oh, God, they were everywhere! They did not exist. Nevertheless they relished her dead flesh as if she had perished long ago. Dozens of devoured faces raged to consume her, uncounted women in limitless torment.
Somehow she held on until the slope settled. Then she withdrew her power. Weakly she called out for the Ardent.
The company could not escape these depths without him. The ur-viles and Waynhim obviously knew the way. But the Lost Deep was too far below the lowest reaches of the Wightwarrens. None of Linden’s companions could climb so far, or follow the paths of the Demondim-spawn. They needed the Ardent’s ability to translate them elsewhere.
In the distance, an exhausted voice replied, “I am spent. Naught remains.”
“Are you capable of movement?” shouted the Ironhand. “If we must, we will contrive to retrieve you!”
“Nay.” The Ardent’s response was a sigh of utter weariness. “Your strength is required for flight. I will follow as I can.”
“We will not forsake you!” Coldspray countered.
“Nor do I wish to be forsaken.” He sounded too frail to go on living. “You must flee. Therefore I must follow. I cannot confront She Who Must Not Be Named again.” A moment later, he added, “If the lady will but cleanse the air—”
Choking down revulsion for her own body—her own existence—Linden swept dust aside; burned away stagnation. Then she wrapped theurgy around herself until she was sheathed in cerements of flame. Whimpering again, she tried to root roaches and centipedes out of her revolted flesh.
That was as much as she could do.
Ahead of and behind her, Giants flung themselves at the climb, fighting for purchase on the weakened slope. Raggedly Grueburn staggered upward. Above the Swordmainnir, the Waynhim chittered encouragements or reprimands. At the rear of the company, the ur-viles hurried to ascend.
Lights tried to fill the space: Liand’s Sunstone in the lead, Loric’s krill, Linden’s personal fire, the dour glow of the loremaster’s jerrid. But they were too small to cast back the dark. Midnight and vast stone crowded around them; threatened to smother them. Within the crevice, the slope appeared to climb indefinitely, as if here dirt and damp and stale air clawed for an unattainable sky.
Linden clung to her concern for the Ardent until she felt hints of his presence, brittle as desiccated twigs, trailing after the Giants and the ur-viles. He was indeed spent, too tired for terror. Nonetheless he still supported himself on his ribbands, bracing them against knuckles and knags in the old rock. Some vestige of fear or determination impelled him onward.
When she was sure of him, Linden closed her attention tightly around herself and tried not to moan aloud. She needed all of her resources to fend off abhorrence and crawling. Behind her, the bane burst through the rockfall: a rupture that stained the air; made the walls tremble. Ahead the slope seemed to strive toward inconceivable heights. But she did not want to know such things. Wrapped in flame, and crooning to herself so that she would not groan or mewl, she struggled against the sensations of biting and pinching; the seductions of despair.
She could not defeat them. At the bottom of her heart writhed the conviction that she deserved this. The bane was right. She had killed her mother and failed her son. There was nothing left for her to do except wait to be eaten.
023
By slow degrees, however, the rich benison of Earthpower permeated her. Implied denunciations receded from her nerves. The core of her distress remained unrelieved; incurable. But using her Staff granted her a degree of superficial remission.
Tentatively she began to look outward again.
Now she heard Grueburn’s exhausted breathing rattle in her chest; felt Grueburn’s muscles quiver. Ahead of them, the Ironhand ascended, steady as granite, holding Jeremiah and the croyel and the krill; but her steps had slowed to a grim plod. Between Rime Coldspray and Onyx Stonemage—between the krill’s gem and Liand’s orcrest—Cirrus Kindwind floundered like a woman who had never fully recovered from her maiming. She seemed to batter her way along, lurching from wall to wall to thrust herself and Covenant higher.
The surface underfoot might not have supported the Giants at all if the shale and scree and dirt had not been damp, clotted by moisture oozing incessantly down the crevice.
Yet Esmer strode easily at Kindwind’s back. The slope seemed to require nothing from him. Stave kept pace with Grueburn as if he were impervious to fatigue. Around Kindwind and Covenant, the Humbled moved like men who could not be daunted.
Behind Linden, the other Swordmainnir followed in succession: Stormpast Galesend cradling Anele, Cabledarm holding Pahni, Halewhole Bluntfist with Bhapa, Latebirth with Mahrtiir. Then came the ur-viles in a dark surge, ravaged and scrambling. Above them, the Ardent rose between the walls. Too weary to walk, he wedged his way upward with his ribbands.
In the distance, She Who Must Not Be Named raved and glowered. The mad roil of faces followed without haste, as slow as a rising tide, and as inexorable. The evil that had consumed Diassomer Mininderain and Emereau Vrai and countless others was certain of its prey.
The bane’s unhurried stalking seemed to imply that the company was trapped; that the Waynhim were leading Linden and her companions into a cul-de-sac. Linden wanted to believe that the grey creatures knew what they were doing. They are not without cunning. But she did not know how to reassure herself.
She had been passive too long; had allowed herself to feel too badly beaten. Now she needed to become something more than just another victim. Attempts must be made, even when there can be no hope. Transformations were possible. It was time.
Risking maggots and worms, Linden reached out with Earthpower; spread her fire up and down the crevice until it touched all of the Giants. As fully as possible under the bane’s bale, and without endangering the ur-viles, she shared the Land’s essential bounty with women who struggled to surpass themselves so that she and Covenant and Jeremiah and the Earth might not perish.
The croyel’s abhorrence and Jeremiah’s vacancy impeded her, but she did not let them stop her. When vile things resumed their avid feast inside her clothes, she strove to ignore them, at least for a few moments. They were not real. They were only a disturbance in her mind, or in her soul: a spiritual disease. Gritting her teeth, she refused to heed them.
Briefly—too briefly—she bathed each of the Swordmainnir in light and flame, washing some of the fatigue from their muscles, cleaning some of the gall from their sore hearts. While she was still able to resist the noxious biting of centipedes and spiders, she extended a small touch of renewal toward the Ardent: a gift which he accepted with fearful eagerness.
Then she heard herself whimpering again, and her self-command crumbled. Frantically she turned her fire against beetles and worms and pinchers which did not exist.
Bit by bit, she was being driven closer to Joan’s madness. Her Staff was losing its effectiveness—or she was losing her ability to wield it. Transformations were impossible. Soon she would be crept upon and stung beyond endurance, pushed past the point of sanity. Eventually she might begin to crave the bane’s cruel embrace.
But not yet. God, please. Not yet.
Then she heard Liand’s voice echo down the fault. “Here the ascent ends! The walls open! Beyond them our passage appears less effortful!”
A rustle of tightened resolve scattered along the crevice. “And not before time,” gasped Cabledarm or Latebirth. “Stone and Sea! Am I not a Giant? Aye, and also a fool. I had credited myself with greater hardiness.”
“Fool indeed,” someone else responded hoarsely. “Have you numbered the days during which we have run for Longwrath’s life, or for our own? Truly, it appears that we have persisted in this exertion for an age of the Earth.”
Hang on, Linden told herself as if she were trying to encourage a cowed child. Hang on.
Somewhere above her, the light of Liand’s Sunstone vanished.
“It is a cavern”—the Ardent’s voice was a frayed groan—“immense, damp, and cluttered. I discern naught else.”
“Aye,” Kindwind answered, struggling for breath. “Immense. Damp. Cluttered. A pool, long stagnant.” She may have said more; but her voice was cut off as she left the crevice.
Linden writhed against the intrusion of spiders, the intimacy of centipedes. She Who Must Not Be Named rose like floodwaters.
“Linden Giantfriend is beset!” Frostheart Grueburn announced between fervid gulps of air. “I descry no ill, yet she suffers.”
“Mayhap,” suggested Stave stolidly, “it is an effect of the bane. I also perceive no bodily hurt, though her distress is plain. It is my thought that the strengths which have enabled her to exceed us time and again are also a weakness. Her discernment exposes her to the bane’s evil.”
Linden tightened her grip on herself. Involuntarily she tried to twist away from heinous things that scurried and nipped. Stave was mistaken. She had never exceeded her companions. She was weak because she was wrong. She belonged among the bane’s excruciated fodder. Each spider and insect and worm was an accusation. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means. She felt like carrion because she had committed Desecrations.
Ahead of her, Coldspray lurched out of the crevice, taking the krill’s argence with her. A moment later, Grueburn reached the opening of the walls; stumbled through it.
A sudden impression of imponderable space spread out around Linden. Stagnation seemed to clog her way as though Grueburn had carried her into a quagmire. And at every distance, water dripped and splashed and ran, an immeasurable multitude of droplets and trickling so extensive that it sounded like rain within the mountain. In Grueburn’s arms, Linden entered a drizzle devoid of boundaries. Simple reflex caused her to fling her fire upward.
The cavern was indeed immense. To Linden’s abused sight, it looked large enough to contain all of Revelstone, although surely it was not. The company’s lights reached the ceiling dimly, but failed to find the far wall: she had no way to gauge the scale of the cavity. However, her immediate vicinity resembled a shallow basin tipped slightly to one side, so that the lowest point of the curve lay somewhat to her left. There eons of dripping water had gathered into a pool so old and unrelieved that it no longer held any possibility of life. Across the millennia, the water had gone beyond mere brackish-ness to a toxic mineral concentration.
The pool seemed small because the cavern was so broad. In some other setting, it might have been considered a lake.
From its center outward, it trembled to the pulse of the bane’s approaching hunger. Ripples fled in circles, sloshing timorously onto the travertine sides of the basin.
The water fell from the tips of stalactites the size of Revelstone’s watchtower. And below each pending taper of stone rose a stalagmite. Cluttered—In some places, the stalagmites had met and melded with their sources, forming misshapen columns with constricted waists. In others, the calcified residue of ages appeared to strain for union, yearning upward drop by incessant drop, and infinitely patient. And everywhere around the monolithic deposits, water fell like light rain from lesser flaws in the porous ceiling. Within the reach of the company’s illuminations, every wet surface had been cut or sculpted into scallops and whorls delicate as filigree, and keen as knives.
Grueburn stuck out her tongue to catch a few falling drops, then spat in disgust. To the Giants around her, she shook her head sourly.
Rain splashed onto Linden’s forehead; ran into her eyes and stung. Blinking rapidly, she searched the cavern for some sign of egress or hope.
To her left, the basin narrowed. Beyond the pool there, at least a Giant’s stone’s throw distant, a concave wall of granite too obdurate to be eroded by mere moisture formed the lower end of the tremendous cavity. But she could not descry the cavern’s limit opposite her. As far as she knew, it reached forever into darkness. To her right, however, the side of the basin rose slowly, and continued to rise in gradual increments, until it was swallowed by midnight.
In the crevice behind the company, the bane still poured upward without haste, confident of Her craved prey. Heartbeats agitated the surface of the pool more and more. Nevertheless the Giants paused to gasp for breath, straining to imagine endurance which they no longer possessed. At the same time, the noxious crawling on Linden’s skin intensified. She needed every scrap and fragment of her remaining will to refuse the torment of small creatures that did not exist. Hundreds of them, or thousands, crept everywhere to savor her illimitable faults.
Under Esmer’s scornful gaze, the Waynhim had halted off to Linden’s right, apparently waiting for the Ardent and the ur-viles. But now all of the Swordmainnir stood on the slope of the basin, fighting to breathe and looking urgently around them. Soon three or four score ur-viles arrived in a black torrent. Limping badly, the Ardent tottered toward Coldspray and Grueburn. Strips of his raiment dragged after him like beaten things, and his head hung down as if he had lost the will to meet anyone’s gaze.
At once, the grey Demondim-spawn ran at the slope, beckoning and barking for Linden’s company to follow. Without delay, the ur-viles joined the Waynhim. Led by their loremaster, the black creatures snarled demands like curses. Esmer trailed after them as though as he assumed that everyone else would do the same.
But the Giants did not move. Perhaps they could not.
Among them, the Humbled and Stave stood, patient and implacable. Perhaps Linden’s crumbling defenses troubled them. Or perhaps not. If they debated decisions that they might need to make for themselves, they did so in silence.
“Now what must we do?” asked the Ironhand thinly. “The bane’s evil is itself a mountain. We have beheld no more than hints of its true extent. It was for this”—she gestured around her—“that it has pursued us at such leisure. Here it will expand to consume us.
“We will run again, if run we must. But we cannot run far, or swiftly. And this cavern appears to have no end. Surely She Who Must Not Be Named will pounce upon us at Her pleasure.”
Her voice fell flat in the cavern, echoless and defeated.
From Latebirth’s arms, Manethrall Mahrtiir rasped, “It is said that the Ramen have an instinct for open sky. That is sooth. But our gifts will not serve us here. This stone is too great. It thwarts our hearts. If we would flee farther, we must trust to the Waynhim.
“Their fidelity is certain. And Esmer mere-son has averred that they are cunning. I will believe that they have guided us hither—aye, and that they now urge us onward—to some worthy purpose. I cannot think otherwise.”
Moisture trickled like insects down the sides of Linden’s neck. She had as much reason as anyone—more—to put her faith in the Waynhim. But she was too distracted to speak.
“Attend!” commanded Branl abruptly. “The bane is not our only peril.”
He and the other Haruchai had turned. They were gazing with something akin to alarm at the lower end of the cavern, beyond the pool.
Through Jeremiah, the croyel sneered, “You aren’t paying attention, Mom. The real fun’s about to start.”
With the krill, Rime Coldspray drew a thin line of pain across the creature’s throat. Through her teeth, she hissed, “While I live, beast, I will have your silence.”
Jeremiah made a small mewing sound like an echo of the croyel’s fright. Then his jaw dropped, and his mouth hung open.
Dumbly Linden peered down the side of the basin. Water dripped onto her head, trickled hideously through her hair. A light rain spattered the features of her companions. When she contrived to focus her attention on the curving granite, she saw that Branl was right.
In at least half a dozen places, wrongness had already begun to suppurate in the stubborn stone. With appalling celerity, a thick reek like the stench of gangrene bruited its way through the stagnant air.
She recognized what was happening as if beetles and maggots had whispered the truth in her ears.
“Mane and Tail!” cried Bhapa.
“Linden!” Liand called fearfully. His grasp on the orcrest wavered. “Linden.”
Linden ignored them. Sicknesses that crawled and stung demanded her attention. One way or another, she would be to blame for the deaths of her friends, all of them.
“Ringthane!” Mahrtiir barked once. Then he shouted at the Giants, “Set us upon our feet! Coldspray Ironhand, hear me! We must do what we can to conserve the last of your strength. We are useless here. Only your weapons and valor may hope to ward us. Release your burdens! Free us to run unaided! I do not fear that we will outpace you.”
Attempts must be made—
The clamor of the Waynhim and ur-viles complicated the sound of drizzling water, the implied shrieks of chewed granite. But even the tension of the Demondim-spawn could not contradict the mounting labor of the bane’s advance.
For a moment, Coldspray faltered as if her courage had failed. Then she clenched her teeth, squared her shoulders.
“Swordmainnir, the Manethrall counsels wisely. I will continue to bear the boy and the croyel, but you must entrust Linden Giantfriend and Covenant Timewarden to the Haruchai. The Manethrall and his Cords will watch over the Stonedownor and the old man. You must be able to wield your swords.”
Promptly her comrades obeyed. As Grueburn and the other Giants put down their charges, Coldspray turned to the Ardent. “Do you require—?”
He shook his head. “I will not hamper you. If the powers of the Insequent do not suffice to preserve me, doubtless I will perish. Yet while I may, I will strive for life.” He attempted a wan smile. “Mayhap a surfeit of terror will amend my deficit of hardiness.”
Stave grasped Linden’s right arm. Liand held her left. The Humbled accepted Covenant from Cirrus Kindwind. Pahni flung an imploring look at Liand, then took Anele’s hand and drew the old man to join Bhapa with Mahrtiir. The older Cord hooked elbows with the blinded Manethrall to guide him.
Centipedes had crawled into Linden’s ears. She heard them gibbering. She clung to her Staff as if it might keep her sane. But Law and Earthpower had no will of their own. They could accomplish nothing that she did not ask of them; and the rain leeched away her ability to ask. In spite of Caerroil Wildwood’s runes, the wood’s bright flame began to gutter and die.
“Go!” the Ironhand ordered harshly. “I will not lag.” She may have thought that Linden would understand her. “My comrades will follow as swiftly as our straits permit.”
Lit by orcrest and the krill’s gem, and by unsteady gusts of Staff-fire, the company fled after the Demondim-spawn.
Galt, Clyme, and Branl rushed Covenant into motion. Almost immediately, Bhapa and Mahrtiir caught up with them, as did Pahni and Anele. The old man was not loath to run. In spite of his imperfect comprehension, he was intimately familiar with flight. On any form of rock, he had no need for vision.
Tugged along by Stave and Liand, Linden trotted so that she would not fall. But she could not turn her head away from the end of the cavern; the sick and rotting stone; the rising violence that disturbed the pool. The stink of disease accumulated around her until it filled her lungs with every breath.
Suddenly putrefaction and magma exploded outward, shedding a spray of granite shards. In the eaten gaps, skurj appeared: first five or six, then ten; fifteen. Kraken-jaws gaping hellishly, they slithered into the cavern. Their many rows of teeth, their rending scimitars, blazed with the ferocity of lava. Implications of disease howled among the clutter of columns. Briefly the creatures paused, apparently searching for the scent of their prey. Then, fluid as serpents, they squirmed in pursuit.
“Did I not forewarn you?” asked Esmer bitterly.
They were fast: God, they were fast. Linden had forgotten—
Ahead of the monsters, the crevice burst open in a blast of incandescent hunger. Some brute instinct caused the skurj to shy away as She Who Must Not Be Named tore Her way into the cavern.
A mass of terrible energies with dozens or hundreds of faces surged forward. The bane’s savagery shattered stalactites and stalagmites, pelting the surface of the pool to chaos, bludgeoning the skurj with blows which they did not appear to feel. Dripping water hissed instantly into steam as it struck the hides of the beasts. But no rain could touch She Who Must Not Be Named.
Through the confusion of her affliction and floundering, Linden received the impression that the bane and the skurj paid no heed to each other. In their dissimilar fashions, they were ruled by hungers that defied distraction. After their initial flinch, the skurj squirmed swiftly after their prey, twisting past plinths and fallen stone undeterred by the bane’s greater might and malice. And when the bane quickened Her advance, expanding as She moved, She did so simply to satisfy Her feral craving.
Led upward by Waynhim and ur-viles, the companions ran as well as they could. The Giants managed a shambling plod that almost matched the strides of the Ramen and Anele, the best pace that the Haruchai and Liand could demand from Covenant and Linden. Jagged spires threw shadows that jumped and flared in the garish radiance of fangs and malevolence, the shining of the krill and the Sunstone, Linden’s guttering flames. Everywhere water dripped delicate streaks of reflection. Stalagmites loomed and were passed while evils yowled in Linden’s ears. She wanted to stop breathing the sickened air, yearned to smother her infested flesh in conflagration, and could not.
Struggling, the company ran and ran, to no avail. The bane and the skurj gained ground slowly, a few appalling strides at a time; but the outcome was inevitable. The cavern and the ascent seemed endless—and the Swordmainnir were already exhausted. Linden herself was too weary to run without support. Liand had not had enough time to recover from his wounds. Eventually even the Haruchai would weaken.
Maggots fed on Linden’s eyes. Spiders filled her ears. Centipedes crawled between her legs while beetles enjoyed her breasts. She did not—she could not—notice that the Demondim-spawn were pulling ahead; or that they led the company closer to the near wall of the cavern. She did not hear Mahrtiir’s ragged shout, or Rime Coldspray’s gasped answer. Her grasp on Earthpower was failing; and she was aware of nothing except agonies, real and unreal, until Liand shook her frantically, crying, “Linden! The Waynhim! The ur-viles!”
Through a haze of distress and gangrene and hate, she made a dying effort to peer ahead.
Somewhere beyond the Ramen, the creatures had found a ledge in the wall of the cavern. From high above and behind the company, a shelf angled down to meet the floor. The Waynhim and ur-viles had already begun to scamper upward. To Linden, the ledge looked dangerously narrow, but it must have been wider than it appeared. When the creatures had ascended to three or four times the height of a Giant, they stopped. There the Waynhim were able to gather in a tight cluster. The ur-viles had room to form a fighting wedge.
They gestured like deranged things at the company. The tumult of their barking matched the bane’s fury, the ravening of the skurj.
The Ramen did not hesitate. With Anele, they reached the ledge and climbed. A moment later, the Humbled impelled Covenant to follow. Limping heavily, the Ardent went after them.
At the foot of the ledge, Esmer paused to wait for Linden, Stave, and Liand. The rampage of fires behind the company echoed like madness in his eyes.
Linden understood nothing. The ledge ran back in the direction of the bane and the skurj. Its elevation would be a trivial obstacle to Kastenessen’s monsters—and no obstacle at all to She Who Must Not Be Named. Nevertheless Stave and Liand manhandled her grimly toward Esmer. When he moved to join the rest of the company, they hurried at his back.
Now she could see the bane and the skurj. She could not look away. Trailing clouds of steam, the creatures flowed like molten stone among the pillars. Expanding, the bane had grown large enough to scatter stalagmites, break off stalactites. She seemed to roll as She advanced, a world of pain presenting new faces and teeth and screams at every moment.
Her raw force made Her appear closer than She was; closer than the monsters. Clinging to mere shreds of sanity, Linden strained to gauge the true distance.
The bane and the skurj were still at least a long stone’s throw away. But the bane approached more slowly, savoring the helplessness of Her prey.
All of the Giants would have time to ascend the ledge, reach the place where the Demondim-spawn had halted. They would be able to anticipate and dread the moment when they would be torn apart.
Linden thought that she would rather fling herself into the jaws of the skurj. Their blazing fangs would spare her every other hurt. She did not want to participate in the bane’s immortal pain.
Coldspray would protect Jeremiah as long as she could. Soon, however, they would both be slain.
Surely the croyel would die as well? Even if the bane had no taste for such food, the skurj were incapable of thought or scruples: they would eat anything.
No. Linden gripped the Staff and her waning mind until her knuckles burned. No, she was wrong. Esmer was still here. Capable of more treachery. If Kastenessen commanded it, he could snatch the croyel and Jeremiah away whenever he chose.
Then Jeremiah would at least survive. And perhaps one of the Earth’s other powers would take pity on him before the end.
That bleak possibility was not enough. Linden needed more.
Her frangible concentration was fixed on the bane and the skurj. She hardly noticed that she was no longer moving. Stave and Liand had brought her to the clustered Waynhim; but her friends and the creatures and her own immobility lay outside the bounds of her awareness. The remnants of her heart were full of Jeremiah, and she saw nothing except the bane and the skurj; felt nothing except imminent death and corruption.
Her companions might have time to say goodbye to each other before they were slaughtered.
Liand was shouting in her ear, but she did not hear him until Stave lifted vitrim to her lips and tilted her head for her so that she would drink.
The dank liquid filled her mouth, forced her to swallow. Then it ran down her throat: a tonic sting insignificant in the face of She Who Must Not Be Named and Kastenessen’s monsters, but suffused with vitality nonetheless, and unaccountably numinous. Reflexively she gulped until she emptied the iron cup; and as she did so, carrion-eaters seemed to scurry out of her eyes and ears, skittering down her neck into the comparative sanctuary of her clothes. At the same time, better fire bloomed from the Staff. Jolted by given energy, she became suddenly conscious of the people and creatures around her.
Rushing, the Waynhim distributed vitrim to her friends: to the Giants first, and to Liand; then to the Ramen and Anele and the Ardent. Grueburn held iron, tiny in her huge hands, to Coldspray’s lips. While Esmer muttered darkly as if he were reinforcing his power, the grey Demondim-spawn gave a cup to the Humbled and watched as Branl held Covenant’s head so that Galt could pour vitrim into his mouth.
The Waynhim were exhausting themselves: Linden could see that now. Nonetheless they persisted in their service. Although the draughts were little, the Swordmainnir grew visibly stronger. Fresh energy lifted the Ardent’s head, straightened his sagging shoulders. A few of his ribbands flicked out, breaking off their charred ends. Even Covenant seemed to gain focus, as if the outlines of his presence were being etched more sharply. But he did not emerge from his memories.
Together the ur-viles howled in consternation or rage. As one, they pointed at the ceiling of the cavern. Their loremaster used its jerrid or scepter to indicate a precise spot of dampness among the stalactites.
Galvanized by vitrim, Linden was finally able to estimate her own condition. Percipience informed her that the strength which she had received was not enough. It restored only a small portion of her resources—and it would not last long. The proximity of the bane sucked at her ability to wield Earthpower. She might manage one final blast of fire. But her poor vehemence would not harm She Who Must Not Be Named—and would have no impact at all on the skurj.
Soon those evils would be close enough to attack.
Still the ur-viles chattered and yelled, demanding—
—demanding something that Linden could not identify.
“Linden!” Liand shouted at her. “You must act! No other power will suffice! I cannot comprehend the ur-viles!”
His Sunstone had become meaningless. Mere swords and muscle had no value. The Ironhand might conceivably strike one effective blow with Loric’s krill. Then she would be lost—and the croyel would escape with Jeremiah.
Now or never. Esmer had deprived the Giants of their ability to grasp what the ur-viles wanted.
Already Linden felt vitrim turning to ash in her veins.
“God damn it, Esmer.” She could not spare the strength to raise her voice. “You’ve done more than enough harm. The least you can do is translate.”
Cail’s son studied her with shame like crimson spume in his eyes. Disdain and anguish buffeted each other across his visage. His wounds wept unassuaged blood.
Renewed nausea twisted through Linden’s guts; but she did not look away. With her ruined gaze, she commanded Esmer to consider the cost of his betrayals.
A spasm of revulsion knotted his features. In disgust, he announced harshly, “The ur-viles desire you to recognize that the waters falling here must have a source. Doubtless you”—his tone said, Even you—“are aware that the Soulsease pours the greater portion of the Upper Land’s streams and rivers into the depths of Gravin Threndor. Later those same torrents emerge, besmirched, as the Defiles Course. But have you never contemplated the path of that vast weight of water during its millennia within the bowels of the mountain? The ur-viles assure you that the Soulsease plunges deep among the Wightwarrens, and still deeper, until it has passed beyond the knowledge of all but the Viles and their makings. There it gathers in lakes and chasms, filling utter darkness until it rises at last to its egress on the Lower Land.”
Esmer glanced upward. “The ur-viles proclaim that they have discerned a point of weakness in the high stone of this tomb.”
Then he clamped his mouth shut, biting down hard on his own misery.
The ur-viles gibbered and gesticulated like incarnations of mania. Below them, She Who Must Not Be Named reared higher, extending Her maleficence as if She dreamed of feeding until She filled the cavern. Some of the skurj approached directly. Others arced around the company’s position, perhaps to close off any possible retreat, perhaps to ascend the ledge themselves.
“Linden!” cried Liand. “Water! Water!”
She hardly heard him. Her gaze followed the line of the loremaster’s iron jerrid toward the ceiling. In the radiance of fangs and ferocity, she seemed to see the exact place that the jerrid indicated; see it as if the loremaster had marked it for her by sheer force of will.
The last of the Demondim-spawn had sacrificed themselves for her repeatedly; extravagantly. Nevertheless they wanted to live.
As she did. As long as Jeremiah needed help, and Covenant remained to redeem the Land.
One blast: that was all she had left. Just one. Then she would be finished, for good or ill.
Make it count.
Her parents would not have approved. They had chosen death. But for a moment longer, she refused their legacy. Spiders and worms could not cause more torment than they had already inflicted.
Saving her energies for flame, she whispered the Seven Words as she flung Earthpower toward the ceiling.
“Melenkurion abatha.”
Tenuously balanced on the brink of herself, she aimed fire at the damp patch of stone which the ur-viles indicated.
“Duroc minas mill.”
Every remaining shred of her love and need and fear, she committed to the written wood of the Staff until they formed a blaze of theurgy as brutal as a battering-ram.
“Harad khabaal.”
Centipedes and horror hampered her. The bane’s nearness drained her. The example of her parents promised futility; abject surrender. Defying them, she struck—
—and the ceiling held.
But she was not alone. A heartbeat behind her blast, a great gout of vitriol rose from the wedge and its loremaster. Strange magicks as corrosive as acid, and sour as self-loathing, smashed against the rock where her power burned.
Smashed and detonated.
Together the concussion of dire liquid and hot flame tore a cascade of stone from the ceiling.
From the breach, water trickled as though Linden and the ur-viles had partially unclogged a rainspout.
A rumble as throaty and unfathomable as the bane’s livid beat resounded among the spires. Tremors ran through the rock, shook the ledge. Clots of damp debris fell, loosened by a subtle convulsion among the mountain’s roots. The entire cavern groaned like a wounded titan.
Still some distance away, tortured faces wailed at Linden. Her father had killed himself in front of her. Her mother had begged to be slain. The excruciation of beetles and maggots intensified.
“Ware and watch!” shouted the Ironhand. “This perch may fail!”
She Who Must Not Be Named screamed from a dozen throats. The skurj paused as though they were capable of surprise.
An instant later, the damaged ceiling ruptured.
A tremendous fist of water flung great chunks of gutrock downward. From the breach, an immured sea began to fall in a staggering crash like all of the Land’s waterfalls joined into one. Thunder filled the air like the ravage of worlds. An avalanche of forgotten waters slammed down onto the skurj; pounded against the hideous bulk of the bane.
The tumult drew weight from other caverns above it. Scalding steam erupted from the impact of waters on Kastenessen’s monsters; but instantly those bursts were swept away by the torrential plunge. The bane tried to lurch aside, and failed. The plummet of water bore Her down, dragged Her under.
Groaning in granite agony, Gravin Threndor emptied its deep guts as though a firmament of water had been torn open.
Coldspray roared warnings which no one could hear. Other Giants yelled soundlessly, as if they had been stricken dumb. Jeremiah appeared to howl, uttering the croyel’s inaudible dismay.
Spray acrid with minerals drenched the company. It bit into Linden’s sight. She could not blink fast enough to clear her eyes. Dropping the Staff, she scrubbed at her face with both hands; slapped her neck and chest and legs.
Before the mountain’s tremors shrugged the Staff out of reach, Liand stooped to catch it.
Abruptly the ledge shook. It began to sheer away.
Esmer stopped it. The force which he had used on other occasions to raise spouts like geysers from the ground, he exerted now to stabilize the stone. A shudder ran along the steep shelf; but the ledge held.
Water hammered into the cavern, poured like a tsunami down the slow slope. Already it had immersed the bane and the skurj. Lurid fires and violence lit its mounting depths as the monsters fought to survive; as the bane strove for purchase among the inundated stalagmites. Shivering feverishly, Linden feared that the skurj would survive. Buried in floods, their fangs flamed as if they chewed minerals from the water to feed their furnace-hearts. Fighting for life, they tumbled down the cavern.
Whatever happened to them, Linden could not imagine that a power as enduring and virulent as She Who Must Not Be Named would simply drown. Nevertheless she wiped her eyes, and slapped herself, and prayed—
Betimes some wonder is wrought to redeem us.
Even if the bane failed to gather Herself and return, Linden and all of her companions would soon perish. The vast rush of water smashed against the lower end of the cavern. Then it boiled and frothed back onto itself. And as it accumulated, it rose. Scores or hundreds of centuries of the Land’s springs and rainfall would fill the space until every gasp of air had been forced out.
In the distance, fires still burned under the flood. Crimson streaks stained the water: the skurj or the bane, Linden could not tell which.
As the new lake mounted, however, the thunder changed. Water pounding onto itself rather than on stone softened the edges of the roar. Dimly Linden heard the Ironhand’s voice.
“The skurj perish! They perish, although the bane does not! But these waters have found the descent to the Lost Deep! They rise more slowly now!”
Coldspray added something about time and Esmer that Linden did not understand. The Ardent appeared to argue with other Insequent who were beyond hearing. Both Liand and Stave shouted pleas or warnings at Linden. But inflicted imaginary beetles had crept into her ears again. She could not distinguish individual words from the adumbration of ancient torrents.
If the rate of the flood’s accumulation had indeed slowed, that small reprieve was insignificant. It made no difference.
Through the bite of bitter spray, Linden thought that she saw a few submerged fires fail and die. But she was sure of nothing. Crawling things fed on her; took her life in small nips and stings. Thunder and failure became lassitude. Her parents spoke more loudly than any of her friends. In the bane’s voices, they assured her of despair.
Like them, she deserved her end. She had earned it with woe and wrongs and weakness.
No one had the right to make Jeremiah suffer. No one except Thomas Covenant could hope to save the Land. But there was nothing left that she could do for them.
She was not even surprised when the whole surface of the surging flood burst into flame.
Mere water could not harm She Who Must Not Be Named. The ancient poisons which fouled the torrents appeared to nourish Her. Now She had found Her own answer to the inrush of ages.
Below the precarious ledge, boiling currents and chaos were lashed with conflagration as though they had been transmogrified into oil. Waters crashing against stalagmites and walls flung spouts of fire at the wracked ceiling.
Voices cried for Linden, but they conveyed nothing. Weary and tormented beyond bearing, she surrendered at last to the paralysis from which she had fled throughout her life: the helplessness which had permitted Covenant’s murder ten years ago, and had left her at the mercy of turiya Raver: the ineluctable doom of her parents.
Carrion.
As the bane arose from the waters halfway between the company and the end of the cavern, Linden fell to her knees. Deep inside her, something fundamental succumbed.