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

6.
Parting Company
043
Fighting raged around Linden and Jeremiah. Within the frantic protection provided by Stave, Clyme, Branl, and the Giants, Galt lay dead, and Anele was dying. Esmer’s sobs had faded, made impotent by manacles. The ur-viles and Waynhim had thrust their wedge between two of the Swordmainnir. Joined by the surviving remnants of their kind, the creatures flung liquid blackness to shield Linden’s company from Roger. Within that dark theurgy, Cavewights fell and died in agony.
Yet the cordon was failing. The Cavewights were too many; and Roger’s blasts struck the ridge like convulsions.
At the feet of her comrades lay Onyx Stonemage, clubbed senseless. Cabledarm fought on one knee, unable to support herself with her damaged leg. Frostheart Grueburn did the same, hamstrung by the thrust of a spear. But their longswords were being beaten down by the rabid savagery of their foes. Halewhole Bluntfist had lost the use of her right arm: she was forced to wield her blade with her left. Battered by too many blows, Latebirth’s broken cataphract hung from her shoulders in fragments. The Ironhand, Cirrus Kindwind, and Stormpast Galesend had all been hacked until they were weak with blood loss; but they continued to struggle, desperate as the doomed.
Like the Swordmainnir, the remaining Haruchai had been badly wounded. Still they punished their assailants as if they were as mighty as Giants, and as unyielding as granite. They shattered brute armor with punches and kicks, broke necks, snapped limbs, cracked skulls—and could not prevail.
Without the intervention of the ur-viles and Waynhim, every Haruchai and Giant would already be dead, scorched lifeless by Roger’s withering magma. But acid magicks intercepted a portion of his fury; deflected a portion. And he hurled his power like a madman, too crazed for thought or care. He seemed deranged by the loss of the croyel, and therefore of Jeremiah. Cavewights who chanced to stand in his path perished. His screams echoed everywhere as if the sky were a vault, featureless and sealed.
Mahrtiir had crawled to the edge of the battle. He could no longer defend himself, and there was no one left to guard him except Bhapa. The older Cord had abandoned Covenant to Pahni. Now Bhapa stood over the Manethrall with bleak determination in his eyes and his garrote in his hands.
But at the focus of the carnage, Jeremiah stood exactly as he had stood while he was possessed, slack and vacant, with nothing that resembled awareness in his muddy gaze; as unreactive as a corpse. His whole body thronged with Earthpower, Anele’s last gift. Yet his new strength changed nothing. It did not restore his mind.
When Roger had killed everyone else, he would go after Covenant: Linden did not doubt that. Lord Foul would consider her death, and Covenant’s, a victory, if Roger did not.
Covenant’s son needed the croyel and Jeremiah. The croyel can use your kid’s talent. He’ll make us a door. A portal to eternity.—to help us become gods.
For Roger, that hope was gone. Now he would have to trust the Despiser.
It was too much. Too much. Linden could not suffer it. All of her friends. Jeremiah and Covenant. She had felt overwhelmed and frantic earlier. Now her despair had no limits.
Unable to make any other choice, she became Gallows Howe: a killing field made flesh.
In the gypsum and dirt where it had fallen, High Lord Loric’s krill still shone. Its brilliance throbbed to the beat of Joan’s madness. And she was a rightful white gold wielder. Only her abjection and turiya Raver’s mastery restricted her access to wild magic.
Linden was done with hesitation, with paralysis, with weakness. Done with humanity. Deliberately she dropped the Staff of Law at Jeremiah’s feet. Then she lifted Covenant’s ring on its chain over her head. Closing the chain in her fist, she slipped the ring onto the index finger of her right hand.
With no more preparation than that, she stooped to touch the avid gem of the krill with Covenant’s wedding band.
Long ago, she had seen him do something similar when he had needed a trigger or catalyst; a source of power to overcome his instinctive reluctance. She was not reluctant: not now. And Esmer’s influence no longer blocked her. It would never hinder her again. But she had no right to white gold. She needed help.
In the instant that the ring made contact with the gem, she became a holocaust of silver flame.
When she had spent one heartbeat, or two, measuring her borrowed power with her health-sense so that she could be sure of her control, she left the collapsing defense of her friends and began to wreak havoc as if she had been born for butchery and death.
044
So quickly that she appalled herself, the battle was over. While her friends and the Demondim-spawn watched, too stunned or horrified or injured to react, she ravaged every Cavewight on the ridge; rent asunder the hilltop where Roger stood; brought down cascades of fire from the blank sky. When surviving creatures turned to flee, she let them go. But she would have harried Roger until she had scorched every drop of his blood with wild magic, if he had not first hidden behind blunt hills and then warded himself with lava while he raced away on the shoulders of a Cavewight.
At his escape, she raised a scream of her own into the air; a shriek of unconstrained wild magic that seemed to challenge the Despiser himself. She yelled for Liand, and howled for Anele, and cried out for the pain of her companions, until her strength failed. Then at last her world went dark. All of her burdens fell away, and there was no more power anywhere that could hurt her.
045
When she recovered consciousness, she was sitting propped against a boulder at the base of Liand’s cairn. Someone must have put her there. Must have hung Covenant’s ring around her neck again, rested the Staff of Law across her lap. Stave, probably. He stood over her now, watching her while blood dripped from the ends of his fingers and the hem of his rent tunic.
Her entire being flinched at what she had done. But she could not undo it.
“Your absence has been brief, Linden,” the former Master answered before she found the will to question him. “We have only begun to tally our wounds.” His voice was strangely congested, thick with an emotion which she did not recognize. “Had you not bestirred yourself, however, I would have roused you. Our need for your aid is grievous. Among us, only the Unbeliever, the Cords, and your son lack any dire hurt.”
Then he turned and walked away as though he could no longer bear the sight of her. Oozing blood, he went to join the figures kneeling or supine near Jeremiah, Galt, Anele, and Esmer.
Thinking, Anele? she tried to pull herself to her feet. Is he still alive? Tried, and could not. If she managed to stand, she would see bodies. Hundreds of them. Thousands. She would be forced to confront the outcome of her despair.
Peering through a blur of weakness, she saw the black shapes of ur-viles and the grey forms of Waynhim moving among her companions. Dimly through the reek of spilled guts and gore, she caught the dank scent of vitrim. The Demondim-spawn were still trying to help. Their musty drink appeared to be all that kept some of the Giants and Mahrtiir alive. As far as she could tell, however, vitrim did nothing for Anele, although he did not refuse it. And Esmer laughed at it softly, without scorn, as if he had passed beyond the reach of any sustenance.
That the ur-viles and Waynhim offered kindness to Esmer confounded Linden. In a distant age, they had forged their manacles, foreseeing this day. Ever since she had first encountered them, the Demondim-spawn had come to her aid whenever Esmer had posed a threat. Yet now they showed him compassion?
For centuries or millennia, they had been among the most feared of the Despiser’s servants—
Closing her fingers on the warm wood of her Staff, she tried again to rise.
The bright silver of Caerroil Wildwood’s runes had vanished. They were inert again, as inarticulate as sigils. But the shaft retained the stark blackness of her fire. She could not imagine that any blaze would ever burn it clean. Still it was the Staff of Law, an instrument of Earthpower and health. When she asked it for a little strength, it replied with its familiar gifts.
Trembling, she braced herself on ambiguous commandments until she gained her feet.
Everywhere she looked, the ground had been desecrated by blood and offal, mangled limbs and bodies. Weapons and shattered armor littered the ridge. In the vicinity of the battle, the friable gypsum had been fouled until only a few random patches of whiteness remained to punctuate the carnage.
Above her, the voiceless sky seemed to retain echoes like memories of screaming and slaughter.
For a moment or two, she thought that she ought to cleanse the ridge. That should have been her next responsibility. A pyre for the dead: some form of sanctification for the betrayed hills. But then she sensed Thomas Covenant striding fiercely from the south as if he meant to deliver a burden of wrath and repudiation. At the same time, she felt Anele slip closer to his life’s last precipice. When he fell, others would follow him soon—and they, too, were her friends. Like Liand, they had given her more than she had ever given them.
Squaring her shoulders against the recrimination of the dead, Linden Avery left the cairn to resume the pretense that she was a healer.
Because she needed to do so, she went first to Jeremiah. With one hand, she stroked his flaccid cheek, confirming that he remained lost inside himself. That fact hurt her. Nevertheless it was true that he had been released from the croyel. Freed—To that extent, at least, the promise of his mended racecar had been kept. Received Earthpower enriched him with vitality. He gave no sign that he could use his new strength. Yet the grisly sores of the monster’s feeding had already begun to heal themselves.
Briefly Linden hugged him. She had been too long denied the simple comfort of touching him. Then, while Covenant was still too far away to judge her, she turned to acknowledge the sufferings of her friends.
Among the Giants, only Rime Coldspray and Frostheart Grueburn met the rue in Linden’s eyes. Stormpast Galesend knelt with her hands clamped on Cabledarm’s thigh, trying to slow the bleeding. In spite of her injuries and maiming, Cirrus Kindwind pressed repeatedly on Onyx Stonemage’s chest as if she feared that Stonemage would stop breathing. Stonemage’s breastplate hampered her efforts; but Kindwind clearly did not have the strength to remove it. Laboriously, like a woman with fractured ribs, Latebirth struggled to tie a tourniquet above the spear in Grueburn’s upper leg. After a glance at Linden, Coldspray continued working on Halewhole Bluntfist’s right arm, trying to reset dislocated bones.
The ur-viles and Waynhim gave vitrim to all who could or would accept it. Nourished by their weird lore, Manethrall Mahrtiir had recovered enough to stand facing Covenant’s approach. And Bhapa stood with him. They kept their backs to Linden. But she saw in the stiffness of their spines, the clench of their shoulders, that they were readying themselves to confront the Unbeliever’s ire on her behalf.
She might have said something, although every word that she knew how to utter had been burned away. The sight of Stave stopped her.
He sat spread-legged in the dirt and clotting blood, so motionless that he hardly seemed to breathe. With both arms, he held Galt against his chest. The last slow drops of Galt’s life joined the stains that stigmatized Stave’s tunic. Pain had curled Galt’s hands into claws. But Stave did not look at the body in his arms. Instead he regarded Landsdrop as though in his heart he gazed past the high cliff and Salva Gildenbourne and the plains and Revelstone toward the Westron Mountains. Tears spilled from his eye. They ran down his cheek into the cuts that marred his visage.
He did not glance at Linden. In a low voice as taut as choking, he said to her, or to the distant home of the Haruchai, “He is my son. To the last, he remained himself.”
As if that were Galt’s epitaph.
—it is their birthright—
Ah, Stave. Linden wanted to weep with him, and could not. Your son? I didn’t know. Neither he nor Galt had allowed any hint of their kinship to pass between them. Yet it was Galt who had chosen to protect Jeremiah’s life with his own, so that Anele might expunge the croyel.
In the end, Galt must have heeded his father.
The rest of the Masters, or all of the Haruchai, may have suppressed their vulnerability to sorrow. Stave had not.
While his tears ran, Linden yearned to stay with him. She owed him that much. To her percipience, however, the injuries of her other companions were as audible as cries. She could taste the onset of infection and fatality, the fiery gnash of pain. Even in gratitude for Jeremiah’s life, she could not pause to share Stave’s grief.
Fortunately none of the Giants were as close to death as Anele. Even Clyme and Branl were not, although they rejected the aid of the Demondim-spawn. Stonemage’s heart beat on its own under Kindwind’s steady pressure. The shreds of Esmer’s raiment fluttered as though impalpable winds tugged through him, but his old wounds did not appear to trouble him. When Linden had studied the company, she decided that the Swordmainnir could wait for her a little longer. If she felt compelled to walk away from Stave, she could nonetheless afford to spend a few moments with the old man who had sacrificed himself for Jeremiah.
Anele lay on the churned ground a few paces from his companions. Somehow he had crawled that short distance, or someone had dragged him, seeking safety during Linden’s cataclysm of wild magic. Now he sprawled on his back with his arms outstretched, gazing sightlessly at the sun, and straining for breath as if he had inhaled a pool of blood. The orcrest-light was gone from his eyes: his eyes themselves were gone. Yet he was not afraid.
Kneeling beside him, Linden tried to say his name. But her throat closed against her.
“Linden Avery,” he gasped wetly. He must have felt her presence. “Chosen and Sun-Sage. Accept my gratitude—and my farewell.”
Gripping the Staff, Linden fumbled for Earthpower. But Anele panted, “Do not. Do not heal. Make no lament. My time is past. I was the hope of the Land. Now I have given that gift to another. I have kept faith with my inheritance.” Small spasms of suffocation wracked his chest, but he fought to speak. “Now I may stand with Sunder my father and Hollian my mother, and feel no shame. If you slow my end, you will delay my spirit from their embrace.”
In sorrow, Linden acceded. It was intolerable that she had no good farewell to give the old man. After a moment, she forced herself to reply.
“I don’t know anything about hope.” Her heart was full of darkness. “But I’m sure that Sunder and Hollian have always been proud of you. As proud as I am.” Her voice caught. She had to struggle to finish. “You could have just let Jeremiah suffer, but you didn’t. You didn’t.”
“Thus I am made whole,” Anele sighed. The words were a hoarse rattle of fluids. “I am content.”
Then his eyelids closed on all that he had lost or surrendered. Slowly his body settled until it seemed to belong to the Earth.
There is no death that is not deeply felt,
No pain that does not bite through flesh and bone.
Now Linden understood the necessity of his madness. Without it—without that form of concealment—Kastenessen or Lord Foul might have realized that Anele was far more dangerous to their intentions for Jeremiah than Liand or orcrest. More dangerous than Linden herself. Kastenessen might have killed the old man at his first opportunity, in the Verge of Wandering.
All hurt is like the endless surge of seas,
The wear and tumbling that leaves no welt
But only sand instead of granite ease.
As she had with Stave, Linden wanted to stay with Anele awhile. Her debt to him was boundless: he deserved more than her paltry sentences. But there was nothing left that she could do for him, and other needs demanded her care.
Feeling as blood-stained and barren as the hills, she climbed upright, secured her grasp on the Staff, and turned to the Giants.
Some of them were close to joining Anele and Galt. And Liand.
One of the Waynhim stood in front of her, snuffling damply to ascertain her scent. The creature lifted a small iron cup of vitrim. She took it gratefully, drained it in three unsteady swallows.
While the piercing tonic of the Demondim-spawn raced along her nerves, she raised fire from the heartwood of her Staff: fire that should never have been used to deliver death. Though her flame was black, it was still Earthpower. It still articulated Law. Setting aside her despair, she faced the Swordmainnir and reassumed the forsaken task of healing.
As she did so, she heard or felt Covenant’s ascent on the ridgeside. He came wreathed in an air of ferocity that she had seen before, long ago—although she had never seen it expressed in bloodshed like hers. Behind him, Pahni trailed numbly, still preoccupied by Liand’s passing and her own woe.
Linden ignored him; left Mahrtiir and Bhapa to greet or forestall him. She had already kept the Giants waiting too long.
With a quick sweep of her health-sense, she assessed the urgent clamor of wounds, some more immediately cruel than others, all potentially fatal. Then she wrapped a cocoon of Earthpower and Law around Onyx Stonemage to stabilize the Giant’s heartbeat while flames as poignant as lamentation massaged healing into cuts and deep gashes, severed thews, bitter contusions.
But Linden could not tend Stonemage thoroughly: not yet. There were too many other hurts. As soon as she had eased the most dangerous of Stonemage’s injuries, she gave Cirrus Kindwind a quick burst of kindness, then turned to spin fire around Cabledarm’s mangled leg.
Before Covenant was halfway to the ridgecrest, Esmer called softly, “Wildwielder. I must pass soon. To do so, I crave your consent. Will you not pause to acknowledge that I am justified at last? Good has been accomplished by evil means.”
Linden did not glance at him. When she had burned away the worst effects of Cabledarm’s wound, she coiled black flames around Latebirth’s chest so that none of the Swordmain’s shattered ribs would shift to puncture her lungs or her heart. Earthpower was still Earthpower. Linden’s health-sense enabled her to mend and cleanse in spite of her essential bitterness.
Through her teeth, she told Esmer, “You finally picked a side. You chose betrayal.” If the ur-viles and Waynhim had not come—“How does that justify you?”
In her soiled state, each new effort of healing felt more like an act of violence.
As Latebirth began to breathe more easily, Linden moved to Frostheart Grueburn. Carefully she sealed rent vessels and ligaments so that Rime Coldspray could draw out the spear without too much loss of blood.
“I did not choose here,” Esmer replied like the soughing of winds that touched only him. “At Kastenessen’s behest, I endeavored to preserve the croyel. For your sake, I also strove to preserve your son. By imprisoning the boy’s gifts, I would betray you. By leaving him alive in your care, I would thwart Kastenessen. Thus I endeavored to perfect my excruciation.”
And Jeremiah’s torment in the croyel’s possession would have continued. Bitterly Linden began to lash out, flailing at Rime Coldspray’s hurts, and at Halewhole Bluntfist’s, as if she sought to punish them.
The Giants bore her vehemence in silence. Her harsh succor they endured as if it were a caamora.
“Yet on one occasion I did choose,” Esmer continued. “When I brought the ur-viles and their manacles to this time, I repudiated my grandsire. Will you deny that I have suffered for my deeds?”
He may have been asking Linden’s forgiveness. Helpless, he knelt with pleading like rain in his eyes. The fetters on his wrists bound every expression of his power.
Incensed and shaken, she tried to restrain herself. The Swordmainnir had hazarded their lives for her. For Jeremiah. For Covenant. They needed to be caressed with healing, not whipped. While she struggled to bind her heart to its task, she bathed Stormpast Galesend in swift flames. Then she returned to her starting place with Onyx Stonemage and began to work more meticulously, striving now for completeness.
Will you deny that I have suffered—?
Together Mahrtiir and Bhapa left the ridge to meet Covenant, followed by Clyme and Branl. The two Humbled were too sorely injured to walk without limping. In spite of their great strength, they looked like they might pitch forward onto their faces. Yet the Manethrall—badly hurt himself, and sustained only by vitrim—did not refuse their company.
They accosted Covenant a dozen paces below the crest; but Linden could not hear what they said. Whatever it was, it caused him to pause and listen.
In spite of her concentration on Stonemage, she wanted to ask Esmer, How did the ur-viles know what was going to happen? How did you? But another question leapt into her mouth.
“Why does Lord Foul care about Jeremiah? With or without the croyel, he’s just a boy,” ensepulchered and inaccessible. “What difference does he make to the Despiser?”
Like a dying breeze, Esmer breathed, “A-Jeroth’s designs are hidden from me. I know only that his hunger concerning the boy’s gifts festers within him. Perhaps he perceives an obscure peril. Or perhaps those gifts are necessary to his intent. In either case, he craves possession of your son.
“Such concerns matter naught to Kastenessen. Though moksha Raver hints of them, Kastenessen does not heed him.”
Roger wanted A portal to eternity. But Linden was too weary to pursue the idea. The next injury, and the next, required too much of her attention. A certain amount of Stonemage’s recovery could be entrusted to her native toughness. The rest, however—
Abruptly Covenant’s voice carried up the slope: a bark of outrage or dismay. “Bloody hell! Why didn’t one of you hit me? Break my arm? Do something? I might have been able to help!”
“How?” retorted Mahrtiir. Linden heard him clearly. “You are no warrior. You hold no implements of power.”
“I know that,” Covenant almost shouted. “But I would have been one hell of a distraction.” More quietly, he added, “If nothing else, I could have held the krill for Galt. He might still be alive.”
Grinding her teeth, Linden finished her work with Stonemage. She closed her eyes for a moment, wrestled for self-control. Then she turned Earthpower and Law on Cirrus Kindwind.
Kindwind was not in more danger than her comrades. She was simply closer to Linden.
“Wildwielder.” Esmer’s appeal sank as if he had lost hope. Nevertheless he continued to insist. “I cannot endure as I am. Nor do I wish to do so. An end I must have, if you will grant it. Still I beseech your acknowledgment that I am justified. If you cannot hear Cail’s voice in any other deed of mine, will you not concede worth to the presence of the ur-viles in this time? By their hands, I am undone. And your son’s release betrays both Kastenessen and a-Jeroth.”
Crushed nerves. Shredded veins and arteries. Muscles and tendons and ligaments torn or severed. Infection everywhere. Raw contusions. Bruises as brutal as knife-thrusts. The profligate reek of blood and dirt and too much killing.
Linden wanted more vitrim. Without it, she feared that the needs of the Giants would outlast her. And she had not yet done anything for Stave or Mahrtiir. Or for the Humbled.
An end I must have—
Ragged with strain, Branl answered Covenant, “We deemed the preservation of your life paramount, ur-Lord. In this, we concur with Linden Avery. You are necessary. We saw no cause to endanger your life in combat.”
“Then why,” demanded Covenant, “didn’t you at least take Jeremiah somewhere safe?” But before the Masters could reply, he snapped, “No, don’t tell me. I already know. You were waiting for an excuse to kill the croyel. So you or Linden or somebody could use the krill.”
A weapon which had enabled her to rouse the Worm.
Like an act of self-flagellation, Branl said, “Yet Galt was swayed by Stave, as he was by Linden Avery.”
Covenant did not relent. “Some of this is still your doing.” He may have meant the battle, or Galt’s death, or the company’s multitude of wounds. “For once in your lives, I want you to accept the consequences.”
Now Clyme spoke. His voice sounded weaker than Branl’s; closer to prostration. Bitter with blood loss and old indignation, the outcome of a humiliation which his people had never forgotten, he asked, “When have the Haruchai ever declined the cost of their deeds?”
“I’m not talking about your damn deeds,” Covenant snarled. “I’m talking about being mortal. About not being equal to all things. This is what you get. You’re both too badly hurt. Now you’re going to let Linden heal you. That’s the consequence you have to accept. If you don’t, I am going to by God leave you behind.”
The Humbled or the Manethrall may have offered an objection too soft to reach the crest. In a harsh growl, Covenant responded, “It won’t be as hard as you think. I’ll just tell the Ranyhyn not to let you ride. You can’t possibly believe they won’t do it. They reared to me, for God’s sake!”
Linden drew strength from his misplaced wrath. In another time and place, she had learned to love his anger. She knew what it meant. It was recognition and compassion disguised as accusation. And he had come back, for the Land if not for her and Jeremiah. If he fell again, he would find a way to return.
She owed her life to the Haruchai. Because Covenant insisted upon it, Clyme and Branl would swallow enough of their pride to let her repay a portion of her long debt.
When she had staunched Kindwind’s bleeding, and had extinguished the last taint of infection, she did not take the time to seek sustenance from the Demondim-spawn. Turning to Cabledarm’s injuries, and Latebirth’s, she found that she could answer Esmer.
“All right.” She spoke without interrupting her ministrations. “I accept that. Bringing the ur-viles here wasn’t just a way to balance the scales. They were a gift. You saved Jeremiah, even if you didn’t do it yourself. You made it possible.”
On her own, she had failed terribly. And she had seen the price that Esmer paid for his one true choice.
Remembering that she had denied Elena, she added, “As far as I’m concerned, what you’ve accomplished is practically a miracle. Maybe it’s enough to compensate for everything else.”
Esmer’s face twisted: he may have been smiling. “Then grant me an end, Wildwielder.”
In spite of her determination to continue healing, Linden nearly froze. “How?” With one sentence, Esmer restored her despair. “You can’t—” Liand and Anele were dead. Stave’s son was dead. She had killed—“You can’t expect—”
“The krill of the High Lord lies there.” Esmer tilted his head toward Jeremiah. “It will suffice to slay me. You need only pierce my heart, and I will find peace.”
Joan’s intensity no longer pulsed in the gem. Nevertheless the jewel still shone, responding to the distant theurgy of her ring.
“Damn it, Esmer!” Linden cursed so that she would not wail. Earthpower slipped from her grasp. She almost dropped her Staff. “You can’t ask me to just murder you!”
Not after she had committed such slaughter—
Among themselves, the ur-viles and Waynhim chittered incomprehensibly.
Esmer’s eyes oozed like his sores. “Then I must remain as I am, a husk of life, until the Worm devours me.”
That, Linden wanted to protest, is not my problem! Too many other injuries ached for her care. All of her companions—She should have simply turned her back on Cail’s son.
But she could not. She had butchered thousands of living creatures. He was the only one who actually needed death.
“Linden Giantfriend—” the Ironhand began like a groan. Then she stopped, unable to find words.
Suddenly Stave lifted Galt’s body aside. When he had settled his son gently on the stained ground, he rose to his feet and picked up Loric’s krill. Then he strode toward Esmer.
Without a flicker of hesitation or doubt, he drove the dagger into Esmer’s back.
Stave!
For an instant, joy broke across Esmer’s tormented features. He had time to lift his eyes to the heavens in gratitude. A heartbeat later, he vanished like dispelled smoke, leaving no sign that he had ever existed except manacles: the symbol and resolution of his compelled nature. If any hint of his spirit lingered in the air, Linden could not sense it.
As one, the ur-viles and Waynhim raised a tumult of barking. As one, they fell silent again.
With an air of scorn or disgust, Stave dropped the knife. His gaze met Linden’s consternation squarely.
“It is not murder,” he pronounced, as rigid as any of his kindred. “It is mercy.”
When he had shown her that he was prepared to accept her reaction, whatever it might be, he turned away.
For a moment, the manacles lay where they had fallen in the mire of drying blood and gypsum. Then they began to corrode. The purpose for which they had been forged was done. Now the effects of millennia seemed to dissolve the black iron. While Linden watched, the last makings of the ur-viles slumped into rust and crumbled. Soon they were just one more blot on the ruined whiteness of the ridge.
She wished that she, too, could sag into flakes of rust. She yearned to be done—But she was supposed to be a healer, and she had already permitted Liand’s death. She had failed her son. In Andelain, she had refused simple kindness to Covenant’s woe-ridden daughter. On this ridge, she had torn apart more Cavewights than she knew how to count. The legacies of her parents were wrapped like cerements around her soul.
She could not pretend that she was done.
And Stave had spared her a burden. His mercy was for her as much as for Esmer.
She understood his disgust.
Scornful of herself, and grieving, Linden Avery recalled black flames from her Staff and resumed her tasks.
Stave would need her soon. So would Mahrtiir, if to a lesser extent. But the Swordmainnir came first for the sufficient reason that they were closer.
046
She had treated all but the most superficial of Frostheart Grueburn’s wounds, and was working deep within Halewhole Bluntfist’s hacked frame, when Covenant arrived on the ridgecrest, trailing the Humbled and the Ramen behind him like a cortege.
The force of his appearance jolted her to a halt. Her mouth was suddenly dry: the air felt too thick with carnage to breathe. Struggling to remember that she had once been a physician, she had forgotten how much he meant to her—and how much she feared his repudiation.
Apart from the Cords, she was the only member of the company who did not wear the stains of her actions. Even Jeremiah had been splashed by Galt’s blood, and by Liand’s. How could Covenant look at her without feeling sickened?
Yet her relief that he was unharmed pushed that concern aside. And when he met her gaze, she saw that his wrath was gone. He had expended it on the Humbled. Now he looked ashamed, as though he had failed her and everyone with her. His eyes held a kind of moral nausea, but it was not directed at her. Emphasized by the pure silver of his hair, the scar on his forehead suggested an instinct for self-blame that had grown pale with time, but had never entirely healed.
In that, he resembled her. The difference between them was Gallows Howe. It was She Who Must Not Be Named and limitless killing. With the Earth at stake, Thomas Covenant would not have done what she had done. He would have found some other answer.
“I’m sorry,” he said thickly, as if he rather than Linden had cause to expect recrimination. “I spent too long in the Arch. I don’t have any defenses against wild magic.” With one hand, he gestured at the krill. “It’s like Joan has me on a string. This time, she brought me back. She wants me where I can be hurt. But before that—” He winced. “Maybe she was holding me down. Or maybe I just don’t know how to climb out of what I remember.”
The Swordmainnir studied him gravely. Mahrtiir regarded Covenant through a drying crust of blood. Bhapa considered the killing ground with chagrin. Pahni looked around as if she had become a wasteland; as if the life in her eyes had been slain. For a moment, no one spoke. The Demondim-spawn stood motionless, as attentive as a salute.
Then Rime Coldspray found her voice. “Yet you live, Timewarden.” She sounded precise in spite of her hurts, like a woman stroking a whetstone along the edges of her glaive. “Nothing more was needed. Linden Giantfriend sufficed.”
Covenant scanned the company. Gruffly he replied, “I can see that. I would have thought all this”—with a jerk of his head, he indicated the battleground—“was impossible. Kastenessen and Roger and poor Joan and even Lord Foul must be tearing their hair right now.”
With that simple statement, he seemed to honor a victory that appalled Linden.
Then he shook himself, ran the stubs of his fingers through his hair, frowned ruefully. “Unfortunately we can’t afford to wait here for another attack.” To the loremaster, he said, “I hope you’ll stick around, at least for a while. You’ve already saved”—he spread his hands—“practically everything. As much as it could be saved. But Linden needs more vitrim. We all do. And we have questions you might at least try to answer.”
The loremaster merely nodded. After a moment, Waynhim began to move through the company again, offering their iron cups.
Hoping that she would someday be able to draw at least one clean breath, Linden accepted a cup. Instead of drinking, however, she continued to watch Covenant’s every movement, clutch at every word. He was right: she required sustenance. She felt so weak that she could barely stand. But she needed something more from him as well. Something more personal than his willingness to accept the crime of carnage.
After a moment, he told her directly, “You have to keep working, Linden. You’re still the only one who can do this. When you’re done with the Giants, Stave needs you. Mahrtiir needs you. And the Humbled are going to let you treat them.” His tone sharpened. “They won’t like what happens if they don’t.”
Sighing, he added, “We’re the last. We can’t afford to lose anybody else.”
Now he avoided Linden’s gaze. Scowling, he moved to stand over the krill. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
He bent to retrieve the dagger, then stopped. The gem no longer pulsed. Instead it shone with a steady radiance made pale by sunshine. Joan’s concentration had broken: she was too frail to sustain any intent. Clearly, however, she—or turiya Herem—could sense his touch on Loric’s weapon. She might strike again.
He had already been severely damaged.
Hesitating, he searched for some form of protection. But he seemed reluctant to take any scrap of cloth or leather from the corpses of the Cavewights. At last, he forced himself to approach Anele’s body.
Awkward with self-coercion and inadequate fingers, he rent strips from Anele’s aged tunic. The fabric was tattered and filthy, soiled by unrelieved decades of privation and neglect; but it was cleaner than anything worn by the Cavewights. As if he were violating the old man’s sacrifice, Covenant tore enough cloth to cover the krill; shield his hands: Anele’s last gift, taken without his volition. Then Covenant went to reclaim Loric Vilesilencer’s supreme achievement.
Shaken, Linden abruptly lifted vitrim to her lips and drank. She needed—Oh, she had too many needs. Covenant’s actions shocked her. They seemed uncharacteristically callous. And yet she had no idea what else he could have done.
He had shown that he could be callous when he had told her not to touch him.
As soon as her depleted body began to absorb vitality from the dust-scented liquid, she returned the cup to the Waynhim and called fresh fire from her Staff.
While Linden finished caring for Bluntfist, Rime Coldspray spoke to her comrades. The Ironhand was profoundly weary; but her voice was clear, founded on granite.
“Recover our supplies,” she told those Swordmainnir who were able to comply. “Return to the stream. Covenant Timewarden descries a need for haste. Yet some food and cleansing we must have. By the stream we will gather to drink and bathe, and to reconsider our course. And if these valiant ur-viles and Waynhim accompany us, mayhap they will consent to answer or advise us.”
“Aye,” assented Frostheart Grueburn and Onyx Stonemage together. Stiff with exhaustion and newly mended tissues, they limped down the ridge to collect the company’s bundles.
Weakened more by bleeding than by any single wound, Manethrall Mahrtiir could barely stand. Nevertheless he retained his authority. Leaning on Bhapa, he instructed Pahni to take Jeremiah and follow the Giants. “Ready viands for them,” he added, “and for us, while they drink and wash and rest.”
The girl obeyed without hesitation; without any sign of emotion whatsoever. Clasping Jeremiah’s hand in hers, she drew him away, passive and unaware. At once, Covenant joined her, tucking the wrapped krill into the waist of his jeans as he went.
Branl and Clyme started after him; but he snapped, “I warned you,” and they halted.
Linden approved the Manethrall’s instructions and Pahni’s compliance. She wished that her son had never been forced to witness such slaughter. She would breathe more easily herself when he was no longer forced to inhale the stink of what she had done. But she also felt a pang at Covenant’s manner. He was still keeping his distance from her—
Striving for thoroughness, she continued to work.
Fortunately the Cavewights had not damaged any of Rime Coldspray’s vital organs or arteries, or of Stormpast Galesend’s. They had not caught the force of Roger’s wild blasts. Their worst dangers came from infection and the sheer multiplicity of their hurts. Linden could afford to spend less time with them than she had with the other Giants.
As soon as their condition satisfied her, she turned to Mahrtiir. Stave, Branl, and Clyme she postponed simply because they were Haruchai, inherently hardier than any Raman.
As Linden tended Mahrtiir’s many cuts and the poisons which dirty weapons had left in his wounds, Coldspray’s comrades headed for the stream until only the Ironhand remained. Briefly she scanned the area for something with which she could clean her glaive. Then, growling Giantish epithets under her breath, she dropped the stone sword at her feet.
In spite of her long exertions, and the strain of imposed healing, she went to the litter of boulders bestrewn from Liand’s cairn and began shifting them.
Alone Rime Coldspray labored to raise a smaller grave mound for Anele.
It was for this. I have kept faith with my inheritance. In his madness, Anele had endured more than Linden could imagine.
She was losing her ability to distinguish between grief and failure.
“It is enough, Ringthane.” Mahrtiir’s tone contradicted his words. Blood still seeped from some of his cuts. Nevertheless he took a step backward, plainly asking her to leave him as he was. “Stave has lost a son so that yours might live. And my fear for the Humbled is greater than my distrust. Were I sighted and whole, I could perform no service to equal theirs.” At the edges, his voice frayed into sorrow. “Humbled myself, if in another fashion, I implore your succor for them.”
Linden let her fire fall away. She could not refuse his plea. Just for a moment, she caught him in a tight hug; gave him an embrace which she could not share with Covenant; accepted the responsibility of his blood on her clothes and skin. Then she went to face Stave’s more intimate wounds.
The ur-viles and Waynhim stayed where they were. Having put away their cups, they appeared to study Linden by scent and sound as if they were waiting for her.
Quietly but firmly, Mahrtiir sent Bhapa after Pahni and the rest of the company. But the Manethrall himself did not depart.
Linden was not brave enough for this. Like Anele and Liand, Stave had sacrificed too much in her name. She might have guessed that the passions of fatherhood ran strongly in him.—a fire in us, and deep. But nothing in her experience of any Haruchai had prepared her to see tears in his eye—
He had slain Esmer without hesitation.
Yet his life was ebbing from him in spite of his preternatural toughness. If she did not intervene, he would eventually perish.
Bracing her Staff on the dirt’s burden of bloodshed, Linden stood in front of him. With her health-sense, she studied his gashed face and blade-bitten shoulders, his arms and torso brutally cut. But when he met her gaze, she bowed her head.
“Does it help,” she asked in a small voice, “if I say that I’m sorry? Stave, I am so sorry. I didn’t see that axe coming. If I had—” With an effort, she caught herself. She had been about to say, I would have tried to stop it. But he deserved better honesty. Wincing, she admitted, “I would have prayed for Galt to do what he did. But I’m still sorry. I didn’t want him to die. I regret everything that’s happened to you.”
For her sake, he had been spurned by the Masters.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” she insisted to the unspoken protest of his injuries. “For the first time since Roger took him, Jeremiah isn’t being tortured. He might even have a chance to come out of himself.” And Covenant was alive, although he no longer wanted her love. “But I wish—”
Stave interrupted her. “Do not, Linden.” His voice was little more than a sigh; yet it silenced her. “Wish for nothing. Regret nothing. Has your long acquaintance with Haruchai not taught you that my pride in my son is as great as my bereavement?”
Linden had no answer except the power of the Staff. She had stood on Gallows Howe; had become an incarnation of that benighted mound, barren and bitter. She had refused Elena in Andelain, and had succumbed to the irremediable savagery and suffering of She Who Must Not Be Named. Her only reply was fire.
She scrutinized how his wounds closed as she cared for them, seeking to ensure that she missed no hidden damage, no site of infection. At the same time, she burned blood and grime from his skin, and tried to believe that she was doing enough.
When she was done, she turned away as if she were weeping, although her eyes were parched, as tearless as the landscape.
Now she saw why Mahrtiir had not left. Defying his weakened condition, he was trying to help the Ironhand. His residue of strength was an infant’s beside hers. Yet he moved smaller stones to clear her way; steadied boulders while she lifted them; settled Anele’s limbs to receive the weight of his makeshift tomb.
Rime Coldspray was no longer alone.
While Linden watched, helpless to intervene, Stave raised Galt in his arms. Saying nothing, he moved toward Coldspray and Mahrtiir; placed his son’s body beside Anele’s. Then he, too, joined the Ironhand’s efforts. Stubborn as any of his people, he contributed his own homage to the new cairn.
Damn it, Linden thought. Damn them. They deserved better. The Worm of the World’s End was coming. It would destroy them all. Yet they persisted in being true to their own natures.
Aching for her friends, Linden Avery forced herself to meet the challenge of the Humbled.
Both Clyme and Branl stood like crumbling monuments. When she faced them, Clyme said like the voice of his injuries, “We do not require your aid.” He was close to collapse, to death and the world’s ruin, but there was no fear in his eyes, or in Branl’s.
Their unrequited pain brought back Linden’s anger. “I know,” she retorted. “You would rather just die. That way, you won’t have to resolve any more contradictions. But Covenant needs you, so shut up about it. Either stop me or let me work.”
Neither of them raised a hand against her as she filled them with flame as if Earthpower and Law were her only outlet for ire and shame, the essential components of her despair.
047
When Linden finally descended to the stream, the ur-viles and Waynhim followed her, a ragged procession better suited to running on all fours than walking upright. In the Lost Deep, nearly a third of them had died. But among the survivors, most of their wounds had already been healed, mended by their uncanny lore.
Ahead of Linden strode Clyme and Branl as though they had never been hurt, never questioned themselves. The shreds of their tunics and the latticework of new scars belied their assurance; yet they held their heads high and gazed about them like men who did not relent. Nearing the stretch of sand where Covenant paced back and forth with storms brewing in his gaze, the Humbled bowed to him as though he had not tarnished their Haruchai estimations of rectitude. Then they separated to climb the nearby hills in order to stand watch over the company once more.
Linden saw at a glance that the Swordmainnir had bathed and eaten. Their washed armor lay drying in the sun, and they were visibly stronger. Among them, Jeremiah chewed reflexively on some morsel of food. Pahni or Bhapa had cared for him in his mother’s absence. Nonetheless the silt of his stare remained unreactive, empty, like a wall against the hurts of the world.
“Linden—” Covenant began, then stopped. Conflicting emotions seemed to close his throat. The muscles of his jaw bunched as he fought what he was feeling, but he did not say anything more than her name.
Avoiding his congested gaze, Linden nodded to the concerned faces of the Giants, Bhapa’s more troubled expression, Pahni’s numbed mien. Hoarse with weariness and too many needs, she explained, “Coldspray is building a cairn for Anele and Galt. Mahrtiir and Stave are helping her. They’ll be here soon.”
Even their strength and determination would not last much longer.
Then she strode past her companions. At the edge of the water, she dropped her Staff as though it entailed more responsibilities than she could bear. Empty-handed, she walked out into the stream until it filled her boots, reached her knees, rose to her waist. When it was deep enough, she plunged beneath the surface.
Like a small child, irrationally, she prayed that the water would feel as clean and cleansing as Glimmermere.
But it could not wash away what she had seen and done and felt. The darkness in her was immiscible. No mere spring runoff could dilute it. Like the healing that she had given to her companions, the stream had no power to expunge her sins.
In Andelain, Berek’s spectre had said of Lord Foul, He may be freed only by one who is compelled by rage, and contemptuous of consequence. Since then, she had proven herself an apt instrument. If Jeremiah had not been rescued from the croyel—
But her son had been set free. If the current’s gentle urging did not ease her heart, she had other answers. For years, she had made a study of despair: as a physician, she knew it intimately. In addition, she could still hope that Jeremiah would emerge from his graves, if he were given time. And the imponderable implications of Covenant’s instinct for redemption might somehow counteract the lessons that she had absorbed from Gallows Howe; the horror that she had shared within She Who Must Not Be Named.
Underwater she scrubbed at her hair, tried to claw the disgust and lamentation off of her arms and face. Gradually she grew calmer. When she broke the surface and wiped the water from her eyes, she was able to meet the anxious glances of her companions without flinching.
Sodden, and glad of it, she left the stream to reclaim her Staff and the rest of her burdens.
As she approached, Bhapa held out food for her: bread that had not had time to grow stale, grapes and a little cheese, some cured beef. He offered her a bulging waterskin. She accepted his care and thanked him. Then she began to eat.
She was hungrier than she would have thought possible. In spite of everything that had sickened or appalled her, her body had not forgotten its own needs.
Covenant stopped his pacing to watch her. She sensed the pressure rising in him like a fever, but she did not know how to interpret it. After a moment, he began again, “Linden—We’re running out of time. I know you’ve been through hell. You’ve lost too much. You all have. But we should—”
He seemed eager to get as far away from her as he could.
Chewing, Linden held up a hand to interrupt him. When she had swallowed, she asked, “Have you remembered something that makes a difference? Something that we can understand?”
He shook his head. Shadows like thunderheads complicated his gaze.
“Then we should wait for Stave, Mahrtiir, and Coldspray.” She rebuffed him because she felt rebuffed herself. “They need food and a chance to wash. And they have a right to hear whatever you want to say.”
She expected him to overrule her. He had that authority: he was Thomas Covenant. But he did not. Briefly he scowled at her as if he wished that he could read her heart. Then he resumed his pacing.
The ur-viles and Waynhim had spread out around the Giants, enclosing Linden and her companions in a half-circle. Now they began growling like creatures who wished to be heeded.
Frostheart Grueburn jerked up her head. Surprise lit the features of the Giants: surprise and sudden gladness. While Onyx Stonemage and her comrades whispered excitedly to each other, Grueburn turned to the loremaster and bowed with the formality due to a sovereign among invaluable allies.
“Our ears have been opened,” she said with as much gravity as her eagerness and relief allowed. “We hear you and attend, honoring your great valor and service.”
The loremaster replied in a guttural snarl that conveyed nothing to Linden—or to Covenant and the Cords. But Grueburn bowed again, grinning as if something within her had been set free. Latebirth and Stormpast Galesend laughed softly, full of pleasure. Other Giants beamed, smiling with their whole bodies.
“Linden Giantfriend,” Grueburn said, “do not misapprehend our joy. It is the restoration of our gift of tongues which lifts our hearts, not the words of these brave creatures. Yet there is no hurt or harm in those words. The loremaster merely desires us to comprehend that the ur-viles and Waynhim must depart. For the present, they have fulfilled the dictates of their Weird.” The Swordmain broke off. Aside, she explained, “Among them, ‘Weird’ has several meanings, none of which are plain to me.” Then she resumed. “Now they wish to seek out a deeper understanding, for their deeds here do not content them.
“Ere they depart, however, they will answer any questions that you may choose to ask, if the answers lie within their ken.”
Linden stared. Now? When she and her companions had barely survived Roger’s attack? The list of things that she wanted to know seemed endless. But she was close to exhaustion: she could not think clearly enough to remember them all.
Nevertheless the loremaster’s offer was a precious opportunity. It might not come again.
Covenant’s eyes seemed to catch fire in the sunlight. He turned sharply; strode toward the loremaster as though he meant to hurl a volley of queries. When the black creature sniffed in his direction, however, and proffered an awkward mimicry of a human bow, he did not speak. Instead he bowed in return, then looked at Linden.
Not for the first time, he appeared reluctant to take command in her presence.
All of the Demondim-spawn had fallen silent. The Giants gathered more closely around Linden, Covenant, and the loremaster. Torn between diffidence and a desire for comprehension, Bhapa joined them. But Pahni stayed with Jeremiah. As if she had no interest or purpose in life except to carry out assigned tasks, she busied herself feeding the boy as long as he was willing to chew and swallow.
Pressed by Covenant’s gaze, Linden asked the first question that came to her.
“How did they know?”
Grueburn cocked her head quizzically. “It may be, Linden Giantfriend, that the creatures comprehend you. Alas, I do not.”
Linden dragged a hand through her hair. She wanted to slap herself, sting a measure of acuity into her thoughts.
“Esmer said that they forged their manacles in the Lost Deep. They must have done it thousands of years ago. He saved the last of them—but they were ready for him. How did they know that they were going to need those manacles? How did they know that he would even exist?” If she understood what Esmer had told her, he had urged the creatures to accompany him before the time of his own birth. “How did they know what he would be like, or what he would do, or how he could be stopped?”
At once, the loremaster began to bark a lengthy response. Scrambling to keep up, Grueburn attempted a simultaneous translation.
“These are matters of lore. They cannot be contained by your speech. We labored in the Lost Deep, where the Snared One could not discover us, for our presence was masked by the hunger and somnolence of the nameless bane. Thus we were not taken by the purge which destroyed all others of our kind. In our fashion, we witnessed the Snared One’s defeat, and the union of the Haruchai with those beings whom you name merewives, and the first stirrings of the mad Elohim’s struggle to escape his Durance. From these gravid portents, we inferred what must follow. We could not be certain of it, just as we could not be certain when we created Vain to serve against the Snared One. But we saw—”
Abruptly Grueburn winced in frustration. “Loremaster, I cry your pardon. You speak in concepts beyond my grasp.”
The Waynhim replied with low growls and snarls as if they were making suggestions. But the Giants shook their heads in bewilderment, and the grey Demondim-spawn fell silent.
Abandoning literal translation, Frostheart Grueburn endeavored to paraphrase instead.
“Linden Giantfriend, the ur-viles saw possibilities. I have no better language. They saw possibilities and prepared themselves.
“However, the loremaster states plainly that they did not foreknow Esmer’s coming to bear them across the millennia. But they do not age and die as we do, and they conceived themselves secure in the Lost Deep. It was their intent to simply wait out the centuries until possibilities became certainties, or proved to be chimeras. In the forgotten caverns beneath Gravin Threndor, and in their loreworks, they had much to occupy them.
“Yet when Esmer appeared, they knew him. Again the word is not adequate to their meaning. They saw possibilities made flesh. Therefore they consented to accompany him, perceiving that his nature might one day require the constraint of their manacles.”
Increasingly stymied by unfamiliar rationales, Grueburn betrayed a surge of agitation. “Here also,” she continued, hurrying, “the loremaster states plainly that the ur-viles did not foreknow events. They merely—”
She stopped short. As if to herself, she protested, “Stone and Sea! I am a Giant, am I not? How does it transpire that I have no sufficient speech?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Covenant murmured gruffly. “You’re doing fine.” And Halewhole Bluntfist added, “We are not Elohim, Grueburn. That we are not more than Giants does not imply that we are therefore less.”
Clenching her fists, Grueburn swallowed her vexation. Uncomfortably she finished, “They merely followed the path of possibilities, and awaited culmination.”
The loremaster may have been satisfied. It made no effort to explain further.
Possibilities? Linden thought. That’s all? Her own mind and experiences were alien to those of the ur-viles and Waynhim; too alien. Their thoughts were like Caerroil Wildwood’s runes: they surpassed her ability to interpret them.
Covenant watched her with a complex intensity in his eyes; but he did not interject his own questions.
All right, she told herself. All right. It is what it is. One step at a time.
Studying the stark ebony and eyelessness of the loremaster’s visage, she asked, “So what changed? For a long time, they served Lord Foul. Then they didn’t. They started working against him instead.” Something had inspired them to redefine their Weird. “Why did they do that?”
The loremaster responded with a string of sounds like harsh choking. But this time Grueburn seemed more at ease with the creature’s reply.
“Two—insights? recognitions?—caused them to reexamine the import of their Weird. The first is this.
“They were drawn to the Snared One’s service by promises of fulfillment. When his designs were accomplished, he assured them, they would achieve every aspiration, and the strictures of their Weird would be appeased. Like him, they would perceive themselves as gods, far greater in form and substance and lore and worth than the Demondim, their makers. For this, they strove in his name.”
Through the low mutter of barking and growls from the Waynhim and several of the ur-viles, Frostheart Grueburn’s voice carried more strongly. The creatures may have been encouraging her.
“By increments, however, they became acquainted—how could they not?—with his insatiable contempt for all beings other than himself. They deemed themselves the foremost of his servants, mightier and more necessary than even the Ravers, for the Ravers required stolen forms and did not honor the vast lore of the Demondim. Still less did the Ravers esteem the spanning knowledge and theurgies of the siring Viles. Also the enslavement of the Ravers was such that they had lost themselves. They had grown incapable of any clear aspiration not commanded by their lord. And the ur-viles were many, the Ravers few. Surely, therefore, the ur-viles were the most prized of the Snared One’s adherents.
“Yet they were not. Rather they were despised. Indeed, his contempt for them seemed as unfathomable as the deepest secrets of the Earth. And no promises were kept. At last, they saw that his contempt exceeded their self-loathing. Thus they became disposed to turn aside from their service.”
Urged by soft calls and snarls, Grueburn added, “Yet to turn aside is also to turn toward, and they lacked any new purpose, any new vision of their Weird, toward which they might turn.”
There she paused, apparently trying to follow the strands of the loremaster’s involuted speech.
As if to prompt her, Covenant remarked, “That’s where the Waynhim came in. That was their real gift to the Land. A different interpretation.”
“Aye,” Grueburn assented as the loremaster barked. “You speak of the second insight or recognition which guided the ur-viles to their present course.
“In the unyielding opposition of their smaller, weaker, and fewer kindred, they discerned strength of a kind which lay beyond their emulation. It was neither lore nor puissance. But it may have been wisdom, and it surpassed them.”
Sadly Grueburn admitted, “Mere wisdom is too small to suggest the scale of the loremaster’s meaning. The creature implies a discernment of the underlying nature of existence. However, the pith of the matter is this. The Waynhim no longer loathed their own forms. They had surrendered that self-disgust, or they had transcended it. They were impelled to the Land’s service by—I have no more fitting word—by love. They were driven, not by abhorrence, but by affirmation.”
Again the Swordmain paused, wrestling with ramifications. Several of her comrades seemed to want to help her, but they kept their ideas to themselves.
After a moment, Grueburn sighed like an admission of defeat. “This,” she resumed, “the ur-viles did not comprehend. They could not. Yet they saw that there was no ire in the opposition of the Waynhim. Again I lack needful language. The Waynhim fought, and were overwhelmed, and perished—and felt neither rage nor protest. Rather they comported themselves as though their service alone sufficed to vindicate their interpretation of their Weird. To both vindicate and achieve it.
“Though the ur-viles did not comprehend, they recognized that their own service to the Snared One offered no such reward. They were given promises, and they were sacrificed, but they were denied the calm certainty of the Waynhim. Thus they were led to the arcane study of possibilities. And when those possibilities were confirmed in Vain—in Linden Giantfriend’s Staff of Law, and in Covenant Timewarden’s transubstantiation—these ur-viles now among us pursued their study further.”
As the loremaster’s answer ended, Linden saw Covenant watching her sidelong. He appeared to be biding his time, as if he hoped that she would eventually ask a different question.
Perhaps he wished her to seek guidance. If so, he was going to be disappointed. At that moment, she did not want advice. She wanted an effective way to thank the ur-viles for stopping Esmer.
“Then tell me what their Weird is,” she said. “What does it mean?” A moment later, however, she shook her head. “No. That isn’t what I’m trying to ask.”
Weird, Wyrd, Würd, Word, Worm: she had heard too many explanations. More would not improve her comprehension.
“Before we left Revelstone, I made a promise. I told them that if they ever figured out how to tell me what they need from me, I would do it. I want to keep that promise.” She yearned to keep at least one of her promises, and she had already failed Anele. In truth, she had doomed everyone who had ever trusted her. Facing the loremaster, she concluded, “You’ve done so much for me. For all of us. Tell me how I can repay you.”
Dozens of voices replied simultaneously, as insistent as the clamor of hounds on the scent of their quarry.
Frostheart Grueburn tried to follow them all. Then she punched her fists against each other: a gesture of protest. “I implore you,” she groaned. “I cannot encompass so much. When I am given more than I am able to heed, I receive none of it.”
At once, the tumult of the creatures was cut off. Testing the air with its wide nostrils, the loremaster fell silent.
Abashed, Grueburn turned to Linden. “I am unequal to this task. The Waynhim in particular strive to account for their Weird, but I hear little that I am able to convey. Some cite worth and otherness. Some make reference to transfiguration or rebirth. But their true meaning eludes me.”
She looked around at the Swordmainnir, mutely asking for aid. But they shook their heads, admitting their own confusion.
Glumly Grueburn told Linden, “They appear to conflate concepts in a manner baffling to me. Do they equate their own worthiness with that of the wide Earth, or do they attempt some obscure distinction? Do they crave an alteration of themselves, that they may be condign in the world, or do they desire the world’s transformation in their own image? They appear to set their course by many headings. I cannot follow them.”
Now the loremaster spoke again. When it was done, Grueburn squared her shoulders; gazed at Linden more sharply. “To one aspect of your question, however, their response is plain. The nature of the Staff of Law is inimical to them, though they possess a limited virtu to ward themselves. In this circumstance, Linden Giantfriend, they require naught that you may provide.”
To herself, Linden groaned. She needed a different answer. Something tangible, attainable: something that she could actually do to balance the scales of her long debt.
Something to lighten the weight of her growing darkness.
But before she could find words for her regret, Covenant moved closer to the loremaster. “In that case,” he informed the creature, “I have a question.”
His tone suggested potential wrath held in strict abeyance.
“Esmer said he wasn’t the one who betrayed us in the Lost Deep. But hellfire! He was the only one there. The Harrow was already dead, and Roger was gone, and Kastenessen sent the skurj, and the bane just is what She is.
“So what was Esmer talking about? How were we betrayed?”
Frowning at the question, or at Covenant’s attitude, Grueburn turned back to the loremaster.
For a long moment, all of the ur-viles and Waynhim replied with silence. Then the loremaster uttered a quick, raucous burst.
Translating literally, Grueburn announced, “The son of merewives and Haruchai spoke of us.”
Covenant waited, stiff and demanding.
Another burst of noise like the yowling of a penned dog.
“He was cognizant of our purpose. He abhorred and desired it. He considered you betrayed because we did not impose our manacles then. Had we done so, you would have been freed to flee without further peril or striving.”
Under his breath, Covenant muttered, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Then he asked harshly, “So why didn’t you? You could have spared us almost any amount of suffering. I won’t even mention what I did to Elena.” For an instant, his self-control broke. “She’s my daughter!” Almost immediately, however, he mastered himself. “But we came close to losing Linden completely. Hell and blood! You know what’s at stake. Why did you take a chance like that?”
Linden wanted to object. Surely the creatures did not merit this? But Covenant’s passion—and his question—held her.
There was a storm building in him. It gathered somewhere beyond the horizon of her comprehension. When it broke, people or beings or creatures were going to die.
Indirectly the ur-viles had doomed Elena. Her sacrifice in the Lost Deep must have appalled him.
This time, the silence was longer. When the loremaster finally replied, it spoke at some length, voluble and urgent. But Grueburn did not attempt a translation until the creature was finished.
“Your pardon,” she said at last. “I wished to confirm that I have understood the loremaster.” Puzzlement and speculation were eloquent in her gaze. “It responds thus.
“Had your efforts to forestall the bane failed, Timewarden, we would have attempted intervention, knowing that we must. Earlier, however, other possibilities constrained us.
“Their form and substance as we comprehend them cannot be expressed in your speech. The Giant has made the attempt. We do not fault her. Yet our tongue wields connotations and meanings which are not accessible to her. We cannot explain.
“Yet consider one matter. We could not be certain that the son of merewives would not counter us. He knew the intent of our manacles. He named you betrayed because we did not act to prevent him. Yet his nature was contradiction. He both craved and abhorred each of his deeds. Desiring the absolution of our manacles, he might nonetheless have forestalled us. Therefore we deemed it needful to ensnare him when he was unaware of us.
“Also there is this. Had we acted otherwise, how might the immeasurable strengths of the Vilesilencer’s instrument have been released for your use? The instrument was necessary to restrain the croyel. He whom you name Esmer had not yet revealed his purpose against the old man, the inheritor of Earthpower. Nor had the old man’s own purpose been revealed. And we had cause to fear that the Haruchai would oppose him. Inadvertently, perhaps, they might have precluded the croyel’s death.
“We see possibilities, Timewarden. We do not foreknow events. Yet portents abound. Guided by them, we saw no path to the present outcome which did not rely upon both the defeat of Esmer and the acquiescence of the Haruchai. For such reasons, we accepted the peril of the bane, and of white gold made impotent, knowing that events might prove fatal to you, and to the fruition of our Weird.”
When Grueburn was done, her posture—her whole body—seemed to plead for Covenant’s understanding; or for Linden’s.
Linden could not reply. The complexity of the creatures’ thinking stunned her. They read portents which were opaque to her; effectively invisible. How could they have guessed that Esmer’s attack might sway Galt?
For a moment, Covenant, too, seemed stunned. But then he turned a whetted grin on Linden and the rest of the company.
“There!” he said like a paean. “That’s why we aren’t doomed. No matter what Lord Foul has planned. He isn’t the only one who knows how to think ahead. He can still be taken by surprise.”
His affirmation seemed to hang in the air as he faced the loremaster once more. “I hope you’ll accept my gratitude. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already shown you’re worthy of anything you might ever want.” He swallowed roughly, then added, “What happened to Elena was my doing, not yours.”
When the creature replied, Frostheart Grueburn translated gruffly. “The ur-viles and Waynhim crave naught from you, Timewarden. Your tasks do not concern them. They desire only Linden Giantfriend’s leave to depart.”
Linden had the impression that every Waynhim and ur-vile was watching her. Waiting for her to say something that might imply comprehension. Something that might vindicate—
But she was not Covenant. Like the Demondim-spawn, he saw reasons for hope that she could not. Like Jeremiah, if in an entirely different fashion, she was trapped inside herself.
Nevertheless her own gratitude was as real as Covenant’s. And she did not believe that the creatures could have spared her any whit of the distress inflicted by She Who Must Not Be Named.
Deliberately she set aside her sorrow that she could not repay the Demondim-spawn; swallowed her surprise at Covenant’s reaction. Once again, she forced a hand through her tangled hair.
“Oh, go ahead,” she said like a sigh, “if that’s what you need to do. And take my blessing with you.” What else could she possibly offer them? “I agree with Covenant. You’re worthy of anything.” Then she added, “I stand by my promise. If you ever do think of some way that I can help you, just tell me.”
Her response seemed to release the creatures. Quickly the loremaster bowed to her as it had bowed to Covenant. Every Waynhim and ur-vile bowed. Then they dropped to all fours and began to run, heading like a pack of wild animals along the floor of the low ravine.
Soon they were gone. Nevertheless their departure left Linden with the sensation that she had disappointed them. Too late, she realized that she could have asked them to translate Caerroil Wildwood’s runes. Once again, she had failed—
Jeremiah and her friends and the Land needed the kind of calm certainty that the ur-viles had found in the Waynhim; but she had none.
048
Soon Covenant resumed his pacing. The Swordmainnir spent a while discussing the Demondim-spawn. Then they settled themselves on the sand to tend their weapons or rest. When Jeremiah no longer chewed or swallowed, Pahni stopped putting food in his mouth. With Bhapa’s help, she readied meals for Rime Coldspray, the Manethrall, and Stave. After that, the Cords repacked the company’s supplies. While Bhapa occupied himself with that simple task, obviously fretting, he watched the horizon where the absent companions might appear.
But Linden turned away and went to sit alone near the edge of the stream. There she gazed vacantly at the unresolved tumble and contradiction of the current, and tried to convince herself that her use of Covenant’s ring was not an abomination.
Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.
She and everyone with her would have been slain if she had not killed so many Cavewights. And when Roger had finished with her and the Giants and the Humbled and the Ramen, he would have hunted down Covenant to complete his victory.
What else could she have done?
But she was not persuaded. Surely other answers had been possible, for someone else if not for her? She was so much less than she needed to be: too ignorant of lore and Law and her own powers to defend her friends without butchering their foes.
At her back, heat accumulated in the sand and on the hillsides: a mixed blessing. It eased sore nerves and muscles, dried her clothes—and made her thirsty again. The stream’s voices called to her, but she ignored them.
Stuck in a round of emotions and flaws that she did not know how to escape, she became as restless as the waters, as anxious as Bhapa. As impatient as Covenant. When the Ironhand, Mahrtiir, and Stave finally came within the range of her senses, she surged to her feet like a released spring and began striding toward them before she realized that they were not alone.
The Ardent followed close behind them, stumbling as if he were too weak to stay upright much longer.
For obvious reasons, Coldspray, Mahrtiir, and Stave were desperately tired, although Stave’s stoicism concealed much of his fatigue. The Ironhand and the Manethrall trembled as they walked, unsteady on their legs; severely dehydrated. In contrast, Stave seemed only dull, numbed, unable to focus. He did not react to Bhapa’s greeting or the calls of the Giants.
Nevertheless the condition of the Insequent was worse. His ribbands hung from his frame like long shreds of flesh; soiled streamers of suffering and loss. Inside his raiment, his former corpulence had melted away until he looked more than gaunt: he resembled a man in the last stages of a wasting disease. Emaciation or caducity made hollows of his cheeks, his eyes, even his mouth. Loose wattles hung from his jaw. As he lurched along, his gaze rolled from side to side as if he no longer had the strength to choose what he saw or thought.
He seemed oblivious to his own deranged chuckling. The sound scattered around him like broken bits of melody; disarticulated sanity.
The Ironhand and the Manethrall ignored him. With no more than nods for their comrades, they shambled forward until they had gone far enough to fall face-first into the stream. But Stave managed to halt among the company. He bowed to Linden, gave Covenant a vague nod. In a husk of a voice, a sound as desiccated as the hills, he said, “It is done. We have raised a cairn for Anele and Galt. The Ardent appeared when our task was complete.”
Linden stared at him, tried to say his name. But she succeeded only at gaping.
Without waiting for a reply, Stave followed Coldspray and Mahrtiir. In the stream, he did not stop until the water was deep enough to let him sink beneath the surface.
“Hellfire,” Covenant rasped to no one in particular. “Hell and blood.”
Instinctively Linden moved toward the Ardent with her Staff ready. But as soon as she looked at him closely, she saw that he was beyond help. The forces unbinding him were inexorable, as cruel as too much time. He needed the kind of mercy that Stave had given Esmer. Any other anodyne was impossible.
Grueburn and two of the other Giants came closer to scrutinize the Ardent’s ravaged form. Then they shook their heads. With pity in their eyes, they stepped back, leaving the Insequent to Linden and Covenant.
“They got it wrong.” Covenant’s voice was choked with pity. “When I told you I wanted them to make an exception, I didn’t mean this.” His compassion gathered until it resembled outrage. “They didn’t by God listen.”
“Told,” chortled the Ardent. “Listen. Tell.” His voice scaled high; sank low. “The Insequent are not told. One stricture for all. One allowance unmakes all. Every life. They listen. Oh, they listen! Some grieve. But you do not tell the Insequent to end every life.”
“What?” Linden protested, unable to stop herself. “Every life? Are you saying that every Insequent dies, the whole race dies, if they let you live?”
“Listen,” he repeated. “The Ardent tells. You do not listen.” Ribbands flinched around him. “One stricture for all. One stricture for all.”
His condition was yet another consequence of Linden’s need to rescue her son.
While Covenant floundered in chagrin, Onyx Stonemage murmured thickly, “It is a geas, is it not? He has spoken of such matters. The will of the Insequent rules him still, though he stands at the outermost verge of his life.”
As if he were answering her, the Ardent said, “Such carnage.” He giggled softly. “Great death, aye. Great and needful. Incondign.” His gaze veered from place to place as if he were watching motes of fine dust circulate. “It does not suffice.”
Groaning to herself, Linden tried not to imagine what he meant.
“If this is indeed a geas,” Cirrus Kindwind suggested, “surely it is incomplete. I do not wish to conceive that the Insequent have imposed his presence here merely to demonstrate that he suffers a compulsory doom. They cannot lack all heart.”
None of her comrades responded. Covenant gritted his teeth, restraining himself until the muscles at the corners of his jaw bunched like knuckles.
The Ardent had done so much more than Linden could have asked of him. This was his reward.
Behind her, Stave emerged from the stream. A moment later, Rime Coldspray and Manethrall Mahrtiir did the same. Dripping, Stave approached Linden and Covenant while Coldspray walked stiffly to join the Swordmainnir. At the same time, Bhapa hurried down the slope with food for the Manethrall.
Linden feared that Mahrtiir’s aggrieved pride would require him to ignore Bhapa. But apparently the Manethrall was determined to accept that he, too, had been humbled. Leaning an arm across Bhapa’s shoulders, he acknowledged the Cord’s concern by taking a little food. However, he did not stop moving until he stood beside Linden.
Among her people, the Ironhand shared collective embraces, hugging the other Giants in clusters of two or three. From Latebirth, she received a double handful of fruit and meat, and began immediately to eat. Then she turned her attention to Linden, Covenant, and the Ardent.
Linden had no words for what she felt and feared; but Covenant seemed unable to contain himself. “Kindwind is right,” he growled to the Ardent. “Your people didn’t send you back just to convince us they can’t save you.
“There’s something you came to say. Something you still need to do.”
Abruptly the Ardent spasmed as if he had been struck by a galvanic shock. His head jerked up: his whole body flinched. In a completely different voice, compelled and straining, he said, “While you remain apart, events elsewhere conspire to thwart your defense of the Land.”
He seemed to quote someone else, mimicking someone else’s speech. “To the north of ancient Gravin Threndor, the Sandgorgons and the skurj have come together. It was our hope that they would expend their ferocity in mutual extermination. But our hope misled us. We misgauged the degree of Kastenessen’s mastery over the skurj, and the cunning of moksha Raver’s counsels, and the potency of those shreds of samadhi Sheol which endure among the Sandgorgons. Against all expectation, those monstrous beings have conjoined their strengths. Now they rampage together within Salva Gildenbourne, wreaking such a ruin of trees and verdure that you would weep to gaze upon it.”
For an instant, the geas of the Insequent appeared to slip. The Ardent slumped; staggered like a man scarcely able to stand. He chuckled softly as if his own grief amused him.
His announcement shocked Linden out of her recursive dismay. The truth was vivid in his voice.
—those monstrous beings—
“Stone and Sea!” growled Rime Coldspray: an appalled imprecation. Several of the other Giants cursed as well. A few moved to begin donning their armor.
—have conjoined their strengths.
Almost immediately, however, a fresh convulsion clenched the Ardent. “The devastation is wide and bitter,” he continued, “leaving naught but the reek of fouled ground in its wake. But it is not without purpose. Kastenessen may indeed be lost to forethought or tactic. Moksha is not. And samadhi comprehends his brother. The skurj and the Sandgorgons do not seek mere ravage. Nor is their savagery directed against sacred Andelain. Rather they strive toward Gravin Threndor.
“Do you comprehend this? They strive toward Gravin Threndor because you cannot meet the Worm of the World’s End while the vile theurgies of Kevin’s Dirt hamper the lady. But if you wish to quench Kevin’s Dirt, you must first master Kastenessen—and he has secreted himself within the Wightwarrens, where he draws upon the illimitable vehemence of She Who Must Not Be Named. Therefore—”
Harshly Covenant muttered, “I get it.”
But the distant Insequent did not heed him. “—when you attempt the mountain, you will find the Sandgorgons and the skurj arrayed against you. And doubtless a host of Cavewights will join with them. Your foes will be many and terrible.”
“I said,” Covenant snapped, “I get it.” His hands clutched the wrapped bundle of the krill, although he seemed unaware of it. “Hellfire! You don’t need to beat me over the head. And you didn’t come here just to warn us. You have something in mind.”
Reflexively Linden held her breath. The Swordmainnir watched the Ardent with warrior intensity. Mahrtiir stood at Linden’s shoulder as if he were poised for battle.
Now the Ardent’s people kept their grip on him. Apparently expending the last shreds of his life, he panted, “The lady’s fate is writ in water. All auguries are swept aside. Yet her need for death remains. We conclude that you must have allies.”
Linden forced herself to exhale; but she could not still the hammering of her heart.
“Though powers abound in the Earth, we have no means to summon them. The Elohim will not aid you. And for this purpose, the Insequent themselves cannot serve. We are largely defenseless against Ravers, as we are against She Who Must Not Be Named. The hazard that we will turn against you is too great.”
Covenant’s air of storms increased. “Get to the point. Who else is there?”
This time, the Ardent appeared to hear him. “We see no alternative other than the Haruchai. Yet they will not heed us. No Insequent will sway them. Should we appeal to them, they will close their ears and remain as they are.”
“It’s suicide,” Linden breathed without thinking. “Of course they’ll refuse. They can’t fight Sandgorgons and skurj.”
But Mahrtiir’s voice rode over hers. “To whom will the sleepless ones attend?”
At the same time, Covenant countered, “What’s the point? Even with the Ranyhyn, none of us can get to Revelstone fast enough. The Worm will be here before the Masters even know we need them. After that, whatever they do will be wasted.”
Rigid as the last clench of death, the Ardent waited for silence.
Glaring at him, Covenant muttered, “Oh, hell. Do it your way. I’ll shut up.”
Through their coerced vessel, the Insequent replied, “This is our last requirement of the Ardent. The Haruchai are capable of much. Select those among you who will be most readily heeded. He will transport them to Revelstone, where they may plead on the Land’s behalf. Then he will depart from life and suffering. Perchance some measure of hope will remain.”
Before anyone else could respond, Mahrtiir announced, clarion as the call of horns, “If that is your word, Insequent, my Cords will accompany you.”
At once, Pahni jerked up her head, spun away from Jeremiah. Bhapa’s sudden pallor made him look faint; appalled.
The Manethrall’s assertion appeared to satisfy the Ardent—or his people. “That is well,” he or they observed. “The Haruchai would not refuse the Timewarden. Nevertheless he has another purpose. He must not step aside from it.”
Then the geas left the frail man. As if he were crumpling, he folded to the sand. Propped on his hands and knees, no longer able to call on his apparel for support, he gasped small bursts of broken laughter.
The Cords? Linden thought. The Cords? Oh, God!
Covenant had foreseen this—
He scowled at the dying man as though he wanted to hear more.—another purpose. But the Giants turned to regard Manethrall Mahrtiir. Studying his bandaged visage, Rime Coldspray said uncertainly, “It is much to ask. Surely Stave or one of the Humbled—?”
Without a flicker of hesitation, Stave stated, “My kinsmen will not harken to me. And the Humbled will not part from the Unbeliever. It is bootless to inquire of them.”
“Then a Giant?” asked the Ironhand. “The Masters have made their unwelcome plain for many centuries. Nonetheless I will believe that they have not forgotten their ancient esteem, first for the Unhomed and later for the comrades of the Search.”
“No.” The Manethrall spoke as if his word were Law. “My Cords will bear this burden. It was foretold for them. They will not refuse it.”
—you two have the hardest job. You’ll have to survive. And you’ll have to make them listen to you.
For the same reason, Mahrtiir could not accompany them. Covenant had counseled him to take a different path.
You’ll have to go a long way to find your heart’s desire. Just be sure you come back.
Shaken, Bhapa cried softly, “Manethrall, no. I implore you!”
Instinctively Linden wanted to add her voice to the Cord’s. She feared Covenant’s prophecies. They all seemed to mean death.
She’s already given them too many reasons to feel ashamed of themselves.
But Pahni swept forward as if she were pouncing. “Yes!” The eagerness of a hawk shone in her soft eyes. “I will lay Liand’s death at the feet of the Masters and compel an answer. They deem themselves the descendants of the Bloodguard. I will require of them a comparable service.
“Come, Bhapa,” she commanded. Passionate and peremptory, she extended her hand to the older Cord. “No Cord may refuse when the Manethrall speaks and the Land’s need is clear.”
The Ardent made aimless sounds in the back of his throat. He was too weak to chuckle.
With something like sympathy in his voice, Mahrtiir asked, “Will you gainsay me, Bhapa? Were you selected to accompany the Ringthane along the path of her many travails because you were counted unfit for lesser duties? Did not Whrany consent to bear you, when until that day no Raman had ever ridden the Ranyhyn? And did not Rohnhyn freely offer himself when Whrany was slain? The Timewarden has spoken of trust. The time has come for Cord Bhapa of the Ramen to trust himself.”
Panic filled Bhapa’s mien: alarm glistened in his eyes. The skin of his face was the color of sun-beaten dust.
But then, trembling, he bowed to his Manethrall. His hand quivered like an aspen leaf about to fall as he accepted Pahni’s clasp.
With a visible effort, Covenant unclosed his fingers from the krill. “I’m sorry,” he muttered to no in particular. “If this was my idea—” He grimaced. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking. You deserve an explanation, but I don’t have one.”
Bitterly Linden swore to herself. Under other circumstances, she might have protested. She did not know how to bear Liand’s death, or Anele’s, or even Galt’s. She did not want to lose Bhapa and Pahni as well.
Panting, the Ardent said hoarsely, “Timewarden.”
Covenant moved closer. “Yes?”
Stretched thin with effort, the Ardent urged as clearly as he could, “Remember Mishio Massima.”
Covenant stared. “Is that your true name?”
Could he be invoked? Even when he was so close to collapse?
The dying man gave a cracked laugh. “It is my steed.”
A moment later, the geas of the Insequent gripped him for the last time. It wrenched him to his feet with his head thrown back as if he needed to scream. Ribbands coiled spasmodically around him; fell to the ground; twisted upward again. His hands clutched at the air like claws.
“It is enough,” he said as if the words were torn from his throat. “We are content. Here ends the Ardent. If the Earth endures, he will be honored as the greatest of the Insequent.”
A moment later, his raiment reached out to clasp Pahni and Bhapa. So quickly that the Cords had no chance to say farewell, he gathered them to him and vanished.
Involuntarily Linden staggered as if she wished to follow them. Their departure seemed to leave a gap in the air that she needed to fill. But Stave caught her instantly; and of course she had nowhere to go.
At her side, Mahrtiir sagged like a man unexpectedly bereft. Now that his Cords were gone, his aura revealed a pang of uncertainty, as if he had sent them to be humiliated. Nothing that Handir and the other Masters had done in Revelstone gave the Manethrall cause to believe that Bhapa and Pahni would succeed.
Linden hoped that one of the Giants would say something to reassure Mahrtiir. She could not. But Covenant had already flung himself into motion; resumed his pacing. “Hellfire,” he growled to himself. “His steed?” Briefly he appeared to count the number of times that he could repeat those words between one slope of the canyon and the other. Then he wheeled to face the company.
His manner compelled their attention in spite of the abrupt loss of Pahni and Bhapa—and of the Ardent.
“I don’t need to know the name of his damn horse,” he rasped. “I have to go.” Then he swore again, a string of curses so familiar that they sounded like pleading. To Linden’s startled dismay, and the small lift of Stave’s eyebrow, and the open surprise of the Swordmainnir, he repeated, “I have to go.”
Brusque with self-coercion, he added, “I know this is sudden. Never mind that I’m usually useless. You still think you need me. You went through too much to bring me back in the first place. Probably the last thing you want right now is to watch me leave. Hell, if I were you, that’s how I would feel. But I have to go.
“And you can’t go with me. Before I worry about anything else, there’s something I have to do alone.”
—he has another purpose.
While Linden reeled within herself, he shrugged awkwardly. “Well, not absolutely alone. I’m taking Clyme and Branl with me. You’ll have to manage without them until I get back.”
With both hands, he held the bundled krill as if his life depended on it.
He must not step aside from it.
Disconcerted, the Giants struggled to muster a response. Mahrtiir stared at Covenant in unconcealed chagrin. Even Stave’s flat visage gave hints of disapprobation.
“Is this some new recollection?” the Ironhand inquired finally. “Do you now possess knowledge or understanding which you have not revealed?”
But Linden noticed none of her companions; no one except the man who had once loved her—and now would not let her touch him.
“Covenant,” she panted, unconsciously fighting for breath. “Covenant.” He was rejecting her. “What are you talking about?” God, he was rejecting her. “I need—We need—” Her sins had become too much for him. “God damn it, Covenant! If you don’t care about anything else, the Land needs you.”
She had awakened the Worm for his sake. She could not suffer the consequences of her desperation or folly without him.
“Linden, listen to me.” His gaze was flagrant with emotions for which she had no names. His eyes were blurred fires of loss or pity or pure rage. “I’m talking about Joan.”
For an instant, he raised the krill as if he meant to drive it into Linden’s chest. Then his features twisted. Roughly he shoved the shrouded weapon back into his jeans. Empty-handed, as if he were defenseless, he tried to explain.
“She’s not just a white gold wielder who can make the whole created world into a wasteland if she lives long enough. And she’s not just going through the tortures of the damned because bloody turiya and the bloody skest won’t let her die. She was my wife. She’s Roger’s mother. I owe her for that.” He may have meant restitution or retribution. “She’s my problem. I can’t do anything else until I deal with her.”
While Linden struggled for air, Rime Coldspray stepped forward. To counter Covenant’s intensity, she spoke with the steadiness of stone.
“Covenant Timewarden. I perceive now that you have awaited this opportunity, when the krill is no longer needed to secure Linden Giantfriend’s son. For your restraint, I honor you.
“But the Ardent has spoke of Sandgorgons and skurj, and of the imperative need for some response to the manner in which Kastenessen has shackled the Staff of Law and all Earthpower. Is this not more urgent than the plight of a lone madwoman?”
“Hell and blood!” Uselessly Covenant brandished his maimed fists. “I heard the Ardent. I know what’s at stake. But I’ve already sacrificed my own daughter. I can’t go on until I’ve faced Joan. Sometimes we have to do things that are more important than saving the world. Sometimes we can’t save anything else until we’ve cleaned up our own lives.”
“Then why,” objected the Ironhand, “must you refuse our aid?” Her tone did not waver. “Here are eight Giants, a Manethrall of the Ramen, Stave of the Haruchai, and Linden Giantfriend. Surely our combined strengths are not too paltry to be of service.”
But her reasoning or her calm seemed to infuriate Covenant. “God in Heaven!” he retorted. “Are none of you paying attention? You can’t go with me because it’s too dangerous . Joan makes caesures. Just one of those things in the wrong place at the wrong instant, and there won’t be anybody left who can even try to defend the Land.
“Besides—” With a visible effort, he caught himself; swallowed his extremity. Squaring his shoulders, he faced Linden. “You have other things to do.”
“Like what?” Light-headedness had become a roaring in Linden’s ears. Black spots danced across her vision like inverted Wraiths. She had no argument except her own weakness. “What do you expect us to do without you? We barely survived Roger and the Cavewights.” And Esmer. “We don’t even know how to help Jeremiah. What do you think that we can accomplish against Kastenessen and skurj and Sandgorgons and moksha Jehannum? Against Lord Foul and the damn Worm of the World’s End?”
Why do you want to get away from me so badly?
“Linden, stop,” Covenant urged. His quiet restraint resembled a kind of flagellation. “You’re just intimidating yourself. Everything is simpler than you make it sound. I expect you to do what you’ve always done. Something unexpected. Which you are by God good at. You’ve surprised me more times than I can count. There’s no one else like you.
“Just trust yourself. That’s all. That’s all. Everything else will take care of itself.
“If it doesn’t—” Sighing, he shrugged again. “There was nothing you could have done anyway.”
Linden found a deep breath, and another. Stave was still holding her.“It’s not that easy.” Slowly the spots faded from her eyes. “Do you even know where to look for Joan?”
Covenant did not look away. “I can guess. The Ardent brought us this far for a reason. I figure all I have to do now is go farther. If I don’t find her, she’ll find me.”
Before Linden could manage another protest, Manethrall Mahrtiir demanded without preamble, “Will you journey afoot?”
“Hell, no.” Now Covenant shifted his attention from Linden. In his mind, apparently, he had already turned away. “We don’t have time. Clyme or Branl can summon the Ranyhyn.”
In a burst of indignation, the Manethrall asked, “What then becomes of your vow that you will not ride? Must I name you an oath breaker? Did you not once aver to the great horses rearing that you would not ask them to bear you?”
“I did,” Covenant admitted. Ignoring the dismay and uncertainty of the company—ignoring Linden—he walked stiffly across the sand, heading along the floor of the ravine. “How often do I have to talk about trust? They’re Ranyhyn, for God’s sake. They’ll think of something.”
Linden watched him go as if he were forsaking her.
After a few tense strides, he shouted up at the hilltops, “It’s time! Call the Ranyhyn!”
But he did not pause for a response from Branl or Clyme. Quickening his pace, he passed between boulders and ragged slopes on either side as if he were eager to confront Joan.
Eager to be done with life.
The Humbled must have heard him. A lone whistle smote Linden’s heart. Among the barren hills, it sounded as forlorn as a wail in a lightless cavern.
Clyme or Branl whistled a second time. A third.
In the distance beyond Covenant, three horses came trotting down the shallow canyon.
Two of them were Ranyhyn, Naybahn and Mhornym. The stars on their foreheads gleamed in the thick sunlight.
The third was the Harrow’s destrier. Tossing its head in vexation or alarm, the tall brown stallion trotted between Naybahn and Mhornym with a glare of resentment in its eyes, as if the Ranyhyn had compelled it against its will.
As the horses neared Covenant, Clyme and Branl appeared, sprinting down the treacherous hillsides to join him as if nothing could undermine their steps. They reached him moments before the Ranyhyn and the destrier stamped to a halt.
With an air of ceremony, the Humbled greeted their mounts. They may have been speaking welcomes or rituals which had been ancient when Covenant had first visited the Land; but Linden refused to hear them.
Until she saw Covenant heave himself into the Harrow’s saddle, she did not realize that he had not taken any of the company’s supplies. He had no food, no water, no blankets.
He had said that he would come back; but he behaved like a man who did not expect to return.
He was doing it again; sacrificing himself to spare the people he cared about most.
Was there no one like her? Truly? She did not believe it. But beyond question there was no one like him.
Perhaps that was why he had turned away from her. She had never been his equal.