7.
Crossing the Hazard
016
Linden was pulled in too many directions at once. She had no time to comprehend what she heard or sensed or needed. Kneeling at Anele’s side in the distressed light of Liand’s orcrest, she felt Covenant’s mind lose its grip on the present; felt him fall into himself. But there was nothing she could do about that, nothing. His dilemmas were beyond her. Without her Staff and his ring, she had no purpose of any kind except to reach her son.
That, too, might be impossible now. She and her companions had gathered on the wrong side of a bottomless chasm. A terrible power lives here. The cold was already terrible.
That the Harrow had bound himself with oaths did not comfort her. No one can get in if that portal isn’t opened first. The shock of being in this immured cavern, without full percipience or clean air, was not as great as her fear that he did not know how to unseal the way into the Lost Deep.
The Worm of the World’s End was coming to the Land.
Like an echo of the paresthesia that had afflicted her among the Viles millennia ago, she seemed to smell the hard respiration of the Giants, taste the vapor they exhaled. Their confusion as they scrambled to absorb Anele’s revelations stung her nerves.
Here it will discover its final nourishment. The very blood of life from the most potent and private recesses of the Earth’s heart.
The old man was unconscious now, exhausted by his encounter with the world’s oldest secrets.
Without forbidding, there is too little time.
Linden could not imagine where anyone would find or wield enough power to forbid the Worm of the World’s End. Covenant and wild magic might conceivably have done so. But his mind was broken, and Linden had given his ring to the Harrow.
She did not believe that the Harrow would be able to keep Covenant’s ring. She hardly considered it likely that he would retain her Staff. He was counting too heavily on the inability of beings like the Elohim and Esmer to locate Jeremiah. And there were other enemies—
She had surrendered to the Harrow in part because she suspected that forces greater than her human desperation would oppose his intentions for her son.
But first the portal had to be opened. With one mistake, any mistake, the Harrow would break the fragile span of stone; doom Jeremiah. The Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring would be lost.
And A terrible power lives here: another warning that Linden could not afford to heed.
Outwardly she seemed steady enough. Her hands did not shake. The steam of her breathing did not blind her. Nevertheless her heart shivered as if she were too cold to move—
—as cold as she had felt in the winter of the Land’s past, where Roger Covenant and the croyel had betrayed her.
After a moment, however, Rime Coldspray spoke. “Doubtless we have been granted a precious insight.” She sounded like a clenched fist. “In this, the Ardent has spoken sooth. Here we have gained knowledge of the world’s plight which we could not have obtained by other means. Yet it is of no present import. It will serve no purpose if we do not both retrieve Linden Giantfriend’s son and evade the perils of this demesne.”
No present import. Yes. Coldspray’s voice seemed to draw the Ironhand and all of the Giants out of the shadows cast by Liand’s wavering light. Her tone restored their normal solidity. Linden’s impression that she could hear or feel the echoes of extinct Viles receded.
—if we do not both—
Repulsed by the taste of the stale air, she took a flinching breath. The Sunstone made respiration possible; but the atmosphere of the cavern was too stagnant to be refreshed by mere orcrest.—if we do not—Coldspray had broken the trance of Anele’s utterances. Now it was Linden’s turn.
But she had too many concerns. She wanted to help or caution the Harrow, and understand Anele, and catch hold of Covenant as he fell like water dripping from the stalactites. She believed that she would be content if she could find Jeremiah; if she could close her arms around him one last time. She tried to believe that. But it was not the truth. She needed to see him freed from the croyel. And she would never be content without Covenant.
For her own sake, she wanted Covenant to be whole. Then she might be able to forgive herself. But he was essential for less selfish reasons as well.
If she could not think clearly in this fug of stagnation and impercipience, she should at least move. Rise to her feet. Do something. But she was too weak. Shivering spread outward from her heart. The small effort of lifting her head was beyond her.
After a moment, Manethrall Mahrtiir asked tentatively, “Is it conceivable that the Harrow also has spoken sooth?” He sounded unsure of himself, almost timid; daunted by ancientness and immeasurable stone and intimations of evil. Truly blinded. “Will his intent for white gold and the Staff of Law and the Ringthane’s son serve to forbid the Worm? Will his ploys suffice to preclude the Worm from the Blood of the Earth?”
Flatly Stave replied, “Anele’s words suggest otherwise. To his ears, or in his sight, the requisite knowledge is remembered only here. The Harrow does not truly comprehend the Worm.”
“Then,” stated Galt, “the burden falls to the Unbeliever. The promises of the Harrow are false.”
“Not so,” the Ardent objected, swirling his raiment in repudiation. He spoke loudly; yet the anxiety in his eyes, and the hectic flush of his round cheeks, belied his tone. In spite of the chill, his face was damp with sweat and apprehension. “Doubtless he does not foresee all things to their ends. And perchance his intent is flawed by arrogance or ignorance. Nonetheless he must hold fast to his given oath. If he does not, he will perish in madness.
“The Insequent who have charged me to constrain and aid him foretell one thing and also another. Some scry wisdom and vindication where others find only auguries of failure. It is conceivable that both are equally prescient, alike inspired and fallible. Therefore they conclude that the fate of the Earth is too conflicted to be known with any assurance. For that reason, I am sent to arbitrate uncertain outcomes.
“Perhaps a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells believes that his sight is sure. If he does so, the Insequent trust that he errs.”
“You’re probably right,” Covenant said abruptly; harshly. “But what’s the point?”
His voice snatched Linden out of her immobility. She found herself on her feet without realizing that she had arisen.
From a safe distance, and secured by the Humbled, he stood peering into the abyss. Linden retained enough health-sense to recognize that he had not returned to the present. He was a prophet of the past, and he spoke to ghosts. Wandering among his memories, he replied to questions that had not been asked by anyone living.
“You can’t kill her,” he snorted as if his answer disgusted him. “If she isn’t as old as Lord Foul, she might as well be. And she’s become just as dangerous. The only difference is, she doesn’t think. She feels. He has ambitions she can’t imagine—and he’s way more patient. Most of the time, she sleeps because she doesn’t know any other way to endure her frustration.”
Then Covenant apparently slipped into another fissure. He fell silent. His bandaged hands twitched as if they were groping for something tangible; some bedrock fact or perception to which he could cling. But he did not find one.
Liand cleared his throat. “Linden.” He made a palpable effort to sound less intimidated than Mahrtiir. “The Harrow does not act. If he attempts some incantation, he does so in silence, motionless. Should his knowledge prove insufficient—”
The Stonedownor’s voice faded into a sigh of doubt.
“The Insequent,” Clyme pronounced severely, “esteem their prowess too highly. Their arts demean the unwary, but they cannot redeem themselves.”
The Ardent appeared to consider a retort, then swallow it.
For a moment, Linden stood like Covenant, as if she, too, had fallen into a memory from which she could not escape. But she was not trapped there. She was choosing necessary recollections.
First, the Harrow had once said to her, I desire this curious stick to which you cling as though it possessed the virtue to ward you.
The Staff of Law, her Staff. With wild magic and bereavement and love, she had fused the living powers of Vain and Findail into an instrument of Law. Under Melenkurion Skyweir, her Staff had been transformed to blackness in battle. Ten thousand years ago, Caerroil Wildwood had defined it with runes. His lore had contributed to Covenant’s resurrection.
Second, I crave the circle of white gold which lies hidden by your raiment.
Wild magic. The crux and keystone of the Arch of Time. It was the essence of Thomas Covenant’s spirit reified in a fundamentally flawed and flawless alloy: his wedding band, the symbol and manifestation of his transcendent humanity.
And last, I covet the unfettered wrath at the center of your heart. It will nourish me as the Demondim did not.
Linden had not understood him then: she did now. He was referring to the legacy of Gallows Howe. He wanted her granite ire, her emotional extravagance, to help him impose his will on Jeremiah and the croyel. But the Mahdoubt had prevented him from claiming Linden. Finally she knew why. She knew, as the Harrow did not, that there was more to Gallows Howe than rage and slaughter, death and retribution.
Why else had the Forestal of Garroting Deep asked her a question that she did not know how to answer?
Because of the Mahdoubt’s sacrifice, Linden could offer herself to the Harrow without fearing his power to consume her. When he had guided her to Jeremiah and the croyel, she would still be able to fight for her son.
Somehow.
Nodding in the direction of the Harrow, she tried to answer the expectant silence of her companions.
“I should go.” To herself, she sounded vague and faint, as tenuous as a figure in a dream. “Opening that portal takes something more than Earthpower and Law. That’s why the Harrow didn’t just want my Staff and Covenant’s ring. He wanted me.
“The ur-viles and Waynhim could help us, but they aren’t here. They couldn’t have brought us here. The Ardent says that there’s nothing he can do. And I’ve at least met the Viles.” You serve a purpose not your own, and have no purpose. “That’s more than the Harrow can say. They were long gone before he started to study them. Everything he knows is based on inferences.
“I should try to help him before he makes a mistake and kills us.”
She was still watching Covenant, hoping that he would hear her and respond. After a moment, however, she forced herself to look around at her friends. Facing Liand, and then Mahrtiir and his Cords, and then the Giants, she added, “Unless you have a better idea.”
Liand could not conceal his anxiety, and did not try. Holding up the light of the orcrest seemed to take most of his strength. The Manethrall bowed his head as if he sought to veil his consternation; his weakness. Pahni clung to Liand’s free arm, hid her face against his shoulder for comfort. Bhapa swallowed several times, opened and closed his mouth, apparently trying to find words for his chagrin. Then he glanced helplessly around him and gave up.
Towering above the rest of the company, the Giants met Linden’s gaze squarely. Some of them looked abashed, perhaps reluctant to admit their alarm and uncertainty. Grueburn and Cabledarm studied Linden as if they were trying to gauge her capacity to surprise them. But Rime Coldspray grinned like the blade of a scimitar, coldly, and with a keen edge.
“Linden Giantfriend, we displayed true Giantish folly when we elected to accompany the Harrow. To recant our unwisdom now would shame all who hear our tale.” The Ironhand gave an exaggerated shrug. More seriously, she continued, “To remain as we are achieves naught. Covenant Timewarden has given us warning, and must be heeded. If you deem that your acquaintance with the Viles, or your familiarity with the Staff of Law, may be of aid to the Harrow, I pray only that he will permit your efforts.”
The other Swordmainnir nodded with varying degrees of confidence. But Galt and Branl shook their heads; and Clyme asked inflexibly, “What magic do you possess, Linden Avery, that will meet our need? Are you not self-bereft of every vital resource?”
Before Linden could reply, Mahrtiir jerked up his head, took a step forward. “What concern is this of yours, sleepless one?” His old animosity toward the Masters countered the weight of his intimidation. “You have made plain that your devoir is to the Timewarden. Why then do you oppose the Ringthane in any attempt which may succor him as it does us?”
“Subsequent events—” began Clyme.
“—are not foreknown to you, Haruchai,” put in the Ardent unexpectedly. “The lady seeks the recovery of her son. What further justification of her deeds do you require?”
“Subsequent events,” Clyme repeated, “may reveal that the lady, as you name her, is not done with Desecration. Did not the Mahdoubt give battle and so perish to prevent the surrender which Linden Avery now contemplates?”
“Oh, stop.” Linden wrapped her arms around her to contain her shivering. “I’m not going to surrender. If I do that, I’ll never see Jeremiah again. There won’t be anything left of me.”
She had already given up everything else.
“Silence your pride,” Stave advised the Humbled. He sounded distant; uninterested. But the play of reflections in his eye gave the impression that he was laughing to himself. “No deed or dare of the Chosen’s will lessen the import of the Unbeliever’s presence, or of your service to him. Come good or ill, boon or bane, he remains the Unbeliever, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant. And has he not urged you to accept her path? When you have no other guidance, it is poor fidelity to speak against his wishes.”
If the Humbled debated Stave’s counsel, or their own commitments, they did so in silence. None of them voiced any further objection.
“All right.” Linden gave herself no chance to hesitate. She did not share Covenant’s vertigo; but the depths of the cavern were crowded with terrors nonetheless. If she paused to think about them—“Stay here,” she told her friends. “Don’t try to cross until you can see that I’ve succeeded—or the Harrow has. There’s no sense in risking yourselves yet. And I don’t think that orcrest or the krill is likely to be of much use.”
“Do not fear for us,” Coldspray replied, still grinning sharply. “We have no wish to meet our deaths in this dire chasm.”
“Good.” More to encourage herself than to express approval, Linden nodded. “As long as Liand can hold off the worst of Kevin’s Dirt, you’ll probably know what happens as soon as I do.”
While her companions watched and waited, Linden gripped herself tightly and started toward the span. When Stave moved to join her, she did not refuse his company.
From her perspective of trepidation, the bridge—the Hazard—looked more delicate and fragile than it had seemed earlier. Making it, they risked everything. Who they were. What they meant to themselves. As she did. And the ceiling of the immense cavern loomed, louring like thunderheads. Hints of chiaroscuro reflected back and forth among the stalactites, implying lightning. Any one of those wet and straining shapes was heavy enough to break the span if it fell.
Stave walked at her side, so close that his shoulder brushed hers. In spite of her fears for him—for all of her companions—she welcomed the support of his inhuman strength, his argute senses. His dedication might serve as valor if or when her dreads threatened to paralyze her.
Together, Linden Avery and the former Master left safer rock and began to ascend the shallow arc of the Hazard.
Really, she insisted to herself, this ought to be easy. It was a short walk, perhaps two hundred paces. If she kept her gaze fixed on the far wall, did not look down—Yet the black abyss seemed to reach up as though it meant to snatch her off the bridge. The darkness itself may have been alive.
Covenant gave no sign that he had noticed what she was doing.
She could still feel the taut attention of her friends behind her. But every step took her farther from Liand and light. As the radiance of the Sunstone dimmed, her health-sense faded with it. Soon she would not be able to discern her companions at all. Unless she turned to look—
Feeling like a coward, she murmured to Stave, “Don’t let me fall. That chasm—” She shuddered. “It pulls at me.”
Stave touched his solid shoulder to hers. “Even here, Chosen, the sight of the Haruchai is merely diminished. It has not failed. This stone is sure. The weight of the Giants together may endanger it. We do not.”
He considered for a moment, then added, “Yet we must not tarry. There is evil here. Its malice lacks the distinct malevolence of Corruption, but it is malice nonetheless.”
Linden believed him. She felt only the seduction of the plunge below her; but she trusted his perceptions.
The light continued to weaken as the span rose. The dead air became an ache in her lungs. With every step, she moved deeper into memories of winter; of killing cold fraught with manipulation and treachery, and full of Jeremiah’s enslavement.
As her percipience waned, she lost her ability to locate the Harrow. His dun raiment had become indistinguishable from the dark portal. If he had found his way inward and gone ahead without her, she would not have known the difference. But Stave would have told her—And the Insequent had given his oath. The same strictures which had doomed the Mahdoubt ruled him as well.
On both sides of the Hazard, water trickled incessantly down the sides of the stalactites and fell like omens; promises of plummeting.
Then she and Stave passed the crest of the bridge and descended into shadow.
She was effectively blinded. An irrational certainty that she had begun to drift toward the unguarded rim of the span clutched at her. Fingers of ice reached through her clothes to torment her flesh. A whimper that she was barely able to contain clogged her throat.
But Stave took hold of her arm to steady her. “Calm your heart, Chosen,” he said as though he feared neither echoes nor banes. “The Harrow awaits you. It appears that he has ceased his own efforts, whatever they may have been. Now he regards you with suspicion and hope. I deem that he dreads the consequences of error, and that his dread has defeated him. He will accept your aid, for his alternative is humiliation and death.”
Linden trusted his reading of the Harrow. She had no choice. His firm grasp was all that kept her from hastening toward the relative sanctuary of broad granite at the foot of the bridge. She wanted to get off the Hazard. As her steps descended from darkness to darkness, her visceral conviction that the span would crack and collapse increased until it affected her more than bad air or cold or stifled percipience.
Through the drumming of her pulse, she hardly heard Stave announce, “The Chosen comes to proffer her assistance, Insequent. A courteous man would welcome her with light to ease her way.”
“And do you now consider yourself an arbiter of courtesies, Haruchai?” the deep loam of the Harrow’s voice replied. “You who only give battle or show disdain, disregarding the stature of those whom you encounter?
“My knowledge of courtesy exceeds yours, as does my prowess. Thus!”
Directly ahead of Linden, and no more than a dozen paces away, an umber illumination appeared as all of the beads on the Harrow’s doublet began to glow simultaneously.
They cast a dull light that revealed little more than the Insequent and his immediate surroundings. But that was enough to let Linden see where she placed her feet.
The bridge ended in a buttressed shelf of gutrock just outside the high archway of the entrance to the Lost Deep. The Harrow’s brown lumination did not extend beyond the plane of the portal: there it met sheer blackness as blunt and impermeable as burnished ebony. But Linden could see him and the foot of the span clearly enough.
Through the dusk crouching above her, she saw that the curve of the door was marked with strange symbols which she did not recognize.
The shelf extended for several long strides on either side of the sealed entrance. It was wide enough to accommodate the Giants. And in the center of the unobstructed stone, the Insequent still knelt as Rime Coldspray had described him: bent on one knee; gripping Covenant’s ring near his forehead; holding Linden’s Staff planted squarely on the stone. The chain on which she had worn the ring dangled from his fingers, swaying slightly. His posture suggested that her approach had interrupted his concentration. His fathomless eyes regarded her like smaller instances of the cavern’s depths: more human than the abyss, but no less fatal.
“The Haruchai speaks of assistance, lady,” the Harrow remarked, affecting scorn. But his contempt sounded hollow. “Do you conceive that I require any aid of yours?”
“Of course you do.” An inward rush carried Linden off the bridge. Then she stopped, shivering with relief. In spite of the cold, the enduring granite under her boots affected her like certainty. “You knew that when we first met. You’ve been trying to open that door on your own, but you can’t. And you can’t afford to make a mistake.”
When Stave released her arm, she grasped his to anchor her. “Those symbols,” she asked the Insequent, glancing upward. “Can you read them? What do they say?”
The Harrow studied her, loathing the oath which the Mahdoubt had wrested from him. “Their import is no mystery. They proclaim merely that beyond this portal lies the demesne and habitation of the sovereign Viles, monarchs of this realm, great in lore and peril, and unforgiving of intrusion. Further, the symbols counsel all with the wit to read them to turn aside. Here any who enter unwelcomed will discover only doom.”
Then he shrugged. “Sovereign or no, the Viles are long extinguished. Of their spawn, only those few ur-viles and Waynhim which betimes endeavor to serve you endure. I do not fear the doom of this place. When I have unbound its restrictions, no harm will remain to daunt me.”
“In other words,” Linden retorted, “you still don’t have a clue.” Her scorn was as hollow as his: she was too cold and truncated to feel disdain; had to fight too hard for breath. “I think that I can help you. If you let me.”
“ ‘Let you, lady?” mused the Harrow as though the idea held little interest. “I do not oppose you. In what form do you crave my permit?”
Gallows Howe, she might have answered. Rage. Slaughter. That’s what you think the Viles were like. You think that’s how they would have answered intrusion. You think that I can unlock blackness with blackness.
But she did not waste her flagging energy on a useless attempt to correct his misapprehensions. Already she was light-headed with hypoxia. The glow of the Harrow’s beads did nothing to cleanse the air. Soon she would be too weak to stand.
Panting, she explained, “If you let me use my Staff.” Before he could object, she added, “I’m not asking you to give it back. But somehow your hold on it blocks me.” Once she could have drawn Earthpower from it without grasping it; but he had erected a barrier against her. “Just let me touch it.” Let me be myself again, at least for a little while. “Let me borrow what it can do. Then I may be able to feel my way through the wards. If I see them, maybe I can open the door.”
While the Harrow considered her, perhaps searching for some indication of trickery, Stave asked flatly, “Is this hesitation, Insequent? If the doom of the Lost Deep does not inspire dread, how does it chance that you fear the Chosen’s aid?”
The Harrow scowled darkly, but did not respond to Stave’s challenge. Instead he continued to scrutinize Linden until he found something that satisfied him. Then he nodded.
Swinging the chain of Covenant’s ring as if that small movement were an arcane gesture, he said brusquely, “Make the attempt, lady.”
In simple weakness, Linden wanted to lie down. Prone, she could take hold of her Staff by its end: all she needed was its touch. But pride or stubbornness kept her on her feet as she moved to stand, trembling, in front of the Insequent. Striving for steadiness, she reached out with both hands and closed her fingers around the Staff of Law.
Contact with the warm wood was like a rebirth.
She had no measure for the extent to which Kevin’s Dirt had diminished her until her nerves felt the healing current of Earthpower and Law, the precise elucidation of Caerroil Wildwood’s runes. Then she became able to recognize how wan and superficial her sight had been without percipience. God, how had she borne it? How did the people of the Land who had never known health-sense endure their lives? Her existence in her natural world, the world which she had lost, had been fundamentally transformed by her previous hours or months with Covenant. During that time, she had grown familiar with seeing and hearing and touching and tasting the spiritual essence of all things: the underlying life-pulse of vitality and wonder. She did not know who she would have been if she had never experienced the Land; but she believed that she would have remained emotionally crippled, as damaged and despairing as her parents. The legacy of her father’s suicide and her mother’s death would have continued to define her.
Now everything around her seemed to unfold, to blossom, as though she had stepped into a new dimension of reality. She felt the obdurate antiquity of the rock under her; the sheer age and indifference of the air; the specific stability and limitations of the Hazard; the ponderous downward yearning of the stalactites; the commingled eagerness and submission of water as it gathered and trickled down the gnarled surfaces of the stalactites to fall like streams of time into the extinction of the abyss. She perceived the Harrow’s anxieties and hungers, and Stave’s stubborn strength, as if they impinged directly on her skin. She became aware of her own body—of its inherent inadequacies, and of its bedrock desire to live—as if her veins and nerves, muscles and sinews, were limned in light. And in the distance far below her, she sensed the restless lurk of something evil—
But those were the Staff’s passive effects. As soon as she began to draw on its power, the stagnation was banished from her lungs: she could breathe cleanly again. New energy ran like the effects of hurtloam through her veins. She recognized Liand’s brave and tiring efforts to keep his orcrest alight; identified each of the Giants and the Ramen, each of the Humbled. She felt Anele’s slumber and Covenant’s trackless wandering. She could have pointed to the exact spot where Loric’s krill, wrapped in vellum and lambent with possibilities, was tucked into the waist of Covenant’s jeans.
Nevertheless more immediate sensations demanded her attention. While the Harrow regarded her avidly, and Stave watched as if nothing had changed, she tasted the presence of complex theurgies.
The blackness that filled the portal of the Lost Deep was not blank: it was a seething mass of magicks, twisted and insidiously recursive. And its implications were not contained within the archway. Instead they extended in long looping tendrils, and in clusters like knot work, to form a web or skein of utter fuligin around the entire length of the Hazard. In some respects, the portal’s dark strands resembled Jeremiah’s racetrack construct: if she tried to follow their flow from one place to another, she would find herself in a maze from which there was no egress. But Jeremiah’s construct had been a door: one through which only he could pass, but a door nonetheless. The tangle that enclosed the bridge was formed for destruction. If even one of its strings were plucked, it would convulse, taking the granite substance of the span with it. In an instant, the bridge would become rubble falling endlessly into the depths.
In the initial wash of Earthpower, Linden saw that the wards defending the Hazard were like the Demondim. Having no tangible forms, they would be lost to will and deed without some containing ensorcelment to preserve them from dissolution. Imagine that they were bound to themselves by threads of lore and purpose. And the Harrow had told her that he had learned the trick of unbinding them. But apparently his knowledge did not extend to undoing the magicks here—or he was unable to discern the similarity between the way in which the Viles had given shape to the Demondim and the manner in which they had guarded their hidden realm.
He did not know how to use the Staff—
To an extent, however, the web threatening the bridge was chaff; distraction. Anyone who did not try to enter the Lost Deep could cross the span repeatedly without harm. The real danger, the crucial tangle, was here, concealed inside the portal’s cryptic moiling. One touch to the wrong strand would release ruin. But plucking the correct thread would open the Lost Deep. Severing that thread would unravel the wards completely, erasing their power from the span.
Sighing to herself, Linden thought, Well, sure. If only it were that easy. Tugging or cutting the proper strand with Law and Earthpower might not be difficult. However, identifying that tendril within the sensory confusion of the Viles’ lore would be as arduous as finding the caesure through which the Demondim horde had invoked the Illearth Stone. And here she did not have the horde’s evanescent hints of emerald and migraine to guide her. She did not have the ichor of the ur-viles and Waynhim to augment her health-sense.
But that was not her only problem.
As she extended her discernment, the sensations of a malignant presence seething in the chasm suddenly increased. For a moment, a swift flurry of frightened heartbeats, she thought that the evil was rising—
It was not. Now Linden saw the truth. The bane only appeared to surge upward because it, or she, was so enormous; so potent. Worse, she was sentient—Oh, God in Heaven, the malevolence was not merely alive: it was a conscious being. Asleep, yes—Linden could feel that—but restive, and capable of intention. In its—her—virulence, she exceeded the Illearth Stone as a sea exceeded a lake. She did less harm only because she was so much more deeply entombed. Nonetheless to Linden she looked more terrible than a host of skurj and Sandgorgons.
Only wild magic could oppose such a being. The Staff of Law would be useless against her. Staring downward, Linden realized with horror that this evil was the source of Kevin’s Dirt. Unconsciously, perhaps, but unmistakably, the bane supplied the raw force which Kastenessen and Esmer and moksha Raver had shaped to form their heinous brume.
If Linden’s company failed to rescue Jeremiah and escape before that entity came fully awake—
A cry for Covenant’s help caught in Linden’s throat. Surely it was for this that she had compelled him to resume his life? So that he would spare her the burden of confronting abominations? She lacked his instinct for impossible solutions. Without him, she and Jeremiah and all of her friends were lost.
But he also was lost.
While she floundered, the Harrow commanded abruptly, “Speak, lady.” He made a palpable attempt to sound severe, but flashes of alarm marred his tone. “How fare your efforts to demonstrate that I must have your aid?” In a smaller voice, he added, “We dare not linger here.”
He was lorewise enough to recognize the peril dozing restlessly in the depths.
Stung by her own fears, Linden jerked her head to face him. Still gripping the Staff with both hands, she snapped, “You don’t know, do you. You talk and talk, you like to tell us how you’re going to save the world, but you have no idea what to do if that thing wakes up.”
The Insequent flinched. Something in the gulfs of his eyes suggested fear. Yet he did not unclose his fingers from either the Staff of Law or the white gold ring. In his dreams of glory, he had found the trick of unbinding the wards before his presence disturbed the cavern’s bane.
“Then I will concede, lady,” he whispered softly, fiercely, “that in all sooth I require your assistance. The secret of unmaking the Demondim does not avail here. For that reason, I craved the wordless knowledge within the blackness of your heart. Your encounter with the ancient theurgy of Garroting Deep—the theurgy which scripted these runes—unveiled a mystery to you, though its meaning is beyond your comprehension. I would have known its use, but the Mahdoubt precluded me from acquiring it. Therefore the task is yours. Lady, we will perish here one and all if you do not immerse yourself in your darkest and most insatiable rage. You must become hate and vengeance or die.”
Linden glared back as though all of her darkest passions were directed at him.
“This bane is unknown to the Haruchai,” Stave observed, “and too distant for true discernment. Yet we perceive that it slumbers still. Mayhap there is no imminent need for haste.”
The former Master was wrong. Linden had to get away from the cavern and the Hazard before the proximity of so much malevolence shredded her nerves.
She would never reach Jeremiah if she did not find and cut exactly the right strand of magic. The tendrils of the Viles did not only extend along the span: they also reached inward. Havoc would be wrought in the Lost Deep if she made any mistake. The damage might isolate Jeremiah permanently. It might kill him.
“Then give me my Staff,” she demanded in a voice as low and grim as the Harrow’s. “Let it go. I’ll return it when I’ve found the way in. If I don’t keep my promises, you don’t have to keep yours. I’m not likely to forget that. But I can’t face you and those wards while that monstrosity might wake up.”
The Insequent bared his teeth in a feral grimace, wild and threatened. For a moment, Linden thought that he would refuse; that he might take the fatal risk of trying to open the portal himself. His greed—
But behind his mask of superiority, his fear was as strong as hers, and growing stronger. He needed her as badly as she needed her Staff. After a moment, he made an effort to swallow his pride. Without a word, he relinquished the written wood.
“Chosen,” Stave said like an affirmation. “Linden.”
At once, Linden accepted the Staff of Law, her Staff, and moved closer to the black seethe of magicks which blocked her from Jeremiah.
With the intensity of an absolute need, she ached for Covenant’s presence. Even if he could not help or guide her, he would at least understand that the Harrow was wrong. Thomas Covenant had known the ancient inhabitants of this place from the perspective of the Arch of Time. He had witnessed every manifestation of their dangerous lore; seen into the heart of their most abstruse secrets. He would comprehend that the Harrow had been misled by his avarice.
The Harrow’s knowledge of the Viles was too recent: he had gleaned it millennia after their self-loathing had faded from the Land. But Linden had faced them while they were poised on the cusp of Despite. And Covenant had known them when they had been justly considered lofty and admirable. According to Esmer, they had lived in caverns as ornate and majestic as castles. There they devoted their vast power and knowledge to the making of beauty and wonder, and all of their works were filled with loveliness. For an age of the Earth, they spurned the heinous evils buried among the roots of Gravin Threndor—
Covenant would understand. He had turned his back on scorn and punishment long before Lord Foul had slain him. The defenses of the Viles could not be opened by any power inspired by wrath and the hunger for retribution. Beings that had risked everything by forming the Hazard would not have done so out of rage. They would have been unacquainted with the desire for revenge.
Unless—, Linden thought suddenly. Unless the Viles had shaped their wards after the Ravers had taught them to loathe themselves. In that case, she rather than the Harrow might be wrong; and she was about to make her final mistake.
Far below her, one of the heinous evils stirred. Its sleep was troubled. Soon, inevitably, it would awaken.
Its emanations clawed at Linden until her assurance hung in tatters.
While she hesitated, caught by her old paralysis, Stave came closer. Apparently he could sense her turmoil. With one hand, he rested his strength firmly on her trembling shoulder.
“In your company,” he remarked, “and not without difficulty, I have learned that there is merit in doubt.” He sounded uncharacteristically casual, as if he were making a conscious effort to dispel trepidation. “Yet it is the nature of evil to feast upon fear, breeding distrust and inaction from doubt. And even in sleep, evil seduces. Chosen, you must close your heart to its lure. If the tales of the Lords are sooth, the Viles did not do so. Thus they persuaded themselves to their doom.”
Linden had no choice: she had to trust her first impressions; trust that the convoluted, self-complicating blackness of the wards expressed the caution of majesty rather than the louring bitterness of disdain. If she did not, she would remain frozen in indecision.
With an effort, she straightened her back, squared her shoulders. Deliberately she unclosed one hand from the Staff to comb her hair back from her face. Then she touched Stave’s fingers briefly—a small gesture of thanks—and resumed her grip on the graven ebony of the wood.
—close your heart—
Easily said. Deafening her senses to the somnolent ferocity of the bane was hard. But she had been an emergency room surgeon, trained to regard only the wound directly in front of her. With a kind of concentration that allowed no intrusion, she had once cut into Jeremiah’s burned hand. Thinking of nothing else, she had amputated two of his fingers—and had saved the others as well as the thumb. Because of what she had done, he could use his remaining digits as deftly as a wizard.
Gradually the bane’s aura lost its power to rend and shred. One strand and implication at a time, Linden tuned her percipience to the squirming moil of the entrance to the Lost Deep.
It was there, she was sure of it. The crucial tangle which formed the crux or keystone of the Viles’ wards lay among the entwined permutations of the portal, not elsewhere. Otherwise the creatures could not have left or re-entered their realm. Somewhere within that midnight mass writhing like a nest of snakes—dark as vipers, swift as adders—was the one thread of theurgy which could render all the rest harmless.
As a perceptual challenge, Linden’s task daunted her. It seemed impossible. Apart from the barrier’s seething, it betrayed no features of any kind: no definitions or demarcations; no shapes apart from the tendrils themselves in constant motion. All of its implications led to confusion.
When she had detached herself from her fears, however, she found that she did not lack resources. Her encounter with the Viles informed her health-sense. She had experienced their eldritch paresthesia. She could not see the meaning of the strands; but she could hear that they had meaning. She could smell the austere suzerainty which had suffused their creation. As she opened her senses, she could almost taste the negligent skill with which the Viles had fashioned defenses that they considered a trivial and largely unnecessary precaution.
Now at last she could be certain that the Harrow was wrong. The scent and taste of the barrier expressed no ire, no desire for harm. The Viles had formed it out of wariness, not from fear or hatred.
Slowly, using the Staff only to whet her percipience, Linden reached out with one hand and brushed it lightly over the surface of the blackness. By touch, she listened to the lore which had written the wards.
It spoke no language that she knew. She would never grasp the ineffable knowledge of the Viles. Nevertheless it was as precise and sequacious as Caerroil Wildwood’s runes. Although she could not decipher its meaning, the simple fact that it had meaning guided her. Its logic flowed past her fingers with both direction and purpose.
In one shape or another, every strand and implication, every uninterpretable sound and scent, ran toward or away from the essential conundrum of the Viles’ intentions.
At its core, therefore, her task was one of comprehension: not of the wards, but of the Viles themselves. The tangle of their defenses was a manifestation of their skeined hearts. Millennia in the Land’s past, she had heard and felt and tasted their insistent self-referential debates, their multifarious conflicted questing for the significance of who and what they were. And long days ago, Esmer had done what he could to explain the sovereign and isolate Viles.
For an age of the Earth, they had resembled the Elohim: hermetic and uninvolved, uninterested in anything that did not impinge upon their secret existence. But where the Elohim had cared for little except the contemplation of their own inherent beauties, the Viles had been makers of loveliness, glorying in the articulation of their powers; instinctively creative in spite of the sterility of their lives. And by that creativity, that impulse to reach beyond themselves, they had been wooed to consider the possibilities of a world which might surpass them.
Unlike the Elohim, they were able to imagine such things.
That their reaching outward had eventually exposed the Viles to the snare of self-loathing grieved Linden. But their tragedy was not germane to her present efforts. The Viles had devised their defenses at the outset of their search for significance; for a context in which to clarify their definition of themselves. Their magicks articulated the spirit in which they had begun their quest, not the outcome of that quest in wrath and ruin.
Immersed among tendrils, she found no trace of any ill. In the barricade, she descried only yearning.
And the implications of the snarled magicks culminated there: in that exact spot and specific strand within the general turmoil. She could not see it, hear it, feel it. Nevertheless she was familiar with the sensory entanglement of the Viles. Her own disorientation guided her.
After that, she forgot lurking evil; forgot the Harrow. Her companions on the far side of the Hazard did not affect her. She only needed to remember Stave’s steady hand on her shoulder, and she was ready. Secured by his unyielding fidelity, she unwound a fine thread of Earthpower from the Staff. Trusting the taste of sounds, the scent of blackness, the tactile seethe of meaning, she inserted her thread delicately among the tendrils.
Amid such ebony, her power resembled a shout of gold, a vivid ache of flame and violation. But she was careful: oh, she was careful. Her thread was little more than a wisp, a spun wish. She did not impose it on the flowing wards. Instead she insinuated it into the current and let the disguised structure of the barrier carry Earthpower into its heart. And when fine gold reached the vital nexus of the theurgy, she was more careful still. Hardly breathing—hardly daring to think—she wrapped her thread around the essential strand.
As she tightened Earthpower on that strand, she smelled the Harrow’s warnings, tasted the grip of Stave’s hand. Ominous hues thrummed in the stone where she stood. About her head like ravens flew glints of incarnadine and sulphur from the bridge, the stalactites, the cavern walls. But she ignored them. Here, at least, she was done with doubt.
Now or never. Dare or die. Jeremiah needed her.
Shod wood on granite, a quick stamp of the Staff tightened her thread. Her delicate effort of Earthpower became as clenched as crimson: it smelled as rigid as iron.
With it, she snapped the necessary tendril.
For one wild jolt of time, an instant of impact, illusions of blackness whipped around her like released hawsers; harried her like furies. Ruinous serpents fled, squirming, in all directions.
Then the portal stood open, and nacre radiance shone forth from the Lost Deep like a welcome, and Linden would have fallen if Stave had not caught her. She needed his strength to drag her confused senses back from the brink of chaos.
Briefly the light fumed like her strained breathing. She smelled its pastel hues shift and waver as though they were the scents of a distant feast. Then her perceptions relapsed to their ordinary dimensions. When the Harrow spoke, he had become human and explicable.
“That, lady—” He appeared to choke on surprise and wonder. When he continued, he sounded hoarse. “In plain justice, I acknowledge it. That was well done.”
But then he swallowed her effect on him: the effect of her ability to exceed him. More strongly, he stated, “Now I will have my Staff.”
Light rich with iridescence and shifting colors spangled among the stalactites, filling the high space above the Hazard with suggestions of glory.
Linden may have nodded. Or not: she was unsure. As soon as the Staff left her hand, she felt Kevin’s Dirt reassert itself. Almost immediately, it closed down on her like a lid; seeped into her like poison. Her sense of loss was so acute that she whimpered as if she had been beaten.
She had come to the end. There was nothing more that she could do.
Somewhere in the distance, Rime Coldspray announced, “Now, Swordmainnir. Linden Giantfriend has secured our passage. In caution and haste, we must bear our companions singly over the Hazard. The Masters will do what they must with Covenant Timewarden. The Ardent we leave to fend for himself. But the others we will convey safely.”
“Be comforted, Chosen,” Stave urged quietly. “You have succeeded where the Harrow failed. You have gained admittance to your son’s imprisonment. Soon we will seek him out. And when you have reclaimed him, the Harrow will translate us hence. Then the cruelty of Kevin’s Dirt will ease, restoring you to yourself.”
“Assuredly,” the Harrow pronounced, “I do not desire to linger.” He sneered the words, but his scorn was hollow. Linden had humbled him. “Already the caution of your companions heightens our peril. Only my oath precludes me from hastening while your sycophants dally.”
As Linden tried to gather herself, she found that her physical distress was waning. The illumination from the portal counteracted both stagnation and cold. There remained a chill in the air; an ache in her lungs. But she could breathe without shivering—and without the sensation that she was about to suffocate. Somehow the residual theurgy of the Lost Deep restored life to the atmosphere surrounding the Hazard.
And her sensitivity to the evil in the depths of the abyss was gone: an ambiguous boon. Numb to the bane’s state, she feared reflexively that it had already begun to rise. But perceptions of its malice no longer eroded her resolve.
She had surrendered her Staff for a second time, and wanted to weep. But sorrow, like regret, was a luxury that she could not afford: not here. When she had accepted the burden of herself from Stave, she turned to watch her friends cross the span.
Coldspray had nearly reached the foot of the bridge, and Onyx Stonemage had already passed the top of the arc with Liand in her arms. Behind them came the three Humbled holding Covenant securely among them. At the far end of the Hazard, the other Giants waited to carry Manethrall Mahrtiir, Pahni, Bhapa, and Anele into the light.
Liand had quenched his Sunstone, returned the orcrest to its pouch at his waist. His posture leaning against Stonemage’s cataphract implied weariness. Covenant appeared to be explaining something earnestly to Branl, Clyme, and Galt; but now the condition of his mind was hidden. The magicks of the Lost Deep did nothing to diminish Kevin’s Dirt. The demeaning smog was too recent to be affected by the abandoned lore of the Viles.
When Coldspray reached Linden, Stave, and the Harrow, she bestowed a grin like a laugh of pride and pleasure on Linden. Then she studied the progress of the rest of the company.
Now Latebirth and Mahrtiir were on the bridge. Behind the remaining Giants, near the back of the veined fan of obsidian, the Ardent had wrapped his ribbands around him as if he were curling into a ball. Cowering—
As soon as Stonemage set Liand on his feet, he hurried toward Linden; clasped her strongly. Then, frowning his concern, he stepped back to scrutinize her.
“Linden—” he began. “This blindness maddens me. I cannot perceive—Have your efforts or the wards harmed you?”
Frostheart Grueburn followed Latebirth, with Stormpast Galesend carrying Anele a safe distance behind her.
Linden shook her head. She had no other answer.
The Harrow chewed his lips and twitched his fingers, fretting impatiently. But he did not voice his frustration.
Cabledarm with Pahni. Halewhole Bluntfist with Bhapa.
Latebirth reached the shelf of the portal; but when her feet found secure stone, she did not release Mahrtiir—and he did not ask it of her. Without percipience, he was entirely blind; more helpless than Anele, who still slept cradled against Galesend’s armor. Behind his bandage, the Manethrall was more profoundly maimed than Cirrus Kindwind, the last of the Giants to essay the span. She had lost only a hand and forearm—
Still the Ardent remained wrapped around himself. In moments, Cabledarm and then Bluntfist rejoined their comrades; Kindwind passed the crest of the bridge—and the Ardent stood motionless, a parti-colored lump barely visible in the throat of the passage beyond him.
“Coward,” growled the Harrow distinctly. “Impediment. Fop. The will of the Insequent in all sooth. For this I have countenanced interference in my designs.”
Come on, Linden thought faintly. She felt as intangible as the Viles; as empty of effect as the Demondim against the Harrow. We have to rescue Jeremiah. A terrible power lives here.
Earlier the Ardent had appeared able to master his alarms, whatever they might be. Yet now he seemed unequal to them, even though Linden had removed the immediate danger. What did he really fear? His reluctance made her think that he had not told the truth about himself—or the whole truth.
As Kindwind put the Hazard behind her, however, and nodded to acknowledge her comrades, the fat Insequent stirred. Obscured by the shadow of the bridge, he began unwrapping strips of fabric from his apparel. Dim in the distance, he expanded as ribbands and hues were loosened until they formed a wide aura around him.
The flutter of his raiment resembled trembling, as timorous and uncertain as vapor.
Nevertheless he had found the reins that ruled his fears; or some other force compelled him. Abruptly he began to rise from the stone, lifted on swirling bands of cloth. And when he gained the air, colors as potent as incantations carried him forward. Floating within a cloud of ribbands, he moved onto the span.
Higher he rose, gaining momentum with very flourish of his raiment. At once lugubrious and majestic, he sailed upward until his head found the light. Some of the cloths supported him by pressing down on the bridge. Others anchored themselves among the stalactites. As he moved, they shifted to hold him aloft.
Perhaps he believed that by transporting himself in this manner he would avoid attracting the attention of the bane.
The Harrow barked a humorless laugh. “Truly the Ardent has been entrusted with the wishes and powers of the Insequent. His timidity and arrogance encompass every facet of our kind. Thus the folly of their presumption is revealed. The Earth would have been better served if they had not heeded their seers and augurs.
“Come!” he commanded Linden’s company imperiously. “This delay is mindless. It will not become wisdom by protraction.”
With a snort of contempt, he headed into the radiance of the Lost Deep.
No one followed him.
Jeremiah’s plight nagged at Linden like an untreated wound. She should have rushed past the Harrow; should have fled from interminable days of anguish and inadequacy toward her son. But she had spent too much of her frayed spirit against the wards: she felt unable to go on without Covenant and her friends; and none of them moved. Even Liand and Stave did not. Instead they all stood as if in attendance, watching the Ardent’s approach: the Swordmainnir with laughter in their eyes, the Masters impassively, Bhapa and Pahni in daunted wonder.
Only Covenant, Anele, and Mahrtiir did not regard the heavy Insequent in the air. And only Covenant spoke.
Peering past the rim of the abyss, he muttered, “She’s going to get bigger. Every time She eats. Every time somebody who doesn’t know or care how dangerous She is comes down here.”
He showed no sign of vertigo. He must have been reliving a conversation which had taken place long ago.
Limned in pink and ecru and subtle viridian, the Harrow paused to wait again, cursing.
Past the Hazard’s apex, the Ardent began his descent. And as he drifted forward, he gradually contracted his apparel so that he sank toward the bridge. Nearing the span’s base, his bound feet were a mere arm’s length from its surface. Softly as a bubble, he touched down as he reached the ledge.
His round face was flushed as though he had outrun the limits of his stamina. Sweat streamed from his forehead and cheeks, staining the neckbands of his garments. His eyes glared starkly, reflecting the pale illumination.
With his feet on the stone, he took two unsteady steps toward Linden. Then he stopped. Though he faced her, his gaze avoided hers.
“The will of the Insequent is a geas,” he panted. “I cannot refuse it, though it appalls my heart.” He may have been offering her an apology. “I must overcome myself. If I do not, I will fail you and my people as well as the living Earth.”
The Ironhand nodded. “Geas or bravery,” she replied, “it has sufficed. And perchance you will not be asked to dare such perils again. The way has been opened. When we have accomplished our purpose, you and the Harrow will be able remove us from these depths without confronting a second passage over that dire chasm.”
To Linden, she added, “Shall we go now in search of your son? Remaining here, we achieve naught.”
Linden did not respond. She felt hypnotized by the sweat on the Ardent’s face, the raw fright in his eyes. The sensation that she had come to the end clung to her. Some stunned part of her was still immersed in the toils of the wards. She did not know how to shake free of them.
But Stave took her by the arm. With Liand at her other shoulder, the former Master turned her toward the portal.
Seeing the Harrow outlined against the moonstone glow, with her Staff and Covenant’s ring clenched in his fists, Linden roused herself as if from a stupor. Though she felt emptied, like a broken cistern that could no longer hold water, she had surrendered too much to stop now. Not when the brown-clad Insequent was impatient to fulfill his promises.
Urged by the Giants, Stave and Liand encouraged her into the Lost Deep.