The Last Dark (38 page)

“It’s terrible.” He restrained himself by gritting his teeth. “It’s all terrible. I don’t know how to make it better.”

Stave did not react. For a time, he knelt motionless and said nothing, as if he had no interest in Jeremiah’s distress. Eventually, however, he bowed his head in submission.

“Yet the attempt must be made.” He spoke as if the wind tugged the words out of him. “I will remain as I am for a time. Then I will come.”

With that, Jeremiah had to be content.

As suddenly as it had arrived, his impulse to sob faded. He had reached the end of his emotions. Now he felt emptied. Matters were out of his hands. He had done what he could. Anele’s gift of Earthpower did not make him mighty. It only made him vulnerable.

Sagging into himself, he left Stave and stumbled across the wind back toward the Giants.

But he did not go to them. He had nothing to tell them that they did not already know. Under kinder circumstances, they probably could have finished the task without him.

Instead he made his way to his crude edifice. For a while, he studied the four walls and the northwest-facing entrance. Then he set to work.

With negligent, futile ease, he tossed small stones into their necessary positions along the tops of the walls. Doing so did not require thought: it required only certainty. But soon he had done what he could. Then he had to wait for the Giants.

Around him, the day grew darker. That was wrong: his senses were sure. The time was early afternoon, no later. Yet the vague illumination was fading. He had become little more than a shadow to himself, a wraith in a distorted dream. His construct crouched in the gloom like the base of a tower broken by siege.

Carried by baffled gusts and blasts, the darkness gathered from the east, or perhaps somewhat north of east. It advanced in tatters like the wind, moiling and routed, then surging ahead. And its source was still distant, scores of leagues away. Nonetheless the fading of the light was a warning.

“Ho, Swordmainnir.” Rime Coldspray sounded improbably far away. “Now or never. Behold! Night gathers against us prematurely. I know not how to interpret this augury, but I do not doubt that it promises ill. We must complete our purpose.”

A chorus of groans arose: protests and curses. Across the distance, Jeremiah felt the Giants climbing to their feet as if they were struggling out of an abyss. Even Cabledarm stood.

Leaning against each other, the Ironhand and her women came to stand with Jeremiah.

He heard their exhaustion, their frailty. He seemed to taste it like charcoal on his tongue. He did not know how to bear it—or how to ask them to bear it.

Because he was concentrating on them, a moment passed before he realized that Stave also had joined him.

Several of the Giants greeted the
Haruchai
, but he did not reply. Instead he regarded the walls of the construct. After a pause, he announced thinly, “This is
suru-pa-maerl
. The folk of the Stonedowns formed such sculptures balancing and fitting stones to each other. In Muirwin Delenoth, Chosen-son, you devised a structure of marrowmeld. Now you have restored
suru-pa-maerl
to the Land, or perhaps created it anew. Perhaps it gives cause for hope.”

Then he turned to Rime Coldspray. “I have recovered strength enough for one effort. I will expend it here. Afterward I will pray that we have no more need of it.

“You must fashion the roof. When it lacks only its capstone, I will ascend. Receiving the stone from those below, I will place it as the Chosen-son instructs. That I will be able to do, that and no more.”

Jeremiah winced. In her weariness, the Ironhand herself flinched. “Will you?” she asked, stern and anxious. “Stave Rockbrother, the prospect troubles me. The monolith which you dislodged is broken. The portion containing malachite is small by comparison. Still it outweighs you.

“Your prowess is ever a cause for wonder. Nevertheless I fear that no
Haruchai
could lift and settle that fragment.”

Gloom masked Stave’s visage. Even his lone eye was shrouded as if it had fallen into shadow. “Yet the choice is mine,” he answered. “The strength is mine. The life is mine.

“If I am not needed, I will stand aside.”

Coldspray rubbed her face like a woman disguising another flinch. First with one hand, then with the other, she slapped her cheeks. She seemed to dig deep into herself for a response.

“Certainly you are needed,” she rasped.

“Thus in the end,” one of her comrades muttered, “even Giants may be reduced to brevity.”

Stave nodded. “Then have done with delay.”

Jeremiah opened his mouth to argue; closed it again. How could he object? His construct was impotent without its capstone. Everything that he and the Giants and Stave had done here hung in the balance. If he wanted to spare the former Master, he would have to suggest an alternative; and he had none.

Sighing, the Ironhand said, “Come, Swordmainnir. The task exceeds only our muscles and thews. It does not lie beyond our comprehension. We must believe that a feat which may be understood may also be achieved.”

In response, Cabledarm lifted her head, flexed her arms. “I will join you,” she announced grimly. “I am less than I was. What of it? I am able to stand. Therefore I will be able to stand under some weight of stone.”

Coldspray nodded. “That is well. You also are needed.”

Like a woman walking to an execution, she went to the nearest roof stone. There she told her comrades, “Some will lift. Others will serve as pillars. The first pillar will be Kindwind. Cabledarm will be the last. When the roof is complete, Bluntfist and I will pass the final fragment to Stave. Thereafter we, too, will become pillars until the capstone is set.”

The other Swordmainnir nodded their assent. When Cirrus Kindwind had entered the temple, Rime Coldspray and Stormpast Galesend rolled a chunk of granite inside. There they heaved it upward until Kindwind could crouch under it, accept its weight with her back and shoulders.

At the same time, Latebirth and Grueburn began shifting another stone. Onyx Stonemage joined Kindwind: a second support. Halewhole Bluntfist and Cabledarm readied themselves.

Jeremiah, too, was needed: he knew that. The sections of the roof had to be positioned exactly. Otherwise they would not remain in place when they were wedged by the capstone. Yet he did not move. He had lost every resource of excitement. Now he felt only a sickening apprehension.

How much more would his companions have to suffer because he had suggested building a sanctuary for the
Elohim
?

or a while, he sank into a kind of paralysis. Matters of scale overwhelmed him: the extremity of the Giants; the consequences of failure. Possible deaths drained the volition from his limbs. But then his fears were thrust aside by a summons which he could not refuse.

The straining women did not call out to him. Stave did not. His construct did.

It was crude in every detail, and so tenuously balanced that a nudge might knock it down. At the same time, it was ineffable, capable of mysteries. Eloquent as a paean, it spoke the language of his talents, his deepest needs. He had to finish it.

Compelled, he followed a Swordmain into the temple.

Now he seemed calm to himself, although his voice shook and his hands trembled. Fervid and sure, he told the Giants, the pillars, where they had gone wrong; urged subtle corrections of tilt and fit; encouraged them to stand taller under their burdens. While darkness mounted across the plain, he guided the placement of his materials.

Soon only Halewhole Bluntfist and Rime Coldspray remained to move the last stones. Cabledarm had already taken her place inside the temple. Blood seeped from her bound wounds, but she ignored it. With her comrades, she did what she could to keep the roof steady. But there were still two slabs to raise. One would have to rest entirely on the injured woman and the wall. The other she would be able to share with Cirrus Kindwind.

The gasping of the Giants sounded like anguish. They had to stand as rigid as foundations, but they could not stand straight. The finished walls around them were no higher than their shoulders. They had to lower their heads and bow their backs in order to balance the roof stones. That posture constricted their breathing. Their heavy muscles quivered on the verge of collapse. Any sudden shift might scatter them like dying leaves. Sweat streaming from their faces spattered the dirt, made marks like cries. Their staring eyes showed white like terror in the enclosed gloom.

Nevertheless Coldspray and Bluntfist forced the remaining stones upward. Somehow Cabledarm and Kindwind bore those added loads. Somehow they managed to turn and twist—lowering one shoulder, raising another, shifting their feet incrementally—so that the slabs fit where they had to be.

Jeremiah supervised all of this without thinking about it. He could not afford to regard the sufferings of the Giants, and nothing else required his consideration. As soon as Cabledarm and Kindwind achieved the right positions, he dashed out of the temple with the Ironhand and Halewhole Bluntfist at his back.

Stave waited there as if he were deaf to the desperation of the Giants. Shredded gales as fragmentary as the rocks of the construct gusted around him and away, but did not move him.

Fighting for breath, Coldspray and Bluntfist paused briefly; braced their trembling hands on their hips; straightened the cramps out of their backs and legs. Then Rime Coldspray nodded to Jeremiah and the
Haruchai
.

“Ready yourselves,” she warned the other Swordmainnir as if she wanted to scream and did not have the strength. “The end is near. One exertion remains, the last and the worst.”

At once, she grasped Stave and wrenched him into the air. He landed on the roof as if he were as weightless as dust.

Then it was Jeremiah’s turn. He held his breath while Bluntfist lifted him; placed him beside Stave.

With his bare feet, he felt the ordeal of the Giants. The surface of the roof resembled strewn rubble. It shifted under him when he moved. The women were only moments from absolute exhaustion. The roof might yet cave inward. And there was one more rock—

If Coldspray and Bluntfist could even raise that piece. If Stave could manage it alone in spite of his wounds.

If.

Entire realities rested on one small word.

“Hang on,” Jeremiah croaked. “We’re moving as fast as we can.”

He was sure only of himself. The temple had been built correctly: it was exactly what it needed to be. When the capstone sat in its proper position, the whole edifice would become secure. Even rested Giants might not be able to knock it down.

Stone was not bone: he could not fuse it. Nevertheless there was power in shapes: the right shapes, the right materials, the right fit. The right words. The right talent. Even the right Earthpower. Such things could change the world.

Praying, Jeremiah watched Stave at the edge of the roof. Coldspray and Bluntfist would have to do more than lift the last stone. They would have to hold it over their heads for the
Haruchai
. If he had to reach down for it—if he could not crouch under it—even his great strength would not suffice.

Groaning like women whose hearts were about to burst, the Ironhand and Halewhole Bluntfist heaved. In their extremity, they half threw their burden at Stave.

Jeremiah did not understand how Stave caught it. He did not know why Stave’s bones did not break; why Stave’s muscles and heart did not rupture. The former Master was not breathing. He had no pulse. A convulsion seemed to stop his life.

The roof where he stood tilted. The stones on either side of him swayed fatally. Giants groaned in dismay.

He stayed upright, but he did not move. He looked like he could not. Every sudden thrash of wind threatened his balance.

Then Coldspray and Bluntfist reentered the temple to help their comrades. Together they steadied the roof.

Slowly, as if he thought that he could live forever without air or blood, Stave turned away from the edge. He took one abused step toward the hole in the center of the roof. Then he took another.

And another, ascending the slope of the stones.