The Last Dark (55 page)

The willow—and the fane with its treasure of
Elohim
.

Still the company ran. Urgent and frantic, straining to their limits, the horses and the Giants ran. Branl warded Covenant. Stave brought Hynyn between Hyn and Khelen, watched over Linden and Jeremiah with his lone eye. Rime Coldspray and her comrades stretched their strides and raced for the horizon, running heavy as boulders, and yet fleet as driven seas.

Too frightened to shout, Jeremiah flailed his arms, flinging streams of Earthpower in all directions as if he sought to haul his companions forward. The storm brushed his theurgy aside like dust.

Holding her breath, Linden watched the Forestal.

He dwindled with distance, shrank in proportion to the Worm’s vastness. As the storm towered over him, an ebon and unanswerable tsunami, his staff’s gleaming and the willow’s seemed smaller and smaller. They became puny things, ineffable and frail. At any moment, they would be extinguished. In its hunger, the Worm would swat them out of existence and take no notice.

Yet Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir stood. He sang, and refused to be silenced. The Worm’s tumult was less than a league away, less than half a league; and still he stood. He was more than Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir. He was also Manethrall Mahrtiir, Raman, given to service. He refused as if his
No
could sway even the unthinking appetite of the World’s End.

Thunder shook the ground. When Linden risked a glance at the nearest lightnings, the boil of blackness, she saw that the company was too slow. The Giants and the horses were sprinting hard enough to burst the hearts of weaker beings, but they could not run fast enough. The storm was too wide: they had not begun their flight in time to avoid it.

And yet the argent of Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s forbidding endured.

“Linden Avery!” Somehow Stave made himself heard through the chaos of running and winds, lightning and thunder. “Chosen, attend! The Forestal succeeds! The Worm slows!”

Impossible! She stared in disbelief. The Forestal could not—

He could. Caerroil Wildwood and Linden herself had given him enough.

The storm inundated her senses. Its might blotted out the heavens. Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s light had become tiny in the face of the tremendous black. Nevertheless she saw the change of pace, not at the storm’s core, but at its near edge.

Stave was right. The Worm was slowing down. It was actually
slowing down
.

And slowing more and more as the Forestal’s denial stiffened.

“Hell and blood!” Covenant yelled. “He’s doing it! He’s by God
doing it
!”

Manethrall Mahrtiir, who had found his heart’s desire—and had come back.

It was not enough. Running as they were, Linden and her companions might escape the storm. If the Worm came to a complete halt—if it paused to confront the Forestal, however briefly—they might evade the lightning; the worst of the vehemence. But that alone would not save them. The World’s End might then turn from Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir to follow the scent of EarthBlood. If it did, the storm would leave the bower and the fane intact. Instead it would swing in
this
direction, away from the ridge. With one lunge, the Worm would send its ferocity raving toward the riders and the Giants. They would die like Joan in her former world, burned by blasts which no mortal flesh could withstand.

Still the Worm
was
halting. For this one moment, at least, the Forestal sufficed.

Without warning, Covenant also halted. Wrestling with the reins, he forced Mishio Massima to obey him. While the rest of the company wheeled in confusion, he swung out of the saddle, snatched at the bundled
krill
, uncovered the blaze of the gem.

Waving his arms, he shouted, “Get together! As close as you can! I don’t know how long Mahrtiir can forbid that thing! We have to get
out
of here!”

Linden gaped at him. She felt snared by the Worm and the storm and Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir; unable to break free. But Hyn heeded Hynyn’s whinny, or Rallyn’s. In a rush, the mare crowded close to Hynyn and Khelen. Frantically the Ironhand and her comrades formed a tight cordon around Linden, Stave, and Jeremiah. Only Covenant and Branl, Mishio Massima and Rallyn stood apart.

Branl had dismounted beside Covenant. With negligent ease, the Humbled tossed Longwrath’s flamberge to the nearest Giant. At once, Covenant pitched himself into Branl’s arms. As Branl crouched low, Covenant stabbed the
krill
’s blade into the dirt.

Bright silver bloomed from the cut. Sustained by white gold and will, it clung to the ground as though it fed from a trough of oil.

Swift as only the
Haruchai
could be, Branl carried Covenant around the company while Covenant dragged the point of High Lord Loric’s dagger through the earth. And as they moved, the
krill
gouged a shining line in the earth, a curve becoming a circle.

Dirt was not tinder. It was not wood or oil. Nonetheless it held Covenant’s power, undaunted by the gale, while the curve extended to enclose the company.

More quickly than Linden would have thought possible, Covenant and Branl completed their circle.

Immediately the Humbled surged upright. Still carrying Covenant, he sprinted for the horses. Tossing Covenant deftly into Mishio Massima’s saddle, Branl leapt for Rallyn’s back.

Now the line of light began to gutter and fade. But Covenant did not hesitate. With his left hand, he slapped his wedding band against the dagger’s jewel.

Sudden incandescence surrounded the company. Without transition, the world vanished.

Linden heard herself cry out for Mahrtiir, but there was nothing that she could do.

Toward Confrontation

Linden Avery had passed through
caesures
. She had been taken out of her time by Roger Covenant and the
croyel
, and had been returned by the compassionate lore of the Mahdoubt. The arcane abilities of the Harrow and the Ardent had conveyed her to and from the Lost Deep. Most recently, Caerroil Wildwood’s last deed in life had restored her to her present.

Nevertheless she was not prepared for the sensations of being rushed out of time and space within a circle of wild magic.

If she could have stood apart from herself and watched, she might have noted the similarity between this translation and the reflexive evasion of linear time which had preserved her and Anele from the collapse of Kevin’s Watch. She might have recognized that she and her companions occupied a void like a bubble in the blood of reality, an embolism that floated on its own currents, ignoring the natural pulse and flood of life. She might have realized that she herself was alight; that Covenant’s use of the
krill
and his wedding band drew a response from her own ring. She might have become aware that she was being reincarnated as much as translocated.

But she could not stand apart or think. Instead she simply went blank. And after an eternity or an instant, she returned to her mortality with a visceral crash while Hyn pounded beneath her, galloping back into the darkened world.

She felt blind, blinded, yet she saw everything at once; saw it limned in argent, distinct as a cut against the gloom, as if each detail had been etched in her brain.

Led by Branl on Rallyn and Covenant on Mishio Massima, the company hammered the ground. They had been stationary: now they ran like panic. Fleet and certain, Hynyn kept his position between Hyn and Khelen, Linden and Jeremiah. Stave’s flat visage showed no surprise. But Jeremiah reeled on his mount’s back, caught off balance: only Khelen’s care kept him from falling. Around him, the Giants staggered on the sudden surface. Their eyes rolled: they gasped and gaped. Yet they ran.

Together they followed the bottom of a wide depression which may once have been a swale, before it was baked dry. Patches of scrannel grass still clung to the dirt, rough-edged and stubborn. Between them, the ground was erratically cobbled with worn stones. Pummeled winds brought whiffs of dampness and rot from Linden’s right: a direction which she instinctively knew was north. Ahead of the company, the terrain rose gradually toward a rumpled landscape a league or more distant.

Covenant lurched in his saddle. He had dropped the reins to strike Loric’s dagger with his ring. His boots had lost the stirrups. In another instant, he might fall. But then Branl caught Mishio Massima’s halter to slow the beast. A heartbeat later, he snatched the
krill
from Covenant. Covenant slumped forward, clutched at his mount’s mane to keep his seat.

The Humbled had done such things before. He must have done them often.

The
krill
’s brightness shrouded the heavens, made night of the twilit morning beyond its ambit. Everything outside its illumination had a look of fatality, of waiting, as if the unnatural dusk masked an ambush.

As Rallyn and Mishio Massima eased their pace, the other Ranyhyn shortened their strides. Around the riders, Rime Coldspray and her comrades relaxed their haste. Running became trotting; became walking. Covenant pushed himself upright, prodded his boots unsteadily into the stirrups.

Winds boiled among the companions, tangled hair, flicked grit at faces. Here, however, the disturbance in the air was only a faint echo of the Worm’s harsh turmoil. As Linden struggled to recover from the shock of translation, her first coherent thought was that the company must have crossed a considerable distance: far enough to pass beyond sight or sense of the Worm’s storm. Whatever happened—or had already happened—to Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir and the fane, Linden and her companions had escaped.

But they had not done so instantaneously. She felt in her nerves that a portion of the morning was gone, perhaps an hour, perhaps more.

Her ring still burned in response to Covenant’s burst of wild magic, but its power was fading.

“Oh, wow!” Jeremiah panted as if he rather than Khelen had galloped. “How did he do that? Where are we?”

Eager for solid ground, he leaned forward, swung one leg to slide off his mount.

Silver-edged images lingered in Linden’s mind, after-flashes of vision. Darkness clotted the surrounding twilight. Ahead of the company, the slope out of the depression or swale was still a stone’s throw for a Giant away. Half buried stones staggered like the remnants of a broken road among stretches of rough grass. The grass blades were more grey than green, a hue like a memory—

Long ago, days or lifetimes in the past, Anele had stood on grass outside Mithil Stonedown. In a rancid voice, he had said,
There is more, but of my deeper purpose I will not speak
.

On grass that resembled this.

Abrupt connections snapped into focus. Too late, Linden cried out, “Jeremiah!
No!
”

He reached out and took me like I was nothing.

But Stave was faster. He seemed to know her thoughts; or he had his own fears. As she began to shout, he vaulted from Hynyn’s back. Swift as thought, he caught Jeremiah before the boy’s bare feet touched the ground and the grass. With a heave, Stave returned Jeremiah to Khelen.

“Mom?” Jeremiah yelped. “What—?”

Now a different kind of shock reeled through Linden. Kastenessen was gone—but he had not been Anele’s only vulnerability. More than once, another being had possessed the old man.

“This grass,” Stave stated flatly, “is of another kind. That which cloaks the hills about Mithil Stonedown grows more thickly, and remains shorter.”

And nothing had harmed Anele among the lush verdure of the Verge of Wandering. Still—

Linden studied the grass, probed it with her health-sense. “But it’s similar. I’m not sure that it’s safe.”

“
Mom?
” Jeremiah insisted.

The Giants stared. Some of them gathered nearby. The others seemed content to stand and breathe. None of them interrupted Linden’s concentration.

Covenant turned his horse to face her. He watched her as though he knew what was in her heart.

“I’m sorry, Jeremiah,” she said, thinking furiously; trying to calm herself. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But I don’t know how much you’ve inherited from Anele. Kastenessen wasn’t the only one who could use him. Lord Foul—” The memory of the Despiser’s voice in Anele’s mouth ached like a bruise too deep to heal. “Whenever his feet touched a certain kind of grass, Lord Foul could take him.”

Whenever the Despiser had felt like taunting her.

Even his aid had been manipulation. True, he had led her to hurtloam. Indirectly he had enabled her to avoid recapture by the Masters. But that ploy had served his purposes as much as hers. If the Masters had been able to prevent her from reaching the comparative sanctuary of the Ramen and the Verge of Wandering—prevent Hyn from choosing her—prevent her from retrieving the Staff of Law—she would never have been able to find Loric’s
krill
and resurrect Covenant. But she also would not have awakened the Worm.

“I don’t want that to happen to you,” she told her son. “It was agony for Anele, but at least he knew how to mask himself. There were parts of him that Lord Foul and Kastenessen didn’t recognize or couldn’t reach. If you have to defend yourself that way—if you go back into hiding—I’m afraid that you won’t be able to get out again.”

He had no bones with which he might devise another portal. His racecar was gone.

The troubled silt of Jeremiah’s eyes held more than surprise; more than chagrin. Their sullen smolder looked like fury.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he protested.
I want Lord Foul dead
. “I stood on grass when we went to the Sarangrave. When we drank at the edge of the marsh. Nothing happened.”

“I know,” Linden admitted. She had not known then that he was vulnerable. “But maybe that was the wrong kind of grass. And Lord Foul isn’t Kastenessen,”
compelled by rage, and contemptuous of consequence
. “He only shows himself when it suits him.

“We know that he wants you. At some point, he’s going to try to take you.”

She ached to protect her son; but her warning seemed to miss its target. His expression grew darker.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Let him try. I don’t care. Kastenessen surprised me. Lord Foul won’t.”

His attitude stung her. For the first time in their lives together, she wanted to slap him; to get his attention somehow. But she held back. In spite of her alarm, she could see that he would not heed her: not on this subject, at this moment. His bitterness was too strong. And she knew how he felt. His manner reminded her of herself when she had been about his age, at her mother’s abject bedside. If anyone then had told her not to end her mother’s life, she would not have listened. Her own distress had ruled her, and she had already chosen her path.

“Then don’t rush into it,” she replied unsteadily. “It’s going to happen whether you’re ready for it or not. And the Despiser is stronger than Kastenessen.” A lot stronger. “Give yourself as much time as you can.”

Jeremiah glared at her for a moment. Then he turned his head away. “Fine,” he snorted again: a response that gave her nothing.

Linden winced. She did not know what to say. She had been possessed once herself. More than once, she had fled within herself in terror and dismay. She knew at least that much about what he had endured—and what lay ahead of him. But she could not simply
tell
him what those experiences had taught her, or what they had cost. No description would suffice.

Aching for him, she sighed, “All right. As long as you know what might happen.”

Still Jeremiah kept his head turned away as if he were thinking about something else; as if in his mind he had left her behind.

Kindwind opened her mouth to say something, then reconsidered and remained silent.

Now Covenant came closer, steering Mishio Massima among the Giants. The comprehension in his eyes made Linden want to hide in his arms as if he had the power to spare her; as if his embrace might heal the wound of her son’s straits. But when he reached her side, he said nothing about Jeremiah. Instead he announced, “That was easier than I expected.”

He may have been trying to deflect her from her fears.

“Those translations are draining. I can’t even begin to tell you how tired I’ve been since I went after
turiya
. Branl had to carry me. By the time I got to Kastenessen, I was so exhausted I didn’t think I could stay on my feet. But this time—

“Hellfire, Linden. This time I had help. I felt it. With so many of us, it still should have been difficult, even for a rightful wielder. But you helped me.”

Then he changed the subject. Without transition, he asked, “Can you see the stars? My eyes aren’t that good anymore.”

The stars—?

For no apparent reason, the Swordmainnir began to relax. The Ironhand nodded. Frostheart Grueburn chuckled softly. Onyx Stonemage, Cirrus Kindwind, and the others looked bewildered for a moment. Then they smiled. They seemed to understand Covenant better than Linden did.

“The stars, Linden,” he insisted patiently. “Are they dying? Are they all dead?”

After an instant like another translocation, she caught up with him. The Giants were shaking their heads, but they let her answer Covenant.

The stars. When she looked at the sky, she saw that they were fewer than they had been mere days ago. The gaps between them were wider. Nevertheless no more of the forlorn lights were winking out. From horizon to horizon, they remained as bright as supplications in the black heavens.

“All right,” she breathed as if she had forgotten to be afraid. “All
right
. He did it. He’s doing it. My God, he’s
doing
it.”

Mahrtiir.

“No.” Covenant spoke softly, but he sounded like he was crowing. “You did that. You. You took Mahrtiir into a
caesure
and brought back a Forestal. You made him strong enough to forbid the actual Worm of the World’s End. Sure,
he’s
saving the
Elohim
. But
you
made it possible.”

He was looking, not at her, but at Jeremiah. He was trying to tell Jeremiah something—

But he did not wait for some sign that the boy had heard him. Glancing around the cluster of Giants, he pointed at Linden with one foreshortened finger.

“My wife,” he pronounced as if those two words were a celebration. “Anele was right. The world won’t see her like again.”

He took her by surprise. For a moment, her eyes filled with tears. She could hardly remember being a woman who wept too easily.

Wiping her cheeks, she missed Jeremiah’s immediate reaction. When she turned to him again, his shoulders were hunched, strangling emotions. “Fine,” he rasped yet again. He was talking to Covenant. “I saved the
Elohim
. Stave did. The Giants did. You did. Mom did. Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir did. That’s great.

“What do we do now?”