The Last Dark (65 page)

Behind Covenant, the Feroce gibbered for his attention. “Pure One, hear us.” Their pleading was a damp clamor, scarcely audible through the tumult of Fire-Lions, the scald and crash of ancient magicks. “Our High God’s flesh cannot endure the worms of fire. He must not hazard them. Yet the alliance has been sealed. Even in his anguish, our High God upholds it.

“You must seek higher ground. We have done what we have done. The Feroce can do no more.”

While Covenant stared, stricken witless, Branl called, “Ur-Lord!” He sounded uncharacteristically urgent. “Heed the Feroce! The waters rise!”

“Well said,
Haruchai
,” muttered a Giant as he snatched Covenant into his arms. He had a seamed face, and skin toughened by wind and sun, yet he looked as slender as a sapling, or as incomplete, like a man whose body was decades younger than his visage. Nevertheless his muscles were hawsers. “This fog masks a mounting flood. A tide gathers from the east. Even Giants cannot swim such waters.”

The
skurj
turned away from the cliff, away from the Sandgorgons. Those monsters which had bitten into other
skurj
, seeking blood and sustenance, ceased their feeding. Rearing like serpents, they brandished their fangs at Covenant; at Branl and six unknown Giants.

Together the Giants scrambled out from under a breaking wave of reified lava. Covenant dangled, helpless in his rescuer’s arms, trying to understand events which had become as sudden as vertigo. At the rear of the group, Branl fought alone, swinging Longwrath’s flamberge in a blur of cuts. But he retreated as he slashed, moving quickly without giving the monsters his back. The thunder of the Fire-Lions sounded like ruin, the gutrock rumble of an earthquake powerful enough to tear Landsdrop apart. The tumult of water rising from the Sarangrave resembled the onrush of another tsunami.

At the full stretch of their long limbs, the Giants raced for the southern rim of the valley. A long stone’s throw away, more Giants bore Linden and Jeremiah upward. Swinging a longsword, Stave accompanied them. Branl cut twice more at the nearest creatures, then turned to follow the Giants.

When the Fire-Lions met the wall of Sandgorgons, and Horrim Carabal’s flood found the
skurj
, the result was cataclysm. It shook the foundations of the Lower Land for leagues in every direction. Struck by acrid eruptions of steam and fury, the thunderheads became a bludgeoning deluge that seemed to erase the valley from existence. Rain fell like the ultimate darkness.

Then the Giants raised a huzzah, ragged and grateful. The monsters were dying, all of them. Dimly Covenant realized that most of his companions had survived. He had seen Linden’s fire before the end. Lord Foul would not have permitted harm to Jeremiah.

Carried by a Giant whom he had never met before, Thomas Covenant felt no relief. He had exhausted himself. Now he was too stunned to feel anything.

Reluctances

The downpour lasted until the Fire-Lions were done with the Sandgorgons; until all of the
skurj
were dead, and the lurker’s flood dwindled to the east; until
samadhi
Sheol’s sentience had faded entirely from existence. Then the thunderheads drifted apart as if they had forgotten their purpose. The chill of rain and darkness dismissed the fog. Glittering as if they trembled at what they beheld, stars pricked the night sky with loveliness.

Linden did not see the Fire-Lions depart. For all she knew, they, too, had perished. But she did not think so. Gravin Threndor’s ancient fire and glory were inherent to the world, as natural as the Worm. She doubted that they could be unmade.

She rested under the shelter of an ironwood high up on the side of the valley, as far as possible from the craters and carnage of the battle, the plague-spots like stigmata in the ground, the clinging reek of gangrene. Leaning against the hard trunk with the Staff of Law in her lap, she waited for some semblance of strength to return.

She was too tired to be afraid. Too drained even to stay on her feet after Hurl had delivered her here. Too depleted to regard Jeremiah, or Covenant, or the Giants. Instead she floated into the lucidity of exhaustion: that numb mind-set in which unbidden thoughts followed their own logic to conclusions that might not have made sense at any other time.

In your present state, Chosen—

She was done with fighting. That much had become clear to her.

—Desecration lies ahead of you.

God, she had endured so much violence—From her struggles against Roger Covenant and the
croyel
to the horrors and killing beside the Defiles Course, she had fought and fought. With wild magic, she had shed the lives of scores or hundreds of misled Cavewights.

You have become the daughter of my heart
. It was enough. She was done. Ever since Jeremiah’s escape from his graves, the foundations of her life had been shifting. They needed to shift further.

She did not mean that she had given up. Carried along by the syllogisms of prostration, she arrived at convictions which did not imply surrender. She had seen her husband find his way through an appalling conundrum of
skurj
and Sandgorgons. She had seen Giants appear out of nowhere to hazard their lives; seen the lurker of the Sarangrave set aside its old malevolence and choose to endure terrible pain. Rime Coldspray and four of her Swordmainnir had given battle while three loved comrades were slain. Stave and Branl had fought as though they wielded the prowess of every living
Haruchai
. The fact that Linden and Covenant and Jeremiah were still alive meant many things. It did not entail or require surrender.

But she could not keep meeting peril with violence, striving to out-do the savagery of Lord Foul’s servants and allies. She could not. She needed a different purpose, a better role in the Land’s fate. She had passed through the wrath of Gallows Howe to the gibbet’s deeper truths; to the vast bereavement which had inspired Garroting Deep’s thirst for blood. The time had come to heed the lessons which her whole life had tried to teach her.

If she did not give up, and did not fight, what remained? She thought that she knew, although she trembled to contemplate it; or she would have trembled had she been less weary.

There is hope in contradiction.

Maybe that was true. If she did not know how to forgive herself, she could begin by offering other forms of grace to people or beings who needed it more.

The daughter of my heart?
she thought. Give me a chance. Let me show you what your daughter has in mind.

She was still the Chosen. She could make decisions and go in directions which the Despiser might not expect.

After that, her helpless clarity looped back to its starting point. She was done with fighting; with violence and killing. One idea at a time, she followed the same logic to the same conclusions. Exhaustion was like that, she knew. Under the right circumstances, it shed a certain amount of light; but its own conditions prevented it from casting its illumination further.

Later Hurl came to her with a satchel of dried fruit and cured mutton. He also offered her a flask of
diamondraught
diluted with fresh water: enough of the Giantish liquor, he said, to restore her, but not so much that it would impose sleep. And when she had eaten a little and drunk more, she found that she felt strong enough to focus her eyes and look around.

The survivors were lit like reincarnations of themselves by the silver of the
krill
in Branl’s grasp. Jeremiah’s distress called out to her. He sat huddled against the trunk of a tree nearby, but he did not look at her—or at anything outside himself. With his arms wrapped around his knees and his face hidden against his thighs, he rocked back and forth like a child in too much pain. Stave and Cirrus Kindwind stood with him. The Giant murmured reassurances that Linden could not hear. Stave’s stance suggested that he was keeping watch.

Hurl had joined most of the other newcomers a short distance away. From somewhere—presumably among the fringes of the Sarangrave—they had retrieved sacks bulging with supplies: food and more
diamondraught
; other things which they considered necessary, and which they must have carried for many leagues. As Stonemage, Grueburn, and Bluntfist gathered with them, the canvas-clad men and women handed out viands and refreshment.

The surviving Swordmainnir and several of the other Giants bore oozing scalds. Contact with the blood and entrails of the
skurj
had burned them. But they were Giants, able to endure fulminating hurts. One and all, they were grieving over their fallen comrades. Yet that hurt, also, they were able to endure, at least for a while.

Down the slope from Linden, Covenant stood with Branl, Rime Coldspray, and another Giant, an implausibly thin man who appeared to speak for the sailors. Like Stave, Branl was unscathed. The hunch of Covenant’s shoulders told Linden that he had fallen hard, damaged his chest. Her nerves detected cracked ribs and some dislodged cartilage, but no broken bones. Nevertheless his manner resembled the ravaged hillsides.

“I swear to you,” he was saying, “I thought it made sense. This is what happens when I convince myself I know what I’m doing. Even after Lord Foul touched Jeremiah, I thought we could sneak in here. I’m still not sure we could get in any other way. But this was a disaster.

“Hellfire, Coldspray! I just about got us all killed.” To the other Giant, he added, “If you hadn’t showed up—”

Or if, Linden amended on his behalf, he had not feared his own power; if he had unleashed enough wild magic to cleanse the whole valley. If he had indeed been
done with restraint
. Yet she believed that he had done well to hold back. He had little health-sense, and wild magic tended always to resist control. He might have inadvertently killed his companions.

“Enough, Timewarden,” the Ironhand replied, peremptory with fatigue and loss. “It is bootless to fault yourself for an onslaught which you could not have foreseen. Our peril here was both extreme and bitter. Yet it has not exceeded the hazards of the more direct road. And here we have found aid as unforeseen as our foes.”

Linden nodded privately. Soon she would have to go to Covenant, if he did not approach her first. She needed his embrace to console her. And she wanted to explain herself as well as she could. She was done keeping secrets, especially from him.

But her son took precedence. She could only imagine what Lord Foul’s visions and his own helplessness had done to him.

She allowed herself a bit more food, a few more swallows of
diamondraught
-tinged water. Then she began the immense labor of rising to her feet.

At once, Stave came to help her. His hand on her arm lifted her, steadied her. His single eye studied her as if she were no longer closed to him. In silence, he supported her toward Jeremiah.

As Linden approached, Cirrus Kindwind moved away. Clearly she needed the solace of her own people.

Every step sharpened Linden’s perception of her son’s despair. Her nerves assured her that his mind was still present. Although he rocked back and forth like an abused child, he had not retreated to his graves. Nevertheless he looked lost in misery.

For a moment, she paused to think. But she was too tired and sure to reconsider anything. Lowering herself down the Staff of Law, she knelt facing Jeremiah. Then she set the Staff on the soaked ground between them.

“Jeremiah, honey. Can you hear me? Are you listening?”

Hugging his face against his thighs, he rocked harder.

“Jeremiah, listen.” Her voice was a sigh. “I know it’s hard.” How many times had Thomas said that to her? “But we’re still alive.” Others were not. “This isn’t the end. We can finish what we started.”

Muffled by his legs, Jeremiah whispered, “You can. I can’t.”

Linden searched herself for strength. “What do you mean?”

Slowly his head came up as if he were summoning indignation; as if her question insulted him. Memories of Sandgorgons and
skurj
capered like ghouls in his haunted gaze.

“Because I can’t
do
anything, that’s why.” He made a visible effort to sound angry, but his voice held only anguish. “I wasn’t even in danger. Foul wants me alive. But there were all those monsters, and I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t do anything except watch. And even when I did that, I could still see the Worm. Even when Latebirth and Galesend were dying, and it was horrible, and there was blood everywhere, and those fangs. I could still see the Worm. Every minute, it does more damage than all the
skurj
in the world, and there’s nothing I can do.”

As guerdon for his puerile valor—

Aching for him, Linden summoned her courage. “I know. It must have been terrible for you. That’s why I want you to take my Staff.”

She expected surprise, but he only looked away. “Why? It won’t make any difference. I can’t use it. I don’t know how. It isn’t mine. You’ll just have to take it back. You won’t have any choice.”

She was tempted to reach out and shake him; but she refrained. He was too full of dismay to appreciate what she was offering him. As calmly as she could, she admitted, “We might have to take turns at first. The Giants and Thomas are hurt. They need me. But you can still get started. And I don’t always have to hold it. I can use some of its power without touching it. That doesn’t change anything. I still want you to have it. I want it to be yours.”

“Why?” Jeremiah repeated like a groan.

“Because you need to be able to defend yourself,” he needed to believe in himself, “and I don’t need it anymore. I have white gold—and I can’t use both. No one can. Earthpower and wild magic together are too much. So now I want to learn how to handle my ring. I want you to learn how to use the Staff.”

“I can’t,” he said again. “I don’t have any idea—”

“Jeremiah.” She made his name sound like a reprimand. “We talked about this. Of course you don’t know how. But you can learn. You don’t even need my help. You have your health-sense and your own power. You can teach yourself.

“And if you have something else to concentrate on, you might be able to stop seeing the Worm. Earthpower and Law can do all kinds of healing. Maybe they can cure those visions. Maybe they can even keep the Despiser from taking you again.”

Taking the risk, she finished, “And maybe you can find a way to make the Staff clean again. I know that I can’t. That blackness is too much a part of me.”

Jeremiah stared at her. The bleak torment in his gaze became a muddy roil. Its ambiguous currents twisted in unfamiliar directions, disguising their own depths. For a moment, she feared that he would pull away completely; that she had asked too much of him. That he would choose despair and dissociation.

But then he reached for her Staff.

“I’ll try. I can’t stand the way I am.”

Blinking at an unexpected sting of tears, she said unsteadily, “Just remember what I told you. Start with your own Earthpower. Use it to touch what the Staff can do. You should be able to feel it. Then you’ll be able to do more. It won’t be easy at first. But you’ll get better.”

He ignored her now. Already distracted, he stroked the written wood, familiarizing himself with its texture, exploring its arcane script. Briefly he considered its iron heels as though they held the secrets he needed. Then he surged to his feet, holding the Staff of Law as if he wanted to swing it around his head.

Ah, God. Feeling strangely naked, bereft, like a woman who had just said farewell to her son’s childhood, Linden climbed upright. She was grateful for Stave’s firm grip on her arm, reliable as a corner-stone; but she had no words to offer her friend. Before she could do or say anything else, she needed to stop weeping.

“I do not scry, Chosen,” the former Master remarked without any discernible emotion. “To my sight, the future holds only darkness. Yet I judge that you have acted wisely. The boy’s need is great, and you have other strengths.”