She was too weak and lorn to wonder why Covenant wanted her to do something about his ring. If she had been given some reason to hope that his spirit and his flesh might be brought back to each other, she would have obeyed him. No frailty or incomprehension would have prevented her from obeying him. But those questions had already been answered. And she had no desire to let his body out of her embrace.
“Linden.” His emanations were soft and kind; but she felt their urgency growing. “Try to think. I know it’s hard—after what you’ve been through. But try. I need you to save the Land.”
She could not look up at him. His dead face was all that remained to her, all that held her together. If she raised her head to his unbearable beauty, she would be lost as well. With her fingertips, she stroked the gaunt lines of his cheek. In silence, she said, I don’t need to. You’ve already done it.
“No,” he returned at once, “I haven’t.” Every word made his tension clearer. “All I did was stop him. I haven’t healed anything. The Sunbane is still there. It has a life of its own. And the Earthpower’s been too badly corrupted. It can’t recover by itself.” His tone went straight into her heart. “Linden, please. Pick up the ring.”
Into her heart, where a storm of lamentation brewed. Instinctively she feared it. It seemed to rise from the same source which had given birth to her old hunger for darkness.
I can’t, she said. Gusts and rue tugged through her. You know what power does to me. I can’t stop hurting the people I want to help. I’ll just turn into another Raver.
His spirit shone with comprehension. But he did not try to answer her dread, to deny or comfort it. Instead his voice took on a note of harsh exigency.
“I can’t do it myself. I don’t have your hands—can’t touch that kind of power anymore. I’m not physically alive. And I can be dismissed. I’m like the Dead. They can be invoked—and they can be sent away. Anybody who knows how can make me leave.” He appeared to believe he was in that danger. “Even Foul could’ve done it, if he hadn’t tried to use wild magic against me.
“Linden, think.” His sense of peril burned in the cave. “Foul isn’t dead. You can’t kill Despite. And the Sunbane will bring him back. It’ll restore him. He can’t get past me to break the Arch. But he’ll be able to do anything he wants to the Land—to the whole Earth.
“Linden!” The appeal broke from him. But at once he coerced himself to quietness again. “I don’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to demand more than you can do. You’ve already done so much. But you’ve got to understand. You’re starting to fade.”
That was true. She recognized it with a dim startlement like the foretaste of a gale. His body had become harder and heavier, more real—or else her own flesh was losing definition. She heard winds blowing like the ancient respiration of the mountain. Everything around her—the rocklight, the blunt stone, the atmosphere of Kiril Threndor—sharpened as her perceptions thinned. She was dwindling. Slowly, inexorably, the world grew more quintessential and necessary than anything her trivial mortality could equal. Soon she would go out like a snuffed candle.
“This is the way it usually works,” Covenant went on. “The power that called you here recoils when whoever summoned you dies. You’re going back to your own life. Foul isn’t dead—but as far as your summons goes, he might as well be. You’ll lose your last chance.” His demand focused on her like anger. Or perhaps it was her own diminishment that made him sound so fiercely grieved. “Pick up the ring!”
She sighed faintly. She did not want to move: the prospect of dissolution struck her as a promise of peace. Perhaps she would die from it—would be spared the storm of her pain. That hurt cut at her, presaging the wind which blew between the worlds. She had lost him. Whatever happened now, she had lost him absolutely.
Yet she did not refuse him. She had sworn that she would put a stop to the Sunbane. And her love for him would not let her go. She had failed at everything else.
She was in no hurry. There was still time. The process leeching her away was slow, and she retained enough percipience to measure it. Groaning at the ache in her bones, she unbowed her back, lowered his head tenderly to her thighs. Her fingers fumbled stiffly, as if they were no longer good for anything; but she forced them to serve her—to rebutton her shirt, closing at least that much protection over her bare heart. In her nightmare, she had used her shirt to try to stanch the bleeding. But she had failed then as well.
At that moment, a voice as precise as a bell rang in her mind. She seemed to recognize it, though it could not be him, that was impossible. Nothing had prepared her for his desperation.
—Avaunt, shade! Your work is done! Urge me no more dismay!
Commands clamored through the chamber: revocations thronged against Covenant Instantly his specter frayed and faded like blown mist. His power was gone. He had no way to refuse the dismissal.
Crying Linden’s name in supplication or anguish, he dissolved and was effaced. His passing left trails of argent across her vision. Then they, too, were gone. There was nothing left of him to which she might cling.
At once, the bell rang again, clarion and compulsory. It was so close to frenzy that it nearly deafened her.
—Chosen, withhold! Do not dare the ring!
In the wake of the clangor, Findail and Vain entered Kiril Threndor, came struggling forward as if they were locked in mortal combat.
But the battle was all on one side. Findail thrashed and twisted, fought wildly: Vain simply ignored him. The Elohim was Earthpower incarnate, so fluid of essence that he could turn himself to any conceivable form. Yet he was unable to break the Demondim-spawn’s grip. Vain still clasped his wrist. The black creation of the ur-viles remained adamantine and undaunted.
Together, they moved toward the ring. Findail’s free hand clawed in that direction. His mute voice was a tuneless clatter of distress.
—He has compelled me to preserve him! But he must not be suffered! Chosen, withhold!
Now Vain resisted Findail, exerted himself to hold the Elohim back. But in this Findail was too strong for him. Fighting like hawks, they strove closer and closer to the dais.
Then Linden thought that she would surely move. She would go to the ring and take it, if for no other reason than because she trusted neither the Appointed nor his ebon counterpart. Vain was either unreachable or utterly violent. Findail showed alternate compassion and disdain as if both were simply facets of his mendacity. And Covenant had tried to warn her. The abrupt brutality of his dismissal drew anger from her waning heart.
But she had waited too long. The mounting winds blew through her as if she were a shadow. Covenant’s head had become far more real than her legs: she could not shift them. The ceiling leaned over her like a distillation of itself, stone condensed past the obduracy of diamond. The snapped fragments of the stalactites were as irreducible as grief. This world was too much for her. In the end, it surpassed all her conceptions of herself. Flashes of rocklight seemed to leave lacerations across her sight. Findail and Vain struggled and struggled toward the ring; and every one of their movements was as acute as a catastrophe. Vain wore the heels of the Staff of Law like strictures. She was fading to extinction. Covenant’s dead weight held her helpless.
She tried to cry out. But she was too insubstantial to make any sound which Mount Thunder might have heard.
Yet she was answered. When she believed that she had wasted all hope, she was answered.
Two figures burst from the same tunnel which had brought her to Kiril Threndor. They entered the chamber, stumbled to a halt. They were desperate and bleeding, exhausted beyond endurance, nearly dead on their feet. Her longsword was notched and gory: blood dripped from her arms and mail. His breathing retched as if he were hemorrhaging. But their valor was unquenchable. Somewhere Pitchwife found the strength to gasp urgently, “Chosen! The ring!”
The sudden appearance of the Giants defied comprehension. How could they have escaped the Cavewights? But they were here, ali
ve and half prostrate and willing. And the sight of them lifted Linden’s spirit like an act of grace. They brought her back to herself in spite of the gale pulling her away.
Findail was scarcely a step from the ring. Vain could not hold him back.
But the Appointed did not reach it.
Linden grasped Covenant’s wedding band with the thin remains of her health-sense, drew fire spouting like an affirmation out of the metal. It was her ring now, granted to her in love and necessity; and the first touch of its flame restored her with a shock at once exquisitely painful and glad, ferocious and blessed. Suddenly she was as real as the stone and the light; as substantial as Findail’s frenzy, Vain’s intransigence, the Giants’ courage. The pressure thrusting her out of existence did not subside; but now she was a match for it. Her lungs took and released the sulfur-tinged air as if she had a right to it.
With white fire, she repelled the Elohim. Then, as kindly as if he were alive, she slid her legs from under Covenant’s head.
Leaving him alone there, she went to take the ring.
For an instant, she feared to touch it, thinking its flame might burn her. But she knew better. Her senses were explicit: this blaze was hers and would not harm her. Deliberately she closed her right fist around the fiery band.
At once, argent flame ran up her forearm as if her flesh were afire. It danced and spewed to the beat of her pulse. But it did not consume her, took nothing away from her: the price of power would be paid later, when the wild magic was gone. Instead, it seemed to flow into her veins, infusing vitality. The fire was silver and lovely, and it filled her with stability and strength and the capacity for choice as if it were a feast.
She wanted to shout aloud for simple joy. This was power, and it was not evil if she were not. The hunger which had dogged her days was only dark because she had feared it, denied it. It had two names, and one of them was life.
Her first impulse was to turn to the Giants, heal the First and Pitchwife of their hurts, share her relief and vindication with them. But Vain and Findail stood before her—the Appointed held by the clench of Vain’s hand—and they demanded her attention.
The Demondim-spawn was looking at her: a feral grin shaped his mouth. Rough bark unmarked by lava or strain enclosed his wooden forearm. But Findail could not meet her gaze. The misery of his countenance was now complete. His eyes were blurred with tears: his silver hair straggled to his shoulders in strands of pain. He sagged against Vain as if all his strength had failed. His free hand clutched at his companion’s black shoulder like pleading.
Linden had no more anger for them. She did not need it. But the focus of Vain’s midnight eyes baffled her. She knew intuitively that he had come to the cusp of his secret purpose—and that somehow its outcome depended on her. But even white gold did not make her senses sharp enough to read him. She was sure of nothing except Findail’s fear.
Clinging to Vain’s shoulder, the Appointed murmured like a child, “I am Elohim. Kastenessen cursed me with death—but I am not made for death. I must not die.”
The Demondim-spawn’s reply was so unexpected that Linden recoiled a step. “You will not die.” His voice was mellifluous and clean, as perfect as his sculpted flesh—and entirely devoid of compassion. He neither dismissed nor acknowledged Findail’s fear. “It is not death. It is purpose. We will redeem the Earth from corruption.”
Then he addressed Linden. Neither deference nor command flawed his tone. “Sun-Sage, you must embrace us.”
She stared at him. “Embrace—?”
He did not respond: his voice seemed to lapse as if he had uttered all the words he had been given and would never speak again. But his gaze and his grin met her like expectation, an unwavering and inexplicable certainty that she would comply.
For a moment, she hesitated. She knew she had little time. The pressure which sought to recant her summoning continued to grow. Before long, it would become too potent to be resisted. But the decision Vain required of her was crucial. Everything came together here—the purpose of the ur-viles, the plotting of the Elohim, the survival of the Land—and she had already made too many bad choices.
She glanced toward the Giants. But Pitchwife had no more help to give her. He sat against the wall and wrestled with the huge pain in his chest. Crusted blood rimmed his mouth. And the First stood beside him, leaning on her sword and watching Linden. She held herself like a mute statement that she would support with her last strength whatever the Chosen did.
Linden turned back to the Demondim-spawn.
For no sufficient reason, she found that she was sure of him. Or perhaps she had become sure of herself. White fire curled up and down her right arm, plumed toward her shoulder, accentuated the strong rush of her life. He was rigid and murderous, blind to any concerns but his own. But because he had been given to Covenant by Foamfollower—because he had bowed to her once—because he had saved her life—and because he had met with anger the warping of his makers—she did what he asked.
When she put her arms around his neck and Findail’s, the Elohim flinched. But his people had Appointed him to this peril, and their will held. At the last instant, he raised his head to meet his personal Würd.
In that instant. Linden became a staggering concussion of power which she had not intended and could not control.
But the blast had no outward force: it cast no light or fire, flung no fury. It might have been invisible to the Giants. All its energy was directed inward.
At the two strange beings hugged in her arms.
Wild magic graven in every rock,
contained for white gold to unleash or control—
gold, rare metal, not born of the Land,
nor ruled, limited, subdued
by the Law, with which the Land was created—
and white—white gold—
because white is the hue of bone:
structure of flesh,
discipline of life.
Filled with white passion, her embrace became the crucible in which Vain and Findail melted and were made new.
Findail, the tormented Elohim: Earthpower incarnate. Amoral, arrogant, and self-complete, capable of everything. Sent by his people to redeem the Earth at any cost. To obtain the ring for himself if he could. And if he could not, to pay the price of failure.
This price.
And Vain, the Demondim-spawn: artificially manufactured by ur-viles. More rigid than gutrock, less tractable than bone. Alive to his inbred purpose and cruelly insensate to every other need or value or belief.
In Linden’s clasp, empowered by wild magic, their opposite bodies bled together. While she held them, they began to merge.
Findail’s fluid Earthpower. Vain’s hard, perfect structure. And between them, the old definition forged into the heels of the Staff of Law. The Elohim lost shape, seemed to flow through the Demondim-spawn. Vain changed and stretched toward the iron bands which held his right wrist and left ankle.
His forearm shed its bark, gleamed like new wood. And the wood grew, spread out across the transformation, imposed its form upon the merging.
When she understood what was happening. Linden poured herself into the apotheosis. Wild magic supplied the power, but that was not enough. Vain and Findail needed more from her. Vain had been so perfectly made that he attained the stature of natural Law, brought to beauty all the long self-loathing of the ur-viles. But he had no ethical imperative, no sense of purpose beyond this climax. Findail’s essence supplied the capacity for use, the strength which made Law effective. But he could not give it meaning: the Elohim were too self-absorbed. The transformation required something which only the human holder of the ring could provide.
She gave the best answer she had. Fear and distrust and anger she set aside: they had no place here. Exalted by white fire, she shone forth her passion for health and healing, her Land-born percipience, the love she had learned for Andelain and Earthpower. By herself, she chose the meaning she desired and made it true.
In her hands, the new Staff began to live.
Living Law filled the bands of lore: living power shone in every fiber of the wood. The old Staff had been rune-carved to define its purpose. But this Staff was alive, almost sentient: it did not need runes.
As her fingers closed around the wood, she was swept away in a flood of possibility.
Almost without transition, her health-sense became as huge as the mountain. She tasted Mount Thunder’s tremendous weight and ancientness, felt the slow, wracked breathing of the stone. Cavewights scurried like motes through the unmeasured catacombs. Far below her, two Ravers cowered among the banes and creatures of the depths. Somewhere above them, the few surviving ur-viles watched Kiril Threndor in a reflective pool of acid and barked vindication at Vain’s success. Spouting lava cast its heat onto her bare cheek. A myriad passages, dens, offal-pits, and charnels ached emptily and stank because the river which should have run through Treacher’s Gorge was dry, supplied no water to wash the Wightwarrens. At the peak, Fire-Lions crouched, waiting in eternal immobility for the invocation to life.
And still her range increased. Wild magic and Law carried her outward. Before she could clarify half her perceptions, they reached beyond the mountain, went out to the Land.
The sun was rising. Though she stood in Kiril Threndor as if she were entranced, she felt the Sunbane dawn over her.
It was insanely intense. She had become too vulnerable: it stabbed along her nerves like the life-thrust of a hot knife, pierced her heart with venom like a keen fang. At once, she snatched herself back toward shelter—recoiled as if she were reeling to the cave where the Giants watched her in wide astonishment and Covenant lay dead upon the floor.
A fertile sun. Visceral fever gripped her. Sunder and Hollian had abhorred the sun of pestilence more than any other. But for Linden the fertile sun was the worst. It was ill beyond bearing, and everything it touched became a sob of anguish.
Echoes of her fire licked the walls. One long crack marked the floor. Something precious had been broken here. The First and Pitchwife stared at her as if she had become wonderful.
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