Against All Things Ending

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Linden wanted to say the same of Jeremiah so badly that she feared to do so. I refuse to believe he made choices then that can’t be undone. Nevertheless the nature of the intent which had inspired his constructs in her living room did not affect her answer to Liand’s question.

  “I don’t think that we need to worry about Anele. If I’m right, we’re going underground. It’ll all be stone. Old stone. The kind that he understands.

  “You were there,” she said, remembering. “In Salva Gildenbourne. Before that first skurj attacked us, and we met the Giants. He read or heard something in the sand,” the residue of rocks which must have been old long before Covenant’s first appearance in the Land.

  There Anele had spoken of the necessary forbidding of evils—a forbidding like the repulsion which the Colossus of the Fall had once wielded. But that strength was long gone. It had failed with the passing of the One Forest and the Forestals.

  Without forbidding, there is too little time.

  “Aye,” Liand acknowledged. “At that time, he instructed you to ‘Seek deep rock. The oldest stone. Only there the memory remains.’ But how do you conclude that your son is imprisoned beneath the earth?”

  Anele had also said, Forget understanding. Forget purpose. Forget the Elohim. They, too, are imperiled.

  Like so many of the old man’s utterances, that one had been as urgent as prophecy, and as cryptic. Now, too late, Linden knew what it meant.

  And she knew something else as well. When he stood on rock—or on the remnants of rocks—Anele’s pronouncements held truth. Whether or not she grasped their significance, she needed to hear and heed them.

  Become as trees, the roots of trees. Seek deep rock.

  She shrugged. “I can’t be sure. But Lord Foul likes to hide his secrets in stone. Nothing else is strong enough to hold them.”

  “That I must believe,” admitted the young man. “Nonetheless I fear for Anele. The purpose which lies in wait beneath his madness—” Liand shook himself to loosen the trepidation that tightened his shoulders. “Linden, I do not merely fear for him. For causes which I cannot name, I fear Anele himself, though unpossessed he offers harm to none.”

  Briefly Linden met the Stonedownor’s troubled gaze. Then she looked away. “You should probably trust your instincts. But I don’t feel what you do. To me, he looks more dangerous to himself than to anyone else.” After a moment, she added, “I just wish that I knew what Sunder and Hollian said to him. Or what they did for him. I wish I knew what they know about him.”

  But she had nowhere to turn for answers. Unless Covenant chanced upon a relevant memory, and was able to explain it, she could only wait for events to reveal the exigencies that ruled Anele. She was responsible for most of the delays which had prevented her departure with the Harrow; yet now she felt helpless to do anything except wait.

  Eventually the Cords returned to the vale. Both Bhapa and Pahni bore handfuls of treasure-berries; and Bhapa announced that he had found a brook perhaps a hundred paces beyond the eastern rim of the hollow.

  Trusting the Haruchai and the Ramen to stand guard, Rime Coldspray and her Swordmainnir strode away in various directions, some to forage for more aliantha, others heading toward water. While Bhapa and Pahni offered the viridian fruit to Linden and Liand, Anele and Stave, Branl tried to get the Unbeliever’s attention. But Covenant did not emerge from his recollections. Perhaps he had already eaten enough to satisfy his new mortality.

  Linden accepted a few of the berries after Anele had taken as much as his hands could hold. She would need more: she knew that. And she, too, would have to visit the brook. For the moment, however, she was content to send Liand off with Pahni to search and drink. Bhapa also she encouraged to fend for himself. She wanted a chance to talk to the Ardent.

  Accompanied only by Stave and Mahrtiir, she ascended the shallow slope toward the garish Insequent. The Harrow studied her suspiciously as she approached, but said nothing. Covenant’s ring he clenched in one fist as if he sought to squeeze wild magic from it by sheer force. The Staff of Law he hugged to his chest like a shield.

  “Lady.” The Ardent bowed in a fanfare of ribbands. “Doubtless the moment draws nigh when we will depart this vale of rue. And doubtless we are one and all devout in our hope that occasions more pleasurable lie before us. It is apparent, however, that uncertainties remain to disturb you. I will endeavor to ease you, if I may do so without interference in the Harrow’s designs.”

  “Without more interference,” muttered the Harrow darkly. Then he clamped his jaws shut.

  Linden hardly knew how much to trust the Ardent, but she answered his bow with a nod. “I appreciate what you’ve already done.” Her gratitude seemed to float on a vast sea of dread, but she did not mean to speak of her fears. “Unfortunately I can’t think of any questions about the Harrow that you might be free to answer. I wanted to ask you something else.

  “The Harrow seems to believe that all you care about is gluttony. But I’m not convinced. What you want isn’t that simple. If it’s fair to say that all of the Insequent are ruled by greed,” for knowledge, or for personal glory, or for service, “what are you greedy for? Why did your people pick you? What are you trying to get for yourself?”

  Decorating himself with flutters, the Ardent beamed at her. “You are insightful, lady—and mayhap wise as well—in spite of your manifold follies. Doubtless others have observed these qualities in you.”

  The Theomach had called her clever as well as wise. Surely she had made enough mistakes to prove him wrong?

  “It is not without cause,” continued the Ardent without pausing, “that the Harrow regards me with disdain.” Every sentence emphasized his lisp. “Yet his scorn misleads him. Gluttony I affirm. However, feasting and the adoration of viands are but one manifestation of my distinctive hunger, the unsated quest which you have named greed. My appetites are not limited to the delights of the flesh.

  “Lady, my true hunger is for that which is utterly singular, entirely unique. I crave the experience of that which lacks all precedent and cannot be repeated. I have not attained my happy bulk by repetition, or indeed by quantity, but rather by seeking out and enjoying every form of sustenance which the wide Earth proffers. And I desire other uniquenesses as well. I wish to taste and see and hear and feel and do all things that are new to me, or to the world, or that are too fleeting to recur. And I wish to savor sensations in which no other being ever can or ever will participate. For this quality, and because I am an acolyte of the Mahdoubt, I was chosen. The Insequent perceive that I cannot fail their trust without betraying my own greed.

  “I have witnessed the mating of Nicor merely because no other Insequent, or any self-aware creature, has done so. For the same reason, I have stood upon the mightiest peaks of the Earth, not excluding great Melenkurion Skyweir. Yet those are lesser joys because the day may come when others also experience them.

  “This”—he expanded his ribbands until they seemed to include the whole hollow and all that had occurred within it—“is truly unprecedented. Nor will it ever recur. And my presence within it is unprecedented, unrepeatable, ecstatically unique. I speak for the Insequent as a people. Those powers which they are able to invest in me, I possess. Ere now, such a confluence has never transpired. Come what may, it will never transpire again. And no other living being will ever know its fraught joys.

  “Behold me, lady, at the crown and culmination of my greed.” Bright bands of color wove around him as if he and they formed a tapestry of exaltation. “Never will I be deemed the greatest of the Insequent. Nor will my deeds determine the outcome of the Earth. Yet I do not scruple to proclaim that no Insequent has achieved the fruition which I attain here. No other Insequent will attain it. Even the Harrow in his vainglory will not.”

  Linden stared at him, trying to grasp the implications of his peroration. Although his human aura remained partially concealed by his raiment, she discerned that he was telling the truth. But how would such a man
react in a crisis? A crisis was certain: she knew the Despiser too well to believe otherwise. What would a man who prized unique sensations above all else do when he faced butchery and was threatened with death?

  He had threatened to reveal the Harrow’s true name—the most fatal act an Insequent could commit—but he may have been bluffing.

  While she pondered that question, looking for ways to examine the Ardent further, the Harrow said to him in a black voice, “Yet you know naught of the deep places of the Earth.”

  The plump Insequent raised his eyebrows as though the Harrow’s statement touched a sore place in him. “That is sooth,” he conceded in a more subdued manner. “I fear them. They are hazardous beyond estimation. Indeed, some few among the Insequent have perished in their search for knowledge of those depths. I need only name the Auriference.

  “In a distant age,” he explained to Linden, “a time that far preceded that of the Theomach, she delved deeply, seeking a knowledge both ancient and immeasurable. Desiring as did the Theomach to be named the greatest of the Insequent, she found only the loss of use and mind and life. Yet her end was by no act of the Insequent. Rather she was unmade by evils too vicious to be contemplated. For that reason, our kind has largely eschewed the Land, deeming that its perils exceed its grandeur and mystery. The exceptions are infrequent and secret—though it is surely plain to all that the Harrow stands among them.

  “By my own deeds,” he concluded, “my doom is bound to yours, and to the Harrow’s. I do not aspire to end my days in terror.”

  Linden expected some mordant retort from the Harrow. But he only grinned fiercely through his beard and said nothing.

  After a moment, Stave announced quietly, “Chosen, the Swordmainnir return. The Cords and the Stonedownor are refreshed, and Anele’s hunger has been satisfied. You and the Manethrall must now seek out the brook. To preserve your strength, you must have water.”

  He was right: Linden knew that. But she was reluctant to stop probing the Insequent. Indirectly the Harrow had confirmed that Jeremiah had been hidden underground. And the Ardent’s fulsome account of himself did not reassure her. If he already feared what might happen to him—

  However, she suspected that more questions would not bring more answers. And Jeremiah had been left too long at the croyel’s mercy.

  Please, she wanted to say to the Ardent. Don’t abandon us. Not while that monster has my son. But she lacked the eloquence to move him.

  Surely he understood the danger—?

  Nodding once more to the Ardent, if in supplication rather than in gratitude, she let Stave and Mahrtiir lead her away.

  When she and the Manethrall had quenched their thirst, eaten aliantha, and rejoined the rest of her companions, Linden saw that they were ready; as ready as they would ever be. Liand’s mastery of his orcrest seemed steady enough. But Covenant’s ability to make use of Loric’s krill was unpredictable at best. It might do him more harm than good, if Joan and turiya chose some crucial moment to assail him. The company would have to rely upon the weight and weapons and skill of the Giants, and the resolute prowess of the Haruchai. In the deep places of the Earth, the abilities of the Ramen might be of little use.

  Linden herself had nothing to contribute.

  Yet Mahrtiir emanated a grim eagerness in spite of his blindness and his Ramen fear of enclosure. In darkness, the loss of his eyes might have the effect of an advantage. And his fierce desire to participate in a tale worth remembering had not waned.

  Bhapa doubted himself too much to share his Manethrall’s anticipation. Clearly, however, he found reassurance in Mahrtiir’s attitude. But Pahni’s fears for Liand were growing. She stood at his shoulder as though she ached to cast off her reserve and cling to him openly. Because she was Ramen and followed her Manethrall, she would face any hazard and fight to the end of her life. Still her concern for Liand outweighed any other apprehension.

  I wish I could spare you. Hell, I wish any of us could spare you. But I can’t see any way around it.

  For himself, Liand did not share Pahni’s alarm. When Linden had allowed him to accompany her away from his life in Mithil Stonedown, she had opened the way for a discovery of both the Land and himself: a discovery that still thrilled him. Inadvertently she had cast a glamour over him which she distrusted and he did not. It had made him the first true Stonedownor since before the time of the Sunbane.

  And he had new strengths now; strengths that might sustain him if or when Linden failed to justify his faith in her.

  Beyond her more human friends, the Giants shared a measure of Mahrtiir’s grimness and excitement. Knowing the Earth as they did, they could probably imagine the dangers better than any Raman. Yet they treasured the tales that resulted from hazard and daring. And they loved stone: they did not fear to seek Jeremiah, or any fate, underground. Linden saw possibilities for joy in them that the Manethrall lacked.

  Like the Humbled, Stave remained entirely himself: unreadable in his dedication to the absolute in any situation; his apparent rejection of all sorrow. But Anele grew increasingly impatient. Linden could not guess what prompted his restiveness, but it was evident in his tense shoulders and twitching fingers; in the way he jerked his head from side to side as if he were hearing a multitude of voices. His gaze, milky and sightless, darted from place to place as though he expected horrors to emerge from the sumptuous grass.

  And Covenant, the man whom Linden had loved and lost, as she had loved and lost her son: he remained as alone as Jeremiah in spite of his physical presence. Indeed, he seemed immured under a mountain of mental or spiritual rubble. His efforts to extricate himself were palpable, so plain that Linden could almost follow their progress.

  Huddling into himself, he talked inexplicably of a time when he and Lord Mhoram had stood looking down into Treacher’s Gorge while an army of Cavewights marched forth.

  “So many of them,” he muttered. “Too many to count. Lord Foul used them whenever he wanted fodder for one of his wars. He spent thousands of them fighting Hile Troy. And thousands more against Revelstone. They’re intelligent enough to be used. They’re just not smart enough to recognize lies. They’re so good at killing, it’s easy to forget how badly they’ve been misled.

  “Hell, they don’t need wars. The Wightwarrens have everything they want. They didn’t ask to be shock troops. Even poor Drool—His only real mistake was listening to Lord Foul. Everything after that was the Despiser’s doing.”

  Covenant’s eyebrows were an arch of strain across his forehead. From time to time, he punched his bound fists against each other if he hoped that the pain would jolt him back into coherence. Dampness in his eyes suggested that he might weep. To Linden, he seemed altogether pitiable.

  That was her doing. Hers.

  And yet, somehow, he remained Thomas Covenant, the man who had twice defeated Lord Foul. The cut lines of his visage and the gauntness of his frame, even the potential tears in his eyes, did not imply frailty. Rather they conveyed an austere authority. He resembled a sovereign brought low, accustomed to command in spite of his ragged state. In the light of Liand’s Sunstone, his silver hair shone like an oriflamme, and the pale scar on his forehead gleamed like an anointment.

  The bandages on his hands—cerise and incarnadine, opalescent and viridian—were grotesqueries that only emphasized his stature.

  Linden’s eyes burned at the sight of him; at his suffering and his unextinguished spirit. Oh, he diminished her. That was his nature—or hers. Nonetheless his effect on her had shifted. His support against the Humbled made her ache to prove worthy of him. To win back whatever love she had lost during his immeasurable absence with the Arch of Time.

  She trusted that he would respond when she needed him.

  She was less confident of the Humbled. They had changed their minds once. They might do so again. But when she finally said to Stave, “Let’s go. I’ve kept us all waiting too long,” the three Masters began urging Covenant toward the Harrow.

  Sto
ically Galt, Branl, and Clyme clung to their right to believe in themselves. How otherwise will the Humbled redeem themselves in my sight? Beyond question, they feared grief more than any peril. The Vizard had taught them too well. Being Haruchai, they did not know how to distinguish between sorrow and humiliation.

  Summoning her resolve, Linden led her companions to dare the outcome of her last gamble.

  “Are you done with hesitation, lady?” asked the Harrow acidly. “Even now, the Worm feeds. Ere long, its hunger will become a convulsion in the fundament of the Earth. Will you at last permit me to uphold our bargain?”

  Linden stared into the black emptiness of his eyes as if she had become fearless. “Let’s be clear.” Her voice felt stiff in her throat, brittle and unwieldy. But it did not tremble. “You’ve already got what you wanted from me. Now you’re going to take us to my son. All of us. And you’re going to bring us all back when we’ve rescued him. You’re going to bring him with us.”

  “I have said so,” the Harrow retorted. “I have vowed it. I will fulfill my oath.”

  The Ardent nodded. “Allay your doubts, lady.” His anxiety had reclaimed him, quashing his complacent lisp. “The word of any Insequent is as necessary as breath. Knowledge is a strict treasure. It does not suffer falsehood. Should the Harrow fail to perform all that you have asked, all that he has gained will be reft from him. And”—the Ardent’s ribbands twisted like flinching—“I am present to aid the completion of his bargain.”

  “All right.” Thoughts of Jeremiah compelled Linden. “Tell us what you need us to do.”

  Immediately, vehement with eagerness, the Harrow commanded, “Stand near together. It will ease our passage if the Giants bear those who consent. The Ardent and I will combine our theurgies to preclude any misstep arising from your excess of companions.”

  Linden glanced around at the Ramen and Liand. When she saw that they agreed, she looked to the Ironhand.