Against All Things Ending

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Then free my son, she had demanded of Infelice. Give him back to me.

  They will not, the Harrow had answered her. They can not.

  The travertine was the construct that masked Jeremiah’s presence from the Elohim : from Infelice and Kastenessen as well as from Esmer. The use that Roger and the croyel had made of Jeremiah’s talents protected her son from every eldritch perception except the Harrow’s more oblique and mortal knowledge—and perhaps from the strange lore of the ur-viles and Waynhim.

  The Demondim-spawn could not have brought her here. They traveled in ways that she could not emulate. Perhaps they had tried to tell her where to look; but Esmer had refused to translate their speech.

  Near the center of the chamber stood the Insequent. He held the Staff of Law braced on the stone near his feet and Covenant’s ring raised over his head. But he made no attempt to wield those powers: not yet. Instead he glared into the acrid yellow gaze of the croyel, plainly trying to swallow the deformed creature’s will and power with his bottomless eyes.

  The creature still clung to Jeremiah’s back: a hairless monster the size of a child, scrawny and insatiable. Its fingers gripped his shoulders while its toes dug into his ribs, rending his flesh like claws. Avidly its fangs chewed the side of his neck to drink his blood, devour his mind. Its virulent eyes implied howling and shrieks. But it did not exert its strength against the Harrow. Instead it appeared to revel in defying him.

  Between those antagonists, Jeremiah stood slumped as if he were nothing more than the croyel’s puppet: a means to define and transport the creature’s malice. His muddy, disfocused gaze regarded the floor with the blank stare of a youth who had lost hope long ago. From his slack slips, a small dribble of saliva ran into the nascent stubble on his chin. His arms hung, useless, at his sides. His fingers dangled as though they were empty of import; as though they had never held anything as ordinary and human as a red racecar.

  He was an abused boy whose only escape from the prison of his maimed mind was through the croyel’s ferocity.

  But he was alive.

  9.

  Hastening Doom

  In time you will behold the fruit of my endeavors.

  Linden could hear Lord Foul as if he stood beside her, laughing like a scourge.

  If your son serves me, he will do so in your presence. Jeremiah had done so under Melenkurion Skyweir. He did so now. Or the croyel used his unresisting body and trapped mind as a conveyance for its harsh appetites. Confident of its dominion, the creature faced the Harrow with mockery in its cruel eyes.

  If I slaughter him, I will do so before you. Think on that when you seek to retrieve him from me.

  Dull-eyed and vacant, Jeremiah remained on his feet only because the croyel compelled him. The false or transmuted alertness and excitement that Linden had seen in her son’s face before she had exposed the succubus was absent. Every sign that he might be capable of outward consciousness was gone.

  If you discover him, you will only hasten his doom.

  While the Harrow strove to master the croyel, and received only contempt, Linden stood helpless, transfixed by dismay.

  —this I vow.

  Indirectly, indirectly, the Despiser had urged her to awaken the Worm of the World’s End by resurrecting Covenant. Lord Foul had provided the circumstances and the impetus that goaded her damaged heart. By dismay and desperation, he had encouraged her to surrender her powers so that she would be brought here; so that she would be forced to bear witness and do nothing. So that her futility in the face of Jeremiah’s need would break her at last.

  The Despiser had underestimated her. Again. He had failed to grasp the scale of her willingness to suffer for her son’s sake, or the acuity of her flayed perceptions. He did not know that she could hear vast pain masked by Lord Foul’s exaltation.

  “Linden?” Liand panted. “Is this your son’s plight? You have described it, but words—” He strained for language. “Linden, that creature—that monster—! What it does to your son is an abomination.”

  As if she were clenching her own fist, Linden felt his hand tighten on the orcrest. Fierce with ire, he began to draw forth more Earthpower, and still more. If the white purity of the Sunstone could be used as a weapon, he intended to assail the croyel. His desire to strike was as vivid as a shout.

  His spirit was too clean to countenance atrocities: a handicap which she did not share.

  She meant to stop him. She needed only the health-sense that his efforts supplied. She did not intend to let him sacrifice himself.

  Before she could forestall the Stonedownor, however, the croyel raised Jeremiah’s maimed hand. Undisturbed by the avid depths of the Harrow’s eyes, the creature caused Jeremiah to gesture negligently in Liand’s direction.

  Warm as breath, a sudden wave of magic crashed into the young man.

  It swatted him away; flung him hard against one of the dark ridges of travertine. The impact nearly shattered Linden’s concentration: it may have shattered his bones. Blood red as an arterial hemorrhage burst from his mouth, splashed incrimination onto the luminous floor. Flopping like a doll stuffed with cloth and cotton, he sprawled face-first to the stone.

  Apparently the croyel perceived a greater threat in Liand—or in orcrest—than in the Harrow. Or in Linden.

  Instantly inert, the Sunstone fell from Liand’s grasp; rolled away. A stride or two beyond his fingers, it came to rest.

  At once, Linden’s health-sense evaporated, denatured by her proximity to the source of Kevin’s Dirt. Without transition, she was blinded to the truth of Jeremiah’s anguish and Liand’s injuries and the croyel’s evil.

  At the same time, Anele wrenched free of her. His mouth stretched in a soundless wail as he turned; fled back into the corridor toward the palace.

  Linden let him go. He could not aid her now. Perhaps his reappearance among the rest of her companions would serve to disenchant them.

  They would take too long—

  Part of her yearned to rush to Liand’s side; gauge the extent of his wounds; help him as much as she was able. Part of her burned to leap past him and snatch up the Sunstone, hoping that its touch would restore some measure of her percipience. But she compelled herself to remain motionless. The croyel could crush her as easily as it had broken Liand. She had no defense.

  She knew what to do. She had already made her decision. But she had to wait for the right moment.

  The moment when both the Harrow and the creature would be distracted.

  Where was Roger? Surely Thomas Covenant’s son would not have left the croyel and Jeremiah unguarded? Linden was counting on that. Alone, the power of Kastenessen’s hand was not enough for Roger. Nor were the complex magicks of the croyel. Like the creature, Roger required Jeremiah’s supernal talents. Without them, Roger and the croyel would not survive the destruction of the Arch of Time to become gods.

  Gradually the contest between the Harrow and the croyel eased or shifted. Linden saw the change in the loosening of the Insequent’s shoulders, the adjustment of his posture. He must have decided to try different tactics.

  “Do you dare me?” His voice held only triumph despite the scorn gleaming in the croyel’s eyes. Beside Jeremiah’s vacancy, he was a figure of sculpted muscle, graceful garb, and dominance. “You see that my flesh and bone are no greater than those of the youth whom you possess. Therefore you conclude that I am a lesser being than yourself. Yet you are sorely mistaken. To your cost, you refuse the consummation of my gaze. Do you not perceive that I have learned the uses of the Staff of Law? And soon I will wield the incomparable forces of white gold. At that moment, my knowledge and magicks will become perfection.

  “Doubtless your strengths are ancient and potent. Nonetheless you cannot stand against me.”

  Briefly the creature lifted its fangs from Jeremiah’s neck to grin at the Harrow. Then it resumed its dire feeding.

  “Nor can you hope for aid here,” the Insequent continued. “The defense which you have
devised blocks foe and friend alike. Even the halfhand who has been your companion and ally cannot broach this warded chamber.”

  Cannot—? Linden’s chest tightened. The Harrow may have been telling the truth. Before the battle of First Woodhelven, he had pierced the glamour with which Roger had veiled himself and his Cavewights. Surely the Harrow would have recognized the danger if Roger had been present?

  But when Roger had arrived to attack the Harrow and Esmer and Linden, he had left the croyel behind. He had approached and struck without the croyel’s support, the croyel’s theurgy.

  Nevertheless the deep soil of the Harrow’s disdain matched the creature’s malign gaze.

  “Oh, I do not question that he is aware of your location, as the Elohim are not. Indeed, I am certain that he participated in your choice to conceal yourself here, and that he assisted your passage hither. Yet when you erected the barrier which prevents the perception of the Elohim, you excluded him as well. Kastenessen’s hand has grown into him. It has become native to his blood. And Kastenessen is Elohim. Thus your own cleverness delivers you to me.

  “No other power will redeem you. You are mine.”

  With a flourish of the Staff, the Harrow sent sunshine flame blossoming into the dome.

  Unintentionally he renewed a portion of Linden’s health-sense.

  Roger had told Linden that Kastenessen craved only the destruction of his people. She believed that. Kastenessen’s pain ruled him. He had no other desires. Through Esmer, he had opposed the Harrow before. He would do so again, if he could—but only because he sought to prevent the Harrow from saving the Elohim. He did not want Jeremiah’s gifts for his own use.

  Roger and the croyel had other ambitions.

  Mimicking the Harrow’s display in its own fashion, the creature gestured with Jeremiah’s halfhand again.

  Linden flinched. She expected an invisible blow which would deprive her of use and name and life. But the croyel’s might was not directed at her. She felt none of its energy in the chamber at all.

  Instead she sensed a summons.

  Immediately children like incarnations of acid began to emerge from the other openings in the wall.

  She knew them too well. They were skest: creatures of living vitriol, deformed and corrosive; deadly despite their small stature. Lit from within by a gangrenous green radiance, as if they were the impossible offspring of the Illearth Stone, they destroyed their foes by dissolving mortal flesh, reducing bones and sinews to macerated puddles. At one time, they had served the lurker of the Sarangrave. But more recently, Linden had seen them tending Joan. Trapped in freezing and hornets and madness within a caesure, Linden had watched acid-children care for Joan’s physical needs while turiya Raver toyed with the frail woman’s derangement. Linden had not expected to encounter them here.

  Now she guessed that the skest performed a similar service for Jeremiah, nourishing the croyel through her son’s possessed body. In effect, they kept Jeremiah alive for the creature’s sake—and for Lord Foul’s.

  But the skest were also the croyel’s defenders. They issued from their corridors in numbers that seemed great enough to overwhelm the Harrow.

  Studying him as closely as she could, Linden believed that he had not yet found a way to evoke wild magic from Covenant’s ring. But with the Staff, the Insequent could wield a flail of burning Earthpower. He would fight to protect himself.

  If one of the skest touched him, just one—Would the magicks which had preserved him from the Humbled and Stave suffice here? Linden did not think so. He was mortal: as human as Linden and Jeremiah. His power to ward off plain blows might not guard him against the more fatal touch of emerald corrosion. And skest were not Demondim—or Demondim-spawn. He could not simply unbind them from themselves.

  And while he defended himself from them, the croyel could strike whenever it wished.

  Clearly the Insequent recognized his peril. He retreated a few steps from Jeremiah and the croyel; surrounded himself with flames. His jaws chewed curses as he clenched Covenant’s ring. Linden felt his extremity as he strove to bring forth argence.

  But he was not its rightful wielder.

  Neither was she. Yet Covenant’s ring belonged to her far more than it did to the Harrow. Otherwise she could not have saved herself and Anele from the collapse of Kevin’s Watch.

  There were scores of skest in the chamber. More came behind them. Some of them burned like kindling when the Staff’s fire caught them: they slumped into acrid pools that frothed and spat, gnawing chunks out of the granite floor. But they were many, and they kept coming. Soon they would be enough to encircle the Harrow’s defenses.

  Enough to threaten Linden: enough to kill her where she stood; or to drive her away from her son.

  Liand would die in quick agony.

  Now, she thought. The time was now.

  At last, she moved.

  She could not afford to fail.

  She had regained only a fraction of her health-sense; but it sufficed to guide her. The croyel had struck Liand with terrible force. He had hit one of the calcified arms of the warding construct: hit it hard. When she scanned the ridge, she saw that the impact had weakened it.

  She dashed to that spot, hoping that the skest would ignore her.

  The travertine was porous and fragile: she was certain of it. And in that one place, it had been damaged. Nonetheless it was stone. It did not crumble easily. Stooping, she gripped the rimose deposit; dug her fingers in among its bulges and knags until her nails tore and her skin bled; pulled at the ridge until the flesh of her palms was shredded.

  The stone held.

  Behind her, the Harrow roared curses and invocations in alien tongues. Skest burned like pitch, eating away the perfection of the floor. Again the croyel raised his mouth from Jeremiah’s neck to bare its teeth at the Insequent. The creature’s glee stung the back of Linden’s neck like the first caress of acid.

  Her hands were not strong enough.

  Part of her wept at her weakness. But that part belonged to the Linden Avery whom she had left behind under Melenkurion Skyweir. The Linden Avery who had stood with Caerroil Wildwood and the Mahdoubt on Gallows Howe did not hesitate.

  Surging erect, she kicked furiously at the marred section of the gnarled arm; stomped with the heel of her boot.

  Her blow skidded aside. Her own momentum flung her forward. When one kneecap hit the travertine, she felt the bone crack.

  Enlivened by Earthpower, her nerves sensed the first flicker of wild magic as the Harrow began to invoke Covenant’s ring. The bastard was going to win—

  In spite of her pain, Linden kicked again. Hardly aware of what she did, she started screaming the Seven Words.

  “Melenkurion abatha!”

  Her second blow struck squarely.

  “Duroc minas mill!”

  Her third broke a chunk as large as her fist out of Jeremiah’s construct.

  “Harad khabaal!”

  At once, the inherent power of the construct failed. The ridges lost their darkness. Swiftly the travertine lapsed to a more natural grey.

  Staggering, Linden faced a throng of skest.

  She barely had time to draw breath, blink tears from her vision, gasp at the agony in her knee. Then Roger Covenant arrived, shedding his glamour directly behind the Harrow.

  Ecstatic with triumph, Roger shouted, “SUCK-er!”

  Magma blared from his right fist as he punched fury straight through the center of the Harrow’s back.

  For an instant, the Harrow gaped at Kastenessen’s hand; at the charred wound where Roger’s fist emerged from his chest. He seemed unable to comprehend what had become of him. Then Roger snatched back his arm; and the Insequent fell dead.

  The Staff and Covenant’s ring dropped from his hands.

  Chittering incomprehensibly, the skest drew back. Commanded by Roger or the croyel, they cleared a space around Roger, Jeremiah, the Harrow’s corpse. If more of them waited in the corridors, they did not pres
s into the chamber.

  Linden’s health-sense had evaporated again, but she was in too much pain to notice the difference. Roger was here. All he had to do now was bend down and pick up his father’s ring. The skest had given him room. He could claim the Staff of Law at the same time, if he wanted it.

  His victory would be complete.

  Linden had done what she could—and it was too little. She had broken the spell of Jeremiah’s construct. Surely now the Elohim were able to discern his location? Roger she had expected in some fashion. But she had also believed that at least one of the scattered Elohim would care enough to intervene. Or if none of Infelice’s people responded, Kastenessen would—or Esmer—

  Here Roger and the croyel could combine their powers. They could escape through time and distance, as they had done before.

  Yet no Elohim came. Esmer did not.

  And the Ardent had failed the will of the Insequent. Liand was severely injured: he may have been dying. Anele had fled. The rest of Linden’s companions were held in thrall by the astonishment of the palace.

  Sobbing at the scream in her knee, she dove headlong toward Liand’s orcrest.

  If the Sunstone reawakened even a few tiny glints of her percipience, she would be able to reach out for Earthpower and Law. She did not need to hold the Staff in order to use it: not now. She needed only a small spattering of health-sense—

  A body hurtled past her into the chamber. She had no idea who or what it was. Pain and desperation blinded her to everything except orcrest. She hardly heard Roger’s eager roar of defiance.

  When her straining fingers closed on the Sunstone, she felt nothing. Nothing at all. The orcrest was only a lump of rock. She could not see it; could not touch its true vitality.

  A surge of absolute despair broke over her: a crashing wave. Then it receded. She was too frantic to drown in it, or to be swept away.

  Wrenching herself into a sitting position, she cocked her arm to hurl the Sunstone at Roger’s head: the last throw of a woman whose fate was written in water.