Against All Things Ending

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  With such suddenness that Mahrtiir jerked backward, Covenant slapped his hand away.

  “You aren’t here,” Covenant snapped. “You don’t see what Kastenessen’s Durance costs him.” His vehemence was as startling as a shout. “The Elohim think he deserves it. I don’t know how it’s possible to deserve this kind of pain.”

  Linden’s health-sense recognized the truth. Covenant was still lost in some fissure of recollection. He spoke as though he stood at Kastenessen’s side while the horrific task of containing the skurj drove the Elohim mad.

  Shaking his head, Mahrtiir rose to his feet. “Accept my regret, Ringthane,” he said gruffly. “He has fallen too far. Amanibhavam cannot restore him now.”

  Linden sighed. “Then go.” In her own way, she was as displaced as Covenant. “Do what you have to do. When you come back, we’ll try to figure out”—she had no language for her sense of helplessness—“something.”

  The Manethrall replied with a grave bow. Then he left the company, heading east along the floor of the canyon. As he moved, he gradually quickened his pace until he was sprinting blind. Soon he had faded beyond the reach of Linden’s senses.

  He, too, had loved Liand.

  Without meeting Rime Coldspray’s gaze, Linden murmured, “If you still want to do it, Liand deserves a cairn.”

  The Ironhand nodded. “In a moment. First there is a question that I must ask. Linden Giantfriend, your discernment surpasses ours. Perhaps you will be able to answer.”

  Done with apportioning and securing the Ardent’s supplies, several of the Giants gathered around Coldspray and Linden.

  “We were informed,” Rime Coldspray began, “that the touch of orcrest inspires sanity in Anele. Yet now he holds the Sunstone—and is not transformed.”

  “I know,” said Linden sadly. “I see the same thing.”

  “Then my question is twofold. If orcrest no longer wields the virtue of sanity, does it yet ward him from possession? If it does not, what purpose is served by his grasp? In another’s hands—in the Timewarden’s, perchance, or in yours—it might aid us well.”

  It might force Covenant to remain present. If so, he would reject it.

  “And if Anele no longer finds himself in orcrest,” Coldspray continued, “are you not blameless for Liand’s death? While the skein of his mind remains confused, the deeds which ensued from your heedlessness would not have been altered. Does his state not demonstrate the unwisdom of claiming fault? Does he not give you cause to excuse yourself?”

  Linden shook her head. “No.” Still she avoided Coldspray’s eyes. “He’s even more vulnerable like this.” She had found no forgiveness while she was alone with Liand’s body. “Orcrest isn’t affecting him right now”—she scrutinized the old man to confirm her perceptions—“because he isn’t letting it.

  “Usually it triggers the Earthpower bred in his bones—or his magic triggers Earthpower from the Sunstone. Then he’s sane. But now—” Linden shrugged stiffly. “He’s hiding himself somehow. I didn’t know he could do that. But he needs his madness.”

  Like an answer, the old man muttered, “Anele fears.”

  His voice snatched at Linden’s attention. Cautiously she moved toward him. “Anele?”

  He sat in the curve of Galesend’s breastplate, jerking his head from side to side. Occasional glints of argent accentuated the milky hue of his eyes. One hand gripped the Sunstone against his stomach as if to appease his incessant hunger. The other punched a rhythm at the cataphract, bruising his knuckles.

  “He fears to fail—and to succeed.” With every phrase, he rocked back and forth in time to his blows. “He wears shackles of horror and shame. Murder. Futility. Error. Greater spirits speak of hope. They do not grasp that he is old and weak. Unable. He must, and cannot. Must. Cannot.”

  Repeating, “Must,” and, “Cannot,” like a mantra, he hit the stone, oblivious of his audience.

  “Anele?” Linden asked again softly, as if she were crooning to a child. “Anele?” The idea that he knew what he had done to Liand ached in her chest. “Just let it happen. Let it happen. I know that it hurts. But it might help us understand. We might be able to take better care of you.”

  “Must,” Anele replied like an echo of himself. He may not have heard her. “Cannot.”

  Gritting her teeth, Linden swallowed curses. She was intimately familiar with at least some of Anele’s emotions, and they ravaged her.

  “I don’t know what else to do,” she admitted unhappily to Coldspray. “Trusting him is the only thing that I can think of. His parents were my friends. And they were talking to him in his dreams before he ever got to Andelain.

  “Sometime long ago, he decided to be crazy—not to mention blind—because he couldn’t stand what was happening to him, or how he looked at himself, or what he thought he might have to do. But he’s still the son of his parents. I have to believe that his heart is as good as theirs. Eventually he’ll prove himself.”

  So far, everything that Anele had contributed to the company, and to the Land, had been imposed on or wrested from him. In effect, insanity, blindness, and survival were the only choices that he had made for himself.

  The Ironhand had come to stand near Linden. Now she rested a gentle hand on Linden’s shoulder. “We believe as you do. The old man has become dear to us. And we see no point of resemblance between his plight and Lostson Longwrath’s. For his sake, we pray only that ‘eventually’ will not be long delayed.”

  Thus she sanctioned Linden’s desire to leave Liand’s birthright in Anele’s hands.

  Then Coldspray stepped away. To her comrades, she said, “Come, Swordmainnir. A task awaits us. We must grieve with effort and stone, having no other caamora.”

  At once, the other Giants readied themselves to depart. They seemed grimly eager to confront their own pain and loss. Only Cirrus Kindwind did not join them. Indicating her maimed arm with a grimace, she rose from her knees to stand near Covenant.

  Linden smelled sunrise in the air. Soon dawn would find its way into the canyon. Of course the Giants needed to grieve. How could they not, being who they were? Nevertheless she felt a primitive desire to hold them back. When they had honored Liand with their sorrow, the company would need to make decisions. But she had no idea what to do—or how to face being asked to choose. She had failed Jeremiah. And she had sacrificed Liand in the name of her failure. How could she answer her friends when they posed their questions again?

  Forcing herself, she nodded to Rime Coldspray. “I’ll wait here. Maybe Covenant will recover. Or Pahni and Bhapa will come back. There might be something that I can do for them.”

  Certainly she had done nothing to heal the Giants’ burns and gashes, or Stave’s. In spite of her assertions to the Humbled, she feared the blackness of her power.

  “That is well,” assented the Ironhand. “We will return when we are content.”

  Without more words, the leader of the Swordmainnir turned her back on the stream and strode away. Flanked by her comrades, she rose into the first gloom of dawn until she and they became one with the gloaming, discernible only by their troubled auras.

  Sighing to herself, Linden considered the radiance of Loric’s krill for a moment; looked at Galt’s rigid stoicism and the croyel’s quiescent malice and Jeremiah’s emptiness. Briefly she wondered whether Stave might be able to offer some insight into her dilemmas, as he had done before.

  But his chance to speak would come, as would that of the Humbled. All of Linden’s companions would be free to say what they wished, to no purpose.

  Without Covenant—

  Her need for some loving touch throbbed like a deep bruise. Covenant had forbidden her; but his mind was gone. After a moment, she went to him. Setting down her Staff, she seated herself beside him; leaned her futility against his boulder.

  Cirrus Kindwind had turned away. Her attention was fixed on her comrades in the distance, sharing indirectly the ambergris of their efforts. Stave’s manner conveyed t
he impression that he was listening to Galt’s thoughts, or to Clyme’s and Branl’s, rather than standing watch over Linden and Covenant. The croyel had closed its eyes, presumably resting. Jeremiah’s unfocused stare resembled the windows of an abandoned dwelling.

  Linden almost felt that she was alone with Covenant.

  For a time, she studied his vacant profile: the strict line of his jaw, the distinct assertion of his nose, the potential empathy of his mouth. Illumined by the krill’s argent, his silver hair looked like reified wild magic.

  Tentatively, ready to snatch away her hand, she reached out and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers.

  He betrayed no reaction. Under her touch, his skin gave off a faint hint of fierce cold and absolute blight: a sensation so diffuse that it was barely palpable. She could imagine him trudging across the gelid heart of a caesure within himself, trapped in a wilderland where her caress had no effect.

  Oh, Covenant. She had never called him Tom, or even Thomas: only Covenant. In her eyes, pacts and promises defined him. Without them, she could not have learned to love him.

  Leaning closer, she said in a low voice as soft as a breath, “I wish that you would come back. I need you. I can’t do this without you.”

  Still he did not react. After a moment, an autonomic shiver ran through him as if he were indeed chilled; freezing in the white void of destroyed life.

  He had warned her not to touch him. But surely that prohibition was meaningless while his memories ruled him?

  Surely his flesh would welcome her human warmth?

  With great care, Linden shifted closer to him. Timidly, as if she risked violating a bond as fragile as trust, she lowered her head to his shoulder.

  When he did not flinch or spurn her, she allowed herself to snuggle against him; nestle her forehead in the hollow of his neck. Later she stretched her arm lightly across his chest.

  In that position, his absence was vivid to her, as hurtful as a wound. Nevertheless she did not pull away. The sense of cold in him was growing stronger: she hoped to help him resist it. And she needed this contact. Since she could not rescue Jeremiah, Covenant’s involuntary embrace, vacant and fraught, might be as close as she would ever come to the touch of true tenderness.

  Some time later, her hopes were answered. The wedding band between her breasts began to emit a gentle heat, responding naturally to his need. And soon the ring’s soft warmth eased his chill. He did not return to himself; but perhaps he had found his way into some less bitter region of his memories.

  After that, the metal cooled again. Apparently he had stopped calling upon it, or he had slipped beyond its reach. Still his ring’s brief energy reassured Linden, as if she had been given a sign. Some of her fears receded as she waited for daylight, and for the completion of Liand’s cairn, and for decisions that she could not make.

  Seeming as reluctant as Linden, the sun finally rose above the constricted horizon of the hills. If she had looked westward, she might have glimpsed daylight on the dour cliff of Landsdrop earlier. But she had remained pressed against Covenant, unwilling to surrender any precious moment of contact with him, until she felt the sun shining directly on her. When he recovered from his fall, he would push her away.

  With the sun’s rising, however, she became self-conscious. Stave had heard Covenant forbid her to touch him. In daylight, she could not ignore the former Master. With an effort, she forced herself to shift until she leaned on stone rather than on Covenant’s unwitting support.

  The sun was pleasant on her cheek, a balm for the night’s coolness. Later, she knew, it would gather warmth until it seemed too hot for the season. But by then the heat would be the least of her problems.

  When she had stretched her arms and her back, she reclaimed the Staff of Law and climbed stiffly to her feet.

  Stave greeted her with a bow. If he—or Galt and Cirrus Kindwind, for that matter—had any opinions about what she had done, they kept their reactions to themselves.

  Kindwind had not moved. Her attention remained focused toward her comrades, although the shape of the terrain blocked them from ordinary sight. Apparently her health-sense was strong enough to discern what they were doing. With percipience, she shared their grief in the only fashion available to her.

  Linden could have extended her own senses to the place of Liand’s death, if she had drawn upon the Staff to do so. But she did not want to observe the Giants at their labors, or to discern the shape of their lament: not until she had no choice. When the cairn was complete, Liand would be sealed away; entirely gone.

  Instead she asked Stave quietly, “Are they almost done?”

  He considered her question for a moment, then replied, “I deem that they are not.” Through Branl and Clyme, he could see the Giants. “Much of this region’s stone is porous and eroded, too friable to content them.”

  “Aye,” Kindwind sighed without turning her head.

  “Therefore,” Stave continued, “they search widely for boulders adequate to express their respect for the Stonedownor, and to expend their lamentation. I question whether they will name their homage complete before the sun approaches midday.”

  “Aye,” Kindwind repeated. “By the measure of the Land’s need, and the Earth’s, they are too meticulous. While they labor, the time remaining to us drips away. Yet we are Giants. By the measure of our grief, their haste is great.

  “And”—for the first time, she looked at Linden—“there is this to consider. We have not yet found our path. The perils arrayed against us are many, and we have not determined our course among them. By the measure of our indecision, the efforts of my comrades impose no delay.”

  Midday? Linden thought. Good. She was not ready. She did not know how to make herself think about anything except Covenant and Jeremiah.

  She prayed for Covenant, but he remained absent. The crevasse into which he had fallen was deep. The sun rose high and hot enough to draw sweat from his forehead, and still he seemed vacant, as though he had forgotten the Land and Linden and his own flesh. For him, Time had become a maze without an egress.

  Instead Manethrall Mahrtiir was the first to return.

  He came from the east along the shallow canyon, trotting as if his health-sense were as precise as vision. His chest heaved, and his garments showed dark patches of sweat; but Linden could see that he had begun to recover from his sorrow. He appeared calmer, soothed by physical strain. In spite of his bandage, he looked as keen for strife as ever. But his aura of anger and self-recrimination was gone.

  Approaching Linden, he paused to offer her his familiar Ramen bow. But he did not address her, or wait for her to speak. Rather he continued down to the water’s edge, flung himself into the stream’s embrace, and let the current carry him along as he scrubbed dust and grime from his limbs.

  Until he floated out of sight, Linden did not realize that she wanted to ask him if he had encountered Pahni.

  Before long, however, the young Cord emerged from a gully among the southward hillsides. Moving slowly, with a tremor in her legs and a shudder in her respiration, she picked a cautious path toward Linden. Dust clung to her skin, a pale dun that resembled the hue of her leather jerkin and leggings. Caked with dirt and sweat, her features were a mask. From it, her eyes stared, white and stricken, like those of a woman who no longer recognized herself.

  Before she reached the sand, she stumbled. Goaded by loss, she had pushed herself until she had nothing left—

  Instinctively Linden started toward her. But Stave was faster; much faster. As Pahni fell to one knee and sprawled forward, he reached her, caught her. But he did not lift her in his arms. Careful of her pride, he only supported her until she forced her legs under her and regained a semblance of balance. Then he released her.

  Expressionless at her side, he accompanied her while she finished her fragile descent to the floor of the canyon.

  Then Bhapa appeared on a hilltop behind them. To Linden’s percipience, he looked less weary than Pah
ni—and less relieved than Mahrtiir. Concerned for the young Cord, he had run more to watch over her than to appease his grief. As a result, he was both stronger than Pahni and more troubled.

  For Pahni’s sake, Cirrus Kindwind turned away from the labor of her comrades. As wordless as the Cord, the Giant set her hand on Pahni’s shoulder and steered her toward Anele, then urged her to sit. Uncharacteristically Anele had not touched his food since he had last spoken. Instead he crouched in Stormpast Galesend’s cataphract, staring blindly at nothing, and clasping the Sunstone in both hands as though he both needed and refused it.

  Faced with the remains of Anele’s viands, Pahni seemed no more inclined to eat it than the old man did. Her gaze may have been as sightless as his. But Kindwind left the Cord there and went to retrieve a waterskin. When she held the waterskin to Pahni’s lips, Pahni took it and drank urgently.

  Linden sighed in private relief. Apparently the girl still wanted to live, in spite of her bereavement.

  There Bhapa joined Linden, Kindwind, and Stave. Descending the last slopes, he had regained a measure of control over his breathing. To Linden he bowed as Mahrtiir had bowed, gravely and in silence. But to the Giant, he said hoarsely, “Accept the thanks of a Cord, Cirrus Kindwind. Your care and kindness toward the least of your companions is a gift for which I have no adequate guerdon. I have long been a Cord, and have witnessed sorrow that would test the fortitude of a Manethrall.” Then he nodded toward Pahni. “Ere now, however, I have not seen grief threaten to extinguish any Raman.”

  Pahni had begun eating. With painful slowness, she lifted small morsels to her mouth and chewed them as if they had no meaning except survival. She did not appear to hear Bhapa.

  “In the lives that we have known,” the older Cord continued, “our love for the Ranyhyn is an anodyne for mourning. How can our hearts not lift when we behold the great horses in their glory? But in this circumstance Pahni is thrice bereft. Her joy is slain, the Ringthane has of necessity refused her, and here there are no Ranyhyn.

  “My gratitude for your consideration—”