Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  For some reason, the Ardent had wrapped his raiment tightly around himself again. Then he sank to the floor in a mound of garish and incondign hues. There he rocked himself from side to side like a child in need of comfort.

  And Covenant—He, too, had drifted away. Standing before one of the braziers, he stared into the evanescent mansuetude of the flames as if they had ravished him.

  In her tranced state, Linden saw no sign of the Harrow. But she did not care what had become of him. She could not: the palace ruled her as though her mind or her spirit had been consumed by astonishment.

  Here she might find it possible to know and feel nothing except glad peace until she became as translucent as the fountain and the stairs, the rugs and the chandeliers.

  Some time seemed to pass before she found the heart of her amazement and recognized the truth, the defining mystery of what the Viles had accomplished in the prime of their power. Inspired by her previous encounter with their theurgy, she saw that the entire palace and everything in it, the walls and rugs, the shafts of glass, the frozen fountain, the hanging anadems of the chandeliers, the voiced and melodious mosaics, even the golden luxury of the braziers and flames: all of it was made of water. Of water, pure and irreproachable. The magic enchanting her was the magic that had formed the edifice; the magic that sustained it millennia after its makers had perished from the Earth. Somehow the Viles had woven water into these multifarious shapes, these myriad details, and then had caused the water to remain—

  The palace was a sculpture, a work of the most sublime art: an eldritch and enduring triumph of ability and will over the fluid inconstancy of time.

  Esmer had hardly done the Viles justice when he had called them lofty and admirable. Their lore was indeed terrible and matchless.—and all of their works were filled with loveliness.

  That such creatures had been lured into self-loathing was an abomination.

  One of many. The history of the Land, and of the Earth, was littered with the rubble of atrocities for which Lord Foul deserved to be held accountable.

  Yet Linden felt no umbrage, no desire to take action. Only the subtle nagging of discomfort along the length of her nerves marred her tranquility. In this place, this supernal masterpiece, the Despiser’s many hurts warranted no concern. She could relax into a measureless contentment that explained more eloquently than any language why the Viles had taken so long to venture out of the Lost Deep. They, too, had been eased by their dreams and their labors; their transcendental achievements. Like them, she would have been reluctant to risk the meaning of her life elsewhere.

  Now that she knew the secret of the palace, she saw it displayed everywhere. Tumbling freshets had supplied the substance of the shafts which upheld the chandeliers. Lakes as calm as Glimmermere had made the walls. Brooks giggling over their rocks in springtime had become the rugs; the vociferous mosaics. The fountain was a captured geyser.

  A hint of anxiety still twisted in the private channels of her body, but she had forgotten what it meant. If Anele had not placed himself directly in front of her, interrupting her contemplation of miracles, she might not have noticed that he had set aside his passivity.

  “Anele,” he said with exaggerated precision, as if he found words difficult to utter. “Hears bells. Chiming. They disturb—He craves. Needs. Seeks.” For a moment, he appeared to lose track of his thoughts. Then he gathered up their broken strands and offered them to Linden. “Redemption.”

  His hands trembled as he reached out to clasp her shoulders.

  His touch was insistent, but gentle; so soft that she barely felt it. Nevertheless a small jolt ran through her as though he had reached past the obstacles of her shirt and her eased spirit to awaken her flesh with Earthpower.

  Water, she thought indirectly. That was the secret. Its snared fluidity expressed to perfection the flowing bafflement that the Viles imposed on ordinary forms of discernment; mortal modes of understanding. In the Land’s past, she had experienced a trammeled manifestation of that confusion. Here she would have seen smells, felt colors, tasted voices—if the Viles had not frozen water and theurgy into permanence.

  While Anele held her shoulders, she found that she, too, heard a muffled ringing.

  Before he could release her, she grasped one of his hands in both of hers, held it to her heart. Then she looked around, trying to locate the source of the sounds.

  She found it between Liand and one of the spun shafts. While the Stonedownor studied the glitter of the chandelier in calm and enraptured delirium, the Harrow struck one heel of the Staff repeatedly on the rug where he stood. From that soft impact arose a silvery tintinnabulation like the urging of distant chimes.

  Without Anele’s hand clutched in hers, Linden might have lost sight of the Insequent again; or forgotten him. But the effect of the old man’s skin against hers, the almost impalpable emanations of his inherited strength, elucidated her perceptions. Earthpower explained the Harrow. He was striving to invoke the fire of the Staff so that he could break free of the palace’s ensorcelment.

  Linden watched him with nothing more than the surface of her mind; felt only a detached curiosity. After a few moments, she might have lost interest and looked away, in spite of Anele’s indirect adjuration. But as she considered the Harrow, he appeared to burst into flame. He and the Staff and his determination to claim Jeremiah became a pillar of conflagration as he began to move, striding toward an ornate stairway beyond the fountain.

  Bewildered by magicks, he had forgotten his oath to take Linden with him; or perhaps his need to escape the seductions of water compelled him to neglect her.

  As he left her behind, something buried within Linden stirred. Still clinging to Anele’s hand, she also began to move.

  Earthpower. That was it. She needed Earthpower: more than she could glean from the old man. His legacy was too deeply hidden within him, defended by layers of madness. She required a more direct source—

  She needed her health-sense.

  Walking as Anele had spoken, as if each step demanded an arduous and precise effort, she stepped toward Liand, drawing the old man with her.

  None of her companions gave any sign that they could see her; that they knew who she was. No one else could help her.

  In the same way that Anele had confronted her, she intruded on the Stonedownor’s gaze.

  He was her first real friend since she had lost her son. He had enabled her flight from Mithil Stonedown and the Masters with Anele when she had no other aid or guide. He trusted her in spite of all that she had done: he believed in her. Surely he would recognize her now? Surely he would hear her and respond?

  He greeted her with a brief frown. Then he stared past or through her as though she had grown too spectral to disturb him.

  “Liand.” Only her grip on Anele’s hand enabled her to speak. “Listen.” The Harrow was ascending the stairs. He rose as if he were borne by flame. “I need orcrest.”

  The young man did not react. The palace held him in thrall. His slight awareness of her presence had faded.

  Linden wanted to slap him, and could not. She wanted to reach into the pouch at his waist and take his Sunstone; but she lacked the strength, or the will. She had surrendered too much, and knew the cost. He did not deserve to have his heritage taken from him.

  Fighting her own entrancement, her own weakness, she tugged Anele closer to Liand. Then, interlacing her fingers with Anele’s so that the old man would not pull free, she guided his free hand to Liand’s shoulder. Mutely she willed Anele to jolt the Stonedownor as he had jolted her.

  Through his madness, Anele must have understood what she was doing; or he had his own reasons for desperation, his own fragmented needs. Still trembling, he stroked Liand’s shoulder—

  —and Liand twitched. His black eyebrows arched. His eyes veered into focus on Linden. He peered at her as if she were veiled by water.

  At the top of the stair, the Harrow passed between hanging curtains and disappeared.

&n
bsp; “Liand,” Linden said again, “listen.”

  “Li—” Liand tried to say her name. “Lin—”

  “Listen to me,” she urged: a small sound, too distant and uncertain to compel attention. “I can’t explain. I don’t understand. But we need Earthpower. To remember who we are.

  “We need orcrest.”

  Even the Giants: even the Haruchai were beyond her. The palace had turned their inherent strengths against them. And none of them carried any instruments of power. Covenant retained Loric’s krill; but he had stumbled into his past before Linden’s company had crossed the Hazard. Nothing that she could say or do would pierce his memories.

  She had to follow the Harrow. If Liand did not rouse himself a little more; just a little—

  Anele tightened his grip.

  This time Liand succeeded at saying her name. “Linden?”

  “Orcrest,” she repeated. Her voice shook like Anele’s arms. The old man had saved her more than once. He had drawn her out of her paralysis when she had first entered a caesure, seeking the Staff of Law. “We need it.”

  For a moment, Liand turned his bewilderment toward Anele. Then he appeared to shudder. “Orcrest?” he murmured distantly. “I had forgotten—”

  Fumbling as if Anele had touched him with age and caducity as well as Earthpower, the Stonedownor opened his pouch and brought out the Sunstone.

  For a time that seemed long to Linden, Liand frowned at the rock in his palm. He was relapsing into the magic of the palace; or she was. Dully she thought that his orcrest was not a stone at all. It was water impossibly piled onto itself when it should have poured away between his fingers. Soon he would hold nothing more than a few pellucid drops.

  In spite of Anele’s clasp, Linden was drifting. Like Liand, she would dissolve into wonder and forget that she was lost.

  But Liand did not dissolve. Instead he closed his hand on the orcrest; and Linden remembered that the Harrow was gone.

  At first, the Sunstone only glowed like the lambence of the Lost Deep, nacreous and commingled, indistinguishable from the illumination of the Viles. Yet even that distortion of the Sunstone’s nature must have given Liand strength. He gripped the orcrest more firmly. By gentle increments, its radiance regained its more familiar white purity.

  At the same time, Linden’s sense of herself came back into focus. The Harrow, she thought distinctly. Jeremiah!

  The Ardent lay swaddled as if he clad himself for burial. No one remained to insist on the sanctity of the Harrow’s oath.

  Liand brought forth brighter Earthpower. Linden’s heart pounded as if she were suffocating; drowning—

  “All right,” she gasped. “Keep doing that.” Echoes scattered from the chandeliers like cascades of gemstones. “Don’t let go of Anele. We have to catch up with the Harrow.”

  Liand shook his head, struggled to clear his thoughts. “What of the Giants?” The muscles of his neck corded. “Pahni and the Ramen? Stave? If we forsake them—”

  Linden started toward the stair, pulling Anele after her; hoping that Anele would pull Liand. “We don’t have time.” Water seemed to fill her lungs. “We’ll come back when we know what the Harrow is doing.” She was becoming water. “We have to find Jeremiah.”

  She was already ashamed that she had forgotten her son.

  Anele tightened his grasp. Mad or sane, he followed her willingly. And he did not release Liand. After a moment, the Stonedownor set aside his reluctance. Together Linden and Anele encouraged Liand toward the wide arc of the stairway.

  Strength enabled strength. Every increment of Earthpower that Liand summoned from the orcrest inspired him to summon more.

  Following the Harrow, Linden climbed the stairs like a cresting wave.

  If we forsake them—She was abandoning her other friends; abandoning Covenant. If she had heard the dangers of the palace described, she might have assumed that the intransigence of the Haruchai would protect them. The Giants and the Ramen were open to awe and joy: they had no defense. But Stave and the Humbled—

  Yet the Haruchai also had no defense. They, too, were vulnerable to wonder and generosity, in spite of their wonted stoicism. How else had High Lord Kevin and the Council of Lords and Giants and Ranyhyn inspired the Vow of the Bloodguard?

  How else had the Vizard humiliated them, if not by mocking the depth of their passions?

  When Stave and the Masters regained themselves, they, too, would feel shame. Clyme and Branl and Galt and even Stave would judge themselves harshly. Haruchai did not forgive—

  Nevertheless Linden did not turn back. Jeremiah came first. She would return for the rest of her companions when she no longer feared what the Harrow might do.

  At the top of the staircase, heavy curtains hung like waterfalls over an arched opening in the wall: a way out of the chamber behind her; perhaps a way out of the palace itself. Thwarted by the magicks of the place, she detected no hint of the Harrow’s passage. But she had seen him part the curtains and vanish.

  Facing water in an opaque brocade of gold and silver and refined tourmaline, she paused for an instant to secure her clasp on Anele, her connection to Liand. Then she led them through the liquid fabric.

  Beyond that barrier, she found that she had indeed left the ambit of the palace. At once, the sensation that she was immersed in water and theurgy left her, and her nerves extended their percipient reach. A narrow corridor pierced the gutrock crookedly ahead of her. Like all of the Lost Deep’s stone, it had been refined to a lambent sheen: the passage was filled with light like an invitation. Here, however, the illumination did not mask the lingering scent of force and flame from the Staff of Law, or the faint emanations left behind by the Harrow’s own sortilege.

  Almost running, Linden headed into the corridor with Anele and Liand.

  The hall curved and twisted, insidious as a serpent. Other passages or chambers branched out on both sides, but she ignored them. Sensing the Harrow, she was certain of her way. Liand breathed raggedly, worn down by his earlier efforts beyond the Hazard; but his strides were steady. Anele displayed his familiar, unlikely stamina. And Linden was sustained by images of Jeremiah. She believed that her son was near. If the Insequent did not forswear his oath—

  One sweep and angle and opening after another, the way created the illusion of a maze; a place in which lives and intentions were lost. Yet Linden felt no secrets hidden in the walls, no concealed intersections, no disguising glamours. If the Viles, or Roger and the croyel, or moksha Raver had left snares to baffle her, she could not perceive them.

  And the aura and inferences of the Harrow’s passing remained steady.

  Then Linden, Anele, and Liand rounded a corner. Abruptly the corridor emptied them into a round chamber shaped like a dome, a sphere cut in half by its pristine floor.

  Here again, she could not think of the space as a cavern or cave. Its dimensions were too perfectly symmetrical to be a natural formation. Like the floor, the walls as they curved upward to meet over the precise center of the space were nitid with the Lost Deep’s characteristic moonstone glow. The chamber was not as large as the other halls which she had entered and departed: it seemed almost intimate by comparison, although it could easily have held the Swordmainnir and several score of their comrades. Still it made Linden feel small to herself.

  Its effect on her was not diminished by the fact that it had been flawed by time or theurgy.

  The floor itself, like the four gaps in the walls, betrayed no sign of damage or alteration. The opening through which she and her companions had arrived was mirrored by one directly opposite her. Two others stood equidistant around the walls. Fashioned with the accustomed exactitude of the Viles, these corridors may have indicated the points of an arcane compass.

  But in the center of the ceiling hung a raw lump or knob of rock that resembled travertine, crude and unreflective; porous; dark as a stain against the lit stone. And from that misshapen clot, eight arms or ridges of the same stigma ran down the walls as thou
gh they had been deposited by eons of dripping water.

  The air was warmer than it had been elsewhere in the Deep. It suggested hot springs thick with minerals.

  Yet time and water could not have caused those formations. Four of them reached straight toward the openings in the walls, where they branched like arches to delineate or emphasize the corridors. The other four clung to the walls at exact intervals between the openings. And when the darkness of each ridge or branch touched the floor, it merged into the smooth surface and stopped as if it had been cut off. As if it were no longer needed.

  Natural forces would have left residue splayed across the floor. And the increased warmth: that, too, was not natural.

  Linden recognized the source of the heat. She knew it well.

  The increasing accuracy of her health-sense assured her that the knob and arms of calcareous rock were more recent than the chamber which they marred: far more recent. They must have been deposited within the past year, probably within the past season.

  They looked fragile—so porous that she might have crumbled them with her fingers—but she already knew that they were strong enough for their purpose. She had expected to find something like them here, although she could not have imagined what form they would take.

  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.