Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  “It may be,” offered the Ardent with a hint of his complacent lisp, “that you are mistaken. Perchance it is her healing rather than her heed that you require. The poisons of your hurts corrupt your thoughts. You esteem your betrayals too highly.”

  Esmer’s jaws clenched as if he wanted to shout lightning and thunder at the Insequent; but he made no retort.

  Linden ignored them. The damage to Liand’s head was both less and more than she had feared. His skull was merely cracked: no splinters of bone pierced the delicate channels and membranes of his brain. But the bruising caused by his impact with the wall was severe. Edema exerted more and more pressure on his brain, constricting the flow of necessary fluids, causing neurons to misfire. Soon the effects of the swelling might kill him.

  Hurtloam would have healed him. Linden was too drained and uncertain to do so. She dreaded what would happen when she took Liand’s hurt into herself. She had so many other dilemmas to confront, and her store of courage was already inadequate.

  But fear had no place in the work that she had chosen when she had formed the Staff. And Liand’s pain was not the Sunbane. Like her, it was only human.

  At last, she surrendered to her task. Groaning, she extended herself and fire into him in order to relieve his last injury.

  Abruptly Galt announced to Esmer, “This is the havoc with which you charged Stave.” Galt remained behind Jeremiah and the croyel, controlling the monster with Loric’s blade. “Because you are Cail’s son, born of the Haruchai, you hold his race accountable for your divided nature. Nonetheless your deeds are your own. They spawn ruin because you choose that they should do so. If you perform treachery, the blame lies with you. It belongs neither to Cail nor to the Haruchai.”

  “Indeed,” Esmer countered harshly. “What of it? Can you not discern my dearest wish, which is that I did not exist? Whom then shall I fault for the abomination of my birth? You avow that I choose. Cail also chose. The merewives did not. They do not. They are forces of seduction and revenge, nothing more. In their fashion, they are as mindless as storm and calm. Therefore they cannot be accused.

  “If my powers sufficed to bring about my death, I would perish gladly. But they do not. For that reason also, I must have the Wildwielder’s heed.”

  The stabbing of Liand’s pain as it became Linden’s blinded her. A blow like the jolt of a bludgeon nearly toppled her. She was no longer able to stand on her own: she could barely keep her grip on the Staff.

  Fortunately she needed only a moment to draw his swelling into herself. Then her resolve failed, and she sagged with knives twisting in the back of her brain. Without the support of the Cords, she would have fallen. The Staff slipped from her fingers.

  “Ringthane!” gasped Pahni. For a moment, her shock at Linden’s collapse matched her concern for Liand. Neither she nor Bhapa caught the Staff. As it clattered to the stone, Earthpower vanished from the chamber.

  Mahrtiir barked a curse: he could not restrain himself. Once again, he was truly blind.

  “Permit me.” With his apparel, the Ardent reached out to take Linden from Pahni and Bhapa. “Though I have entirely failed to demonstrate my worth, the time draws nigh when I will do so.” Carefully he bore her to the wall and set her down to rest against the nitid rock. “Her distress is extreme, but it will pass. It is the Stonedownor’s pain which wracks her. She has suffered no tangible wound.”

  When he had settled Linden, he commanded, “Restore the Staff of Law to her arms. Mayhap its touch will ease her.”

  Bhapa obeyed without hesitation. Soon Linden felt the warm wood against her chest. But she was immersed in agony and could not call upon the Staff’s benign theurgy.

  Moaning, Liand began to stir in Stonemage’s arms. Pahni cried his name softly as he tried to lift his head.

  “My hands.” Covenant’s voice cracked in dismay. “I need my hands. Hell and blood. I have to be able to hold the krill.”

  Then he groaned, “Oh, Linden. What have you done to yourself? You shouldn’t—I was trying to help. I didn’t want this to happen.”

  I must have the Wildwielder’s heed.

  Linden heard nothing, saw nothing. The glow of the walls had been effaced. Darkness filled the world: darkness and defeat. They fulfilled all of Esmer’s predictions.

  How had Liand borne this? Unconsciousness had been his only solace, but it was denied to her. She had no defense except the dark, and it was not enough.

  Then a voice pierced her hurt. At her ear, someone who may have been Stave said firmly, “Drink, Chosen.” She felt cold iron press against her lips. Somewhere in the darkness, she smelled vitrim. “The Waynhim offer succor. Already the ur-viles tend to the Unbeliever’s hands. If they cannot restore his flesh, they will ease his suffering. And I also will accept their balm, though you have diminished my need. You must drink.”

  Like the barking of ghouls, Jeremiah began to laugh.

  The sound transformed the blades in Linden’s head. Without transition, they became an altogether different kind of wound.

  Her son could not laugh. He could not. She knew that. With the Power of Command, she had exposed the truth of his possession. The croyel was laughing through him; using her son’s lungs and throat and mouth to express its malice.

  “So here you are, Mom.” Contempt and fear throbbed in his voice. They cut at her like the daggers of Liand’s transferred trauma. “Do you like what you’ve accomplished so far? You won’t be able to keep me long. That bane’s going to eat you alive, but she won’t touch me. She won’t like the taste. And Roger will come for me soon.

  “But you know the best part?” He seemed to strive for a tone of superiority that eluded him. “You’re wrong about me. The Mahdoubt saw the truth, but she talked herself out of it. I belong to the Despiser. I do. I’ve been his ever since I put my hand in that bonfire ten years ago. I even learned to enjoy it.

  “You kept trying to reach me, you kept trying, and you’re so earnest about it, I just had to laugh.”

  Jeremiah—He or the croyel made Linden want to scream. She ached for the fused rage which had sustained her on Gallows Howe; but she had lost that granite. She was too weak and blind and beaten to find it in herself again.

  “You have no idea,” her son continued, mocking her, “how much fun I had steering you here. With Legos! At first, you had me worried. You’re so slow on the uptake. But once you got to Revelstone, you thought you figured it out. After that, all I had to do was wait.”

  “Oh, stop,” Covenant rasped as though he had the authority to command the croyel. “You aren’t fooling anybody. You didn’t want this. If you did, you wouldn’t be so scared now.”

  He sounded stronger than he should have been. With lore and vitrim, the ur-viles had done more for him than Linden could.

  “You wanted us to come here,” Covenant continued. “I believe that. Once the Worm woke up, Lord Foul could relax. He’s sure he’s going to escape the Arch. So now he’s just looking for entertainment. Trying to cause as much despair as he can while he waits. You all are, you and the Ravers and Lord Foul and my son.

  “But you didn’t want this. It never occurred to you, any of you, that we might actually get here and trap you. You weren’t counting on her.” He must have meant She Who Must Not Be Named. “She doesn’t care what you taste like. She’ll take anything. You were counting on Roger. Now you’re in as much trouble as the rest of us, and you’re scared out of your mind.

  “So stop sneering,” Covenant ordered sternly. “If I tell him to do it, Galt will be glad to make a few cuts in your throat, just to remind you you’re vulnerable.”

  Jeremiah did not reply. Apparently the croyel feared the krill too much to test Covenant’s threat.

  With Liand’s edema compressing her brain, Linden would not have believed that she could feel more pain. Surely any increase would have driven her into a coma? I belong to the Despiser. But her son’s tormentor had shown her that she was wrong.

  Compelled by intolerable
hurt and blindness, she gulped at the vitrim that Stave held to her lips.

  The dank fluid of the Demondim-spawn tasted old and musty, thick with age or mold. Nevertheless she swallowed it greedily. It lacked the healing vitality of hurtloam; but it was full of strength. In its own way, it was as rich and vital as ichor. As she drank, its gifts helped her absorb the shock of Liand’s wound.

  Flashes of sight shot through her darkness, sharp brief gleams as though a shutter were being snapped open and shut. Like illusions woven of phosphenes and sensory confusion, she caught glimpses of Covenant confronting Jeremiah; of Stave crouched beside her; of Bhapa hovering while Pahni hugged Liand. In quick flickers, she seemed to see one of the Waynhim poised near her.

  She was still too weak to do more than twitch her fingers. But now she did not need to grip the Staff in order to feel its potential fire; its readiness for use. Shutting her eyes against flashes that resembled reflections from polished blades, she reached out for Earthpower.

  Slowly flame and Law eased her. After a while, she was able to close her fingers on the Staff. Then she struggled to her feet. Her head still throbbed, sending raw jabs down her spine, through her chest, along her limbs. But the scale of her pain shrank with every beat of her heart. Soon she would be able to think, and speak, and give heed.

  As her health-sense burgeoned, however, the nature of her distress shifted: it was being transformed. By the theurgy of percipience, her physical hurt acquired an edged sensation of wrongness. On an almost subcutaneous level, she felt or heard the pulse of something rising; something hungry and wicked.

  Its beat was as deep as a tectonic shift, the gathering violence of an earthquake.

  She Who Must Not Be Named has been fully roused.

  She’s going to get bigger.

  Swallowing instinctive terror, Linden looked at her companions.

  Will you waste the remnants of your life thus—?

  The Ironhand no longer held her glaive at Esmer’s neck. Instead she and two of her Swordmainnir stood in a tight cordon around him, guarding against powers which they could not oppose. Latebirth and Galesend still carried Mahrtiir and Anele. Cabledarm watched over Stonemage and Liand while Bluntfist stood ready to help Galt if he needed aid.

  Among them, the remaining ur-viles crouched on all fours, apparently waiting for some signal or command. They offer guidance—But their loremaster stood before Covenant. While Covenant swore through his teeth, muttering curses as familiar as endearments, the black creature used a knife of ruddy iron, lambent and steaming, to cut the palm of its other hand. Its acrid blood dripped onto Covenant’s burns.

  The state of his hands pierced Linden like another self-inflicted wound. The loremaster’s blood ate into them like vitriol, but its effects were benignant. Drop by drop, the creature shed its own life to peel away strips of charred skin, comfort exposed flesh. Yet there was only so much that the loremaster’s unnatural gifts could accomplish. His fingers and thumbs were swollen and maimed: their last phalanges were already dead. When Linden could add Earthpower to the ur-vile’s magicks, his hands might regain a degree of use. To some extent, he might be able to grip weakly and touch—

  But she would have to amputate the end of each finger and thumb at the knuckle to prevent their necrosis from spreading. And he would feel nothing: leprosy and the krill’s vehemence had destroyed those nerves completely.

  As for his palms—The loremaster had done much to preserve them. They would be horribly scarred, but they were functionally intact. Nevertheless they, too, would never feel anything again.

  In other ways, Linden’s companions were comparatively whole. The native toughness of the Giants had sloughed away the worst effects of the skest. Stave’s legs still bore corrosive wounds like teeth-marks, but he stood beside Linden without obvious discomfort. Branl gave no sign that his bruises and contusions troubled him. Held by Stonemage, and tended anxiously by Pahni, Liand was recovering, although he remained weak. The agility of the Cords had enabled them both to avoid acid and injury. Anele squirmed aimlessly in Galesend’s arms, disturbed by impending calamities that he could not name. The Manethrall studied every detail around him with his restored health-sense, apparently seeking to imprint it on his memory.

  By turns, the Waynhim offered vitrim to the rest of the company, ignoring only Esmer, the Ardent, and Jeremiah. Branl held a cup for Covenant to drink, but none of the Humbled accepted anything for themselves.

  Earlier the Ardent had said that his doom was assured. Now, however, he did not comport himself like a man who felt doomed. Instead his manner suggested some of the smugness which he had displayed in Andelain. Perhaps he had regained his confidence in the powers which his people had entrusted to him.

  In contrast, Esmer seemed to give off frustration like spume. His eyes were the color of wind-lashed seas. Among the tatters of his cymar, his festering wounds leaked pus and distress. On his cheek, the hurt of Coldspray’s blow still bled.

  His desire for Linden’s attention was as clear as a cry.

  She recognized the urgency of his appeal. Will you condone this outcome—? Through her own sensations, she felt the thudding of a subterranean pulse. It beat against her nerves like the harsh and riven labor of Mount Thunder’s heart.

  —She Who Must Not Be Named has been fully roused.

  But neither Cail’s son nor the approaching bane had brought Linden back from her immersion in Liand’s wounds. She had been retrieved by the croyel’s mockery—and by Covenant’s response.

  I belong to the Despiser.

  Esmer could wait. And the loremaster did not interrupt its efforts to preserve Covenant’s hands. They, too, could wait a little longer.

  More than anything else at that moment, Linden wanted to ensure that she would never hear Jeremiah’s tormentor speak again.

  I even learned to enjoy it.

  Covenant had said, Even the Elohim don’t know how to kill one of the croyel without killing its host; but Linden intended to discover the truth for herself.

  Uncoiling flames like the thongs of a scourge, she extended her power to quench the croyel’s life.

  Covenant’s strangled protest she ignored. Law and Earthpower had renewed some of her percipience, in spite of her proximity to the source of Kevin’s Dirt. If indeed the monster could not be slain without killing Jeremiah as well, she would be able to discern their symbiosis before she unleashed her full force.

  Facing the creature’s fright, the loose features of her son, Galt’s stoic countenance, and the clear argence of the krill’s gem, Linden thrust her senses into the cesspit of the croyel’s yellow gaze—

  —into a ravening as absolute as caesures or the Sunbane, but far more thetic—

  —and found herself gazing outward through Jeremiah’s vacant eyes. With his disfocused sight, she saw her own stricken expression as she struggled to understand what had become of him.

  If he had any thoughts of his own, she could not find them. His mind had become a bubbling moil of fright and malevolence: his possessor’s passions filled him completely. The voice of his own identity, if he still had one, was too small to be heard amid the clamor of the croyel’s yearning for escape and murder.

  They have done this to my son!

  In a brief blaze of thwarted love and chagrin, she flung flame like a howl at the ceiling. Covenant was right. The croyel was too deep inside him. It occupied Jeremiah’s trapped self too intimately to be disentangled: not while Kevin’s Dirt hampered her. If she tried to distinguish one life from the other, she would certainly destroy her son.

  Sick with failure and bitterness, she felt that she was committing an act of cruelty as she turned away from Jeremiah.

  Her companions stared at her as if she had stepped back from the precipice of another misjudgment as fatal as Covenant’s resurrection. Liand tried to say her name. And Covenant sighed, “Linden.” His tone was laden with mourning. “I’m so sorry. I tried to warn you.”

  But his empathy could not
ease her now. She did not need solace: she needed an outlet for her ire and shame. Fierce as a Sandgorgon, or as one of the skurj, she moved to confront Esmer.

  “All right,” she said heavily. “You wanted my heed. You’ve got it.” Dangers thronged in her voice. “But tell me something first. Show me that you’re worth hearing.

  “When we talked near Glimmermere, how did you know that I was going to meet the Viles? How did you know that I needed to understand some of their history?”

  From her perspective, none of her experiences in the past had happened yet when Cail’s son had spoken to her. If his own life were as consecutive as hers—

  “I did not,” Esmer replied as though her question were an affront. “I sought merely to account for the presence and purpose of the ur-viles. As I have done repeatedly.”

  Linden bit her lip; swallowed curses. “Then say what you have to say. Get it over with.” The residue of Liand’s trauma throbbed in her skull. “You’ve already betrayed us. You’re betraying us right now,” blocking her access to Covenant’s ring. “You’re going to betray us again soon.” She did not doubt that he would make the attempt. “I can’t even imagine what you think you can do to counterbalance that much harm.”

  He tried to face her; but his gaze shied away. Truths and falsehoods fought each other in his mien. “I do not offer words.” He spoke as if his divided nature forced him to utter thorns. “I speak only to request the marred metal which you reclaimed from your son under Melenkurion Skyweir.”

  Like a man who expected to be struck, he winced.

  “What?” While her friends gaped in surprise and confusion, Linden thrust a hand into her pocket to touch Jeremiah’s crumpled racecar. “You want me to give you a toy?” The only thing that she had left of the boy whom she had loved for so many years? “Are you out of your mind? I won’t—”

  “Wildwielder!” Esmer cried as if she had dealt him a mortal blow. At once, however, he restrained himself. More quietly, he stated, “I will return it.” His eyes oozed like his wounds. “Nevertheless I must have it. I must hold it.”