Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  Grueburn and Kindwind ran after the Ardent, Latebirth, and Stonemage as if they were still pursuing Longwrath.

  They seemed to cross the rich floor in an undifferentiated swirl of glances and imagery. Lights and jewels wheeled like a catastrophe of stars. The palace had appeared vast when Linden had wandered among its amazements earlier; but the speed of the Swordmainnir made it as transient as a mirage. Half obscured by the Ardent’s apparel, Latebirth and Onyx Stonemage disappeared into the corridor ahead. Bluntfist pounded down the last stairs to the beat of the bane’s hunger. Gradually Linden lost her awareness of Jeremiah altogether. She could not discern the ur-viles that had hastened to preserve him.

  A moment later, Grueburn carried her into the next passage. Marble and mosaics disappeared suddenly, completely, as if they had been cut out of existence with a knife.

  A storm of incipient hysteria pressed against Linden’s self-command; her concentration on Earthpower. She was leaving her son behind—She did not trust anyone or anything enough to relieve her instinctive alarm.

  Ahead of her, the Manethrall sat, watchful and ready, on Latebirth’s arms as the Swordmain followed the Waynhim. Energized by the vitality of the Staff, Liand grew palpably stronger, shedding the aftereffects of his wounds while Stonemage ran. The Ardent deployed his ribbands in a frenzy like the fever of his timorous heart. Covenant seemed to be failing. Bit by bit, the hurt of his burns gnawed at his self-command. Nevertheless he clung grimly to his present.

  Like Stave, Clyme and Branl looked impervious to any doom. At Linden’s side, Esmer radiated a chaos of conflicting passions: anger and disdain, anticipation and abhorrence; a chagrin as immedicable as his wounds.

  Behind them, Anele’s head jerked anxiously from side to side. His whole body emitted a sharp gibber of fright. But he did nothing to hinder Galesend’s steps.

  Pahni’s aura was a vivid ache of concern for Liand. Yet her Ramen discipline held. And Bhapa had regained his determination to face any peril for Linden’s sake, and for Mahrtiir’s. In spite of his naked apprehension, he sat leaning forward on Bluntfist’s forearms as if he were prepared to fling himself bodily into the chasm of the Hazard; the maw of the bane.

  For Linden, this tunnel passed like the previous one: a torrent of pearlescence and panic and Earthpower; curses and dread. By the simple lore of long strides and haste, the Giants foreshortened the distance.

  Grueburn carried Linden into the next chamber before Linden realized that Latebirth, Stonemage, and the Ardent had reached the immaculate hall which contained the jut of rock like a misshapen throne.

  In the center of the floor, jagged stone gaped like fangs at the ceiling. Even now, the maimed seat seemed indefinably abominable, as if here the Viles had sculpted an image or replica of something far more bitter and brutal.

  Linden had reached the limit of her endurance: she could not abide her separation from her son; her bone-deep conviction that she was abandoning him. “Stop!” she called to the Giants. “I can’t go on like this. I need to wait for Jeremiah!”

  Already Cirrus Kindwind had brought Covenant into the chamber. Galesend, Cabledarm, and Bluntfist were close behind her. But Jeremiah remained beyond the reach of Linden’s senses.

  “Lady, we must have haste!” Words frothed on the Ardent’s lips. “If any hope remains to us, it lies beyond the Hazard. Within the Lost Deep, we may be hunted and devoured at leisure. We must pass the abysm!”

  Ur-viles and Waynhim shouted like dogs or crows; but Linden did not know how to heed them.

  “And if She rises between us?” she retorted. “If we’re on one side of the Hazard, and Jeremiah is on the other? I won’t do it! We have to stay together. Everything we’ve done is wasted if we don’t stay together.”

  Before the Ardent could protest, Mahrtiir put in, “I stand with the Ringthane, Giants, as I have done from the first. Also we have cause to consider that there may be no salvation for the Land if we do not redeem her son.”

  “If you fear to remain among us, Insequent,” Stave added without inflection, “depart. I stand with the Chosen as well. And I deem that the Swordmainnir will not consent to abandon any member of their company.”

  “Aye,” Frostheart Grueburn panted. “We are Giants, are we not? Having joined our fate to that of our companions, we will endure or perish with them. Also,” she added, “children are precious to us. We cannot gainsay Linden Giantfriend in this.”

  The other Swordmainnir nodded; but Clyme stated flatly, “We concur with the Ardent. To delay here invites calamity. If the Land can be redeemed, its salvation lies with the Unbeliever, not with Linden Avery’s boy.

  “In addition”—his tone sharpened—“we question whether Esmer’s presence is potent to quench wild magic when white gold is held by its rightful wielder. Linden Avery,” he commanded, “release the ring to the ur-Lord. Let us discover whether he is as powerless as this scion of merewives wishes us to believe.”

  Oh, God. Clyme’s order stung Linden to the heart. He might be right. The ring—In the wrong hands, it’s still pretty strong. But it doesn’t really come alive until the person it belongs to chooses to use it. Esmer’s influence might not suffice to block the true white gold wielder.

  Twisting in Grueburn’s arms, Linden turned to Covenant. Days ago, unaware of Roger’s glamour, she had declined to surrender the ring. In Andelain, struggling, she had sacrificed it to the Harrow. Now she did not hesitate. With one hand, she swept the chain over her head, extended Covenant’s wedding band toward him.

  “Here,” she demanded; pleaded. “Take it. It’s too dangerous for me. Even if Esmer weren’t here, I couldn’t save us.”

  Not from She Who Must Not Be Named.

  Until that moment, Covenant had seemed preoccupied with pain, too hurt to react. Yet he heard her appeal. Meeting her gaze, he gave her a look of anguish, stricken and faltering, as if she had asked him to betray himself—or her. His hair resembled a silver conflagration, as if his thoughts burned with dismay.

  Nevertheless he did not refuse. He may have believed that he was responsible for her plight; and he was not a man who shirked. Trembling, he reached out with his charred hands.

  He would not be able to grip his ring, but he could cup it in his palms. Branl or Clyme would loop the chain around his neck.

  Spitting spume like nausea, Esmer said, “You regard my treacheries too lightly.” So swiftly that Linden hardly saw him move, he swept toward Covenant.

  Branl and Clyme snatched at Esmer: Stave tried to catch him. They were too late. Unhindered, Cail’s son tapped the scar in the center of Covenant’s forehead with one finger. Then he let the Humbled and Stave drag him back.

  Instantly Covenant’s eyes drifted out of focus. As though he had been caught by a question that no one else could hear, he frowned. His arms dropped.

  Esmer had not harmed him physically: Linden could see that. Covenant’s scar glared whitely for a moment, stark as an incision. Then it faded, leaving no sign of any new injury.

  Still Esmer had done enough. Swallowing gall, Linden fought her need to vomit.

  Covenant’s eyes rolled back, and his head lolled against Kindwind’s armor, as he toppled into the maze of his fissured memories. Oh, he was not hurt: even his mind was not. Nonetheless he was gone. He had lost his grasp on the present. Instead of regarding Esmer or the Haruchai or even Linden, he wandered among the depths of Time.

  While the Giants gathered protectively around Linden and Covenant, Esmer announced, “Now is the toll of my crimes complete.” Mourning frayed his tone. “I need only remain among you to satisfy Kastenessen’s malice and the merewives’ loathing. She Who Must Not Be Named cares naught for any deed of mine, but other powers will exult in your ruin.”

  A scream rose in Linden’s throat: enough Earthpower to shatter the ceiling; rain down rubble.

  Before she could release it, however, Liand shouted her name; and the simple humanity of his cry stopped her. It reminded her that the danger was too g
reat. She could not afford overt despair. Not now: not while the croyel still ruled Jeremiah.

  Yet she required some form of release for her dismay, her baulked love. They were too extreme to be contained. Covenant was gone. He was gone again. Reflexively she dropped his chained ring. She did not see Stave catch it before it struck the floor. Between one instant and the next, she transformed her force.

  Instead of wasting her strength on screams, she aimed her fire at Covenant’s hands; tuned it to the pitch of healing. With a supreme effort of percipience and will, she set everything else aside in order to finish the necessary—and necessarily partial—restoration which the loremaster had begun.

  If only for a moment, the chamber and the throne and her friends and even Esmer seemed to vanish. She forgot Jeremiah and the croyel. Every aspect of herself, every attainable resource, every baffled passion, she concentrated on Covenant.

  The ur-vile had made a good start: it had secured the underlying integrity of his bones; preserved shreds of muscle and sinew; kept mutilated scraps of skin alive; sealed his palms. But the worst effects of his burns remained. Necrosis had already corrupted the ends of his fingers and thumbs. Soon that mortification would spread inward, rotting his tissues, poisoning his blood. If it went far enough, it would send sepsis throughout his body. Given time, it would kill him.

  Lost in recollections and leprosy, he could neither protest nor grieve as Linden used her Staff to excise the ends of each finger and thumb, one after another, cutting them off at the knuckles. When she was done, he would still have digits. He would still be able to use them. Because his nerves were dead, he would not feel the ache of amputation. If he did not look at himself, he might forget that she had made him more of a halfhand than he had been before.

  During moments that stretched for her, although they must have been brief, she labored over Covenant as she had once worked on her son. She cauterized exposed blood vessels, cleaned away potential infections, urged circulation back into his fingers. Separated dead flesh from living. Encouraged the formation of scabs. Gently she filled his veins with flame that mimicked hurtloam.

  Everything was irrevocable. He would never regain what he had lost. But she did what she could. For a short time, she became a physician again, and did not count the cost.

  But then she heard Liand repeat her name; and the part of her that had not forgotten Jeremiah reasserted itself.

  In a burst of barking from the ur-viles and Waynhim, Rime Coldspray and Galt of the Humbled entered the chamber of the throne with Jeremiah and the croyel.

  Galt appeared to concentrate exclusively on controlling his prisoner. But the Ironhand scanned the rest of the company; and as she did so, her expression asked them why they had stopped. Then she noticed Covenant, and her shoulders sagged.

  “The Timewarden is lost to us again.”

  Fiercely Cirrus Kindwind answered, “This is the mere-son’s doing. He avers now that the tale of his treacheries is complete. I hear no falsehood in him. Nonetheless I will credit no promise of his.”

  Esmer flinched as if Kindwind had hit him harder than any tangible blow. His eyes were the color of drizzling rains. But he did not protest.

  The clamor of the Demondim-spawn mounted, incomprehensible as gibbering. Then it subsided to a low mutter.

  Linden studied Jeremiah; searched him for signs that he had suffered during their separation. But he seemed unchanged. The krill kept the croyel’s teeth away from his neck. That small reprieve, at least, he had been granted. The creature no longer drank his blood. Nonetheless its claws still dug into his flesh: its power still possessed him.

  As she regarded the croyel, it turned its head to gaze at the malformed throne with malignant rapture. A grin bared its fangs.

  Involuntarily, as if the monster’s attitude compelled her, Linden asked, “That thing.” Her voice shook. “That throne. Do any of you recognize it? Do you know what it represents?”

  She did not expect a reply from Esmer, although she felt sure that he or the Demondim-spawn could have answered her. But perhaps the Ardent—

  The Insequent shook his head with an air of misery, as if he could sense dangers worse than jaws crowding toward him. Flatly Branl said, “The Haruchai have seen or heard nothing to account for it, or for any secret hidden within the Lost Deep.”

  Abruptly Jeremiah raised his head. Grinning like the croyel, he said, “It’s a copy of a-Jeroth’s throne in Ridjeck Thome. An exact copy. It might as well be the place where Lord Foul sat while he still thought he could get what he wants with armies and war. The Viles made it after they stopped worshipping themselves and started trying to do something useful with all that power.

  “It’s homage.”

  The croyel’s grin was as feral as its desire for Jeremiah’s blood.

  Instinctively Linden shied away from the sight. It hurt her more than Covenant’s fragmented absence.

  Homage? she thought bitterly. No. Jeremiah’s possessor was lying again—or distorting the truth. The Demondim had been used by Lord Foul. The ur-viles had served him for centuries or millennia. But she had met Viles: she did not believe that they had ever bowed down to the Despiser.

  Above Glimmermere, Esmer had asserted as much.

  “Linden Giantfriend,” insisted the Ironhand. “I fear that the Ardent’s alarm augurs ill for us. We must attempt to cross the Hazard ere She Who Must Not Be Named rises.

  “And”—she turned to Galt—“we must not be slowed by the boy. Master, I acknowledge your devoir. I honor it. But it impedes us. If you will permit me, I will hold the krill in your stead, bearing Linden Giantfriend’s son as I do so. Doubtless there is evil in any contact with the croyel, but I am armored against it.” She tapped her cataphract. “And we will no longer lag behind our companions.”

  Like Covenant, if in a different fashion, Linden was losing her grip on the present. She had struggled for too long; had depleted herself over and over again—Remembering the Viles, who had once been worthy of admiration, she also remembered her parents, from whom she learned her deepest nightmares. She did not know how to endure the croyel’s rapt avarice.

  Briefly Galt appeared to hesitate. Presumably he, Branl, and Clyme were debating the implications of Coldspray’s suggestion. Then the Humbled reached a decision.

  Nodding to the Ironhand, Galt shifted to make room for her.

  Quickly she stepped behind Galt. Reaching past him, she placed her hand over his where he gripped the krill. Her hand dwarfed his: when she took the dagger’s guards between her thumb and forefinger, he was able to release his grasp without removing the protective cloth. Then he dropped his other hand to Jeremiah’s arm so that the boy—or the croyel—could not twist away before Coldspray secured her clasp.

  A moment later, Coldspray stooped to wrap her free arm around Jeremiah. Hugging the croyel against her armor, between her and the boy, and holding the edge of the krill steady at the creature’s throat, she lifted her prisoners from the floor.

  The croyel continued grinning as though it had seen a promise of rescue in the jagged throne.

  After a glance at Linden, the Ironhand addressed her comrades. “Now, Swordmainnir, we must run indeed. If we do not cross from the Lost Deep before the chasm’s bane assails us, we will not behold sunlight or open skies or hope again. We will not live to witness the outcome of the Earth.”

  “Aye,” growled Grueburn past Linden’s head. “No being who survives to hear our tale will say that we did not run.”

  Without a word, Stave raised Covenant’s ring, urging Linden to reclaim it. But she shook her head. It belonged to Covenant: in Esmer’s presence, it was useless to her. And it would be safer with Stave.

  He would give it to her if or when she could use it.

  The Waynhim sprinted ahead with the Ardent sailing close behind them. At once, the Giants followed, but in a new formation. Frostheart Grueburn went first, with Stave at her side and Rime Coldspray at her back. Then came Cirrus Kindwind and Covenant, with
the Humbled arrayed around them, and Esmer gliding nearby. Next ran Stormpast Galesend and Onyx Stonemage carrying Anele and Liand. Behind them, at Mahrtiir’s request, were Pahni and Bhapa, Cabledarm and Halewhole Bluntfist. The Manethrall and Latebirth brought up the rear. Clearly he considered the Ramen the most expendable members of the company—and himself the least valuable of the Ramen.

  Among them all sped the ur-viles as if they were herding the Giants and the Humbled. But the black creatures kept a little distance between themselves and Linden’s shining Staff.

  By degrees, Linden absorbed new urgency from the rushing Giants. Her heart pounded to the subterranean rhythms of She Who Must Not Be Named. Sweat gathered on her palms. Behind her, the krill’s radiance cast dim shadows through the glow of the immaculate stone and her own illumination. Ahead, the Ardent’s fright felt more and more like a wail. But it was not loud enough to muffle the growing ferocity of the bane’s emanations. Linden could not seal her nerves against that massive pulse.

  The Swordmainnir ran as though they intended to fling themselves down the throat of a volcano. Linden should have been preparing herself for She Who Must Not Be Named, sharpening her percipience to the exact hue and timbre of the bane. How else could she fight? But she already knew that she was too small to combat such forces. And Esmer had assured her that Against Her ire, only white gold may hope for efficacy.

  Instead of bracing herself for battle, she tried to think of some way to sway Cail’s son.

  If Esmer departed, the Ardent would be able to convey the company to safety. Or Covenant might rediscover his connection to the present. With wild magic, he might be able to accomplish what Linden could not.

  Sensations of immanent malice confirmed that Coldspray was right.—we will not behold sunlight or open skies or hope again. The entire company would die if Linden could not think of an argument persuasive or insidious or hurtful enough to change Esmer’s mind.