Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  She had made a promise to Caerroil Wildwood on Gallows Howe. He did not mean to let her forget it. Her unfurled fire had become visible; but it did not shed yellow light or smell of cornflowers. Instead it spread sheets and gouts of utter blackness through the caliginous air. In her hands, the runes demanded remembrance, and even Earthpower had become despair.

  Her own extremity took her to the horserite. Surrounded by graves, she recalled the blending of minds which she had shared with Hynyn and Hyn; the images which had appalled her—

  First the Ranyhyn had told her High Lord Elena’s tale from their perspective, as they now saw it. They had acknowledged the flaws in their foresight, the reasons why their efforts had achieved the opposite of their intended effect. Then—Ah, God. Then they had told the same tale again as though it described Linden herself rather than Elena. They had shown Linden her own inherited capacity for Desecration. And when they had appalled her to the core of her spirit, they had gone further—

  Drawing upon her experience of turiya Herem and moksha Jehannum, the Ranyhyn had described Jeremiah’s plight as it appeared to them. They had reminded her that blankness was his only defense: he could only retain the beleaguered fragments of himself by concealment. And when she could bear no more, they had gone still further.

  They had caused her to see herself as if she were Jeremiah possessed. On that image, they had superimposed Thomas Covenant lost in the stasis imposed by the Elohim. And they had shown her the consequences of her yearning to set them free.

  In compelled visions, Linden had seen the Worm of the World’s End emerge from her resolve to restore Covenant. More than that—worse than that—she had seen her beloved son’s visage break apart and become despicable: as vile as the Despiser’s malevolence, and as irredeemable.

  With every resource at their disposal, the Ranyhyn had assured her that possession was not the answer. If with fire and need she breathed her life into every one of Jeremiah’s uncounted corpses and gathered them into herself, she would commit a crime for which there was no possible exculpation.

  Remembering, she wanted to howl at the unrelieved sky of her son’s suffering. But she did not.

  Like the Ranyhyn, she was not done.

  The flame of her Staff had become blackness—but it was still power. She could still try to break through the croyel’s bitter mastery. She could do that without touching Jeremiah’s soul.

  As soon as she made the attempt, however, she discovered that she was wrong. Her first flagrant blast elicited another strike of lightning from the croyel’s defenses. A second bolt sizzled into the heart of a second grave. Coruscation moiled and spat in the mounded earth. Again Jeremiah fought free of the ground. When he gained his feet, he said like the gloom and the wafting dust, “Mom, don’t. This is what Lord Foul wants.”

  Then he was gone, dissipated; returned to living death.

  She began to shout the Seven Words—and another incinerating blast inscribed horror across the twilight. Another avatar of Jeremiah’s misery arose; uttered its brief, forlorn supplication; dissolved back into its grave.

  Realization dropped her to her knees among the incoherence of the mounds. She could not—oh, she could not! Not like this. She could not strive for her son’s release: not while she remained within him. Her efforts would break down his defenses. Struggling against the croyel, she would exacerbate his agony until it became damnation.

  He did not belong to the Despiser. Not yet. Linden had seen him, heard him. His graves both imprisoned and protected him.

  But if his own mother destroyed that protection—Violated heart and soul, he would become Lord Foul’s. Whether or not she succeeded at freeing him.

  Kneeling, Linden felt the same aghast anguish which had sickened her after the horserite. The idea that she might do that to her son, not in visions, but in tangible truth—

  It could have broken her. Perhaps it should have. But it did not. She still was not done. She had other sources of power. She could make other choices.

  In a rush like a sudden fever, she surged back to her feet. Deliberately she tightened her grip on burning runes.

  Contained within Jeremiah’s mind and the croyel’s malice, she tried to make her physical throat and mouth and tongue cry aloud.

  Liand, help me! Get me out of here!

  She may have succeeded: Liand may have heard her. Or he may simply have seen her peril and understood.

  Like a burst of sunlight, the salvific radiance of orcrest touched the back of her neck and the side of her face.

  Touched and took hold.

  An instant later, she staggered for balance as her boots rediscovered the bare gypsum of the ridgecrest under a wilderness of stars. Jeremiah stood, unclaimed, in front of her. The croyel bared its fangs in a feral grin. Struck by the shining of the Sunstone, the creature’s eyes glared yellow triumph.

  Stave caught her at once; steadied her. In her hands, flames as black as the Staff crawled across the surface of the wood, elucidating the runes. But the fires had already begun to fade. They had already faded. Only the pain deep in her palms and fingers retained Caerroil Wildwood’s admonition.

  Shocked by ebony, Giants called her name. Manethrall Mahrtiir muttered curses under his breath. Liand grasped her arm with his free hand, seeking some assurance that she was unharmed.

  Linden flung him off. She flung them all off. She had no time for explanations—and no language for what had happened. She needed to act now, now, while images of her son’s plight remained as precise and piercing as shards of glass in her mind.

  Covenant tried to say something, but his voice sounded as cut as the runes, impossible to scry.

  Because she did not plan to channel her attack through the krill’s gem, she feared to hold and wield two instruments of power at the same time. Either alone will transcend your strength—Febrile with haste, she thrust her Staff into Stave’s hands. Liand might try to use it: Stave would not.

  Then she pulled the chain that held Covenant’s ring over her head. Shoving her index finger into the band, the way Covenant had worn it, she closed her fist on the chain. With her other hand, she tugged Jeremiah’s racecar out of her pocket; held it up in front of him like a talisman.

  She did not know how to carry out her intentions. The ring did not belong to her: she lacked Covenant’s inherent relationship with wild magic. But for that very reason—and because her health-sense retained its crystalline clarity—she trusted herself. Her limitations as well as her senses would prevent her from committing any grievous harm. And if her efforts announced her to Kastenessen—or to Joan—she did not care. Jeremiah’s straits outweighed every other fear.

  Racing within herself as though she had become sure of her passage, she reached the secreted chamber where her access to wild magic lay dormant. Without a pause, she threw open the door.

  In that instant, the ring released a shaft of argent incandescence like the lightnings which had roused brief avatars of her son from their graves.

  It was too much: too potent; too dangerous. She knew that immediately. It was wild magic: it resisted control. Its brilliance blinded her. Its sheer force seemed to efface the night. Yet the ring’s potential for ruin did not daunt her. She had invoked this fire in the past, more than once. She believed that she would be able to master it.

  It was only too strong because she had called upon it so fiercely. When she had gauged every dimension of its strength, she would refine it to suit her purpose.

  Its imperfection is the very paradox of which the Earth is made—

  Obliquely she saw avarice throbbing in Loric’s krill. Covenant’s bitten curses confirmed it: the grim consternation of the Giants confirmed it. Joan—or turiya Herem—had already noticed Linden. In moments, the krill might grow hot enough to damage Galt’s hands. It had nearly destroyed Covenant’s. But Linden ignored that possibility. She intended to work quickly; to finish her task before the Master suffered.

  —and with it a master may form perfect wo
rks and fear nothing.

  While Liand and the Ramen stared at her, Linden pulled her power out of the heavens and began forging it into a spike like the flame of a cutting torch, a nail with a point as precise as a star and as piercing as a dagger.

  At the periphery of her awareness, she felt the rest of the Swordmainnir surge onto the ridgecrest, bringing Bhapa with them. In the shaped rock of her breastplate, Stormpast Galesend carried Anele. The old man was awake now, taut with alertness, apparently watching Linden. Her wild fire and the shining of Loric’s gem seemed to catch and burn in his blind eyes.

  But Linden ignored her companions. Her whole heart was concentrated on fury and white gold; on energies chaotic enough to rend the heavens, and pure enough to savage the croyel’s brain.

  It was hard—Ah, it was hard. More difficult than creating a caesure to escape the Land’s past: more arduous than summoning the sheer might to resurrect Covenant. Long ago, he had warned her that wild magic accumulated, that it gathered force with every use; that its fire always resisted containment. She had experienced the danger herself.

  But she was not merely Linden Avery the Chosen. She was the by God Sun-Sage! Unfettered, her health-sense made her capable of perceptions and evaluations which Thomas Covenant himself could not match. She did not need to fear true havoc: the ring was not hers. And the blood in her veins was rage. It had transformed every other passion of her life.

  For Jeremiah’s sake, she could muster a degree of control that might have surpassed any rightful white gold wielder.

  With every resource at her command, she formed a knife of argent which would coruscate through the croyel’s brain without laying waste to the graveyard of Jeremiah’s consciousness.

  When her weapon was ready, she moved closer to her son. Holding up the racecar so that he could see it—so that it might serve as an anchor or lodestone for his buried thoughts—she aimed wild magic like a honed scream at the monster’s face.

  At the same time, however, she sent percipience like tendrils of supplication and tenderness back into Jeremiah. She did not reach so deeply now; did not enter him entirely. Instead she extended her senses only far enough to gauge his condition while she threatened the croyel.

  Rigid with strain, she panted through her teeth, “This is it, you vile bastard. I’m done with you. Let him go or die, one or the other. I will not—!”

  The creature’s gaze interrupted her. Its eyes glared yellow terror. Sweat as rank as the halitus of a charnel glistened on its hairless skin. For an instant, Linden believed that she would succeed. Surely the croyel understood that she would kill it without remorse? Surely it wanted to live?

  But then she realized that the monster’s stare was fixed, not on her, but on Liand.

  The croyel still feared him more than it feared her. It had done so from the first.

  A heartbeat later, Jeremiah howled in agony. Within him, energies from all directions began to scourge his interred sentience. Bolts of ferocity lashed dozens of graves at a time, hundreds. Molten earth boiled around aspects of himself as they writhed to their feet. But this time, the blazing shafts did not raise him and then withdraw. No, this time each strike was sustained—It burned and burned him until each risen avatar was reduced to whimpering and ash; true death.

  The croyel was not merely excoriating moments of Jeremiah’s mind: it was incinerating them entirely. Dozens or hundreds of his lost thoughts had already been destroyed.

  How many of them could the monster slaughter before Linden killed it? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Then her son’s mind would be crippled. The damage would be irretrievable.

  In horror and fury, Linden wanted to punch wild magic straight through the croyel’s skull. She could halt Jeremiah’s torment almost instantly. She would lose a thousand pieces of him, or ten thousand, or a hundred thousand. But the graveyard was immense; almost limitless. Like any mind. A gently nurtured brain could recover from appalling amounts of harm. In her former life, she had seen such things happen. And there she had lacked the healing powers of her Staff—

  Nevertheless she stopped herself. Jerked backward a step. Quenched Covenant’s ring as rapidly as she could. Wrenched the band from her finger; shoved both the ring and the racecar deep into her pockets.

  Withdrew her threat.

  Because the croyel—

  Her whole body trembled until she felt the barrage of lightning inside Jeremiah cease.

  —feared Liand more than it feared her.

  Liand and orcrest.

  Covenant was shouting her name. How long had he been trying to get her attention? She had no idea. She was crying again, and could not stop. Hellfire, Linden! he may have yelled. You can’t do this! Wild magic is the wrong kind of power!

  She knew that now.

  Stave’s strong arms held her until her initial rush of trembling faded. Unable to stanch her tears for her, he did what he could by pushing the Staff of Law into her hands.

  He had said, Should you fail, the outcome will be heinous to you. And she had certainly failed.

  Nevertheless he was wrong. As long as Liand did not fail—

  For a moment, stars seemed to reel around her, wheeling overhead as if she had thrown them into turmoil. The Sunstone still shone, refusing the immediate dark. The light of Loric’s krill throbbed with intimations of greed and murder. Yet to Linden the black sky felt as heavy and fatal as a cenotaph.

  Stepping back from the brink of Jeremiah’s fate, she had made herself small again: too small to have any meaning among the forlorn immensities of stars and night, the hard truths of barren hills and crumbling gypsum. But she could bear her own littleness. It was enough for her.

  As long as Liand did not fail.

  Still quaking in the marrow of her bones, she accepted the burden of herself from Stave. The touch of the Staff’s runes continued to hurt her hands, but the burn was receding. Soon she would be able to find comfort in the clean wood again.

  Around her, eight Giants loomed like menhirs against the nightscape. Liand stood poised at her side, gripping his orcrest, eager to talk to her; as eager as a man who had identified the import of his life. A few steps away, blind Mahrtiir appeared to watch over Covenant. The Humbled could not: Clyme and Branl remained on their chosen hillcrests, and Galt’s hands were full.

  Behind Liand’s far shoulder, Pahni waited with sun-yellow and silver lights like fears in her wide eyes. A stride or two behind the other Swordmainnir, Galesend still bore Anele in her armor. The old man watched Linden and Liand, Jeremiah and the croyel, with his head jerking fearfully from side to side as if he had stumbled to the edge of an inner precipice. With one hand, he made plucking motions in Liand’s direction as though he wanted the Stonedownor’s attention.

  Halfway between Anele and Mahrtiir, Bhapa fretted, unsure of his duty to men who could not see.

  “Linden Giantfriend—” began Rime Coldspray. But she appeared to have no language for what she wanted to say, or to ask. Her strong jaws chewed emotions which defied expression.

  “I was afraid of this,” Covenant muttered. “Linden, I’m so sorry. Sometimes we just have to—”

  He did not complete the thought. Like Jeremiah, he sank into silence as if it were a grave.

  Quietly intense, Liand said, “Linden, I grieve for you, and for your son. Yet there is an admixture of eagerness in my sorrow, though it is selfish to feel thus. While the boy remains among us, hope also remains.

  “And I have not yet tested my strength.”

  His Sunstone glowed like a promise. He was the first true Stonedownor for millennia. There was no one like him in the Land.

  Linden wanted to cry out, Don’t talk about it! Don’t explain it! Just do it! My God, he’s buried alive in there!

  But she stifled her demand. Like her, other people needed to make their own decisions. Liand would do what he could. Somehow she contained herself while he sought words for his excitement.

  “In Revelstone,” he said, almost whispering, “you
spoke of orcrest. I had learned that it gives light at need, and has the virtue to find wholeness among the fragments of Anele’s thoughts. To this, you added other knowledge, lore which has proven its worth. And you spoke—”

  He seemed to swallow wonder and anticipation that bordered on exaltation. “Linden, you spoke of healing. When you had informed me of orcrest’s power to wash away the effects of Kevin’s Dirt, you made mention of healing. Healing of the spirit rather than of the flesh. From this surely arises the ancient use of Sunstone as a test of truth.”

  While Linden ground her teeth, Liand said more strongly, “It is in my heart that your son’s plight, first and last, is an affliction of the spirit. If orcrest is puissant to bind together Anele’s incoherence, mayhap it is able also to seal your son’s soul against ravage. How may such a creature as the croyel endure any test of truth? I am uninstructed in the ways of Earthpower.” As he spoke, he seemed to become taller in Linden’s sight; more solid. “Yet both my heart and my eyes assure me that the magicks of orcrest are anathema to this hideous being.

  “Linden Avery, I ask your leave to attempt your son’s release.”

  Before Linden could reply, Onyx Stonemage countered, “And if the croyel exceeds your strength? What then? We have seen Linden Giantfriend’s flame transformed to blackness. I pray that the alteration proves fleeting. Yet if she who is adept at Earthpower can be tainted thus, how will you endure?

  “Liand of Mithil Stonedown, I honor your willing valor. I am proud to name you among my companions. But when you gaze into this lost boy’s heart, his possessor will gaze into yours. Then mayhap no admixture will remain to ease our own lament.”

  Linden started to say, Do it, Liand. At some better time, she might have added, I trust you. While urgency clogged her throat, however, she felt the sickening migraine aura of a caesure slam into existence among the hills.

  Whirling, she scrambled to focus her senses. Around her, Giants turned, scanning the horizons swiftly. Groaning to himself, Bhapa hastened toward Manethrall Mahrtiir.