Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  “Follow, Cord,” he commanded softly. “Do what you may to ward her from harm. But do not intrude upon her sorrow. She has lost her first love. Such attachment is sometimes deep and lifelong, but always as rending as fangs.”

  Linden had done nothing to relieve Bhapa’s hurts. She had treated none of her companions.

  While the older Cord hastened away, the Manethrall addressed Linden obliquely. “She is Ramen. She will become herself again when she is needed.”

  Then he turned to study Linden through his bandage. “Ringthane,” he said stiffly, withholding anger, “I crave your pardon on my Cord’s behalf. She would not suffer so, had she not heard the Timewarden imply Liand’s doom.”

  I wish I could spare you.

  “Nonetheless she is Ramen, and has committed insult. To raise her hand against the Ringthane is inexcusable. Yet I must excuse it. Therefore I will bear any consequence which you may choose to require.”

  Mahrtiir—Unable to master her voice, Linden simply went to the Manethrall and hugged him: the only language she had.

  At first, he stood rigid, affronted; as unyielding as one of the Haruchai. But then she felt him soften as though she had won his assent.

  She wanted to sob on his shoulder, and could not. Her emotions were too extreme. Liand’s death and Jeremiah’s plight left no room in her heart for other forms of surrender.

  After a moment, she stepped back.

  “The consequence,” said Cabledarm gruffly, as if she expected an argument, “is that all must excuse Pahni of the Ramen.”

  “Our regard for her is assured,” the Ironhand answered, mildly reproving. “We need no urging to countenance her grief and ire. Therefore I ask a more exigent consequence.

  “Linden Giantfriend must also excuse herself.”

  Before Linden could find words, Clyme spoke.

  “The Humbled do not excuse her. All that has transpired results from her transgressions. We sought to prevent her violation of Law in Andelain, but were opposed. That failure cannot be undone. And because we are the Humbled, we now honor the Unbeliever’s return. Yet some action we must take against Desecration. We are Haruchai. We are Masters. In a former age, we were Bloodguard. We do not condone. Nor will we permit.”

  “Permit what, sleepless one?” asked Mahrtiir sharply. “What is it that you will not condone?”

  Around him, several of the Giants moved closer, ready to intervene. Cirrus Kindwind withdrew slightly to keep Covenant out of harm. But Stave did not react.

  He knew what the Humbled were thinking.

  Without inflection, Clyme replied, “You have beheld the blackness of Linden Avery’s flame. You have witnessed her taint. You can no longer doubt that Earthpower is perilous. Therefore we will retrieve the Sunstone from the old man. We will allow him no further access to its magicks. In his hands, orcrest may also be turned to Corruption.”

  As if their rectitude were self-evident, Clyme and Branl started toward Stormpast Galesend and Anele.

  “No!” Linden cried out. God, she had misunderstood the Humbled. Again! Fearing for Galt and Anele as well as herself, she had jumped to the wrong conclusions.

  With one arm, Coldspray barred the path of the two Humbled, although she did not touch them. In a granite voice, she announced, “Nevertheless you will do Linden Giantfriend the courtesy of hearing her objection. You propose to wrest Anele’s only sanity from him. Yet he has served us well—and has been much abused. We will not stand aside while he is harmed.”

  Out of respect for the Ironhand, perhaps, or perhaps simply because Linden no longer held her instruments of resistance, Branl and Clyme paused; waited.

  Silent as the heavens, Stave moved to stand with Galesend.

  “Name your objection, Linden Avery,” Branl commanded. “We will consider it.”

  Linden felt her companions watching her. Deliberately she left her Staff and Covenant’s ring where they were. If the Humbled were caught in a contradiction for which they have no answer, as Stave had told her, they might be susceptible—Hell, they might be almost human. Her voluntary powerlessness might do more to sway them than any words.

  When she had swallowed as much of her despair as she could, she answered carefully, “Maybe what’s happened to the way that I use Earthpower is corruption.” She could not tell. “Maybe it isn’t. But it’s an effect of the runes.” An expression of Caerroil Wildwood’s power. The legacy of Gallows Howe. “They seemed to come alive while I was inside Jeremiah. Maybe they changed my Staff.” Reinterpreted it. “Or they changed me. I don’t know how,” although she could guess why. “But they didn’t change Earthpower. You saw me snuff those caesures. You saw that Earthpower hasn’t changed.

  “The Sunstone is what it is. It won’t serve Lord Foul.

  “Anele needs it. It’s his only real protection. And it protects us at the same time.” Trying not to mourn, she insisted, “If we had given it to him when he wanted it, Kastenessen wouldn’t have been able to touch him. Liand would still be alive.”

  She could not imagine what use Anele might have made of the Sunstone, or of his resulting lucidity. In Andelain, he had spent time alone with the spectres of his parents. For all Linden knew, they had shared insights which she desperately needed.

  For all she knew, Covenant had urged the doom of the Sunstone on Liand so that it would eventually be inherited by Anele. The old man certainly could not have found or taken the orcrest for himself. The Masters would never have allowed it.

  The flat faces of the Humbled concealed their reactions; but Linden did not stop. “As it is, we almost lost Galt and Jeremiah. And Kastenessen is still Kastenessen. As soon as he gets a chance, he’ll slaughter us all.

  “If you can’t trust Anele, trust Sunder and Hollian. Your ancestors knew them. You remember that. If Sunder and Hollian thought that he might ever commit Desecration, they wouldn’t have called him ‘the hope of the Land.’ And they made it possible for us to escape the bane. How is letting Anele have the Sunstone worse than leaving him open for Kastenessen?”

  Clyme and Branl gazed at Linden. Krill-shadows shrouded their faces: they looked as dangerous as darkness, and as unpredictable.

  Trembling with self-restraint, she finished, “Before you make any decisions, why don’t you ask Covenant what he thinks? Sooner or later, he’ll come back. Finding the orcrest was his idea. Maybe he’ll remember why he wanted Liand to have it.”

  The Ironhand of the Swordmainnir nodded. “Well said.”

  “Aye,” growled Frostheart Grueburn as if she were clenching her fists. “Linden Giantfriend reasons wisely. I have felt my flesh scalded by Kastenessen’s touch, Giant though I am. I applaud her caution.”

  For a long moment, the Humbled did not speak. They may have been considering Linden’s appeal. Or they may have already dismissed it. She could not read them.

  But Clyme and Branl made no move toward Galesend and Anele.

  From his place behind Jeremiah and the croyel, Galt stated, “I serve no purpose as I am, except as bondage for this fell creature. If a Giant will consent to assume my task, I do not fear to confront Kastenessen once more.”

  With an unfamiliar asperity, Stave asked Galt,“And are you, Humbled and Haruchai, the equal of any Giant against the puissance of an Elohim who has merged with the skurj?”

  “I repeat,” Galt retorted, “that I do not fear—”

  Stave cut him off. “You are also a Master. That service presumes that you do not fear. Therefore it demands your concern for the larger well-being of others, for the preservation of your companions as well as of the Land.

  “In this, you have already failed. You did not warn the Stonedownor of his peril. You made no attempt to evade Kastenessen, either for Liand’s sake or for that of the Chosen’s son. Do not speak of fearlessness when you have withheld your full service from this company.”

  The krill blazed in Galt’s eyes, implying anger that his countenance concealed. Instinctively Linden feared an attack on Stave. For se
veral heartbeats, there was no sound apart from the restless tension of the Giants, Mahrtiir’s vexed respiration, and the delicate waft of the breeze.

  Then, in unison, the three Humbled nodded.

  “We are answered,” Clyme announced. “For the present, we will await the counsel of the ur-Lord. If thereafter we determine a different course, we will speak of it plainly. We desire no animosity with the Giants, whom we honor. Also the Unbeliever has commanded our acquiescence to Linden Avery.”

  In spite of her personal darkness, Linden felt a moment of relief. Rime Coldspray sighed: a gust of released pressure. Then she acknowledged, “That also is well said.” Other Swordmainnir broke their silence, commenting quietly to each other. Mahrtiir turned away as if he were biting his tongue.

  After a brief exchange with Onyx Stonemage, the Ironhand said formally, “We are Giants. We crave the release of a caamora. Here, however, we have no fire for our grief. How then shall we lament Liand of Mithil Stonedown’s passing?”

  Lament? Linden’s chest tightened at the thought. If she allowed herself sorrow now, she might not be able to contain it.

  Yet how could she refuse to grieve for Liand, when he had given so much of himself?

  She had done nothing to ease the burns and hurts of her companions.

  “In a distant age,” Stave offered after a moment, “when each Stonedown was nurtured by the lore of the rhadhamaerl, Liand’s forebears raised cairns to honor their fallen.”

  Coldspray considered the idea; nodded sharply. “Then we will do likewise. Perhaps it is fortuitous that we have no abundance of worthy stone.” She indicated the ridge. “We must delve and strain to wrest condign rock from the earth of these hills. By that labor, we will attempt to articulate our woe.”

  One at a time, her comrades expressed their approval.

  But Linden said, “No.” Then she corrected herself. “I mean, not right away. If you don’t mind, I want to be alone with him for a while.” She could not ease her heart by carrying rocks. “I need a chance to say goodbye. Before you cover him up.”

  She read the emanations of the Giants clearly, though they did not speak. They were not reluctant to respect her wishes. They simply had no words suited to her distress. Stave and the Humbled said nothing. For its own obscure reasons, the croyel withheld its bitterness or mockery. But Mahrtiir reached up to touch Cirrus Kindwind’s arm.

  “Come, Giant,” he urged quietly. “Let us discover if any of the Ardent’s largesse remains. The Ramen also must lament Liand’s death. But it is our nature to do so running, as Cord Pahni now runs, and perhaps Cord Bhapa also. I will expend my own sorrow when we have learned the full extent to which we have been harmed by caesures.”

  Mutely Kindwind accompanied the Manethrall, taking Covenant with her, as he turned to descend the ridgeside toward the stream where the companions had left their supplies.

  Together the other Giants bowed their heads and followed. But not in silence now. Instead, softly, their Ironhand began to sing.

  “There is no death that is not deeply felt,

  No pain that does not bite through flesh and bone.

  All hurt is like the endless surge of seas,

  The wear and tumbling that leaves no welt

  But only sand instead of granite ease.”

  Frostheart Grueburn’s voice joined Coldspray’s for the second line, and Cabledarm’s for the third. Line by line, each Giant added her sadness to the song until all of them were singing. Before the end of the second stanza, the Ironhand’s threnody had risen to become a shared hymn.

  “Yet stone endures, endures, against the surge:

  It comes to sand, and still the world is stone.

  While shores are gnawed, new mountains elsewhere rise.

  And so the seas’ lament is not a dirge:

  It is a prayer for rock that fronts the skies,

  “The calm of rock that always meets the seas,

  A harmony that is both song and groan.

  This music is the Earth’s reply to pain,

  The slow release that lifts us from our knees.

  By this, harsh death becomes both loss and gain.”

  Stormpast Galesend still carried Anele, still unconscious, still clutching the Sunstone as though his fate depended on it.

  While the last Giants left the ridge, Clyme and Branl separated, heading north and south to resume their insufficient watch. Stave also walked out into the night, although he did not go far. And Galt trailed after the Swordmainnir, taking Jeremiah carefully down the uneven slope. Soon Linden was left alone with Liand’s body.

  Alone and lightless, regarded only by the bereavement of the stars.

  Briefly she considered her Staff and Covenant’s ring, but did not retrieve them. Instead she moved slowly toward Liand’s ruined form. Thinking, Gain? Oh, Liand! she sank to her knees beside her friend and bowed her head to the pebbles and crushed gypsum.

  There is hope in contradiction.

  Maybe that was true. But she could not see it. Her only consolation was that Jeremiah did not belong to Lord Foul. If he had indeed been claimed, as the Despiser apparently believed, he would not need to hide his thoughts in graves.

  When Linden returned to the canyon at last, with the Staff of Law in her hand, Covenant’s ring hanging from its chain around her neck, and sorrows engraved like galls on her countenance, the first pallor of dawn had touched the east, emphasizing the crooked horizon of the hills. Stave had joined her when she had walked partway down the first slope, but he had said nothing; asked nothing. And she had not spoken. What could she have said that Stave had not already heard?

  In silence, they made their way across the shale and slippage of the hillsides until they reached the thick sand of the canyon-bottom and the impatient mutter of the stream.

  There they found their companions organizing the supplies left behind by one of Joan’s caesures. In the light of the krill, Linden saw that several bundles remained. Most of the bedrolls were gone, as well as a few waterskins and two or three sacks of food. But a substantial portion of the Ardent’s providence was intact.

  That was good fortune, better than she had imagined. But it did not touch her.

  Anele was awake now, eating a sparse meal that Latebirth had set out for him. Protected in Galesend’s armor, he ate with one hand, clutching Liand’s orcrest with the other. However, he showed no sign that contact with the Sunstone had relieved his madness. When Linden studied him more closely, she saw that he had buried his legacy of Earthpower deep within him, as if he feared its interaction with orcrest. Not for the first time, she thought that he did not want to be sane. Not now: not yet. He dreaded what coherence would impose on him—or require from him.

  Mahrtiir also was eating a little food. Jeremiah chewed and swallowed whatever Cabledarm put in his mouth, drank whatever she offered, without any perceptible reaction. But the Giants had apparently decided to save their rations for an occasion of greater need. And Covenant’s absence was as plain as a seizure. Broken memories held him, leaving him as uninhabited as Jeremiah.

  As if Linden’s silence were a commandment, no one spoke. Rime Coldspray and the other Giants watched her with shrouded eyes, keeping what they saw to themselves. The Manethrall finished his food, swallowed a little water. Then, severely, he gestured for Linden’s attention and pointed her toward Covenant.

  When she did not respond, he sighed. Breaking the night’s quietude seemed to cost him an effort as he said, “Like the Cords, Ringthane, I must run my grief. I await only your word. Shall I endeavor to rouse Thomas Covenant? Whether his plight is cruel or soothing, I cannot discern. Therefore the choice is yours.”

  Part of Linden wanted to leave Covenant alone. She wanted the same thing for herself. But her need for him was greater.

  “All right.” She sounded awkward to herself, as if she had forgotten how to use her voice. “Give it a try. We have too many decisions to make, and I don’t know where to start. Maybe this time he’ll remember�
��”

  Her throat closed. Her last decision had led to Liand’s death.

  Mahrtiir nodded sharply. He was in a hurry. Pinching the nub of a withered bloom from his garland, he rubbed it between his palms as he approached Covenant. There he squatted. With a mute glance up at Cirrus Kindwind, he asked for her aid. The last time that he had used amanibhavam in this fashion, Covenant had hurt his head on the boulder.

  Kindwind responded by kneeling beside Covenant and cupping her hand behind his head. The stump of her forearm she held ready to catch him if he flung himself to one side or the other.

  In slashes of argent from Loric’s gem, Linden saw Mahrtiir close Covenant’s mouth and press powdered grass to Covenant’s nose. She saw Covenant inhale; felt the lingering potency of amanibhavam spread like a pang into his bloodstream.

  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.”