Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  Then the geas left the frail man. As if he were crumpling, he folded to the sand. Propped on his hands and knees, no longer able to call on his apparel for support, he gasped small bursts of broken laughter.

  The Cords? Linden thought. The Cords? Oh, God!

  Covenant had foreseen this—

  He scowled at the dying man as though he wanted to hear more.—another purpose. But the Giants turned to regard Manethrall Mahrtiir. Studying his bandaged visage, Rime Coldspray said uncertainly, “It is much to ask. Surely Stave or one of the Humbled—?”

  Without a flicker of hesitation, Stave stated, “My kinsmen will not harken to me. And the Humbled will not part from the Unbeliever. It is bootless to inquire of them.”

  “Then a Giant?” asked the Ironhand. “The Masters have made their unwelcome plain for many centuries. Nonetheless I will believe that they have not forgotten their ancient esteem, first for the Unhomed and later for the comrades of the Search.”

  “No.” The Manethrall spoke as if his word were Law. “My Cords will bear this burden. It was foretold for them. They will not refuse it.”

  —you two have the hardest job. You’ll have to survive. And you’ll have to make them listen to you.

  For the same reason, Mahrtiir could not accompany them. Covenant had counseled him to take a different path.

  You’ll have to go a long way to find your heart’s desire. Just be sure you come back.

  Shaken, Bhapa cried softly, “Manethrall, no. I implore you!”

  Instinctively Linden wanted to add her voice to the Cord’s. She feared Covenant’s prophecies. They all seemed to mean death.

  She’s already given them too many reasons to feel ashamed of themselves.

  But Pahni swept forward as if she were pouncing. “Yes!” The eagerness of a hawk shone in her soft eyes. “I will lay Liand’s death at the feet of the Masters and compel an answer. They deem themselves the descendants of the Bloodguard. I will require of them a comparable service.

  “Come, Bhapa,” she commanded. Passionate and peremptory, she extended her hand to the older Cord. “No Cord may refuse when the Manethrall speaks and the Land’s need is clear.”

  The Ardent made aimless sounds in the back of his throat. He was too weak to chuckle.

  With something like sympathy in his voice, Mahrtiir asked, “Will you gainsay me, Bhapa? Were you selected to accompany the Ringthane along the path of her many travails because you were counted unfit for lesser duties? Did not Whrany consent to bear you, when until that day no Raman had ever ridden the Ranyhyn? And did not Rohnhyn freely offer himself when Whrany was slain? The Timewarden has spoken of trust. The time has come for Cord Bhapa of the Ramen to trust himself.”

  Panic filled Bhapa’s mien: alarm glistened in his eyes. The skin of his face was the color of sun-beaten dust.

  But then, trembling, he bowed to his Manethrall. His hand quivered like an aspen leaf about to fall as he accepted Pahni’s clasp.

  With a visible effort, Covenant unclosed his fingers from the krill. “I’m sorry,” he muttered to no in particular. “If this was my idea—” He grimaced. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking. You deserve an explanation, but I don’t have one.”

  Bitterly Linden swore to herself. Under other circumstances, she might have protested. She did not know how to bear Liand’s death, or Anele’s, or even Galt’s. She did not want to lose Bhapa and Pahni as well.

  Panting, the Ardent said hoarsely, “Timewarden.”

  Covenant moved closer. “Yes?”

  Stretched thin with effort, the Ardent urged as clearly as he could, “Remember Mishio Massima.”

  Covenant stared. “Is that your true name?”

  Could he be invoked? Even when he was so close to collapse?

  The dying man gave a cracked laugh. “It is my steed.”

  A moment later, the geas of the Insequent gripped him for the last time. It wrenched him to his feet with his head thrown back as if he needed to scream. Ribbands coiled spasmodically around him; fell to the ground; twisted upward again. His hands clutched at the air like claws.

  “It is enough,” he said as if the words were torn from his throat. “We are content. Here ends the Ardent. If the Earth endures, he will be honored as the greatest of the Insequent.”

  A moment later, his raiment reached out to clasp Pahni and Bhapa. So quickly that the Cords had no chance to say farewell, he gathered them to him and vanished.

  Involuntarily Linden staggered as if she wished to follow them. Their departure seemed to leave a gap in the air that she needed to fill. But Stave caught her instantly; and of course she had nowhere to go.

  At her side, Mahrtiir sagged like a man unexpectedly bereft. Now that his Cords were gone, his aura revealed a pang of uncertainty, as if he had sent them to be humiliated. Nothing that Handir and the other Masters had done in Revelstone gave the Manethrall cause to believe that Bhapa and Pahni would succeed.

  Linden hoped that one of the Giants would say something to reassure Mahrtiir. She could not. But Covenant had already flung himself into motion; resumed his pacing. “Hellfire,” he growled to himself. “His steed?” Briefly he appeared to count the number of times that he could repeat those words between one slope of the canyon and the other. Then he wheeled to face the company.

  His manner compelled their attention in spite of the abrupt loss of Pahni and Bhapa—and of the Ardent.

  “I don’t need to know the name of his damn horse,” he rasped. “I have to go.” Then he swore again, a string of curses so familiar that they sounded like pleading. To Linden’s startled dismay, and the small lift of Stave’s eyebrow, and the open surprise of the Swordmainnir, he repeated, “I have to go.”

  Brusque with self-coercion, he added, “I know this is sudden. Never mind that I’m usually useless. You still think you need me. You went through too much to bring me back in the first place. Probably the last thing you want right now is to watch me leave. Hell, if I were you, that’s how I would feel. But I have to go.

  “And you can’t go with me. Before I worry about anything else, there’s something I have to do alone.”

  —he has another purpose.

  While Linden reeled within herself, he shrugged awkwardly. “Well, not absolutely alone. I’m taking Clyme and Branl with me. You’ll have to manage without them until I get back.”

  With both hands, he held the bundled krill as if his life depended on it.

  He must not step aside from it.

  Disconcerted, the Giants struggled to muster a response. Mahrtiir stared at Covenant in unconcealed chagrin. Even Stave’s flat visage gave hints of disapprobation.

  “Is this some new recollection?” the Ironhand inquired finally. “Do you now possess knowledge or understanding which you have not revealed?”

  But Linden noticed none of her companions; no one except the man who had once loved her—and now would not let her touch him.

  “Covenant,” she panted, unconsciously fighting for breath. “Covenant.” He was rejecting her. “What are you talking about?” God, he was rejecting her. “I need—We need—” Her sins had become too much for him. “God damn it, Covenant! If you don’t care about anything else, the Land needs you.”

  She had awakened the Worm for his sake. She could not suffer the consequences of her desperation or folly without him.

  “Linden, listen to me.” His gaze was flagrant with emotions for which she had no names. His eyes were blurred fires of loss or pity or pure rage. “I’m talking about Joan.”

  For an instant, he raised the krill as if he meant to drive it into Linden’s chest. Then his features twisted. Roughly he shoved the shrouded weapon back into his jeans. Empty-handed, as if he were defenseless, he tried to explain.

  “She’s not just a white gold wielder who can make the whole created world into a wasteland if she lives long enough. And she’s not just going through the tortures of the damned because bloody turiya and the bloody skest won’t let her die. She was
my wife. She’s Roger’s mother. I owe her for that.” He may have meant restitution or retribution. “She’s my problem. I can’t do anything else until I deal with her.”

  While Linden struggled for air, Rime Coldspray stepped forward. To counter Covenant’s intensity, she spoke with the steadiness of stone.

  “Covenant Timewarden. I perceive now that you have awaited this opportunity, when the krill is no longer needed to secure Linden Giantfriend’s son. For your restraint, I honor you.

  “But the Ardent has spoke of Sandgorgons and skurj, and of the imperative need for some response to the manner in which Kastenessen has shackled the Staff of Law and all Earthpower. Is this not more urgent than the plight of a lone madwoman?”

  “Hell and blood!” Uselessly Covenant brandished his maimed fists. “I heard the Ardent. I know what’s at stake. But I’ve already sacrificed my own daughter. I can’t go on until I’ve faced Joan. Sometimes we have to do things that are more important than saving the world. Sometimes we can’t save anything else until we’ve cleaned up our own lives.”

  “Then why,” objected the Ironhand, “must you refuse our aid?” Her tone did not waver. “Here are eight Giants, a Manethrall of the Ramen, Stave of the Haruchai, and Linden Giantfriend. Surely our combined strengths are not too paltry to be of service.”

  But her reasoning or her calm seemed to infuriate Covenant. “God in Heaven!” he retorted. “Are none of you paying attention? You can’t go with me because it’s too dangerous . Joan makes caesures. Just one of those things in the wrong place at the wrong instant, and there won’t be anybody left who can even try to defend the Land.

  “Besides—” With a visible effort, he caught himself; swallowed his extremity. Squaring his shoulders, he faced Linden. “You have other things to do.”

  “Like what?” Light-headedness had become a roaring in Linden’s ears. Black spots danced across her vision like inverted Wraiths. She had no argument except her own weakness. “What do you expect us to do without you? We barely survived Roger and the Cavewights.” And Esmer. “We don’t even know how to help Jeremiah. What do you think that we can accomplish against Kastenessen and skurj and Sandgorgons and moksha Jehannum? Against Lord Foul and the damn Worm of the World’s End?”

  Why do you want to get away from me so badly?

  “Linden, stop,” Covenant urged. His quiet restraint resembled a kind of flagellation. “You’re just intimidating yourself. Everything is simpler than you make it sound. I expect you to do what you’ve always done. Something unexpected. Which you are by God good at. You’ve surprised me more times than I can count. There’s no one else like you.

  “Just trust yourself. That’s all. That’s all. Everything else will take care of itself.

  “If it doesn’t—” Sighing, he shrugged again. “There was nothing you could have done anyway.”

  Linden found a deep breath, and another. Stave was still holding her.“It’s not that easy.” Slowly the spots faded from her eyes. “Do you even know where to look for Joan?”

  Covenant did not look away. “I can guess. The Ardent brought us this far for a reason. I figure all I have to do now is go farther. If I don’t find her, she’ll find me.”

  Before Linden could manage another protest, Manethrall Mahrtiir demanded without preamble, “Will you journey afoot?”

  “Hell, no.” Now Covenant shifted his attention from Linden. In his mind, apparently, he had already turned away. “We don’t have time. Clyme or Branl can summon the Ranyhyn.”

  In a burst of indignation, the Manethrall asked, “What then becomes of your vow that you will not ride? Must I name you an oath breaker? Did you not once aver to the great horses rearing that you would not ask them to bear you?”

  “I did,” Covenant admitted. Ignoring the dismay and uncertainty of the company—ignoring Linden—he walked stiffly across the sand, heading along the floor of the ravine. “How often do I have to talk about trust? They’re Ranyhyn, for God’s sake. They’ll think of something.”

  Linden watched him go as if he were forsaking her.

  After a few tense strides, he shouted up at the hilltops, “It’s time! Call the Ranyhyn!”

  But he did not pause for a response from Branl or Clyme. Quickening his pace, he passed between boulders and ragged slopes on either side as if he were eager to confront Joan.

  Eager to be done with life.

  The Humbled must have heard him. A lone whistle smote Linden’s heart. Among the barren hills, it sounded as forlorn as a wail in a lightless cavern.

  Clyme or Branl whistled a second time. A third.

  In the distance beyond Covenant, three horses came trotting down the shallow canyon.

  Two of them were Ranyhyn, Naybahn and Mhornym. The stars on their foreheads gleamed in the thick sunlight.

  The third was the Harrow’s destrier. Tossing its head in vexation or alarm, the tall brown stallion trotted between Naybahn and Mhornym with a glare of resentment in its eyes, as if the Ranyhyn had compelled it against its will.

  As the horses neared Covenant, Clyme and Branl appeared, sprinting down the treacherous hillsides to join him as if nothing could undermine their steps. They reached him moments before the Ranyhyn and the destrier stamped to a halt.

  With an air of ceremony, the Humbled greeted their mounts. They may have been speaking welcomes or rituals which had been ancient when Covenant had first visited the Land; but Linden refused to hear them.

  Until she saw Covenant heave himself into the Harrow’s saddle, she did not realize that he had not taken any of the company’s supplies. He had no food, no water, no blankets.

  He had said that he would come back; but he behaved like a man who did not expect to return.

  He was doing it again; sacrificing himself to spare the people he cared about most.

  Was there no one like her? Truly? She did not believe it. But beyond question there was no one like him.

  Perhaps that was why he had turned away from her. She had never been his equal.

  7.

  Implications of Trust

  Among eight Giants who towered over her, and Stave and Mahrtiir, who had never wavered, and Jeremiah, who remained as abandoned as a derelict, Linden Avery stood alone, staring hopelessly at the writhe of the ravine where Thomas Covenant, Branl, and Clyme had ridden out of sight.

  If she had been able to look at herself, she would have seen a bedraggled figure, worn and unkempt. Her hair had not known the touch of soap or brush for more days than she could count. After her attempts to wash it, it had dried into matted, impossible tangles. Her features had been eroded by care and loss until they resembled Covenant’s flensed countenance, but without his indomitable strictures. And the red of her shirt had lost much of its vividness, its clarity. The flannel was a mess of plucked threads and little rents dominated by the bullet hole over her heart. The swatch of fabric which she had torn from the hem for the Mahdoubt no longer seemed to have any significance: it merely made her look even more like a refugee from a better life. The grass stains on her jeans below the knees were as indecipherable as Caerroil Wildwood’s runes.

  And the Staff of Law, stained to fuligin when its shaft should have been as clean as the One Tree’s heartwood—Its import lies beyond my ken. Even her use of its flame had become darkness, echoing the condition of her soul: stark and irredeemable.

  Covenant’s departure was an open wound. Without his ring, he had no defense against caesures and chaos. He could not even control the seduction of his broken memories. And Joan knew him: she—or turiya Raver—could sense his touch on Loric’s krill. Linden urgently wished to believe that he was not riding to his death; but that hope eluded her.

  His abandonment left her with nothing to shield her. In spite of his vulnerabilities, she had counted on him in ways that were too profound for language. Yet he considered his ex-wife more important, or more urgent. It’s like Joan has me on a string. I can’t do anything else until I deal with her.

  He
had told Linden, You have other things to do, but she could not imagine what they might be.

  Because Jeremiah was all that endured of the loves which had shaped her life, she dropped the Staff and went to him. With both arms, she hugged him hard, trying to anchor herself on the form that she had nurtured and tended for so many years. He was only a husk of the young man he should have been; an empty hull. But he had always been like this: his vacancy did not diminish his hold on her. And now she knew how he had concealed himself. She had stood in the graveyard of his mind. In some sense, she understood how he had resisted the croyel’s torments, and the Despiser’s.

  But she did not understand why Anele’s gift of Earthpower had failed to rouse her son. That mystery surpassed her. The vigor of his new theurgies was clear to every dimension of her health-sense. It should have sufficed—yet it was not enough.

  While Linden clung to her son, Rime Coldspray cleared her throat. “Linden Giantfriend.” Her voice was husky with weariness. A little food and a sufficiency of water could not replenish her spent strength. Nevertheless she sounded grimly determined. “The day flees from us. Soon the sun will near the rim of Landsdrop, and still we stand in this harm-ridden region. We must not delay longer. The Worm of the World’s End will not await our readiness to meet it.”

  Linden tightened her grip on Jeremiah for a moment. Then she let him go. The Ironhand was right. The sunlight slanted from the west, casting shadows like omens after Covenant. The fact that the Worm seemed like an abstraction, a mere word rather than an imminent threat, did not lessen its significance. Turning away from her son, Linden faced the leader of the Swordmainnir.

  As if for the first time, she saw how deeply exertion had chiseled Coldspray’s visage. The Ironhand bore the marks of strain and imponderable effort like galls on her forehead, around her eyes, along the sides of her mouth. Faint tremors shook her muscles whenever she moved.

  Apart from his bandage, Manethrall Mahrtiir’s features reflected Coldspray’s. His posture slumped uncharacteristically: he carried himself like a man who had cut off his hands by sending his Cords away. Of the three who had labored to honor Anele and Galt, only Stave showed no sign that he had paid a price. His hurts were internal, masked by his Haruchai mien and his stoicism.