Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  “Ringthane.” Now the Manethrall’s tone revealed an edge of asperity. “That we do not strive to grasp the thoughts of the Ranyhyn does not imply that they cannot grasp ours. How otherwise are we able to serve them, if they cannot comprehend us?

  “The Timewarden has spoken of trust. And you have given your assent. If you now wish to recant, do so. Ask of Hyn what you will. Command her according to the dictates of your heart. I will await the outcome with interest.”

  Just for a moment, Linden considered taking the dare. She wanted another chance to be with Covenant. To protect him if she could. To understand why he had turned his back on her.

  But then she shook her head; resisted an impulse to slap herself.—spoken of trust. She needed some way to control her accelerating descent into darkness; and she knew from long experience that she could not refuse the logic of despair if she became incapable of trust. Eventually she would succumb—

  Days ago, she had urged her companions to doubt her. All well and good, as far as it went. She had doubted herself: therefore she had needed to believe that her friends made their own choices freely. But the ultimate implication of her insistence then was that she had doubted them.

  Was that not why Kevin Landwaster had committed the Ritual of Desecration? He had blamed himself for the Land’s plight—and had not trusted any other power to accomplish what he could not.

  Now Mahrtiir had effectively challenged her to admit the truth about her doubts; and she could not. She had already done too much harm. She no longer had any real choice except to cling to her friends and the Ranyhyn.

  In the end, every other alternative would lead her back to She Who Must Not Be Named.

  Her silence seemed to satisfy Mahrtiir. He held his head high and his back straight, concentrating ahead of Narunal as he led the company off the flints into a region of shale and sandstone mounded like barrows or the detritus of glaciers.

  There the Ranyhyn could have quickened their pace safely. But they did not. Even at a canter, Covenant and the Humbled might be leagues ahead of them by now. Nevertheless Narunal continued to move as if the Ranyhyn had no purpose other than to conserve the stamina of the Giants. As if Linden and her companions had chosen to put their faith in an illusion.

  As if the Ranyhyn intended to let her slip deeper into despair.

  As the sun sank past the rim of Landsdrop, casting the abused terrain of the Lower Land into shadow, caesures began to appear. At first, they were sporadic and transient; frequent only in comparison to their occurrence on the Upper Land. They danced at intervals across ground that had been laid waste by ancient battles and rapine, storms of theurgy, bitter despoilage: danced and flickered and went out, posing no threat. But as night gathered over the extended litter of mounds, the Falls came more often, and lasted longer. They hit with the force of a concussion, stirred time and stone and air into turmoil. When they vanished, the sudden vacuum of their absence tugged at the breath in Linden’s lungs.

  Somewhere Joan’s hysteria appeared to be approaching a crisis. Watching the horizons anxiously, Linden could only surmise that Covenant was headed in the right direction—and that Joan knew he was coming.

  Joan, or turiya Herem: there was no useful distinction, apart from the fact that Joan was weaker than the Raver.

  As far as Linden could see, Joan’s weakness was Covenant’s sole hope. The krill and the Humbled could not protect him from gyres of chaos more destructive than tornadoes. Even the Ranyhyn could not—and he was mounted only on the Harrow’s destrier.

  Despite the erratic stutter and squall of caesures, however, Narunal, Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen retained their ability to find forage and water. Somehow they discovered small rills in cracks among the rocks, stubborn clumps of grass in hollows that looked too dry to sustain vegetation. Without turning aside from Covenant’s trail, they located occasional clusters of aliantha.

  In the aftermath of the Despiser’s wars and workings, treasure-berries grew too sparsely to meet the needs of the Giants. Still, a little of the viridian fruit, and a sparing use of the Ardent’s supplies, and a few opportunities to refill the waterskins kept the Swordmainnir on their feet.

  Lit only by the stars, by the first faint suggestion of moonlight, and by the wild glare of caesures as uncounted centuries of day and night were flung together, the company kept moving. Apparently the Ranyhyn had decided that they could not afford rest.

  Disturbed by the unpredictable eruption of Falls, Linden became less and less sure of her surroundings. Details of stone and terrain blurred into vagueness. In addition, she felt a storm coming. The nerves of her skin tasted confusion in the air, abraded winds rising, ambient pressures shifting in response to the violence of the caesures. But she made no attempt to estimate the severity of the storm. The effects of Joan’s madness demanded her attention. If a Fall came too close, she had to be ready.

  Concentrating on dangers, she was taken by surprise when the horses stopped. They had entered a low vale between outcroppings of basalt so smooth and slick that they hinted at the distant abandonment of the stars. A tentative trickle of water ran down the vale-bottom, tending eastward; and tough grasses clung to life there, interspersed with more aliantha than the company had found elsewhere.

  There the Manethrall and then Stave dismounted. As Narunal and Hynyn trotted away, Mahrtiir announced quietly, “Some rest we must have. The Ranyhyn will watch over us.”

  In a chorus of soft groans and sighs, the Giants gathered around Linden and Hyn, Jeremiah and Khelen. Some of them loosened their cataphracts, dropped the shaped stones to the grass. While Stormpast Galesend lifted Jeremiah from his mount, Cabledarm and Onyx Stonemage began to unpack a meal. All of the Swordmainnir were uneasy, troubled by the possible burgeoning of caesures, the approach of bad weather. But they could not refuse a chance for food and sleep.

  As Khelen cantered away after Narunal and Hynyn, Linden slipped down from Hyn’s back; let the mare go. Stave had already set out the bedroll for her, but she ignored it. Of Mahrtiir, she asked, “Did Covenant stop here?”

  Like the Manethrall and the Giants, she spoke softly. She did not know the Lower Land; did not know what waited in the night. Loud sounds might attract notice—

  “I gauge that he did,” Mahrtiir replied, almost whispering. “Hooves have preceded us. Treasure-berries have been plucked. But his pause was brief. Had he lingered here, more sign of his mount would be evident.”

  “How far ahead is he?”

  “Perhaps five leagues.” Now the Manethrall sounded less assured. “Certainly no more than ten. At greater speed, the marks of his passing would be more distinct, the strides longer.”

  Linden tried to consider the implications of Covenant’s progress. But she could not imagine them: her scant experience of the Lower Land did not extend this far south.

  Keeping her voice low, she asked Stave where she was.

  Around her, the Giants gave no obvious sign that they were listening. Instead they prepared a meal, or gathered aliantha, or shed their armor and massaged each other’s sorest muscles. Yet Linden felt the weight of their oblique attention.

  Only Jeremiah appeared to hear and understand nothing.

  The shared memories of Stave’s people were precise. “At present,” he said without hesitation, “we travel the arid marge which separates the foothills of Landsdrop from the wetlands of Sarangrave Flat. This terrain is not wide. Its constriction may account for the fact that our path follows the Unbeliever’s.

  “Where we now rest, Landsdrop continues to the southeast. If the Ranyhyn do not quicken their pace, we will remain much as we are for perhaps another day. Then, however, we will attain both the easternmost cliffs of Landsdrop and the southern reaches of the Sarangrave. In that place, the broken plinth of the Colossus will stand high above us, while beyond it the River Landrider plunges from the Plains of Ra to become the Ruinwash.”

  “Aye,” Mahrtiir put in: a muffled growl. “And along the leagues of Landsdrop which demar
k the Plains of Ra are many ascents. There the armies of Fangthane breached the Upper Land in an age long past, bringing their savagery first to the Ranyhyn and their Ramen.”

  Stave nodded. “Beyond the Sarangrave, the Spoiled Plains fill the Lower Land both eastward to the Sunbirth Sea and southward beyond the ken of the Haruchai. There the purpose of the Ranyhyn may diverge from the ur-Lord’s, if they do not first turn to essay Landsdrop. Our path and his will no longer be constrained by the perils of the Flat, and of the lurker.

  “From the Colossus,” he continued, “the shattered site of Foul’s Creche lies somewhat south of east, torn from a promontory of cliffs which front the Sunbirth Sea. Between the Colossus and that rent habitation are arrayed the Spoiled Plains, still rife with the effects of Corruption’s malice, then the Shattered Hills, a maze and snare for the unwary, and last the long-cooled floes of lava which were once Hotash Slay. In the time of the Unbeliever’s first triumph over Corruption, Hotash Slay formed the final defense of Foul’s Creche, ancient Ridjeck Thome. After the destruction wrought by the ur-Lord’s victory, however, the lava spilled into the Sea until its sources were drained.

  “The Masters seldom journey there, seeing no purpose in the visitation of sites where memories of Corruption’s cruelest evils linger. But upon occasion they have confirmed the lifelessness of his former abode.”

  For a moment, Linden no longer heard what Stave was saying. He had triggered a memory that stopped her ears; that almost stopped her heart.

  Joan.

  A wasteland of shattered stone, the rubble of a riven cliff.

  The unmistakable tumble and flow of surf crashing forever on rocks.

  And turiya Herem.

  Oh, Covenant! He was going—He was going there.

  Then the abrupt glare and seethe of a caesure snatched at her. Instinctively her heart clenched: she scrambled for Earthpower.

  An instant later, however, her senses snapped into focus, and she realized that the Fall was too far away to harm the company. If it came closer—

  It did not. For a few heartbeats, it writhed eastward, increasing the distance. Then it vanished with the suddenness of a thunderclap.

  Linden took a deep breath, loosened her grip on the Staff; tried to calm her hammering pulse.

  God in Heaven! Covenant—

  The storm brewed by so many temporal disruptions was growing stronger. But that threat was easier to ignore.

  She had to force words between the mallet-strokes of her heart. “That’s where Covenant is going.”

  Stave seemed to understand her. “Mayhap,” he said with a shrug. “Or mayhap his goal lies more to the south. Or—”

  Linden cut him off. “He’s going to Foul’s Creche.”

  “Are you certain, Ringthane?” Mahrtiir asked tensely. And Rime Coldspray added, “How have you derived this knowledge?”

  “She’s Joan,” Linden replied as if that were answer enough. “Where else would she be?” But then she compelled herself to explain. A promontory jutting into the sea. Torn apart when Covenant destroyed the Illearth Stone. “I saw her. I was there.

  “You weren’t,” she told Mahrtiir. He had said so when they had spoken of this in Revelstone. “I’m talking about that first caesure. The one that took us to the Staff. The Ranyhyn and the ur-viles protected you.” She turned to Stave. “And you didn’t let yourself get sucked in. You recognized the Raver. You were strong enough to stay away.

  “But I couldn’t do that. I was caught in Joan’s mind. I saw what she saw, heard what she heard. That was part of what made the whole thing so terrible.” In the spaces between her heartbeats, the memory was more vivid to her than any of her companions, more immediate than the coming storm, or the night’s unfathomable implications. “I saw the remains of a broken cliff. I heard waves.

  “Covenant is going to Foul’s Creche.”

  The Giants studied her closely. But they said nothing: they had not shared her experiences within Falls.

  Stave considered Linden’s assertion, then nodded. “I cannot gainsay you. If the Unbeliever must confront his doom at Ridjeck Thome, it is fitting that he should do so. Yet this insight does not elucidate our own path.

  “Chosen”—abruptly his manner intensified, although he did not raise his voice—“the Ardent spoke of a need for death. Recalling his words, I must observe that no region of the Land has endured more carnage than the Spoiled Plains. The ravages inflicted upon the Upper Land pale beside the multiplicity of blights and bloodshed which the Spoiled Plains have endured. Their condition is the unredeemed outcome of Corruption’s malice.

  “Is it not therefore plausible that the answer to your purported need lies there?”

  Linden ignored him. Another caesure glared and crackled in the west. A league away? Less? It extinguished itself quickly; but it made her flinch nonetheless. God, Joan was driving herself crazy—

  She knew Covenant was coming.

  A storm of her own gathered in Linden. “Damn it!” she cried. “We have to stop him.” Letting him go, she had made another hideous mistake. “We have to catch up with him and stop him!”

  The Ironhand stared at her. “With our strength as it is, and the Ranyhyn content walking? How shall we accomplish such a feat? And did the Timewarden not forbid our presence?”

  “He said it was too dangerous,” Linden retorted. An excuse for leaving her. “But he got it backward. It’s too dangerous for him. He’s gambling that Joan’s need to hurt him is going to break her before she can destroy him.” What else could he do? Loric’s krill could not ward him from wild magic. “But he isn’t just gambling with his own life. He’s gambling with everything.” She hardly noticed that she was shouting. “And he’s doing it without me! I’m the only one who can protect him, and he couldn’t wait to get away!”

  “Madness,” assented Coldspray equably. If Linden’s vehemence troubled her, she did not show it. “Utter and undoubted folly.” She may have been chuckling. “Indeed, were I not myself deranged, made so by the sad truth that I am a Giant withal, I might venture to suggest that his conduct is very nearly as demented as our own. He merely knows with whom he wagers, and how, and why. The same cannot be said of us. We have gone further, for we can name neither our foe nor our intent.”

  Before Linden could respond, Frostheart Grueburn advised in an amiable grumble, “Do not heed her, Linden Giantfriend. The Ironhand jests lamely, like a Swordmain with one foot cleft. She means to aver only that in straits as extreme as ours, one gamble is much like another.

  “Thomas Covenant wagers all things on his own strength and resource, and on the friable extravagance of a possessed white gold wielder. We have chosen to entrust our fate, and the Land’s, and the Earth’s to the Ranyhyn. Time—if it endures—will reveal who has been wiser.”

  “And is it not also true,” Mahrtiir suggested, “that we are in greater peril from caesures and other evils than the Timewarden? We are many by comparison, and commensurately vulnerable. He and the Humbled are few. Surely their need for protection does not exceed ours.”

  “It addition,” Stave stated flatly, “it is the word of the Unbeliever that you have a separate task to perform. If you strive to preserve him, you may thwart some greater purpose which we do not yet comprehend.”

  Protests clamored in Linden. You don’t understand. She was running out of ways to fend off the darkness that filled her heart. I want to do something that makes sense. I can’t let Joan kill him.

  But that was not what he desired of her. I expect you to do what you’ve always done. Something unexpected. And she had already missed her chance to help him: she knew that. When she had let him ride away, she had surrendered her right to share his fate—or to ask him to share hers. It was too late to change her mind. None of her mistakes could be undone. If Joan killed Covenant, Linden would have no one to blame except herself.

  Trust was a bitter joke—and she had forgotten how to laugh.

  Avoiding the concerned stares of her compan
ions, she tried to pretend that she had recovered her emotional balance. “All right. I understand.” She did not want their misdirected reassurances. “I just wish I could be with him.

  “Don’t worry about me. You should get some rest, all of you. Sleep if you can. I’m going to find someplace where I can see farther. The Ranyhyn can’t save us if a Fall gets too close.”

  Then she turned away, hoping to forestall arguments. Unsure of her ability to climb the basalt in such darkness, she began to walk along the vale after the horses.

  She heard the Giants murmuring anxiously to each other, felt Mahrtiir’s troubled regard and Stave’s blunt gaze. Jeremiah’s emptiness made it plain that he did not need her. Tightening her grasp on the Staff, she pushed herself to walk more quickly.

  Her parents had taught her how to meet despair; but there were other answers. She had learned a few from her patients in Berenford Memorial.

  Soon she found a southward slope beyond the basalt. But when she climbed to the hillcrest, she was not high enough to scan the dark horizons for more than a stone’s throw in any direction; so she moved toward the nearest obstruction and plodded upward again.

  That rise afforded her a clear line of sight for perhaps a third of a league on all sides. Was it enough? She did not know. But the vantage suited her. Here she could no longer feel the emanations of her companions. And the ground was littered with loose stones, some of them sharp enough for her purpose.

  She was as weary in her own way as any of the Swordmainnir, yet she needed to stay awake. Hunger and thirst might suffice to keep her from dozing for a time. Cold might help. But she needed more, and had other plans.

  Somewhere in the night, one of the Ranyhyn nickered a query. Surely that was Hyn? But Linden did not know how to respond; and the soft call was not repeated.

  She needed to be left alone. When she had seated herself on uncomfortable rocks exposed to the accumulating turbulence in the air, however, her nerves recognized Stave’s approach. He held a waterskin and a handful of treasure-berries. Over one shoulder, he carried the bedroll.