Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  When he was satisfied, he stooped to his parallel splintered femurs and began to balance other bones on top of them as though he intended them to serve as foundations. As though he were constructing walls.

  Jeremiah was building.

  That’s natural talent. Roger’s tone had falsified everything he said; but he had told the truth about Jeremiah. The right shapes can change worlds. They’re like words.

  Linden struggled against blankness until her heart felt ready to burst. She had to fight to breathe. She had forgotten any words that were not prayers. Oh my God. Oh my God. OhmyGod.

  It was for this. The Ranyhyn had brought them here for this. So that Jeremiah could build.

  Your kid makes doors. All kinds of doors. Doors from one place to another. Doors through time. Doors between realities.

  It was all impossible: the unerring instincts of the horses; Jeremiah’s blank certainty; his strange strength. It was impossible that he could do what he did without focusing his eyes, or giving any sign that he was conscious of his hands. And it absolutely should have been impossible that those bones stayed where he put them, inconceivably poised on each other, defying gravity and their own lines. Their positions were so precarious, so oblivious to the dictates of mass and fit, that they all should have collapsed as soon as his fingers released them. Yet they remained where he put him: scapulae standing on their ends atop rows of phalanges, or resting off-center along awkward knobs of bone; tarsal blocks supporting rachitic lengths that may never have belonged to any natural creature; metatarsals wedged like afterthoughts between long thin fingers that looked like they would topple at any moment.

  First, he has to have the right materials for the door he wants to make. Exactly the right wood or stone or metal or bone or cloth—or racetracks. And they have to be in exactly the right shapes.

  Watching her son, Linden could not move. Amazement held her in a grip of stone. Her son was building. He was building! But she had never watched him make a construct like this one. Legos and Tinkertoys and raceway tracks interlocked. The branches and twigs with which he had fashioned his portal into Melenkurion Skyweir had been visibly braced on each other. Their own weight had held them in place. But this—

  Lost in shock, she took too long to notice that his hands were full of Earthpower when he placed the bones on each other; or that he seemed to caress each fragment before he moved on. Or that each new piece was then fused to those it touched: that each bone became one with the others as if he had welded them together.

  He was using Anele’s gift to keep his structure intact.

  And he was definitely making walls.

  Something about his use of power was familiar. Somewhere she had seen fused bone in the shape of a Ranyhyn rearing like the horses that ramped across the begrimed blue of Jeremiah’s pajamas.

  “Chosen,” Stave said—and more sharply, “Linden!”

  All of her senses were concentrated on her son; on the transcendental possibilities of his talent; on the magic in his hands. Moments seemed to pass while a distant part of her tried to recognize Stave’s voice.

  Fresh nausea prompted her to hear him. Like an act of abnegation, she forced herself to look away from Jeremiah—

  —and saw another caesure roaring like an inferno on the rim of the caldera.

  It had already torn apart several of the sandstone teeth, swept them into insanity. Now it rushed downward, a stinging holocaust that made havoc of everything in its path. It came from the side of the crater opposite Jeremiah. In another instant, it would begin to devour bones, spinning them toward a future of infinite devastation.

  Now Linden had no time for panic: no time and no patience. She wanted to watch her son. She wanted to watch her son. Exalted by outrage and frustration, she called a second flail of Earthpower from her Staff.

  Instead of the Seven Words, she shouted as if she were yelling at herself, Damn you, Joan! Leave us the hell alone!

  Where was Covenant? He should have stopped his ex-wife by now. Stopped her or died.

  Her indignation for Jeremiah multiplied her strength. Her Staff was a howl of theurgy. It thrummed in her hands as she flung stark blackness against the Fall. Hardly aware of what she did, she drove the caesure back. Then she incinerated it.

  It was gone before she recognized that she had succeeded. Enraged or enraptured, she went on lashing the air with Earthpower until Stave caught her arm, jerked her down from Hyn’s back.

  He startled her enough to make her stop.

  She had not seen him dismount. She had seen nothing except Jeremiah and then the caesure. Perhaps he had jumped down as he grabbed her arm. Now he turned her away from Jeremiah; forced her to look at him.

  “Chosen!” he said like a slap. “You must attend to our peril as well as to your son. I acknowledge that his efforts are an entrancement. Yet we must not be ensnared.” When she finally met his glare, he added, “And we must free the Ranyhyn to provide for their own safety. Mounted, we hinder them.”

  “That’s your job,” she retorted as though he had interrupted some vital task. “Your senses are better than mine anyway. I need to see this.”

  Roughly she pulled away from him. Freed of their riders, the Ranyhyn remained behind her, far enough away that she would not accidentally strike them with her Staff or her fire.

  Two steps took her closer to Jeremiah’s construct. Blind and deaf to everything except his own efforts, he had continued to work. Dissociated silt filled his gaze until he looked as sightless as Anele; but he had already balanced a broken femur upright on the base of a plate like a shoulder-blade, sealed it in place. Supported by phalanges, and by bones that mimicked snakes in agony, it rose taller than his head; taller than Linden’s. Now he selected another bone like it, splintered at one end, and positioned it standing an arm span beside the first. Together the two femurs looked like doorposts or the scantlings of a wall.

  Between heartbeats, Linden’s ire became excitement. At one time, she had loved watching him. He had been a wizard with Tinkertoys and Legos, wooden blocks, racetracks; endlessly fascinating. But now he was more, much more. And long days ago, she had experienced the power of his talent. Whatever he was making here, he would accomplish something wondrous.

  “Stave?” she breathed as if she had erased anger from her heart. “Do you know what this is? Do you know what he’s doing?”

  Standing at her side, the former Master answered with his accustomed stoicism, “No Haruchai has beheld its like, apart from that which resides in the Hall of Gifts. Yet I deem that this is anundivian yajña, marrowmeld, the Ramen craft of bone-sculpting. Their memory of it has ever been tarnished by sorrow, for the necessary lore was lost. How your son acquired such skill surpasses my conception.”

  Yes, Linden thought. In the Hall of Gifts. She wanted to believe that she could already feel power accumulating in the early stages of the construct; that its sheer glory would be apparent to Stave. But the bones remained stubbornly inert after each flaring of Earthpower. Their places in his design were still too fragmentary to imply their eventual shape and purpose.

  When Stave said her name again, however, she reacted at once. Readying her Staff, she strode away from Jeremiah. She hoped to put at least a few paces between him and anything that she might have to do.

  At first, she did not understand why Stave had called her. Under the leaden lid of the sky, she found only the untenable whiteness of bones, the circle of cleared ground, the shallow sides of the basin, the frangible jut of sandstone around the crater’s rim. But the Ranyhyn had skittered away in alarm. Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen rounded to the far side of the pile and halted there, fretting.

  What is it? Linden might have asked the Haruchai. What do you sense?

  Then she knew. She heard chiming—

  In an urgent clamor of bells, Infelice of the Elohim arrived like a whirlwind arising from the lifeless dirt.

  Imperial and proud, she confronted Linden. Adorned in gems and rich music, and clad in sendaline
woven and glittering like the stuff of dreams, the woman advanced like the world’s suzerain wreathed in wrath and judgment. The luster of her hair was bright with compulsions in spite of the waning sunshine, and she wore her supple loveliness as though it were an accusation. The gales implied by her eyes reminded Linden of Esmer’s sea-storm gaze.

  “Now you are thrice a Desecrator, Wildwielder!” Her voice might have been a bitter snarl, but it was tuned to the pitch of beauty and jewels, and every word soared, accompanied by chimes in perfect harmony. “Rousing the Worm, you have doomed all that is precious within the bounds of Time. Acceding to the Harrow, you have bestirred slumbering havoc, avid for horrors beyond comprehension. Yet here you surpass yourself.”

  Linden glared in response. No doubt she should have been daunted; but she was not. Jeremiah was building—She was eager to see what he would achieve: too eager to flinch or falter.

  “By all that your paltry heart deems holy, Wildwielder!” Infelice was a carillon of vehemence. She seemed to assail Linden with song and majesty. And she had placed herself between Linden and Jeremiah. “Releasing the boy from the toils of the croyel—That indeed was well done—and no deed of yours. Likewise the Harrow’s death was well done, and no deed of yours. But now you enable ruin incarnate. You should not have heeded the Ranyhyn. They have brought you to this place of death, intending dire atrocity.”

  Linden’s eyes widened, but not in dismay. The flagrant indignation of the Elohim meant nothing to her. Death! she thought, sudden as an epiphany. Bones. For which her need—no, Jeremiah’s need—was great.

  Somehow the Insequent had foreseen this. In their own way, the Ranyhyn had foreseen it. And that flash of insight released Linden’s heart.

  It contradicted the harsh logic of despair.

  With music and consternation, Infelice proclaimed, “If you preserve this vile boy, you will cause eternal woe.”

  Vile boy? Inspired by revelation, Linden aimed her Staff at Infelice to show the Elohim that she was ready for battle. The need for death was Jeremiah’s, not hers—and he already lived in graves. If nothing of hers could restore him, perhaps he would be able to resurrect himself with bones.

  “Listen to me.” Linden pronounced each word as if she were articulating the significance of her love. “I’m only going to warn you once. If you lift so much as a finger against my son, I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you.”

  With her whole heart, she willed Infelice to believe her.

  “I’ll call up so much Earthpower that it makes another Landsdrop.” In some sense, the Elohim were embodied Earthpower. Surely Infelice could be harmed by her own form of life? “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll use Covenant’s ring.

  “I’m not its rightful wielder. I’m told that I can’t actually destroy the Arch. But I can still hurt you. There’s a reason that you’re so afraid of wild magic. I think it’s because you don’t have any defense. Try me, and I’ll burn you until there’s nothing left.”

  Infelice clenched her fists. Bells clamored wrath in the caldera until the bones trembled, all of them—except the ones which Jeremiah had merged.

  “And do you conceive that I regard your threat? Wildwielder, you do not desire comprehension. You have inquired concerning the shadow upon the hearts of the Elohim , but you do not attend when you are answered. It is this.” She slapped a gesture at Jeremiah. “His purpose for us is an abomination, more so than our doom in the maw of the Worm. But it is not the worst evil.”

  “All right.” Linden did not waver. The Staff held steady in her hands. “Let’s take this one step at a time.” Jeremiah was still working, as undisturbed by Infelice as he was by caesures. Apparently he had completed one wall of his construct. Now he began to meld a similar structure atop the second of his foundation-bones. He only needed to be left alone. “If there’s something that you want me to understand, help me with it.”

  Before Infelice could interrupt her, she said, “Whatever Jeremiah is making, he needs bone. But why these bones? What are they? Where did they come from? How did they get here?”

  The Elohim’s raiment displayed jewels and exasperation. “Wildwielder, I will not suffer this. You ask for the history of the Earth entire. I will say only that they are the remains of quellvisks.” Her bells sang distaste under the dulled sky. “It does not concern you that they once made war upon the Elohim. In a distant age, they were destroyed. Their bones we deposited here, in Muirwin Delenoth, which signifies the resting place of abhorrence, as an emblem of our disdain for such affronts.”

  —destroyed. By Infelice and her people.

  Linden frowned as though she wanted to understand. “That doesn’t help.” She had no interest in extinct monsters. “It doesn’t matter how long ago you killed them. They’re still just bones. I’ll try a different question.

  “Why were the Ranyhyn suddenly in such a hurry? For God’s sake, they spent two days just walking. Then they decided to run.

  “Maybe if you explain what changed, I’ll understand.”

  Infelice brandished her fists. For an instant, her chiming collapsed into cacophony. Then she mastered herself.

  Melodious again, she answered, “An implausible threat approaches the Timewarden’s wracked mate. Long and long within her frail confines, she has readied herself to confront him, she and turiya Herem with her. But now the minions of noisome Horrim Carabal advance against her. They cannot harm her. However, they endanger the skest that ward and sustain her. By so doing, they hope to weaken her.

  “This neither turiya Herem nor the Ranyhyn foresaw. They could not. It is the unlikely outcome of your encounter with Horrim Carabal. Therefore the Timewarden’s mate fears it. She is roused to frenzy, and her caesures imperil all who travel here. For that reason, the Ranyhyn have hastened to accomplish their loathsome purpose.”

  This time, Linden shook her head. Infelice’s explanation raised as many questions as it answered. The Feroce had almost succeeded in delivering the Staff of Law to the lurker—and now they moved against the skest? But Linden did not allow herself to be distracted. Covenant was still alive: in effect, Infelice had said so. Other issues were more important.

  Jeremiah was more important. He was balancing the first layers of his second wall, fusing them with Earthpower—and far from done. He might need hours yet.

  He had enough bone here to fashion an entire castle.

  “All right,” she repeated, speaking slowly; stalling for time. “That’s a start. Let’s move on. You said that coming here enables atrocity. Jeremiah’s purpose is an abomination. What do you imagine his purpose is? What do you think he’s making?”

  She could guess. Roger had said about the Elohim, They’re vulnerable to certain kinds of structures. Like Vain. Specific constructs attract them. Exactly the right materials in exactly the right shape. Other structures repel them. Or blind them. By that means, the croyel had concealed itself in the Lost Deep.

  Jeremiah’s edifice of bone might well be a trap of some kind. But Linden wanted to hear the truth from Infelice.

  “Did the halfhand not speak of this?” The Elohim’s tone was bitter; but a note of sorrow softened the angry harmonics of her music. “The boy will ensnare us. He will deprive us of life and meaning and hope.”

  Your kid makes doors. Doors through time. Doors between realities. And doors that don’t go anywhere. Prisons. When you walk into them, you never come out.

  Linden ached to move so that she stood between Infelice and Jeremiah; but she forced herself to remain where she was. As long as she contrived to keep Infelice’s attention fixed on her, away from Jeremiah—

  Stave watched the Elohim with his arms folded as though he had the strength to defy her.

  “I’m going to pretend that that makes sense,” Linden drawled, “although why Jeremiah would care what happens to you is beyond me. Tell me why—”

  “Chosen,” Stave said abruptly: a warning.

  An instant later, the three Ranyhyn wheeled aside, lunged away fr
om each other; and a caesure erupted where Khelen had been standing on the far side of the bones.

  It was as ravenous as one of the skurj; as irresistible as a Sandgorgon. And it was close—! Its proximity filled her throat with vomit. In three more heartbeats, it would surge near enough to swallow Jeremiah.

  Noise filled the air like the clatter of dropped bells or swords as Infelice vanished.

  No. “Melenkurion abatha!” Black fire burst from Linden’s Staff, fierce as a volcanic detonation. “Duroc minas mill!” Her whole being was flame: she lashed at the Fall with every passion of her life. “Harad God damn khabaal!”

  You will not have my son!

  She was becoming an adept, elevated by extremity. For a moment, she seemed to hear Joan screaming in the heart of the storm. I’ve been good! Against Linden’s onslaught, the caesure staggered; flickered. Make it stop! Then it lurched backward. I can’t bear it!

  Struck to the core, the time-storm curled into itself and imploded. Scant instants after it appeared, it was gone.

  It won’t be much longer. Roger had promised his mother that. We’ll make it stop together.

  Covenant! Oh, Covenant, watch out. She’s getting stronger.

  Jeremiah was still at work as though nothing had happened. Empty of every form of consciousness except concentration on his construct, he sealed phalanges in place, propped crooked bones among them, rested a scapula off-center and left it, imponderably secure. To Linden’s urgent glance, this side of his structure appeared to be an exact mirror of the other. If she had looked more closely, she might have noticed that he had set dozens of details deliberately askew. But she did not have time.