The Last Dark

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  A timid shriek thronged into the dark sky. Around the pool were gathered the lurker’s worshippers, hundreds of them. Some stood to their waists in the water: others crowded the verge. From all of their hands shone green fires, bright desperation. Their wailing was a ululation of terror. But their hands and flames moved in unison, dropping low and then rising high as one, swaying from side to side like an invocation.

  In the distance behind them crouched tormented growth and lurid streams, helpless in spite of innumerable toxins. Beyond the light lay beleaguered darkness.

  The Feroce were trying to save their High God. Surely that was what they were doing? But Covenant had no idea what they sought to accomplish.

  Then he understood.

  Two nights ago, in his cave above the Sunbirth Sea, the lurker’s creatures had given him unexpected aid. Wielding their peculiar theurgy, they had caused the Harrow’s prostrate destrier to recover its captious nature. We have not given it strength. We cannot. But we have caused it to remember what it is. That gift had enabled the beast to bear Covenant farther than he would have thought possible.

  Now the Feroce were fighting for the spirit of their High God with the only power they had: the power to impose memories. Frantically they struggled to help the lurker recall freedom.

  That effort, too, was doomed. Turiya Herem was stronger.

  Nevertheless the effects of emerald worship and panic granted Covenant a little time to gather himself.

  He could not help the lurker as he was, trapped in the tentacle’s coils. But he had only one way to communicate with the monster, to explain his needs and intentions; and the turgid atmosphere resisted every breath. His gasping did not bring in enough good air to support a shout that the Feroce might hear.

  He tried anyway.

  “Listen,” he croaked: a sound too small to pierce the forlorn shrieking; the savage slash and pound of tentacles; the turmoil of bright water. “I want to fight, but I can’t move my arms. I have to reach the krill. And your High God has to work with me. We have to fight together.”

  His flawed sight detected no sign that any of the creatures had heard him.

  Still the lurker of the Sarangrave feared possession more than pain. Doubtless the monster did not understand what Covenant had said. Yet it recognized that he had spoken. Perhaps it had felt his resistance as he squirmed against its coils.

  Abruptly a fourth arm reached out of the scourged pool. It snatched up a cluster of the Feroce. Wrapping them like Covenant, the massive appendage lifted them until he could look straight into their appalled eyes.

  “Listen,” he panted again. “I need my arms. I have to reach my knife.” It was likely that the Feroce did not know Loric’s dagger by name. “And your High God has to carry me to the right place. The place where I can cut off the horror, all of it.

  “Make him understand. We have to do this now.”

  Turiya did not fear the lurker, but he would fear the krill. He would fear wild magic.

  Round eyes gaped at Covenant as if they had been blinded. The creatures had been crying out continuously. They did not stop. And there was no difference between the wailing in front of Covenant and the shrieks from below. All of the Feroce had one voice, the same voice. They uttered only anguish.

  Yet the grip of the lurker’s arm loosened. Its fingers shifted the coils lower on Covenant’s chest.

  Still he could hardly breathe. The air was too damn thick—

  With all of his insignificant strength, he tried to grasp the krill.

  The tentacle moved farther. After a moment that made dots of weakness dance across his sight, his halfhand found the dagger.

  Now, he thought. Hellfire! Now.

  Holding his weapon for his life, he drew it free. Dropped its covering. Raised it over his head in both hands.

  “I’m ready,” he gasped. “Do it!”

  With actions as plain as language, Horrim Carabal chose agony. Any maiming was better than possession. In an instant, the monster stopped fighting itself. With a ponderous heave of its possessed tentacle, it extended the boundary between itself and turiya Herem’s mastery higher and then higher; away from the corrosive waters; closer to Covenant’s elevation.

  As if Covenant were an axe, the lurker swung him at a section of the massive arm which turiya had not yet claimed.

  In every limb, Horrim Carabal had the strength of half a dozen Giants. It struck with the force of frenzy. Covenant whipped forward like the crack of a flail. When his blade bit flesh, any ordinary weapon would have been ripped from his clutch. But wild magic whetted the edges of Loric’s krill. Spitting flames, the dagger cut. Covenant hardly felt the impact.

  His blow sliced partway through the tentacle. Vile blood fountained from the wound. It stank like distilled corruption. The whole of the Sarangrave seemed to erupt in an excruciated howl as if every leaf and stem and bog, every current, every swath of scum gave voice to the lurker’s pain: a howl so vast that it effaced the thin shrieking of the Feroce.

  But the tentacle was not severed. It was far too thick to be lopped off by a single slash. Through the gush of blood and the yowling, Covenant felt turiya hesitate in alarm; draw back. In another moment, however, the Raver would surely control his fear. He would rush to pass beyond the cut deeper into Horrim Carabal.

  “Again!” Covenant rasped, although he could not hope to be heard. He could not hear himself. He needed the lurker to understand that if it did not ignore its hurt—

  Like the Raver, the monster hesitated.

  Then it recovered its fury. Still howling like myriad ghouls, like the immeasurable torment of the damned, the lurker swung Covenant again.

  The second slash cut through more of the appendage. Torrents of blood stained the waters, and were swallowed by shining. The lurker’s roar seemed to batter Covenant’s bones. Dazed by conflicting brightnesses, he could no longer see. The krill’s heat ached in his wrists. Soon he would be too badly burned to hold on.

  But now the monster did not hesitate. Savagely it swung yet again.

  Flopping like a doll in Horrim Carabal’s coils, Covenant delivered a third cut.

  The possessed arm was toppling. Still it had not been entirely severed. And while it fell, the Raver’s lust to rule the lurker overcame his fear of Covenant’s power. Vicious as a striking asp, turiya Herem surged forward.

  As if the monster’s pain and rage had become his, Covenant thought, Over my dead body.

  In a rush like delirium or exaltation, the Unbeliever and his ally hacked once more—

  —and the slain tentacle crashed down into the pool.

  Stunned by howling and hot blood, Covenant struggled to retain his grip on the krill; his grip on himself. Cutting off the claimed limb was a temporary victory at best. The Raver had not been harmed. If Covenant did not strike again instantly—if he did not force turiya to defend against him—Lord Foul’s servant would escape. At need, the Raver could claim one or more of the Feroce. He might feel demeaned by their littleness, but he could conceal himself among them nonetheless. And if Covenant failed to locate him before he rallied his strength, he could make another attempt on the lurker.

  Covenant felt like a toy in the hands of an insane juggler, utterly disoriented, impotent with vertigo. Up and down had become the same thing. He could not distinguish any of his horizons. The violence of the monster’s movements seemed to have dismembered him.

  Still he refused to accept a victory that might become defeat at any moment.

  The lurker had done its part. The rest was Covenant’s problem. He had to do something.

  Now or never.

  With as much haste as Horrim Carabal’s thrashing allowed, he tugged the chain holding Joan’s ring over his head, clasped the hard circle in his left hand. Then he slapped the ring and the dagger’s gem against each other.

  Without transition, conflagration erupted in him as if his living flesh were tinder.

  Sudden power anchored him. Disarticulated pieces of his su
rroundings were flung back into their natural relationships. But he did not care about his horizons, or his position in the air, or the lambent waters. The strange voice of the Feroce meant nothing to him. He needed—

  There, in the pummeled pool; in the corpse of the cut tentacle subsiding toward the depths: turiya Herem. He felt the Raver’s presence as if it were louder than the monster’s roar.

  —needed the lurker to drop him.

  His fierce fire succeeded. It made the monster’s coils flinch, loosen. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Horrim Carabal let go of him directly above his target; and he fell.

  For an instant, he tumbled helplessly, out of control. But he was far from the waters when the lurker released him; and his fire made everything clear. Wild magic lit his nerves as if it were percipience. He had a sharp shard of time in which to master his limbs, twist his posture into a dive.

  Still holding white gold against Loric’s gem, he struck the turbulence head first and plunged deep.

  At the last moment, he remembered to shut his eyes. This water would blind him. It would scald his skin until it fell from his bones. But he was too frantic and furious to care. And here he did not need sight: there was nothing to see. He only had to sink faster than the tentacle. He had to reach it before turiya could escape.

  He sensed the Raver’s terror. It filled the pool, as bright and bitter as the waters. But he also felt the slain appendage below him. It was close.

  As he hit the still-squirming arm, he hammered the krill into it and sent a blast of passion along its length, striving with his last breath, his last strength, to shred the Raver. If he accomplished nothing else with his life, he would at least give Linden the lurker of the Sarangrave as a potent ally rather than a lethal foe.

  —writ in water.

  Delirious and resolved, he poured out his heart until he felt turiya Herem’s spirit begin to fray.

  Torrents of wild magic ripped through the Raver. Turiya was ancient and enduring, single-minded in his malevolence. He withstood more force than Covenant could have survived. But he was going to die.

  If Covenant did not falter first.

  Badly burned, and dying for air, he grew weaker. He was human, after all, heir to every inadequacy that made life precious. No matter what his determination demanded of it, his body could not absorb unlimited quantities of damage. There were prices to be paid for the feats which he asked of himself. Collapse and unconsciousness were only the beginning.

  Without the lore of forbidding—

  Before the end, however—the Raver’s end, or Covenant’s—the krill was snatched away. Covenant almost dropped Joan’s ring, but its chain was tangled in his fingers. Strong arms closed around him, bore him surging toward the surface. He had no time to remember that he was not done; that the Raver was still alive. His head was lifted into the air. Of its own volition, his defeated body fought for life.

  Stentorian as a Giant, Branl shouted, “These waters harm the Pure One! He must be relieved!”

  The Master supported Covenant with one arm. In his other hand, he clasped High Lord Loric’s dagger.

  Deprived of theurgy, Covenant’s head reeled. He could not understand what was happening, could not think, could hardly suffer the burns that ravaged his skin. Confused and thwarted, sick with vertigo, he did not recognize it when the tip of a tentacle slipped between him and Branl; when it curled around him and pulled him out of Branl’s embrace. He only knew that now he hung in the air close to the seethe and lash of the pool. He did not know how or why.

  Below him, Branl sculled as if he were waiting. In fragments of residual clarity, Covenant saw a fretwork of fine blisters on the Humbled’s arms. The fabric of Branl’s tunic appeared to be rotting on his shoulders. The gem of the krill blazed with power that seemed purposeless, devoid of meaning.

  Hellfire, Covenant groaned as his mind wandered among his defeats. Hell and blood. What have you done?

  Then he felt turiya Herem rising. The viciousness of the Raver’s aura pierced Covenant’s bewilderment.

  With the slow deliberation of a torturer, Clyme of the Humbled broke the surface in front of Branl. They were no more than two arm spans apart.

  At the sight, Covenant’s confusion became keening. That was not Clyme: it was turiya. The Raver’s presence was too fierce to be mistaken for anything else.

  The light of the acrid waters reflected in Clyme’s eyes like the eagerness of depravity. The grin baring his teeth anticipated bloodshed and triumph.

  Oh, hell. Hell and damnation. Clyme was possessed. Turiya Herem had taken him.

  That should have been impossible. Covenant had said as much. He knew it to be true. The Haruchai could not be mastered by anything less than the concentrated evil of the Illearth Stone. They were too strong.

  Nevertheless turiya wore Clyme’s body like a cloak. It was his to use or discard.

  Covenant’s heart struck blows like knells inside his chest. His mind staggered, clutching at implications, inferences.

  Turiya Herem could not have mastered Clyme. That was entirely impossible. It defied reality.

  Therefore—

  God in Heaven!

  Therefore—

  Covenant wanted to wail.

  Clyme must have admitted the Raver. He must have. No other explanation sufficed. Branl had interrupted Covenant, and Clyme had acquiesced to turiya, so that the brother of samadhi and moksha would not perish.

  So that Covenant would not sacrifice himself trying to destroy the Raver.

  Sweet Christ! What have you done?

  If Horrim Carabal had dropped Covenant again, he would have flung himself at Clyme in pure panic. But the lurker’s coils held, and Covenant was too weak to break free.

  Swimming with his head and shoulders above the surface, Clyme glared delight at Covenant.

  “Do you behold me, groveler?” the Raver panted as if words were an unfamiliar exertion. “You have attempted my end, yet you have not overcome me. Now your companion is mine.

  “Will you slay him to assail me? I judge that you will not. Your heart is flawed. It cannot sustain such deeds.”

  Groveler. That ancient epithet suited Covenant. He deserved it. He had become an avatar of abjection in the flagrant depths of the Sarangrave.

  But turiya Herem was not done. His malice demanded taunts which he spat out with extravagant glee. Only the effort, the obvious difficulty, with which he fought to speak hinted that his exultation was marred.

  “The killing of your mate I acknowledge. There you surpassed my expectations. But her death bore the stench of mercy. That reek will not arise from the fate of Clyme Haruchai, Master and Humbled. His execution at your hands will be purest murder.” Clyme gnashed his teeth as if he were rending flesh. “You lack the belief necessary to the task.”

  Covenant thought that he heard Branl say, “Trust in us, ur-Lord.” An echo of earlier promises. But he could not drag his attention away from turiya’s scorn and Clyme’s surrender. And the turmoil of the pool was loud. It masked every voice except the Raver’s. Horrim Carabal’s hurt and trepidation seemed to make no sound. Even the Feroce appeared to have fallen silent.

  “Nonetheless,” turiya gasped savagely, “I desire you to surpass yourself yet again. I crave the pleasure of your efforts to extinguish me. Should you discover within yourself the valor which you lack, you will learn its futility. Blithely I will disencumber myself of this mad Haruchai. While you expend your despair upon your companion’s husk, I will possess myself of other lives”—he gestured around him—“which attend upon us in abundance. And if you seek me among these timorous wights, I will renew my mastery of their High God.

  “Your death is thereby made certain. If I do not compel the lurker to slay you, the Sarangrave itself will do so. Already your passing has been too long delayed.”

  Clyme’s grin stretched. He seemed to be screaming. Then he bit down on his lips until his teeth drew blood. The muscles at the corners of his jaw knotted like fists. For a mome
nt, he squeezed the reflections out of his eyes. Anguish and resistance twisted across his visage like noisome creatures crawling under his skin. Blisters burst. They leaked dire fluids. His arms flailed.

  When he opened his eyes again, the light in them had changed. They caught the krill’s radiance rather than the shining of the waters.

  “This Raver lies.” Clyme’s voice was torment—but it was Clyme’s. “He does not hold me. I hold him. I contain him as Grimmand Honninscrave once contained his brother. His mockery and struggles I disdain. He cannot flee. I will hold him while his ruin is achieved.”

  Again the Master’s eyes were forced shut. In spite of turiya’s opposition, however, he reopened them almost immediately. Ignoring the involuntary contortions which complicated his mien, he made his purpose clear.

  “But his end must come swiftly. Though I am Haruchai withal, and potent in my fashion, his malice undermines me.

  “I will hold him.” He looked, not at Covenant, but at Branl. “The krill must accomplish his death.”

  And Branl did not hesitate. His people did not forgive. Because they did not mourn, they did not know mercy. Nor did they count the cost.

  One swimming stroke took him close enough. Without a heartbeat’s pause, he plunged the dagger into Clyme’s chest.

  Turiya’s shriek exceeded hearing. It scaled higher as though it had the power to make the whole of the Sarangrave tremble. The sound ripped along Covenant’s nerves until they seemed to bleed.

  Clyme’s features looked like they were being torn apart. Still he retained the iron intransigence of the Haruchai. At the end of his life, he lifted his head to Covenant. While blood gushed from his mouth, he pronounced distinctly, “Thus I answer the objurgations of the ak-Haru.”

  Branl disagreed—or his approval was so great that he could not contain it. Clyme’s affirmation unleashed a kind of madness. Violence which had simmered beneath the impassivity of the Haruchai for millennia exploded in the last of the Humbled.