The Last Dark

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Then he announced to the Feroce, “The Pure One has prepared himself. We accept your consolation, deeming it well-meant.”

  In response, the chant of the creatures became a shout. Green that shed too little light flared and danced on all sides. The arms of the lurker let go.

  When Covenant fell into the mud, his whole world became spangles of gold like the rising of little suns.

  ater Branl drew him out of the hurtloam. Tentacles lifted Covenant and the Master again; carried them away. At the eastern edge of the Sarangrave, the lurker lowered them onto a swath of grass on a hillside unspoiled by ancient wars or poisons. Then the arms withdrew, leaving only a few of the Feroce to watch and wait.

  But Covenant knew none of this. He was deeply asleep, resting as though he had received an act of grace.

  hen he awoke, he came from the depths of dreams which he did not know how to interpret. He had sojourned among the Dead: they had given him obscure counsel. But they had stood, not in Andelain, but on the friable span of the Hazard, speaking of doom while below them raved the many maws of She Who Must Not Be Named, as ruinous as the Worm. Behind them, Branl had slain Clyme again and again; but the Dead had paid no heed. With infinite relish, the bane had devoured Elena and Linden and the future of the Forestals, making them participants in an eternal scream.

  In dreams, time blurred and ran, as chaotic and rife with death as the mingled perils of the Sarangrave.

  Forbidding, the Dead had urged. Forgotten truths.

  The Chosen’s son.

  Kastenessen.

  A-Jeroth of the Seven Hells, who desires all things unmade.

  Repeatedly Branl hacked at Clyme and turiya until only gobbets and blood remained.

  Baffled and thwarted, Thomas Covenant opened his eyes to the grey murk of dawn in a world where the sun did not rise.

  But his own condition seemed to repudiate Branl’s ferocity and Clyme’s death. He had slept deeply and long. God, he had slept. On this open grass, he had slept the sleep of renewed health, fathomless as the growing gaps between the stars. It was an anodyne that he had not expected, as salvific as hurtloam, and as necessary.

  No doubt he had slept too long. Every hour counted against him. But he could not regret losing the night.

  When he opened his eyes and looked at the sky, he saw the stars clearly. Those that remained were as bright as gems of Time, and as disconsolate as condemned children. One after another, they went on dying.

  Their slow plight grieved him. Yet it was countered by the sheer freshness of his physical sensations. Every burn and blister had been replaced by a tingling that resembled eagerness. His heart beat with a vigor which he did not recognize, as though it had been unshackled after a lifetime of imprisonment. His fingers flexed as if they had never known excruciation. Potential smiles twitched in the muscles of his face. And his feet—By hell! He could feel his toes, actually feel his toes. They told him that his socks and boots were still sodden.

  Hurtloam was a miracle: there was no other word for it.

  And like his body, his health-sense had become stronger. It assured him that his new life would be temporary. Kevin’s Dirt shrouded the region, wreaking its incremental havoc; working against his restoration. Nevertheless he was grateful for any reprieve. The strange alchemy of hurtloam made even Clyme’s death seem less bitter. At least for a little while, the future did not look as bleak as this day, the second without true sunlight. When numbness returned to his fingers and toes—when his sight began to fail again—he would be able to bear it.

  Propping his elbows on the thick grass of his bed, he raised his head and shoulders to gauge his circumstances.

  He lay on a gradual slope that he did not remember, cushioned by turf like luxuriance. Therefore he was somewhere north of Lord Foul’s many battlefields; somewhere in the long wedge of hale ground between Sarangrave Flat and the Sunbirth Sea. The lurker must have carried him here.

  Shaking his head in surprise at such consideration, he regarded his companion standing like a sentinel a score of paces past his feet. Branl appeared to be keeping watch on the rank mass of the wetland. Or he may have been—

  Beyond the Haruchai, Covenant finally noticed a small cluster of emerald fires burning in the hands of four, no, five Feroce. They waited a few steps outside the border of their native waters. Branl may have been guarding Covenant against them; refusing them in some fashion.

  Apparently their High God was not done with the Pure One.

  Covenant was reluctant to face them. He did not want to recall Horrim Carabal’s peril, or to think about what the Humbled had sacrificed. But time was precious—and the Feroce had blessed him with hurtloam. They had promised to speak to Linden for him. They had earned his attention.

  Sighing at the ache of memories as cruel as Joan’s suffering, Covenant pushed himself to stand.

  Around him, murk veiled every feature of the landscape, turned hills and grass and marsh and sky to an indeterminate, irredeemable smudge. Only the wavering fires of the Feroce contradicted the universal twilight; and they cast too little illumination.

  Awkwardly, as if he had forgotten how to walk, he went to join Branl.

  Like him, the Master still wore a second skin of mud. A trivial concern: it would flake away as it dried; and in the meantime, it provided a measure of protection against the increasing coolness of the air. But under the mud, Branl’s tunic hung in tatters, eaten by the Flat’s corrosive waters. Indeed, Covenant’s own clothes were badly damaged. His jeans looked like they had been mauled, and his T-shirt was little more than scraps. Yet that, too, was trivial. Ruined attire suited the Unbeliever and his guardian.

  Looking more closely, Covenant was relieved to find that Branl also had been healed. In more ways than one—A portion of the distress clenched and hidden behind his Haruchai stoicism had been eased. He looked like a man who had finally come to terms with an amputation, or with some other old wound.

  Resting his halfhand on the Master’s shoulder, Covenant said, “I’m sorry.” Perhaps he would learn how to forgive Branl if he first asked forgiveness for himself. “I can only guess what killing that Raver cost you. But I regret it. I wish I hadn’t needed you to save me.”

  Again.

  Branl’s gaze did not waver. “You sought to spare us, ur-Lord,” he replied as though every human tone had been hammered out of his voice. “That you have ever done, though you have long known that no Haruchai wishes to be spared. To be denied the outcome of our deeds implies a judgment of unworth. Yet you are the ur-Lord, the Unbeliever. As we are known to you, so you are known to us. By long travail, we have learned that your choices are indeed a judgment of unworth. But it is yourself that you judge, yourself and no other. Therefore we found no insult in your wish to confront turiya Herem alone.”

  Involuntarily Covenant winced. The Humbled certainly knew him too well. But he did not like to think of his personal strictures in such terms.

  Sighing again, he changed the subject. “Do you still have the krill?”

  Branl nodded. From the remains of his tunic, he drew out a bundle of broad leaves. “Do you require its light, ur-Lord? I have covered it to appease the timidity of these Feroce.” After a moment, he added, “They crave speech with you yet again. For that reason, they have awaited your return from slumber.”

  Covenant dropped his hand. “Never mind. They’re already scared enough. They’ve waited this long for me. I can wait a little longer to see where I’m going.”

  He had decisions to make, but he was not ready for them. He wanted Linden’s forgiveness more than Branl’s—or his own.

  Standing at his companion’s side as if he and the Humbled carried the same stigma, he addressed the Feroce.

  “So far, you’ve honored your part of our agreement.” That the lurker wanted something else from him made him brusque. “I expect your High God to keep doing that. We’ve done more than I promised. You should do the same.”

  The Feroce flinched. Their flames
guttered and spat. “You are the Pure One,” they answered, quavering, “though you deny yourself. So it was at the time of the jheherrin. So it remains.

  “You have exceeded the terms. This our High God acknowledges. The alliance is sealed.”

  Covenant nodded; but he did not relax. “And my message? Did you deliver it?”

  “We are the Feroce,” the creatures replied. Their single voice sounded like mire forced to assume the shapes of language. “We serve our High God in every pond and stream and quag of his glory. Your words have been conveyed. Their import we have striven to convey also.”

  Covenant bowed his head in relief. Linden would understand. He had to believe that she would understand. And she would know what to do. Something unexpected. Something that he could not imagine.

  But the Feroce were still speaking. “If we have failed,” they said, “or if we are not heeded, our High God commands contrition. Our lives are forfeit. Should you wish to slay us, still the alliance is sealed. It will not be unsealed.”

  Then the creatures stood and waited as if they were resisting an impulse to cower.

  Their unrelenting fears troubled Covenant. “Well, gosh,” he drawled to disguise his dismay. “That’s magnanimous of him. Is everybody in this bloody mess trying to make amends for sins they haven’t committed?”

  The fires of the Feroce quailed. Their large eyes reflected emerald alarm. They had tried to help him remember forbidding—they had given him hurtloam—and still they expected to be punished.

  Swearing to himself, Covenant tried to soften the edges of his voice. “You did what you could. If we exceeded the terms, so did you. What happens next isn’t your fault.”

  He meant, You don’t need to be afraid of me.

  “So what does your High God want now?” he continued. “He’s already sacrificed enough of you for my sake. I don’t want more. What does he want?”

  “He is our High God,” the descendants of the soft ones replied. “His greatness commands us. We do not refuse. We—”

  Abruptly they flinched like children at the first touch of a flail. Facing each other, they crowded closer together. Their flames seemed to gibber.

  From their circle of fire and fear, their voice arose like muffled wailing. “Our High God commands. The alliance is sealed. It will not be unsealed. But he asks—”

  For a moment, they appeared to lose control of themselves. Their green faded to flickers in their palms. Their voice became a thin cry like an echo of their earlier shrieking. Their bodies jerked as if they were appalled by what they had to say.

  But then they mastered themselves—or they were mastered. Their fires sprang back to life. The flames strained upward, striving toward the heavens. Garish emerald glared like malevolence on their weak features. Their wailing became words.

  “Our High God craves a boon.”

  Covenant stared at their chagrin. He required a moment to grasp that the Feroce were distressed by the notion that their High God had needs which could not be met by commands or alliances or raw power; that the lurker’s tremendous size and strength could be reduced to pleading. In effect, Horrim Carabal had confessed an inadequacy that struck at the roots of their devotion.

  Shaken on their behalf, Covenant said, “You don’t need to be afraid. There’s no harm in asking. I’m not offended. Just say it. What does your High God want me to do?”

  He could not tell whether the Feroce understood him. They did not unclench their circle, or lower their fires, or cease their wounded cries. After a moment, however, their wailing became speech again.

  “You are the Pure One. The Pure One redeems. Now havoc comes, a great and terrible hunger. It draws near. It is death. Utter death. Our High God cannot stand against it. He does not know what he must do. Will you heed him? Will you answer?

  “Our High God must not perish!”

  Ah. Covenant nodded again. The lurker wanted to survive, and it did not know how.

  But he was loath to suggest a course of action. “That depends,” he said carefully. He could not guess what the implications might be. “I don’t know exactly what you’re asking. First tell me this. The havoc is coming. That’s a fact. But where? Where is it coming?”

  Would it head straight toward Melenkurion Skyweir? Was it ready to end the world? Or did it want more food? More Elohim? Or something else—?

  The possibility that the Worm was hungry for something else made Covenant’s stomach twist.

  “You are the Pure One,” the Feroce replied in consternation. “Do you not know that the havoc nears the heart of our High God’s realm, the deepest waters? How is it that you do not know?”

  The deepest waters? Covenant frowned. That must mean Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp: the delta of the Defiles Course. He groaned at the idea. The ground on which he stood seemed to cant as if realities were shifting. Hellfire! The Worm was approaching Lifeswallower.

  But it could have no interest in the lurker’s demesne. It would find no sustenance in that polluted swampland. And certainly the Worm had no appetite for a monster like Horrim Carabal, a living corruption of Earthpower. Which meant—

  Covenant dragged his hands through his hair, trying to steady his thoughts.

  —that Lifeswallower was simply in the way. The Worm would merely pass through it. The instrument of the world’s end had a different goal.

  Perhaps the Worm was coming from the north. Perhaps its path toward Melenkurion Skyweir ran through the Great Swamp by chance.

  Or—

  Damnation!

  —it was going toward Mount Thunder.

  To Kastenessen. Or to She Who Must Not Be Named.

  Hell and blood!

  Both explanations seemed plausible. Kastenessen was Elohim. He might be the nearest source of food. But he was tainted. He had merged a portion of himself with the skurj. Their sulfurous scent might make him unpalatable. In his own fashion, he was as corrupted as the lurker.

  She Who Must Not Be Named was another matter. She was—Covenant had no apt language for Her—a gaoled god. She was not Earthpower. Nevertheless She was power. If the Worm sought to feed on Her—

  The battle between such beings would stagger the Arch of Time to its foundations. It might accomplish the purpose for which the Worm had been created.

  Lord Foul had planned well. Oh, he had planned well! Here was another conceivable reason why Roger had hidden Jeremiah in the Lost Deep. To conceal the boy, of course. To preserve him for Roger’s use—and for the Despiser’s. But also to arouse She Who Must Not Be Named if Linden discovered Jeremiah’s covert.

  It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares—

  “You are the Pure One,” repeated the Feroce in trepidation. “Will you not answer?”

  With an effort, Covenant shook aside a whirl of sickening speculations. “Oh, I’ll answer.” He did not know what he would say until he heard himself say it. “But you still haven’t told me what your High God wants. He can’t believe I’m going to stop the Worm. That havoc, as you call it, will swat me like I’m nothing. What does your High God think I can do?”

  Straining to respond, the voice of the Feroce scaled higher. The lurker’s reply was naked supplication. “Will you counsel?” they asked as if they wanted to weep and had no tears. “Will you reveal what must be done? For the alliance? For our High God’s life?”

  “Damn it,” Covenant muttered to himself. His impulse to speculate was too strong. His mind wheeled. “I can’t.” Even if the Worm hunted only Kastenessen, it was certain to encounter She Who Must Not Be Named. “Not until I know where it’s going.”

  Before the lurker’s servants could muster more words, Covenant turned to Branl. “What do you think? Maybe coming to Lifeswallower is an accident. Maybe the Worm is just passing through. But maybe it’s aiming for Mount Thunder. Don’t we have to know?”

  The gloom masked Branl’s features; but the Humbled faced Covenant with a firmness that resembled certainty. “Ur-Lord,
hear me. You contemplate a journey to the last boundary of hills between Lifeswallower and the Sunbirth Sea. Such a quest will bear us many leagues farther from our companions, wherever they may be.”

  Covenant braced himself to argue; but Branl was not done.

  “Understand, ur-Lord, that I do not protest. Your task is mine. I am alone and have no path other than my chosen service. Yet I must observe that our need for an end to Kevin’s Dirt is absolute. Your straits confirm this. Already your illness regains its force. The Worm in Mount Thunder may perchance bring about the cessation of Kevin’s Dirt. Perchance it may not. Is it not therefore plain that our surest road to Kastenessen’s defeat lies toward Linden Avery and her company? Your powers and hers together are more certain of success than any chance or mischance of the Worm.”

  Covenant shook his head. Studying Branl while memories of Clyme’s end scarified his thoughts, he said slowly, feeling his way, “That makes sense, as far as it goes. But what if the Worm runs into She Who Must Not Be Named?”

  Realizations seemed to swarm in Branl’s gaze. Apparently he had not considered the bane. “That outcome,” he said slowly, “must be prevented.” Then he asked, “Yet how can it be forestalled?”

  Covenant grimaced. “That’s the problem. We have to know where the Worm is going. We might need the lurker against it.”

  When his companion acquiesced, Covenant turned back to the Feroce.

  Swallowing a clot of apprehension, he said, “Tell your High God this. I want him alive. I’ll give him counsel, if I can think of anything. But not until I know more.

  “I have to see this havoc for myself. Then we’ll talk.”

  The idea that he would be moving farther from Linden made him ache; but he ignored that pang as well as he could.

  The creatures fluttered their fires in alarm, but they did not protest. For a moment longer, they crowded together, mewling wordlessly while their theurgy pulsed in the twilight. Then they answered, “You are the Pure One. The Feroce will await you. Our High God commands us. The alliance is sealed.”