The Last Dark

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “By transformation,” the Forestal told Linden severely. “By the alteration of essence. There is no other means. The Elohim who became the Colossus of the Fall ceased to be who she was. She was made stone and could not unmake herself. Therefore her refusal endured. It did not wane until the forests dwindled, too grievously diminished to sustain her.”

  While Linden cried out inwardly, unable to articulate her sudden despair, Mahrtiir took another step forward; upward. Then he stopped, holding himself poised as if for battle.

  “Great One,” he said, insisting on Caerroil Wildwood’s attention. “The world of our time requires forbidding—and the forest of our time requires a Forestal to wield that stricture.” His tone defied contradiction. “You have it within you to create another of your kind, as you did with Caer-Caveral. Do so again with me. Make of me a Forestal for the woodland which will arise when its time has come, and for the preservation of the world. Permit me to carry on your labors. Share with me your mighty purpose, for I have none of my own, except to stand with those who shed their lives for the Land’s sake.”

  He was certainly as blind as Hile Troy had been: as blind and as valiant. Like Troy, he had already chosen his doom.

  Linden tried to object; but the Manethrall’s willingness and the Wildwood’s singing closed her throat. No, she pleaded, no, but her voice made no sound, or no one heard her.

  The guardian of the trees was going to refuse. Of course he was. His own fate was sealed, whatever happened. She had offered him only abstractions, vague predictions empty of substance. He had no reason to care about a world that did not exist for him.

  Yet he seemed to stand taller, towering over the Manethrall. The multiplicity of songs around him acquired a new tune that vied against the woods’ immedicable sorrow and ire. He raised his scepter. From its gnarled length sprouted notes woven to form harmonies which Linden had never heard before.

  “That gift,” he pronounced as if it were a sentence of death, “is mine to grant.”

  Oh, Mahrtiir—

  Were all of her friends going to sacrifice themselves?

  If she had snatched up her Staff, she might have been able to intervene. She could at least have made the effort. And betimes some wonder is wrought to redeem us. But she did not move. Perhaps she could not. Or perhaps she simply understood.

  I seek a tale which will remain—

  Still she had to say something. “Mahrtiir—”

  “No, Ringthane,” the Manethrall replied at once. “You are the Chosen, but this choice is mine.” He knew her too well. “In this, Anele spoke wisely, as he did on other matters. To you, he said, ‘All who live share the Land’s plight. Its cost will be borne by all who live. This you cannot alter. In the attempt, you may achieve only ruin.’” Then he gave her a fierce grin. “It is done. The Forestal of Garroting Deep has heard me. His heart and his pain are great. He will not refuse.”

  “Indeed,” Caerroil Wildwood hummed in harmony with his trees. “I do not recant my gifts.”

  A sharp skirl of music seemed to snatch her Staff from the dirt, carry it toward him. Holding his scepter in one hand, he caught the Staff in the other. The lines of his runes began to burn like his eyes, silver and severe.

  “Yet I am grievously diminished. My strength falters. Therefore I will make use of your blackness to sustain me, as I have written that I must.”

  With the Staff and his scepter held high, he brandished gleaming like certainty over the Howe. “Harken now. Hear my answer to your need.”

  Extremes contradicted each other in Linden’s heart, a turmoil of unexpected hope and dread. Possibilities that she had failed to foresee daunted and exalted her. In the dirt under her boots, complex emotions thrummed as if Gallows Howe had forgotten or surrendered none of its desires. Ahead of her, Mahrtiir stood with his hands open as if he were waiting for the weapon which would give them meaning at last: an import which no mere garrote could supply. Higher on the hill, and wreathed in compulsions which appeared to draw only purity from the Staff of Law, Caerroil Wildwood made his music louder, more encompassing, until it became a hymn chorused by the entire woodland. At the same time, he tuned his singing to a pitch that resembled language. Perhaps with her ears, or perhaps only with her health-sense, Linden listened to an arboreal melody more numinous than speech.

  “It is my heart I give to you,

  My blood and sap and bone and root,

  To serve the woods with what we are

  While what we are endures to serve.

  “I guard and grow the world’s deep love.

  Its loveliness must justify

  The sterner truths of rock and sea,

  For they persist but do not grow

  And so their life is only Law:

  It is not melody or joy.

  Their substance, substanceless, is woe

  Unless it is redeemed by green,

  By growth and verdure that relieve

  The world from stone’s commanding cold.

  “If rock does not erode it does

  Not feed the trees that give it worth.

  If sea does not give way to rain

  It does not vindicate its surge.

  Such passage is Creation’s pulse:

  Its transformation brings forth love

  From Law’s unending rest and flood,

  For only life which passes on

  Can glorify remaining life.

  “For loving’s sake I guard the green:

  Its steward I became and am—

  And you as well, for by my song

  It is my soul I give to you

  To serve the woods until we die.”

  And while the Forestal’s invocation swelled across tree and hill, Manethrall Mahrtiir of the Ramen began to change. Ineffable magicks wrapped him in their cocoon until he was barely visible. Swathed in Caerroil Wildwood’s power, his bandage was burned away, and his raiment fell from him like dross. His lean form with its scars of struggle and its ropes of muscle was robed in samite that shone like incarnate cleanliness. An unalloyed argent too rare and refined to be wild magic transformed his visage. As if he had brought it forth from within him, a twig grew in his grasp until it became a sapling nearly as tall as himself: a child-tree crowned with new leaves, its roots clinging to a ball of rich loam, which he held with the ease of supernal strength.

  The end of his human life had come upon him. When he emerged from the Forestal’s theurgy, the man who had been steadfast in the face of every peril would be gone. Like the Elohim of the Colossus, he would not be able to revoke his transubstantiation. Nevertheless his gladness aspired among the harmonies of Garroting Deep, and his eagerness for strife contributed a peal of joy.

  Watching him, Linden wanted to cry; but she had no tears for a friend who had found his heart’s desire.

  11.

  Back from the Brink

  Thomas Covenant could hardly stand. He felt like wreckage. Certainly he looked like a derelict, with his tattered jeans and T-shirt, and his silver hair wild. Only his boots had come intact through his immersions in Sarangrave Flat. If Rallyn had not led Mishio Massima through an arduous series of translations by wild magic, he would not have arrived anywhere. He and Branl would still be trudging along the edges of the lurker’s wetland an impossible distance from where he was needed. Traveling through argent circles drawn on grass and stone and dirt with Loric’s krill, he had exceeded his image of himself.

  But he had not done so without help. He was not as weak as he should have been, or as numb. Some of the effects of hurtloam lingered deep within him. He had drunk water made clean for him by the Feroce, and had eaten ussusimiel melons. Aided beyond any reasonable expectation, he had been able to traverse the leagues.

  With Kastenessen gone, Kevin’s Dirt may have begun to dissipate; but if so, that was a victory which Covenant could neither confirm nor measure. Instead he was torn inside, frantic and grieving. Clyme’s death remained as vivid as scars, as harsh as Joan’s. The Worm was
coming: it had already reached the Land. And Linden was not here.

  She was not here.

  In the instant of his arrival, he had seen things that deserved celebration. Jeremiah had escaped from his mental prison, or had been freed: that was obvious. Otherwise he would not have been able to design the crude structure at the foot of the rubble and the ridge. The Giants would not have known how to build it. And the edifice had succeeded. Infelice’s presence at the portal, and Kastenessen’s raging opposition, demonstrated that Jeremiah’s efforts had achieved their strange purpose—whatever that might be.

  But the boy sprawled on the roof of the construct as if he had been felled. Stave lay motionless in the dirt near Infelice. None of the Giants wore their armor. They had no weapons. And there was no sign of Mahrtiir. Like Linden, the Manethrall had gone somewhere else—or had been left behind—or—

  Covenant was stretched too thin to appreciate what the Land’s defenders had accomplished.

  Without any flicker of hesitation or pause for thought, he had flung himself toward Kastenessen armed only with Loric’s eldritch dagger and his own extremity. I killed my ex-wife. Joan’s ring seemed trivial against a being of Earthpower merged with brimstone and lava. I helped destroy a Raver. Yet Kastenessen had believed him. And I’ve seen the Worm of the World’s End. Perhaps the krill was capable of killing greater foes than Joan and turiya Herem. I am done with restraint! Or perhaps Kastenessen had secretly wished to be swayed.

  Beyond the construct where Infelice and Emereau Vrai’s lover had vanished, the gouged ridge rose like a barricade against the southeast; against memories of Joan. Covenant had sacrificed his own daughter. More than once. He had raped her mother. Ignored Triock’s death. Permitted Clyme’s. And he was Roger’s father. He was responsible for that lost soul as well. In Morinmoss long ago, he may have killed the woman who had healed his mind. Hell, he had even ridden the Harrow’s destrier to its death. He had committed wrongs enough to mark him as an acolyte of the Despiser.

  Now Linden was not here. He could not confess himself to her, or seek absolution.

  Stave had said of her that she did not forgive. If that were true—

  The aftermath of Kastenessen’s surrender left Covenant reeling with needs and ignorance. To defeat Joan, he had sealed the fracturing of his mind, but he had not rid himself of vertigo. Even the comparatively level plain felt like a precipice in the doom-clogged twilight. Slaps of wind raised dust on all sides as if every step altered the ground itself. He hardly noticed when Branl took the krill to spare him at least that one burden.

  Unheeded or unneeded, Rallyn and Mishio Massima trotted away, presumably seeking water and forage.

  “Unbeliever,” Giants murmured or panted. “Timewarden.” Wan with exhaustion, Rime Coldspray called, “You are timely come.” And Frostheart Grueburn, “Have you accomplished your purpose?” And Cirrus Kindwind, “Some ill end has befallen Clyme Haruchai.” Other Swordmainnir repeated like groans, “Longwrath,” and, “Lostson.” They sighed the names of the geas-damned man’s parents, and ached for Moire Squareset and Scend Wavegift, both of whom were dead because of Longwrath.

  Too many questions. Too many contradictions to absorb. Covenant only knew that Jeremiah was still alive because the boy was looking at him; staring as if he were stunned, barely conscious. Stave lay like Longwrath. Like Longwrath’s, Stave’s flesh smoked as if Kastenessen had scoured his heart with scoria.

  It was all too much. As if he were being ripped open, Covenant released a cry that seemed to come from the marrow of his bones.

  “What happened to Linden?”

  Then he stood wavering as if he could not take another step without the woman whom he had loved for all of the Earth’s ages.

  Swordmainnir hung their heads, too weary or overwhelmed to answer. But after a moment, Rime Coldspray summoned a vestige of resolve. She leaned into motion, came unsteadily toward Covenant. Tears that might have been relief or chagrin or sorrow—that might have been anger—made runnels through the dust on her face. When she was near enough to speak in a hoarse whisper and be heard, she stopped.

  Like Saltheart Foamfollower, the Ironhand towered over Covenant. The Giants had always been too much for him, more than he deserved. Trying to meet her gaze, he staggered until Branl steadied him.

  “Timewarden,” Coldspray breathed, “our need is great. We have expended our last strength, Lostson Longwrath lies before us, slain for our salvation, and Stave Rockbrother is much harmed. For these ills, we have no anodyne. We must—Ah, Stone and Sea. We must be more than we are.

  “Yet I discern that your need is also great. Indeed, I fear that it exceeds comprehension. Therefore I will speak when I fain would hear.”

  She looked like she might collapse, but she did not. Even now, she met the challenge he represented.

  “We deem that an alteration in Linden Giantfriend began when she was borne to the verge of the Sarangrave a second time.”

  Gloom held the plain. Beyond the stark brilliance of the krill’s gem, the preternatural twilight seemed to defy every sentence. A second time? When was the first? Was that when she had hurt the lurker enough to inspire an alliance?

  “There the Feroce conveyed a message, citing your command. They urged her to Remember forbidding. For that reason, she parted from us.”

  The Feroce had done Covenant’s bidding. He had no one else to blame.

  “Here we have fashioned a fane for the Elohim. It compelled them to come, and to enter, drawing Kastenessen with them. There its magicks will ward them from the Worm’s feeding.”

  Covenant stared up at her. Silver etched the lines of her visage, cut them into shapes that he feared to recognize. He believed the Ironhand, of course he did. Vast spans of time and knowledge were gone from him; but he remembered Jeremiah’s importance, Jeremiah’s talent. In some nameless sense, every future depended on Linden’s son.

  Chosen-son. The Giants had given the boy an epithet to call his own.

  Exhaustion abraded the Ironhand’s voice. “All remaining Elohim are now here. Therefore the Worm also must come. Preserved within the fane, they cannot be consumed. When the Worm destroys our edifice, however, they will have no egress. They will be eternally lost. For this reason, Linden Giantfriend determined that the Worm must be turned aside.”

  That, at least, Covenant understood. The Worm would come. It was coming. He wanted to ask, Then why gather all the Elohim in one place? But he knew the answer: to give them a chance. They were helpless otherwise. And their presence here would not hasten the Earth’s demise. Having reached the Land—and having been blocked from Mount Thunder—the Worm was bound to sense the location, the comparative proximity, of its final food. It would have come this way no matter what Jeremiah and the Giants did.

  But it was not here now. The crazy turmoil of winds might mean anything. The clotted darkness on the northeastern horizon had more than one possible interpretation.

  “Therefore Linden Giantfriend has invoked and entered a caesure. Accepting only Manethrall Mahrtiir as her companion, she seeks the deep past of the Land, where it is her hope that a Forestal will impart to her the forbidding which the world’s peril demands.”

  Without Branl’s support, Covenant might not have been able to stay on his feet. The deep past—Oh, hell. Joan’s death had not put an end to caesures. In spite of everything, Linden was still exceeding his expectations.

  Branl’s expression was unreadable, as inarticulate as a mask of marble. However, his gaze was fixed, not on Rime Coldspray, but on Stave. Mind to mind, the Humbled may have been asking the former Master for confirmation.

  How had Linden persuaded Stave to let her go without him?

  At the end of her determination, the Ironhand said, “If she succeeds—and if the Arch does not fall—and if she is able to return—she will endeavor to refuse the Worm from this place.”

  Covenant groaned aloud. Linden’s absence was his doing. He had pushed her toward a risk so extreme that mere
ly hearing it described made his pulse falter in his veins. He had been pushing her ever since she had returned to the Land, even though every stricture of Law and Time had screamed against such intervention. If she failed, the fault would be his.

  But what else could he have done? He could not have acted differently without ceasing to be who he was.

  Rime Coldspray was waiting. Her comrades were waiting. He had to say something: something that was not more self-recrimination. He had done enough of that. It served no purpose.

  And Linden was not here to heal or curse him.

  Goading himself, he rasped, “You already know some of my story.” The Swordmainnir had heard his challenge to Kastenessen. “Joan is dead. I rode the Harrow’s horse until I killed it. We almost lost Mhornym and Naybahn. But they saved me. Then we went after turiya. Branl and me. And Clyme.”

  Now that he had made a start, he meant to continue. But Coldspray held up her hand, asking him to pause. Other Giants were coming closer. Limping arduously, Frostheart Grueburn led the way with Latebirth and Cirrus Kindwind at her back. Onyx Stonemage and Stormpast Galesend moved like cripples, supporting Cabledarm between them. Wheezing, Halewhole Bluntfist labored after them.

  As the women gathered beside the Ironhand, Covenant went on.

  “Some things I have to guess,” he admitted, “but I gather Linden had a run-in with the lurker. You were probably there. Whatever happened, it got that monster’s attention. Apparently Horrim Carabal can feel the Worm coming. It doesn’t want to die. It needs more power. But it couldn’t beat Linden—or you and Linden. So the Feroce found me.” They had accused him of being the Pure One. “They offered us an alliance.” In pain and desperation—“Mutual help, safe passage, that sort of thing.” Already he suffers the presence of one who wanders lost within his realm—“That must be how Longwrath got here. The lurker let him through. And dozens of those little creatures died helping us get to Joan.”