The Last Dark

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Covenant shook his head. “I doubt it. They had a perfect chance to abandon us back at that lake, but they didn’t. The lurker still wants to live. They still want to live. We’re the only hope they’ve got.”

  Like him, Linden believed the Feroce. Nevertheless the company could not go where they suggested.

  She should have been grateful. Instead she wanted to scream.

  “I said, wait a minute!” Jeremiah demanded more strongly. “You aren’t paying attention.”

  Fierce as a blow, Covenant wheeled away from the Feroce. Bracing his fists on his hips, he glared past the spread of Giants and the mouth of the downward chute. “Hellfire, Jeremiah! Paying attention to what?”

  Jeremiah faced Linden rather than Covenant. “Look, Mom.” Black fire played across the spout of fouled water, skirled up the seam of the wall. “Look.”

  Linden stared at him, thinking, Don’t push me. I can’t.

  But he was her son. She could not refuse him. Trembling privately at the prospect of maggots, spiders, worms, she asked Frostheart Grueburn to put her down. When she stood beside Jeremiah, close enough to borrow some of the Staff’s Earthpower, she turned her senses toward the fused stone. Alarm hampered her, but she forced it aside. Unsteadily she directed her percipience into the water; into the wall.

  There.

  Instinctively she recoiled; closed her throat against a moan.

  The rock along the seam was thin. It looked thin enough to break. And beyond it—

  She bit her lip until she drew blood.

  —stretched a different fissure, a wedge with its tip at the seam. It was narrow, but it widened into the distance until it passed beyond her discernment. And it was full of water.

  No, she realized a heartbeat later, not full. Everywhere under Mount Thunder, the Soulsease had shrunk to a fraction of its former flow. Before that, it had been a mighty torrent. That hidden fissure had indeed been full. And the cave itself had been full as well: a fact which probably explained why the weight of water had not broken through the seam ages ago. The cave had served to equalize the pressure. But now—

  Ah, now the level behind the wall had dropped. The fissure had emptied itself until the water stood, waiting to drain, little more than the height of a Giant above the pond. If the rock broke, the issuing flood would be fierce. Still the Giants might be able to withstand it. Stave and Branl might. When the river found a new level, a new equilibrium, the company might be able to ascend against it.

  Writ in water. God help me.

  Linden was not ready. She would never be ready.

  “Linden?” Covenant called in frustration. “Jeremiah? What is it? Damn it, I can’t see.”

  In a voice so small that she hardly heard it herself, Linden answered, “That wall is thin. There’s a crevice behind it. I can’t tell how high the crack is, or how far it goes. But if we break the wall—”

  She did not have the courage to say more.

  “That’s it,” Jeremiah confirmed more loudly. “That’s the way. We can go there.”

  The Swordmainnir peered across the cave in wonder. At a nod from the Anchormaster, Hurl and Wiver Setrock began to work along the wall to the right. “We are wise in the lore of stone,” Stoutgirth explained unnecessarily. “We will ascertain whether our strength may suffice to open the way.”

  While he waited for Hurl and Setrock, he sent four of his crew leftward to refill their waterskins from the clean stream.

  “The stone,” intoned the Feroce, “remembers endurance. It will not surrender to fists or blades.”

  “That’s not the problem,” Covenant muttered over the clamor of waters. With Coldspray’s help, he crossed the slick outlet, then scrambled toward Linden and Jeremiah. “The problem is control. Too much is easy. Just enough is hard.”

  Linden turned to him as if she were falling. When he reached her, she put her arms around his neck, leaned against him.

  “Oh, Thomas,” she whispered to him alone. “I can’t do this. I can feel She Who Must Not Be Named.”

  “What, here?” he breathed. Alarm tightened his grip. “Is She close?”

  Linden shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know where She is. But I can feel Her power. It’s leaking into the water. Just smelling it is bad enough. If I touch it—”

  Horror crouched in the pit of her stomach, in all of her nerves. The bane was death to her. It hungered for her soul.

  Just for a moment, Covenant held her like a man who wanted to howl. Then he mastered himself. “I understand,” he said stiffly. To retrieve her from carrion, he had been forced to hold her underwater; threaten her with drowning. “I’ll spare you if I can. If the Giants aren’t strong enough, I’ll try—”

  She felt him grimace as if he had bared his teeth. “Hellfire, Linden. I might bring down the roof.”

  She knew what he meant. He had too little health-sense—and he feared himself too much. His passions were too extreme for restraint.

  Hurl and Setrock reached the seam. While Hurl pressed an ear to the stone, listening, Setrock thumped the flaw with the heel of one palm, gently at first, then harder. Harder. Then Hurl stepped back. To the Anchormaster, he called, “Water lies beyond this stone. Linden Giantfriend and the Chosen-son gauge acutely.” His voice carried like streaks of argent across the surface of the pond. “Yet the Feroce do also. The stone has suffered much across the ages—aye, and absorbed much to harden it. It will not yield to blows or iron.”

  Branl raised Longwrath’s sword as if it were a question.

  Hurl shook his head. “The theurgies of that blade are obscure. I cannot conceive that they will suffice here.”

  “The krill?” asked Branl.

  The idea wrung a flinch from Linden. “No,” she told Covenant. “Not the krill. It might cut deep enough. But whoever holds it will be too close.” Tons of water and rock would crash outward—She had no choice. “I have to do it.”

  He pulled back his head, peered into her eyes. “Are you sure?”

  She could not hold his gaze. Leaning her forehead against his chest, she sighed, “I can try. I need to start using my ring. It might even help.”

  When he had invoked wild magic in the lower cavern, his wedding band had summoned a response from hers: a silver throb which had muted the sensations of pincers and scurrying. Perhaps her own power would shield her from the bane’s tormented, tormenting seepage.

  She felt Covenant gather his resolve. Briefly he tightened his hug again. Then he wheeled away.

  Shouting so that everyone would hear him, he demanded, “Listen! Linden is going to break through that wall for us, and she’s going to have to do it from here.” Opposite the seam. “But when she does, she’ll release a hell of a lot of water. I don’t want it to touch her! I don’t care how you do it. Think of something. Just keep her out of the water!”

  Jeremiah gaped at him. In surprise, the boy lost his grasp on Earthpower. The air failed in Linden’s lungs. She started to gag. But then Jeremiah recovered. Renewed flames spread outward.

  “Mom?” he asked anxiously. “Mom?”

  Panting, she urged him, “Don’t worry about me. Your job is hard enough. If I can do this, there’s going to be a flood—but we’ll still need air. The Giants will take care of me. I’ll be fine as long as we can breathe.”

  The Ironhand and the Anchormaster exchanged a few quick words. Then Rime Coldspray announced, “Timewarden, it will be done. The water here is vile. It will become more so. Yet we are hardy against such affronts. With your consent, I will entrust Linden Giantfriend to Bluff Stoutgirth and those in his command. They are not hampered by armor and swords. Frostheart Grueburn will stand ready to receive the Giantfriend when our passage inward has been opened.”

  Covenant did not object. Linden could not.

  At once, Stoutgirth called a few orders of his own. Almost immediately, everyone except Linden was in motion.

  The sailors refilling the waterskins helped each other past the fissure, movin
g directly toward the seam. Blustergale supported Baf Scatterwit in spite of her insistence that she did not need aid. Flashing a smile of encouragement at Linden, Grueburn strode away, followed by Cirrus Kindwind carrying Jeremiah. With a boost from Stave, Covenant climbed onto the Ironhand’s back. A look of nausea filled his eyes as if he had been overtaken by vertigo.

  For an instant as Branl passed her, Linden considered asking him to wait with her. She could use the krill’s gem to trigger wild magic: she had done so once before. But the outcome then had appalled her. She remembered too well the charred remains of Cavewights, scores or hundreds of them. Her spirit still wore the stains of slaughter. She nodded to the Humbled, but did not speak.

  Stave came to her side. He gave her a grave bow, regarded her with his single eye. “In such straits, Chosen,” he remarked, “it may be that Giants are better able to ward you than one Haruchai. Nonetheless I will not be parted from you. I have accepted once an absence from your side. I will not do so again.”

  Of the friends who had first joined Linden after her return to the Land, Stave was the last. The Ramen were gone. Liand and Anele were dead. And in some ways, Stave had endured more than any of them. She had no words for her gratitude.

  Trailing behind Stonemage, Bluntfist, and the last of the sailors, Etch Furledsail stopped with Linden and Stave. Even among Giants, she was tall: a graceful and comely woman no longer young, with grey scattered through her hair, a gleam in her eyes, and a weathered face. “It may appear to you,” she offered, “that our intent for your protection entails needless hazard. I assure you that it does not. I dare not attempt true haste over the hazards of these rocks. Therefore we will bear you across the water.

  “Fear nothing,” she added. With a wave, she indicated Setrock and Hurl beside the seam. “Where one Giant may fail, three will succeed. And we are adept in water. Here it is noxious in all sooth.” She frowned at the pond. “Still it will not harm us.

  “Giantfriend, I ask only that you do not resist when the wall has been opened. To evade such torrents, we must move swiftly.”

  Linden said nothing. She had stopped listening. Her gaze followed her companions as they gathered on both sides of the flaw where she meant to strike, but she was not watching. Her attention had turned inward. While Furledsail’s voice passed over her, she searched for the door hidden within her, the specific intersection of intention and emotion and openness, of need and willed desperation, which gave her access to wild magic.

  Furledsail raised an eyebrow at Linden’s silence. Stave replied with a slight shrug.

  At first, Linden could not find her way. Too many things could go wrong. If she ruptured the wall, a tremendous amount of water would crash straight toward her. It would hit hard enough to make pulp of the Feroce, who still stood on the other side of the cave’s outlet. Or the Giants poised beside the seam might be struck by shards, caught in the cascade, torn away. Jeremiah’s concentration might falter again. Then the bane’s insidious fetors might overwhelm Linden. And she could not be sure that the company would be able to force a passage along the crevice behind the wall. If that crack held more water than the cave could release—

  Furledsail intended to carry her into the pond; into memories of horror and anguish—

  But then Covenant called her name. Jeremiah shouted, “Mom!”

  Steady as gutrock, Stave said, “You are Linden Avery the Chosen, named in honor Ringthane, Giantfriend, and Wildwielder. Much is asked of you, but much has also been given. The time for doubt has passed. Only deeds or death remain. On other occasions, you have dared Desecration. You need not fear it now.”

  Anchored by the voices of people who were dear to her, Linden closed her mind to the clamor of too much trepidation, too many possible disasters. She was not alone. Her husband and her son loved her. Her friends had faith in her. She could trust them.

  But they could not reach into her secret places for her. That she had to do for herself. And she knew how. She had done it before. She only had to retrace her mental steps.

  Following her health-sense inward, she found the intimate chamber of her power. It was masked on all sides by fears and sins, unforgiven, but it was a part of her nonetheless. She had a right to it.

  Now or never. How often had she said that to herself?

  When argent stark as lightning began to blaze from her ring, she did not hesitate. And she did not hold back. She was not Covenant, fraught with ungovernable potential. Causing caesures had required precision, supreme delicacy: attacking granite and basalt demanded only force.

  She delivered force as if she had suddenly become mighty.

  As the stone cracked along the seam, the whole cave seemed to shriek. Rubble and water burst from the wall like screams.

  Before Linden could snatch another breath, everything became chaos.

  An avalanche of water slammed into the pond, but she hardly saw it; hardly saw the Giants gripping each other so that they would not be swept away; hardly saw Jeremiah flail black fire in all directions, wild and useless. She had already been lifted into Furledsail’s arms. At once certain and cautious, Furledsail moved into the pond. But she did not confront its upheaval directly. Instead she angled away to the right, past the immediate thrash and spray.

  At the same instant, Hurl and Setrock dove. Hurl stretched out, long and shallow, crossing as much distance as he could. Setrock went deeper, shorter. As Furledsail sank to her waist, Hurl broke the surface beyond her.

  Above the water, the lash and rebound of waves, Furledsail tossed her burden upright to Hurl.

  Linden caught a frantic glimpse of Stave swimming. Then Hurl’s hands caught her.

  He did not hold her. Treading water, he pitched her back over his head. A blind throw—

  Blind and unerring. Deftly Wiver Setrock snagged her out of the air. In the same motion, he, too, flung her behind him.

  A heartbeat later, Linden lay in Grueburn’s clasp at the water’s edge. With wary haste, Grueburn retreated up the rocks to press her back against the wall among the other Giants. Her grin as she regarded Linden was feral with glee.

  Linden’s mind had gone blank. She stared up at Grueburn as if she did not recognize the Swordmain.

  But somewhere deep inside her, a voice was crowing.

  You did it. You did it.

  Did you call me your daughter? she shouted at Lord Foul. Watch and learn, you smug bastard!

  She could cheer and threaten because the Despiser was not her greatest fear. He was Covenant’s problem. She had chosen a different path to the World’s End.

  Wild magic was a necessary step.

  7.

  At Last

  Tumults crashed inward. They threatened to fill the cave, drown the entire company. The Feroce vanished in roaring waves. The air that came with the flood stank of minerals and trapped hate. It surpassed Jeremiah; surpassed the Staff of Law.

  But the constrained volume of the river was less than it had been scant days ago, much less; and the cave’s outlet swallowed the immediate brunt of the inrush. On either side, waves slammed like heavy seas against the walls, fell back onto each other. The pond became a boiling cauldron, a contained squall. Surges tore at the Giants’ ankles, knees, thighs. Fluid blows hammered Stave and Branl. Yet moment by moment the flail and rebound of the waters ran down the mountain’s throat.

  Gradually the flood seemed to find its balance. Its force receded as the cleft drained. Turmoil slapped at the walls and the company, but did not claim them. Smaller waves sank to the level of knees and then ankles. Soon the water only splashed the feet of the Giants. Its thunderous howl faded.

  At the same time, the air tumbling from the opened crevice lost some of its virulence. It had been blocked for ages or eons, and its contagions had congealed until they were thick as mire. But now it ran out like the river; and as it emptied the cleft, it drew air from some cleaner source. Gasping, Linden tasted hints of something that resembled life. When Jeremiah regained his grip on Earthpower,
the whole company began to breathe more easily.

  His efforts confirmed that he was unharmed.

  But the Feroce were indeed gone. If they had survived the torrents, they had allowed themselves to be swept away: back to the cavern and the black lake, to the Defiles Course and the Sarangrave. Linden wanted to think that they were still alive. They had done what they could. Perhaps their High God would forgive their doubts.

  A shout from the Ironhand announced that the gap into the crevice had become passable. Branl carried the krill closer to light the way as the Anchormaster and half a dozen of his crew dropped down into the water’s former channel, then began scrambling upward. The river frothed against their legs, but they labored higher until they were out of sight.

  Through the raw clamor of the current, Covenant told Branl to go ahead. With Coldspray’s assent, the Humbled took Loric’s dagger into the crevice. For a moment, the gem left slashes of argent on the pond’s turmoil. Then the Ironhand followed, bearing Covenant with her, and her size blocked most of the light. The remaining streaks and gleams made the cave and its water look ghostly, transient, as if the whole place were dissolving; losing its place in the reality of time.

  Halewhole Bluntfist went next with Setrock and Furledsail. Cirrus Kindwind carried Jeremiah after them. Then it was Frostheart Grueburn’s turn. As Linden scrambled onto Grueburn’s back, she saw a rope trailing from the crevice: a lifeline. Onyx Stonemage gripped the end while someone—Bluff Stoutgirth or one of his sailors—pulled it taut. Muttering her approval, Grueburn held the line to steady her as she bore Linden into the crevice with Stave behind her. Squallish Blustergale supported Scatterwit. Stonemage brought up the rear.

  The lifeline was necessary. Somewhere beneath Grueburn’s feet, there was stone: there had to be. But long turbulent millennia had deposited thick layers of silt as cloying as quicksand. The water pounding against Grueburn’s thighs was not the greatest obstacle to her ascent. The silt was worse. She sank to her calves and higher in muck that dragged at every step. While she hauled one foot out of the mire, her weight drove the other deeper. She needed the rope.