Wait! Covenant shouted voicelessly, not to Sunder and Hollian, but to his companions.
Frantically Anele thrust the orcrest at Liand. As soon as Liand accepted it, the old man crumpled to the lurching stone.
An instant later, Stormpast Galesend swept him into her arms.
—and High Lord Elena appeared directly in front of She Who Must Not Be Named.
When Elena saw the bane, she began to shriek like every damned woman who had ever been consumed.
As if in surprise or recognition, the bane replied with Her own cries. Elena was brighter than Sunder and Hollian: a cynosure of pain wracked by the harm that she had done, and by the use which Lord Foul had made of her. Together the bane’s howling and hers scaled higher, louder. They were a firestorm of screams. The tortures of the doomed scourged the air; lashed Covenant’s hearing. Liand and the Ramen covered their ears. Several of the Giants flinched. Blood spread from the corners of Esmer’s eyes.
Covenant understood. Oh, he understood—Sunder and Hollian had made the right choice. Elena had loved, and been betrayed, and suffered. And she was Covenant’s daughter, excruciated by self-abhorrence for millennia: the bane’s perfect food. The perfect bait. The bane could not ignore such ripe anguish.
But when She Who Must Not Be Named opened Her maws, Elena fled toward the end of the cavern. Covenant’s daughter was a Law-Breaker; but she had once been a High Lord. Long ago, she had been consumed by evil—and had been freed by her father. Her horror of being devoured was greater than the punishments which she had exacted from herself. Frantically, as if she remembered being her father’s daughter, she tried to escape.
Ravening, the bane thrashed in pursuit; flung out long arms of theurgy to snatch Elena from the air. Somehow she eluded them.
And while She Who Must Not Be Named gave chase, Covenant forced himself to turn away. With his partial fists clenched, and his heart pounding out rage and rue, he faced Cail’s son.
Through the chaos of screams, he snarled, “I guess you finally picked a side.”
His last gambit.
Blood stained Esmer’s cheeks. “I have not.” His tone echoed Elena’s dismay. “I serve the Wildwielder as I serve Kastenessen.”
“Then you’ve got it wrong. This is all treachery. Sure, you’ve told us a few things that might have been useful, if we weren’t as good as dead. But under the circumstances, they hardly count.”
Desperation and shrieks accumulated in the cavern. Wails broke stalactites from the ceiling, sent turbulence across the rising flood. The Swordmainnir retreated to form a tight cluster around their companions. Some of them watched Elena’s flight. Others searched Covenant as though he had appalled them.
“I do as I must.” Like Anele, Esmer seemed to plead for mercy. “You cannot save me. Earlier I averred my wish for death. That course is no longer open to you.”
“I know,” Covenant retorted. “But there’s a way out.” Elena’s cries rent his heart. “A way to serve both sides of who you are. Aid and betrayal at the same time.”
Esmer shook his head, scattering red droplets. “I cannot comprehend why you have not been redeemed. It is madness! I have granted those who wish to serve you ample opportunity. That is my aid to the Wildwielder. Yet I am spurned.”
Covenant had no idea what Esmer meant. But he could not afford to pursue the question. Tendrils of power had already grasped the Dead High Lord. The bane’s mouths gaped to rend Elena’s spectre.
Linden had refused her the gift which Berek, Damelon, and Loric had given Kevin. Now she was being sacrificed—
Covenant had no time.
“Don’t change the subject,” he snapped. “Look at us, Esmer. We’re finished. If this is how you aid Linden, it’s just pathetic. You can’t hurt her now. You can only make sure we all die.
“That’s probably good enough for Kastenessen. But you haven’t thought it through. You haven’t thought about what happens when She Who Must Not Be Named gets my ring.
“That isn’t just betrayal.” Swallowing dread like bile, Covenant insisted, “It’s the betrayal. Treachery pure and absolute. With that kind of power—”
“She is complete in herself,” Esmer countered. Blood rimmed his eyes. It formed streaks like shame down the sides of his face. “She cares naught for such theurgies.
“You are indeed betrayed, but not by me.”
Abruptly the bane gave a vast roar of triumph. An avid pounce and gnash slashed Elena’s voice from the air.
Elena!
Involuntarily Covenant turned. But Giants blocked his view. He did not see his lost daughter eaten by the many maws of She Who Must Not Be Named. He saw only the bane’s towering savagery as She consumed Elena—
—who had never been forgiven.
This was his fault, his. Not by me. Then by whom? He could not think of anyone to blame except himself. Who else had failed Linden and her companions and Elena badly enough for the failure to be called treachery?
Fiercely he faced Esmer again. With his own rage and grief, he rasped, “Sure. She’s complete. I understand that. She wants my ring because it’s a wedding ring. She doesn’t care about white gold. Wild magic can’t make Her any more eternal.
“But it’ll make Her victims into monsters.” It was the symbol and instrument of everything that they had ever desired; everything that had been taken from them. “They’ll be capable of endless butchery. They won’t have to wait for the Worm. Hell, they won’t even need the Worm. And they’ll probably start with Kastenessen just because he’s using Her. But they won’t stop there.
“It’s going to be the end of everything, and it’s your doing!
“You can’t want that. Not if you’re still Cail’s son.”
Almost as an afterthought, he added, “If you let us go now, you can always get us later. If Kastenessen doesn’t like it, you can tell him you saved his life.”
Mouths and teeth and fire advanced on the ledge again. Esmer’s chagrin was as vivid as the bane’s hunger.
“I remember my father.”
“Then do something about it. Don’t let her get my ring.”
For an instant, Esmer appeared to hesitate. Storms scattered the blood in his eyes. Winds and screaming whipped at his hair, tugged his torn cymar, stung his damaged flesh. Out of nowhere, hail pelted the company like a fall of stones.
Then he wrapped himself in nothingness and disappeared.
The bane’s glee seemed to deafen the world. Excoriation and rage reared over the ledge. Covenant did not have time to see the Demondim-spawn race away, fleeing for their lives; barking incantations of concealment.
But Esmer was gone.
As though he had spent his entire life waiting for this moment, the Ardent flung his ribbands around the company and snatched them all into darkness.
Part Two
“Only the damned”
1.
Those Who Endure—
Holding Linden against him, Thomas Covenant sat leaning on a boulder half buried in the sandy bottom of a shallow gully. Most of the terrain around him looked barren, stripped of vegetation by thirst and ancient misuse. But a few stunted trees, twisted as cripples, still gripped the edges of the gully. Here and there, tufts of bitter grass clung to some scant source of moisture. He hoped for aliantha, but he had not seen any.
His mind was still full of shrieks and fire and torrents: his heart was woe. Whenever he looked at Linden’s slack face, he saw Elena’s unassoiled horror, pursued by She Who Must Not Be Named. He did not know how to lament for his daughter.
In the east beyond the rim of the gully, the sun was rising. When it ascended high enough, he would have to move; use the boulder for shade. But this patch of sand would lie in shadow a little longer. While he could, he remained where he sat, gently stroking Linden’s hair.
It was filthy, soiled with sweat and grime and dust. She had been through too much—And in her present condition, she could not care for herself at all. But the state of her hair made no difference to him.
His hands were too numb to feel it.
Only one night had passed since she had restored him to life, maimed him with mortality, and roused the Worm of the World’s End. How much time remained until the Worm brought its hunger here, to feed on the ichor in the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir? Four days? Six? It was not enough.
If it is not forbidden, it will have Earthpower.
If someone had asked him why he sat in that position, caressing her hair when his own nerves were dead and he had no way of knowing whether she felt his touch, he might have said that he was praying.
As soon as the Ardent had brought the company here from the Lost Deep, Covenant had claimed Linden from Stave. Neither the former Master nor any of Linden’s friends had objected when he had seated himself spread-legged against the boulder so that he could hold her, curled into herself and unconscious, against his chest. Then he had lifted the chain holding his ring over his head, and had settled it around her neck.
The Humbled had expressed their disapproval; but he told them, “I never wanted all that power. When I died, I finally succeeded at giving it away.” He had tried to surrender it several times before then, and had been refused. “I don’t want it back. Not like this.”
Most of his companions were weary beyond bearing. None of them argued with him. The Staff of Law they placed on the sand near Linden so that she could reach it if Covenant managed to rouse her. Then they stumbled away to rest.
He recognized where he was. Of course he did. The shock of his reincarnation had not cost him simple things like his knowledge of the Land’s geography. He did not need to turn his head and peer past the edge of the boulder to confirm that the jagged cliff of Landsdrop jutted high into the dawn less than half a league away.
Instead of returning the company to Andelain, the Ardent had deposited them on the Lower Land, between Landsdrop and the dour fens and seepage of Sarangrave Flat. The foothills of Mount Thunder—and the dark throat of the Defiles Course—were at least sixty or sixty-five leagues to the northwest. At that distance, the mountain itself was no longer visible.
Vaguely Covenant wondered whether the waters that fed the Defiles Course and Lifeswallower and most of the Sarangrave had been completely cut off. Likely there were other springs within Gravin Threndor, streams that joined the polluted Soulsease beyond its deepest subterranean lakes. And in any case, the Great Swamp and Sarangrave Flat would not soon empty their rank life-blood into the Sunbirth Sea. The Worm of the World’s End would find its way to Melenkurion Skyweir long before the vast demesne of the lurker began to run dry.
He wanted to ask the Ardent why the compelled Insequent had delivered the company here. But he could wait. The Ardent had been profligate with his given strength. The exertion of translating everyone except the Demondim-spawn out of Mount Thunder’s depths had left him chalk-faced and trembling. As soon as he had set his charges down in the dry streambed, he had wrapped his garments around his whole body, swaddled himself until even his face was covered. Then he had collapsed where he stood.
Covenant let him rest. The Ardent had earned it. And Covenant could guess at one or two explanations for the Insequent’s choice. Kevin’s Dirt did not impend over the Lower Land. Kastenessen—or moksha Raver—had foreseen no need to cast the brume eastward. Here Linden, Liand, and the Ramen would retain their natural percipience. And the Staff would be stronger.
In addition, the Ardent had placed the whole bulk of Mount Thunder between the company and both the skurj and the Sandgorgons. Speaking of the Sandgorgons, Esmer had said, Already they have begun the slaughter of Salva Gildenbourne. And he had promised worse—But the threat they posed was not immediate: they were too far away. Kastenessen could send his skurj more quickly, but even those monsters would need time to travel through so much earth.
The Ardent had given Covenant and Linden and their friends the necessary gift of a respite.
Still they had no defense against the Worm of the World’s End. Perhaps no defense was possible.
And the problem of Roger remained. Even now, he summons an army of Cavewights to join his efforts—If he knew where the Ardent had taken Jeremiah, he might be able to muster an attack more swiftly than Kastenessen could. Certainly he would do everything in his considerable power to recapture Jeremiah and the croyel. They were his portal to eternity.
But Covenant did not dwell on such concerns. Though she hardly moved, except to breathe, Linden held his attention.
He saw echoes of Joan in her aggrieved face. The small muscles at the corners of her closed eyes winced occasionally, implying pains which she could not escape. Because of him, Elena had been consumed by She Who Must Not Be Named. Reminders of his ex-wife seemed to demand more from him than did the last crisis of the Earth. Her efforts to destroy his hands demonstrated that she was a burden which he could not refuse.
Therefore he would need Loric’s krill. If he confronted Joan without some potent weapon, she would incinerate him. But the krill was also needed here. It alone controlled the croyel. Freed, the creature would escape in an instant, taking Jeremiah with it—and killing everyone it could.
Restoring Covenant to life, Linden had sacrificed the Earth. He refused to sacrifice both her and her son merely to ease his own responsibilities.
Torn within himself, he stroked her hair, and prayed, and waited.
Apart from Clyme, Branl, and Stave, who watched the horizons from the rims of the gully, and Galt, who had accepted the task of restraining the croyel and Jeremiah so that Rime Coldspray could rest, Mahrtiir was the only member of the company still standing. Earlier he had sent out his Cords to scout the terrain and search for water in spite of their weariness. They had not yet returned; and everyone else had stretched out on the sand to sleep while they could. Now, alone, the Manethrall faced the east as though he expected the touch of the sunrise on his eyeless face to offer him an obscure revelation.
Fortunately Stormpast Galesend had not neglected to remove her cataphract and set it out as a cradle for Anele: protected by stone armor, he slept like the Giants. And Liand slept as well. His efforts with his orcrest so soon after Linden had healed him had exhausted even his youth and Stonedownor stamina.
Stoic as a plinth of brown marble, Galt held Loric’s dagger against the throat of the croyel. The blade prevented the fatal creature’s teeth from reaching Jeremiah’s neck; prevented the croyel from feeding. But Covenant could not tell whether the succubus was growing weaker. He knew only that Jeremiah looked like a rag doll, boneless and beaten. The boy’s muddy, disfocused gaze was as empty as an unfilled grave.
From Jeremiah’s back, the croyel’s bitter eyes studied Liand’s supine form. The creature’s gaze conveyed the impression that the croyel craved Liand’s death.
At intervals, Mahrtiir glanced toward Jeremiah and the croyel; regarded them with senses other than sight. Then he resumed his examination of the east as if he awaited an epiphany.
When the sun gilded his forehead, however, and warmed the begrimed bandage that still covered his eye sockets, he shrugged slightly. Stiff with disappointment, he turned to face Covenant and Linden.
“There is an old tale among the Ramen,” he began brusquely, “concerning Hile Troy. He was a stranger to the Land, as you know, and eyeless from birth. According to the tale, the Land’s sun gifted him with true sight in spite of his blindness.
“Here Kevin’s Dirt does not corrupt the light. For that reason, I permitted myself to imagine that my vision might be restored.” He had contributed nothing to the company’s escape from the Lost Deep and the bane. Clearly his uselessness galled him. “But my hope was delusion. I am Ramen. We are given no gifts except those of service to the Ranyhyn.”
Covenant expected him to add that even that service would be denied him if he returned to his people. Without sight, he would not be considered worthy of the great horses. Instead, however, he changed the subject.
“The Cords will soon return, bearing word of water. The season’s rains have been abun
dant. Our old tales inform us that there are few springs in this region—and fewer still which do not draw some venom from the earth. Battles have been fought between Sarangrave Flat and Landsdrop. Many of the Land’s defenders have perished here—aye, and many of Fangthane’s servants also. Their blood and magicks stain this ground across the millennia.
“However, this watercourse was formed by rains gathering from the Upper Land. If the stream does not run here, it will flow nearby. We will be able to quench our thirst, though we appear to lack aliantha, and have no other sustenance.”
Covenant nodded. His own thirst was real enough, but he felt sure that it was trivial compared to the deprivation suffered by the Giants and the Ramen, Liand and Anele; Linden herself. They were able to sleep only because their exhaustion was greater than their need for water.
But he did not know why the Manethrall was talking to him; telling him things that he already understood. Stroking Linden’s hair tenderly, he waited for Mahrtiir to continue.
After a moment, the Manethrall nodded toward the southeast. “A caesure moves there. I had thought that the absence of Kevin’s Dirt would diminish the virulence of such evils. Yet its emanations”—he lifted a hand to his face—“suggest that its force is enhanced.”
He was probably right. Long before Lord Foul fashioned and occupied Ridjeck Thome, an insidious miasma had hung over portions of the Lower Land. Baleful creatures had arisen from the corrupt waters pouring out of Mount Thunder. The lurker of the Sarangrave had come to life in the effluvium of bitter theurgies. And the Ravers had taken form among the malign spirits of the region. Interdicted by the Colossus of the Fall, they had spread much of their harm south and east toward the Despiser’s eventual seat. Over time, they had done such damage that those lands had come to be named the Spoiled Plains.
Covenant could well believe that caesures flourished across the Lower Land, fed by a history of wrongness. Especially south of Mount Thunder—
“Is it coming this way?” he asked the Manethrall.
Against All Things Ending Page 38
