Against All Things Ending (17 page)

If Anele heard Covenant, he did not show it. Instead the old man approached Pahni, mutely holding out his hands. When she gave him her treasure-berries, he began to eat as if he had been fasting for days.

Linden sighed. In what seemed like a previous life, Anele had urged her to
Seek deep rock
.
The oldest stone
.
Only there the memory remains
.

The last days of the Land are counted
.
Without forbidding, there is too little time
.

In retrospect, he seemed prescient. Still she had no idea what he meant.

“Covenant.” Deliberately she tried to make her voice sound like a slap, hoping to bring him back from his inner maze. “Do you understand what Anele is talking about?”

Covenant gazed at her without any expression that she could interpret. “Sunder had
orcrest
,” he muttered. “Hollian had
lianar
. They weren’t Lords, but they were full of Earthpower. It’s all about wood and stone.” Without warning, he raised his fists, punched himself on both temples simultaneously. “If I could just damn
remember
—!”

Linden flinched at his sudden vehemence. Pahni did the same. “Thomas Covenant,” protested Coldspray softly. “Giantfriend.” Branl, Galt, and Clyme moved to protect Covenant from himself.

Straining, Covenant panted through his teeth, “The Harrow knows. The
Elohim
aren’t the only food. The Worm can always get what it needs. But they’re the
right
food. As long as it can find them, the Worm won’t want to feed on anything else. The better they hide, the more time we have.

“But when it’s eaten
enough
—”

He tried to finish the sentence. In spite of his efforts, however, he seemed to gag on what he wanted to say; or his mind skidded out from under him as if he stood on a surface as slick as the tunnel leading to the EarthBlood.

Linden understood him no better than she did Anele. Nonetheless he had given her an idea. Obliquely he had supplied her with an argument; a lever.

Now, she told herself. Now or never. Jeremiah needed her; or she needed him. More delays would only increase her doubts. They might cost her her ability to take any action at all.

As if she were speaking to the darkness, she asked, “Liand, will you give us some light?”

Andelain lacked none of its numinous mystery in the absence of the
krill
’s brilliance. The Hills seemed complete as they were. Doubtless the young Stonedownor had not felt the need to see more brightly than his health-sense allowed. No one except Linden felt that need. Yet he complied without hesitation. Taking his piece of Sunstone from the pouch at his waist, he held it up in the palm of his hand and invoked his heritage.

From the
orcrest
came a glow so pure that it appeared to have been washed clean. Steadily the shining expanded into the vale. And as it did so, it revealed Linden’s companions as if it had reified them. Lit white, they looked ghostly for a moment, as spectral as the Dead: a small throng like omens or supplicants around Covenant and Linden. Then they resumed their substance.

To Liand, Linden said like Covenant, “Thank you. That helps.”

She wanted everyone with her to see that she had made her decision and would not be dissuaded.

For a moment, she met Stave’s single gaze, the flat stares of the Humbled, Rime Coldspray’s troubled frown, the anxieties of the Cords. One by one, she scanned the Ironhand’s comrades, and Mahrtiir, and Covenant. To Anele she nodded, although she had no reason to think that he was aware of her. In her living room, Jeremiah had once built a construct of Mount Thunder. He had given her a hint—

Seek deep rock
.

Leaving everyone else behind, she could still take Anele with her.

Finally she fixed her attention on Liand as if he were the spokesman for all of her friends and uncertainties; as if he were the only one who needed to be convinced. While Covenant wandered in the world’s past, he could not countermand her.

“It’s time,” she said carefully; almost steadily. “Anele and I are going with the Harrow.” And with the Ardent, presumably. “But we’re going alone.”

She felt reactions as quick as heartbeats around her; but she kept her gaze on Liand. If she could persuade him—

Ah, Liand.
I wish I could spare you
.
Hell, I wish any of us could spare you
.

—the others might follow his example.

His stark eyebrows arched in surprise. Objections crowded into his mouth so swiftly that for the moment he could not articulate any of them. The light of his
orcrest
faltered briefly. In that instant of wavering, he looked somehow younger and more vulnerable, as though he had been personally spurned.

Tightening her grip on herself, Linden said, “The rest of you have more important things to do. You’re going to stay here.” Where Andelain would preserve them for a while. “Jeremiah is my son. I can’t abandon him. I’ve already made that bargain. But I won’t risk you for him.

“And the Land still needs defenders,” she went on, hurrying to forestall Liand’s expostulations. “It needs you and your Sunstone. It needs Covenant and the
krill
. It needs Giants and
Haruchai
and Ramen and Ranyhyn. Even if we didn’t have so many enemies and monsters to worry about, someone has to do
some
thing about the Worm. Someone has to preserve the
Elohim
, as many as possible,” to slow or weaken the Worm, “and that someone isn’t me. I don’t have any power now.” No power—and no idea how she might reclaim her son from the
croyel
. “I’m not the one who saves worlds.

“I can’t actually imagine what hope is anymore,” she finished, bracing herself for a storm of protests. She had staked her whole heart on Covenant—and she had failed him. “But if there
is
such a thing—if it still exists—it depends on you. I have to go to Jeremiah. I can’t do anything else. You have to stay here.”

Her particular intensity seemed to seal Liand’s throat. His mouth opened and closed on stillborn arguments. She saw in his eyes that her assertion had shocked him more profoundly, or more intimately, than Covenant’s resurrection.

The impassivity of the Masters may have expressed approval: Stave’s did not. Like Liand, Mahrtiir was silent. Behind his bandage, he appeared to weigh Linden’s needs against the Land’s; her desires against his own. Pahni made no attempt to conceal her visceral eagerness, her hope that Liand would be spared. Anxious and torn, Bhapa studied Linden for signs that she might waver.

But the Giants—

Rime Coldspray was the first to burst out laughing. Almost immediately, however, her comrades joined her. Stentorian and unconstrained, their loud humor filled the night: it seemed to cast back every darkness. Together they laughed until tears streamed down their faces; laughed as if laughter were another form of
caamora
, able to purge and cleanse until only wholeness remained. Under the stars, the vale rang with Giantish peals.

Earlier Linden had ached to hear the Swordmainnir laugh. Now their mirth daunted her: it seemed to defeat her. Once she had been stone. Now she had become as breakable as unfired clay. How could she hold up her head, or insist on protecting her friends, when the Giants found such glee in her arguments; her pleading?

“Ah, Linden Giantfriend,” the Ironhand chuckled as she subsided. “You are a wonderment in all sooth. Your words resemble a tale of woe, but they are not. They are a flight of fancy. Do you conceive that any Giant would turn aside from such a quest as yours? Ha! The lure of extravagant hazards is too great. And we can do naught to preserve the
Elohim
. We have no virtue to discover their many coverts—and no wish to do so. Both the World’s End and the Land’s many other perils will await our return from your son’s imprisonment. If they do not, they are too immense to be opposed by any force within our compass.

“We will accompany you, Linden Giantfriend, with your consent or without it. We cannot do otherwise, lest we lose the gift of joy entirely.”

The other women chortled their assent as if it were delight.

Hearing them, Liand’s face cleared. Their laughter banished his dismay. And for Mahrtiir also, the tension of an inner conflict eased. He was palpably relieved to turn away from responsibilities which exceeded his image of himself; and his devotion to Linden was strong. Bhapa’s reaction resembled Mahrtiir’s. As for Pahni, she was a Ramen Cord: she would follow where her Manethrall led, in spite of her fear for Liand.

Groaning to herself, Linden saw the four of them side with the Giants. She would not be able to dissuade them now. She could only compel them to remain behind by telling the Harrow that her interpretation of his bargain required him to exclude them.

If she did so, the Ardent would support her. She could draw on his magicks when she had none of her own.

Yet the Giants had moved her: she felt fundamentally shaken. Their laughter seemed as irrefusable as Jeremiah’s plight.

Dourly the Humbled nodded. “In this circumstance,” Galt said, “we will regret your departure. It is madness compounded with madness. Beyond question, some better use for your lives and efforts might be found. Understand, then, that neither we nor the ur-Lord will join your folly. Here he and the Wraiths of Andelain and High Lord Loric’s
krill
may yet provide a bastion against havoc. Mayhap new counsels may now be gained among the Dead. And we do not fear to place our faith in the Unbeliever, though he has been severed from himself, making him less than he was.

“While the Earth endures, the Masters stand with Thomas Covenant. But we will do so
here
rather than under the thrall of any Insequent.”

As Galt spoke, Linden’s heart twisted. Surely this was what she wanted? To keep Covenant safe in Andelain? She owed him at least that much after everything that she had done to damage and misuse him. And yet she did not want to part from him. She did
not
. Even Jeremiah would not fill Covenant’s place in her heart.

Like him, she was caught in a flaw within herself. But hers was an emotional fissure, not a broken memory. She wanted—and did not want—and could not choose.

For his part, the Harrow did not hesitate. In a loud voice, he proclaimed, “Your debates are empty breath, wasted while time crowds against us. You seek to persuade the lady, but
I
do not heed you. My oath I have given to her alone. I will not accept the burden of her companions.”

“Aye,” the Ardent interjected, “if that is her interpretation.” Like his assurance, his lisp was fading. “Should she wish to seek her son without accompaniment, her desires will be enforced. But should she find herself loath to proceed both friendless and bereft—” His voice trailed away like the fluttering of his ribbands.

As if by incantation, Linden’s indecisions were dispelled. The Harrow’s tone enabled her to stand on ground as solid as it was unexpected. In an instant, she discarded her previous resolve. He wished to leave her companions behind—and she did not trust him. His hungers were too extreme: he
needed
her helplessness. Without it, he could not be confident that she would eventually surrender Jeremiah to his designs.

The Giants and the Ramen, Liand and Stave: they might be able to aid her son in ways that she could not yet imagine. She believed that Anele would be granted
deep rock
. And while Covenant remained in Andelain with the Humbled and the
krill
, she could feel sure that the Land had not been utterly forsaken.

She could bear to leave Covenant behind if it meant preserving some manner of hope for the Land.

Turning to the Harrow, she surrendered again; but not to him. Not to him.

“In that case,” she said distinctly, “I’ve changed my mind. I want my friends with me.”

All who live share the Land’s plight
.

“And I have said,” the Harrow retorted in fury, “that I do not
heed
you. This purpose is
mine
. The knowledge necessary to accomplish it is
mine
. I will not countenance the corruption of all that I have craved and sought.”

The Ardent flinched. His eyes rolled. For a moment, he looked like he might turn his back and flee. But then some form of courage or coercion came to his aid. Thickly he intoned, “Lady, it is both my pleasure and my task by the will of the Insequent to inform you that the Harrow’s true name is—”

The Harrow wheeled on his ribboned opponent. “
Silence
, fool!” he roared. “If you betray me in this fashion, you betray yourself as well. Revealing my name, you will empower the lady to command me. Thus you will destroy my intent—and you will perish, damned by your own deed.

“But I will not permit it. Rather than suffer ruin at your hand, I will forsake my design utterly.

“What then, fat one, fool, meddler? Will you drive me to depart, abandoning the Earth to its end, merely to gratify your gangrel corpulence? Must I leave the lady to grieve for her son while she may? Are you blind to the truth that neither you nor the combined will of the Insequent suffice to alter the world’s doom? You cannot discover the prison of the lady’s son. Without him, you are lost.
All
is lost.”

Wreathed in bands of color like anxiety, the Ardent replied, “This outcome some among the Insequent have foreseen. Others disagree. One matter on which all concur, however, is that of the lady’s import. To an extent which you fear to acknowledge, the fate of life rests with her as much as with her son.

“Yet that is not the substance of our contention. Its crux is this. Do my pronouncements, or the lady’s desires, suffice to daunt you? Is your purpose, or your pride, so fragile that you cannot suffer obstruction? If not, you must concede that your avarice forbids you to turn from your chosen path.”

“
My
avarice?” barked the Harrow scornfully. His fingers twitched, eager for the magic of his beads and fringes. “
I
am not a living embodiment of gluttony. There can be no comparison between us. Where I have hazarded my life assiduously for centuries, you have merely feasted. You cannot out-face me. You prize your gross flesh too highly.”