Against All Things Ending (19 page)

Since her translation to the Land in Jeremiah’s wake, she had learned to think of his last voluntary creations as guides or instructions—or as warnings. Certainly she would not have traveled to Andelain to resurrect Covenant if she had not first found the Staff of Law and been taken to Revelstone, where she had fallen victim to Roger’s insidious glamour.

She believed now that she knew where the Harrow would take her, for good or ill.

Unfortunately she could not close her mind to an alternative interpretation of her son’s constructs. If Lord Foul had indeed claimed Jeremiah years ago, those images of Revelstone and Mount Thunder may not have been voluntary. They may have been manipulations; ploys designed to make her serve the Despiser.

Yet in the Hall of Gifts, Stave had spoken of children among his people.—
it is their birthright to remain who they are
. And he had asked,
Are you certain that the same may not be said of your son?

Linden wanted to say the same of Jeremiah so badly that she feared to do so.
I refuse to believe he made choices then that can’t be undone
. Nevertheless the nature of the intent which had inspired his constructs in her living room did not affect her answer to Liand’s question.

“I don’t think that we need to worry about Anele. If I’m right, we’re going underground. It’ll all be stone. Old stone. The kind that he understands.

“You were there,” she said, remembering. “In Salva Gildenbourne. Before that first
skurj
attacked us, and we met the Giants. He read or heard something in the sand,” the residue of rocks which must have been old long before Covenant’s first appearance in the Land.

There Anele had spoken of
the necessary forbidding of evils
—a forbidding like the repulsion which the Colossus of the Fall had once wielded. But that strength was long gone. It had failed with the passing of the One Forest and the Forestals.

Without forbidding, there is too little time
.

“Aye,” Liand acknowledged. “At that time, he instructed you to ‘Seek deep rock. The oldest stone. Only there the memory remains.’ But how do you conclude that your son is imprisoned beneath the earth?”

Anele had also said,
Forget understanding
.
Forget purpose
.
Forget the
Elohim.
They, too, are imperiled
.

Like so many of the old man’s utterances, that one had been as urgent as prophecy, and as cryptic. Now, too late, Linden knew what it meant.

And she knew something else as well. When he stood on rock—or on the remnants of rocks—Anele’s pronouncements held truth. Whether or not she grasped their significance, she needed to hear and heed them.

Become as trees, the roots of trees
.
Seek deep rock
.

She shrugged. “I can’t be sure. But Lord Foul likes to hide his secrets in stone. Nothing else is strong enough to hold them.”

“That I must believe,” admitted the young man. “Nonetheless I fear for Anele. The purpose which lies in wait beneath his madness—” Liand shook himself to loosen the trepidation that tightened his shoulders. “Linden, I do not merely fear for him. For causes which I cannot name, I fear Anele himself, though unpossessed he offers harm to none.”

Briefly Linden met the Stonedownor’s troubled gaze. Then she looked away. “You should probably trust your instincts. But I don’t feel what you do. To me, he looks more dangerous to himself than to anyone else.” After a moment, she added, “I just wish that I knew what Sunder and Hollian said to him. Or what they did for him. I wish I knew what they know about him.”

But she had nowhere to turn for answers. Unless Covenant chanced upon a relevant memory, and was able to explain it, she could only wait for events to reveal the exigencies that ruled Anele. She was responsible for most of the delays which had prevented her departure with the Harrow; yet now she felt helpless to do anything except wait.

E
ventually the Cords returned to the vale. Both Bhapa and Pahni bore handfuls of treasure-berries; and Bhapa announced that he had found a brook perhaps a hundred paces beyond the eastern rim of the hollow.

Trusting the
Haruchai
and the Ramen to stand guard, Rime Coldspray and her Swordmainnir strode away in various directions, some to forage for more
aliantha
, others heading toward water. While Bhapa and Pahni offered the viridian fruit to Linden and Liand, Anele and Stave, Branl tried to get the Unbeliever’s attention. But Covenant did not emerge from his recollections. Perhaps he had already eaten enough to satisfy his new mortality.

Linden accepted a few of the berries after Anele had taken as much as his hands could hold. She would need more: she knew that. And she, too, would have to visit the brook. For the moment, however, she was content to send Liand off with Pahni to search and drink. Bhapa also she encouraged to fend for himself. She wanted a chance to talk to the Ardent.

Accompanied only by Stave and Mahrtiir, she ascended the shallow slope toward the garish Insequent. The Harrow studied her suspiciously as she approached, but said nothing. Covenant’s ring he clenched in one fist as if he sought to squeeze wild magic from it by sheer force. The Staff of Law he hugged to his chest like a shield.

“Lady.” The Ardent bowed in a fanfare of ribbands. “Doubtless the moment draws nigh when we will depart this vale of rue. And doubtless we are one and all devout in our hope that occasions more pleasurable lie before us. It is apparent, however, that uncertainties remain to disturb you. I will endeavor to ease you, if I may do so without interference in the Harrow’s designs.”

“Without
more
interference,” muttered the Harrow darkly. Then he clamped his jaws shut.

Linden hardly knew how much to trust the Ardent, but she answered his bow with a nod. “I appreciate what you’ve already done.” Her gratitude seemed to float on a vast sea of dread, but she did not mean to speak of her fears. “Unfortunately I can’t think of any questions about the Harrow that you might be free to answer. I wanted to ask you something else.

“The Harrow seems to believe that all you care about is gluttony. But I’m not convinced. What you want isn’t that simple. If it’s fair to say that all of the Insequent are ruled by greed,” for knowledge, or for personal glory, or for service, “what are
you
greedy for? Why did your people pick you? What are you trying to get for yourself?”

Decorating himself with flutters, the Ardent beamed at her. “You are insightful, lady—and mayhap wise as well—in spite of your manifold follies. Doubtless others have observed these qualities in you.”

The Theomach had called her
clever
as well as
wise
. Surely she had made enough mistakes to prove him wrong?

“It is not without cause,” continued the Ardent without pausing, “that the Harrow regards me with disdain.” Every sentence emphasized his lisp. “Yet his scorn misleads him. Gluttony I affirm. However, feasting and the adoration of viands are but one manifestation of my distinctive hunger, the unsated quest which you have named greed. My appetites are not limited to the delights of the flesh.

“Lady, my true hunger is for that which is utterly singular, entirely unique. I crave the experience of that which lacks all precedent and cannot be repeated. I have not attained my happy bulk by repetition, or indeed by quantity, but rather by seeking out and enjoying every form of sustenance which the wide Earth proffers. And I desire other uniquenesses as well. I wish to taste and see and hear and feel and do all things that are new to me, or to the world, or that are too fleeting to recur. And I wish to savor sensations in which no other being ever can or ever will participate. For this quality, and because I am an acolyte of the Mahdoubt, I was chosen. The Insequent perceive that I cannot fail their trust without betraying my own greed.

“I have witnessed the mating of
Nicor
merely because no other Insequent, or any self-aware creature, has done so. For the same reason, I have stood upon the mightiest peaks of the Earth, not excluding great
Melenkurion
Skyweir. Yet those are lesser joys because the day may come when others also experience them.

“
This
”—he expanded his ribbands until they seemed to include the whole hollow and all that had occurred within it—“is truly unprecedented. Nor will it ever recur. And my presence within it is unprecedented, unrepeatable, ecstatically unique.
I speak for the Insequent as a people
. Those powers which they are able to invest in me, I possess. Ere now, such a confluence has never transpired. Come what may, it will never transpire again. And no other living being will ever know its fraught joys.

“Behold me, lady, at the crown and culmination of my greed.” Bright bands of color wove around him as if he and they formed a tapestry of exaltation. “Never will I be deemed the greatest of the Insequent. Nor will my deeds determine the outcome of the Earth. Yet I do not scruple to proclaim that no Insequent has achieved the fruition which I attain here. No other Insequent will attain it. Even the Harrow in his vainglory will not.”

Linden stared at him, trying to grasp the implications of his peroration. Although his human aura remained partially concealed by his raiment, she discerned that he was telling the truth. But how would such a man react in a crisis? A crisis was certain: she knew the Despiser too well to believe otherwise. What would a man who prized unique sensations above all else do when he faced butchery and was threatened with death?

He had threatened to reveal the Harrow’s true name—the most fatal act an Insequent could commit—but he may have been bluffing.

While she pondered that question, looking for ways to examine the Ardent further, the Harrow said to him in a black voice, “Yet you know naught of the deep places of the Earth.”

The plump Insequent raised his eyebrows as though the Harrow’s statement touched a sore place in him. “That is sooth,” he conceded in a more subdued manner. “I fear them. They are hazardous beyond estimation. Indeed, some few among the Insequent have perished in their search for knowledge of those depths. I need only name the Auriference.

“In a distant age,” he explained to Linden, “a time that far preceded that of the Theomach, she delved deeply, seeking a knowledge both ancient and immeasurable. Desiring as did the Theomach to be named the greatest of the Insequent, she found only the loss of use and mind and life. Yet her end was by no act of the Insequent. Rather she was unmade by evils too vicious to be contemplated. For that reason, our kind has largely eschewed the Land, deeming that its perils exceed its grandeur and mystery. The exceptions are infrequent and secret—though it is surely plain to all that the Harrow stands among them.

“By my own deeds,” he concluded, “my doom is bound to yours, and to the Harrow’s. I do not aspire to end my days in terror.”

Linden expected some mordant retort from the Harrow. But he only grinned fiercely through his beard and said nothing.

After a moment, Stave announced quietly, “Chosen, the Swordmainnir return. The Cords and the Stonedownor are refreshed, and Anele’s hunger has been satisfied. You and the Manethrall must now seek out the brook. To preserve your strength, you must have water.”

He was right: Linden knew that. But she was reluctant to stop probing the Insequent. Indirectly the Harrow had confirmed that Jeremiah had been hidden underground. And the Ardent’s fulsome account of himself did not reassure her. If he already feared what might happen to him—

However, she suspected that more questions would not bring more answers. And Jeremiah had been left too long at the
croyel
’s mercy.

Please, she wanted to say to the Ardent. Don’t abandon us. Not while that monster has my son. But she lacked the eloquence to move him.

Surely he understood the danger—?

Nodding once more to the Ardent, if in supplication rather than in gratitude, she let Stave and Mahrtiir lead her away.

W
hen she and the Manethrall had quenched their thirst, eaten
aliantha
, and rejoined the rest of her companions, Linden saw that they were ready; as ready as they would ever be. Liand’s mastery of his
orcrest
seemed steady enough. But Covenant’s ability to make use of Loric’s
krill
was unpredictable at best. It might do him more harm than good, if Joan and
turiya
chose some crucial moment to assail him. The company would have to rely upon the weight and weapons and skill of the Giants, and the resolute prowess of the
Haruchai
. In
the deep places of the Earth
, the abilities of the Ramen might be of little use.