Against All Things Ending (21 page)

That Covenant understood. Memories might aid him—or they might bring madness. Understanding was sanity. And sanity made an island in the gyre of his flawed consciousness; a clear space in which he could remain himself.

By degrees, he recognized the import of Galt’s grip on his arms; recognized it and was grateful.

In one direction, the Harrow neared the culmination of the bridge. In the other, Giants moved cautiously toward the nearer wall of the cavern. They went in single file ahead of the Humbled and Covenant, carefully removing the stress of their weight from the span. The Ironhand and Grueburn had already reached the foot of the arc. Ignoring Linden’s protests, Stave had accompanied them. Latebirth and Mahrtiir would join them in three or four more strides, followed by Onyx Stonemage and Liand.

Covenant began to recover a measure of stability. Maybe, he thought, refusing his desire to fall: maybe he should ask the Humbled to take him to the Harrow. Like the Insequent, he had never wielded the Staff of Law. And his bandaged hands were almost entirely numb. He did not know how well or thoroughly they had been healed. But he might remember something. Somewhere among the remains of his fading recall, he might find knowledge that the Harrow needed—

He did not want to remember what lived in the abyss below him. Nonetheless his need to rescue Jeremiah was as great as Linden’s, although he no longer knew why.

Yet he feared the Lost Deep instinctively. It was rife with reminders of events and powers so inhuman and old that they might drag him dozens of millennia away from his present; from any possibility of helping Linden. He was not confident that he would be able to stand against his memories: not while the consequences of his resurrection threatened to betray him at every step.

Perhaps the Harrow already knew how to open the portal without precipitating a catastrophe.

Fuming to himself, he urged his guardians to follow the Swordmainnir.

Cirrus Kindwind was the last: she eased her way down the arc after Bluntfist and Bhapa. Trying to secure his tenuous poise, Covenant fixed his gaze straight ahead, past Kindwind’s shoulders toward the ragged stone of the cavern wall. The chasm tugged at his attention, but he refused to glance aside.

In another step, Stormpast Galesend would leave the bridge. Then the weight of five Giants would be gone: Linden, Mahrtiir, Liand, and Anele would safe. And Grueburn and Stonemage had already set down their burdens. With Coldspray, they braced themselves at the edge of the abyss, ready to catch anyone who might be forced to jump.

Their breath steamed in great gusts like intimations of dread.

Beyond them, a crude tunnel twisted away into the sealed midnight of Mount Thunder’s roots. In the light of the Sunstone, Covenant saw that the roof of the tunnel was scarcely high enough to let the Giants stand upright. Before it writhed out of sight, the passage narrowed sharply. Where it debouched into the cavern, however, it opened like a fan formed of relatively level obsidian veined with malachite. The white purity of the
orcrest
’s illumination accentuated the green hue of the malachite. The branching of the veins through the obsidian gave them an eerie resemblance to the grass stains on Linden’s jeans.

Galesend and then Latebirth gained the mouth of the tunnel. Holding Covenant between them like a prisoner or an invalid, the Humbled matched Kindwind’s pace as she moved down the span.

Now Covenant could believe that the bridge would hold; and his balance improved. With each step, he found it easier to shut out the insistence of the gulf.

Presumably to ensure that Anele would not wander too near the abyss, Galesend put the old man on his feet within the mouth of the tunnel, near the area where the obsidian tapered to an end. Then she turned back to welcome Latebirth.

For reasons that had slumped from Covenant’s shoulders like a garment which he had become too small to wear, he felt a twist of anxiety on Anele’s behalf. Dooms hinged on him, as they did on the Harrow.—
remember that he is the hope of the Land
. Someone had said that: someone Covenant trusted.
When your deeds have come to doom
—His memories seemed random, involuntary; impossible to control. Cracks and crevices hemmed him on all sides, cutting him off from ordinary humanity.—
as they must
—In his own eyes, he would not have been more obviously a leper if the scar on his forehead had been a brand. Yet Linden’s gaze clung to his with the desperation of a woman who believed that he clasped her fate in his insensible hands.

Hell and blood, she must have been freezing—He may have been shivering himself: he was not sure. But the small tears in her shirt were as vivid to him as the bullet hole over her heart. Cold would leak through the red flannel like water. Whenever she exhaled, steam rose like frailty from her lungs.

She had given up so much, and had lost more. Too much.

Holding her gaze, Covenant became stronger for her sake. Every moment that he retained his grip on the present cost him more of his memories; deprived him ineluctably of the ineffable knowledge which had inspired him to speak to her from the Arch of Time. Already his awareness of what he needed to do, and why, had dwindled to indeterminate and unpredictable debris. But Linden needed him. In some fashion that he could no longer define, the Earth and the Land and Jeremiah needed him as much as they needed her. Grimly he increased his pace, drawing the Humbled with him as he crowded closer to Cirrus Kindwind’s back.

At irregular intervals, the
krill
throbbed ominously against his abdomen; but he ignored it.

As Halewhole Bluntfist carried Bhapa off the bridge, Coldspray, Grueburn, and Stonemage began to relax. Now Kindwind, Covenant, and the Humbled were close to safety.

Lacking percipience, Covenant could not sense the Harrow. Too many of his nerves were dead. He did not doubt that the Insequent had reached the far end of the span. But he had no idea what that avid man might do there, or how his efforts would fare. Nevertheless Covenant did not risk turning his head to look. His balance was still precarious. If he let it, the abyss would renew its grip in an instant.

Like Linden, he had lost and given up too much.

He hoped that her health-sense had not been entirely stifled, despite her proximity to the fierce source of Kevin’s Dirt. If Liand’s exertion of Earthpower could impose a partial cleanliness on the air, it might also preserve a measure of her discernment. And if she could still
see
, then surely the senses of the Giants and the
Haruchai
would retain their native vitality. The Ramen, and even Liand himself, might feel as numb as Covenant, but their perceptions would not be entirely superficial.

Yet no effect of
orcrest
could relieve Covenant’s leprosy, or ease his particular vulnerabilities. As he left the bridge to stand on obsidian and malachite, he felt more useless than he had when Linden had first reclaimed him. He had no idea what to say to her, or to any of her companions. Her relief was unmistakable. The Ramen and even the Giants appeared to breathe more easily now that everyone was safe, at least for the moment. But it was only a matter of time before one of them studied what the Harrow was doing, or not doing, and asked, Now what? And Covenant could not remember what they all needed to know.

It was also only a matter of time before the Earth’s deepest lamentation noticed the intrusion of theurgy in Her dominions. Loric’s
krill
and Liand’s
orcrest
would attract attention. Long ages of stupor might continue to hold Her for a while, but then She would respond.

And if or when Linden reached Jeremiah, Kastenessen and Esmer and the
Elohim
and even the buried bane would know where to look—

Whether Covenant’s companions realized it or not, they had no one to turn to for answers except the Ardent.

The beribboned Insequent stood in the mouth of the tunnel near Anele. He kept his back to the abyss; did not look at anyone. If he had received any benefit from Liand’s exertion of Earthpower, he did not show it. Instead he continued to breathe heavily, as if he had carried his fat and fear for leagues under the mountain. The multitudinous strips of his apparel remained clenched around him as tightly as a fist.

Had the will and power of his people deserted him? He seemed overwhelmed; too daunted to carry out their wishes. As useless as Covenant—

Covenant found everyone except the Ardent and Anele looking at him. Even Linden’s closest friends watched his every movement as though they expected him to perform a miracle of some kind. Take command of the situation. Tell them what to do.

Clearly they retained enough health-sense to see that his mind was present. As he had hoped, the
orcrest
’s Earthpower resisted the worst effects of Kevin’s Dirt. Linden’s eyes clung to him. She was unutterably precious to him, and wounded past bearing. In some other life—the life that she deserved—he would have wrapped his arms around her and held her until her loneliness eased.

But he had no value to her here: not as he was.

“Hellfire,” he muttered simply to break the silence. “That was fun.” Trying to rub sensations of futility from his face with his bound hands, he asked, “Can any of you see what the Harrow is doing? I’m afraid to look.”

No one glanced away. Even the Humbled regarded him stolidly.

Softly, as if she were reluctant to awaken echoes, Rime Coldspray replied, “The Harrow has gained the archway or portal at the foot of the span. Now he bows on one knee at the verge of an extreme dark which the Stonedownor’s legacy cannot penetrate. Perhaps he prepares incantations. Perhaps not. The white gold ring he holds to his forehead in one fist. The Staff of Law he grips upright before him. To my diminished sight, however, he appears to wield no magicks. Rather he remains merely bowed as in contemplation.”

The rim of the precipice was too near. Trickles and streams of water fell from the tips of the stalactites as if they were draining the life-blood out of the world’s veins drop by drop. The web of malachite that defined or defied the obsidian under Covenant’s boots created the illusion that its strands flowed ceaselessly toward the abysm.

“He’s trying to find the way in.” Covenant was hardly aware of his own voice. The Ardent’s alarm was contagious. It bred vertigo. “Past that blank place is the Lost Deep. The home of the Viles, back when the Viles still existed. That’s where they did their breeding—and the Demondim did—and the ur-viles. But it’s protected. If the Harrow can’t open it, we won’t get in.

“That’s why we’re here. Why we aren’t already with Jeremiah. No one can get in if that portal isn’t opened first.”

The Masters and Stave regarded him as though nothing that he might say could surprise them. The Giants only frowned in concentration, absorbing new information. But Linden stared at Covenant with darkness in her eyes. Her cheeks were pale, drained of blood. And the Ramen and Liand appeared to take their cue from her—or from the Ardent’s labored breathing. Innominate uncertainties and dreads marked their faces like fretwork. Cowed by the mass of immeasurable stone above him, even the Manethrall gave the impression that he could be intimidated.

While he was still able to hold them, Covenant scrambled to articulate his memories. “This chasm. It’s how the Viles guarded themselves. Isolated themselves. It isn’t
just
a chasm. A terrible power lives here.

“Hell and blood,” he panted through his teeth. “This is hard. I can’t think—” Every word was as dangerous as falling. He spoke in puffs of vapor that became nothing. He could not help Linden. “When the Viles formed that bridge, they called it the Hazard. But translation doesn’t do it justice. When they said ‘Hazard,’ they didn’t just mean that terrible power. And they didn’t just mean they covered the bridge with wards so it would shatter if someone tried to enter the Lost Deep without knowing how. It was
their
hazard, too.

“Making it, they risked everything. Who they were. What they meant to themselves. It was their only link to the rest of the Land. The rest of the Earth. When they crossed out of the Lost Deep, everything they’d ever done or cared about might be destroyed. While they kept themselves isolated, they could imagine they were perfect. But they were smart enough to know the world is a big place. Even the Land is a big place. They might meet beings and forces that would make them look paltry.

“They created the Hazard because they were too intelligent to be content with ideas of perfection that hadn’t been tested. Compared. Measured.”

The
Haruchai
would understand that better than anyone.

Behind him, he heard Anele muttering: a babble of agitation. But Linden’s stare held him. He did not want to drop her gaze, even for a moment. If he had been able to look into her eyes—into her heart—during his long participation in the Arch, he might have been content to remain there until all things ended.

“Does the Harrow know how to open the door?”

Linden’s question cut at Covenant: he had no numbness to cover that hurt. His scant memories became more useless whenever he needed them. All that time spent among the millennia, wasted—

Thickly he admitted, “You’ll have to ask the Ardent. I’ve forgotten. If I ever knew.” He had no idea how to open the portal himself. He recalled only that wild magic would shatter the Hazard. For this task, the Harrow had to depend on the Staff of Law.

It belonged to Linden.

Briefly she searched him as if she thought that the sheer force of her yearning would compel remembrance. But the pressure accumulating within her demanded release: he could see that without percipience. While his pulse labored helplessly in his chest, and the cold tightened its grip, she turned away, drawing his attention with her.

Her lips were pallid and chilled as she repeated her question to the Insequent. Covenant drew inferences of shivering from the sound of her voice.

Why else had the Ardent insisted on accompanying Linden and her companions?