Against All Things Ending (52 page)

“Chosen.” Stave’s harshness hurt Linden’s hearing like a remembered shriek. “He endangered your life.”

Dumbly Pahni nodded as if she shared Covenant’s consternation.

Linden shook her head, pushed her dripping hair behind her ears. “I don’t care.” Memories of Elena and screaming clogged her throat: she could not continue until she swallowed them. “You don’t know where I was.”

Stave’s tone changed. “Chosen?” His irrefusable hands turned her to face him. “Linden?”

Because she had no words for what she felt, Linden reached out for the Staff. Without hesitation, Pahni released it; and at once, Linden pulled it to her, wrapped her arms around it as though it might shield her.

“The bane got me,” she said, still panting. “Or I thought it did. I was part of it, and I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t. Until Covenant—” In spite of Stave’s insistence, she looked at Covenant again. “I don’t care how you did it. You were my only chance, and you saved me.”

Her affirmation eased him. She could see the lines of his self-judgment soften. He made a twisted effort to smile. Opening his hands, he indicated himself: his physical incarnation or his mental presence. “Then we’re even.”

Even? Never! Linden wanted to launch herself at him again; to feel him return her embrace of his own volition. A part of her had spent years dying to be held as well as to hold; withering like a plant that could not live much longer without sun and rain. He was not Jeremiah: he could choose—

Before she moved, however, she saw a quick flaring of alarm in his eyes. He raised his hands to ward her away; stumbled backward. “Don’t touch me.” Some private conflict undermined him: she felt its emanations. He was barely able to make himself heard over the fretted susurration of the current. “Linden, please. I’m not ready. I’ve lost too much of myself. I’m afraid of what I’m becoming. Or what I might have to be. I need to find that out before—” His voice faded. Pain blurred his gaze. The muscles of his jaw clenched. Obviously forcing himself, he finished, “Just don’t touch me. There’s too much at stake.”

Stung, Linden jerked her gaze away. Without transition, the clarity of the light and the cleanliness of the water seemed to become sterile and comfortless, uncaring. He might as well have said in chagrin,
What have you done?
Irrationally she believed that he could see the bane within her still, crouched ready to emerge as soon as She found an opportunity to do harm.

It was more than she could bear.

After a moment, however, she found that she was not surprised. What had she expected? An eager welcome? Immediate love? For the woman who had forced him back into his damaged mortality? The woman who had roused the Worm of the World’s End?

It was fitting that Covenant did not want her touch. It was fitting that her Staff was as black as the Lost Deep.

And it changed nothing.

Rigid with self-coercion, she nodded. “All right.” The air had turned to ash in her throat. “I think I understand that much.” She did not look at Covenant again; avoided Stave’s steady regard. Instead she followed the stream with her eyes as it curled around her waist and swirled past her. “So tell me what happened. Why are we still alive? Where is everyone else? Where is Jeremiah? How is he?”

“For the moment, Chosen,” Stave replied promptly, “you need not fear. All are safe. By cunning and desperation, the ur-Lord persuaded Esmer to depart. Thereafter the Ardent transported us here, beyond the bane’s grasp. Though I am not certain, I deem that even the ur-viles and Waynhim eluded the bane’s wrath.

“We stand now upon the Lower Land south and east of Mount Thunder, between the great cliff of Landsdrop and the perils of Sarangrave Flat. Your companions and comrades await you upstream. Only the Ardent has departed, promising a final service upon his return. All have suffered no further hurt, apart from weariness and privation. Your son is as he was, warded by Galt and Loric’s
krill
. The Unbeliever’s ring he himself restored to you.

“To this place, you were borne at his urging. His intent he did not reveal.”

It was too much: Linden could not absorb it all. And it, too, changed nothing. Just don’t touch me. She did not lift her eyes from the restless wash of the stream. For the moment, she only cared that Jeremiah was nearby.

When Stave’s silence told her that he was done, she released one arm from the Staff, bent to the stream, and splashed water onto her face, trying to rinse the despair from her skin.

“There’s more,” Covenant said roughly, “but you don’t need to hear it right now.” His tone implied distress like a premonition. “I just want you to know that we’re not safe from Esmer. I didn’t convince him to stop betraying us. He’ll try again when he figures out how to serve you and Kastenessen at the same time.”

That, too, was more than she could absorb. Without thinking, she repeated, “I don’t care. I’m just glad that you managed to save Jeremiah.” Learning now that he had been lost would have destroyed her. “Everything else—” She shrugged instead of weeping. “You can explain it all later.”

Don’t touch me.

“That is wisdom,” Stave stated firmly. “The ur-Lord’s suasion of Esmer was needful, as it now appears that your immersion was needful. Continuing to speak of such matters serves no purpose.”

His manner suggested that he was addressing Pahni, advising her not to reveal what Covenant had done. If so, Linden approved. She owed Covenant that much. His rejection made gratitude impossible; but it did not change the fact that he had broken the bane’s grip on her mind. Because of him, she could still hope to rescue her son from the
croyel
.

“Chosen,” Stave continued, “will you not withdraw from the stream?” With one hand, he gestured toward the patch of sand at the water’s edge. “There you may dry your raiment, and accept the sun’s warmth, and speak of whatsoever you desire.”

Linden shook her head. Her sodden clothes did not trouble her. And she was not ready to face the decisions that awaited her; the impossible futures. Her memories of the monster on Jeremiah’s back were bad enough: the actuality would be worse.

Like Covenant, her son was someone whom she could not touch.

“I need a bath,” she explained, groaning to herself. More than that, she needed to recover some semblance of emotional balance. “If you don’t mind, Stave, you can take Covenant back to the others.” She could not bear to look at him yet. “Pahni can stay with me. When I don’t feel quite so disgusted”—her mouth twisted at the thought of her filthy hair and rank clothes—“she’ll help me find you.”

“By my Manethrall’s command, Ringthane,” Pahni answered, “I must comply with Thomas Covenant’s wishes. If the Unbeliever will grant it, however, I will abide with you gladly.” Her tone hinted that she might choose to defy Mahrtiir’s orders.

“Ah, hell,” Covenant sighed. “Why not?” Linden heard regret in his voice. “After what you’ve been through, the least you deserve is a chance to be left alone.

“Come on, Stave.” He lifted a hand in the direction of Stave’s shoulder. “I’m exhausted. I probably won’t make it without help.”

“Go on,” Linden murmured automatically. She wanted him gone; wanted to forget him if she could. In self-defense, she had fixed her mind on the idea of a bath: she was impatient to take off her clothes. In the absence of soap, she could use sand to rub away the most tactile of her many soilures.

Pahni shot Stave a quick glance. “If you will, Stave, assure Liand that I am”—she caught herself—“that we are well.”

Linden was vaguely surprised to hear the Cord use Stave’s name. Her closest friends had become more comfortable with each other than they had once been. For that, she gave Stave most of the credit. He had taught the Ramen and Liand to regret their initial distrust.

“Be certain of it,” Stave replied as he drew Covenant’s arm across his shoulders. “Return to us when the Chosen desires it. There is no present need for haste.”

“He means,” Covenant muttered, “we don’t have any food, so you might as well do what you can to save your strength.”

Then he and Stave turned away, heading for the small scrap of beach and the nearest hillside.

Was that north? Linden wondered briefly. Yes, her health-sense assured her. Or rather northwest. But she dismissed such matters almost immediately. Her percipience had become as precise as Loric’s
krill
; and she was acutely conscious of muck and strain staining her hair, her skin, her clothes. While Covenant and Stave rose dripping from the stream and began to angle across the littered hillside, she confirmed that Jeremiah’s healed racecar still rested deep in her pocket. When she explored her sore ribs, her cracked kneecap, her battered shin, she found that they did not demand care. She dismissed them as well.

As soon as Covenant and Stave disappeared beyond the ridgeline, she braced her Staff on the streambed, bent close to the water, and began trying to pull off one of her boots.

She could not move it. Full of water, it stuck to her; or she was too weak.

At once, however, Pahni came closer. “Permit me, Ringthane.” Before Linden could reply, the girl ducked beneath the surface. Able to use both hands, she tugged off Linden’s boot and sock.

Grateful at last, Linden put her foot down, raised her other boot to Pahni. Then the Cord stood up; took a breath; tossed the water from her eyes.

“If you will grant me a moment, Ringthane, I will set your footwear upon a rock to dry.” She nodded toward the shore. “Then I will return to wash your garments while you bathe.”

Linden was already unbuttoning her shirt. “Just throw them. I’ll do something about it later if they’re uncomfortable.”

“As you wish.” Turning, Pahni flung the boots to the scallop of sand. Then she held out a hand for Linden’s shirt.

The red flannel was damaged in a variety of ways. Ruefully Linden eyed the bullet holes, front and back. She was fortunate, she supposed, that the slug had passed straight through her. Even now, she did not know how she had healed herself. If the bullet had remained in her—

Making so many mistakes, taking so many risks, she had apparently given Lord Foul exactly what he wanted. But she refused to second-guess herself now. Regret was costly; as draining as battle. If Covenant did not want her love, he could go to hell. She had found her son. Now she intended to concentrate on learning how to free him from the
croyel
.

Passing her shirt to Pahni, Linden crouched to the challenge of peeling off her jeans.

When she finally succeeded at removing them, she discovered that some trick of wet or color emphasized the green script left by the tall grasses of the Verge of Wandering. Her jeans were like the Staff, inscribed in a language which she could not read.

In Garroting Deep, Caerroil Wildwood had said of her,
She wears the mark of fecundity and long grass
.
Also she has paid the price of woe
.
And the sigil of the Land’s need has been placed upon her
. For that reason, he had spared her life.

And he had given her
the burden of a question
—

How may life endure in the Land, if the Forestals fail and perish—? Must it transpire that beauty and truth shall pass utterly when we are gone?

Linden had promised the ancient guardian of Garroting Deep an answer; but she had no idea how to keep her word.

Frowning, she tossed her jeans to Pahni as though she meant to spurn their implications. Inadequacy and loss: needs that she would never be able to satisfy: loads too heavy for her to bear. The Staff she wedged between rocks so that it would not float away. If it drifted, Pahni would retrieve it.

Regret could be refused. Despair was a different issue.

As if in abnegation, Linden sank into the stream, scooped up sand, and began rubbing handfuls of grit into her hair, onto her scalp. Scouring herself—

The abrasion hurt, but she welcomed it.

L
ater Linden sat on a flat stone near the sand, wearing her wet clothes but not her socks and boots; resting with her feet in the cool caress of the current. Her skin felt scraped raw, and there were patches on her scalp where she had drawn blood. But she did not mind. Those pains were trivial by comparison.

Her socks lay drying beside her. For the time being, she left her boots where Pahni had thrown them. The Staff of Law she held across her lap. With her fingertips, she stroked the incused runes. They could have signified anything; but she wanted to believe that they were a prophecy of hope.

Unhindered by Kevin’s Dirt, she ought to be able to accomplish almost anything with her Staff and Covenant’s ring. Surely she could do more for Jeremiah here than in the Lost Deep?

Cross-legged and straight-backed, Pahni sat on another stone nearby. She, too, had bathed thoroughly. Now she gazed into the stream with tension in her shoulders and shadows in her eyes.

Linden was not ready to resume thinking and caring; not really. But the conflicted purity of Pahni’s spirit pleaded for her attention. Sighing to herself, she said quietly, “Talk to me, Pahni. Something is troubling you. I could try to guess, but it’s better if you just tell me.”