Against All Things Ending (61 page)

As long as Liand did not fail.

Still quaking in the marrow of her bones, she accepted the burden of herself from Stave. The touch of the Staff’s runes continued to hurt her hands, but the burn was receding. Soon she would be able to find comfort in the clean wood again.

Around her, eight Giants loomed like menhirs against the nightscape. Liand stood poised at her side, gripping his
orcrest
, eager to talk to her; as eager as a man who had identified the import of his life. A few steps away, blind Mahrtiir appeared to watch over Covenant. The Humbled could not: Clyme and Branl remained on their chosen hillcrests, and Galt’s hands were full.

Behind Liand’s far shoulder, Pahni waited with sun-yellow and silver lights like fears in her wide eyes. A stride or two behind the other Swordmainnir, Galesend still bore Anele in her armor. The old man watched Linden and Liand, Jeremiah and the
croyel
, with his head jerking fearfully from side to side as if he had stumbled to the edge of an inner precipice. With one hand, he made plucking motions in Liand’s direction as though he wanted the Stonedownor’s attention.

Halfway between Anele and Mahrtiir, Bhapa fretted, unsure of his duty to men who could not see.

“Linden Giantfriend—” began Rime Coldspray. But she appeared to have no language for what she wanted to say, or to ask. Her strong jaws chewed emotions which defied expression.

“I was afraid of this,” Covenant muttered. “Linden, I’m so sorry. Sometimes we just have to—”

He did not complete the thought. Like Jeremiah, he sank into silence as if it were a grave.

Quietly intense, Liand said, “Linden, I grieve for you, and for your son. Yet there is an admixture of eagerness in my sorrow, though it is selfish to feel thus. While the boy remains among us, hope also remains.

“And I have not yet tested my strength.”

His Sunstone glowed like a promise. He was the first true Stonedownor for millennia. There was no one like him in the Land.

Linden wanted to cry out, Don’t talk about it! Don’t explain it! Just
do
it! My God, he’s
buried alive
in there!

But she stifled her demand. Like her, other people needed to make their own decisions. Liand would do what he could. Somehow she contained herself while he sought words for his excitement.

“In Revelstone,” he said, almost whispering, “you spoke of
orcrest
. I had learned that it gives light at need, and has the virtue to find wholeness among the fragments of Anele’s thoughts. To this, you added other knowledge, lore which has proven its worth. And you spoke—”

He seemed to swallow wonder and anticipation that bordered on exaltation. “Linden, you spoke of
healing
. When you had informed me of
orcrest
’s power to wash away the effects of Kevin’s Dirt, you made mention of healing. Healing of the spirit rather than of the flesh. From this surely arises the ancient use of Sunstone as a test of truth.”

While Linden ground her teeth, Liand said more strongly, “It is in my heart that your son’s plight, first and last, is an affliction of the spirit. If
orcrest
is puissant to bind together Anele’s incoherence, mayhap it is able also to seal your son’s soul against ravage. How may such a creature as the
croyel
endure any test of truth? I am uninstructed in the ways of Earthpower.” As he spoke, he seemed to become taller in Linden’s sight; more solid. “Yet both my heart and my eyes assure me that the magicks of
orcrest
are anathema to this hideous being.

“Linden Avery, I ask your leave to attempt your son’s release.”

Before Linden could reply, Onyx Stonemage countered, “And if the
croyel
exceeds your strength? What then? We have seen Linden Giantfriend’s flame transformed to blackness. I pray that the alteration proves fleeting. Yet if she who is adept at Earthpower can be tainted thus, how will you endure?

“Liand of Mithil Stonedown, I honor your willing valor. I am proud to name you among my companions. But when you gaze into this lost boy’s heart, his possessor will gaze into yours. Then mayhap no admixture will remain to ease our own lament.”

Linden started to say,
Do
it, Liand. At some better time, she might have added, I trust you. While urgency clogged her throat, however, she felt the sickening migraine aura of a
caesure
slam into existence among the hills.

Whirling, she scrambled to focus her senses. Around her, Giants turned, scanning the horizons swiftly. Groaning to himself, Bhapa hastened toward Manethrall Mahrtiir.

“Protect Anele!” the old man gasped frantically. “He is the hope of the Land!
It
seeks him!”

“It is there, Chosen,” Stave announced, pointing into the northeast. “It writhes a league or more distant. At present, it does not threaten us. Yet it seethes toward us. If it does not veer aside or disperse itself, you must oppose it.”

He was right. As soon as Linden located the Fall, she felt it clearly: a miasma of corruption as vicious as a swarm of hornets, and as massive as Revelstone’s watchtower, chewing its way through the Law of Time. It lurched from side to side, apparently reacting to the whims and impulses of Joan’s madness rather than to the terrain. But it was coming—

Damn
it!

“Stave’s discernment is certain,” growled the Ironhand. “A great evil advances against us. Its path is erratic, aye, yet it hastens in its own fashion. If we do not scatter before it, we must have some other defense.

“Is this a
caesure
? A Fall? You have spoken of such wrongs, but ere now we have not beheld their like.”

No one answered her. “Whatever you’re going to do,” Covenant snapped at Liand, “do it soon. Joan won’t stop with just one.
Turiya
won’t let her. She’ll keep trying until she finds the range.”

Linden jerked a look at the
croyel
—and nearly wailed. The creature’s whole face radiated triumph like a cynosure.

For the space of a heartbeat, she froze while her entire reality split into fragments. A dismembered part of her recalled inhabiting Joan’s mind in the core of a Fall: a lorn figure who should have perished long ago; a madwoman so weak and wounded that only
turiya
Raver’s compulsion and the ministrations of the
skest
kept her alive. Standing between thrashing seas and a wilderland of rubble, she used blasts of wild magic to destroy small pieces of stone and Time, creating
caesures
from the riven remains of granite; of sequence and causality. Nothing except her broken humanity and her inability to make her own choices prevented her from tearing the whole Arch from its foundations.

At the same time, another part of Linden gaped mutely at the
croyel
, crying, Why aren’t you
afraid
? Surely the creature was in the same danger? Surely the merest touch of a Fall would destroy the
croyel
as effectively as any physical death?

Why was
turiya
Herem willing to risk the destruction of a monster that both Roger and Lord Foul wanted alive?

But Linden had no time for this. When her heart beat again, her scattered mind sprang back into focus.

“
Go!
” With a shove, she sent Liand toward Jeremiah. “Save him if you can!
Caesures
are
my
problem!”

Then she swung the Staff of Law and begged it for fire.

If Joan struck again, and closer—If the Raver could impose that much coherence—

A moment later, dark flames bloomed from the Staff; and some of the aftereffects of wielding white gold left her. This conflagration was hers in spite of its compelled blackness: it felt right in her hands. And she was not Joan. She could choose. Earthpower and Law could heal the harm of wild magic. As long as Joan did not contrive to strike the exact place where Linden stood, the exact moment, Linden would be able to protect Liand.

“Ringwielder, no!” Pahni cried. “You must not permit this! I implore you! The peril is too great!”

She meant the peril to Liand.

“Cord!” barked Mahrtiir harshly. “Be silent! This matter is not ours to adjudge.”

Pahni ignored her Manethrall. “Liand,
please
. You are my love! I will beseech you on my knees, if that will sway you. Leave this hazard to those who are not so loved.”

Linden watched the coming storm of evil and readied herself. But she studied Liand more closely than she regarded the
caesure
, praying that he would not falter. That the Sunstone would not crumble to dust in his fist.

Liand turned from Jeremiah to wrap his arms around Pahni. So quietly that Linden barely heard him, he told the Cord, “Fear for me, my love. I fear for myself. Yet in Linden Avery’s company, and in your embrace, and in
orcrest
, I have found myself when I had not known that I was lost. If I do not give of my utmost here, I will become less than my aspirations. I will prove unworthy of the gifts which I have discovered in you.”

“But if you are slain—!” Pahni moaned.

“If I am slain,” he replied so tenderly that Linden’s heart lurched, “you will remain to serve the Land, and the Ranyhyn, and the Ringwielder, as you must. My love will abide with you. Grief is strength. The use that you will make of it vindicates me.”

While Liand held Pahni tight, a second
caesure
violated the night.

It opened its destructive horrors to Linden’s left—and closer than the first; much closer. Like an eruption, it split the air no more than half a dozen paces from Clyme’s position north of the ridge. Then the chaos of instants lunged toward him. But he sprang away, preternaturally swift. Scanning the hills for other threats, he kept his distance from the Fall.

Like the first, this
caesure
swarmed toward Jeremiah and the
croyel
as if it were drawn by the bright passion of Loric’s
krill
.

Through his teeth, Covenant rasped, “Soon would be good. Now would be better.”

He may have been speaking to Linden as much as to Liand.

Gently Liand separated himself from Pahni, raised his Sunstone high; strode toward Jeremiah.

The
croyel
’s look of triumph was gone. The nausea in the creature’s eyes echoed the sick squirming in Linden’s chest.

As he advanced, Liand made his light brighter, and still brighter. It lit Jeremiah’s slack features like a small sun, challenging the night; burned like ruin on the monster’s sweating face. Impossibly torn, Linden tried to concentrate on the
caesures
, and could not. She needed to stop those gyring evils. But her need to witness what happened between Liand and the
croyel
—what happened to her son—was greater.

“Hellfire, Linden!” Covenant shouted. “Pay attention! Joan isn’t done. Look at the
krill
! Saving Jeremiah won’t do any good if a
caesure
gets us!”

The gem around which High Lord Loric had forged his dagger was throbbing like a heart in ecstasy.

Caesures
aren’t the only bad thing that can happen
—

Joan’s attacks were Linden’s doing: she knew that. She had announced her location. But the effort of turning her back on Jeremiah and Liand surpassed her.

She had to do it. If Liand failed now—If he failed because of
her
—

Shaking with strain, she lifted ebon flame to meet savagery and madness.

—
when somebody uses white gold
.

Nearly in tears, she faced the Fall squirming toward her from Clyme’s hilltop. It was closer. Again she tried to believe that she could do this. She had quashed other
caesures
by affirming the structures of Law and the passion of Earthpower. She could do the same here. Surely she could do the same here?

But Liand was reaching out to touch Jeremiah’s forehead with his Sunstone; and there were no ur-viles or Waynhim nearby to help Linden transcend herself.

The crash of the third
caesure
would have sent her sprawling if Stave had not caught her. It struck the ridge directly behind her. In the midst of the company.

While alarms squalled in her nerves, Stave spun her to confront the assault.

Virulent sickness nearly undid her. The
caesure
was not large: not by the measure of other evils which she had encountered. But it boiled and twisted right where—

God in Heaven!

—right where Covenant and Mahrtiir and several of the Giants had been standing.

In the first rush of panic, Linden could not count her companions. She did not know whether any of them had been taken. The Fall was no more than ten steps from Liand and Jeremiah.

Then her heart hammered once; and she saw Covenant plunge down the side of the ridge wrapped in Mahrtiir’s arms. Grueburn snatched Pahni aside. On all sides, Swordmainnir sprang out of the
caesure
’s path.

Frantic with haste, Stormpast Galesend staggered backward—

—and tripped—

—spilling Anele out of her armor.

With the second thud of her heart, Linden became flame.

God
, she hated
caesures
!

She knew this evil; knew it in every nerve and sinew of her being. She had experienced it too often. She needed only percipience and dread to focus Earthpower on the complex distortions shredding Time’s necessary Law. If she had been stronger, or better, or clearer, she might have been able to reach straight through the Fall into Joan’s excoriated heart. But she did not require that much force to counter the storm itself. While she believed in the commandments of linear cause and inevitable effect, she could stitch them together as she had once sewn a patch of her shirt onto the Mahdoubt’s gown.

Watched by the abandoned stars, she flung black fire into the
caesure
and began its unmaking.

She did not have to grasp every severed instant and restore its proper sequence. The Staff’s rich outpouring performed that repair for her. And Caerroil Wildwood’s runes made the wood’s theurgies more specific than her own instincts for health and wholeness; more definite. Almost immediately, the
caesure
started to implode. The collision of energies within Joan’s maelstrom caused a deflagration which shrank as it burned.