Against All Things Ending (97 page)

“I know that,” Covenant sighed. “Of course you’re right. But I can’t forget the
sur-jheherrin
.” Or the
jheherrin
. “Life in the Sarangrave isn’t as simple as it looks. If the Feroce want to talk to the Pure One, I can’t ignore them.” Without the
jheherrin
, he would have died among the Shattered Hills. “Just tell Clyme what I said. If they try to send more than three—if they do anything he doesn’t like—he can warn you.”

Frowning slightly, Branl nodded. Then he moved to stand guard against the far wall beside the entrance to the chamber.

The destrier went on sleeping. It seemed too profoundly weary to hear anything; or to care.

A dozen heartbeats later, the Humbled reported, “The Feroce comply. Three of them approach. Their manner is fearful. The others withdraw according to Clyme’s instructions.” Then he added, “The Ranyhyn stand ready in the night above our covert. Doubtless they will come to our aid at need.”

“Good,” Covenant breathed. If creatures wielding fires that resembled the bale of the Illearth Stone meant to assail him, he doubted that Mhornym and Naybahn would be able to provide an effective defense. Still their alert proximity reassured him.

He tried to compose himself while remembrances clamored for his attention. The
jheherrin
had called themselves
the soft ones
.
Maker-work
, the occasional failures of the Despiser’s efforts to breed armies; suffered to live only because Lord Foul enjoyed their abjection. Their flesh had resembled mud: they seemed to have been molded from clay. But they had shapes—Child-forms. Serpents. Grotesque mimicries of Cavewights. Others. And they had legends, tales of the Un-Maker-made: the stock from which Lord Foul had created monsters and
jheherrin
.

According to the tales, those ancestors were also Makers. Unlike the Despiser, however, they were not seedless.
From their bodies came forth young who grew and in turn made young
. And some of them survived or escaped or avoided Lord Foul’s violation. They endured beyond his influence,
still free of the Maker
. Still capable of children.

Those memories were bitter to Covenant. He had been so tormented and sick—To him, and to Foamfollower, the
jheherrin
had described their legends.
It is said that when the time is ready, a young will be birthed without flaw—a pure offspring impervious to the Maker and his making—unafraid
.
It is said that this pure one will come bearing tokens of power to the Maker’s home
. He wanted to forget, and could not.
It is said that he will redeem the
jheherrin
if they prove—if he finds them worthy—that he will win from the Maker their release from fear and mud
—But he had done nothing to redeem the
jheherrin
: nothing except bear the burden of his ring. He was a leper. He would always be a leper. Birthed without flaw? There was nothing pure about him.

No, it was Saltheart Foamfollower who had provided for the Maker’s defeat. Cleansed in the savage
caamora
of Hotash Slay, he had laughed in Lord Foul’s face and died, giving Covenant the strength to destroy the Illearth Stone. He rather than Covenant had become the Pure One.

That the
sur-jheherrin
thousands of years later still considered Covenant to be their Pure One only exacerbated his grief for Foamfollower—and his sense of his own unworth.

Yet here he sat like a monarch in exile, awaiting creatures who wanted an audience with the Pure One. For the Land’s sake, and for Linden’s—even for Joan’s—he was willing to consider any alliance that the Feroce might mistakenly offer him.

Deliberately he shifted so that he sat cross-legged with the
krill
directly between him and the cave’s entrance. For a few moments, he massaged the sore muscles of his lower back. Then he forced himself to sit straight as a sovereign. Let the Feroce be fearful. Let them approach humbly. Trapped in this chamber, he needed every possible advantage of posture or certainty.

He needed to conceal that he feared touching Loric’s dagger.

“Ur-Lord,” Branl warned quietly. “Three Feroce have gained the outer ledge. Soon they will enter here.”

Covenant took a deep breath; held it. The
krill
cast a slash of brilliance through the break that gave admittance to the chamber. Silver light shone like a kind of purity on the far wall of the outer fissure. He fixed his gaze there, counting the thud-beats of his heart; watching for hints of emerald malevolence.

It came first as a slight taint at the edge of the argent, a tinge that might have seemed vernal from some other source. Then the sick green of acid and hunger grew stronger. That hue did not outshine the
krill
. Perhaps it could not. Nonetheless it stained the silver until the darkness beyond it seemed rife with menace.

One at a time, three creatures breached the light and stepped into the chamber.

They were as Branl had described them: no taller than his shoulders, hairless and naked, with large eyes like pools of reflected silver and emerald. Each of them flinched at its first sight of the
krill
: each shied as far as it could from the gem’s blaze without touching Branl. When they looked past the light at Covenant, they conveyed the impression that they were cowering.

In the cups of their hands, they carried flames like promises of disease. Despite their alarm, they had an air of malice suppressed or denied. Perhaps they would have flung themselves at Covenant, if they had dared to do so. Instinctively he believed that they had been spawned by Mount Thunder’s ancient poisons.

They avoided the
krill
with their eyes and remained silent. They may have been waiting for Covenant to speak.

Scowling as though he had the right to sit in judgment, he said nothing.

Finally one of them of them raised its voice. “We are the Feroce.” But he could not tell which one spoke: the words seemed to come from all or none of them. And the voice had a peculiar sound, damp and undefined, like wet mud being forced past an obstruction. Their mouths and throats may not have been formed for language. Their speech may have been an effect of theurgy rather than of physical utterance.

Masking his own anxiety with feigned hauteur, Covenant replied, “I’ve heard you. You want an audience. You want an alliance for your High God. We’ll get to that. Tell me something first. Convince me to trust you.

“You say you’ve attempted harm. That was your first purpose. What did you do?”

With their flames, the three Feroce made timid gestures like attempts at placation. “Our High God sustains us,” they responded in their single voice. “In his agony, he speaks to us. He speaks through us. We obey his commands. Without him, we are dust. We cannot part from the waters of the Sarangrave.

“Havoc draws ever closer.” More and more, they appeared to cower. “The havoc of all life. You are aware of this. You cannot be unaware. Our High God has felt it.

“He desires life. He desires
power
. He must have might, and greater might, and still greater might, lest he perish. All other enmity must be set aside.

“A female of your kind wields a stick of immense potency. Of this you are also aware. You cannot be unaware. Our High God yearned for it. At his command, we strove to lure it from her. We failed. He was wounded. He cannot obtain life by that means.”

Covenant swore behind his scowl. Linden—! Fiercely he demanded, “Did you hurt her?
Did you hurt her?
”

The Feroce flinched like threatened children. Emerald flames guttered and spat in their hands. “We made the attempt. We failed. Now we are here.”

“What,
you
?” he countered to conceal his relief. We failed. “I mean, you
personally
?” He did not know where Linden and her friends were, but he trusted that she was many leagues behind him. How had the Feroce covered so much ground so quickly?

He could not afford to wonder how the creatures had tried to snare Linden, or what her resistance had cost her.

“We do not comprehend.” Silver and green flared in the wide eyes of the creatures. Behind them, Branl stood like a statue, unmoved and unmoving. “We are the Feroce. We obey our High God. What is ‘personally’? We are not one. We are many.

“Do you speak of the Feroce standing before you? We have no answer. At our High God’s command, we pursued you from the most seaward extent of the Sarangrave. The female of your kind we approached far to the west. There is no ‘personally.’ We are only the Feroce. We serve our High God in many places.”

“All right.” Covenant made no effort to muffle his vexation. He needed to keep his back straight; needed to appear wrathful and dangerous. “I’m going to assume you aren’t the same creatures that attacked the woman.” If they were, he wanted a better explanation; but he did not know how to obtain it. “Go on. Your High God is right. He can’t save himself by making enemies.”

The Feroce seemed to hesitate. Perhaps they had lost the thread of their instructions. But then their flames burned brighter, strict with coercion. Timorous as sycophants, they resumed in their single voice.

“You are the Pure One, redeemer of the
jheherrin
, ally of the
sur-jheherrin
. But you are also the wielder of abhorrent metal. The deliverer of agony. Such agony as our High God has never known. We dare not oppose you. We must not. We are dust.

“Havoc awaits our High God. He must have aid. In his name, we now seek alliance.”

There the creatures fell silent as if they feared an immediate refusal.

Covenant paused for a moment, thinking furiously. As far as he could tell, the Feroce were sincere. And they had invoked the name of the Pure One: he could not ignore that. But he did not know enough about them.

He wanted to thump himself on the head, jar loose the memories he needed; but he resisted the temptation. “We’ll get to that,” he repeated. “I still have questions.

“Who or what is your High God? I’ve never heard of him.”

The Feroce gaped as though they were utterly baffled; as though his question made no sense in any language known to them.

“He is the High God,” they offered tentatively. “He is our High God. Others do not worship him. We—”

Abruptly they froze as if their minds had been seized by an alien thought. For an instant, their consternation was so plain that Covenant almost took pity on them. But the sickening hue of emerald writhed in their hands; and the moment passed.

“Others,” they said more strongly. “You ask of others. We do not comprehend. But they speak of him by false names and affronts. One we are commanded to utter.” They rolled their eyes in strange terror. “It is Horrim Carabal.”

At once, they ducked their heads as though they expected to be struck down for blasphemy.

Ah, hell! Covenant thought. The lurker—The idea staggered him, even though the Feroce had already implied it clearly enough. The
lurker
had become a deity to these creatures? That was something he should have been able to remember—

“How—?” he began in confusion. “You worship
that
—?” Then he took hold of himself; crossed his arms on his chest to contain his chagrin. “Never mind. I don’t need to know. What I need to know is, who are
you
? Where do you come from? And why do you live in the Sarangrave? Were you
made
there? Did you end up there from someplace else?”

Why did they know enough about the Land’s history to speak of the
jheherrin
, the
sur-jheherrin
, and the Pure One?

“We are the Feroce,” the creatures insisted anxiously. “You are aware of this. You cannot be unaware. You are the Pure One. You bore tokens of power foretold to the
jheherrin
. You brought about the downfall of the Maker and the Maker-place. You redeemed our far ancestors from enslavement and terror.”

They nodded together, indicating compliance to some form of command. “You are the Pure One,” they said again. “You have spoken with the
jheherrin
. You have been aided by them. We do not comprehend your question. Were you unaware that the numbers of our ancestors were too vast to be counted? Were you unaware that they had no wish to remain in their perilous tunnels when the Maker-place had fallen? They were the soft ones. For an age, they feared to depart. But as the region of their former horror declined increasingly to dust and death, and the Maker’s lingering evil waned, they resolved to seek the water and mud of a kinder home.”

As they spoke, their voice took on more complex rhythms. In their minds, apparently, their tale required a different cadence. “Many and many of them,
aussat Befylam
,
fael Befylam
,
roge Befylam
, others too fearful to endure your sight, all who sought to repay the gift of life with life—all endured the long labor northward, bitter and loathsome, questing always from water and mud to water and mud in search of a new habitation. Were you unaware of this?”

“The
sur-jheherrin
told me a few things,” Covenant admitted reluctantly. “I guessed a few. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

How had the
jheherrin
in their many forms become creatures like the
skest
and the Feroce?

Why did the Feroce consider the lurker a god?

The idea that he needed allies like the lurker of the Sarangrave filled him with curses.

“You are the Pure One,” the creatures repeated as if that name had the force of liturgy, “wielder of metal and agony. You cannot be unaware of the majesty that thrives in the Sarangrave. You cannot be unaware of its glory over marsh and fen and swamp, its grandeur among all that swims and slithers and crawls and burrows and scurries. We do not comprehend how you can be unaware that majesty transforms. Its powers are wondrous. It wrought wonders upon the soft ones. It wrought variously upon the several
Befylam
of the
jheherrin
, but all were transformed.