The Last Dark (6 page)

The Giants replied with murmurs of approval; and Jeremiah yawned unexpectedly. “I’m not just hungry,” he announced. “I’m
sleepy
. I thought I was too excited to sleep, but maybe I’m not.”

Linden nodded again. “All right.” Feeling suddenly drained, she turned to Stave. “Will you guide me? I want to wash, but I’m not sure that I can find my way.”

Without hesitation, the
Haruchai
took her arm and steered her into the darkness away from the company. Trusting his friendship and his certainty, she accompanied him downstream.

But she wanted more than a bath. She wanted to understand. Questions about Jeremiah led her to
quellvisks
, and to the
Elohim
. When she and Stave had gone beyond earshot of the Giants and her son, she asked him quietly, “Why do you think they did it?”

“Linden?” the former Master inquired with as much gentleness as his dispassion allowed.

“Why did the
Elohim
leave those bones where the Ranyhyn could find them? If they’re so afraid of Jeremiah? They can move through time. The Theomach told me that. So did Esmer. They could have known that Jeremiah would need those bones. And they had the whole Earth to choose from. Why did they pick the Lower Land?”

Why did they make possible a fate that they abhorred and then try to prevent it?

Stave shrugged. “Mayhap they did not foresee him.” Then he added, “Their belief that they are equal to all things deludes them. They cannot perceive their own misapprehensions. How otherwise did they fail to foresee that you would permit ur-Lord Covenant to retain his white gold ring when you had become the Sun-Sage? Their fear of the Unbeliever’s power and resurrection blinded them to other paths.”

By slow increments, Linden began to relax. Stave’s answer sounded reasonable. If nothing else, it implied that comprehension was attainable.

As far as she was concerned, the
Elohim
had been wrong about her from the first.

Before long, the
Haruchai
brought her to a small pool among the mounded hillocks. It was too shallow to let her immerse herself, had no virtue to assoil her sins; but it offered her enough water to scrub at the worst of her dirt and doubt. When Stave had assured her that he would stand watch somewhere out of sight, he faded soundlessly into the night, and she was alone.

Kneeling among the stones and sand at the pool’s edge, she placed the Staff of Law beside her; lowered her face into the cold tang of the water. As long as she could hold her breath, she dragged her fingers through her hair and rubbed hard at her scalp. After that, she unbuttoned and dropped her shirt, removed her boots and socks, took off her grass-marked jeans.

Alone with the stars, she did what she could to remove the stains of sweat and strain and dust and blood from her skin. With cold clean water, she tried to scour the soilure from her thoughts. Then she tossed her clothes into the pool and beat them like a woman who wanted to pound away every reminder that she was vulnerable to despair.

hen she returned—sodden, dripping, and chilled—to her friends, she had not been made new. Her many taints had been ground too deeply into her to be simply washed away. Her runed Staff remained darkest black. If she raised fire from the wood, her flames of Earthpower and Law would be black as well, indistinguishable from the world’s night. And there was an ache of apprehension in the ground that did not allow her to forget that her company and the Land and all of life were in peril. Nevertheless she had begun to feel the need for rest. And she knew that she was hungry.

“You look better,” Jeremiah pronounced. “I know how you like being clean.” Then he snorted a soft laugh. “I mean, I can guess. You sure gave me enough baths.”

Linden answered by wrapping him in a long, wet hug. She had no other way to express what she felt.

In her absence, the Giants had set out a meal for her: cheese, dried fruit, a bit of stale bread and some cured meat. Embracing Jeremiah, her nerves assured her that he had already eaten. Now she felt a tide of drowsiness rising in him. While she held him, he stifled a yawn.

“Mom. You’re shivering.”

Cold and over-wrought nerves had that effect, in spite of the heat clinging to the Spoiled Plains.

“You’re right.” Reluctantly she released him. “Low blood sugar. I must be hungrier than I thought. Why don’t you find a place to lie down while I eat something?” Smiling crookedly, she added, “If you’re still awake when I’m done, you can tell me a bedtime story. I want to hear more about your visits to the Land.” She particularly wished to hear more about Jeremiah’s encounters with Covenant. “They’re bound to be more interesting than ‘Bomba the Jungle Boy.’”

He grinned, apparently remembering the books that she had read to him in another life. “But I don’t want to sleep.” He made a sweeping gesture that included Stave and the Giants. “This is too exciting.”

“And it will still be exciting in the morning,” Linden admonished him gently.

“Well—” He glanced around the floor of the gully. “Maybe if I get comfortable somewhere.”

“You do that.” Inexplicably she wanted to weep again; but she swallowed the impulse. “I really should eat.” With a conscious effort, she turned to the meal that Frostheart Grueburn had left for her on a flat sheet of stone.

Night covered Grueburn’s face, and Rime Coldspray’s. Linden could not see their expressions, but she felt them grinning. As Jeremiah moved away, looking for a clear stretch of sand and dirt, Cabledarm remarked quietly, “Here Linden Giantfriend reveals yet another of her many selves. She is not merely the Sun-Sage, the Chosen, the indomitable seeker and guardian of her son. She is also the mother who provides care.”

Linden might have protested, if she could have done so with the same light-hearted kindliness that filled Cabledarm’s voice. Instead she began eating; and after her first bites of hard cheese and stale bread, she was preoccupied with hunger.

Mahrtiir responded on her behalf. “Are you taken aback, large ones?” he said with a gruff attempt at humor. “If so, I must chastise your lack of discernment. That she is a mother is plain.”

Having spoken, however, he seemed disconcerted by the quiet laughter that greeted his gibe. Instead of laughing himself, he said more stiffly, “Some have journeyed hard and long. Others have walked when they were weary and heart-sore. I have merely ridden and rested. I will stand watch with the Ranyhyn. And perhaps Stave will consent to join me. I have heard young Jeremiah’s tale of great events. I would hear how those events are interpreted by the long memories and acute judgments of the
Haruchai
.”

Stave glanced at Linden, then gave the Manethrall a barely perceptible nod. Together they walked away along the stream until they found an easy ascent out of the erosion-cut. A moment later, they were gone into the night.

Still eating, Linden waited for the questions of the Giants.

But they did not question her. As if by common consent, they made themselves comfortable, some sitting against the walls of the gully, others half reclining beside the stream. Then in muted voices they began to tell old tales, stories which they all obviously knew well. None of their narratives went far: the Swordmainnir interrupted each constantly, sometimes with reminders of other tales, more often with good-natured jests. Nevertheless their interjections and ripostes had a soothing effect on Linden. That such strong warriors could be playful even now evoked an irrational sensation of safety. Indirectly they made light of their many perils and foes; and by doing so, they enabled Linden to relax further.

Surely she could afford to rest while Mahrtiir, Stave, and the Ranyhyn watched over her and Jeremiah, and the Swordmainnir were content to amuse themselves with tales and gibes?

When she had eaten everything that Grueburn had set out for her, she went to the stream for a long drink. Briefly she scanned the watercourse until her health-sense confirmed that Jeremiah was already asleep, sprawled unselfconsciously no more than a dozen steps away. Then she began to search for a place where she, too, could lie down.

The dampness and chill of her clothes were only vaguely unpleasant. She could have warmed them with her Staff, but she disliked the prospect of raising black fire here. It felt like a bad omen. And it might attract hazardous attention.

Recumbent on the sand with only a few rocks to discomfit her, Linden rode the current of low Giantish voices as if it were a tide that lifted her into the worlds of dreams.

They were many and confusing, fraught with cryptic auguries and possible havoc. Muirwin Delenoth. An unleashed avalanche of water in the depths of Gravin Threndor. Resurrections. She Who Must Not Be Named. But one vision had more power over her than the others. In it, she and Jeremiah sat together in the living room that she would never see again, he on the floor surrounded by boxes of Legos, she in an armchair watching him. He was building an image of Mount Thunder in elaborate detail; and she loved watching him, as she had always done. The best part of the dream, however, was that he talked while he worked, happily explaining why he had chosen that image, what it meant to him, and how he had become so familiar with it, all in words which made perfect sense to her—and which were forgotten as soon as they were uttered.

Once during the night, she was awakened by the visceral realization that a distant crisis had passed. Its aftershocks began to fade as soon as she became aware of them. Reassured by the knowledge that at least one cataclysm had kept its distance and run its course, she went back to sleep easily.

She yearned to return to Jeremiah and Legos, but that dream was gone. Instead, between one instant of consciousness and another, a hand touched her shoulder, and a low voice said her name. She recognized Stave before she knew that she was no longer asleep.

“Chosen,” he said, still quietly, “dawn draws nigh. Though the disturbance in the Earth has subsided, the Giants surmise that it is but the first of many. Indeed, they deem that some alteration has come to the Land. Having rested, they judge that it is now time to arise.”

In an instant, Linden was fully awake. Jeremiah was stirring, roused by Stormpast Galesend. Like Stave, Manethrall Mahrtiir had returned. He conferred in whispers with the Ironhand, perhaps sharing any impressions that he had received from the Ranyhyn, while the other Swordmainnir secured their armor, checked their weapons, tied the scant remnant of their supplies into bundles.

A low breeze drifted along the gully, touching Linden’s nerves with an insidious sensation of change, not in the weather, but in something more fundamental, something in the nature of the air itself. The shift was not
wrongness
or malice, yet it seemed to imply that it could be as destructive as evil.

Gripping Stave’s arm and the Staff of Law, she climbed to her feet. “Has anything happened? I mean, anything specific? Are the Ranyhyn worried?”

With his usual detachment, Stave reported, “The great horses appear restive. They snort at the air and toss their heads without any cause that I am able to discern. Nor do the Giants perceive any source of peril. Nonetheless—” He hesitated as if he were searching for contact with other
Haruchai
minds; with memories which were beyond his reach. Then he continued, “I share the apprehensions of the Swordmainnir. Some dire alteration approaches. We do well to meet it standing.”

A moment later, he added, “It is in my heart that the Unbeliever has confronted his former mate, for good or ill.” A hint of discomfort in his voice made him sound more formal. “He has quelled her, or she has slain him. But the import of either outcome lies beyond my ken. Do such events conduce to the Earth’s salvation or to its damnation? It is said that there is hope in contradiction, yet that insight surpasses me. I am
Haruchai
, accustomed to clear sight or none.

“At your side, Chosen, I have made a study of uncertainty. Now I have learned that it is an abyss, no less unfathomable than the Lost Deep.”

“Don’t say that,” Linden protested. She meant, Don’t remind me that Covenant may be dead. We need him.
I
need him. “You understand more than you give yourself credit for.”