The Last Dark

  Lostson Longwrath lay where he had fallen, charred and lifeless: a darker shape like an omen outstretched on the benighted ground. Beside the geas-doomed Swordmain, Covenant stopped. Too many lives had already been lost. No doubt the Worm had left tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths in its wake, perhaps millions—and the carnage was just beginning. The Elohim would not be the only casualties of Lord Foul’s quest for freedom; his obsessive denial of his own despair. As it always did, Despite littered the world with victims.

  Covenant had to do what he could.

  While he secured his numbed grip on the krill, however, Rime Coldspray said, “A moment, Timewarden. One matter remains to be resolved. It concerns Longwrath’s flamberge.” She indicated the wave-bladed longsword where it lay near the man’s burned fingers. “He appeared to acquire it at the behest of his geas, and therefore of the Elohim, though we saw no clear purpose in it. Now, however, it appears in an altered light. The Harrow said of it that it was forged by theurgy to be potent against Sandgorgons. Its puissance has faded with disuse, he informed us. But those monsters have come to assail the Land, and we are too few and worn to oppose them. Therefore it is my hope that the blade’s force has not altogether waned.

  “If this weapon retains any virtue, one among us must wield it.”

  A good point, Covenant thought. No matter what happened, the Land’s defenders would need every conceivable weapon. But while the Giants looked at each other and frowned, weighing possibilities, Branl spoke.

  “The ur-Lord will have need of the krill, and I have no sword. A Giant’s blade is an inconvenient length in my hands, but its weight does not exceed my strength, or my skill.

  “The Haruchai have ever eschewed weaponry. Nevertheless weapons we must have. If our people do not elect to reinterpret their service, they will render their lives effectless in the last crisis. Fists and feet suffice to oppose Cavewights, but they will not harm Sandgorgons or hinder skurj.”

  Standing over the flamberge, he watched the women for their reactions.

  Hesitating, the Ironhand asked, “Timewarden?” She seemed loath to let a man who was not a Giant take up Longwrath’s only legacy. She faulted her ancestors for Longwrath’s geas. It was the responsibility of the Swordmainnir to attempt amends.

  But Covenant was sure. “Why not?” he returned. “One way or another, we all have to reinterpret our notions of service. That’s what Linden is doing. Stave did it a long time ago. Now Branl is doing the same. Why not let him keep going?”

  Coldspray gave her comrades a chance to object. Some of them scowled or looked away, shifted their feet uncomfortably; but no one contradicted Covenant.

  Finally their leader nodded. “Let it be so. Branl of the Haruchai, accept Lostson Longwrath’s flamberge in the name of ancient friendship and faith. May you find worth in it—aye, and give it worth as well—to redeem the tale of a loved Giant thoughtlessly betrayed.”

  Branl’s reply was to take the longsword in both hands. Briefly he swung it around his head as if to demonstrate that he was equal to its heft. Then he stepped back from Longwrath’s corpse, making room for Covenant.

  Stave watched, expressionless as any of his kinsmen. Nevertheless he conveyed the impression that he approved.

  It was time. Covenant had made a promise. Trembling, he drew out Joan’s ring on its chain. With the ring’s uncompromising circle in one hand, he raised High Lord Loric’s krill over the dead.

  “Lostson Longwrath,” he began. For the sake of the Giants, he strove to speak formally. “Parents who cherished you named you Exalt Widenedworld, but they couldn’t protect you from being hurt. Forgive one more wound. What you’ve suffered tears the hearts of your people, and I don’t know another way to help them.

  “A natural fire would be better for them, maybe even for you. I know that.” Long ago, he had summoned the Dead of The Grieve into flames to find their release. “But we don’t have any wood. This is the best I can do.

  “Whatever happens, remember that you saved the Giants who knew you best. None of them wanted this to happen. All of them are grieving.”

  Deliberately Covenant put restraint out of his mind; pushed away his old fears of wild magic that refused control. Kneeling at Longwrath’s side, he hammered the krill through armor and raiment into Longwrath’s chest.

  At once, the gem blazed with such brightness that it seemed to erupt. Silver incandescence poured over the Giants and the Haruchai. It flooded the plain and the temple, drenched Jeremiah, ran up the slope of rubble to the ridge; denied the night. It was not fire, although Covenant thought of it as conflagration, saw it as flame. But it was capable of anything. In the hands of its rightful wielder—sane or deranged, driven by love or contemptuous of consequence—it could shatter the foundations of Time. It made Longwrath’s flesh and even his armor burn like kindling.

  And from the heart of the coruscation, Linden Avery came galloping on Hyn’s back with the Staff of Law black as midnight in her hands.

  12.

  After Too Long

  The flare of power from the gem resembled a scream. It struck Covenant as if it were tangible, a physical impact. He reeled backward. Quick as gusts, Branl and Stave dodged. The Giants scrambled aside from Linden’s wild rush. They barely hauled Cabledarm out of the way in time.

  In full career, Hyn pounded among them, past them, a prow of force cleaving a path for a second rider, a second Ranyhyn. They were halfway to the fane before Linden and her companion could bring their straining mounts to a halt.

  From atop the construct, Jeremiah flailed his arms with Earthpower blazing in each hand. If he yelled something, anything, Covenant did not hear it. A shock like vertigo seemed to unmoor his mind. He stood on a shattered world—on fragments of comprehension—and did not know what was happening.

  Linden—? How—?

  Linden hardly appeared to see her son; or she absorbed the sight of him in an instant, recognized that he was safe and whole. Wildly she wheeled as if she had arrived with furies and woe on her heels. The krill’s shining glared like a crisis in her eyes.

  But not alone. Covenant stared after her. Not alone?

  He should have been able to identify that second Ranyhyn, that stallion. But he had no mind and could not think.

  The stranger was singing—or he emanated complex melodies like an aura. And he was not chasing Linden: he was her companion. Together they turned their mounts to confront the Giants and the Haruchai and Covenant.

  Then Rime Coldspray called, “Linden Giantfriend!” and parts of Covenant’s reality fell back into place. When she added, “Manethrall Mahrtiir, most valiant of Ramen!” Covenant began to regain his footing.

  Mahrtiir? No. Impossible. That was not—

  Oh, God. Blood and damnation.

  Narunal. The second horse was Narunal.

  Now Covenant recognized Mahrtiir’s eyelessness, Mahrtiir’s fierce visage. But the Manethrall was altogether changed; fraught with music and theurgy. His bandage was gone. In its place, the ravage which had cost him his eyes had become whole skin, seamless and new. He wore a robe of samite so white and pure that it might have been woven of starlight. Garlands of harmony draped his neck: a wreath of counterpoint adorned his head. And his mien—His familiar combative frown had become radiance. It had become eagerness. Reflecting the krill’s gem, he looked like wild magic cleansed of its extravagance and peril.

  In his hand he carried a sapling—a sapling—as if it were weightless in spite of its root-ball thick with loam and its wealth of new leaves like a gift of verdure to the barren plain.

  His mere presence shed hymns like promises in all directions, and Narunal bore him as if the stallion had been exalted.

  “No,” Linden answered. She sounded hoarse and ragged, as if she had spent hours yelling—or perhaps sobbing. “Not Mahrtiir. Not anymore. This is Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir. If he ever gets the chance, he’s going to be the Forestal of Andelain and Salva Gildenbourne.”

  The figure beside h
er nodded gravely. He may have been humming. Then he turned away as though Linden had introduced him to people who did not interest him. Guiding Narunal with his knees or his music, he rode, stately and ineffable, toward Jeremiah’s temple.

  Linden remained where she was. Her eyes were full of frenzy. Too much had happened to her. Too much had happened while she was gone.

  “You did—” She appeared to grope for words as if she had no names for what she saw and felt. “Covenant, you—”

  Yet Covenant faced her like the man who had chosen to forsake her days ago. He should have said something, wanted to speak. Goading himself with curses, he strained to break the logjam of his emotions. But he was still stunned, still floundering.

  A Forestal? Of course. He had urged her to Remember forbidding. How else could she have done it? Without forbidding, there is too little time. The magicks of the ancient woodland guardians were not instruments which could be passed from one hand to another. They were inherent. So she had decided—or Mahrtiir had decided for her. The Manethrall of the Ramen had been sacrificed.

  And Covenant had no idea where she had found the power to transform Mahrtiir; how far into the Land’s past she had been forced to travel. Hellfire! It was no wonder that she looked wild, frantic. She had done and endured things which had shaken her heart to its foundations.

  He wanted to ask, Who was it? Who did you find? He had the question ready; but he gritted his teeth against it. She needed something more from him. Something better.

  While Covenant stood paralyzed, silent and useless, Jeremiah came running from his construct. His hands burned like shouts as he sprinted toward Linden.

  “Mom! You came back!”

  Linden hardly glanced at him. Other concerns already gripped her. Her attention shifted from Covenant to the Giants. Her eyes widened in shock.

  “God!” she panted. “What have you done?”

  Abruptly she flung herself from Hyn’s back. Unfurling fire as black as the distant storm, she strode toward the Swordmainnir. Toward Cabledarm.

  In that instant, Covenant saw that the grass stains were gone from her jeans. She no longer needed them. And she looked clean, as if she had been refined by fire. Even her hair and clothes—But the tatters of her shirt remained: the tearing of thorns, the bullet hole, the rent hem.

  She ignored his scrutiny, his surprise. Focused on the dying Giant, she advanced as if she meant to hurl an attack.

  Onyx Stonemage and Stormpast Galesend flinched reflexively, then stood their ground, upholding Cabledarm between them. The other Giants stepped away to make room.

  “God damn it.” Linden’s voice was a raw mutter, barely audible, as if she did not expect to be heard. “What happened to you? What have you done to yourself?”

  Then she sent a torrent of flame at the damaged woman. Swift as empathy, she inundated Cabledarm with Earthpower.

  She remained a healer, Covenant told himself, no matter how she judged herself. Wounds came first, pains and afflictions which she was able to treat. She had been through an ordeal: that was obvious. She must have been desperate to do something that felt like restitution.

  Her effect on Cabledarm was not gentle. It was too urgent, too full of need. And perhaps she had not yet realized that the hindrance of Kevin’s Dirt was gone. She seemed to scourge Cabledarm with healing.

  The woman’s head jerked back. Twisting against the grasp of her comrades, she gave a groan like a throttled scream. But she was not being harmed. Her pain was the hurt of internal organs violently mended, of bones roughly reset and sealed, of bleeding stanched as if it were being cauterized. When she fainted, her slackness—and the new ease of her respiration—suggested that she had already begun to recuperate.

  Watching, Covenant leaned on Branl as if he needed the comfort of the Humbled. He wanted to tell Linden that she was wonderful—that he had been terrified for her—that he was sorry—that the world would not see her like again. But still he could not speak. He had no language for the extremity of his heart.

  “That is well done, Linden Giantfriend,” murmured Coldspray. “Well done in all sooth. Now only Stave Rockbrother requires similar care.”

  Unsteadily, as if she had assumed Cabledarm’s fever, Linden looked around for Stave, who stood on the far side of Covenant’s aborted fire. For a moment, she appeared to fix her senses and her bewilderment on the ashen remains of Longwrath’s corpse. Her mouth opened for a cry of protest.

  Then she must have felt Jeremiah rushing toward her. She spun away from the fallen Giant and the wounded Haruchai to catch her son in her arms.

  “Jeremiah,” she breathed. “Oh, Jeremiah. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I had to leave you. I’m sorry that you had to do everything without me. You must have felt so abandoned—”

  “Mom, stop.” Jeremiah gripping her with flames. “I’m sorry. I acted like a kid. You did what you had to do, and I didn’t even tell you I love you. I didn’t tell you I understand.”

  Some distance beyond the gathered company, Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir had paused in front of the fane, singing softly, rapt in contemplation.

  “And we did it,” Jeremiah added. Linden’s return appeared to galvanize him. Abruptly he pulled away from her and gestured at the temple. “We did it right. I mean, the Giants and Stave did it. They were amazing. And they came. The Elohim came. They’re inside. Even—”

  There he faltered. His whole body seemed to clench at the memory of Kastenessen.

  “I believe you,” Linden assured him. “I can’t see them, but they left traces. They must have gone in to somewhere else, just like you said that they would. It must have been extraordinary.”

  She was making an effort to affirm her son. Nevertheless her tone was thick with tension.

  “But are you all right? Did anything happen to you?”

  She must have been able to see farther into Jeremiah than Covenant could. I’m sorry you didn’t kill him. I want him dead.

  Jeremiah ducked his head. “There are worse things than being afraid, Mom. Being useless is worse.” He indicated the fane again. “The Giants did that. Stave did it. He and Cabledarm got hurt doing it. All I did was tell them what I wanted. Without them—”

  Helpless as a spectre, Covenant watched and listened. He loathed his silence, but did not know how to break it. Jeremiah did not mention Kastenessen or being possessed. And Covenant had no intention of telling the boy’s story for him; betraying the boy’s secrets. But he had so many other things to say.

  “I know the feeling,” Linden replied harshly. “I’ve taken terrible chances because I felt that way. You’ve seen me. But it happens to all of us. We can’t do everything alone. Or we can’t do enough. Without help, we’re all useless.”

  She was speaking to Jeremiah, but her words—or her anger—may have been directed at Covenant. How often had he said, Don’t touch me? How badly had he hurt her by leaving her behind?

  He, too, would have failed at everything without help.

  He could almost see Jeremiah’s needs aching in Linden’s eyes as she turned away from her son. Innominate tensions and uncertainties ruled her. She seemed unable to stop moving.

  Apparently she was trying to focus her attention on Stave.

  The music emanating from the Forestal had changed. It had assumed a more telic mode, as if he were done with study. He had set his sapling upright directly before the fane’s portal. Now he withdrew his hand—and the sapling did not fall. He had already sung its roots into the hard dirt.

  Stonemage and Galesend continued to support Cabledarm. The rest of the Giants gathered closer to Linden. Cirrus Kindwind rested her hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder as if to soothe him until Linden could attend to him again.

  When Linden looked toward Stave, her gaze snagged on Branl. On the flamberge—

  For an instant, she froze. Fright flared in her gaze. Then her features knotted. From the Staff, she summoned a curling flame; sent fire licking up and down the rune-carved surface.

  Bitt
er as bloodshed, she demanded, “What’re you doing with Longwrath’s sword? Is that how you’re going to kill me?”

  What else could she think? Longwrath had tried more than once to cut her down. She had not seen him since the Wraiths had repulsed his desire for her death from Andelain. And the Humbled had distrusted her from the first, in spite of her history. They had threatened and opposed and judged her.

  Nevertheless Covenant blurted, “Linden, no.” Distress broke through the blockade of his silence. Her reaction was too much for him. “It’s not like that.”

  “Why not?” She did not glance away from Branl, or quench her power. “He’s wanted me dead ever since I resurrected you. What’s changed?”

  While she spoke, Covenant seemed to hear her crying, I woke up the Worm! Is no one ever going to forgive me?

  Yet Branl faced her without expression, without moving. He gave no sign that he regarded her as a threat.

  “He killed Clyme,” Covenant said in a frayed croak. “Clyme let turiya possess him. Then Branl killed Clyme. The Raver is gone. Everything’s changed.”

  Again Linden froze. He could not read her.

  She would not have forgotten Honninscrave’s sacrifice against samadhi Sheol, turiya’s brother.

  Now Covenant felt driven to talk. He yearned to tell her about his alliance with the lurker. He wanted to convince her that she had made the lurker’s efforts against the Worm possible. Writ in water. When she had eluded the snares of the Feroce, she had saved him and enabled Joan’s end and given the Land precious days of life.

  But he restrained himself. He needed to say such things—but explanations of that kind were not what she needed. She had been through too much: her nerves and her heart were too raw. An abstract alliance would not console her.

  Near the fane, Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s sapling spread new branches and put forth fresh leaves and grew as if the Forestal had compressed years of rain and sun and rich soil into brief stanzas of hymnody.