The Last Dark

  As Mishio Massima slowed, Branl took the krill from Covenant, held it up to light the way. Near the water’s edge, the horses stamped to a halt. Heaving for air as if they had run for hours instead of moments, the Ironhand and her comrades stopped. Briefly silver glared like frenzy in their eyes. But within moments they began to breathe more easily. As they looked around, they nodded their recognition.

  At the forefront of the company, Covenant practically fell out of his saddle, tottering like a man on the verge of prostration. But his unsteadiness was vertigo, not fatigue. He began to look stronger as he recovered his balance.

  Still mounted, Linden did not meet his gaze. She was not ready. She still felt stricken by his intentions and her own acquiescence—and by her son’s peril.

  An awkward shrug clenched his shoulders. He left her to herself. Scanning the Giants, he drawled, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you all look like you need a bath.”

  Coldspray gave him a lugubrious frown. “We are clogged with grime, Timewarden, made filthy by long exertion. Indeed, we are altogether unlovely. How might your observation be interpreted wrongly?”

  He blinked at her as if he could not think of a response. Then he muttered in feigned disgust, “Giants.” More loudly, he remarked, “God knows I need one. Maybe my eyes are going, but I can still smell myself.” To Jeremiah, he added, “Come on. Let’s at least try to get clean. Maybe we’ll feel better.”

  Jeremiah had kept his seat on Khelen as if he were impatient to continue the journey. He avoided Linden’s eyes as she avoided Covenant’s. But he did not refuse. After only a moment’s hesitation, he dropped to the sand. Together he and Covenant splashed into the stream.

  Linden held her breath until she saw that Covenant did not take Jeremiah beyond his depth. When could her son have learned how to swim? Then she looked away and made an effort to come to terms with her dismay.

  It rose in her, a pressure that felt too strong to be contained. Covenant was taking Jeremiah to Mount Thunder. To Lord Foul. The hills crouched like threats on either side of the ravine, and on the far bank of the watercourse. The sunless stream looked more like vitriol than water. Beneath its vexed surface, it seemed to imply malice. Overhead the stars glittered as if they were trying to warn her.

  If Jeremiah thought that anger and bitterness would preserve him, he was wrong.

  Around Linden, the Giants set aside their swords, then began loosening their cataphracts, shrugging the armor off their shoulders. Of no one in particular, Latebirth asked, “Does the Timewarden mislike his odor? I cannot discern it. My own aroma precludes other scents.”

  “Aroma, forsooth,” snorted Halewhole Bluntfist amid a chorus of muted chortling. “If that is aroma, I am the suzerain of the Elohim. For my part, I do not scruple to name it ‘reek.’ ”

  While the other Swordmainnir jested, Frostheart Grueburn came to stand beside Linden. From Hyn’s back, Linden only had to lift her head a little to regard Grueburn.

  In contrast to her comrades, Grueburn looked grave, almost somber. Softly she said, “Linden Giantfriend, perhaps you will consent to speak with me apart from these coistrels. A matter weighs upon my heart. You will do a kindness if you allow me to unburden it.”

  “All right.” Linden’s clothes were still clean, scrubbed by the benison of Caerroil Wildwood’s power. Even her hair was clean. And she welcomed any distraction from herself. “Let’s talk.”

  As she slipped down from Hyn’s back, Stave and Branl also dismounted. At once, the four Ranyhyn turned away from the stream and followed the ravine, taking Covenant’s steed with them. No doubt they sought forage.

  Frostheart Grueburn loomed above Linden. With her back to the krill, the Swordmain looked benighted, mired in shadows. A lift of her arm suggested the direction taken by the horses.

  Linden glanced at Stave. “Keep an eye on Jeremiah?”

  Stave shook his head. “Branl will do so.”

  The Humbled was headed toward the stream. There he stopped, watching Covenant and Jeremiah.

  “All right,” Linden said again. To Grueburn, she added, “If you don’t mind Stave’s company.”

  “My concern is private,” replied the woman. “It is not secret. Stave Rockbrother’s companionship is welcome at all times.”

  Linden nodded. With Stave a few paces behind her, she accompanied Frostheart Grueburn up the ravine. At every step, she had to resist an impulse to stamp at the sand with her Staff. Did Covenant expect her to face the things that scared her most? She did not know how.

  Perhaps a dozen Giantish strides from her comrades, Grueburn halted. For several moments, she stood with her face raised to the sky as if she were studying the stars, or listening to them. When she lowered her head to look at Linden—and past Linden at Stave—her aura was troubled.

  “Linden Giantfriend,” she said quietly, “my thoughts are awkward. I am uncertain how to speak of them.”

  “You’re a Giant,” Linden murmured. “You’ll find a way.”

  Grueburn offered a strained smile. She seemed to shake herself. “Toward you,” she confessed, “I feel more than friendship. Amid the perils of the Lost Deep, and at other times, I have cared for you, as you know. For that reason among many others, your place in my heart is great.”

  When the woman paused, Linden said nothing. Grueburn was not waiting for a response. Rather she was hunting for a way to broach her concern.

  Finally Grueburn began. “Some days past, while we traveled together after the Timewarden had parted from us, I chanced to stand with you while you and Stave Rockbrother spoke. Together you considered questions of Desecration.”

  Like a slap of wind, Stave observed, “Our words were intended for each other alone, Frostheart Grueburn.”

  “Yet I heard them. From that time to this, I have respected that they were not for me. Nevertheless my thoughts have turned often to matters of Desecration.”

  Linden swallowed a groan. She did not want to talk about such things.

  To Stave, Grueburn continued, “Here I do not ask you to reveal what you have foreseen, or indeed what your insights may be. I do not seek to probe your heart. I wish to unveil my own.”

  Her response seemed to satisfy Stave.

  Frostheart Grueburn returned her attention to Linden. Silver from the krill caught the lines of the Giant’s mien. With an edge in her voice, she said, “You stand at the center of all that has transpired. I do not deem it unlikely that you will continue to do so. Your deeds are potent to cause some futures while ending others. And I say again that you are dear to me. Therefore my spirits were lifted to soaring by the outcome of your union with Covenant Timewarden. I saw gladness in you, the gladness and relief which dismiss Desecration. But now—

  “Ah, now, Linden Giantfriend, some new darkness hovers in you. For that reason, I am troubled. If you will consent to speak of your concerns, you will ease my own. Comprehension will open my ears so that I am again able to hear joy.”

  In your present state, Chosen, Desecration lies ahead of you. It does not crowd at your back.

  Linden bit down on her lip; steadied herself on that small pain. Then she countered, “What are you afraid of?”

  Grueburn sighed. “Chiefly I fear that you sail a course which leads to the desecration of yourself. To my sight, it appears that you confront an impossible conundrum. You are a mother. You must preserve your son. Yet you cannot. You cannot ward him from the Despiser’s malice. Nor can you ward him from the world’s end. His doom—if he is doomed—lies beyond your intervention. His despair—if he falls into despair—is not yours to relieve. And in these straits, it may be that your distress is increased by your union with Covenant Timewarden, for how can a mother know gladness with her husband when her son is in peril? I fear the effect of this conundrum. Linden Giantfriend, I fear it acutely.”

  While the woman spoke, Linden turned away. Beat after beat, she thudded one end of her Staff into the sand. She wanted to rebuff Grueburn. The Giant saw her too
clearly. Perhaps they all did. But she had talked about trust with Jeremiah; about the implications of withholding the truth. And the Swordmainnir were her friends. They were in as much danger, and had as much to lose.

  Facing the darkness, Linden replied, “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know how to explain it, even to myself.” Her horror at the idea of approaching Mount Thunder was too intimate to be named. “But I can tell you this much. Thomas wants to walk right up to his worst fear and look it in the eye, but I’m not like that. Lord Foul isn’t my worst fear,” no matter how much she loved Jeremiah. “And the Worm isn’t. Even having to watch while everyone and everything I care about dies isn’t. As long as Thomas is still alive, none of that is inevitable.

  “My worst fear”—this was as close as she could come to complete honesty—“is that there may actually be something I could do, and I won’t be brave enough to do it.”

  When her father had killed himself, she had been too young and little to stop him; but years later, when her mother had begged for death, Linden had done what her mother asked of her. Eventually she had learned to believe that there were worse things than Desecration. Letting the pain go on was worse. It had to be healed. If it could not be healed, it had to be extirpated. And if it could not be healed or cut out, it had to be ended in some other way.

  That “some other way” was her real conundrum. And her greatest fear was that she did not have it in her to resolve the contradiction.

  She knew how Kevin Landwaster must have felt.

  For a time, Frostheart Grueburn and Stave answered her with silence. What could they have said? She was who she was. Her fears were her own. But then Stave said like a man who had never known a moment’s doubt, “It is written in water, Linden. Deeds are not stones. Fears are not. And even stone may fail. No outcome is certain.”

  Before Linden could think of a response, Grueburn began to chuckle. “Well said, Stave Rockbrother. As ever, Linden Giantfriend misesteems herself. She has restored joy to my ears, though she does not hear it.”

  Then she added, “Accept my thanks, Linden Giantfriend. You have comforted me. I regret only that you are not likewise comforted.”

  At once, the woman turned away. Perhaps she sensed that Linden wanted to be alone; that Linden needed time to accept what she had heard and said. Still chuckling, Grueburn went to rejoin her comrades. But Stave remained.

  He said nothing further. For that, Linden was grateful. His presence was enough to remind her that she was not alone. No other answer would suffice unless she found it for herself.

  ime brought her no clarity; but after a while, she felt steady enough to return to the company. While the stars were dying, they had called to her nerves like keening; like bright supplications. But now they were not vanishing from the heavens. Perhaps as a result, they looked less forlorn to her. They seemed to gaze down almost hopefully, as if they had found something to believe in.

  Sighing, Linden rested a hand on Stave’s shoulder to thank him. Then she began to make her way back to her companions.

  Before she reached them, Covenant came to meet her, still dripping from his immersion. His face was full of shadows because the light of the krill had shifted: Branl had taken the dagger to a nearby hillcrest upstream. Spectral as the elucidation of dreams, argent shone on Covenant’s silver hair but left his features in darkness.

  At once, the Swordmainnir withdrew. Some splashed into the water to bathe. Others moved away as if they were making room for Linden and her husband.

  While she wondered what she could say to him, he took her in his arms. Holding her close, he murmured, “I’m sorry, Linden.” His voice was little more than a husky rasp. “I feel like I’ve hurt you, but I’m not sure how.

  “I expected you to argue.”

  She let him hug her for a moment. Then she returned his clasp. “I’ve been arguing with myself.”

  He stepped back enough to look into her eyes. “What about?”

  She tried to meet his scrutiny, but her gaze slid away as if she were ashamed. “I understand what you want to do,” she told him with a rasp of her own. “I don’t have any better ideas. But you didn’t explain what you want from me.”

  Or from Jeremiah.

  Covenant’s manner said, I don’t want anything from you. I just want you. I just need you. But aloud he admitted, “I know. I couldn’t. I can’t. It’s all so vague.” He rapped his forehead with his knuckles. “I’m clear about what I have to do. What I have to try to do. But everything else is just impressions, instincts. It’s not an accident that you and Jeremiah are here. It’s not an accident that we’re here together. Hell,” he snorted, “I wouldn’t be here at all without you. But I have no idea what it means.”

  He hesitated for a moment. Then he squared his shoulders, shook Linden gently. “The only thing I’m sure of is that this—the three of us together, with friends to help us—is not what Lord Foul wants. We’ve already done things he couldn’t have foreseen. Now I think we are something he can’t foresee.”

  He almost eased her. She believed in him: now she could almost believe him. But she was still afraid—and she had not told him what she feared. She had not named it to herself.

  “That’s not enough,” she said awkwardly.

  I’m not enough.

  His voice hardened. “Then I’ll say something else.” It set like cooling iron. “If none of this works out—if everything goes to hell no matter what we do—if the worst turns out to be worse than we can imagine—you might want to remember that we didn’t start it. It’s the Despiser’s doing. We couldn’t have prevented anything. All we’ve ever done is react to what he does.

  “Even if this whole world only exists in our minds—even if damn Foul is just an expression of a part of ourselves we don’t like—we can’t be blamed for it. We didn’t make ourselves. We were born into lives we didn’t choose, parents we didn’t choose, problems we didn’t choose. We aren’t responsible for that. We’re only responsible for what we do about it.

  “If what we do isn’t enough, too bad. Let the Creator worry about what happens next. If he doesn’t care, at least he can’t accuse us of anything.”

  Gentle as a caress, Covenant cupped his palm to the side of Linden’s neck and offered to kiss her.

  For a moment, she resisted. He had not given her enough. Nothing would ever be enough. But he had given her what he had. And he was Thomas Covenant, her husband and lover. As much as possible, he was even her protector. And he would do what he could for Jeremiah. She could not refuse him. She did not want to refuse him.

  While she kissed him, she thought, Thomas of my heart. I can’t do this.

  But she imagined that perhaps she could. As long as he never let her go.

  ong moments passed before she found the strength to step back. She was not done with Covenant. She needed his touch, his arms, his mouth. She could have held him, and been held, as long as time remained in the world. But she was also Jeremiah’s mother. Her heart was divided.

  In this, she knew, she was not alone. All hearts were divided, Covenant’s as much as hers. She would not have been surprised to learn that his desire for her and his concern for the Land and his need to confront Lord Foul threatened to tear him apart whenever he faltered. But her divisions were more personal. And when she scanned the company—the Giants washing in the stream and those waiting nearby—she saw no sign of her son.

  Her stomach tightened reflexively. At once, she turned to Stave. “Where’s Jeremiah? You said that Branl would watch him.”

  “He does so.” Stave nodded stolidly toward the shining on the rise beyond Linden. “The Chosen-son parted from the company to wend upstream. Branl followed at a slight distance. He does not neglect his charge.”

  Linden flung a glance at Covenant; but he shook his head. “He didn’t say anything. I tried to get him talking, but he had too much on his mind.”

  If something had happened to her son, she would have felt it. Surely she would have
felt it?

  “Beyond the hillside,” Stave continued, “the boy has discovered a stretch of grass among sheltered stones. It bears some resemblance to that which Anele had cause to fear. There he stands, offering demands and imprecations. Yet naught transpires. For that reason, Branl does not intervene.

  “It appears that your son does not partake of the vulnerability or flaw which exposed Anele to Corruption. We conclude that the boy has inherited only Anele’s openness to Kastenessen—a peril which no longer threatens him. His wish to encounter evil is foolhardy, but it does not endanger him.”

  “Or,” Linden countered over her shoulder, “Lord Foul just hasn’t taken advantage of it yet.”

  She was already running.

  Boulders like raised fists complicated her path. Possibilities reeled through her. Stave might be right. The gifts and curses which Jeremiah had received from Anele might have strict limits. She was not lorewise enough to know. But she could imagine other explanations.

  Kastenessen could have used his ability to take Jeremiah at any time, whenever the boy stood on bare dirt. Yet the Elohim had not done so, despite his driving pain and fury. Instead he had waited, bided his time until the opportunity he desired presented itself.

  If he could exercise such restraint, Lord Foul could do so with ease. His malice was colder than Kastenessen’s—and far more calculating. The Despiser had allowed Anele to walk on rough grass unpossessed for a considerable distance during Linden’s flight from Mithil Stonedown.

  Yet naught transpires. Linden did not doubt Stave—or Branl. Nevertheless the danger was real. It was always real.

  And Jeremiah did not understand it. He thought that he would be able to defend himself as long as he was not taken by surprise.

  The slope ahead of her was not steep. And she was too frightened to feel tired. She should have been able to ascend easily, swiftly. Yet she grew weaker as she scrambled upward. Something profound within her had shifted. Her surrender to Covenant’s intentions had diminished her. The strength drained from her limbs at every step. Her breathing was a hoarse gasp as she gained the crest.