The Last Dark

  In your present state, Chosen—

  She was done with fighting. That much had become clear to her.

  —Desecration lies ahead of you.

  God, she had endured so much violence—From her struggles against Roger Covenant and the croyel to the horrors and killing beside the Defiles Course, she had fought and fought. With wild magic, she had shed the lives of scores or hundreds of misled Cavewights.

  You have become the daughter of my heart. It was enough. She was done. Ever since Jeremiah’s escape from his graves, the foundations of her life had been shifting. They needed to shift further.

  She did not mean that she had given up. Carried along by the syllogisms of prostration, she arrived at convictions which did not imply surrender. She had seen her husband find his way through an appalling conundrum of skurj and Sandgorgons. She had seen Giants appear out of nowhere to hazard their lives; seen the lurker of the Sarangrave set aside its old malevolence and choose to endure terrible pain. Rime Coldspray and four of her Swordmainnir had given battle while three loved comrades were slain. Stave and Branl had fought as though they wielded the prowess of every living Haruchai. The fact that Linden and Covenant and Jeremiah were still alive meant many things. It did not entail or require surrender.

  But she could not keep meeting peril with violence, striving to out-do the savagery of Lord Foul’s servants and allies. She could not. She needed a different purpose, a better role in the Land’s fate. She had passed through the wrath of Gallows Howe to the gibbet’s deeper truths; to the vast bereavement which had inspired Garroting Deep’s thirst for blood. The time had come to heed the lessons which her whole life had tried to teach her.

  If she did not give up, and did not fight, what remained? She thought that she knew, although she trembled to contemplate it; or she would have trembled had she been less weary.

  There is hope in contradiction.

  Maybe that was true. If she did not know how to forgive herself, she could begin by offering other forms of grace to people or beings who needed it more.

  The daughter of my heart? she thought. Give me a chance. Let me show you what your daughter has in mind.

  She was still the Chosen. She could make decisions and go in directions which the Despiser might not expect.

  After that, her helpless clarity looped back to its starting point. She was done with fighting; with violence and killing. One idea at a time, she followed the same logic to the same conclusions. Exhaustion was like that, she knew. Under the right circumstances, it shed a certain amount of light; but its own conditions prevented it from casting its illumination further.

  Later Hurl came to her with a satchel of dried fruit and cured mutton. He also offered her a flask of diamondraught diluted with fresh water: enough of the Giantish liquor, he said, to restore her, but not so much that it would impose sleep. And when she had eaten a little and drunk more, she found that she felt strong enough to focus her eyes and look around.

  The survivors were lit like reincarnations of themselves by the silver of the krill in Branl’s grasp. Jeremiah’s distress called out to her. He sat huddled against the trunk of a tree nearby, but he did not look at her—or at anything outside himself. With his arms wrapped around his knees and his face hidden against his thighs, he rocked back and forth like a child in too much pain. Stave and Cirrus Kindwind stood with him. The Giant murmured reassurances that Linden could not hear. Stave’s stance suggested that he was keeping watch.

  Hurl had joined most of the other newcomers a short distance away. From somewhere—presumably among the fringes of the Sarangrave—they had retrieved sacks bulging with supplies: food and more diamondraught; other things which they considered necessary, and which they must have carried for many leagues. As Stonemage, Grueburn, and Bluntfist gathered with them, the canvas-clad men and women handed out viands and refreshment.

  The surviving Swordmainnir and several of the other Giants bore oozing scalds. Contact with the blood and entrails of the skurj had burned them. But they were Giants, able to endure fulminating hurts. One and all, they were grieving over their fallen comrades. Yet that hurt, also, they were able to endure, at least for a while.

  Down the slope from Linden, Covenant stood with Branl, Rime Coldspray, and another Giant, an implausibly thin man who appeared to speak for the sailors. Like Stave, Branl was unscathed. The hunch of Covenant’s shoulders told Linden that he had fallen hard, damaged his chest. Her nerves detected cracked ribs and some dislodged cartilage, but no broken bones. Nevertheless his manner resembled the ravaged hillsides.

  “I swear to you,” he was saying, “I thought it made sense. This is what happens when I convince myself I know what I’m doing. Even after Lord Foul touched Jeremiah, I thought we could sneak in here. I’m still not sure we could get in any other way. But this was a disaster.

  “Hellfire, Coldspray! I just about got us all killed.” To the other Giant, he added, “If you hadn’t showed up—”

  Or if, Linden amended on his behalf, he had not feared his own power; if he had unleashed enough wild magic to cleanse the whole valley. If he had indeed been done with restraint. Yet she believed that he had done well to hold back. He had little health-sense, and wild magic tended always to resist control. He might have inadvertently killed his companions.

  “Enough, Timewarden,” the Ironhand replied, peremptory with fatigue and loss. “It is bootless to fault yourself for an onslaught which you could not have foreseen. Our peril here was both extreme and bitter. Yet it has not exceeded the hazards of the more direct road. And here we have found aid as unforeseen as our foes.”

  Linden nodded privately. Soon she would have to go to Covenant, if he did not approach her first. She needed his embrace to console her. And she wanted to explain herself as well as she could. She was done keeping secrets, especially from him.

  But her son took precedence. She could only imagine what Lord Foul’s visions and his own helplessness had done to him.

  She allowed herself a bit more food, a few more swallows of diamondraught-tinged water. Then she began the immense labor of rising to her feet.

  At once, Stave came to help her. His hand on her arm lifted her, steadied her. His single eye studied her as if she were no longer closed to him. In silence, he supported her toward Jeremiah.

  As Linden approached, Cirrus Kindwind moved away. Clearly she needed the solace of her own people.

  Every step sharpened Linden’s perception of her son’s despair. Her nerves assured her that his mind was still present. Although he rocked back and forth like an abused child, he had not retreated to his graves. Nevertheless he looked lost in misery.

  For a moment, she paused to think. But she was too tired and sure to reconsider anything. Lowering herself down the Staff of Law, she knelt facing Jeremiah. Then she set the Staff on the soaked ground between them.

  “Jeremiah, honey. Can you hear me? Are you listening?”

  Hugging his face against his thighs, he rocked harder.

  “Jeremiah, listen.” Her voice was a sigh. “I know it’s hard.” How many times had Thomas said that to her? “But we’re still alive.” Others were not. “This isn’t the end. We can finish what we started.”

  Muffled by his legs, Jeremiah whispered, “You can. I can’t.”

  Linden searched herself for strength. “What do you mean?”

  Slowly his head came up as if he were summoning indignation; as if her question insulted him. Memories of Sandgorgons and skurj capered like ghouls in his haunted gaze.

  “Because I can’t do anything, that’s why.” He made a visible effort to sound angry, but his voice held only anguish. “I wasn’t even in danger. Foul wants me alive. But there were all those monsters, and I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t do anything except watch. And even when I did that, I could still see the Worm. Even when Latebirth and Galesend were dying, and it was horrible, and there was blood everywhere, and those fangs. I could still see the Worm. Every minute, it does more damage than al
l the skurj in the world, and there’s nothing I can do.”

  As guerdon for his puerile valor—

  Aching for him, Linden summoned her courage. “I know. It must have been terrible for you. That’s why I want you to take my Staff.”

  She expected surprise, but he only looked away. “Why? It won’t make any difference. I can’t use it. I don’t know how. It isn’t mine. You’ll just have to take it back. You won’t have any choice.”

  She was tempted to reach out and shake him; but she refrained. He was too full of dismay to appreciate what she was offering him. As calmly as she could, she admitted, “We might have to take turns at first. The Giants and Thomas are hurt. They need me. But you can still get started. And I don’t always have to hold it. I can use some of its power without touching it. That doesn’t change anything. I still want you to have it. I want it to be yours.”

  “Why?” Jeremiah repeated like a groan.

  “Because you need to be able to defend yourself,” he needed to believe in himself, “and I don’t need it anymore. I have white gold—and I can’t use both. No one can. Earthpower and wild magic together are too much. So now I want to learn how to handle my ring. I want you to learn how to use the Staff.”

  “I can’t,” he said again. “I don’t have any idea—”

  “Jeremiah.” She made his name sound like a reprimand. “We talked about this. Of course you don’t know how. But you can learn. You don’t even need my help. You have your health-sense and your own power. You can teach yourself.

  “And if you have something else to concentrate on, you might be able to stop seeing the Worm. Earthpower and Law can do all kinds of healing. Maybe they can cure those visions. Maybe they can even keep the Despiser from taking you again.”

  Taking the risk, she finished, “And maybe you can find a way to make the Staff clean again. I know that I can’t. That blackness is too much a part of me.”

  Jeremiah stared at her. The bleak torment in his gaze became a muddy roil. Its ambiguous currents twisted in unfamiliar directions, disguising their own depths. For a moment, she feared that he would pull away completely; that she had asked too much of him. That he would choose despair and dissociation.

  But then he reached for her Staff.

  “I’ll try. I can’t stand the way I am.”

  Blinking at an unexpected sting of tears, she said unsteadily, “Just remember what I told you. Start with your own Earthpower. Use it to touch what the Staff can do. You should be able to feel it. Then you’ll be able to do more. It won’t be easy at first. But you’ll get better.”

  He ignored her now. Already distracted, he stroked the written wood, familiarizing himself with its texture, exploring its arcane script. Briefly he considered its iron heels as though they held the secrets he needed. Then he surged to his feet, holding the Staff of Law as if he wanted to swing it around his head.

  Ah, God. Feeling strangely naked, bereft, like a woman who had just said farewell to her son’s childhood, Linden climbed upright. She was grateful for Stave’s firm grip on her arm, reliable as a corner-stone; but she had no words to offer her friend. Before she could do or say anything else, she needed to stop weeping.

  “I do not scry, Chosen,” the former Master remarked without any discernible emotion. “To my sight, the future holds only darkness. Yet I judge that you have acted wisely. The boy’s need is great, and you have other strengths.”

  Fortunately Stave did not appear to expect a response. Without a sign from her, he guided her toward Covenant.

  As she drew near, Covenant turned away from Rime Coldspray and the lean Giant. His gaze was feverish with pain, and the lines of his face had been cut deeper: he seemed to have aged years in the past few hours. Even without his memories of the Arch, he bore the burden of too much time. His damaged chest was the least of his hurts. At the core, he was defined by his rage for lepers; for the innocent victims of Despite. He hated the necessary fact that other people suffered so that he might oppose Lord Foul.

  Wincing whenever his ribs shifted, he held out his arms to his wife.

  Fearing that she had just sacrificed her son—the first step toward sacrificing herself—Linden stepped into Covenant’s embrace as if she were falling.

  It was a mercy that he did not speak. Words were demands. For a few moments, at least, she simply needed to be held. And no one else’s arms felt like his. Even Jeremiah’s hugs could not comfort her now.

  But as she leaned on Covenant, she felt his injuries more keenly, his bodily hurts and his aggrieved spirit. He held himself responsible for too much. And she had done nothing to ease or heal him.

  With her health-sense, she reached out for the Earthpower of the Staff. As she had done once to relieve a suffering Waynhim, she invoked healing from a distance.

  At first, she focused her heart on the distress in Covenant’s chest. But when she had restored the integrity of his ribs and cartilage, she turned the balm of Law on the scalds and exhaustion of the Giants.

  “Thanks, love,” Covenant murmured when she was done. “That helps.” His arms tightened around her.

  Rime Coldspray and several of the other Giants stood straighter. In spite of their sadness, they smiled.

  “Thomas.” Linden held Covenant closer. She wished that she could talk to him privately. The things which she had to say were difficult enough: she did not want anyone else to hear them. But she had learned to distrust that impulse. “I need to tell you something.”

  While I still can.

  He released a pent up breath. “So tell me.”

  “I love you.” There was no good way to say it. Words were inadequate. “I want to help you. I want you to stop Lord Foul. I want the Land to be saved, and the Earth, and the stars, and the Elohim,” although she could not imagine how any of those deeds might be accomplished. “I want Jeremiah safe, and all of our friends, and everything that we’ve ever cared about.

  “But I’m done fighting.”

  Covenant stiffened as if she had frightened him. His voice was harsh with strain as he asked, “And you think you have a choice?”

  He did not let her go.

  She nodded against the thin fabric of his T-shirt.

  “So tell me,” he repeated through his teeth.

  To make room for what she had to say, she eased away until she could touch his chest. Kissing the tips of her fingers, she slipped them through the old knife cut in his shirt. “You said it yourself. We have to face the things that scare us the most. There’s really no other way. Escape isn’t worth what it costs.

  “But the Despiser isn’t what scares me the most. Even losing Jeremiah isn’t. Or losing you. That might break me, but it isn’t my worst fear. And the Worm—

  “Thomas, I’ve hardly seen the Land the way it was when you fell in love with it. That first time, when we came here together, it was all the Sunbane. And since then, we’ve lost too much, and I’ve been going crazy about Jeremiah.

  “Oh, Andelain has changed my life. More than once.” Glimmermere and aliantha and percipience and the Ranyhyn had all changed her. “But I simply haven’t learned how to care about this world as much as you do. The Worm isn’t my worst fear.”

  Before he could prompt her, she said, “My worst fear is what I might become. Or what I’ve already become. I need to face that somehow.”

  “Then how—?” Covenant began. But he stopped himself. For a moment, he seemed to scramble like a man who felt the ground shifting under his feet. Then his head jerked up as if his chest had been pierced again; as if she had stabbed him. She felt the jolt of his intuitive leap. “Oh. That fear. Now I get it.”

  Linden nodded again. Trying to be clear, she said, “Days ago, you left me because you had to deal with Joan. If we live long enough, I’ll have to leave you.”

  And her son.

  Gripping her shoulders, he stared like wild magic into her face. “That’s why you gave Jeremiah your Staff.”

  “One of the reasons,” she conceded.
Now that he understood, she found it comparatively easy to bear his gaze. “Earthpower and Law can’t help me. I have to use my ring.”

  At once, he pulled her close again, hugged her as though his heart refused to go on beating without her. “Hellfire, Linden,” he breathed. “That’s insane. It might be exactly what we need.”

  She matched his embrace. “And I’m the only one who can even try. You said that, too. You have to face Lord Foul. And Jeremiah has to decide for himself. That leaves me.”

  “I remember,” he said gruffly. “I must have been out of my mind.”

  Then he held her at arm’s length again so that he could study the doubts and determinations following each other like ocean swells in her eyes.

  “Well, why not?” he growled. “I didn’t ask you and the First and Pitchwife to do my fighting for me when I decided to give up using power all those millennia ago, but you kept me alive anyway. Maybe I even expected you to do that. Why shouldn’t it be your turn now? Sure, we have more enemies this time. But we also have more friends. And I think we’re capable of things damn Foul has never seen before. Why shouldn’t you get a chance to take your own risks?”

  Linden smiled through a brief relapse of tears. “I knew that you would understand.” Then she added, “But I haven’t told Jeremiah. We aren’t there yet. We might not live long enough to get there. And he has other things on his mind. I don’t want to scare him until I’m sure that he needs to know.”

  Covenant nodded; but abruptly he was distracted. “I get it.” He was no longer looking at her. “But suddenly things aren’t as simple as they were a minute ago.”

  When she followed his gaze, her heart seemed to stop.

  Holding the Staff, Jeremiah had summoned his heritage of Earthpower. Small flames spread from his hands onto the shaft. They traced the cryptic lines of the runes, blossomed briefly on the iron heels, measured the wood.