The Last Dark

  And two hundred Masters had come to the Wightwarrens. Two hundred—

  If Covenant’s ability to choose what he would and would not believe was one side of being a leper, this was the other: he did not know how to bear such abundance. He had spent decades in one world and millennia in another learning how to stand alone.

  Yet he could not pretend that he was not grateful. When Linden sat down beside him and slipped her arm over his shoulders, he found that he was able to meet her gaze.

  “It isn’t all bad,” he said roughly. “At least we’re still together. Some of us made it.”

  He meant, I love you, Linden Avery.

  Her hug seemed to say that she understood.

  Blinking uselessly, he looked around. “How are we doing?” Shadows and stark silver confused the shapes gathering around him. “We can’t stay here.”

  “We’ll be ready soon,” she told him. “Some of the Giants need help.” Cirrus Kindwind and Onyx Stonemage. Baf Scatterwit. Squallish Blustergale. Etch Furledsail. “They’re being hauled up now. That only leaves Canrik and Dast.”

  Of course, Covenant thought. Naturally the Masters would insist on coming last.

  Two hundred of them were in the Wightwarrens somewhere. Against how many Cavewights? He had no idea. Roger had had plenty of time to summon every living creature in Mount Thunder. And moksha Raver remained a threat. He might still be able to command any number of Lord Foul’s servants. Covenant was not sure that two hundred Haruchai would be enough.

  And in spite of what he had said to Jeremiah, he was not confident that he could count on their help. The Masters have been given lies. He did not know what those lies were. Therefore he could not guess how the Masters would react to the truth.

  Together, Kindwind and Stonemage were heaved onto the ledge. When the last sailors and Haruchai had been pulled upward, Canrik strode among the Giants toward Rime Coldspray.

  “Ironhand,” he said at once, “we must not tarry in this passage.”

  Coldspray looked down at him. “Aye. Our foes are certain of our presence. They will surely come against us. And here we cannot retreat. We will perish—we must—if we do not discover a choice of headings. Are you able to guide us?”

  Canrik nodded. “Our older knowledge of the Wightwarrens is slight, but we have not forgotten our path hither. And as we rejoin with our kinsmen, our knowledge will increase.

  “What do you seek? Where do you hope to discover Kastenessen”—he cast a caustic glance at Linden—“if it remains your intent to confront one deranged Elohim while the Land and the Earth are unmade?”

  Without pausing for thought, Covenant surged to his feet. “Kastenessen?” he snapped. Lies? “Where did you get that idea? Didn’t you feel it when Kevin’s Dirt faded? What did you think that meant? Kastenessen gave up days ago.”

  Clearly the Masters knew that the Worm of the World’s End had been roused—

  “We are not blind, ur-Lord,” retorted Canrik. “We are aware that Kevin’s Dirt has ended. But we were misled, Stave does not speak to us, and Branl is”—the Master appeared to search for words—“strangely reluctant. We cannot divine your purpose.”

  Covenant made an effort to swallow his anger. The Masters were not his enemies. He was simply outraged that they thought ill of Linden.

  “I have to get to Kiril Threndor,” he rasped. “If that’s not too much to ask. I want to find the Despiser. And Cavewights aren’t our only problem. My son is here somewhere. He’s scared enough to try anything. Plus there’s moksha Jehannum. He’s probably mad as hell.

  “I don’t know what’s bothering you, but it’s trivial. We don’t have time for it.”

  For a moment, Canrik stood as if he had been silenced. Slowly a frown settled onto his forehead. Then he stated, “Our questions must be answered.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he strode down the tunnel.

  Coldspray glanced sharply at Covenant; but she did not delay. Hailing her Swordmainnir, she sent Halewhole Bluntfist and Frostheart Grueburn after Canrik. Then she followed him herself, taking Cirrus Kindwind with her, Ard and Ulman; leaving Onyx Stonemage with Covenant, Linden, and Jeremiah.

  A subdued Anchormaster marshaled his crew. His uninjured sailors—Wiver Setrock, Spume Frothbreeze, Keenreef, Far Horizoneyes—he sent ahead. With Scatterwit, Blustergale, Furledsail, and Dast, he trailed the rest of the company.

  Instinctively Covenant took Linden’s hand, rested his halfhand on Jeremiah’s shoulder. Accompanied by Stave and Branl, they started along the passage.

  Jeremiah did not resist, but he walked with his head down, paid no attention to where he put his feet. His hands tightened and relaxed on the Staff, urgent as heartbeats. At intervals, he jerked up his head and glared around him. But he did not speak; did not appear to notice Covenant or Linden.

  Maybe Roger had the right idea. Maybe we should all try to become gods.

  The notion made Covenant’s stomach burn as if he had swallowed acid. He refused to believe—

  Linden studied her son for a moment. Then her eyes flinched away. She looked at Covenant, pleading like a woman who had no language for her needs. Almost at once, however, she turned her attention to Stave.

  In a low voice, she asked, “What’s bothering the Masters? Did Pahni and Bhapa reach them?”

  She might have asked, Do they think that Pahni and Bhapa lied? They can’t believe that. If they do, why did they come?

  “Chosen,” replied Stave, “I must accord to our people the respect which I will require of them.” His tone suggested that he was keeping his distance. “They will speak of their doubts and indignations when we have evaded immediate pursuit. It is their right to be who they are, and to determine what they will become.

  “Yet I am free to acknowledge that the Masters have heard and questioned the Cords. True to his service, the Ardent delivered Bhapa and Pahni to the vicinity of Revelstone. Their words gave the Masters cause to come in search of you, Chosen.” He gave a subtle emphasis to Linden’s title. “Now the Cords accompany the Masters. If our foes and our fate permit it, you will be reunited with them.

  “More than that I will not disclose.”

  “Damn it, Stave,” Linden muttered. “That’s not enough. How could they not know that Covenant is alive? Didn’t Bhapa or Pahni tell them?”

  How had the Cords goaded the Masters into action at last, if not by insisting that the ur-Lord needed them, the Unbeliever, the man who had twice defeated Corruption?

  “We’ll hear about it soon enough,” Covenant put in. He did not have the heart to challenge Stave’s scruples. Instead he tightened his grip on Linden’s hand, trying to reassure her. “Or we’ll spend what’s left of our lives fighting, and we won’t hear anything at all. Either way, it doesn’t matter. They aren’t just Masters. They’re Haruchai. Eventually they’ll help us, even if they think we did something terrible behind their backs. They have to. They’re too ashamed to do anything else. They’ve already passed up two chances to face Lord Foul with me, not to mention once with Kevin. They don’t know how to live with it.”

  Stave nodded like a shrug. Branl did not offer his opinion.

  For a long moment, Linden studied the ungiving stone ahead of her. When she finally spoke, her voice was so soft that Covenant barely heard her.

  “Don’t let them get in my way. This is my last chance. We can’t stop the Worm. It’s my fault, but I can’t do anything about it. That’s why I have to—”

  Abruptly she stopped.

  “I know,” Covenant sighed. “We’re all in the same boat. The only thing that might be worse than facing our fears is not facing them.”

  Linden did not reply; did not lift her head. She clung to his hand as if she were drowning.

  Covenant knew the feeling. He believed that she would find the courage she needed. A woman who could do what she had done would be able to do more. But he was not at all sure how he would bear losing her.

  The sheer scale of his anger at the
Despiser was becoming a liability. Often it had kept him going when he should have failed. But now he needed a better answer—and his anger threatened to blind him.

  That was the paradox of his leprosy. In order to confront Lord Foul, he positively required numbness. He had to be untouchable: immune to every affront; impervious to the extremes of wild magic. Unaffected by the implicit betrayal of Roger’s allegiance. Yet numbness might also leave him impotent. It had done so before.

  When Linden left, she would take his heart with her. If he allowed fury to fill that great hole in his chest, he was sure to fail.

  ven in this unfamiliar passage, Covenant recognized the Wightwarrens. He knew them by the crudity of the Cavewights’ delving—the careless walls and ragged ceiling, the irregular protrusions of stone where the creatures had neglected to finish what they started—and by the instinctive cunning with which the tunnel followed veins and lodes within the gutrock. From here, anyone who knew the catacombs well would be able to find Kiril Threndor, Heart of Thunder, where Covenant had once surrendered to the Despiser.

  But he had no idea how far he still had to go. And he felt sure that the company would be attacked again before he reached his goal.

  As if to prove him right, a warning shout came from the darkness ahead: the Ironhand’s voice. He heard yells and effort, the clash of weapons. At once, Onyx Stonemage gestured for a halt. She went three paces farther, then stopped, waiting with her longsword in her fists.

  “Mom?” Jeremiah asked uselessly. “Mom?”

  “Cavewights bar the passage,” Branl announced, “a small force. I surmise that they did not anticipate our ascent from the crevice. They were not prepared against us. Yet the constricted space aids them. They suffice to—”

  Stave shook his head. Briefly Branl narrowed his gaze. Then the Humbled said, “They do not suffice. Four Masters assail the creatures from the rear. Openings are created for the blades of the Swordmainnir, and for Canrik and Dast. Three Cavewights have fallen. Five. Now eight.” After a moment’s silence, Branl stated, “The passage has been cleared.”

  “Is anyone hurt?” Linden asked.

  Branl appeared to hesitate before saying, “Skill and armor shielded the Swordmainnir. Haruchai do not regard their hurts.”

  “In other words,” she snapped, “they don’t want me to insult them by offering to treat them.”

  Covenant ground his teeth. She was right, of course.

  Stave shrugged. “There is much which the Masters do not comprehend.”

  “Mom,” Jeremiah breathed thickly. “I smell blood.”

  Linden glanced past Covenant at the boy. “I know, honey. I’m sick of all this killing. But we can’t stop. If we don’t fight, they’ll kill us.”

  As if to herself, she muttered, “It galls the hell out of me that the Cavewights would probably be on our side if they knew how Foul is using them. They can think, for God’s sake. They just don’t think clearly enough.”

  And they probably love their children, Covenant added for her. They probably hate us for what we’re doing. But he kept that thought to himself.

  Jeremiah murmured something that Covenant did not hear. Stonemage was beckoning them into motion.

  Still holding Linden’s hand, still resting his palm on Jeremiah’s shoulder, Covenant started forward again.

  Soon he, too, could smell blood: blood and more bitter fluids. In the distance ahead, the krill’s illumination caught glints of crimson on the floor and walls. It looked dark as ichor. The Giants and Masters leading the company had moved past the site of the fray, leaving hacked and gutted corpses behind them. Blood lay in thick pools around bodies and spilled guts. Stonemage strode through the carnage as if she could not afford to acknowledge it. Stave and Branl stepped, heedless, in swaths of red, trod with apparent unconcern over dripping corpses. But Covenant had to let go of Linden and Jeremiah so that he could pick his nauseated way among the dead.

  God, it was hard not to hate the Despiser. Rage felt like the only sane response.

  As the Giants bringing up the rear passed the slain Cavewights, Branl told Covenant, “The Swordmainnir have gained an intersection of passages. The path familiar to Canrik and his companions lies to the right, but there the air is fraught with peril. Samil, Vortin, and other Masters approach from the left. They report that their search did not tend toward Kiril Threndor. Therefore the Ironhand wishes to continue ahead. She awaits only your consent, ur-Lord.”

  Covenant hesitated momentarily, trying to guess the consequences of every choice. Then he rasped, “Tell her to trust herself. More Masters will find us. Eventually some of them will know how to reach Kiril Threndor.”

  Branl and Stave nodded. Branl’s manner hinted at increased concentration as he conveyed Covenant’s reply.

  Covenant looked to Linden for her approval; but her attention was fixed on Jeremiah. The boy stood staring straight ahead as if he had gone blind. His hands shifted up and down the Staff as if he were wrestling with the Worm.

  Groaning to himself, Covenant trailed after Onyx Stonemage.

  When he and his companions reached the intersection, they found Frostheart Grueburn, Halewhole Bluntfist, and Dast waiting for them. Blood dripped from a cut the length of Grueburn’s left forearm. A spear had gashed Bluntfist’s right cheek. But their wounds seemed superficial. In the krill’s argent, their grins looked garish as grimaces.

  They gestured Covenant and the others onward. “The Ironhand deems,” Grueburn explained, “that we are no longer required in the forefront. Therefore we will ward the rear.” As Grueburn added, “Though we are Giants, we counsel haste,” Bluntfist chuckled. “Yon tunnel”—she indicated the one on Covenant’s right—“is rife with odors. It augurs unpleasantness.”

  “Be careful,” Covenant warned them unnecessarily. “We can’t lose you.”

  He had to stifle an impulse to start running.

  This tunnel climbed steeply; dipped down; rose again. It turned at odd angles. After a while, the clang of iron echoed after Covenant. Muffled snarls, thudding blows. Branl reported that Cavewights assailed Grueburn, Bluntfist, and Dast. But now the confines of the passage aided the Swordmainnir and the Master. They could afford to retreat as they fought, following the company. And soon they were able to beat back the creatures. The sounds of struggle faded.

  Branl continued to relay information from his kinsmen. In the distance ahead, the vanguard reached a branching. Four more Masters were there. These Haruchai reported that they had found a cave, a space like a small cavern with a shallow basin for a floor and openings into other passages: a place where the companions could be questioned.

  “I don’t like it,” Covenant complained to Branl. “We’re running out of time.” And he did not want to hear accusations from the Masters.

  “In this, they speak with one voice,” replied Branl. His tone concealed his personal reaction. “They require an account of our deeds and purposes.”

  “They will be answered,” Stave returned. “Yet I also mislike the prospect of delay. We can have no effect upon the outcome of the world if we do not achieve our ends before the Worm drinks of the EarthBlood.”

  The Humbled shrugged. “If the Masters are denied, they may respond with denial.”

  “Oh, God,” Linden sighed. “Just what we need.”

  Covenant swore to himself. Whatever else Linden had done, she had not lied to the Masters. But they might not be able to see past the fact that she had set in motion the Earth’s ruin.

  Aloud, he demanded, “Can’t you convince them, Branl? It doesn’t matter why they’re here. Hellfire! It doesn’t even matter if Bhapa and Pahni lied to them. We need help. Holding us back now is just surrender. We might as well kill ourselves.”

  The Humbled held Covenant’s glare. “I cannot sway them, ur-Lord. I am not as I was. My thoughts no longer accord with theirs. They deem that they would not have acted as I have done. In their minds, they would have forestalled the Worm’s awakening. This belief justi
fies their wrath.”

  Jeremiah was squirming. “That’s stupid,” he snorted as soon as Branl finished: scorn thick as venom. “Covenant wouldn’t be here without it. And I wouldn’t be here. I would already be helping Roger and that croyel become eternal.

  “Did you tell the Masters that?”

  “To what purpose, Chosen-son?” countered Branl. “They would reply that Corruption could not threaten creation while he was imprisoned within the Arch. And while he was imprisoned, much might have been attempted to thwart him. Only the Worm’s awakening assures his triumph.”

  Before Covenant could think of a response that was not rage, Linden spoke. “If it’s up to me,” she told the Humbled, “I’ll answer anything. I don’t know how much time we have. I don’t know if we can afford to stand around arguing. But the Masters are important. I’ll do what I can.”

  “Chosen.” Branl’s visage revealed nothing. Yet when he bowed, he gave her his full respect. Then he turned away, bearing the company’s only light down the tunnel.

  Well, damn, Covenant thought. My wife—

  Baring his teeth, he tried to grin. When that failed, he concentrated on catching up with the Humbled.

  I am not as I was.

  And Linden was facing the most immediate of her fears.

  efore long, Covenant and his immediate companions reached the place where the tunnel forked. There four Masters awaited him. He recognized Ard and Ulman. The other two were Vortin and Samil.

  The krill lit momentary wonder in Vortin’s eyes, and in Samil’s, as they bowed to Covenant. It exposed their ire when they regarded Linden. But they did not linger. While Branl explained that they would help Grueburn, Bluntfist, and Dast guard the rear, the four men moved into the blackness of the passages.

  Covenant heard weapons behind him again. Giantish oaths echoed like gasps along the tunnel. Bluff Stoutgirth’s voice harried Scatterwit and Blustergale.

  “They are swift enough,” a Swordmain responded to the Anchormaster. Grueburn? Bluntfist? “Expostulation will not speed them.”