The Last Dark

  His son was possessed. Roger bore the immedicable wound of Kastenessen’s hand. He had been a fool—a fool and a coward—but that changed nothing. He had not chosen his parents; had not caused his mother’s weakness or his father’s absence. Now the extravagance of his distress made Covenant’s voluntary hurts seem trivial.

  A different kind of anger dismissed Covenant’s pain; his earlier wrath. This new ire resembled his old, familiar rage for lepers. It was a passion colder, calmer, and more complete than his desire to hurt the Despiser: a sympathy so furious that it felt like exultation.

  Clenching Loric’s dagger, he concentrated his outpouring of fire through the gem. Then he began to force his way toward the dais. One step at a time, he advanced against torrential magma and malevolence.

  “No!” the Despiser shouted. “I will not permit it!”

  While Branl stood over the fallen stone-thing, the second creature came at his back. One sweep of its granite arm smashed his shoulder, flung him at the wall. Noiseless amid the cacophony of magicks, the flamberge clattered to the floor. He struggled to rise, but his legs failed him.

  In that instant, Stave appeared in Kiril Threndor as though he had dropped from the ceiling. Somehow Linden had translated him here. He would not have left her side willingly.

  Nonetheless he was Haruchai: he did not need time to gauge what was happening around him. As his feet touched the floor, he dove for Branl’s longsword. A roll brought him upright with the flamberge in his fists. His momentum carried him into a straight lunge at the creature which had struck the Humbled.

  In spite of its antiquity, the blade retained some vestige of Kasreyn’s lore. It drove deep into the monster’s chest. When Stave wrenched out the longsword, the stone-thing toppled to one side. Dying, it turned to powder and drifted away.

  Reflections of brimstone and wild magic flashed in Stave’s eye as he hastened to stand between Covenant and the third monster. His mien was a taut mask of outrage and grief.

  Linden, Covenant thought. Oh, God. What have you done?

  But he did not stop fighting.

  “No!” Lord Foul roared again. “I will not permit it!”

  Scourged by his possessor, Roger shifted his aim. Fierce as a scream, he turned his power away from Covenant.

  A mistake—In the space between instants, Covenant thought that the Despiser had misjudged his foes—or had simply been overcome by his own fury. The Haruchai could not oppose him. Covenant was the real danger.

  Then, however, Covenant saw the frenzy in Roger’s eyes—saw the Despiser’s bitterness dulled by a more human anguish—saw Roger hurl coerced scoria, not at Stave, who shielded Covenant, but at Branl, who could not.

  The Humbled lay gasping against the wall. One shoulder had been shattered. Other bones were broken. His legs refused to hold him. Still he managed to wrench himself aside.

  Roger’s blast did not destroy him. Instead it made a smoking ruin of his wrecked arm, stripped the flesh from his ribs. Even that lesser damage might have killed him; but Roger’s attack cauterized as it burned. Branl was stricken unconscious: he did not bleed. His chest still heaved for air.

  Roger had done that: Roger. It was as close to an act of mercy as he could manage. In spite of Lord Foul’s mastery, Roger had left Stave alive to protect Covenant.

  And Covenant—

  Covenant recognized his chance.

  In a stumbling rush, he ran at Roger, gained the dais. Faster than he could think, he slashed with the krill.

  One swift stroke severed Kastenessen’s hand.

  The hand exploded; or Lord Foul’s presence in Roger did. The concussion tossed Covenant away. He hit hard enough to crack his skull. A whirlwind of little suns wheeled across his mind. He lost the dagger somewhere. Blood started from his eyes. It ran from his ears. He could not feel his arms, his legs. A gyre of disconnected instants sucked at the verges of reality.

  “You,” raged the Despiser, “will not prevail!”

  A clutch of theurgy yanked Covenant from the stone, threw him farther. He skidded like scattered bones over slabs and fissures.

  He had no strength, no weapon. He might as well have had no limbs. Another throw would finish him.

  Sightless and desperate, he answered with wild magic. His mind became white fire. Violent flames poured from every part of him that still had living nerves and could feel pain.

  “You bastard.” Roger seemed to be shrieking at Lord Foul, but Covenant heard only whispers. “You lied to me.”

  “And do you now take offense, little man?” snorted the Despiser. “I do not regard your umbrage. I do not speak lies. If you heard falsehood, it was of your own making. Now you will suffer the outcome of your folly. Take comfort in the knowledge that your abjection will be brief.”

  Radiating fire like waves of fever, Covenant tried to blink the blood out of his eyes; struggled to see.

  He lay on a canted sheet of basalt. Vaguely past its rim, he glimpsed the unharmed dais, the broken clutter of stalactites. The furious shape of Lord Foul still dominated the chamber, too immense to be opposed or endured.

  Branl lay where he had been struck. Stave had vanished or fallen. Had he confronted another monster? Covenant had no idea how many stone-things still moved in Kiril Threndor.

  But over there, to the left of the dais, stood Roger, unpossessed and human. Fountains of blood had streaked his clothes, stained his face. Facing the Despiser, he huddled over his pain with his gushing wrist clamped under his arm to slow the bleeding. He glanced at Covenant; at Covenant’s undifferentiated, useless flail of power. Then he turned back to Lord Foul.

  Tremors ran through the floor. They staggered Roger, rocked Covenant mercilessly. The Despiser and the dais they did not affect.

  Lord Foul’s biting eyes loomed over Covenant. “As for you,” he sneered, “beaten Unbeliever, impotent Timewarden, I have reconsidered your doom. Though I hunger for your death, I also crave your despair. Therefore I have asked of myself which end will wound your spirit more grievously, a death in agony at my hands, or an occasion to witness the final devastation of all that you hold dear. Remain as you are, and you may observe my return to majesty. Continue to oppose me, and I will snuff your frail life as you would a lantern.”

  Squinting, Covenant located the krill. It was too far away.

  Grip and hold.

  Try it, he panted, although he could not speak. See what happens. He could hardly move. You haven’t won yet.

  Nevertheless his shining faltered. He let his power fall away.

  Then he found himself rising to his feet. Stave lifted him from behind, supported him when he could not stand alone.

  The last of Lord Foul’s stone defenders was gone.

  The chamber juddered as if it had been struck by the leading edge of a tsunami. Covenant’s guts and chest knotted, threatening to retch blood. But Stave’s arms sustained him.

  Softly Stave breathed, “Moksha Jehannum has taken the Chosen-son.” He had dropped the flamberge. He had no more use for it. “Canrik cannot succor him. The Ironhand and Frostheart Grueburn cannot. Samil has been slain.”

  “Linden?” Covenant coughed: an effort that seemed to grind the broken ends of ribs against each other.

  “I know not.” Stave did not disguise his bitterness. “She cast me from her ere she was claimed by the bane. I desire to hope that she lives, yet I cannot.”

  A moment later, the former Master whispered, “I do not comprehend, Timewarden. Time comes unbound. Soon it will unravel entirely. Why does Corruption remain?”

  Through a mouthful of blood, Covenant panted, “He’s enjoying himself too much.” After uncounted millennia of imprisonment—“He knows he’s already won. He’s just waiting for Jeremiah.”

  And while Lord Foul waited—

  Covenant wanted to strike. He ached for the strength to stop the Despiser. But he was too weak. Too badly hurt. Sick with grief for Linden and Jeremiah. He had nothing left except waiting.

  Roge
r deserved a better father.

  Roger was crying. He may have wanted words, but he could only manage sobs. A young man who had dreamed of eternity—

  “Timewarden,” Stave demanded, uncharacteristically urgent, “some deed we must attempt. We cannot condone this doom.”

  I know, Covenant thought dimly. I just need a chance to breathe.

  He needed something to believe in. Something to hope for.

  What kind of idiot thinks he can save the world by himself?

  He had forgotten how seductive despair could be.

  “Hear me, Timewarden,” ordered Stave. “I will endeavor to retrieve the krill. Should I succeed, you must wield it. You must—”

  Covenant gripped Stave’s arm weakly; tried to restrain the Haruchai, although of course he could not. Spitting blood, he croaked, “Wait. He wants Jeremiah. We still have time.”

  Too much wild magic would only hasten the fall of the Arch. It would ease the Despiser’s departure.

  Stave did not move. He may have trusted Covenant. He may have simply hesitated.

  Lord Foul’s gaze had turned away. He appeared to peer through rock toward the cave where Covenant had left Jeremiah. His eyes dripped eagerness. He was as vulnerable as he would ever be.

  We still have time.

  Covenant had abandoned Linden’s son to moksha Raver.

  Suddenly the Despiser’s eyes flared. They blazed like torches. His outrage stunned Covenant’s ears. Kiril Threndor lurched in the mountain’s chest as though Mount Thunder had suffered a fatal crisis.

  Stave said something. He may have been shouting, but Covenant could not hear him.

  Roger was moving.

  Broken as a derelict, as the wreckage of his dreams, Roger stumbled toward the dais. He crouched. When he rose again, he clutched High Lord Loric’s dagger.

  As he raised his arm, fresh blood pumped from his severed stump. Red splashed across the stone like an accusation.

  His screaming seemed soundless as he hammered the blade into Lord Foul’s impalpable shape.

  A puny attack, too low and frail to accomplish anything. And the Despiser was mighty: he was scarcely physical. Nevertheless wild magic coruscated in the dagger’s gem. Loric had forged his blade to mediate between irreconcilable possibilities. It was the highest achievement of his vast lore. Somehow it hurt—

  In spite of Lord Foul’s vast power, the krill appeared to nail him where he stood; fix him in one place. He gathered his fury into a fist. With a single punch, he crushed Roger to wet pulp. But he did not leave the dais. Did not slip past the restrictions of time.

  Roger—

  Now Covenant heard Stave yelling, “The Chosen-son has freed himself!”

  At last. Now or never.

  Covenant was battered and deadened, too weak to support his own weight, broken in ways which he was too fraught to name. But he was still a white gold wielder, a by God rightful white gold wielder. And he had made promises. I am done with restraint. He hit Lord Foul with fire as fierce as a bayamo.

  The Despiser thrashed, howling. As if the effort were insignificant, he expelled the krill. Then he turned on Covenant. Enraged and savage, he countered with so much force that Covenant’s bones should have been pulverized.

  Stones heaved. Igneous slabs were tossed like dried leaves. Repercussions ripped down the remaining stalactites, filled the air with whirling debris.

  But Covenant withstood the blast. Wild magic withstood it. He had surrendered once. Never again.

  Jeremiah had found a way to defeat moksha Jehannum. Help was coming. All Covenant had to do was survive. And keep hurting Lord Foul. Prevent his escape. The Despiser must have believed that he would still be able to claim Jeremiah before Time collapsed in on itself. Covenant had no intention of letting that happen.

  Powers mounted in Kiril Threndor. Incinerating silver and Lord Foul’s sledge-hammer blows staggered the chamber. Covenant only knew that Stave still lived because he, Covenant, had not fallen to his knees. He no longer saw anything, heard anything. Yet he felt everything as if his nerves were white gold, as if his senses were wild magic. He recognized every concatenation of Lord Foul’s malevolence. He could have named each of his own responses.

  His millennia within the Arch of Time had not been wasted on him. His heart and his mind and even his leper’s body understood wild magic. He was half translated out of reality himself, refined by fire and determination until he hardly needed his own physical existence.

  He could not keep the Despiser here: he knew that. Instants were fraying. Moments bled into each other. Causes and sequences were becoming confused. Lord Foul might outlive such uncertainties: Covenant could not. He fought only to distract his foe, to engage the Despiser’s endless hatred. To make the Despiser miss his chance.

  Then the chance came, Lord Foul’s or Covenant’s.

  With flame and effort rather than sight, Covenant saw Jeremiah enter the chamber; saw Jeremiah running wreathed in Earthpower as clean and necessary as sunlight. The heartwood Staff in his hands blazed with a purity that pierced rocklight and argent, defied Lord Foul’s savagery.

  Behind him came Coldspray, Grueburn, and Canrik, but this contest was not for them. Like Stave and Branl, they had done more than Covenant could have asked or imagined. Their part in the Land’s fate was finished. Only Jeremiah had the power to alter the terms of Covenant’s struggle.

  And Jeremiah knew what was needed. While Covenant fought to block Lord Foul, preclude Jeremiah’s possession, Jeremiah fashioned his magicks—

  The Despiser’s instant reaction was glee, triumph, exultation. He reached for Jeremiah as if he were pouncing. But wild magic tore through the hands of Lord Foul’s power, shredded his grasp. Covenant ripped apart the Despiser’s clutch while Jeremiah wrought Earthpower.

  In the guts of Mount Thunder, the consequences of the Worm’s feeding expanded. Shock after shock, they mounted toward their final outcome. Waves ran up and down the walls as if the rock had become water. Granite pain dripped from facets of rocklight. Unnatural heat and cold gusted at Covenant’s face like gasping, like strained exhalations of time.

  In a moment or an hour—in no time at all—Lord Foul appeared to realize what was happening. He appeared to recognize that he had to flee. If he wanted freedom, he had to abandon his deeper purpose against the Creator. He would be trapped otherwise. He would cease to exist.

  Shrieking like the deaths of stars, he turned away.

  But he was already too late. Because Jeremiah—

  Oh, God, Jeremiah!

  —had learned how to forbid.

  With Earthpower and extravagance—the whetted extremity of a boy who had been hurt too much and was finally done with helplessness—Jeremiah forbade Lord Foul’s escape.

  In horror, the Despiser wheeled to face his foes again.

  Covenant he ignored. Wild magic ripped through his fleshless form, sent fiery harm careering everywhere along his disembodied nerves; but he was not dissuaded. He knew pain too well: he had spent eons wrapped in his own agony. Damage and diminishment could be repaired. His chance for freedom would never come again.

  Every force at his command, Lord Foul focused on Jeremiah. But now he did not strive to take possession. Instead he sought to destroy.

  He knew more about forbidding than Jeremiah did. He was stronger than the boy would ever be. When Covenant wounded him, he could call on long ages of despair to secure his concentration.

  At first, Jeremiah wielded the Staff with an exalted certainty. He had freed himself from moksha Raver: he had earned his power. And he had spent too much of his life immured in dissociation. His need to repudiate Despite defined him. Nevertheless he was only himself; only human. Lord Foul was the Despiser, eternal and insatiable. Although Covenant fought as hard as he could, flailed desperately and did ferocious damage, Jeremiah began to falter.

  The Staff trembled in his grasp. His arms shook. His eyes were cries of dismay. He gave his utmost—and it was not enough. Bit by bit,
his forbidding began to crumble.

  “Jeremiah!” Covenant yelled: a shout of conflagration. “Hold on! I’m coming!”

  With Stave’s help, he floundered toward the dais, flaying his foe as he approached. But he already knew that he would fail. He could have torn open Mount Thunder’s entire torso—he felt destructiveness on that scale within him—but he could not block Lord Foul’s flight. Wild magic was the wrong kind of power. Like the Despiser, white gold aspired to freedom; and any forbidding required the structures and commandments of Law.

  Jeremiah dropped to one knee. Blood burst from his mouth. Earthpower pouring from the Staff began to gutter. In another moment—

  Jeremiah! Oh, God!

  Without warning, an overwhelming thunder swept through Kiril Threndor. It staggered the whole mountain. For an instant, Covenant thought that the Worm had drunk its fill; that the World’s End had come. Then he saw more clearly.

  A hand like the fist of a god struck down the Despiser. Strength that threatened to crack Covenant’s mind left Lord Foul crumpled on the dais, almost corporeal, almost whimpering. A transcendent touch secured Jeremiah’s forbidding. As if as an afterthought, something supernal deposited Linden at Jeremiah’s side.

  A heartbeat later, the thunder passed on, leaving the Earth to its own ruin. In the power’s absence, the rising convulsions of the Worm’s feeding felt like a reprieve.

  Linden clasped Jeremiah, helped him stand again. Her return renewed his resolve, his strength. Fresh Earthpower crowded the chamber. Refusals tightened around the Despiser.

  Covenant believed that he was deaf as well as blind. Wild magic was all that kept him alive. Nonetheless he heard Linden say, “She Who Must Not Be Named is gone. I gave Her what She needed. This must be what She calls gratitude.