The Last Dark (12 page)

“Has not the Ardent cited the ravages of the
skurj
and the Sandgorgons in concert? Has not Kevin’s Dirt been sent to weaken us? And is not Kastenessen the source of both evils? There lies your true path, ur-Lord. You must join with Linden Avery to challenge the mad
Elohim
’s malevolence. That task is paramount. An end to Kevin’s Dirt must be accomplished.

“Doubtless Kastenessen is both spurred and guided by
moksha
Jehannum. Certainly the Sandgorgons heed the Raver, seduced as they are by the remnants of
samadhi
Sheol’s spirit. Yet the power is Kastenessen’s. There can be no true defense of the Land while he stands in opposition.”

Facing his companions, Covenant floundered. Anger he had expected. They were
Haruchai
, Masters and Humbled; proud. Naturally they had taken umbrage at Brinn’s judgments. But he had not expected them to express their indignation like this.

Shaken and dismayed, he felt a reflexive desire to argue. He could have pointed out that Kastenessen was almost certainly positioned somewhere among the secrets of Mount Thunder, and that the distance was insurmountable. No doubt Linden was closer; but finding her would not take Covenant nearer to Kastenessen.

While he tried to assemble the necessary words, however, he realized that the distance was effectively irrelevant.
Turiya
’s head start was already insurmountable. Under the circumstances, one impossible distance was much like another.

In any case, no rational argument would sway the Humbled. They were too angry. Behind their masks, their attitude was based on a passion that Covenant did not understand.

Something
had stung a primal nerve in them: primal and intimate. They had been hurt in a place at once carefully hidden and exquisitely raw. The pain of that singular wound drove them to extremes of emotion which Covenant had not witnessed before in any
Haruchai
.

Unsure of himself, he tried to be cautious. “The Feroce saved us.” Still he winced at his own bleakness, his tone of confrontation. In his way, he was as irate as the Humbled. “Horrim Carabal held up his end. He didn’t have to. He could have left us to the
skest
. After all, he hates wild magic. He hates the
krill
. But he kept his word anyway. We wouldn’t be here talking about it if he hadn’t honored his agreement. Maybe you can ignore that. I can’t.

“First you wanted me to break my promise to the Ranyhyn. Now you want me to turn my back on an alliance. That doesn’t sound like you. It doesn’t sound like any
Haruchai
I’ve ever met.” He had to grit his teeth to keep from shouting. “What’s happened to you?”

Dark as incarnations of wrath, Clyme and Branl glared at Covenant. For a long moment, they did not reply. They did not move. Perhaps deliberately, they gave him a chance to fear that they would turn away from him. The Masters had spurned Stave—

But then, suddenly, Branl snatched the bundle of Loric’s
krill
from inside his tunic. With a flick of his wrists, he spun the blade free of Anele’s tattered heritage. As the gem’s argence blazed out, he stabbed the dagger into the grass.

In the
krill
’s radiance, both Branl and Clyme looked hieratic, chthonic, as if they had already taken their places among the Dead. The reflections in their eyes gave them the authority of spirits unconstrained by the boundaries of life and time.

“Ur-Lord,” Clyme announced, “we are the Humbled in all sooth, the Humbled triumphant and maimed. Have you forgotten so much that you do not recognize the men whom we have chosen to become?” His ire sounded more and more like lamentation. It sounded like fear. “Do you not recall that it is our task to embody you among our people? You are the purpose and substance of our lives.

“If you do not return to Linden Avery, and do so swiftly, you will perish. We cannot stem the harm which Kevin’s Dirt wreaks within you. Nor can the lurker of the Sarangrave succor you. Without the balm of the Staff of Law, your end is certain.

“Come good or ill, boon or bane, you must not heed the counsel of the
ak-Haru
.”

As Clyme spoke, Covenant finally heard what lay behind the frustrated fury of the Humbled. As though the insight had come to him from the lost expanse of the Arch of Time, he understood; and he found himself trying to laugh, although he wanted to weep. Oh, Clyme. Oh, Branl. Have you come to this? After so much fidelity and striving, is this the best you can do?

Their beliefs were too small to vindicate the race of the
Haruchai
. At the same time, they were too much for Covenant.

That was their tragedy. They had attached an almost metaphysical significance to a lone and lonely man who could not bear the burden. He was unequal to the task of meaning, not because he was sick and weak—although he was—but because he was just one man, nothing more. Even if he transcended his own inadequacies indefinitely, he could not provide transcendence for anybody else. The
Haruchai
needed to find it within themselves, not in him.

Nothing else would relieve the bereavement which had haunted them for millennia.

But they were not Giants: they would not respond to laughter; even to laughter as strained and loss-ridden as Covenant’s. Their hearts spoke a different language.

As if he were translating alien precepts into pragmatic speech, he replied, “Did I ever tell you that I respect you? I hope I did. I’ve said as many hurtful things as Brinn did, but none of it would have been worth saying if I didn’t respect you absolutely. You’re the standard I use to measure myself—or you would be if I thought that highly of who I am. The idea that men like you care whether I live or die makes me want to prove you’re right about me.

“But what’s at stake here—what we’re talking about—what we have to do—isn’t about whether or not I live through it. It’s about the Land, and the Worm, and Lord Foul. We can’t let the fact that I’m sick choose our commitments for us.

“I’ve made promises. Now I have to take the risk of keeping them. I have to be willing to pay whatever they cost.”

And his agreement with the lurker had been founded on a lie: the mistaken belief that he was the Pure One of
jheherrin
legend. He needed to redeem that falsehood.

Clyme and Branl watched him without saying anything; without any expression that he could interpret. Clyme braced his fists on his hips. Branl folded his arms like barriers across his chest. If they grasped that import of his affirmation, they gave no sign.

Nevertheless Covenant went on as if he had won their consent to continue. “But that cost—It may not be what you think. Which is my fault,” he added quickly, “not yours.

“I don’t say much about myself. I probably haven’t told you or anybody that my disease—that leprosy—isn’t fatal. Lepers can get worse for a long time without dying. Usually it’s the things that happen to them
because
they’re lepers that kill them.

“Kastenessen can make me a whole lot sicker without stopping me. Kevin’s Dirt is nasty stuff, but it won’t save him. He only imagines it will because he’s crazy and desperate.

“Meanwhile leprosy is like most of the things we struggle with. It’s a curse, but sometimes it can also be a blessing.”

Cast back by the
krill
’s brilliance, the surrounding twilight seemed to deepen, drawing the stars ever closer to the world’s doom. At the same time, the Humbled began to look both more substantial and more mundane; less like emblems from the realm of death. Unwillingly, perhaps, but irrefusably, they were being lured out of their moral reality into Covenant’s.

More sure of himself now, the Unbeliever said, “Look at it this way. Have you never wondered why none of the Ravers has ever tried to possess me? They’ve had me helpless often enough. So why am I still here? Sure, Foul told them not to take me. He didn’t want them to get my ring. But why did they obey?

“Well, they’ve been his servants so long, you might think they’re incapable of independent thought. That’s one theory. But it can’t be true. If it were, they wouldn’t be much use. He would have to spend all his time telling them what to do. No, he has to be able to give them orders and then leave them alone while they figure out how to accomplish what he wants. They have to be able think for themselves.

“And they’re by God
Ravers
. It’s their
nature
to be hungry for power and destruction.” Just like Horrim Carabal. “So why have they never, not once in all these millennia, ever tried to possess me? Why haven’t they tried to take my ring?”

Covenant spread his hands, his foreshortened fingers, showing the Humbled that they were empty—and that such appearances were as deceptive as the stoicism of the
Haruchai
.

“I think I know why. It’s the same reason we can trust the lurker. And the same reason I have to do what I can to save him. Because they’re afraid. They’re all afraid. Horrim Carabal is afraid of the Worm. And the Ravers—Well, of course they’re afraid of Lord Foul. But I’m guessing they’re also afraid of leprosy. They’re afraid of what it might be like to possess a body and a mind as sick as mine. They’re afraid of all this numbness, and going blind, and feeling crippled not to mention impotent even when they have wild magic to play with.”

He shrugged as if he were susceptible to contradiction; yet with every word he felt stronger. “Maybe being me would be too much like being the Despiser, trapped and helpless and full of despair even though he’s too powerful and too damn eternal to be killed. Possessing other people, or other monsters, they can at least feel and hate and destroy. With me, they might not be able to do any of those things.”

He was vaguely surprised to see Clyme and Branl blink in unison as if they were closing the shutters of their minds against illumination. But the moment was brief; no more than a flicker.

As if he were confessing an article of faith, Covenant concluded, “That’s why I might be able to save the lurker. It’s why I have to be a leper.
Turiya
won’t even consider possessing me. Leprosy is my best defense. Even Lord Foul can’t stop me if I’m numb enough.”

Then he held his breath. He could not read his companions: he saw only anger and blankness and inflexibility. Argent lit them against the backdrop of the sunless day, but did not reveal their hearts.

They were slow to respond. They may have been sifting through their imponderable storehouse of memories, testing Covenant’s asseveration against their entire history with him.

When Clyme finally answered, Covenant was not prepared for his response. Nothing in his manner, or in Branl’s, hinted that the Humbled were capable of any reply except denial.

“How then,” Clyme asked with the finality of a knell, “shall we pursue the Raver? He is no longer hampered by the limitations of flesh. Even the Ranyhyn cannot equal his fleetness, and your mount is no Ranyhyn. How can the lurker be spared if we cannot overtake
turiya
Herem?”

Dimly through the dusk, Covenant saw Rallyn and Hooryl returning, bringing Mishio Massima with them. They seemed to know that the time had come to bear their riders again.

He exhaled hard; panted briefly for air. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “I’ll have to think of something.”

At that moment, he believed that he would succeed. Like Brinn, Clyme and Branl had given him what he needed. While the Humbled stood with him, he could imagine that anything was possible.

ut he put off thinking until he and his companions had ridden far enough to find
aliantha
. He needed time to absorb Clyme’s and Branl’s acquiescence. And he felt thin with hunger. He had eaten nothing since he and his companions had left their covert in the cliff early the previous morning. The streams that the Ranyhyn discovered now eased him somewhat; but water was not nourishment—and it was certainly not treasure-berries. He craved the rich benison of the Land’s health and vitality. Without it, he could not reason clearly enough to untangle the riddle of
turiya
Herem’s head start.

Fortunately Branl and Clyme knew where they had last seen
aliantha
. And Covenant did not doubt that the Ranyhyn could have located the holly-like shrubs even without the guidance of the Humbled. The way seemed long to him, but Clyme pointed toward the first bush well before the unbroken twilight became midafternoon.