The Last Dark (52 page)

Linden wiped her eyes and nose. Under his caresses, her tension and remorse eased. “I’ve been so scared. I didn’t know what I was doing. Half of the time, I felt terrified. Otherwise I was just frantic. Jeremiah and the Land and even you needed more from me than I knew how to give. I only did what I did because I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“Hellfire, Linden,” Covenant snorted. “Don’t sell yourself short. Miracles are becoming practically normal around here, and most of them are your doing.”

When she felt less troubled in his arms, he asked a different question. “So how did you get rid of those stains on your jeans?”

She lifted her head in surprise. After a moment, she sat up, snatched at her jeans, studied them. “Oh my God. They’re gone. I’ve had them for so long, I stopped seeing them. They must have faded when Caerroil Wildwood—”

Eyes wide, she faced Covenant. “What does it mean?”

He smiled crookedly. Still hungry for her, he said, “Maybe Caerroil Wildwood took away those stains because you don’t need them anymore. They were a map, and now you’ve found your way.” She had found him—or they had found each other. “Maybe it just means we should try to take advantage of every minute we have left.”

For a moment, she appeared to struggle against her uncertainty—or against the particular intensity of his regard. But then she seemed to find that he had said enough. That his response sufficed. Dropping her clothes, she moved to put her arms around his neck.

That response sufficed for him as well.

ventually Linden asked a more difficult question. “After Lord Foul killed you, you left your ring for me. You wanted me to have it, didn’t you? So why haven’t I been a ‘rightful white gold wielder’ all along?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Covenant admitted. “Sure, I wanted you to have my ring. But I didn’t
give
it to you. Lord Foul just dropped it. And I was in the same situation with Joan. I only got her ring”—he stifled a wince—“because she couldn’t hold it any longer. That didn’t make me a rightful wielder either.”

He had experienced
rightfulness
. He knew what it meant.

“Now that’s changed.” With a gesture that felt effortless, he drew a brief streak of argent through the air, instantly ready, instantly quenched. “So here’s what I think. It isn’t the getting that makes the difference. It’s the giving. The choice. And the
kind
of choice matters. Surrender is one kind. A vow is another. I didn’t just give you a white gold ring. I gave you
me
. That’s something the almighty Despiser is never going to understand. He’s clever as all hell, but he’s too self-obsessed or frustrated or maybe too damn miserable to figure out why he keeps losing.”

Then Covenant thought that he ought to warn Linden. “But we still have to be careful. I don’t have enough health-sense to feel the effects of what I’m doing. And you have the Staff of Law.” It lay on the greensward beyond their clothes, its black shaft runed with auguries. “I don’t want to say wild magic and Law are antithetical. That’s too simplistic. But the energies are incompatible. Wild magic refuses boundaries, and Law is all about boundaries. If you hadn’t used the
krill
when you resurrected me, you would have torn yourself apart. That’s the
krill
’s real power. It mediates contradictions.”

For a moment, he thought that he heard the wind outside the bower blustering bitterly against the willow. But the blast did not trouble Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s irenic singing, or ruffle his healing lumination.

Still Covenant did not relax, in spite of his satiation. He sensed something unresolved in Linden—or he knew that in her place he would not be at peace.

At last, she said, “Thomas, I love you. I
love
you. But I did a terrible thing when I forced you back to life. Waking up the Worm was bad enough. The Humbled were right about me. That was a Desecration. But I’m afraid that I did something worse at the same time. Do you remember what Berek said? I’ve made it impossible to stop Lord Foul.”

Covenant tightened his embrace as if he imagined that he could protect her. He remembered Berek’s assertion perfectly.
He may be freed only by one who is compelled by rage, and contemptuous of consequence
. He recognized her fear.

“Now we can’t save the world. We can’t stop the Worm. We can only try to slow it down. Before long, Lord Foul will get his chance to escape.

“Thomas,” she insisted, “I
did
that.” In spite of all that she had done, she still found cause to accuse herself. “
I
did it.” Then she admitted, “But it didn’t feel that way. Oh, I didn’t care about the consequences. I can’t deny that. But was I ‘compelled by rage’? I don’t think so. I was just desperate. Desperate for you. Desperate for Jeremiah. Desperate for
help
. I didn’t know where else to get it.

“Is that all it takes to ruin everything? Is Lord Foul going to get free because of me? Is the whole Earth going to die because of me?”

At that moment, Covenant would have given the remains of his fingers to reassure her. But he did not respond immediately. He had good reason to be cautious. During his early visits to the Land, he had justified himself falsely too often, and the cost of his obfuscations had been too high. And her needs were not his. Her desperation was not the same as his. It was more intimate, or more personal, or simply more consequential. He had only raped Lena and betrayed Elena and destroyed the first Staff of Law. He had not awakened the Worm. In an earlier age, Linden herself had prevented him—

Now he suspected that Jeremiah was more likely to be
compelled by rage
.

He wanted to say, Maybe you’re right. Any one of us can destroy the whole world—if it’s
our
world. All we have to do is destroy ourselves. But he demanded more of himself.

“Sometimes ‘desperate,’” he began, “is just a convenient name for being so angry you can’t stand it. After everything you went through—after Roger and the
croyel
and Esmer and Kastenessen and the Harrow and even Longwrath—you finally got to Andelain”—he winced at the memory—“and I refused to talk to you. Hellfire, Linden! Only a dead woman wouldn’t have been sick with fury.”

She hid her face as if she were cowering; as if he had poured acid on her heart. “Then I’ve done it. I’ve doomed—”

If she had pulled away from him, he might have cried out. He had hurt her enough to maim the bond which they had only begun to renew. But she still clung to him as if he were all that she had left. She still thought that he had a better answer—or that he
was
a better answer.

As gently as he could, he said, “It’s tempting to think that way. It lets us off the hook. If we’ve already made the only mistakes that matter—or if somehow we just
are
the only mistakes that matter—we can’t be expected to do anything else. But it’s not that simple.

“For one thing, we aren’t alone. We’re all in this mess together. We’re all making decisions and trying to justify the consequences. Whatever you’ve done, good or bad, you didn’t do it in a vacuum. You’ve been reacting to people with their own agendas and situations you didn’t cause. From the start, the Despiser has been pushing you where he wants you to go. And you’ve had help along the way.

“And for another—” Goaded by his own necessary passions, Covenant’s voice rose. “Linden, I just don’t
believe
it. I don’t believe Lord Foul can’t be stopped. I don’t even believe the world can’t be saved. Freeing Lord Foul wasn’t the only thing Berek talked about. He also said there’s
another truth
on the far side of despair and doom. All we have to do is find it.”

She did not react. He could not be sure that she was listening. He might have been speaking to the leaves and boughs, the harmony of gleams, rather than to the woman in his arms.

Nevertheless she continued to hold on to him.

You will not fail, however he may assail you. There is also love in the world.

Because she did not let go, he said more.

“And for another—Oh, hell. I’ve written entire novels about this. ‘Guilt is power. Only the damned can be saved.’ Maybe that sounds cynical. Maybe it is. But who else
needs
to be saved? Who else
can
be? Not the innocent. They have their own problems.” He was thinking of the Masters, who thought that rigid purity of service would relieve their ancient humiliation. “They don’t need anything as gracious or just plain kind as forgiveness.

“So maybe blaming ourselves is a waste of time. Maybe we should just admit that everybody goes wrong. Everybody does damage. That’s what being human enough to make mistakes means. And if that’s what being human means, then there’s really only one question we have to answer. Is making mistakes
all
it means?

“If it isn’t, then
everything
counts. Resurrecting me and waking up the Worm. Making love together and killing Cavewights. Hell and blood, Linden! I let my own daughter be sacrificed against She Who Must Not Be Named. And I didn’t stop there. I went right up to the most pitiful woman I’ve ever known and stuck a knife in her chest. If you think I don’t feel
bad
about things like that, you haven’t been paying attention. But if everything counts, then guilt is no reason to stop trying for something better.”

Somewhere among the music of his lights, Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir sang, “It is my heart I give to you—”

Finally Linden stirred. With small movements, she shifted the position of her arms, adjusted her head on Covenant’s shoulder. For a time, she conveyed the impression that she was listening to the Forestal, or to the rebuffed thrash of the winds beyond the bower, or to the restless concern of Covenant’s pulse. Then she brushed a delicate kiss across his chest.

“Here’s the funny part,” she murmured. “I tried to say practically the same thing to Jeremiah. I used different words, but the point was the same. Maybe I should listen to myself every once in a while. You shouldn’t have to make a speech whenever I think that I’ve done something wrong.”

Suddenly she yawned. “If I weren’t so sleepy, I would ask you to make love again.”

Entirely to himself, Covenant released a deep sigh of relief. There were any number of questions for which he had no answer; but for the time being, he was content with the one that she had given him.

You do not forgive.

Perhaps she did.

A Tale Which Will Remain

Weary to the core, and yet eased in more ways than she knew how to name, Linden Avery dozed in Covenant’s arms,
Thomas of my heart
. But she did not sleep deeply or long. After a time, a rustle among the willow branches plucked at her attention. She felt the pressure of hooves on the sumptuous grass, followed by the sounds of feeding. Casting a bleary glance over her shoulder, she found horses in the bower.

Hyn and Hynyn. Khelen. Rallyn. And the Ardent’s mulish steed, Mishio Massima. In this lifeless region, their need for fodder had become imperative.

Linden closed her eyes again, nestled against the anodyne of Covenant’s shoulder. Her only true lover—He had never stopped loving her: she believed that now. To some extent, she understood why he had seemed to spurn her days ago. And those aspects of his singular straits that still baffled her did not mar her gratitude. The sensation that he had vindicated her, body and soul, was more profound than her fatigue. It felt numinous and ineffable: a homecoming of the spirit. Every part of him had become as precious to her as a sunrise.

The ring on her finger resembled certainty. She could have spent days with her husband in the balm of Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s bower, and done so gladly.

But eventually the snorts and snuffles of horses cropping grass prodded her to wonder how much time had passed. Motionless so she would not disturb Covenant, she extended her senses beyond the Forestal’s bedizened canopy, and was surprised to discern that dawn was near: the feigned dawn of a sunless day. The fourth day—was it really the fourth?—since the sun had failed to rise.

Her companions had left her alone with Covenant for most of the night. Even Jeremiah—

Curious now, Linden raised her head to look around.

Melodies gemmed the leaves overhead as if they had been set in place to watch over her and Covenant; but of Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir there was no sign. He had hidden himself in the fecund intricacies of his hymns. Apart from the horses, she saw only the broad trunk of the tree, and beyond it the fane of the
Elohim
.

Groaning softly, Covenant blinked his eyes open. When his gaze found Linden, he tried to smile: an awkward twist of his mouth. In the delicate light of the Forestal’s music, the pale scar on his forehead seemed to glow. It might have been a nascent anadem, an old wound that was slowly becoming a crown. The stark silver of his hair promised flames.

Remembering his ardor, she felt a delicious shiver like an intimation of the life that she wanted to have with him.

An impossible life while the Worm stalked the World’s End, and Lord Foul plotted to reclaim Jeremiah.

Covenant propped himself up on his elbows and looked her over with yearning in his eyes. He seemed to desire every contour. Then he frowned ruefully. Nodding toward the Ranyhyn and Mishio Massima, he muttered in mock-disgust, “I probably shouldn’t say this, Linden, but I don’t really like horses.”

She laughed softly. “Neither do I.” He made her name sound like a cherished endearment. “But I’m very fond of Hyn,” she added in case the mare understood her. “And Khelen, of course.”

How could she feel anything other than affection for them?

As if her response were a cue, Jeremiah called from within the fane, “Mom? Can we come out? We’re hungry. You have all the
aliantha
.”

She was on the verge of saying, Sure, honey, when she remembered that she was naked.

Stifling a giggle, she answered, “Give us a minute.” She looked at Covenant, offered him a lop-sided smile, kissed him swiftly. Then she reached for her clothes.

“Hellfire,” he growled under his breath. “Bloody damnation.”

He had not had enough of peace and privacy, or of her.

She pulled up her jeans, buttoned her shirt without regarding its tears and snags, its neat hole over her heart. Leaving her feet bare to enjoy the lush grass a little longer, she retrieved her Staff. Then she paused to study Covenant.

His leprosy had worsened in recent days. A slight haze occluded his vision. She suspected that he could not see clearly past twenty or thirty paces. And the numbness of his fingers stretched into his palms toward his wrists. His toes, and patches on the soles of his feet, had no sensation. Now the end of Kevin’s Dirt had halted his deterioration. She found no indication that his symptoms were still spreading. Nevertheless he was farther from health than he had been when she had first resurrected him.

He fumbled into his jeans, worked his T-shirt over his head. While he tugged at the laces of his boots, she asked tentatively, “Do you want any help, Thomas? I can heal—”

He hesitated for a moment, scowled, then shook his head. “Thanks anyway. I can see well enough.” He seemed to mean, Well enough for what I have to do. “And I need my hands like this. The
krill
gets hot. If I’m in too much pain, I won’t be able to hold it.”

She considered asking, Why is that important? How much do you know about what we have to do? But she rejected the idea. She did not want an answer: not really. She was in no hurry to think about the Despiser and the World’s End.

Covenant gave her a look full of hunger. Then he shrugged and nodded his readiness.

Holding his gaze, she raised her voice. “Come on out, Jeremiah. All of you. It’s time.”

At once, Jeremiah emerged from the temple. The sight of him both lifted and soured Linden’s spirit. The emotions clenched inside him showed in his aura. He could smile because she had come back for him, and because she and Covenant were finally united—and because he had been able to sleep. But the effects of Kastenessen’s possession persisted: he did not know how to relieve them. And he had accomplished his one purpose. In the aftermath, he had lost the eagerness of his talent, the excitement which had driven and protected him. His ruined pajamas and his muddy gaze made him look haunted.

Behind him loomed the Swordmainnir, grinning. Sleep and gladness had refreshed them, and their eyes as they regarded Linden and Covenant seemed to glow with warmth.

Rime Coldspray approached first, followed by Cirrus Kindwind, and then by Cabledarm brimming with restored wholeness. The other women carried their depleted waterskins. Among them, Stave walked like a man who had never been harmed.

Covenant rose from the grass to greet them. With a mixture of pleasure and regret, he said gruffly, “I should probably thank you. But I’m sure you can understand that one night just isn’t enough.” He touched Linden’s shoulder briefly. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, and now it’s over”—he grimaced—“unless we can do things that are even more unlikely than what we’ve already done.” Glowering like a man who did not know how to smile, he finished, “Just once, I would like to face a challenge that turns out to be easy.”

Linden smiled for him. He had given her another gift to counterbalance the night’s passing. Indirectly, perhaps, but unmistakably, he had already reassumed his rightful place as the leader of the Land’s defenders.

“Yet betimes, Timewarden,” replied the Ironhand, “we are granted ease. To behold you and Linden Giantfriend as you are does not test my heart. It gives only joy.”

Covenant ducked his head. “Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved Giants. You remind me—” He spread his hands as if he had run out of words.

Linden guessed that he was recalling Saltheart Foamfollower; or perhaps Pitchwife and the First of the Search.

But other matters quickly claimed the attention of the Swordmainnir. They were hungry, of course. And they knew as well as Linden did, or Covenant, that all of the company’s deeds so far were only stopgaps. Branl outside the bower would have given warning of any imminent threat; but every peril was growing, and time was running out. With both pleasure and rue, the Ironhand and her comrades turned to Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s abundance of
aliantha
and clean water.

Before Jeremiah could join them, Linden stopped him with a hug. “Can we talk, honey?” she asked privately. “I haven’t had a chance to hear how you’re handling what you’ve been through.”

He avoided her gaze. “There isn’t much to tell, Mom. The Giants and Stave did everything. I mean, pretty much. All I did was organize the pieces and make sure they fit.”

She recognized the deflection in his voice, but she did not question it. Instead she insisted mildly, “I still want to hear about it. This may sound strange, but you probably know me better than I know you. You’ve been my son for years, but I feel like we’ve just met. I want to understand how you think. Just give me a minute to finish getting dressed.”

The boy acceded with a glum nod.

Covenant left her with Jeremiah, but he did not follow the example of the Giants. While she pulled on her socks and boots, he asked Stave abruptly, “Is Branl saying anything?”

Stave faced the Unbeliever with his customary lack of expression. “Ur-Lord, the storm of the Worm’s coming approaches. He gauges that an hour remains ere we must flee its ravages.” The former Master glanced away briefly before adding, “Should the Worm quicken its rush, we will receive warning.”

“Well, damn,” Covenant muttered. “I should probably be glad. At least that thing isn’t heading for Mount Thunder. But it’s
hungry
. It’s going to hit hard when it gets here.”

Scowling, he went to the brook for water. Then he moved toward the nearest shrub and began to eat.

Linden winced to herself. Covenant had seen the Worm before: she had not. But she imagined that it was huge and virulent—and she had no idea whether the Forestal would be able to stand against it. The fact that the
Elohim
were no longer physically present in this manifestation of reality might lessen the Worm’s impulse to overwhelm Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir. Or deprivation might make the instrument of the World’s End savage.

More savage than it was already.

She swallowed an urge to look outside the willow, confirm Branl’s perceptions for herself. The Humbled was not likely to be mistaken. And her concern for her son was more immediate.

There are worse things than being afraid, Mom. Being useless is worse.

As far as she knew, a sense of purpose was all that had defended him against the cost of his emotional wounds. Now he had nothing to build—and perhaps nothing to hope for.

If so, she knew the feeling. But she had her faith in Covenant to steady her. And long ago, she had been assured,
You will not fail—
She wanted to share those gifts with Jeremiah if she could. They were better than despair.

Praying that she would be able to give him what he needed, she beckoned. “Come on, Jeremiah, honey. Let’s go into your temple. We can be alone there.”

He flinched. He seemed to hide behind the silted hue of his eyes. His manner said, No, although he did not refuse aloud.

“I know that you don’t want to talk,” she offered patiently. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. But I’m your mother. Worrying about their children is what mothers do.

“Come on,” she repeated. “If you help me understand, you might find that you feel less alone.”

Jeremiah opened his mouth, closed it again. He looked around at the Giants, and then at Covenant, as if he hoped that one of them would intervene. But the women only nodded encouragement; and Covenant’s attention was elsewhere.

The boy avoided Linden’s gaze. Looking truculent and defensive, he joined her. When she turned past the willow trunk toward the fane’s opening, he followed, scuffing his feet in protest.

Inside the construct, she found bare dirt between crooked walls supporting a ceiling that looked like it might fall on her at any moment. Gaps among the stones let patches of Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s shining into the gloom, but that glow did not lift the shadows from Jeremiah’s mien. He might have been little more than an emblem of the deeper night awaiting the Earth.

Facing him, she put the Worm out of her mind; braced herself to concentrate on her son. He could not rid himself of his demons if he did not acknowledge them.

He began before she could choose a question. “I don’t know what you think we have to talk about. I already told you. The Giants and Stave did practically everything. After that—” A scowl concentrated his features. Its tightness reminded her of the twitch at the corner of his eye when Roger and the
croyel
had lured her into the past. “They must have said what happened. The
Elohim
came. So did Kastenessen. Then Covenant showed up. Infelice took Kastenessen with her.

“That’s
it
. That’s all there is. The rest was just waiting for you and trying not to think you were dead.” From his fists, small flames squeezed between his fingers. A caper of yellow light and shadows up and down his body made him look lurid. As if he were pleading, he added, “Nothing else matters.”

Linden waited until he started to squirm under the pressure of her regard. Then she folded her arms over the Staff of Law, held it against her heart, and tried to be gentle.

“Jeremiah, honey. This isn’t doing you any good. I’m your mother. I know that there’s more. But there’s something that you don’t know about me.”