The Last Dark (7 page)

Without uncertainty—without hope in contradiction—Stave would not have become her friend. He would not have stood with her against the united rejection of the Masters.

Stave appeared to raise an eyebrow. “Where is the harm? Have I not made my allegiance plain? And did we not escape both the Lost Deep and the bane, though
skest
and the
skurj
also assailed us? Chosen, I do not fear to name uncertainty an abyss.”

Linden could have retorted, Sure, we escaped. After that bane nearly killed us. After we lost the Harrow, and the Ardent damned himself, and Covenant’s hands were almost destroyed. After the Dead sacrificed Elena before I could ask her to forgive me. Don’t you understand how
deep
those wounds are? But she kept her bitterness to herself. All of her protests came to the same thing.

She had no hope for Covenant.

Instead of responding, she left Stave and went to the stream. There she dropped her Staff, knelt, and plunged her face into the water, pulling her fingers through her hair while the cold stung her nerves.

Covenant had asked or ordered her not to touch him. He had spoken as if he believed that she feared his leprosy—or he feared it for her.

The Giants and now Mahrtiir conveyed the impression that they were waiting for her. When she glanced at the northwestern sky, she saw Kevin’s Dirt glowering closer, riding the wind of Kastenessen’s agony and virulence. In another hour at most, it would spread far enough to cover the company. Yet it remained hidden from mundane sight. It did not dull the stars. Indeed, it appeared to sharpen their brilliance and loss.

Linden wiped water from her face, dragged her tangled hair back behind her ears, and rose to her feet. When she had retrieved her Staff, she moved to greet Jeremiah.

“Mom.” She could not read his face except with her health-sense, but he sounded implausibly cheerful. “Did you get some sleep? I sure did.” He stretched his arms, rolled his head to loosen his neck. “Now I feel like I can conquer the world.”

As if he were performing a parlor trick, he snapped his fingers, and a quick spark appeared in the air above his hand; a brief instant of flame. In itself, it was a small thing, almost trivial. But it implied—

He was already learning new uses for Anele’s gift of Earthpower. Perhaps he was
becoming
Earthpower.

His momentary display caught the attention of the Giants; but he ignored them to concentrate on Linden. “What are we waiting for?” he asked in a tone of rising excitement. “We should go.”

Infelice had given him an idea—

His manner troubled Linden. Instinctively she wanted to probe him again. She hungered to learn who he was in his new life. But she did not know what might happen if she interrupted his mood; his sense of purpose; his defenses. He might need such things more than he needed her understanding or sympathy.

Stave still stood nearby, a silent reminder of stoicism and rectitude. But he was more than that: he was also a reminder of trust. In the Hall of Gifts, she had confessed,
Roger said that Lord Foul has owned my son for a long time
. And Stave had replied,
I know naught of these matters
.
I do not know your son
.
Nor do I know all that he has suffered
.
But it is not so among the children of the
Haruchai.
They are born to strength, and it is their birthright to remain who they are
.

Are you certain that the same may not be said of your son?

If Linden asked him now, Stave might remark that Jeremiah had already proven himself in Muirwin Delenoth. The former Master might suggest that it would be better for her as well as for Jeremiah if she allowed him to discover his own path.

She was not ready for that. But the World’s End would not wait for her to find enough courage. And when the Worm came, Jeremiah would share the Earth’s fate no matter how hard she tried to save him.

She was responsible for the Worm’s awakening. Now she needed to find better answers than the ones that had guided her here.

Sighing, Linden followed Jeremiah toward the Giants and the Manethrall. Sunrise would lift the darkness from the Lower Land. Perhaps it would shed some light into her as well.

When she reached Mahrtiir, she said quietly, “Kevin’s Dirt is almost here. I hope that you’ll let me know when it starts to blind you. I’ll counteract it as much as I can. I don’t like the way the air feels. We’re going to need all the discernment we can get.”

The Manethrall nodded. “Ringthane, I hear you. I cannot evade the approach of Kastenessen’s malevolence.” Bitterness whetted the edges of his voice. “It will make of me less than naught, a mere hindrance to my companions, as it did in the Lost Deep. Be assured that I will not scruple to seek your aid.”

The promise appeared to cost him an effort of will or self-abnegation; but he spoke firmly, denying his pride.

Linden rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment: a gesture of empathy to which he did not respond. Then she sighed, “All right. We have a lot to talk about. Maybe it’s time that we actually talked about it.”

But she did not want to talk. She wanted to wait for the sun.

“Like you, Linden Giantfriend,” Rime Coldspray offered, “we mislike the touch of this air. It speaks of forces which lie beyond our ken. Perils draw nigh which have heretofore remained distant.

“Also the beings and powers which seek the World’s End remain unopposed. I am the Ironhand of the Swordmainnir. I speak for my comrades when I say that we must now choose a new heading. And we must not dally in doing so, lest forces which we cannot oppose overtake us.”

Linden felt more than saw that night was ending. She smelled an easing of the dark. The first faint suggestion of daybreak drifted toward her from the east, riding the troubled breeze. But it did not dim the stars. Like the swift moil of Kevin’s Dirt, the approach of dawn seemed to etch the profuse glitter overhead more precisely against the fathomless abyss of the heavens.

Still she wanted to see the sun. With her Staff, she was capable of much. At need, the ready wood would answer her call with fire and heat and even healing. But she could no longer summon illumination. Jeremiah might be able to do so, if his mastery of his new magicks continued to grow. Covenant’s ring would cast silver and peril in all directions if she forced herself to use it. But the stark ebony of her own access to Earthpower and Law precluded light.

When the sun rose, the confused tangle of who she was and who she needed to be might begin to unravel like the recursive wards which had sealed the Lost Deep.

Stalling, she said uncertainly, “We’ve been trusting the Ranyhyn. They’ve brought us this far. Maybe we should keep doing that.”

But Manethrall Mahrtiir shook his head. “Ringthane, they are Ranyhyn.” She heard a note of finality or fatality in his voice. “They wield neither ancient lore nor mighty theurgies. They have borne many of our burdens. Doubtless they will bear more. But they cannot determine the Earth’s doom. The deeds required of us they cannot perform.

“Also,” he added more sadly, “I sense no clear purpose among them. They are restive, truly, and urgent to do what they may. But they neither command nor encourage us to ride. Rather they abide their discomfort, hoping—or so I deem—that we will soon determine our own intents.”

Now, Linden thought. Now the sun would show itself. Surely the east had begun to lighten? Certainly the funereal bindings of night had loosened their grip on the landscape. A kind of vagueness eroded the dark. In hints, the contours of the watercourse and the stream unveiled themselves. She could make out the Giants more clearly, starker shapes in the enshrouding gloom.

“That’s all right, Mom,” Jeremiah put in, impatient for his chance to speak. “Like I told you, Infelice gave me an idea. I want to try it.”

Linden avoided his gaze. “Can you wait a little longer, Jeremiah, honey? Just until sunrise?”

“But—” he began, then stopped himself. Turning to the east, he frowned at the blurred outlines of the horizon. “It should already be here. Why isn’t it here?”

Kevin’s Dirt was less than a league away, a cruel seethe spurred southward by rage. Night continued to fade from the Lower Land, giving way to a preternatural dusk, an imposed twilight. Nevertheless there was no clear daybreak, no sign of the sun.

“This is wrong,” Linden breathed. “Something is wrong.”

“Indeed,” muttered Onyx Stonemage through her teeth. “Something comes. I know not what it may presage, but my heart speaks to me of dread.”

The stars shone like distant cries. Somehow Kevin’s Dirt and even the swell of gloaming made them brighter, louder. A change had come to the firmament of the heavens, a change that threatened the isolate gleams. A change that caused them pain.

Now? Linden thought. Now? Her sensitivity to organic truth assured her that the sun should appear
now
; that it should already have crested the crepuscular horizon. The absolute necessity of night and day required it, the life-giving sequence of rest and energy, relief and effort. The most fundamental implication of the Law of Time—

She was wrong. There was no sun. There would be no sun.

The nature of existence had become unreliable.

The dusk softened until she could discern the faces around her indistinctly; until she could almost see the details of their grimaces and fears, their clenched expectations. But then the greying of the world seemed to stabilize as though it had found a point of equilibrium between night and day. After that, there was no increase of light.

The sun was not going to rise because it could not. Forces beyond Linden’s comprehension held the Land in a gloom like the onset of the last dark.

While Linden struggled to grasp the truth, several of the Giants gasped. Sharply Stave said, “Attend, Chosen.”

She flicked a glance around her, saw that all of her companions were staring upward.

For an instant or two, a few heartbeats, startlement confused her. The sky was too full of stars; of lights that glittered like wailing. She could not understand the panoply. She felt the leading edge of Kevin’s Dirt, tasted the shock and horror of her companions, recognized a jolt of vehemence from Jeremiah; but she did not see what her companions saw.

Then she did.

Oh, God—

Stars were going out.

One. Then another. A pause while realities reeled. Two together as if they had been swallowed simultaneously.

God in Heaven! The sun was not the only casualty. And the Worm of the World’s End had not yet reached the Land.

The stars were vast in number, of course they were: numberless beyond counting. By the measure of their profusion, their losses were small; almost trivial. But by the measure of brief human lives—by any measure that included life and death—the scale of the carnage surpassed conception.

What kind of power could eat
stars
?

Who could hope to stand against it?

“Mom!” Jeremiah said urgently. “You need to listen. I’ve been waiting long enough.”

She could not hear him; could not drag her gaze down to meet his. She was transfixed by the incremental ruin of beauty. She had to watch it because there was no sun.

“Maybe it’s a good thing I waited.” Jeremiah’s voice was taut with restraint. “Maybe now you’ll understand why my idea is important. Maybe now
I
understand what Covenant was trying to tell me.” But then he could not hold back a yell. “
Mom!
”

His shout dragged at her attention. “Jeremiah—” His name caught in her throat. Hoarse as a woman who had spent the night howling, she asked, “What is it, honey? What’s so important?”

Don’t you see it? The stars are going out!

“You need to
listen
,” he repeated. “I know what to do!”

Stave regarded the boy steadily. The former Master’s gaze seemed full of the deaths of stars. Mahrtiir continued to peer blindly upward, but he appeared to be tracking the progress of Kevin’s Dirt. Perhaps the stars were beyond the reach of his remaining senses.

Slowly the Giants forced themselves to lower their heads. Blinking as though they had been appalled, they turned their eyes on Jeremiah. None of them spoke. Rigid as women who had become stone, they were too full of horror to express it.

Without stars, every sailor on the seas of the world would be lost. Every Giant aboard a ship, every seafarer from all the peoples of the Earth: trackless and doomed.

“All right.” Jeremiah sounded incongruously satisfied and eager, as if the heavens held nothing fearsome. Nothing except an opportunity. “I have an idea. I said that already. Infelice gave it to me. I mean, I got it from her. I’m sure she didn’t mean what I heard.”

Fortunately Kevin’s Dirt had no immediate effect: it wrought its particular harm slowly. With her health-sense if not with her eyes, Linden watched her son. He no longer looked like a boy. He looked like a young man who did not need her.

The sight made her heart shiver as if she were feverish.

“You’ll have to start from the beginning, Jeremiah. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You
do
, Mom,” he replied without hesitation. “You were there. You just haven’t thought about it enough.

“The stars going out.” His assurance amazed Linden. It frightened her. “That’s the Worm. It’s eating the
Elohim
.”

Too stricken to speak, everyone stared at Jeremiah. Beneath his familiar fierceness, Mahrtiir’s visage betrayed an ashen dismay. The muscles of Rime Coldspray’s jaws knotted and released like the hard beat of her heart. Latebirth had covered her eyes with her hands. Frostheart Grueburn gaped like a woman who had forgotten the meaning of her actions.

Every Giant—

“So what are they afraid of?” Jeremiah asked. “I mean, the
Elohim
. I’m just a kid. Why are they scared of me? What do they think I can do that’s worse than being
eaten
?”

His purpose for us is an abomination, more so than our doom in the maw of the Worm.

“Infelice told us,” he answered himself. “She thinks I’m going to
trap
them. And she knows I can do it. I can make a door they can’t refuse. No matter how far they scatter, or how hard they try to hide. They can’t refuse. That’s part of who they are. They’ll have to come if I make a door. I mean, the
right
door. The right size and shape. The right materials. I can construct a doorway that
forces
them. They’ll have to pass through it.