Against All Things Ending (7 page)

Liand winced at her answer: at the words themselves, or at their acrid sound in the lush night. Pahni stifled a whimper against his shoulder. Mahrtiir’s fierce silence conveyed the impression that he was mustering arguments to persuade her.

But Linden moved past them as though she had been indurated to any simple or direct form of compassion. She made no effort to retrieve her Staff or Covenant’s ring. Jeremiah’s ruined toy in her pocket was enough for her: the bullet hole and the small tears in her shirt were enough. Ignoring the grim enmity of the Humbled, she went to confront Infelice.

Now that the crisis of Linden’s powers had passed, the echo of wild magic from Loric’s
krill
did not outshine the
Elohim
’s refulgence. Infelice stood before Linden like a cynosure of loveliness and aghast hauteur. Wreathed about her limbs, her bedizened garment resembled weeping woven of gemstones and recrimination.

The Mahdoubt had told Linden that
There is hope in contradiction
. Long ago, Covenant had said the same thing. Before that, High Lord Mhoram had said it.

But the Mahdoubt had fallen into madness and death for Linden’s sake; and Covenant lay shattered on the grass. Linden had never known Mhoram.

Without preamble, she said, “The Dead are gone.” She did not doubt that Sunder and Hollian had already bid farewell to their immeasurably bereft son; that Grimmand Honninscrave had left the Swordmainnir to consider all that they had lost. “And Covenant can’t help me. I’ve hurt him too badly.” Nor could the Harrow’s knowledge, the fruit of his long diligence and greed, be compared to the immortal awareness of the
Elohim
. “That only leaves you.

“Tell me how to find my son.”

The Harrow had averred that Infelice would not or could not do so.

“Wildwielder,” the
Elohim
retorted sharply: a reprimand. “You yourself have asked if the harm which you have wrought does not suffice. Will you compound ruin with delirancy? Your son is an abomination. His uses are abominable. Did not the first Halfhand say that you must exceed yourself yet again? He wished to convey that you must set aside this mad craving for your son.”

Linden shook her head again. Infelice’s words slipped past her like shadows, wasted and empty of affect. No objurgation could touch her while she remained deaf to despair.

And she did not choose to credit the
Elohim
’s interpretation of High Lord Berek’s insistence—

“Then tell me,” she said as though Infelice had not spoken, “how to stop the Worm.”

“
Stop the Worm?
” The woman’s voice nearly cracked. “Do you imagine that such a being may be hindered or halted in any manner? Your ignorance is as extreme as your transgressions.”

Behind Linden, the Harrow chuckled softly; but she heard no humor in the sound.

“So explain it to me,” she demanded. “Cure my ignorance. Why does such a being even exist? What’s it
for
? What made the Creator think that the Worm of the World’s End was a good idea? Did he want to kill his own creation? Was all of this,” all of life and time, “just some cruel experiment to see how long it would take us to do everything wrong?”

“Fool!” retorted Infelice. Impatiently she dismissed the worth of Linden’s question. “How otherwise might the Creator have devised a living world? You have named yourself a healer. How do you fail to grasp that life cannot exist without death?”

Her voice wove a skein of sorrow and repugnance among the trees. “From the smallest blade of grass to the most feral Sandgorgon or
skurj
, all that lives is able to do so only because it contains within itself the seeds of its own end. If living things did not decline and perish, they would soon crowd out all other life and time and hope. For this reason, every living thing ages and dies. And if its life is long, then its capacity for procreation is foreshortened.”

While the
Elohim
spoke, Linden’s friends came to stand at her back, leaving only Bhapa to watch over Covenant with the Humbled; but neither she nor Infelice regarded them.

“Without difficulty, the Creator could doubtless have placed as many earths and heavens as he desired within the Arch of Time. But he could not conceive a
living
world that did not contain the means of its own death.”

Abruptly Infelice looked toward the Harrow; and her wrath mounted. “There this flagrant Insequent reveals the folly of his greed. With Earthpower and wild magic, he imagines that he will be empowered to unmake the Worm, thereby ensuring the continuance of the Earth. But the unmaking of the Worm will unmake all life. Such power cannot be countered without unleashing absolute havoc. While the Earth endures, the Worm is
needful
. The Harrow dreams of glory, but he will accomplish only extinction.”

Now the Harrow laughed outright, rich and deep, and entirely devoid of mirth. “You mistake me,
Elohim
,” he replied. “Such has been your custom toward the Insequent for many an age. I am not your Wildwielder, steeped in ignorance and mislove. I have other desires, intentions which will transcend your self-regard.”

Linden had no interest in the hostility between the Insequent and the
Elohim
: it was of no use to her. Before she could intervene, however, Stave raised his voice to ask Infelice, “How, then, does it chance that the
Elohim
do not know death? Why have you been spared the hope and doom of all other life? I discern no merit in you to sanction your freedom from mortality.”

“Puerile wight!” Infelice snapped at once. “Do you dare? The
Elohim
do not suffer affront from such as you.”

Yet a glance at Linden caused Infelice to quell the chiming swirl of her wrath. Apparently Linden held a kind of sway over the suzerain
Elohim
; an influence or import which Linden did not understand.

With elaborate restraint, Infelice explained, “The
Elohim
do not participate in death because our purpose is deathless. We neither multiply nor change nor die because we were created to be the stewards of the Worm.

“Betimes we have intervened in perils which endanger life upon or within the Earth, but that is not our chief end. Rather our Würd requires of us that we preserve the Worm’s slumber. Understand, Wildwielder, that we have no virtu to impose sleep. Instead it is our task to pacify and soothe. Thus by our very nature we serve all lesser manifestations of life.

“When we have countered wrongs such as the
skurj
, or the decimation of the One Forest, we have done so that the Worm may not be made restive by harm. And when we have permitted powers such as Forestals, or the Colossus of the Fall, to be fashioned from our essence, we have done so to refresh the corresponding vitality of the One Tree, that we may be left in peace.” More and more as she spoke, her words seemed to weave the arching trees and the deep night and the light of the
krill
into an elegy, delicate as silver bells, and rich with grief. “Our
purpose
is peace, the means and outcome of our self-contemplation. The Forestals—and others—are our surrogates, just as we are the Creator’s surrogates. They serve as the Creator’s hold and bastion in our stead, preserving life which strives and dies while we preserve the Earth.”

Then the elegy became a dirge throbbing with bitterness.

“Yet even such sacrifices are not the full tale of our worth to the Earth. I have named the One Tree. Setting aside the irenic reverie of ourselves, we have sought to deflect every threat which endangers the Tree, for it nurtures life just as the Worm enacts death. Thus the Earth began its true decline toward woe when an Insequent became the Guardian of the One Tree. The Theomach’s cunning was great, but his vaunted knowledge did not suffice for such a burden. Still less has Brinn of the
Haruchai
’s prowess sufficed, though he achieved the Theomach’s demise. By such deeds was the sanctity of the One Tree diminished, and the depth of the Worm’s slumber was made less.

“Our tragedy is this, that the shadow upon our hearts has become an utter darkness. The harm has grown beyond our power to intervene. The Worm is roused and ravenous, and we cannot renew its slumber. By what this Insequent has rightly named mislove, Wildwielder, you have doomed us. Because of you, we will be the first to feed the hunger which you have called forth.”

While Infelice answered Stave’s challenge, Linden fretted. On some level, she recognized the pertinence of the
Elohim
’s revelations. But they did not shape or soften the extremity of her circumstances.
Your remorse will surpass your strength to bear it
. She needed facts, details; a concrete understanding of what she had released.

Earlier Berek Halfhand had said,
The making of worlds is not accomplished in an instant
.
It cannot be instantly undone
.
Much must transpire before the deeds of the Chosen find their last outcome
. Linden clung to that—and demanded more from Infelice.

“All right,” she muttered grimly. “I get it.

“So what happens now? The Worm is awake. Somewhere. What will it do? How is it going to destroy the Earth? How much time have we got?”

The world’s remaining days were her only concern. The Worm itself was Covenant’s problem, not hers. He or no one would rise to that crisis. In either case, she had her own task to perform before the end.

—
you aren’t done
. Covenant had recognized the truth. And he had professed that she might succeed.
She’s the only one who can do this
. She chose to believe that he had referred to her one remaining responsibility.

“The Worm’s slumbers have been long and long.” Infelice spoke softly, but acid and bile twisted her mien. “Rousing, it is galled by hunger. As any living thing, it must feed. And as we are its stewards, so are we also its sustenance. Such is our Würd. The Worm must feed upon us. Only when it is sated with
Elohim
will it turn to the accomplishment of its greater purpose. If any of our kind remain unconsumed, we will endure solely to witness the end of all things, and so pass into the last dark.”

—feed upon us. Perhaps Linden should have been shaken. Earlier Infelice had said that
every
Elohim
will be devoured
, but Linden had hardly heard her. Now Linden might have stopped to consider the cost of what she had done.

But Infelice had not given her what she needed. Linden tried again. “How long will it take? Hours? Days? Weeks?”

Like angry weeping, the
Elohim
replied, “We will seek to delay our passing because we must. We will flee and conceal ourselves at such distances as we are able to attain, requiring the Worm to scent us out singly, for we do not wish to perish. With sustenance, however, the Worm’s might will grow. Ere a handful of days have passed, its puissance will discover and consume us. Then there will be no force in all the Earth great enough to delay the Worm.”

Again the Harrow gave his humorless laugh; but no one heeded him.

“All right,” Linden repeated. “A handful of days.” But she was no longer looking at Infelice. Her attention had veered away. “That isn’t much.” Stave or the Humbled may have had further questions for the
Elohim
. Like Linden herself, the
Haruchai
did not forgive. There were many things of which they could have accused Infelice. And Mahrtiir may have wished to protest the implied fate of the Ranyhyn. Linden would have let them say whatever they wanted. She was not speaking to them as she muttered, “I need to face this. I can’t put it off any longer.”

She expected the Harrow to offer her a bargain. An exchange. Paralysis or urgency was the only choice left to her; and Jeremiah needed her.

Do it, she told herself. While you still can.

But when Linden turned away from Infelice, the Ramen and Liand joined her. A moment later, the Manethrall stepped in front of her, compelling her to consider his blinded visage.

“Ringthane,” he began gruffly. “Chosen. There is much here which transcends us. We are Ramen, servants of the great Ranyhyn. For millennia, we have been content to be who we are. We do not participate in the outcome of worlds.

“But there is one matter of which I must speak.”

Linden stared at him. Her face felt too stiff with emotion to hold any expression. She may have looked as ungiving as Stave’s kindred. But Mahrtiir was her friend. He had lost his eyes, and with them some measure of his self-worth, in her aid. With an effort, she said, “I’m listening.”

Carefully the Manethrall said, “Since we are assured that it must be so, I grant that the harm of the first Ringthane’s resurrection is vast and terrible. But it is done. It cannot be undone. And his need remains. It is present and immediate. To heal him now will not redeem that which is past, but may do much to relieve that which is to come.”

He was asking her to take a risk that she had already refused. For his sake, however, and for her other friends, she essayed an answer.

“I can’t really explain it. If you haven’t been possessed, you don’t know what it’s like to have someone else messing around inside you,” heart and soul. “Just doing that to him would be bad enough. But this is worse. A broken mind isn’t as simple as a cut, or a compound fracture, or an infection. Just one mistake—”

In the Verge of Wandering, she had tried to enter Anele in order to ease his madness, or his vulnerability. But she was grateful now that he had repulsed her. Her efforts would almost certainly have damaged him in some insidious fashion. She was neither wise nor unselfish enough to impose her wishes on him without transgressing his integrity.

She had spent years learning that lesson.

“If I interfere now, it won’t be any different than resurrecting him. I’ll take away his ability to make his own choices.” To save or damn himself. “After what I’ve done, I owe him at least a little respect.”

“Linden,” Liand murmured, not in protest, but in chagrin and concern, “is it truly so
wrong
that you have restored a man whom you once loved? To some extent, I grasp the peril of—”