Against All Things Ending (88 page)

For a moment, relief closed Linden’s throat. Saving her strength for Stave, she mouthed to the Swordmain, Thank you. Then she turned to the former Master.

He faced her stolidly, as if nothing had passed between them.

He was not merely her friend: he had been her best counselor. She had confided in him when she had felt unable to name her fears to anyone else. And in the Hall of Gifts, he had given her reason to hope for Jeremiah.

Swallowing dust and dread, she said, “You’re a harsh judge.”

He had named her doom.

His eye held hers. “Indeed. I am
Haruchai
.” Then he shrugged. “Yet grief is now known to me. Therefore compassion also is known. And in your company I have learned that I must aspire to humility.”

Just for an instant, the lines of his mouth hinted at a smile.

Desecration lies ahead of you. But Giants tell no tales—Obliquely both Stave and Grueburn triggered memories of Anele’s excoriated lucidity in Revelstone. She had promised to protect him from the consequences of her desires—and he had refused her.

All who live share the Land’s plight
.
Its cost will be borne by all who live
.
This you cannot alter
.
In the attempt, you may achieve only ruin
.

Now she understood the old man.
When your deeds have come to doom, as they must
—She understood Stave. She had spent so many years taking care of Jeremiah, so many years tending patients too damaged to provide for their own survival, that she had forgotten how to count on other kinds of relationships. She had allowed herself to believe only in Covenant—and now she doubted even him. Blind to the implications of her actions, she had in some sense treated all of her friends like children or invalids.

Even Liand. Even Stave.

Why else had she felt diminished whenever they had risen to challenges which had defeated her?

She still did not comprehend why the Ranyhyn had risked taking her close to the lurker of the Sarangrave; but she knew what the experience meant. It had forced her to cast aside her Staff: the emblem of her arrogance. Perhaps inadvertently, the horses had shown her that she could rely on her friends to save her and Jeremiah and the Land when she could not.

Hyn and the others were still trying to show her how to find her way. How to forgive her weaknesses by having faith in the strength of her companions.

T
he company’s path upward remained tortuous until the ridgecrest. From that height, however, Linden could see that the southward descent was more gradual. And she caught sight of Landsdrop. Grey in the depthless sunlight, it loomed two thousand feet and more above her own elevation: a blunt rampart smoothed by the ages until it appeared almost blank; too sheer to scale. But she knew from old experience as well as from tales that Landsdrop was more accessible than it looked. There were trails of all kinds up and down the precipice, although she could not descry them at this distance.

Ignoring the impatience of the Ranyhyn, Linden studied the vista. Almost directly to the west, a thin string of water fell as though it had been tossed over the rim by a negligent hand. Dull against the dim stone, like a strand of tarnished silver, it dropped in stages, shifting from side to side as its plunge encountered obstacles, and casting fine hints of spray into the etiolated sunshine.

Was that the River Landrider, tumbling to become the Ruinwash? No, she decided. The stream was too small. It had to be the tributary that Stave had mentioned. At its base, it disappeared among the cliff’s crumpled foothills. When its twisted length brought it back into view, it was less than a league away, still tending generally eastward. There it gathered into a pool, little more than an islet in the barren landscape, before it turned southward, following the contours of the terrain.

In that pool, Stave must have bathed during the night.

The company reached it before a third of the morning had passed. Some of the slopes sweeping down from the ridge were treacherous, on the verge of slippage; but for long stretches, the footing was secure. Palpably eager, the Ranyhyn quickened their pace; and the Giants began to trot, cheered by the prospect of fresh water in abundance. Along the way, Linden watched Jeremiah for signs that he might fall from Khelen’s back. But the young roan was careful to ensure that nothing unbalanced his rider. Jeremiah sat the Ranyhyn as if Khelen were motionless.

Linden had a plethora of questions that she could not ask the horses. Why had they risked proximity to the Sarangrave? Where were they taking her? And why were they in a hurry now, when they had insisted on plodding for two days? Nevertheless she had reasons for gratitude. Khelen’s attentiveness to Jeremiah’s passivity was only one of them.

Urged by Mahrtiir, she and the Giants bathed quickly, drank their fill, washed some of the stains from their apparel. While the Giants gulped a swift meal of cured mutton, stale bread, and
aliantha
, Linden took Jeremiah into the stream and scrubbed briefly at his blood- and gore-streaked pajamas. But she did not linger over the task.

When she was done, the Manethrall announced, “Narunal makes plain to me that the Ranyhyn require greater speed.” His tone was raw frustration. “Time grows urgent. Events or perils have acquired suddenness. Why or how this is so, they cannot convey to my human mind. Nonetheless they must run.

“Their pace will be too swift for weary Giants. Yet they do not wish to forsake the Swordmainnir. Therefore I must remain with Narunal to guide the Ironhand and her comrades. With Stave, the Ringthane, and her son, Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen will strive to accomplish the nameless intent of this quest. We will follow with such alacrity as the Giants are able to sustain.”

Before Linden or the others could object, Mahrtiir added fiercely, “Ringthane, I do not part from you by my own choice. More, I am shamed to be apart from you in this exigency. I do not willingly surrender my place in your tale. Yet my service to the Ranyhyn compels me. I cannot flout their will and remain Ramen.”

In their own fashion, the Ramen were as severe as the
Haruchai
.

“Hell, Mahrtiir,” Linden muttered. “I don’t want to lose you either. We’ve been walking for two damn days—and
now
we’re in a hurry? But—”

“But,” Rime Coldspray interrupted sharply, “we have agreed to entrust our fate to the Ranyhyn. We were not coerced to this heading. Nor were we able to select a clearer course. And the Manethrall belabors a manifest truth when he observes that we are weary.

“Linden Avery, we are Giants, loath to fail the aid of any and all whom we name friends. Yet we are also sailors. We do not choose the world’s winds. We do what we may to seek our own desires, but we do not pretend to rule that which is offered to our sails. Come calm or gale, we gain our sought harborage—when we gain it—by endurance rather than by mastery.

“For our part, we will accept the will of these horses. If they are worthy of the honor which Manethrall Mahrtiir and the Ramen have accorded them, they will not mislead us.”

“
But
,” Linden repeated, “I was about to say that I’ve been making too many decisions for other people. And I don’t know that the Ranyhyn have ever been wrong.” They may have erred when they had exposed her to the Feroce and the lurker; but she no longer cared. Like Hyn, Hynyn, and Khelen, she yearned for speed.
Desecration lies ahead of you
. She wanted to meet it before fear or despair paralyzed her; while she could still choose. “
Something
has changed. I can’t guess what it is, but I believe that they know.

“So maybe they’re right. Maybe you should eat more. Rest more. Try to build up your strength. Narunal won’t hold you back when you’re needed.”

Then she faced the Manethrall. “Mahrtiir, I’m sorry. I can imagine how you feel.” She had watched Covenant ride away without her. “But as far as I’m concerned, nothing makes sense anymore. And we’ve come this far. Without the Ranyhyn, we’re all lost now. I’m just glad that they still know what they want.”

Mahrtiir appeared to flinch. But his emotions were too complex for Linden to read clearly. He radiated chagrin, anger, pride, umbrage, all in turmoil.

Stave’s reply was to vault astride Hynyn. Sitting the stallion, he bowed gravely, first to Manethrall Mahrtiir, then to Rime Coldspray.

For perhaps the last time, Grueburn boosted Linden onto her mount’s back. While Stormpast Galesend did the same for Jeremiah, the boy seemed to gaze at the cemetery of his thoughts as though every grave had been emptied of meaning.

At once, Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen started away from the pool. For Jeremiah’s sake, apparently, they moved slowly at first. But with every heartbeat, they lengthened their strides. Soon they were running at a full gallop.

The Giants let the riders go without a word. Linden suspected that they did not wish to acknowledge that they might never see their companions again. But Narunal whinnied a farewell. As it carried across the uneven ground under the ashen sky, his cry sounded as formal as a fanfare: a call to battle, or a proclamation of homage.

Leaning low over Hyn’s neck, and clutching the Staff of Law across her thighs, Linden prayed that she was not making a fatal mistake.

9.

Great Need

From the rumpled terrain south of the pool, the Ranyhyn pounded onto a baked flatland as hard as the surface of an anvil. In spite of the previous day’s rain, their hooves raised bleached dust as fine as ash. When Linden glanced behind her, she saw a pale plume trailing after her like a pennon.

The speed of the horses was wind in her face, growing warmer as the morning advanced. The air parched her throat, dried her eyes. She thought that she tasted death on her tongue; but if she did, the scent was ancient beyond reckoning. Uncounted centuries ago, living things by the scores or hundreds of thousands had perished in bloodshed: human and inhuman, sentient and bestial, monsters whose forms were no longer remembered even by the
Haruchai
. Like every shape and kind of vegetation that had once flourished here, they were the forgotten detritus of Lord Foul’s wars. Ghosts so long dead that they had lost all substance lingered, mourning mutely. Nothing remained to bespeak their desires and wounds, their fears and furies, except a vague tang pounded up from the iron dirt by the strides of the Ranyhyn.

Without her health-sense, Linden might have thought that the Ranyhyn were giving their utmost. But the smooth flow of Hyn’s muscles under her legs assured her that the mare had strength and stamina in reserve. At need, the horses could do more.

Stave looked fluid and relaxed, more like an expression of Hynyn’s swiftness than a burden. In contrast, Jeremiah rode characteristically slack, slumped, as unmoved as a sack of grain by Khelen’s fleet pace. Linden had not seen him blink since his rescue. Yet his eyes were unharmed, preserved by some implication of the Earthpower that he had received from Anele.

For a portion of the morning, the Ranyhyn headed somewhat east of south across the beaten plain. Before noon, however, Stave pointed out the promontory of the Colossus in the distant west. Over the drumming of hooves, he informed Linden that beyond the promontory Landsdrop curved southward. There the River Landrider fell in a heavy cascade to become the Ruinwash.

Thinking,—
written in water
, Linden wondered whether the Ranyhyn intended to intercept the Ruinwash. But according to Stave, the Ruinwash skirted the Spoiled Plains as well as the Shattered Hills to reach the sea many leagues beyond Foul’s Creche. Although the horses turned south when they had passed the promontory, their goal apparently lay somewhere between the Ruinwash and the Shattered Hills.

As heat mounted from the flat, the sky began to resemble a lid closing over the Lower Land: as grey as a sheet of molded lead, and impossible to lift. How much longer could the Ranyhyn gallop like this? They were mortal. Surely they had limits? To Linden’s nerves, Hyn’s endurance seemed as certain as the sun. Yet there was froth on the mare’s nostrils. Sweat darkened her dappled sides, soaking slowly into Linden’s jeans; chafing Linden’s legs. At intervals, she thought that she heard an irregular catch and falter in Hyn’s respiration.

If the Ranyhyn still had far to go, they would need help. Their destination might be a dozen leagues distant, or a score. Blinking rapidly, Linden tightened her grip on the Staff; readied herself to summon black fire.

But then, on a horizon fraught with haze, she saw the end of the flat. In the east, the terrain tilted toward lower ground. Toward the west, brief hills like afterthoughts interrupted the plain. They wore a scurf of scrannel grass like a beggar’s mantle, threadbare and tattered.

If they had grass, they had water—

Responding to Hynyn’s authority, Hyn and Khelen followed the roan stallion toward the hills.

Soon they were passing between rises that were little more than hillocks; low mounds of dirt partially clad in patches of grass. As the horses ran deeper into the region, the grass grew more thickly.

Then Hynyn slowed to a canter; to a walk. Ahead of him, Linden saw an erosion gully. She smelled water.

At once, she dropped down from Hyn’s back so that she would not impede Hyn’s approach to the stream. And she was in a hurry to drink herself; to clear dust and death from her throat. A moment later, Stave also dismounted. Jeremiah he pulled gently but unceremoniously to the ground. Bringing the boy with him, he followed Linden and the Ranyhyn toward the watercourse.

It was, he told her, the same stream in which the company had bathed earlier, pursuing its union with the Ruinwash. But when Linden asked him if he had any idea where the horses were going, he only shrugged. Foul’s Creche lay to the east. The Ranyhyn were headed south. More than that he did not know.

The horses drank deeply. They cropped a little grass along the verges of the gully while Linden and Stave quenched their thirst. For a few moments, Linden scooped water into Jeremiah’s mouth. With her hands and her health-sense, she assured herself that he was physically well. Then Stave lifted her onto Hyn; seated Jeremiah on Khelen; mounted Hynyn.

Within a few strides, the Ranyhyn were running again.

Soon they left the mounded hillocks behind, still racing south. For a time, they crossed damaged plains. After that, however, they came upon a wide field of broken obsidian, basalt, and flint, the muricated remains of a slagland. Shards as cutting as blades gouged out of the soil at every angle: another consequence of ancient violence.

Linden thought that the Ranyhyn would have to find a way around. Otherwise splintered edges would tear the frogs of their hooves to shreds. But she had underestimated the great horses. As nimble as mountain-goats, they plunged among the rocks; swept and wheeled forward as though they were engaged in an elaborate and courtly gavotte. Somehow they found safe footing that Linden could not see, and passed unharmed.

Beyond the shards, they encountered a rugose region like a delta or malpaís where igneous creeks and rills had branched, burning, through once-arable earth. Some fierce theurgy during a distant era had caused the stone of the area to melt and stream like spilth. There the Ranyhyn ran again, apparently heedless of occasional surfaces as slick as ice, twisted clumps of dirt that masked rubble, friable ground concealing sinkholes like deadfalls.

The heat across the landscape felt more like summer than spring. The sun seemed to lean its leaden aspect close to the Lower Land. It barely cast shadows, but its pressure made the mounts drip sweat as they ran, splashing the complex ground. Linden’s shirt clung to her back: her legs rubbed like sores against Hyn’s damp flanks. Trickles ran down Jeremiah’s cheeks into the soilure of his pajamas, his stained rearing horses.

Early in the afternoon, the riders left the delta behind; galloped onto a slowly rolling plain like a trammeled moor. Guided by instincts more precise than Linden’s percipience, the Ranyhyn came to a thicket of
aliantha
clustered around a small spring oozing like blood from the wounded ground. There they paused while Stave dismounted to gather treasure-berries. Linden made a bowl of her shirttail to hold the fruit. With both hands full, Stave leapt onto Khelen’s back behind Jeremiah. As the horses cantered away, Stave placed berries one at a time into the boy’s mouth. Jeremiah did not chew them, or spit out the seeds; but he swallowed everything.

When Stave was done, he sprang from Khelen’s back to Hynyn’s; and the Ranyhyn resumed their urgent gallop, racing south.

Linden ate more slowly, savoring the refreshment of
aliantha
; casting aside the seeds. The haste of the Ranyhyn infected her. With every increment of the day’s passage, she became more certain that she and her companions would need all of their strength. She had no idea what lay ahead of them. They had to be ready.

Finally she leaned as close as she could to Hyn’s ears and murmured, “I want to help, but I don’t know how to ask your permission. If I’m wrong, I hope that you’ll forgive me.”

Hesitant at first, then with more confidence, Linden began to draw Earthpower from the Staff. Concentrated flames uncoiled like dire tendrils, like the Ardent’s ribbands, and reached out to wrap sustenance around Hyn, Hynyn, and Khelen.

Hynyn blared a neigh; tossed his head. Khelen pranced for two or three strides, as if he were showing off. Hyn’s whickering sounded like affection. In a moment, they increased their pace, thrusting the ground behind them until they almost seemed to fly.

Apparently the horses of Ra approved.

B
y mid-afternoon, the terrain tilted gently downward to both the south and the east. For a time, the running was easier. But then the dirt became sandstone and shale again, a punitive surface made hazardous by outcroppings and loose sheets of rock. Fighting the blur of speed in her eyes, Linden forced her gaze ahead. In the distance, she saw the land begin to rise. By stages and shelves, layers of erosion, the ground climbed to a ragged horizon like a wall of broken teeth. The ascent was neither high nor steep, but it sufficed to block everything beyond it.

Peering upward, she had the impression that she was approaching the rim of the world.

The Ranyhyn raced down the last decline, crossed a flat span like an alluvial plain left behind by some long-forgotten flood, then thundered urgently upward. As they neared the crest, Linden realized that the teeth of the horizon were not boulders. They were flawed sheets of sandstone like mammoth scapulae that jutted, cracked and fraying, from the underlying skeleton of the rise.

At last, Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen eased their pace. In spite of their weariness, they conveyed the impression that they slowed, not because they were tired, but rather because they were close to their goal. Cantering, then trotting, finally walking, they ascended as if the lip of the climb were the edge of a precipice; as if the sandstone plates were the final barrier between them and an absolute fall. Yet they did not seem apprehensive. Instead their steps were almost stately, and the spirit shining through their sweat and fatigue suggested pride or awe, as if they were nearing a source of wonder, a place potent to transform realities.

“Stave—?” Linden asked hoarsely. “What—?”

Surely he knew where they were? Surely his people had seen what lay beyond the broken teeth?

The
Haruchai
did not answer. Nothing in his manner implied recognition—or comprehension.

The upthrust sheets were taller than Stave on Hynyn’s back; taller than any Giant. They reached for the sealed sky as if they had once stood high enough to hold back the heavens; as if eons ago they had formed an impenetrable barrier. Now the Ranyhyn stepped between them, unhindered, and paused.

The riders had reached the ridge of a round hollow like a crater or caldera, although Linden could not imagine what manner of volcanism might have created such a formation. All around the rim rose eroded sheets like weary sentinels, a ragged troop of guards too tired to stand at attention. The caldera itself was so wide that one of the Swordmainnir might not have been able to throw a stone across it. Yet the enclosed hollow or crater was not deep. Indeed, it resembled a basin rather than a pit, with shallow sides and a flat bottom.

This, apparently, was the reason that the Ranyhyn had spent the day running hard enough to burst the hearts of ordinary horses. So baffled that she had no words, Linden stared downward like a woman who had come to the end of her wits.

The bottom of the caldera was filled with piled bones.

They were old—God, they were
old
! Thousands of them, tens of thousands, lay there as though they had been simply tossed aside; as though the crater were a midden in which every other form of refuse had fallen to dust. Or perhaps Lord Foul’s armies had never bothered to burn or bury their dead. Seasons of sun and weather beyond counting had scalded the bones to an utter whiteness. Under a brighter sky, they would have been dazzling.

Trying to understand, Linden studied them. Her first thought was that they were human; but they were not. She had never seen their like before. Some had curves or condyles that seemed unnatural. Some were far too long or broad to belong to Giants. Some looked like the ribs of animals much larger than Ranyhyn. Among them, there were too many crooks and bends, too many bones that resembled flames, too many wide sheets that might have been the shoulder-blades of hills or the sides of cromlechs.