The Last Dark (15 page)

Again he seemed to become argent delirancy. Power burned in his veins, flamed from his flesh, sprang toward the dying stars. In spite of his mortality, he felt that he had the resources of gods. The sensation was terrible and delicious, an exaltation of wild magic; capable of anything. But it was also brief. It forsook him as soon as he separated his hands.

Still the effects of that moment clung to him, vivid as vision or prophecy. He hardly felt Clyme scoop him from the ground. He was scarcely aware that Clyme bent low, holding him within easy reach of the turf.

As if of its own volition, the dagger’s blade sank until it pierced grass and cut soil, pulling Covenant’s clasp with it. Then Clyme began to move so that the
krill
sliced the earth with shining silver.

Secured against vertigo by Clyme’s unyielding arms, Covenant watched as the flow of power which sustained his line in the grass emanated from Joan’s ring aching on his finger. Indirectly, therefore, it came from the secret recesses of his heart. That was why he had been left so depleted—and so hungry. With wild magic, he expended his own spirit.

He wanted Clyme to hurry.

Clyme did not appear to make haste. Nevertheless he had already completed a perfect semicircle. From behind the horses, Covenant could see the spot where he had started. He would reach it in a score of heartbeats.

Perhaps because Clyme moved with such alacrity in spite of his crouched, crab-wise steps, or perhaps because his circle was so exact, Covenant’s power shone more brightly, promising translation across a greater distance. With the help of the Humbled, he might have been able to travel the Lower Land from border to border in mere hours.

The thought of such imponderable speed made him dizzy again. If he could stop
turiya
—and if he could do at least
some
thing to help Horrim Carabal survive the Worm’s arrival in the Land—he might actually have time to rejoin Linden. Wherever her own exigencies had taken her, he might be able to find her.

If.

Then the enclosure was done. It shone like the
krill
, defining itself against the gloom. At once, Clyme surged upright. Sprinting, he carried Covenant toward their mounts. Before Covenant could regain his balance, he sat in Mishio Massima’s saddle. Branl steadied him while Clyme mounted Hooryl.

As if he were pitching himself over a precipice, Covenant brought the ring and the gem together above his head.

He became an instant of wild magic; and reality vanished as the horses sprang into a gallop.

He could not perceive time. He had no opportunity to draw a breath. His heart did not beat, or he did not feel it measure out his life. The disappearance of the world was as sudden as a blink, complete as soon as it began. Yet time must have passed. When the world reappeared, the horses were running hard, pounding along uneven slopes at the full extent of Mishio Massima’s strength. And the half-light, the gloaming—

The dusk had deepened. The horses galloped in the core of the
krill
’s illumination; but beyond it, the darkness looked solid as a wall. Covenant and the Humbled had ridden into a realm of shadows, or night had fallen.

While he reeled, he tried to ask, Now where are we? But his throat was too tight to release words.

After a moment, however, the horses began to slow; and Branl urged him to cover the
krill
. “When you are no longer blinded by its light, you will perceive that the Sarangrave is nigh. It lies a stone’s throw to the west.”

“Here
turiya
Herem’s spoor is strong,” added Clyme. His tone was sharper than Branl’s, whetted by anger or anticipation. “Nonetheless it appears that we are belated. The scent enters the wetlands ahead of us. Indeed—” The Master paused as if he were tasting the air. Then he stated, “We discern struggle, a contest of powers. Frenzy lashes the waters at some distance. We deem that a battle has begun.”

Begun—? Alarm ran like acid along Covenant’s nerves. In an instant, he forgot dizziness, fatigue, depletion. “Hellfire,” he rasped. “This is my fault. I took too long.” Recovering. Thinking. “Now I’m going to have to do this the hard way.”

Instead of veiling Loric’s dagger, he held it over his head. A beacon—

Spectral against the coming night, tangled brush and gnarled trees became visible off to Covenant’s left: limbs and twigs that resembled bleached bones in the silver light; clumps of reeds like thickets of spears; dark floating pads with nacreous flowers; noxious scum; troubled waters so black that they refused lumination. The tenebrous air was thick with stagnation and rot, the putrid remains of corpses. The fetor made knots in Covenant’s guts. Instinctively he wanted to shy away.

Nevertheless the Ranyhyn and Mishio Massima cantered toward the area where
turiya
Herem had entered Sarangrave Flat as if that were Covenant’s truest desire.

Hell and
blood
. He was not ready for this. Not after everything that he had already endured.

Even his blunt nerves sensed the inherited dread that gathered in Rallyn and Hooryl.

“Ur-Lord.” Branl held out his hand, asking for the
krill
as though he believed that he and Clyme could fight for the lurker in Covenant’s stead.

But Covenant kept his only blade, his only light. He had no intention of risking his companions in the vile marshes of Horrim Carabal’s demesne.

Far away through the scrub and trees, the scrannel brush and marshgrass, he caught flickers of a diseased silver that reminded him of his one confrontation with the lurker many centuries ago. Instinctively he believed that the monster was exerting its malevolent theurgies against the Raver. If Horrim Carabal had welcomed
turiya
’s possession, there would be no battle.

“Ur-Lord?” Branl asked again.

Bloody damnation! Covenant had to act. He was already late. He chose to believe that the lurker was fighting hard; but as the Raver mastered more and more of Horrim Carabal’s imponderable bulk, the monster’s resistance would weaken. Soon the lurker might begin to submit.

While the horses closed the distance, Covenant raised his voice. “We need the Feroce! I won’t ride in that marsh. Some of those waters can strip flesh off bones.” This decision, at least, his companions would approve. “And I don’t know how else to communicate with the lurker!”

“We are come too late,” countered Branl. “Already the Raver lays claim—”

“But he hasn’t won yet,” Covenant retorted. “Horrim Carabal is
huge
.
Turiya
can’t overrun the whole lurker at once. Parts of that monster must be fighting back.

“I need to talk to it while it can still resist!”

If Lord Foul’s servant triumphed, Horrim Carabal would be a horrific foe.

Clyme’s passion grew stronger, feeding on a private repudiation. “We know not how to summon the lurker’s acolytes.”

“Then they’ll just have to summon themselves,” Covenant snapped. If they could discern his beacon. If their fear of white gold and Loric’s
krill
alerted them to his presence. “If they don’t, what good is an alliance?”

The wetland was close: too close for Rallyn and Hooryl. Their fright showed in their flaring eyes; in the tremors which marred their strides.

“Stop!” Covenant shouted to the horses. “I want to stop here!” Then he swung one leg over Mishio Massima’s back; stood in the stirrup and braced himself to drop to the ground.

Hooryl and Rallyn complied. With the Ardent’s mount between them, they slowed in sharp jerks, almost locking their knees. Within half a dozen strides, they halted, quivering as if they were feverish.

At once, Covenant let go and hit the grass, running toward the border of the Sarangrave, and waving the
krill
: a signal to any being or creature capable of noticing him.

Clyme and Branl accompanied Covenant as if they had expected his unpremeditated rush. In the sweeping wash of argent, they looked as ghostly as the wide wetland; as vulnerable to banishment as the Dead. Still they were
Haruchai
, as solid as their promises. Covenant did not doubt them.

But now he feared them. Their
ak-Haru
had judged them severely—and they bore an old grudge against Ravers. He shuddered to imagine how they would react when they learned that he meant to leave them behind.

“I’m here!” he yelled as he hit soggy ground, stopped at the water’s edge. “We made an alliance! I want to keep it, but I can’t if you
don’t hear me
!”

He needed to know how far into the marsh
turiya
’s possession had spread. And he needed to get there; to the point of conflict, the heart of the struggle. Nothing that he tried would work if he did not first get ahead of the Raver.

He wanted the power to
forbid
Lord Foul’s servant, the ancient puissance of the Colossus; but that knowledge was lost.

Thrashed by distant fighting, the water at Covenant’s feet heaved against its scum and muck. Gouts of tiny plant life rose into the air like miniature geysers, then slumped back into the slime. He thought that he heard screaming, inarticulate fury like far-off thunder; but he could not be sure through the slosh and slap of the disturbed wetland. He strained his eyes for hints of the Feroce, but the
krill
’s radiance blinded him to everything beyond its reach. Again he yelled for attention—and still there was no sign that he had been heard.

“God
damn
it! What good is an alliance if you won’t help me at least
try
to honor it?”

Nothing.

“Ur-Lord,” Clyme offered, “we will bear you. We discern the conflict, though it is distant. We will convey you to a place where you may strike with some hope of effect.”

“
How
distant?” snarled Covenant. “Is it leagues? Can you imagine what will happen to you if you try to carry me through
leagues
of this stuff?” He slapped a gesture at the marsh: bogs and quagmires; quicksand; depths and shallows; poisoned pools as harsh as vitriol. “And
turiya
is going to keep moving. What if he takes possession faster than you can travel? Our lives will be wasted.”

Facing the Sarangrave again, he howled, “
I need the Feroce!
”

He had time to panic—and time as well to admit that behind his alarm lay a secret relief at the possibility that he might be spared.

Then Clyme nodded once. “Ur-Lord, you are answered.”

Hell and blood—“Where? I don’t see anything.”

Covenant expected flickers of green like hints of the Illearth Stone, an approach of power the hue of sick and rotting chrysoprase. But though he searched until his temples ached, he found nothing except
krill
-light and darkness.

“On other occasions,” Branl answered, “we beheld the Feroce bearing fires in their palms. Yet when the Masters observed them in centuries past, they moved within the Sarangrave without flames—indeed, without any evident magicks. We surmise that they require theurgy only when they are parted from the wetland.

“Nevertheless we discern them. Two now approach.”

Two? Covenant stared and saw nothing. Only two?

Would two be enough?

At the limit of the light, he spotted a blur of movement. The creatures were stealthy, creeping behind clumps of scrub, stealing through pestilential grasses and mirkweed, crouching among trees that writhed as if they were in torment. He recalled the timidity of the lurker’s acolytes during his earlier encounter with them. They had called him
the Pure One, wielder of metal and agony
, and they had feared him. Without their High God’s command, they would not have dared to enter his presence.

But he had no time for their craven courage. “I’m
waiting
, dammit!” he shouted. “I made a promise, and I intend to keep it! Your High God
needs
me!”

Fronds rustled some distance away. Passing bodies contradicted the sluggish distress of the waters. At unexpected moments, the large round eyes of the Feroce caught reflections of silver. They were hardly tall enough to reach Covenant’s chest. And they were desperately afraid. Naked and hairless, clad only in the commandments that ruled their fright, they slipped between patches of cover or ducked under pads and rushes as if they believed that Covenant could extinguish them with a glance.

But at last they emerged. At the boundary of the marsh, they risked the
krill
’s radiance.

Flinching, the Feroce brought forth guttering emerald from the palms of their hands. Then they crept onto the mud that marked the border of the Sarangrave. There they stood before Covenant, cowering in supplication.

“Be merciful!” they whimpered as if they shared one voice; one mind. “You are the Pure One. You wield abhorrent metal and deliver agony. Such agony! Yet you accepted our High God’s alliance. The Feroce surrendered many and many lives to complete his offered service. Take pity upon us now. Become the Pure One who redeems, as you have done before.

“Our High God cannot withstand the horror that assails him.”

Their tone was piteous, but Covenant felt too much pressure to respond gently. “I’m not the Pure One,” he retorted. “I’ve never been the Pure One. But I try to keep my promises.”

In truth, he had not committed himself to fight for the lurker. Deliberately he had withheld that reassurance. As far as he was concerned, however, Horrim Carabal had exceeded the terms of their agreement. And he believed that the lurker had a role to play in the Land’s defense, although he could not name it.

“Right now,” he continued without pausing, “I can’t. I’m too far away. I’ll fight for your High God, but first he has to help me. He has to take me where I’m needed.”

“Not?” quavered the Feroce as if they had heard only his denial. “You are not the Pure One? We do not comprehend.” Their protest sounded like the soughing of bogs, the suck of quicksand deprived of victims. “You wield vicious metal. You bring excruciation. You have delivered such agony to our High God that he quails to hear you. You are required to be the Pure One. There is no other.”

“Stop!” Covenant demanded harshly. “Call me whatever you want. We don’t have time for this.