The Last Dark (35 page)

Jeremiah was breathing too hard to think clearly. Mom wanted him to talk. Grueburn wanted him to talk. They wanted to probe horrible memories, expose parts of him that bore the marks of the
croyel
and the Despiser. Of course he refused. But now he knew that there were worse things than failure.

He had in fact concealed something that might have affected Linden’s choices. She did not understand the dark core of Anele’s legacy.

The former Master had promised to watch over him. To keep him safe.

“Stave—” he began thickly. “They don’t know. I’m so afraid—”

But he could not continue. The words stuck in his throat.

What purpose, then, is served—? His mother was already gone.

While Stave waited impassively, Jeremiah wrestled his demons into their familiar shapes.

“I’m afraid this is all wasted.” He gestured awkwardly around him. “There’s a piece I need, and I can’t find it. Without it, nothing else counts.”

Stave lifted an eyebrow. “What is it that you require, Chosen-son?”

Jeremiah swallowed a groan. “A lump of malachite. About this big.” He put his fists together. “And it pretty much has to be pure. But all I’ve got are traces. That whole ridge probably doesn’t have any pure malachite big enough to save the
Elohim
.”

Stave scanned the slope as though it did not interest him. “Perchance it does not,” he remarked. “We cannot be certain until we have searched with greater care. Also it may be that the surface of the rockfall conceals its depths. I will accompany you until you are confident of your perceptions. If no hope is found, then mayhap we would do well to delve within the rubble.

“I see no cause for concern”—he may have meant despair—“until we have done our utmost. And even then, the lore of our companions may devise possibilities which elude us.”

Jeremiah stifled a protest. He wanted to say, That isn’t going to work. All of us together can’t move this many rocks fast enough. But Stave’s uninflected calm seemed to refuse objections.

How could he be right? He did not share Jeremiah’s fears.

He was
Haruchai
. He had sacrificed his place among his people to stand with Linden. How could he be wrong?

After a moment, Jeremiah nodded reluctantly. “Sure. Why not? What else are we going to do?”

Bracing himself on the former Master’s dispassion, he filled his hands with fire. Earthpower might serve to sharpen his health-sense. And if it did not, it might comfort him anyway.

Together Jeremiah Chosen-son and Stave of the
Haruchai
began the tedious task of scrutinizing the rockfall from every angle.

or Jeremiah, time crept by in an ocean surge of frustration, inexorable as a tide, rising and falling from one moment to the next, but always climbing higher. An accumulating sense of futility lured his attention into darker places. His flames changed nothing, and he let them go; immersed himself once more in the world’s darkness. Occasionally his heart rose at the glimpse of a deposit. When he saw that the amount of malachite was too small, his spirit sank again.

But Stave was always at his side, always calm—and steadier than Jeremiah’s pulse. Over and over again, Jeremiah swallowed his alarm and kept going for no better reason than because Stave was with him.

Stealthy as betrayal, dawn came closer; and still Jeremiah could not find what he sought. An hour before the moment when the sun should have risen, he and the
Haruchai
completed the first stage of their search. They had looked everywhere. They had looked at everything. Now nothing remained except the imponderable labor of digging into the rockfall.

High up on the slope, Jeremiah collapsed on a slab of granite with his elbows propped on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. He was tired now, worn out by defeat. Everything that felt like excitement or hope had drained out of him. No doubt Stave would go on searching. Jeremiah could not.

The
Haruchai
remained standing nearby, glancing here and there with apparent unconcern. He may have been waiting for Jeremiah to recover. After a few moments, however, he said, “Set aside discouragement, Chosen-son. Hope remains.”

The flatness of his tone made him sound reproachful.

Jeremiah jerked up his head. As aggrieved as a child, he burst out, “It does not! We’ve looked everywhere! And I don’t care what you say about taking this rubble apart. Sure, we can look deeper that way. But we only have eight Giants—and
they
don’t have any food. They’ll have to shove rocks out of the way for
days
while they starve. The world is going to end, and it’ll break Mom’s heart, and we’ll still be here just digging!”

“Softly, Chosen-son,” Stave replied as if he were commenting on the condition of Jeremiah’s pajamas. “The time has not come to rouse the Swordmainnir. Doubtless they would answer your urging, but we have no cause to summon them. In one respect, you are mistaken. We have not extended our search to its boundaries.”

Jeremiah stared. He wanted to shout something vicious, but Stave’s manner stopped him. Briefly his mouth and throat worked without producing a sound. Then he asked hoarsely, “What’re you talking about?”

“Chosen-son,” Stave stated without hesitation, “you have not turned your gaze upward.”

Still Jeremiah stared. What, upward? At the stars?

“Consider the ridge,” explained his companion. “Consider the wound which the Chosen has made. Your discernment exceeds my senses, but to my sight it appears that there is a source of malachite above us.”

Jeremiah sprang to his feet as if he had been stung, flung his gaze at the source of the rockfall.

At first, he found nothing except blunt granite, blind basalt. Apparently every bit of green had already fallen.

But Stave was looking higher, studying the hollow near its ragged upper rim.

A tall slab stood there, a monolith heavy enough to resist Linden’s detonation. To a quick glance, the stone resembled granite or schist. But when Jeremiah looked harder, he saw that the slab was actually a flawed mix of igneous rock and more porous sandstone supported by rigid shafts of flint.

And enclosed within the monolith were signs—

“Really?” he breathed. “Are you sure?”

Was that his capstone? Exactly what his temple needed?

If so, it was inaccessible. Completely out of reach. Perhaps Linden could have used her Staff, caused the slab to topple somehow. Her son could not.

With enough rope—

The Giants had no rope.

Scowling, Jeremiah clenched his fists until his fingers ached. “I can’t tell. It’s too far away.” Then he beat his knuckles against his thighs so that his frustration would not erupt into the night. The monolith appeared to lean as if it were taunting him; daring him to believe that it would topple. “But even if it’s enough, it’s useless. We can’t get at it.”

“Chosen-son.” Now Stave’s tone was unmistakably a reprimand. He regarded Jeremiah as if the tugging of the fractured gale did not touch him. “You judge in haste. Therefore you judge falsely. Have you come so far in Linden Avery’s care and failed to learn that despair gives poor counsel? If the needed stone lies beyond your grasp, withdraw. Retreat to the foot of the rockfall. Acknowledge this truth, that you are not alone.”

Jeremiah opened his mouth; closed it. A mordant voice inside him snarled, What’re you going to do? Fly up there? I dare you. But that reaction arose from memories which he strained to suppress. He would have pulled down the ridge gladly to bury them. And Stave was impervious to Jeremiah’s galled incredulity. Withdraw. Fighting himself, Jeremiah moved backward under the pressure of Stave’s severe gaze. Retreat.

Mom! Where are you? I don’t know what’s going on.

Retreat from
what
?

Awkward as a youth who had never been sure of anything, Jeremiah went down the rubble as quickly as he could manage.

When he reached bare dirt, he peered upward. Just for a moment, he could not locate Stave. But then a suggestion of movement snagged his attention. Squinting, he spotted a hard shape like a piece of condensed midnight untouched by starlight. Stave had already climbed beyond the top of the rockfall. Now he hung splayed against the ridgefront, searching with his fingers and toes for holds which would enable him to lift himself toward the immense hollow cut by Linden and Earthpower.

He must have been creeping: he hardly seemed to move at all. Jeremiah could not imagine how he found cracks and rims still solid enough to support him. Yet Stave did move. Sudden jerks conveyed the impression that a grip had failed, or a toehold. He appeared to swing from side to side, hanging by one hand; perhaps by one finger. Uncertain as hallucinations, bits of debris dropped away. But he did not fall.

He was
Haruchai
, born to the crags and precipices and flensing winds of the Westron Mountains.

If he gained the gouge, he would be able to climb more easily, at least for a while. Its lower surface was not vertical. He would be halfway to the monolith.

The monolith itself was three times his height, many times heavier. It could have served as a monument for a Giant. He would not be able to dislodge it by simply throwing rocks at it. His only choice would be to work his way higher.

But toward the back of the hollow, the ascent would become steeper. Then the harmed stone above him would tilt outward. There the slab he strove to reach stood on a crude protrusion like a snout. That formation multiplied the hazards. He would have to climb beneath it, hanging precariously in the air—

Jeremiah heard one of the Swordmainnir moving toward him, but he could not look away from the small flutter of darkness that represented Stave. Over and over again, he held his breath as if he believed that his own tension might protect the former Master. The whole night had come to this: the little increments, barely perceptible, of Stave’s efforts.

Wrapped in winds, Rime Coldspray towered out of the night to stand beside Jeremiah. The Ironhand had left her armor and sword behind, but she moved as if she still carried them—and had another Giant sitting on her shoulders. That she had slept was plain. But she needed more than rest. She needed sustenance. Above all, she needed relief. She and her comrades had known little except struggle and strife since they had first approached the Land.

Briefly she regarded Jeremiah. Then she lifted her gaze toward the ridge and Stave.

He had almost reached the hollow. Holds broke in his hands; but he cast those shards away and hunted for better grips. Occasionally Jeremiah heard the clatter as rocks hit the slope. At other times, gusts carried the sounds away, and Stave seemed to climb in a preternatural silence, fraught as a clenched breath.

“Stone and Sea,” murmured Coldspray. “If this is not madness incarnate, it serves some purpose which I do not discern.”

Jeremiah pointed. “He’s trying to reach that slab. It has malachite I need. But I don’t think he can even get there. He won’t be able to break it loose.”

“Ah.” The Ironhand released a sigh. “Now I comprehend. The malachite itself is vague to my sight. But consider the stone within which it is concealed.” She stared hard under her heavy brows. “If distance and darkness do not mislead me, the stone stands somewhat apart. A cleft or flaw has detached it from the ridge.

“Stave Rockbrother will endeavor to dislodge it.”

Jeremiah did not believe that Stave could do it.

As if to herself, Coldspray added, “When it falls, he will also. Then he must perish. Though he is
Haruchai
, his flesh is not iron. His bones are not. They will not withstand an impact from that height.”

While pressure mounted in Jeremiah’s chest, Stave’s unyielding shape crossed into the gouge. There he rose to his feet and paused, secure against the battering of the wind. For a few moments, he appeared to study the challenge ahead of him. Then Jeremiah saw the former Master wave one arm: a gesture of reassurance so unconvincing that it made Jeremiah wince.

This was impossible. It was all impossible. What Stave had done was already insane—and there was worse ahead of him. When it falls, he will also. Jeremiah had not thought that far ahead.