The Last Dark (36 page)

Then he must perish.

Abruptly Jeremiah wheeled on Rime Coldspray, clutched at her arm. “Do something,” he panted. “He’s
Stave
. Mom will never forgive me if he dies.” Because he was pleading with a Giant, the Ironhand of the Swordmainnir, he tried to tell the truth. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

Without turning her head, Coldspray answered, “This choice was not yours to make, young Jeremiah. It belonged to Stave Rockbrother. It remains his. He will suffer the cost because he chooses to do so.

“At present, his peril is diminished. Later it will become extreme. Should he fall within the hollow, we can do naught to aid him. We must trust his skill and agility to preserve him.

“The achievement of his purpose is another matter.”

Still watching Stave’s wary ascent, she called, “Ho, Swordmainnir! Bestir yourselves! You will wish to witness Stave Rockbrother’s valor. And he will have need of you!”

At first, there was no response.

“Frostheart Grueburn!” shouted the Ironhand. “Latebirth!” She sounded more relaxed than Jeremiah felt; far more confident. “Cabledarm! Onyx Stonemage! Hear me! Hear and come!”

After a moment, a bleary voice answered, “We hear you.” Grueburn. “The very stars hear you.”

If she said more, gusts carried the words away.

For a while, Stave moved more easily. But soon he reached the steeper recesses of the wound, where the stone had more cracks. He was forced to resume his earlier care, testing each handhold, each support for his feet, each small ledge and crack and bulge, before he committed his weight to it.

Yawning, Giants approached Jeremiah and Coldspray. He recognized them without glancing at them. Only Stormpast Galesend and Halewhole Bluntfist lagged behind—or they were still asleep.

While Stave crawled up the back of the hollow and began to creep toward the granite jut which supported the monolith, often hanging by his hands alone until he found places to anchor his feet, Coldspray explained his intentions to her comrades. Then she said, “He is Stave Rockbrother, able and stalwart as the
Haruchai
of old. He will not fail.”

“When he succeeds,” muttered Grueburn, “he will fall. He must.”

“And he will perish,” Stonemage added grimly.

“Therefore,” concluded the Ironhand, “we must intervene.”

Considering the problem, her comrades nodded.

Jeremiah wanted to ask, Intervene
how
? But Grueburn, Latebirth, Stonemage, and Cabledarm were already moving away. Apparently they did not need Coldspray’s instructions. As they started up the rockfall, they separated. Grueburn and Latebirth on one side, Cabledarm and Stonemage on the other, they labored toward the ridgefront.

At first, Jeremiah could not imagine what they had in mind. Then he understood. They aimed to bracket the slab’s likely path when it toppled. Clearly they meant to position themselves on either side of that path. If they could avoid being struck, they might have some chance of catching Stave.

If he did not fall first. If he managed to shift the monolith. If loosened rocks did not hit anybody. If just one of the Giants was quick enough to intercept his plunge. If his impact in her arms did not kill him as surely as the jagged rubble. If it did not break or kill her—

Jeremiah was holding his breath again. He thought that he saw Stave’s arms flailing. Dislodged debris spattered like rain into the hollow.

But Stave’s indistinct form still clung to the rock. One grip at a time, he eased upward.

Cirrus Kindwind left the Ironhand’s side, strode some distance up the rockfall. When she had climbed atop an especially tall boulder, she stopped to study the ridgefront. Then she raised her voice in a shout.

“Grueburn! Latebirth! Alter your heading!” She waved her arms, directing her comrades to the left. “You will be struck!”

The two women did not respond to Kindwind’s hail; but they must have heard her. They shifted their course.

Unfortunately now they were no longer clambering up the rockfall’s spine. Instead they were forced to straggle along the side of the slope. If Stave came down toward the crest of the rubble, they would not be able to reach him without sprinting upward—and they were fatally weary.

Still Stave made his way by undetectable increments. Only the erratic spatter of stones and the wind-torn fall of dirt showed that he was still moving. But he
was
moving. One hand or foot or finger or toe at a time, he worked his way closer to the bulbous rock supporting the slab.

Jeremiah hardly dared to estimate the distance. Involuntarily he imagined Stave’s fingers bleeding, his muscles trembling—

Rime Coldspray rested a gentle hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder. “Remember that he is
Haruchai
,” she murmured. “He has performed wonders ere now. Mayhap he will surpass our fears yet again.”

“But he’s in trouble either way.” If Stave failed to shift the slab, he would never be able to climb back down. “Can they”—Jeremiah meant Grueburn and Latebirth, Stonemage and Cabledarm—“actually catch him?”

“We are Giants.” The Ironhand’s reply was softer than the wind. “Often we have been tested. Often we have prevailed.”

For a time, Stave seemed to vanish. Hidden by the shape of the bulge, he had become indistinguishable from the stone.

In alarm, Jeremiah blurted, “Where is he? What’s happened?”

“Gaze more closely,” Coldspray advised. “You will perceive that he is safe for a time. One arm he has wedged into the cleft between the monolith and the cliff. While he remains thus secured, his peril is diminished. Now the uncertain balance of the stone is the gravest threat. Should it tilt suddenly, catching him unprepared—” She allowed herself a sigh. “In that event, opportunities to affect his fate will be slight. Far better for him if he must exert his full strength to shift the stone. Then his efforts will carry him outward, away from the precipice and ruin.”

As she spoke, Jeremiah caught an image of Stave dropping like more rubble. Spinning out of control. Hitting the ridgefront over and over again until he was mangled beyond recognition.

The former Master had made his own choices—but Jeremiah had inspired them. His whole body ached with a futile desire to keep Stave safe.

Still resting her hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder, Rime Coldspray continued, “For the moment, I am primarily concerned by the width and depth of the cleft.” She sounded deliberately casual. “At this distance, I cannot gauge it. If the stone does not stand free of the cliff, it is unlikely to fall. And if the cleft will admit no more than Stave’s arm, he will have scant leverage. Then the bulk of muscle which he will require might exceed even a Giant.

“No, we must hope that he will contrive to force his arms and chest—indeed, his body entire—into the cleft. For him as for us, that will be the most favorable circumstance.”

She may have been trying to soothe Jeremiah by focusing his attention on practical details.

To an extent, she succeeded. As if involuntarily, he found himself imagining Stave squeezed behind the slab; Stave straining to shift the monolith. While Stave did such things—if he did them—he would not fall.

Wind stung Jeremiah’s eyes. His pajamas fluttered around him in tatters. He ignored Stormpast Galesend and Halewhole Bluntfist as they drew near. Instead he watched Grueburn and Latebirth, Stonemage and Cabledarm. They had reached the places where they meant to wait for Stave. Now they stood motionless in the night. They were not immediately below the slab, but they were close enough to be struck by debris—or by the slab itself if it bounced crookedly against the ridgefront. Still Jeremiah thought that they were too far from the cliff—and too far from each other. He could not believe that they had a prayer of saving Stave.

The three Swordmainnir with Jeremiah studied the monolith and its pediment. From her boulder, Cirrus Kindwind did the same. Winds flailed like indignation in all directions, outraged by affronts too distant to be answered.

Without warning, Kindwind shouted, “Ware, Frostheart Grueburn! The stone shifts toward you!”

It might move in that direction if Stave could use only one arm. Or perhaps the rim of the bulge above Grueburn’s position was simply weaker.

Faintly through the tumult in his heart, Jeremiah heard Grueburn reply, “I have seen it.”

She did not step back. Nor did Latebirth.

Onyx Stonemage and Cabledarm readied themselves to spring forward.

Under her breath, Coldspray murmured, “Be swift, comrades. You must be watchful and wary, but above all you must be swift. We can ill endure any loss of life.”

“Or indeed any injury,” muttered Galesend, “worn and weakened as we are.”

Jeremiah beat bruises onto his thighs and strove to see.

There
. He had lost sight of Stave. The
Haruchai
had thrust his way into the cleft; or the shape of the jut masked his presence. But the monolith had moved: Jeremiah was sure of it.

It did not move again.

Then it did.

At first, it appeared to lean back toward the cliff as though it sought to crush the force which had disturbed it. For moments as long as heartbeats, as urgent as cries, it hung in place, scattering scree from its base.

With the suddenness of a calving glacier, the slab slid away.

Silent as a cast-off leaf, it appeared to drift through the darkness until one end collided with the ridgefront. Instantly it broke apart, became half a dozen pieces. They rebounded from the impact, falling like a barrage toward the waiting Swordmainnir.

Grueburn, Latebirth, Cabledarm, and Stonemage were all in danger; but the threat to Grueburn and Latebirth was greater.

“He is yours, Cabledarm!” Grueburn yelled. Jeremiah saw her and then Latebirth leaping down the jagged slope of the rockfall.

Granite thunder boomed. Heavy shards pounded the rubble where the two women had been standing.

At the same time, Cabledarm dodged a fragment which would have slain her. She surged upward. Unscathed, Onyx Stonemage braced herself; remained where she was.

Above them, Stave also struck the cliff. But he twisted as he dropped so that he hit with his feet. Somehow he planted himself long enough to flex his legs and spring away. His great strength transformed his plummet into an outward leap.

Arms spread like wings, he cast himself soaring into the mad roil of the winds.

Cabledarm was there when he came down.

In spite of his splayed posture, he was falling too hard, plunging like a chunk of the slab. Even a Giant could not hope to catch him safely. His weight and momentum would shatter bones, Cabledarm’s as well as his.

But she did not try to catch him. She had other intentions. During the quick instants of his descent, she crouched low. Then she sprang to meet him, arching away as she did so; already pitching herself backward.

Her huge hands found his hips. Her arms bent to absorb the collision. Then she gave him a prodigious heave.

His force and hers flung her, helpless, down the side of the slope. She tumbled like a piece of the ridge.

But she had redirected his fall. He was soaring again.

Toward Onyx Stonemage—

—who caught him in both arms.

Like Cabledarm, she did not try to hold him. Instead she swung him in an arc and released him so that she seemed to throw him in the direction of open ground beyond the rockfall.

He landed on his feet; dove and rolled to dissipate the last of his momentum. Then he rose to stand upright in the thick dusk.

Jeremiah began running before the
Haruchai
came to a halt.

The monolith was broken. Its burden of malachite may have been shattered, made useless. Everything may have been wasted. Even Linden’s ride into the chaos of a
caesure
—

But Jeremiah was not racing to locate the outcome of his only hope. He was running as if his heart might burst to find out if Stave and Cabledarm were all right.

In the east, a dull dawn announced the third sunless day.

An Impoverished Temple

The company gathered around Stave and Cabledarm. Jeremiah fought down an impulse to babble. I can’t believe it! That was amazing! Are you all right? But he could hardly speak in any case. He was panting as though he had run an inconceivable distance, and had witnessed wonders.

Stave’s arms and feet were latticed with scratches. His palms and fingers, his toes, the soles of his feet: all oozed blood. But those injuries were trivial. The effects of his impact with Cabledarm’s hands were another matter. His whole body had struck and recoiled like a cracked whip. Now every joint looked torn; every muscle. His internal organs appeared to throb as if they had been beaten with clubs. Blood gathered at the corners of his mouth: he had bitten into his tongue. In spite of his
Haruchai
stoicism, he was trembling.

He stood, but he seemed unable to speak. Like a man who had been blinded, he stared at nothing. If he felt the presence of his companions, he did not react to it.

Rime Coldspray studied him for a grim moment. Then she sent Cirrus Kindwind to retrieve a waterskin. She had nothing else to offer him.

Cabledarm’s wounds were more obvious. They looked worse. Pitching Stave to Stonemage, she had flung herself down the raw edges and fanged splinters of the rubble. Like Stave, she had regained her feet beyond the slope. Unlike him, she stood hunched in pain, hugging her left arm against her chest. Giantish obscenities bubbled like froth past her lips. She was bleeding from half a dozen gashes, at least two of them deep enough to expose bone. Contusions covered her from shoulder to ankle. But her worst injury was to her left shoulder.

The force of Stave’s plummet had ripped her arm out of his socket. It was dislocated so badly that Jeremiah could hardly bear to look at it.

“Only you, Cabledarm,” the Ironhand muttered through her teeth. “Only you could emerge so harmed from such a rescue.”

“It is my gift,” Cabledarm rasped. Then she groaned a curse. “Stone and Sea! Am I not a Giant? And have I not vaunted myself the mightiest of the Swordmainnir? How am I thus humbled by mere falling?”

“We need Mom,” Jeremiah breathed miserably. “We can’t help her. And Stave looks like he’s going to pass out.”

But the Giants did not respond. Cabledarm’s dislocation, at least, was hurt which they knew how to address. At a nod from Coldspray, Halewhole Bluntfist moved to stand behind Cabledarm. With one arm on Cabledarm’s left shoulder near her neck, and the other across her chest under her right arm, Bluntfist grasped Cabledarm tightly enough to wring a moan from her comrade. Without a moment’s consideration, Coldspray gripped Cabledarm’s damaged limb and heaved; twisted.

The sound as the arm slipped back into place hit Jeremiah like a jab to the stomach.

Cabledarm roared. Briefly she wobbled as if she were losing consciousness. But Bluntfist held her until her faintness passed, and she began to curse again.

Grimacing, Cabledarm moved the fingers of her left hand, managed a fist. When she was done swearing, she muttered, “It is much and naught, Ironhand. It will hamper me, but it will mend. Only stanch some few of my rents, and I will name myself blessed. Stave Rockbrother lives”—she glanced quickly around—“does he not?” Seeing the answer in the eyes of her comrades, she finished, “Then will I name myself blessed in all sooth.”

“For the present, however,” the Ironhand commanded, “you will conserve yourself, Cabledarm. Cirrus Kindwind brings water. While you drink and rest, we will contrive bindings for your wounds. You have earned the tales which we will tell of you. Now we will contrive to earn those which you will tell.”

“Aye,” Cabledarm assented: another groan. With Bluntfist’s help, she lowered herself to the dirt. There she extended one gashed leg so that Bluntfist could try to stop the bleeding.

Jeremiah saw her injuries too clearly: the rich pulse of her blood and pain made him feel sick. About some things he knew too much. About this he knew too little. He could too easily believe that Cabledarm would bleed to death. That Stave was dying inside.

Fortunately Kindwind soon returned with several waterskins. Two she tossed to Bluntfist. A third she took directly to Stave.

Fleeing the sight of Cabledarm’s torn flesh, Jeremiah joined Kindwind.

Stave did not react to their presence. He remained standing; continued to stare at nothing as though his whole world had become the abyss of the Lost Deep. Tremors ran through him like waves of fever. His hands shook. Even his lips quivered.

Jeremiah did not know what to say or do. Stave had promised to protect him. This was the result.

Frowning, Cirrus Kindwind rested her hand on Stave’s shoulder. “You are not alone, Rockbrother,” she assured him. “Rest you need. So much is certain. But first you must drink. Your flesh has been much abused. It requires refreshment. And see?” She unbound the neck of her waterskin, held it in front of him. “Here is water.”

Stave did not move. He did not appear to hear her. But when she touched his mouth with the lip of the waterskin, he raised his arms, accepted it from her. Trembling, he drank.

Jeremiah had never seen any
Haruchai
do more than sip from the cup of one hand. Now Stave swallowed long gulps as though more lives than his depended on them; drank until he had emptied half of the waterskin. Then, slowly, he sank to his knees, settled back to sit on his heels. The waterskin he placed on the ground. His hands he rested, open palms upward, on his thighs. He seemed to nod.

After that, he resumed gazing sightlessly at the twilight of the new day.

Beckoning for Jeremiah to accompany her, Kindwind stepped away. When they had withdrawn a few paces, she said, “We must trust, Chosen-son, that his folk restore themselves in this manner. It appears that his spirit has turned inward. But I will believe that a man who has performed his feats must soon heal himself and return to us.”

Jeremiah swallowed against the dryness in his throat. “I hope so. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Ah, deserve,” sighed Kindwind. “The notion of deserved and undeserved is a fancy. Knowing both life and death, we endeavor to impose worth and meaning upon our deeds, and thereby to comfort our fear of impermanence. We choose to imagine that our lives merit continuance. Mayhap all sentience shares a similar fancy. Mayhap the Earth itself, being sentient in its fashion, shares it. Nonetheless it is a fancy. A wider gaze does not regard us in that wise. The stars do not. Perhaps the Creator does not. The larger truth is merely that all things end. By that measure, our fancies cannot be distinguished from dust.

“For this reason, Giants love tales. Our iteration of past deeds and desires and discoveries provides the only form of permanence to which mortal life can aspire. That such permanence is a chimera does not lessen its power to console. Joy is in the ears that hear.”

Her assertion startled Jeremiah. It seemed to question his foundations. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the extremity of Stave’s fall. The hard throb of Cabledarm’s bleeding and the excruciation of her shoulder cried out to his senses. Awkwardly he reached for Kindwind’s last waterskin. When she released it, he drank as if his thirst—his dismay—had the force of a moral convulsion.

“So you’re saying,” he protested or pleaded, “what Stave did is worthless? What Cabledarm did is worthless? It’s all dust?”

“Aye,” Cirrus Kindwind assented, “if that is how you choose to hear the tale.” Her tone was mild. “For myself, I will honor the effort and the intent. Doing so, I will be comforted.”

Jeremiah wanted to shout. Instead he fumed, “You sound like the
croyel
.” Was joy in the ears that hear? Then so were agony and horror. So was despair. “It was forever telling me everything Mom did was useless. Nothing matters. It’s all dust. That’s why Lord Foul laughs—and Roger—and those Ravers. They agree with you. In the end, they’re the only ones who get what they want.”

Kindwind looked at him sharply. Like the flick of a blade, she retorted, “Then hear me, Chosen-son. Hear me well. There is another truth which you must grasp.

“Mortal lives are not stones. They are not seas. For impermanence to judge itself by the standards of permanence is folly. Or it is arrogance. Life merely is what it is, neither more nor less. To deem it less because it is not more is to heed the counsels of the Despiser.

“We do what we must so that we may find worth in ourselves. We do not hope vainly that we will put an end to pain, or to loss, or to death.”

Failure isn’t something you
are.
It’s something you
do.

Without warning, Jeremiah found that he ached to share Kindwind’s beliefs, and Linden’s. Perhaps the monolith had never contained enough malachite. Perhaps the deposit had shattered. Perhaps Stave and even Cabledarm would die. Perhaps Mom would never come back. Perhaps futility was the only truth. Still Jeremiah would have to find a way to live with it.

To himself, he muttered, “It’s not that easy.”

Cirrus Kindwind had never been possessed.

Her response was a snort. “We were not promised ease. The purpose of life—if it may be said to have purpose—is not ease. It is to choose, and to act upon the choice. In that task, we are not measured by outcomes. We are measured only by daring and effort and resolve.”

Jeremiah wanted to insist, It’s not that easy. It’s
not
. But the words died in his mouth. Kindwind had already turned away. Several of the Giants around Cabledarm had turned away. They were gazing up at the spine of the rockfall.

At Frostheart Grueburn and Latebirth. As Jeremiah caught sight of them, they labored past the crest and began their descent. Between them, they carried a large chunk of stone.

It resembled a fragment of the monolith. He detected distinct signs of malachite.

Not seams or veins, delicate trickles. A concentrated lode.

In an instant, he forgot everything else. Leaving Kindwind, he ran at the slope.

That was a piece of the slab: it had to be. And its mineral deposit was still intact.

How big was that sealed lump of green?

The two Giants came a little way to meet him. Then they set down their burden and straightened their backs, loosened their arms. Before he reached them, he felt their emotions.

In spite of the gloom, they were bright with vindication.

“By good fortune,” Grueburn called to her comrades, “the object of Stave Rockbrother’s extravagance contained an admixture of sandstone. When it struck, it broke along its less durable seams. The malachite of its heart was preserved.”

Jeremiah needed to see for himself. Filling his hands with Earthpower, he clapped them to the surface of the rock; probed inward with all of his senses.

Then he wheeled away, flung his gaze down the slope toward Stave.

“You did it! Stave, you
did
it!”

The former Master knelt with his back to the rockfall. He did not lift his head or turn. He may have sunk so far down into himself that he did not hear.

Nevertheless he had succeeded.

Some things were too easy. Accepting failure was one of them.

or a time, Jeremiah was content to confirm the various locations of his materials, study their shapes, and plan. While he did so, the Giants finished tending Cabledarm’s wounds. Then they rested.