The Last Dark (40 page)

“This evil you have performed, though I have both striven and pleaded to avert it. In your heedlessness, you are a-Jeroth’s servant, and all of your deeds conduce to his designs.”

Coldspray and Bluntfist glowered uselessly. Farther away, Stormpast Galesend tottered to her feet between Latebirth and Kindwind. Grueburn and Stonemage knelt like shields on either side of Cabledarm.

Jeremiah should have been terrified. On some level, he was. Infelice had not given rise to the darkness mounting in the east. Her ire and lamentation had not caused the turmoil of winds. Something else was coming—

Nevertheless his fears only made his hands tremble, only caused his heart to stutter. His crossed arms closed a door on that part of himself. Behind his façade, memories of the
croyel
barked in derision. Outwardly he faced Infelice as if he could not be daunted.

In spite of her supernal powers, she did not know him. He was exactly what she believed him to be. At the same time, he was something entirely different.

He raised his halfhand as if he expected her to respect it; to recognize that it did not resemble Covenant’s. “You’re wrong,” he said in a fevered voice. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Your people are dying. You need to get them here.” Then he gestured behind him. “But first you need to
look
.” He wanted to shout in the
Elohim
’s face. “You’ve been wrong about me all along.”

“Do you think to mislead me, boy?” Infelice retorted imperiously. “Do you believe that
I
may be deceived?”

Nonetheless she glanced past him.

Then she stared. Confusion made chaos of her clangor and radiance. Her apparel thrashed around her like the storms of desire and misery which had haunted Esmer. Her visage modulated: it seemed to become scores of different faces in quick succession, as if all of her people were suddenly manifested in her. As if the entire meaning of their existence had been called into question.

An instant later, the clatter of falling metal ceased. Every wind dropped. Silence closed like a lid over the plain. The gems of Infelice’s raiment corrected themselves, resumed their accustomed grace. When she spoke again, her voice was little more than a whisper.

“It is not a gaol. It is a fane.”

Like an antiphony, her bells chimed relief. They implied awe.

“That’s right!” Jeremiah crowed. Vindication rose in him. It felt like scorn for the ways in which the
Elohim
had misjudged him. “You have to go in, but you can come out whenever you want. If you want. If I were you, I would stay inside. Let the rest of us worry about the Worm. As long as you’re in there, it can’t reach you.”

For a moment or two, Infelice looked so lovely that every aspect of her seemed to sing: every line of her face and form, every implication of her demeanor, every glad jewel. She was lucent with melody. But then she appeared to recall herself from a vision of hope. It had almost seduced her. Now she returned, unwilling, to the implications of her plight.

Frowning, angry again, and strangely uncertain, she said as if she were asking a question, “Yet the Worm will destroy the fane. Though we will not be consumed, we will be denied our place in life. That you cannot prevent.

“You have wrought a surpassing wonder. I acknowledge it. I acknowledge that we have misesteemed you. And your theurgy is—” Bells described her astonishment. “Child, it is vast. My strengths are many, yet I cannot unmake what you have formed. Against any threat other than the Worm, this fane would stand.

“But you do not comprehend the Worm’s power. It
transcends
. Sensing our presence, the Worm will devour the fane without thought or effort. Then it will continue its search for the EarthBlood and doom. Deprived of egress, we will be eternally lost.”

“Mom is working on that,” Jeremiah replied without hesitation. “Sure, what we’ve done is vulnerable.” Roger had smashed Jeremiah’s Tinkertoy castle with the ease of contempt. “And we don’t have enough power to stop the Worm. But Mom went looking for somebody who can teach her how to do what we need.

“As long as she gets back—”

“Madness!” Infelice cried at once. “Utter madness!” Apparently her fears had blinded her to other things. Preoccupied by carnage, she had focused on Jeremiah rather than Linden. Now she reached for arcane sources of knowledge. Revelations struck her like blows. “The Wildwielder hazards the world’s past. She seeks a Forestal forged from the substance of an
Elohim
. She seeks
forbidding
.

“It is madness.” Infelice seemed to be speaking to herself. Arguing with her own instincts. “Should she fail, she will destroy all Time and life ere the Worm achieves its culmination.” But then her attention focused on Jeremiah again. Softer hues flowed through her raiment. “Yet I see valor also in her, as we have from the first. Therefore we sought to forestall her darkest desires, and to serve her in defiance of her own wishes. Should she succeed—”

“That’s right,” Jeremiah said again. “You’ll still have a chance. You’ll be safe, at least until the Worm gets to the EarthBlood. And it’ll be slow. I mean, slower than if it ate you. We’ll have more time.”

Time for Linden or even Covenant to come up with a better answer.

“A worthy effort,” murmured the Ironhand, “regardless of its hazards.”

The other Giants remained silent.

Infelice appeared to consider Jeremiah’s assertion. Instead of contradicting or challenging him, she consulted the ineffable ramifications of her bells and Linden’s daring and his construct.

He bit his lip; tried not to hold his breath. He had done what he could. If Infelice turned her thoughts now to what she had called
the worst evil
, nothing that he had done—nothing that he might say—would satisfy her.

Abrupt gusts broke free around the
Elohim
. Winds like the discarded scraps of a hurricane, tattered and imminent, gusted at the Giants, the fane, Jeremiah. Fretted with new grit, they rebounded from the ridge. The plain blurred and ran like a landscape in a mirage. Driven air did not touch Infelice, but it pulled like thorns at Jeremiah’s pajamas, moaned in the gaps between the stones of his construct.

It was possible that Jeremiah had built hope for everyone else, and had left none for himself.

Finally Infelice looked at him again. For the first time, he heard regret in her voice.

“You have exceeded our conceptions of you. This I confess freely, though it humbles me. Yet one threat remains unaddressed. Your companions have named you Chosen-son. I do so also. Yet you are chosen of a-Jeroth as you are of the Wildwielder. I have spoken of his desire to accomplish absolute evil. Chiefly for that reason, he has endeavored to possess you. He will do so again.

“You have completed your fane.” The music of her bells became sharper. It cut against the winds. “Your part in the world’s doom is done. For the Earth’s sake, and for Creation’s, I must now slay you.”

Her words shocked the Giants. They hit Jeremiah hard even though he had expected them. He had no defense.

“I am loath to do so,” admitted Infelice. “Yet I cannot otherwise forestall a-Jeroth. The Worm will feed, or it will not. The Arch of Time will fall, or it will not. Still the Despiser will make use of your gifts. From your heart and passion and youth and weakness, he will devise imprisonment for the Creator. He will put an end to the very possibility of Creation. Only your death will prevent his eternal triumph.”

Jeremiah stared at her; said nothing. Simply standing his ground required everything within him, his most intense love and his bitterest darkness.

He had inherited too much from Anele.

But Cirrus Kindwind rose to her feet. She spoke for him. With gems reflecting in her eyes, she said, “You forget,
Elohim
, though you are the highest of your kind. The Chosen-son is not alone.”

“He is not,” Rime Coldspray affirmed. She sounded as hard as a fist. “Doubtless you discount his companions. And in this you are perchance correct. Our striving in your name has weakened us. We cannot oppose you.” In spite of her weariness, her voice hit and tore as if its knuckles were studded with spurs. “Nor do I name the Timewarden, whose deeds and purposes remain unknown to us. But having misesteemed young Jeremiah, will you now compound your error? Have you forgotten that Linden Avery, Giantfriend and Wildwielder, has proven herself capable of much? Have you forgotten that there is hope in contradiction?

“No. I will not credit it. You are
Elohim
. You do not forget. Yet one matter lies beyond your comprehension. Being who you are, you have no experience of it. Therefore I will say
this
in the teeth of all who meditate ill toward the Chosen-son. He has
friends
. The Despiser may well attempt to possess him. If so, that evil will fail. No possession can hold one who does not stand alone.”

She seemed to mean, One who is loved.

“Why otherwise,” she concluded, punching home her avowal, “is he now free of the monster which once ruled him? Doubtless foes who relied upon the
croyel
were certain of their designs. Yet here he stands, relieved from mastery, and dedicated to the preservation of beings who abhorred him.”

Conflicting responses appeared to twist Infelice’s mien. Her raiment fluttered in disarray. At first, Jeremiah thought that she had taken offense; that she would react with wrath and violence. But then he saw her more clearly.

The sovereign
Elohim
was diminished. Her assurance, her contentment in herself, had received a blow from which she did not know how to recover. The notion of
friends
perplexed her; undermined her. Winds gyred around her like relief and dismay: a conundrum which she appeared unable to resolve.

But she did not hesitate long. Pressures that surpassed Jeremiah compelled her to a decision. Her voice wore discordant chiming like a funeral wreath. Though she was the highest of her kind, she had been wrong too often.

“I can delay no longer. I must acknowledge that I am answered, as the summons must be answered. You have spoken truly. We are
Elohim
. We have no knowledge of
friends
.

“This, then, is my word. Come what may, we who are great must now place our faith in you who are small.”

Then she found a brief severity. “Be wary, Chosen-son. Your deeds bring perils which you do not foresee. We have given of our utmost, according to our Würd. Now we can do naught. If your companions fail you, you are undone.”

Turning away, Infelice lifted a cry into the heavens: a resounding clang like a hammer-stroke on an immense gong.

At once, other
Elohim
began to appear as if they had been brought by the winds; as if they had found their substance among the oneiric seethings that troubled the plain.

One after another, they flowed like liquid light toward the fane, so many of them that Jeremiah was astonished. He had seen stars dying: he had not considered the number that still lived. Perhaps the relationship between these beings and stars was more symbolic than literal. Nevertheless the heavens had not been entirely decimated. Those
Elohim
that answered the call of Jeremiah’s construct resembled a multitude.

The sight enchanted him. They were so beautiful—! One and all, they were lovely beyond description. To his human eyes, they were men and women clad in elegance, and accustomed to glory: innocent of mortality; untainted by the dross of inadequacy and the burden of suffering; immune to the woes and protests that could only be stilled by death.

They were the
Elohim
, eldritch and fey: as cryptic as prophecies in a foreign tongue, and as ineffable as the beauties of Andelain, or the melodies of Wraiths. An uncounted host of them had already perished: a throng remained, craving life.

They sanctified the unnatural twilight as if their coming were a sacrament.

Instinctively Stormpast Galesend and Latebirth forced themselves to their feet. Even Cabledarm found the strength to stand. All of the Giants endeavored to square their shoulders, straighten their backs. In spite of their troubled history with the
Elohim
, they set aside their exhaustion.

Graceful as willows, stately as Gilden, each faery individual paused only to exchange a nod with Infelice, who stood aside for her people. Each glided into the fane and vanished from sight. And Jeremiah watched them stream past like a boy who had become magnificent in his own estimation, full of pride. He had caused this:
he
. He had justified Linden’s highest hopes for him. Yet the swelling of his heart was not pride. At that moment, at least, it was gratitude. The success of his temple was not something that he had accomplished: it was a gift that he had been given. He did not waste himself on pride.

For that moment, while it lasted, he soared above his secrets as if he had been lifted into the heavens.

Exalted and transfixed, he could not brace himself against the convulsion that shook the ground like the onset of an earthquake. He had no answer for the blast of heat as fierce as an eruption of magma, or for the blare of savagery that seemed to repudiate the world. He did not understand the sudden cries of the
Elohim
, or the haunted look that filled Infelice’s eyes, or the frantic shouts of the Giants. He did not know what was happening until Kastenessen entered him, and all of his thoughts became anguish and slaughter.

Ecstatic agony. Rage so great that it could not be contained. Pain too extreme to be called insanity.

The mad
Elohim
struck the plain like a fireball flung by a titan. At the impact, the very ground under his feet seemed to ripple and clench like water, liquefied by ferocity. He came roaring with triumph and lunacy and hate: a monster who no longer resembled the people who had imprisoned him; damned him. He was not lovely, not graceful. His visage was a contortion of suffering. Interminable pains gnarled his limbs. His vestments were fire. His eyes blazed like the fangs of the
skurj
. From his kraken teeth, slaver splashed the dirt and smoldered. And he dominated the horizon; cast back the gloom until even the darkness in the east appeared to wither and fade. He had made himself taller than a Giant, as tall as one of the avid worms which he had once restrained.