The Last Dark (41 page)

His right fist he held above his head, ready to hurl ruin at the fane.

It was not an
Elohim
’s fist. It was Roger’s, human and fatal. With it, Kastenessen could deliver devastations that no other being of his race might attempt or condone.

But he did not strike. He was not ready—or he saw no need.

He had already taken Jeremiah, who stood on bare dirt. The boy had inherited this vulnerability from Anele.

In an instant, less than an instant, a particle of time infinitely prolonged, Jeremiah passed through the eager malice and sadism of the
croyel
into pure fire, the catastrophic frenzy of bonfires. During that interminable flicker, his spirit was split. He seemed to become several separate selves, all simultaneous or superimposed, all cruelly distinct.

Now he knew why Anele had chosen madness.

One Jeremiah realized that he had been possessed—again!—and tried to scream. One stood in the white core of a furnace, while another interpreted every form of pain as delight, as agony perfected to ecstasy. One watched the Giants, who should have scattered, saved themselves. But they did not. Doomed and determined, they placed themselves in the path of Kastenessen’s savagery. And another Jeremiah relished the knowledge that he had become incarnate lava. The idea that his companions were about to die glorified him. It was for this that the Despiser had marked him. It was for this that he lived.

Swift with glee, he moved to do his ruler’s bidding.

Still another self remembered every horror which the
croyel
had inflicted upon him. He experienced again the misery of deluding Linden in Roger’s company, cringed at what he had done under
Melenkurion
Skyweir. Another aspect of his shredded identity fled for the safety of sepulchres. Another gibbered for the godhood of eternity. In that manifestation, he knew the keen pain of the
krill
against his throat.

And one—

One of the many Jeremiahs
understood
.

This Jeremiah recognized the extremity of Kastenessen’s need for ruin. He remembered the forbidden love, potent as delirium, and altogether delicious, which had drawn Kastenessen to mortal Emereau Vrai, daughter of kings. He felt Kastenessen’s rage and dismay while he fought for his love against Infelice and others of the
Elohim
, who should have valued him more highly. This Jeremiah knew intimately the unconscionable hurt of Kastenessen’s Durance, his imprisonment against and among the
skurj
. This Jeremiah recalled in every detail the torment which had driven Kastenessen to begin merging himself with monsters.

This Jeremiah understood why Kastenessen cared only for the utter destruction of the
Elohim
. More, he knew why Kastenessen had not acted directly against Linden, or indeed against Jeremiah himself, until now; until all of his surviving people were gathered in one place. Although Kastenessen had used Esmer with remorseless brutality, he had not delivered his fury in person because any absence from the proximity of She Who Must Not Be Named would have put an end to Kevin’s Dirt. His presence was required to channel and shape and direct the bane’s fearsome energies. And he had believed, or
moksha
Raver had persuaded him, that only the dire brume which hampered Earthpower and Law would make his revenge possible.

Now Kastenessen had no more need for such stratagems. He had come in response to the fane’s call, but he was not mastered by it. He was part
skurj
and part human: he was in enough pain to refuse any coercion. No, he was here because he had achieved his desires. One of the Jeremiahs would carry out the last preparations.

That in turn was why Kastenessen raised Roger’s fist, but did not strike. He had the power to shatter the fane, render it back to rubble. Nevertheless he withheld his blow, waiting for the certainty that every one of the
Elohim
would be destroyed.

Nothing that happened in or to Jeremiah took any time at all. Part of him regretted that. He loved what he had become. He reveled in the purity of his given hate.

Incandescent or incinerated in each of his separated selves, he flung himself at Infelice.

It was for this that he—that Kastenessen—had planned and waited and endured: so that the highest and mightiest and most dangerous of the
Elohim
would be slain with the rest when he delivered his retribution.

Three swift strides would be enough. Then Kastenessen in Jeremiah would wrap hate like molten stone around Infelice. He would hurl her through the fane’s portal, the entryway to extinction. After that, only heartbeats would remain until the summons was complete; until every
Elohim
was inside.

Until Kastenessen could unleash uncounted millennia of torment.

Jeremiah was sudden. He was quick.

Stave was faster.

The former Master was scarcely conscious. He could barely stand. Nevertheless he kept his promise to Linden. Lunging, he grasped Jeremiah’s arm.

Heat as fierce as brimstone savaged his hand, but he did not let go. Desperate and already failing, he delivered Jeremiah to the only protection that lay within his reach.

As Rime Coldspray had done to Stave himself earlier, the
Haruchai
wrenched Jeremiah into the air. Off the bare dirt that exposed him to Kastenessen. Onto the stone roof of the temple.

Into the direct line of Kastenessen’s intended attack.

Then Stave collapsed again. He did not rise.

But Infelice remained untouched outside the fane.

Kastenessen howled rage at the heavens, but Jeremiah no longer heeded him. As Jeremiah’s feet left the ground, he crashed inwardly. His many selves seemed to smash against each other like projectiles, like bullets.

The force of their impact stunned him. It numbed his mind. He no longer thought or moved: he hardly breathed. Instead he lay still, wracked by revulsion; as weak as Stave. He could do nothing except watch and dread.

Kastenessen roared, but he did not strike. He wanted his full triumph. In moments, even Infelice would answer the fane’s call. Then—

Already the last of the
Elohim
were passing inward. Their hope had become horror, and their features were written with dismay, but they had no power to reject their own natures. Two heartbeats, or perhaps three, no more than that, and Infelice would stand alone. Then she, too, would enter—and Kastenessen would strike.

No, he would not. Not with Roger’s hand. Never again.

While Kastenessen readied his blast, a Giant surged out of a crater behind him. Jeremiah would not have known who the newcomer was if Frostheart Grueburn had not shouted, “Longwrath!”

Swift as a bolt of lightning, the man reared high behind the deranged
Elohim
. In both fists, he gripped a long flamberge with a wicked blade. It edges gleamed against Kastenessen’s lurid radiance as if starlight had been forged into its iron.

One stroke severed Roger’s hand from Kastenessen’s wrist.

Kastenessen screamed like an exploding sun. He staggered.

Longwrath followed him to strike again.

But Kastenessen caught his balance. Blood pulsed from his wrist, the tainted ichor of Earthpower and lava. He did not heed it. Wheeling, he swung at his attacker with his good arm.

Power erupted in Longwrath’s chest. His armor had been damaged, torn apart at one shoulder: it could not withstand Kastenessen’s virulence. The wrought stone sprang apart, spitting splinters as piercing as knives. But the shards evaporated or melted at the touch of Kastenessen’s lava. Longwrath was flung backward, hurled away like a handful of scree. When he fell, he did not move again. Smoke gusted out of his chest as if his heart and lungs were on fire.

Roaring once more, Kastenessen turned back to Infelice and the fane. Obscene heat mounted within him. He grew taller, blazed brighter. Acrid flames swirled higher, spinning about him like the birth-pangs of a cyclone. His sick brilliance stung Jeremiah’s eyes, but the boy could not look away.

“Hear me, treacher!” the mad
Elohim
howled. “I am more than you deem! Yon puerile fane cannot compel me! Still am I Kastenessen! Still my pain suffices to destroy you!”

Raving, he stoked his lethal energies, Earthpower and magma,
Elohim
and
skurj
, until they looked fierce enough to consume every life that had ever walked the plain. They were far more than he needed them to be. They would level Jeremiah’s crude edifice as if it had no substance and no meaning.

Infelice had been appalled earlier. Now, strangely, she was calm. She did not answer Kastenessen. Instead she remarked to Rime Coldspray, “You think ill of us, Giant, and you have cause. But we are not as dark as you deem. For this also we laid our
geas
upon your kinsman. For this also he acquired his blade. Failing one purpose, he has served another.

“He has not redeemed us, but he has weakened our lost brother. Now comes one who may achieve our salvation, however briefly. We cannot ask more of any who oppose the Worm.

“You will forgive your kinsman’s passing,” she added sadly. “Alive, he would not lightly bear the recall of his deeds.”

Then the bedizened
Elohim
faced Kastenessen across the gulf that separated their thoughts and desires, hers and his.

“I have heard you, doomed one.” She did not raise her voice, yet it rang out, clarion and clear. “Now you will hear me. Cease your striving. Enter among your people. Permit your hurt to be assuaged. We have dealt cruelly with you, but we are also kind. While life endures to us, we will provide a surcease from all that you have suffered.”

She may have been telling the truth.

Now comes one—

But Kastenessen had spent long ages in his Durance. He had made choices which exacerbated his fury. Infelice’s appeal could not reach him. For him, it may have been the final affront.

He gathered flames until they burst from his eyes and his mouth, from every limb and line of his towering form. He was becoming a holocaust, devastation personified: a bonfire high and hot enough to ravage the plain. His reply was one word:

“
Never!
”

Yet he was not given time to release his accumulated hate.

From the northeast, a burst of extravagant argent opened the twilight. It cast back the darkness, dismissed the sunless gloom. It was as bright as Kastenessen, and as complex, but immeasurably cleaner. And it was brief, little more than a blink. Nevertheless it was long enough.

Out of it came riding Thomas Covenant and Branl
Haruchai
of the Humbled. Covenant held Loric’s
krill
.

The shock of their arrival snatched Kastenessen away from his victims.

Covenant rode a shovel-headed horse as ungainly and muscular as a mule. Branl was mounted on a Ranyhyn that Jeremiah had never seen before. And they were in a desperate hurry. Froth snorted from the nostrils of Covenant’s horse, the muzzle of Branl’s palomino stallion. Sweat reflected brimstone on their coats. They looked like they had galloped for leagues or days. Covenant lurched in his seat as if he were falling.

As soon as his mount’s hooves struck the dirt, he pitched from his saddle. But he did not sprawl. Staggering like a holed ship in a storm, he managed to stay on his feet. Awkward and urgent, he confronted Kastenessen as if he had forgotten that the
Elohim
could reduce his bones to ash.

In his maimed hands, the gem of the
krill
shone like a kept promise in an abandoned world.

“You—!” Kastenessen began: a strangled howl. Rage clenched his throat, choked off his protest.

“
Try
me,” Covenant panted as if he were on the verge of prostration. “Do your worst.” He looked too weak to withstand a slap. Streaked by conflicting illuminations, his face had the pallor of a wasting disease. Still he was Thomas Covenant. He did not falter. “See what happens.

“I killed my ex-wife. I helped destroy a Raver. And I’ve seen the Worm of the World’s End. I am
done with restraint
!” His teeth gnashed. “I used to care how much you’ve suffered. I don’t anymore. If you think you can beat me, go ahead. I’m
wild magic
, you crazy bastard. I’ll cut you apart where you stand.”

Jeremiah stared and stared, and could not name his astonishment, when Kastenessen flinched—

—and took an alarmed step backward.

Covenant advanced, holding up the
krill
. It blazed like havoc, unmitigated and unanswerable. Its argent covered him with majesty. The silver of his hair resembled a crown.

Branl came behind him, but did not intrude.

Kastenessen retreated another step, and another. Another. The passion in Covenant’s eyes drove him. He must have realized that he was being forced toward Infelice and the fane; but he did not stop. Perhaps he could not. Perhaps he saw something in Covenant, or in Loric’s numinous dagger, that cowed him.

With every step, he dwindled. Retreating, he became smaller. Lava seemed to leak out of him and fade, denatured like water by his own thwarted heat.

Covenant stumbled and wavered, and kept coming. Kastenessen shrank away from him.

Giants let him pass. They watched as if they were as stricken as Jeremiah; as transfixed.

Then Infelice spoke Kastenessen’s name like a command, and Kastenessen turned from Covenant to face her.

Terror and loathing contorted his features. He conveyed the impression that he wanted to scream and could not because he feared that he might sob. Through his teeth, he spat words like fragments of torment.

“You have earned my abhorrence.”

Infelice’s calm had become irrefusable. Placid as Glimmermere, she answered, “We have. We will not ask you to set it aside. We ask only that you allow us to soothe your pain.”

Her response appeared to horrify him. “It is what I am.”

“It is not,” she countered, undismayed. “When it is gone, you will remember that you and you alone among the
Elohim
have both loved and been loved.”

To that assertion, he had no reply.

She did not repeat her invitation. Instead she reached out one hand to clasp his severed wrist. With chiming and mercy, she stanched his bleeding. If the pollution of the
skurj
within him caused her any hurt, she accepted it.