The Last Dark (76 page)

“But it isn’t that simple. Lord Foul isn’t the only one who chooses who comes to the Land. He picks us because he thinks that he can manipulate us, or because he thinks that we’re already his. But the Creator chooses us, too. They both picked us.” Covenant had taught her this. Now she pushed it further. “The only difference is, the Creator doesn’t manipulate us. He lets us make our own decisions.”

Ignoring the rest of the company, Linden hurried to make her point before her courage failed.

“The Creator sees hope in you, honey. He sees things that you might choose for yourself, things that might make a difference. That’s why—” Oh, God. Did she have to say this? Did she have to face it? “That’s why he didn’t warn me before Roger got to you. If he had given me any hint that you might be in danger, I would have stopped Roger somehow. I would have taken you away so that he couldn’t find you.”

She had almost done so when she had seen images of Revelstone and Mount Thunder in her living room.

“The Creator didn’t warn me because he needs you.”

Her claim seemed to strike a spark into the tinder of Jeremiah’s aggrieved spirit. Unsteadily he stood to face her. The murk of his gaze clung to her.

“Needs me
how
? What am I supposed to do?”

For that, Linden had no answer.

“What you’ve always done,” Covenant put in roughly. He had come to stand behind Linden. She felt the tension in his muscles, heard the clench in his voice. “Something damn Foul doesn’t expect.”

Jeremiah’s head snapped toward Covenant. His mouth hung open.

“Maybe,” Covenant went on, “you think he marked you. Maybe you think being a halfhand means he has some kind of claim on you, some kind of special power over you. But that’s backward.
He
didn’t cut off those two fingers. Your
mother
did. And she did it so she could save the rest of your hand. Being a halfhand doesn’t make you a victim. It makes you free.

“The Despiser doesn’t know you as well as he thinks he does. He can’t. Filling your head with visions is just a trick to keep you off-balance. He doesn’t want you to see the truth. You’re only his if you choose him.”

Jeremiah gaped at Covenant. Linden watched turmoil seethe like Lifeswallower’s mire in her son’s eyes. The whole company seemed to pause while he struggled to understand: even the river seemed to hold its breath. The
krill
cast light and shadows in all directions.

As if he were choking, Jeremiah protested, “But what I see is
real
. The Worm is
real
.”

He may have meant, We’re all going to die.

“Well, sure.” Covenant’s tone conveyed a shrug. The Despiser did not lie. “But that’s not the point. The Worm isn’t more real than
you
are. It’s just more dramatic.”

“I don’t get it,” Jeremiah groaned. “I can’t—Lord Foul is too strong.”

His confusion and need twisted Linden’s heart; but Covenant did not relent. “Then let him be too strong. You don’t need to beat him. Just do
something
he doesn’t expect. Be yourself.”

A young man with the Staff of Law and his own Earthpower: a young man with a talent for
making
. Even the Despiser in his fury and frustration could not satisfy all of his desires without the ability to create. Linden understood what Covenant was saying. She knew why Lord Foul needed her son.

But she could see as clearly as if she had entered him with her health-sense that Jeremiah did not understand. He was too young to know how much he did not know about himself. When he ducked his head to mutter as if he were ashamed, “Maybe Roger had the right idea. Maybe we should all try to become gods,” she seemed to hear the
croyel
in him: the legacy of being possessed.

Yet she did not hear scorn. Bitterness, yes. Fear. Self-pity. But not contempt. He had other birthrights as well.

Surely she could try to believe that they would come to his aid when he needed them? Surely she should trust him, no matter how much his distress hurt her, or how much she feared for him? She would not be there for him when his plight came to its crisis. Trusting him now might be the last gift that she would ever be able to give him.

hen the companions had eaten another meal, shared their waterskins, and refreshed themselves as much as they could on the better air drifting into the crevice, they started upward. Once again, the Ironhand and the Anchormaster took the lead; but this time Covenant walked behind them with Branl and Halewhole Bluntfist. After Hurl, Keenreef, and several other sailors, Linden and Jeremiah essayed the terraced ledge accompanied by Stave, Frostheart Grueburn, and Cirrus Kindwind. Onyx Stonemage and more of Stoutgirth’s crew came next. As before, Blustergale and Baf Scatterwit brought up the rear.

In places, the surface they trod resembled sheets of slate, and there the going was easy. Some of the stairs where the rock had crumbled were minor obstacles. But occasionally the sheared steps reached to Linden’s waist. A few were taller than she was: they cast shadows as threatening as chasms. Like Covenant and Jeremiah, she had to be lifted to the next level.

The walls leaned toward and away from each other, tracing the variations of Mount Thunder’s flaws and stubbornness. By increments, the river fell below the reach of the company’s illumination. The rush of water became distant, as if it were fading out of the world; and with it the spilth or detritus of She Who Must Not Be Named also receded. In gusts and eddies, the air improved.

Like the crevice, the width of the ledge undulated. At intervals, Linden was able to walk at Jeremiah’s shoulder as if she could still shield him. More often, the company was forced to go in single file. When the ledge became dangerously narrow, Cirrus Kindwind kept her hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder, and Frostheart Grueburn did the same for Linden.

After some distance, Rime Coldspray and Bluff Stoutgirth came to a break in the ledge. Linden could not see how they crossed it. Giants blocked her view. Her every step was obscured by shadows. But when she and Jeremiah reached the gap, she found that the sailors had stretched a rope over it, held taut by Hurl on one end and Wiver Setrock on the other. Using the line for support, Kindwind and Grueburn helped Jeremiah and Linden to the far side.

When the last of the Giants were safe, the company continued to climb.

Linden lost her sense of duration. Nothing in the mountain’s perpetual midnight marked the passage of time. Gradually the river passed out of hearing. After that, there were no sounds apart from the efforts and breathing of the companions. The
krill
’s light shifted as Branl moved, but it revealed only rock and more rock, enduring and unrelieved. Beyond it, darkness crowded thick as obsidian or basalt.

Still the river pulled air downward with it: a guttering breeze on Linden’s face. For a while, she derived a sense of progress from the declining pressure of taints in her lungs. Soon, however, the changes became too subtle to be distinguished. Then weariness and strain became her only measure for the meaning of her steps.

At intervals, Jeremiah extended tentative flicks of theurgy from the Staff, but their purpose eluded Linden.

In the distance ahead, the crevice bent sharply to the left. Beyond a blind corner, another high step or shelf interrupted the ledge. This one reached the chests of the Giants. Some of the sailors were able to gain the next level unassisted; but the Swordmainnir were more heavily burdened, and their weariness was more profound: like their smaller companions, they needed help.

When Grueburn had lifted her past the shelf, Linden paused to scan her surroundings.

Within the ambit of the
krill
’s illumination, the ledge looked wide as a road, comparatively level. But the crevice was narrowing. After its sweep to the left, it curved gradually back to the right; and as it did so, the opposite side restricted her view ahead. Overhead the walls leaned together: she supposed that they met somewhere in the darkness, closing the fissure. Above her at the farthest extent of the light, a line across the near wall suggested the possibility of another ledge.

The far wall was pocked with holes like the mouths of tunnels, open maws where the gem’s radiance did not penetrate. They looked big enough for Giants. A few were level with the company’s path, but most were scattered higher around the curve.

Linden peered at those holes, frowning, until she felt Covenant’s tension. It poured from him like the heat of a fever. He was glaring along the ledge ahead with his fists clenched and his shoulders tight, as if he were expecting a blow.

When she followed his gaze, she saw bones.

They littered the ledge as far as she could see: thighs and ribs, arms, hands and feet, skulls. Small heaps like crushed children. Whole skeletons piled atop each other. Femurs and ulnas randomly discarded. Smashed skulls grinning at their own ruin. Hundreds, no, thousands of them. Most of them suggested Cavewights, but some made Linden think of ur-viles—or stranger monsters.

“I don’t like this,” Covenant muttered. “It’s probably good news. Somebody tossed them here. We must be getting close to the Wightwarrens. But hellfire! I think we’re in trouble.”

In the
krill
’s silver, the bones looked desiccated, bleached: they seemed to ache with age. But when Linden studied them more closely, she saw that only some of them were old. Others still wore gobbets of flesh, shrouds of blood. The breeze drifting past her held a tang of new rot—

—and another odor, one which she did not want to recognize. She remembered it too well.

The fresher piles seethed with rats. They cleaned the bones fearlessly, creatures that had never been threatened. Occasionally a dark eye glittered at Linden. Whiskers twitched. Plump bodies fought for every shred of meat.

Long ago aboard Starfare’s Gem, she had seen them swarm at Covenant, possessed by a Raver and eager for his blood.

“Thomas,” she whispered: a dry croak.

He reached out to her. “What is it?” When she took his hand, he gripped her hard. “Do you sense something?”

“I can—” Linden tried to say; but her throat closed. She had to force out words. “Oh, Thomas. I can smell
moksha
.”

The precise evil of Ravers was imprinted on her nerves. Her memories of
turiya
were bad enough. What
moksha
had done to her was worse.

Covenant stared at her. “Damnation.” Darkness and light warred in the background of his gaze. Then he wheeled away.

“Branl!” he barked. “Coldspray! We’re going to be attacked!”

The Ironhand called a question; but her comrades reacted before he could answer. Bluntfist, Kindwind, and Grueburn urged Covenant, Jeremiah, and Linden farther along the ledge, closer to the wall. Between them and the plunge of the crevice, Stonemage drew her sword. Branl thrust the
krill
into Hurl’s hands, flourished Longwrath’s flamberge. He and Stave flanked Stonemage.

Baffled, the sailors heaved Baf Scatterwit above the edge. As she scrambled away, they stretched their arms for Squallish Blustergale.

“Are you sure?” Covenant panted to Linden.

“Of course she’s sure.” Jeremiah made a palpable effort to sound fierce, but his voice came out in a yelp. “We always get attacked.

“I can’t see!” He shoved at Kindwind’s back. “I can’t do anything if I can’t see.”

Gripping her longsword, Cirrus Kindwind shifted to cover him more completely. Bluntfist and Grueburn readied their blades.

Herding Scatterwit and Blustergale ahead of them, Coldspray and Stoutgirth strode closer. “Setrock!” the Anchormaster commanded. “Keenreef. Furledsail. Lead us! Clear bones from our path. If we are assailed, we must have sure footing.”

The three sailors surged forward. Scatterwit started after them, hopping. Two of her comrades caught her arms, dragged her aside. Blustergale and another Giant followed Setrock, Keenreef, and Furledsail to help sweep debris from the ledge.

Many of the bones crumbled when they were kicked aside. They released a fume of age.

Instinctively Linden siphoned Earthpower from the Staff, sent her health-sense farther. The holes in the far wall looked deep. They felt empty: tunnels leading nowhere. The rats had a musty fetor, the smell of carrion and ancient dust. And the Raver—