Against All Things Ending Read online

  While the Elohim spoke, Linden’s friends came to stand at her back, leaving only Bhapa to watch over Covenant with the Humbled; but neither she nor Infelice regarded them.

  “Without difficulty, the Creator could doubtless have placed as many earths and heavens as he desired within the Arch of Time. But he could not conceive a living world that did not contain the means of its own death.”

  Abruptly Infelice looked toward the Harrow; and her wrath mounted. “There this flagrant Insequent reveals the folly of his greed. With Earthpower and wild magic, he imagines that he will be empowered to unmake the Worm, thereby ensuring the continuance of the Earth. But the unmaking of the Worm will unmake all life. Such power cannot be countered without unleashing absolute havoc. While the Earth endures, the Worm is needful. The Harrow dreams of glory, but he will accomplish only extinction.”

  Now the Harrow laughed outright, rich and deep, and entirely devoid of mirth. “You mistake me, Elohim,” he replied. “Such has been your custom toward the Insequent for many an age. I am not your Wildwielder, steeped in ignorance and mislove. I have other desires, intentions which will transcend your self-regard.”

  Linden had no interest in the hostility between the Insequent and the Elohim: it was of no use to her. Before she could intervene, however, Stave raised his voice to ask Infelice, “How, then, does it chance that the Elohim do not know death? Why have you been spared the hope and doom of all other life? I discern no merit in you to sanction your freedom from mortality.”

  “Puerile wight!” Infelice snapped at once. “Do you dare? The Elohim do not suffer affront from such as you.”

  Yet a glance at Linden caused Infelice to quell the chiming swirl of her wrath. Apparently Linden held a kind of sway over the suzerain Elohim; an influence or import which Linden did not understand.

  With elaborate restraint, Infelice explained, “The Elohim do not participate in death because our purpose is deathless. We neither multiply nor change nor die because we were created to be the stewards of the Worm.

  “Betimes we have intervened in perils which endanger life upon or within the Earth, but that is not our chief end. Rather our Würd requires of us that we preserve the Worm’s slumber. Understand, Wildwielder, that we have no virtu to impose sleep. Instead it is our task to pacify and soothe. Thus by our very nature we serve all lesser manifestations of life.

  “When we have countered wrongs such as the skurj, or the decimation of the One Forest, we have done so that the Worm may not be made restive by harm. And when we have permitted powers such as Forestals, or the Colossus of the Fall, to be fashioned from our essence, we have done so to refresh the corresponding vitality of the One Tree, that we may be left in peace.” More and more as she spoke, her words seemed to weave the arching trees and the deep night and the light of the krill into an elegy, delicate as silver bells, and rich with grief. “Our purpose is peace, the means and outcome of our self-contemplation. The Forestals—and others—are our surrogates, just as we are the Creator’s surrogates. They serve as the Creator’s hold and bastion in our stead, preserving life which strives and dies while we preserve the Earth.”

  Then the elegy became a dirge throbbing with bitterness.

  “Yet even such sacrifices are not the full tale of our worth to the Earth. I have named the One Tree. Setting aside the irenic reverie of ourselves, we have sought to deflect every threat which endangers the Tree, for it nurtures life just as the Worm enacts death. Thus the Earth began its true decline toward woe when an Insequent became the Guardian of the One Tree. The Theomach’s cunning was great, but his vaunted knowledge did not suffice for such a burden. Still less has Brinn of the Haruchai’s prowess sufficed, though he achieved the Theomach’s demise. By such deeds was the sanctity of the One Tree diminished, and the depth of the Worm’s slumber was made less.

  “Our tragedy is this, that the shadow upon our hearts has become an utter darkness. The harm has grown beyond our power to intervene. The Worm is roused and ravenous, and we cannot renew its slumber. By what this Insequent has rightly named mislove, Wildwielder, you have doomed us. Because of you, we will be the first to feed the hunger which you have called forth.”

  While Infelice answered Stave’s challenge, Linden fretted. On some level, she recognized the pertinence of the Elohim’s revelations. But they did not shape or soften the extremity of her circumstances. Your remorse will surpass your strength to bear it. She needed facts, details; a concrete understanding of what she had released.

  Earlier Berek Halfhand had said, The making of worlds is not accomplished in an instant. It cannot be instantly undone. Much must transpire before the deeds of the Chosen find their last outcome. Linden clung to that—and demanded more from Infelice.

  “All right,” she muttered grimly. “I get it.

  “So what happens now? The Worm is awake. Somewhere. What will it do? How is it going to destroy the Earth? How much time have we got?”

  The world’s remaining days were her only concern. The Worm itself was Covenant’s problem, not hers. He or no one would rise to that crisis. In either case, she had her own task to perform before the end.

  —you aren’t done. Covenant had recognized the truth. And he had professed that she might succeed. She’s the only one who can do this. She chose to believe that he had referred to her one remaining responsibility.

  “The Worm’s slumbers have been long and long.” Infelice spoke softly, but acid and bile twisted her mien. “Rousing, it is galled by hunger. As any living thing, it must feed. And as we are its stewards, so are we also its sustenance. Such is our Würd. The Worm must feed upon us. Only when it is sated with Elohim will it turn to the accomplishment of its greater purpose. If any of our kind remain unconsumed, we will endure solely to witness the end of all things, and so pass into the last dark.”

  —feed upon us. Perhaps Linden should have been shaken. Earlier Infelice had said that every Elohim will be devoured, but Linden had hardly heard her. Now Linden might have stopped to consider the cost of what she had done.

  But Infelice had not given her what she needed. Linden tried again. “How long will it take? Hours? Days? Weeks?”

  Like angry weeping, the Elohim replied, “We will seek to delay our passing because we must. We will flee and conceal ourselves at such distances as we are able to attain, requiring the Worm to scent us out singly, for we do not wish to perish. With sustenance, however, the Worm’s might will grow. Ere a handful of days have passed, its puissance will discover and consume us. Then there will be no force in all the Earth great enough to delay the Worm.”

  Again the Harrow gave his humorless laugh; but no one heeded him.

  “All right,” Linden repeated. “A handful of days.” But she was no longer looking at Infelice. Her attention had veered away. “That isn’t much.” Stave or the Humbled may have had further questions for the Elohim. Like Linden herself, the Haruchai did not forgive. There were many things of which they could have accused Infelice. And Mahrtiir may have wished to protest the implied fate of the Ranyhyn. Linden would have let them say whatever they wanted. She was not speaking to them as she muttered, “I need to face this. I can’t put it off any longer.”

  She expected the Harrow to offer her a bargain. An exchange. Paralysis or urgency was the only choice left to her; and Jeremiah needed her.

  Do it, she told herself. While you still can.

  But when Linden turned away from Infelice, the Ramen and Liand joined her. A moment later, the Manethrall stepped in front of her, compelling her to consider his blinded visage.

  “Ringthane,” he began gruffly. “Chosen. There is much here which transcends us. We are Ramen, servants of the great Ranyhyn. For millennia, we have been content to be who we are. We do not participate in the outcome of worlds.

  “But there is one matter of which I must speak.”

  Linden stared at him. Her face felt too stiff with emotion to hold any expression. She may have looked as ungiving as Stave’s kindred. Bu
t Mahrtiir was her friend. He had lost his eyes, and with them some measure of his self-worth, in her aid. With an effort, she said, “I’m listening.”

  Carefully the Manethrall said, “Since we are assured that it must be so, I grant that the harm of the first Ringthane’s resurrection is vast and terrible. But it is done. It cannot be undone. And his need remains. It is present and immediate. To heal him now will not redeem that which is past, but may do much to relieve that which is to come.”

  He was asking her to take a risk that she had already refused. For his sake, however, and for her other friends, she essayed an answer.

  “I can’t really explain it. If you haven’t been possessed, you don’t know what it’s like to have someone else messing around inside you,” heart and soul. “Just doing that to him would be bad enough. But this is worse. A broken mind isn’t as simple as a cut, or a compound fracture, or an infection. Just one mistake—”

  In the Verge of Wandering, she had tried to enter Anele in order to ease his madness, or his vulnerability. But she was grateful now that he had repulsed her. Her efforts would almost certainly have damaged him in some insidious fashion. She was neither wise nor unselfish enough to impose her wishes on him without transgressing his integrity.

  She had spent years learning that lesson.

  “If I interfere now, it won’t be any different than resurrecting him. I’ll take away his ability to make his own choices.” To save or damn himself. “After what I’ve done, I owe him at least a little respect.”

  “Linden,” Liand murmured, not in protest, but in chagrin and concern, “is it truly so wrong that you have restored a man whom you once loved? To some extent, I grasp the peril of—”

  “You do not,” Galt stated severely. “Had Linden Avery not roused the Worm of the World’s End, still would her deed be a Desecration as vile as any Fall, and as fatal. In her own name, and for no purpose other than to ease her own heart, she has violated Laws upon which the continuance of life depends. The result is an unraveling of necessity , of act and consequence.” His tone was pitiless. Through him, the Humbled passed judgment. “In the end, only evil can ensue.

  “A woman who has committed such crimes will commit others. She must not be permitted to perform further atrocities.”

  Clearly the Humbled did not intend to let Linden intervene in Covenant’s plight.

  The Manethrall and his Cords stiffened. Mahrtiir twitched his garrote into his hands. But neither the Haruchai nor the Ranyhyn moved. Therefore the Ramen did not.

  “Nevertheless,” Stave remarked without inflection, “you will not raise your hand against her. The Unbeliever has instructed your forbearance. The Ranyhyn have declared their devoir against you. And I will not stand aside. No friend of the Chosen will stand aside. Mayhap even the Giants, who have named her Giantfriend, will abide by their allegiance. If you intend to impose your will upon the Chosen, you must oppose all who have gathered here in her name. And you must defy the given command of the ur-Lord, Thomas Covenant.”

  Linden ignored the denunciation of the Humbled. She did not listen to Stave’s affirmation. She meant to confront the Harrow. She had nowhere else to turn. She had already done everything else wrong. Lord Foul’s release had become inevitable. Nevertheless one task remained to her.

  Did the Harrow covet her Staff and Covenant’s ring? Let him. If he accepted her instruments of power, the result would not be what he appeared to expect.

  Before she could speak, however, Liand’s murmur and a shift in the attention of the Ramen caught her. Following their gaze, she saw the Giants emerge from the enfolding night. Spectral in the brightness of the krill, Rime Coldspray and her comrades strode into the vale, bringing Anele with them.

  Anele, at least, seemed to be at peace. Linden saw at a glance that his protective madness remained. He was swaddled in incoherence. But he had found—or had been led to—a place of rest amid his private turmoil. She could almost believe that he had been given a sense of purpose by his parents; an insight into the needs which compelled his fractured striving.

  When your deeds have come to doom, as they must, remember that he is the hope of the Land. Apparently Sunder and Hollian imagined that their son still had a vital role to play, despite the awakening of the Worm.

  In contrast, the emanations of the Giants spoke of gritted teeth and grim resolve. The manner in which they advanced upon Linden and her companions, and the darkness of their scowling, announced that they knew what had transpired here. Drawing them away, the shade of Grimmand Honninscrave must have explained what their absence had permitted or prevented. Perhaps Honninscrave had told the Swordmainnir why the Dead had sought to ensure that the living did not participate in or disrupt Linden’s choices.

  Apparently, however, the former Master of Starfare’s Gem had revealed other things as well. The Giants spared a moment of sorrow for Covenant’s unconsciousness. They acknowledged Linden with ambivalent nods and grimaces, as if they had not made up their minds about her: they glowered ominously at the Harrow and the Humbled. But they did not pause for Stave or the Ramen or Liand. Instead they strode toward Infelice with demands in their eyes and anger in their stalwart arms.

  Hardly aware of what she did, Linden turned to learn what impelled the Giants.

  As they confronted Infelice, her expression became imperious. Bitterly she drifted into the air until her face was level with the combative glaring of the Swordmainnir. Her lambent form demanded an obeisance which the Giants did not deign to grant.

  “In a distant age,” Rime Coldspray said at once, “our ancestors were misled to accept a false bargain with the Elohim. That the bargain was false in all sooth has been made plain to us. And it has now been betrayed through no deed of ours. We require restitution.”

  A bargain? Linden wondered. What bargain?

  Infelice lifted her chin haughtily. “And do you conceive that restitution is mine to grant?”

  “How could it be otherwise?” retorted the Ironhand. “The bargain was made at your behest. The falseness is yours. With oblique misstatement and bland prevarication, you offered a true benefit to obtain a vile payment which no Giant who has ever lived would have proffered knowingly. Now you have claimed payment for that gift purchased with lies—and the guerdon has been withdrawn. Therefore our payment must be returned to us.”

  Dimly Linden remembered hearing the Giants of the Search mention a bargain. Ten years ago in her life. But something had reminded her of it recently.

  The eyes of the Elohim flared like faceted fires. “You reason falsely, Giant. I concede that our bargain has been betrayed through no deed of yours. Indeed, I concede that your witless ancestors concealed from themselves the truth of their own profligate unwisdom. But we did not impose their misapprehension. We merely permitted it. Nor have we condoned the betrayal of our bargain. That the mere-son sees fit to serve mad Kastenessen does not occur by our choice, or with our consent. For both Kastenessen’s malice and Esmer’s treachery, we are blameless.”

  Yes. Linden nodded to herself. Esmer. That was it.

  “Nevertheless,” Coldspray insisted, “you have dealt falsely with Giants. The burden of restitution is yours.”

  “That is illusion,” countered Infelice. “Of a certainty, I am able to restore your gift of tongues—a gift which the mere-son will revoke once more when I have fled, as I must. But I cannot release the geas which grips the kinsman whom you name Longwrath.”

  Linden winced when she heard that name; and Liand caught his breath. But Infelice did not pause.

  “Such restitution”—she sneered the word—“is not mine to grant. The bargain which you name false was freely made, without coercion or constraint. In return for your gift of tongues, we sought the life of one then-unborn Giant at a time and in a circumstance of our choosing. If we did not say as much in language unmistakable to Giants, the fault lies in you. Whether by misapprehension or by self-delusion, the word of your kind was given. That deed is done. The geas which we r
equired was set in motion then to seek its fulfillment now. It cannot be released, other than by the unmaking of its origin.

  “We will not alter our past. Doing so will hasten the destruction of the Arch—and while we live we will cling to life.”

  “Yet it was a dishonest bargain, Elohim,” protested Frostheart Grueburn. “Do you equate the granting of a tale with the surrender of a life?”

  “A tale is a life,” Infelice stated.

  “Nonetheless,” Grueburn continued, “you concealed from our ancestors that you craved a weapon potent to procure Linden Giantfriend’s death. Had they known that you wished to claim the life of any Giant for any purpose, they would have turned their backs and departed in repugnance.”

  Infelice snorted her disdain. “There was no dishonesty. Our purposes are our own. We do not choose to reveal them. I acknowledge that your ancestors altogether misunderstood us. Still they accepted our bargain. If you find wrong in this, find it in your own kind, whose desire to comprehend the many tongues of the Earth outweighed their desire to comprehend the Elohim. We cannot be held accountable for their willingness to bind their descendants to a bargain which you now execrate.”

  God, Linden thought in wan surprise. The Elohim had planned for this. All those millennia ago. Longwrath’s madness was not Earth-Sight: it was manipulation. It was for this! To avert this present moment. By misleading his ancestors, the Elohim had acquired the power to compel him against her, hoping that he would slay her before she entered Andelain with her Staff and Covenant’s ring.

  “That’s unconscionable,” she found herself saying, although she had not intended to speak. “Lord Foul would be proud of you. If you wanted me dead, you could have killed me yourselves. You’ve had plenty of chances. Tricking other people into doing your dirty work isn’t just shortsighted. It’s suicidal. You could have had allies. Now all you’ve got are people who won’t be sorry to see you die first.”