Against All Things Ending Part 58

The horses drank deeply. They cropped a little gra.s.s along the verges of the gully while Linden and Stave quenched their thirst. For a few moments, Linden scooped water into Jeremiah's mouth. With her hands and her health-sense, she a.s.sured herself that he was physically well. Then Stave lifted her onto Hyn; seated Jeremiah on Khelen; mounted Hynyn.

Within a few strides, the Ranyhyn were running again.

Soon they left the mounded hillocks behind, still racing south. For a time, they crossed damaged plains. After that, however, they came upon a wide field of broken obsidian, basalt, and flint, the muricated remains of a slagland. Shards as cutting as blades gouged out of the soil at every angle: another consequence of ancient violence.

Linden thought that the Ranyhyn would have to find a way around. Otherwise splintered edges would tear the frogs of their hooves to shreds. But she had underestimated the great horses. As nimble as mountain-goats, they plunged among the rocks; swept and wheeled forward as though they were engaged in an elaborate and courtly gavotte. Somehow they found safe footing that Linden could not see, and pa.s.sed unharmed.

Beyond the shards, they encountered a rugose region like a delta or malpais where igneous creeks and rills had branched, burning, through once-arable earth. Some fierce theurgy during a distant era had caused the stone of the area to melt and stream like spilth. There the Ranyhyn ran again, apparently heedless of occasional surfaces as slick as ice, twisted clumps of dirt that masked rubble, friable ground concealing sinkholes like deadfalls.

The heat across the landscape felt more like summer than spring. The sun seemed to lean its leaden aspect close to the Lower Land. It barely cast shadows, but its pressure made the mounts drip sweat as they ran, splas.h.i.+ng the complex ground. Linden's s.h.i.+rt clung to her back: her legs rubbed like sores against Hyn's damp flanks. Trickles ran down Jeremiah's cheeks into the soilure of his pajamas, his stained rearing horses.

Early in the afternoon, the riders left the delta behind; galloped onto a slowly rolling plain like a trammeled moor. Guided by instincts more precise than Linden's percipience, the Ranyhyn came to a thicket of aliantha aliantha cl.u.s.tered around a small spring oozing like blood from the wounded ground. There they paused while Stave dismounted to gather treasure-berries. Linden made a bowl of her s.h.i.+rttail to hold the fruit. With both hands full, Stave leapt onto Khelen's back behind Jeremiah. As the horses cantered away, Stave placed berries one at a time into the boy's mouth. Jeremiah did not chew them, or spit out the seeds; but he swallowed everything. cl.u.s.tered around a small spring oozing like blood from the wounded ground. There they paused while Stave dismounted to gather treasure-berries. Linden made a bowl of her s.h.i.+rttail to hold the fruit. With both hands full, Stave leapt onto Khelen's back behind Jeremiah. As the horses cantered away, Stave placed berries one at a time into the boy's mouth. Jeremiah did not chew them, or spit out the seeds; but he swallowed everything.

When Stave was done, he sprang from Khelen's back to Hynyn's; and the Ranyhyn resumed their urgent gallop, racing south.

Linden ate more slowly, savoring the refreshment of aliantha aliantha; casting aside the seeds. The haste of the Ranyhyn infected her. With every increment of the day's pa.s.sage, she became more certain that she and her companions would need all of their strength. She had no idea what lay ahead of them. They had to be ready.

Finally she leaned as close as she could to Hyn's ears and murmured, "I want to help, but I don't know how to ask your permission. If I'm wrong, I hope that you'll forgive me."

Hesitant at first, then with more confidence, Linden began to draw Earthpower from the Staff. Concentrated flames uncoiled like dire tendrils, like the Ardent's ribbands, and reached out to wrap sustenance around Hyn, Hynyn, and Khelen.

Hynyn blared a neigh; tossed his head. Khelen pranced for two or three strides, as if he were showing off. Hyn's whickering sounded like affection. In a moment, they increased their pace, thrusting the ground behind them until they almost seemed to fly.

Apparently the horses of Ra approved.

By mid-afternoon, the terrain tilted gently downward to both the south and the east. For a time, the running was easier. But then the dirt became sandstone and shale again, a punitive surface made hazardous by outcroppings and loose sheets of rock. Fighting the blur of speed in her eyes, Linden forced her gaze ahead. In the distance, she saw the land begin to rise. By stages and shelves, layers of erosion, the ground climbed to a ragged horizon like a wall of broken teeth. The ascent was neither high nor steep, but it sufficed to block everything beyond it.

Peering upward, she had the impression that she was approaching the rim of the world.

The Ranyhyn raced down the last decline, crossed a flat span like an alluvial plain left behind by some long-forgotten flood, then thundered urgently upward. As they neared the crest, Linden realized that the teeth of the horizon were not boulders. They were flawed sheets of sandstone like mammoth scapulae that jutted, cracked and fraying, from the underlying skeleton of the rise.

At last, Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen eased their pace. In spite of their weariness, they conveyed the impression that they slowed, not because they were tired, but rather because they were close to their goal. Cantering, then trotting, finally walking, they ascended as if the lip of the climb were the edge of a precipice; as if the sandstone plates were the final barrier between them and an absolute fall. Yet they did not seem apprehensive. Instead their steps were almost stately, and the spirit s.h.i.+ning through their sweat and fatigue suggested pride or awe, as if they were nearing a source of wonder, a place potent to transform realities.

"Stave-?" Linden asked hoa.r.s.ely. "What-?"

Surely he knew where they were? Surely his people had seen what lay beyond the broken teeth?

The Haruchai Haruchai did not answer. Nothing in his manner implied recognition-or comprehension. did not answer. Nothing in his manner implied recognition-or comprehension.

The upthrust sheets were taller than Stave on Hynyn's back; taller than any Giant. They reached for the sealed sky as if they had once stood high enough to hold back the heavens; as if eons ago they had formed an impenetrable barrier. Now the Ranyhyn stepped between them, unhindered, and paused.

The riders had reached the ridge of a round hollow like a crater or caldera, although Linden could not imagine what manner of volcanism might have created such a formation. All around the rim rose eroded sheets like weary sentinels, a ragged troop of guards too tired to stand at attention. The caldera itself was so wide that one of the Swordmainnir might not have been able to throw a stone across it. Yet the enclosed hollow or crater was not deep. Indeed, it resembled a basin rather than a pit, with shallow sides and a flat bottom.

This, apparently, was the reason that the Ranyhyn had spent the day running hard enough to burst the hearts of ordinary horses. So baffled that she had no words, Linden stared downward like a woman who had come to the end of her wits.

The bottom of the caldera was filled with piled bones.

They were old-G.o.d, they were old old! Thousands of them, tens of thousands, lay there as though they had been simply tossed aside; as though the crater were a midden in which every other form of refuse had fallen to dust. Or perhaps Lord Foul's armies had never bothered to burn or bury their dead. Seasons of sun and weather beyond counting had scalded the bones to an utter whiteness. Under a brighter sky, they would have been dazzling.

Trying to understand, Linden studied them. Her first thought was that they were human; but they were not. She had never seen their like before. Some had curves or condyles that seemed unnatural. Some were far too long or broad to belong to Giants. Some looked like the ribs of animals much larger than Ranyhyn. Among them, there were too many crooks and bends, too many bones that resembled flames, too many wide sheets that might have been the shoulder-blades of hills or the sides of cromlechs.

They could not be what the Ranyhyn had sought in such haste. They could not could not. They were not merely unimaginably old: they were meaningless. Perhaps this was the graveyard of some species that had gathered together for comfort while it fell into extinction. Or perhaps Lord Foul, for some incomprehensible reason, had discarded his failed or slain creations here. In either case, these bones had no conceivable purpose now. Whatever they had once been, they had become nothing more than the residue of vast time. They might well be as ancient as the gutrock of the Lost Deep, but they were just bones; dismembered skeletons. They remembered only death.

The sheer waste waste of what she and her friends had done since Covenant's departure urged Linden to fill the sky with her frustration. of what she and her friends had done since Covenant's departure urged Linden to fill the sky with her frustration.

Yet the Ranyhyn felt otherwise: that was obvious. After a long pause while she scanned the caldera, and her chagrin swelled until it seemed too great to be contained, all three of the horses whinnied loudly: a sound like the clash of swords on s.h.i.+elds as a mighty army marched to battle. Then they began to move again. As if they were approaching a seat of majesty, they paced gravely down into the hollow.

"Stave," Linden croaked. Her heart labored toward a crisis of denied needs. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it. What is is this?" this?"

"I cannot answer," he said flatly. "The Masters have seen this place, but have no knowledge of it. And during the centuries of the Bloodguard, no Lord hazarded this region of the Lower Land. Upon occasion, the Council of Lords spoke of a time before the coming of the Bloodguard, when High Lord Loric risked forays toward Sarangrave Flat and the Spoiled Plains. But within the hearing of the Bloodguard, those Lords described neither the purpose nor the outcome of Loric Vilesilencer's efforts. And no mention was made of these littered bones."

The Haruchai Haruchai turned a searching gaze on Linden. "I will remind you, however, that even here Manethrall Mahrtiir would counsel trust. The ways of the Ranyhyn are a mystery in the Land, and their discernment surpa.s.ses ours. I surmise that in this place we will witness some event, or encounter some friend or foe, which they deem needful. Come good or ill, boon or bane, we must hold fast to our faith in the great horses." turned a searching gaze on Linden. "I will remind you, however, that even here Manethrall Mahrtiir would counsel trust. The ways of the Ranyhyn are a mystery in the Land, and their discernment surpa.s.ses ours. I surmise that in this place we will witness some event, or encounter some friend or foe, which they deem needful. Come good or ill, boon or bane, we must hold fast to our faith in the great horses."

An encounter? encounter? Linden drew a shuddering breath, tried to calm the rapid stutter of her pulse. An Linden drew a shuddering breath, tried to calm the rapid stutter of her pulse. An event? event? What could possibly happen What could possibly happen here? here? She had ridden for leagues across open terrain, but her life was still constrained by stone walls that allowed no turning, no choices: no conceivable escape. No help for her son. Stave was wrong: Desecration did not lie ahead of her. It was here, in this pile of ruined bones. Or the Ranyhyn had followed She had ridden for leagues across open terrain, but her life was still constrained by stone walls that allowed no turning, no choices: no conceivable escape. No help for her son. Stave was wrong: Desecration did not lie ahead of her. It was here, in this pile of ruined bones. Or the Ranyhyn had followed Kelenbhraba.n.a.l Kelenbhraba.n.a.l's example by electing a form of self-sacrifice which she was helpless to alter.

Yet the former Master was also right.-hold fast to our faith-What else could she do? She was here now, with no food or water, no hope for Jeremiah; no chance to make one last effort in the Land's name. What remained, except to pray that she and her friends had not made a terrible mistake by surrendering their fate to the Ranyhyn?

When the horses gained the bottom of the caldera, Linden found that the mound of bones did not rise much higher than her head. And around them lay a clear s.p.a.ce perhaps a dozen paces wide, suggesting that the bones had been placed here rather than simply discarded. At some point in the lost past, someone had arranged the scatter of skeletons into a heap like a cairn. But why anyone had bothered to do so, she could not conceive.

In the cleared flat, the horses halted, facing the bones. Their muscles trembled with fatigue. Sweat still ran from their flanks. But they did not s.h.i.+ft their hooves or walk around the pile. Instead they stood motionless, waiting, as if they expected something ineffable to manifest itself within the clutter.

It is ever thus. The alternative is despair The alternative is despair.

Linden closed her hand around Covenant's ring through her s.h.i.+rt. She was finding it harder and harder to believe that despair was not a better choice. Here her deeds had come to doom, as they must come to doom, as they must-She could not escape their ramifications.

She had violated the Laws of Life and Death to restore Thomas Covenant; but she had failed to bring him back whole. From that moment, it was probably inevitable that he would abandon her. Only his fatal loyalty to other people's mistakes had prevented him from turning his back sooner.

She should have listened- Without warning, Jeremiah slipped down from Khelen's back; and a caesure caesure appeared, seething luridly among the teeth of the caldera's rim. appeared, seething luridly among the teeth of the caldera's rim.

Christ!

Scrambling in panic, Linden released the ring and s.n.a.t.c.hed up her Staff in both hands, wheeled it around her head. Melenkurion abatha! Melenkurion abatha! Nausea clawed at her guts. Hornets swarmed toward her. Nausea clawed at her guts. Hornets swarmed toward her. Duroc minas mill! Duroc minas mill! She had not faced a She had not faced a caesure caesure like this: not since her personal descent into darkness had taken hold. The stain on her soul might weaken her. Some part of her had learned to crave violations of Law. like this: not since her personal descent into darkness had taken hold. The stain on her soul might weaken her. Some part of her had learned to crave violations of Law.

But she had to try.

Harad khabaal!

If the Seven Words had no outward power unless they were spoken aloud, they still served to focus her desperation. Responding to her frantic desires, fuligin fire erupted from the wood. Blackness scaled upward, baleful and abused, like a scream that she had inherited from She Who Must Not Be Named.

Savage as a tornado, the Fall surged into the crater as if Joan or turiya turiya Raver had aimed it straight at the bones. Some effect of fury or madness-or perhaps of lessened distance-had improved Joan's control over her blasts. Raver had aimed it straight at the bones. Some effect of fury or madness-or perhaps of lessened distance-had improved Joan's control over her blasts.

Dissociated and vacant, Jeremiah ignored the caesure caesure. He may have been unaware of it. Certain of himself, he walked toward the jumbled skeletons.

Into the path of ravaged time.

The Ranyhyn did not react. Stave did not move. Linden wanted him to spring down from Hynyn, catch up her son, run-But he sat his mount as if there were no peril.

As if he did not fear the virulent storm.

As if he trusted Linden Avery the Chosen.

Swinging her Staff, she lashed blazing midnight into the caesure caesure's wild core.

You cannot have my son!

Just for an instant, a staccato heartbeat, she saw herself fail. Her gush of power seemed to exacerbate the Fall-The caesure caesure was feeding on her soiled strength. was feeding on her soiled strength.

But her sins had not altered the nature of the Staff, or the import of Caerroil Wildwood's script. Almost immediately, the fundamental strictures of Earthpower and Law a.s.serted themselves. They existed to affirm the organic integrity of life: Linden's darkness did not corrupt them. As the caesure caesure squirmed downward, it caught fire from the inside out. Halfway down the slope, it became an ebon conflagration, writhing in hunger. A moment later, it began to collapse into itself. squirmed downward, it caught fire from the inside out. Halfway down the slope, it became an ebon conflagration, writhing in hunger. A moment later, it began to collapse into itself.

The force of its inrush nearly tugged Linden from Hyn's back. But she did not stop scourging the Fall with flame, or shouting the Seven Words in her mind, until every severed instant of its violence was quenched.

Then she staggered inwardly; let her power fade. G.o.d, that was close-Too close.

"Stave," she panted. "d.a.m.nit, Stave. What are you doing? Why didn't you-?"

He did not glance at her. Without any expression that she could interpret, he said, "Attend to your son, Chosen. You have spoken of such things."

Still staggering, she wrenched her attention toward Jeremiah.

He stood at the edge of the pile, regarding it as though nothing had happened. His back was to his mother: she could not see his face. But she caught whiffs of Earthpower from his shoulders and arms; Earthpower and absence, the same emptiness that she had known ever since he had withdrawn his halfhand from Lord Foul's bonfire ten years ago.

One by one, he began pulling bones out of the pile; examining them; setting them on the ground beside him.

At the sight, Linden's mind went blank.

She could not think or feel; could not react. Paralysis stopped her private world. Words seemed to whirl through her like stars and wink out as if every form of language had become incomprehensible. She had no name for what she was seeing.

He had already selected five bones, no, six. Two were twisted into unworldly shapes, but they appeared intact. One resembled the metatarsus of a creature large enough to dwarf a Giant. The others looked like phalanges of various sizes. Now he put his hands on a bone that might have been a mammoth femur.

It was splintered at one end, or perhaps in the middle, obviously broken. Still it should have been too heavy for him to lift. But ages of the sun's heat had cooked out most of its substance, or it was as hollow as a bird's-or he had become supernally strong. Without any visible strain, he took the bone from the heap, tested it in his grasp, then placed it carefully on the ground as if its position required precision.

Jeremiah- That was as far as Linden could go.

He moved a step to the side, studied the pile. After a moment, he found two more bones like long candles that had been heated in their centers, warped into useless twists. He collected several more phalanges, another metatarsus, a ma.s.sive lump like a talus. From the abundant clutter, he extracted a second femur, a match to the first. This he set exactly parallel to the first with the s.p.a.ce of a long stride between them.

Jeremiah was- Displaying the same steady lack of impatience or doubt that had characterized his work with Legos or Tinkertoys in his former life, he gathered more bones. Some he found nearby. Others he discovered hidden within the heap. Phalanges by the dozens. Five more femurs that he should not have been strong enough to move, one of them whole. A number of metatarsals. And as he added to his selections, his choices became more diverse: cuboid shapes and tarsal lumps; a variety of scapulae that had apparently belonged to some t.i.tan; joint-bones with condyle sockets wide enough to cover Linden's head, or Stave's. All of these he arrayed in an open s.p.a.ce like a craftsman readying his materials.

When he was satisfied, he stooped to his parallel splintered femurs and began to balance other bones on top of them as though he intended them to serve as foundations. As though he were constructing walls.

Jeremiah was building.

That's natural talent. Roger's tone had falsified everything he said; but he had told the truth about Jeremiah. The right shapes can change worlds The right shapes can change worlds. They're like words They're like words.

Linden struggled against blankness until her heart felt ready to burst. She had to fight to breathe. She had forgotten any words that were not prayers. Oh my G.o.d. Oh my G.o.d. OhmyG.o.d.

It was for this this. The Ranyhyn had brought them here for this this. So that Jeremiah could build.

Your kid makes doors. All kinds of doors All kinds of doors. Doors from one place to another Doors from one place to another. Doors through time Doors through time. Doors between realities Doors between realities.

It was all impossible: the unerring instincts of the horses; Jeremiah's blank certainty; his strange strength. It was impossible that he could do what he did without focusing his eyes, or giving any sign that he was conscious of his hands. And it absolutely should have been impossible that those bones stayed where he put them, inconceivably poised on each other, defying gravity and their own lines. Their positions were so precarious, so oblivious to the dictates of ma.s.s and fit, that they all should have collapsed as soon as his fingers released them. Yet they remained where he put him: scapulae standing on their ends atop rows of phalanges, or resting off-center along awkward k.n.o.bs of bone; tarsal blocks supporting rachitic lengths that may never have belonged to any natural creature; metatarsals wedged like afterthoughts between long thin fingers that looked like they would topple at any moment.

First, he has to have the right materials for the door he wants to make. Exactly the right wood or stone or metal or bone or cloth-or racetracks Exactly the right wood or stone or metal or bone or cloth-or racetracks. And they have to be in exactly the right shapes And they have to be in exactly the right shapes.

Watching her son, Linden could not move. Amazement held her in a grip of stone. Her son was building. He was building! But she had never watched him make a construct like this one. Legos and Tinkertoys and raceway tracks interlocked. The branches and twigs with which he had fas.h.i.+oned his portal into Melenkurion Melenkurion Skyweir had been visibly braced on each other. Their own weight had held them in place. But Skyweir had been visibly braced on each other. Their own weight had held them in place. But this this- Lost in shock, she took too long to notice that his hands were full of Earthpower when he placed the bones on each other; or that he seemed to caress each fragment before he moved on. Or that each new piece was then fused to those it touched: that each bone became one with the others as if he had welded them together.

He was using Anele's gift to keep his structure intact.

And he was definitely making walls.

Something about his use of power was familiar. Somewhere she had seen fused bone in the shape of a Ranyhyn rearing like the horses that ramped across the begrimed blue of Jeremiah's pajamas.

"Chosen," Stave said-and more sharply, "Linden!"

All of her senses were concentrated on her son; on the transcendental possibilities of his talent; on the magic in his hands. Moments seemed to pa.s.s while a distant part of her tried to recognize Stave's voice.

Fresh nausea prompted her to hear him. Like an act of abnegation, she forced herself to look away from Jeremiah- -and saw another caesure caesure roaring like an inferno on the rim of the caldera. roaring like an inferno on the rim of the caldera.

It had already torn apart several of the sandstone teeth, swept them into insanity. Now it rushed downward, a stinging holocaust that made havoc of everything in its path. It came from the side of the crater opposite Jeremiah. In another instant, it would begin to devour bones, spinning them toward a future of infinite devastation.

Now Linden had no time for panic: no time and no patience. She wanted to watch her son. She wanted to watch her son She wanted to watch her son. Exalted by outrage and frustration, she called a second flail of Earthpower from her Staff.

Instead of the Seven Words, she shouted as if she were yelling at herself, d.a.m.n d.a.m.n you, Joan! Leave us the h.e.l.l you, Joan! Leave us the h.e.l.l alone! alone!

Where was Covenant? He should have stopped his ex-wife by now. Stopped her or died.

Her indignation for Jeremiah multiplied her strength. Her Staff was a howl of theurgy. It thrummed in her hands as she flung stark blackness against the Fall. Hardly aware of what she did, she drove the caesure caesure back. Then she incinerated it. back. Then she incinerated it.

It was gone before she recognized that she had succeeded. Enraged or enraptured, she went on las.h.i.+ng the air with Earthpower until Stave caught her arm, jerked her down from Hyn's back.

He startled her enough to make her stop.

She had not seen him dismount. She had seen nothing except Jeremiah and then the caesure caesure. Perhaps he had jumped down as he grabbed her arm. Now he turned her away from Jeremiah; forced her to look at him.

"Chosen!" he said like a slap. "You must attend to our peril as well as to your son. I acknowledge that his efforts are an entrancement. Yet we must not be ensnared." When she finally met his glare, he added, "And we must free the Ranyhyn to provide for their own safety. Mounted, we hinder them."

"That's your your job," she retorted as though he had interrupted some vital task. "Your senses are better than mine anyway. I need to job," she retorted as though he had interrupted some vital task. "Your senses are better than mine anyway. I need to see see this." this."

Roughly she pulled away from him. Freed of their riders, the Ranyhyn remained behind her, far enough away that she would not accidentally strike them with her Staff or her fire.

Two steps took her closer to Jeremiah's construct. Blind and deaf to everything except his own efforts, he had continued to work. Dissociated silt filled his gaze until he looked as sightless as Anele; but he had already balanced a broken femur upright on the base of a plate like a shoulder-blade, sealed it in place. Supported by phalanges, and by bones that mimicked snakes in agony, it rose taller than his head; taller than Linden's. Now he selected another bone like it, splintered at one end, and positioned it standing an arm span beside the first. Together the two femurs looked like doorposts or the scantlings of a wall.

Between heartbeats, Linden's ire became excitement. At one time, she had loved watching him. He had been a wizard with Tinkertoys and Legos, wooden blocks, racetracks; endlessly fascinating. But now he was more, much more. And long days ago, she had experienced the power of his talent. Whatever he was making here, he would accomplish something wondrous.

"Stave?" she breathed as if she had erased anger from her heart. "Do you know what this is? Do you know what he's doing?"

Standing at her side, the former Master answered with his accustomed stoicism, "No Haruchai Haruchai has beheld its like, apart from that which resides in the Hall of Gifts. Yet I deem that this is has beheld its like, apart from that which resides in the Hall of Gifts. Yet I deem that this is anundivian yajna anundivian yajna, marrowmeld, the Ramen craft of bone-sculpting. Their memory of it has ever been tarnished by sorrow, for the necessary lore was lost. How your son acquired such skill surpa.s.ses my conception."