Against All Things Ending (49 page)

“Stone and Sea!” the Ironhand rasped. “These are riddles, Insequent. You mock our incomprehension. Do you conceive that we will content ourselves with chaff when the Earth’s last crisis, as you have named it, demands true knowledge?”

“Giant,” replied the Ardent mildly, “I expect neither content nor discontent. With respect, assuredly—with grave respect, finding worth in all that you have done—I merely request recognition that I am honest. I proffer no true knowledge because I possess none. The auguries of the Insequent have been swept aside. Therefore the counsels of your own hearts must suffice to chart your courses.”

“Thus,” Branl stated, “wisdom comes at last to the Insequent.” To Covenant and Coldspray, he added, “We have misliked his presence from the first. We will not grieve his departure.”

Covenant stifled an impulse to reprimand the Humbled. The Ardent’s efforts on the company’s behalf were beyond aspersion. But the Unbeliever had too many questions. He was beginning to suspect—

Grinding his teeth, he commanded the Ardent, “Then tell me. Why
here
? Why didn’t you take us to the Upper Land? That’s where most of our enemies are. What’s the point of bringing us here?”

“Aye,” assented Rime Coldspray. “This region is unknown to us. The tales of the Giants of the Search do not speak of it. We cannot estimate its perils. It obscures our purposes.”

“The Lower Land is known to the Humbled,” Branl stated flatly. “We will estimate its perils.” His manner dared Coldspray to contradict him.

Stave nodded in confirmation.

But the Ardent brushed past interruptions. “Ah, Timewarden.” For a moment, regret colored his weariness. “Do you wish me to concede that I have failed you as I failed the Harrow? Alas, that is to some extent sooth. It was my wish to convey you a number of leagues farther.”

“Why?” Covenant insisted.

“Sadly,” the Insequent continued, “my strength did not equal my intent. Also the powers of the
croyel
opposed me, hampering my endeavors.” Uncoiling a few ribbands, he gestured around him. “Yet this region has virtues which you will assuredly discern.

“First, you are spared the diminishment of Kevin’s Dirt. To you, Timewarden, this is a gift of small import. Nonetheless true discernment has great worth to your companions.

“Second, I have attained for you an interval of safety, brief though it may be. Both upon the Upper Land and within Gravin Threndor, it is to the north and west that your foes have gathered their ferocity. Here they cannot immediately fall upon you. They must first bypass Mount Thunder and traverse some three score leagues. You are foolhardy, Timewarden, but you are also wise. In your present straits, you will not disdain any respite.”

In that, Covenant knew, the Ardent was right. But the absence of Kevin’s Dirt was counter-balanced by the difficulties of the terrain; by the comparative scarcity of water and the complete lack of food. If his companions were forced to forage near the Sarangrave—

Linden’s condition, and his inability to relieve her, goaded Covenant to anger. Yet his ire was wasted here, unless he directed it at himself: a defense against mourning. With an effort, he softened the edges of his voice.

“You said you were trying to go farther. You must have a reason. If you can’t tell us anything else, you ought to be able to tell us why. What would we gain if you’d succeeded?”

The Ardent sighed lugubriously. “To that question, Timewarden, you must provide your own reply. Have I not said that I am unable to guide you? As the Dead were silent in precious Andelain—as you yourself were silent—so must I be silent now.”

Before Covenant could object, the Insequent added, “I may observe, however, that
caesures
flourish in abundance across the Spoiled Plains. Betimes they afflict Horrim Carabal, that wight which is known to you as the lurker of the Sarangrave. Thus the marshes and wetlands of Sarangrave Flat are provoked to heights of menace without precedent in the ages of the Lower Land.”

Covenant groaned to himself; but he was not surprised. The Ardent spoke of things which he should have been able to remember. Indirectly the Ardent may have been trying to prod his memories.
You need the ring
, Covenant had told Linden in the Verge of Wandering.
It feeds the
caesures.

If Falls flourished “in abundance” on the Lower Land, there might be more than one explanation.

“This lurker is named in our tales,” growled the Ironhand. “The Giants of the Search encountered its might. Speak of this, Insequent, if you will reveal naught else. Does the lurker threaten us now? Is that evil able to extend its many arms across the barrenness of this region?”

The Ardent studied Covenant, apparently waiting for his permission to answer Coldspray. When Covenant said nothing, however, the acolyte of the Mahdoubt turned to the Ironhand.

“Assuredly it cannot. Horrim Carabal is a creature of waters and swamplands, and of the bitter effluence of Gravin Threndor’s banes. Its demesne is vast, yet it is bound by its enlivening poisons. The lurker may inhabit any of Sarangrave Flat’s currents or stagnancies. Nonetheless its might is greatest among the snares and chimeras of Lifeswallower, and it has revealed no theurgy to reach beyond its borders.”

If his reply eased Coldspray’s mind, her mien did not show it. Nevertheless she bowed to him somberly. “Never doubt our gratitude, Insequent. We have given scant thanks for your labors, but that is solely because we are worn and afraid, knowing that our own fate is now written in water. If ever we are granted opportunity to speak of you in full, as Giants do, our tale will make plain what is in our hearts. For the present, I name you ‘Rockbrother’ in friendship and homage. While we live, no iota of your valor and service will be forgotten.”

The Ardent bowed, exhibiting his raiment like war-torn pennons; hiding his face. His posture seemed to suggest that he might weep.

Linden needed the
krill
to restrain the
croyel
.

Without Loric’s blade, Covenant was helpless.

Grimly he shook off the confusion of his memories. They were too damaged to be useful.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered to the Ardent as though he had no cause to share the Ironhand’s gratitude. “Let’s pretend I understand what we’re doing here. Your auguries must be good for
some
thing. Otherwise we wouldn’t still be alive. But we have a more immediate problem.

“Can you help Linden? Can you reach her? I don’t know what she’s doing to herself. Maybe she’s healing. Or maybe she thinks she failed, and she torturing—” The thought choked him for a moment. “I’m afraid the longer she stays like this, the worse it’s going to be when she wakes up.” If she woke at all. “Can you help her find her way back?”

“That reply, also,” sighed the Ardent, “you must discover within yourself.” His tone was wan with fatigue or sorrow. “The lady has gone beyond my ken. I can neither aid nor counsel you.” He hesitated, then offered as if he were forcing himself, “I perceive only that her need for death is great. Or perchance the need is her son’s. But do I speak of her death, or of her son’s? Does her plight, or his, require the deaths of others? Such matters have become fluid. Every current alters them. I am able to appease none of your fears.

“If I do not depart, Timewarden, I cannot return.”

Deliberately he took a step backward, trying to forestall protests or interference.

But Covenant strode in pursuit. “Stop! We aren’t done.”

Long ago, Linden had told him about her parents: he already knew enough about her need for death—or for an answer to it. Nevertheless the Ardent had left too many hints in the air.

“Timewarden?” The Insequent’s eyes glistened in his flushed face.

“None of this is as simple as you make it sound,” Covenant rasped. “You have something at stake, something you don’t want to talk about. You said you’re nearing your end.”—
my life comes to naught but this
—“You’ve done everything for us, more than we could have hoped for, but there’s something else going on for you. Something about the Harrow.”
For his death, there is a cost which need not concern you
. “I want to know what that is. If you’ve doomed yourself somehow, don’t you think we have a right to understand what your help is costing you?”

The Ardent squirmed. “You inquire into private matters, Timewarden. They are my burden, not yours. I wish to bear them with some semblance of dignity.”

“In that case,” Covenant retorted, “you have a misplaced sense of dignity. We aren’t dead yet. Someday these Giants hope to tell your tale. Hellfire, I want to be able to tell it myself. If that day ever comes, we owe it to you to tell the truth.”

The beribboned man scanned the sides of the gully as if he were looking for an escape. “You search me, Timewarden, to my great discomfiture. And I say again that I cannot return if I do not depart.” Then, hesitantly, his gaze met Covenant’s. “Yet I must acknowledge my shame. My fault cannot be pardoned if I do not speak of it.

“Briefly, then.”

Bracing himself on strips of fabric, the Ardent began.

“When our seers and oracles had cast their auguries, and had conceived of their
geas
concerning the Harrow’s purpose, they saw at once that their course was perilous. I have cited the reasoning by which my people justified their intent. But that reasoning was flawed. Oh, assuredly. It rested upon a specious distinction between mere imposition and true interference, a distinction too readily effaced by events.

“To lessen the peril, therefore, the
geas
was made twofold, first to impose the lady’s interpretation of his oath upon the Harrow, and thereafter to assist in the fruition of his designs. By such aid, the Insequent hoped to appease or counteract any violation of the most necessary stricture of our lives.

“Yet even then, none consented to undertake the task. The hazard of interference was deemed too great. The most valorous and mighty among us declined to shoulder such jeopardy. Therefore I claimed it in their stead.”

The Ardent sighed. “I am young as the ages of Insequent are counted, blithe and self-satisfied withal, as you have assuredly observed. But you have also noted that I am timorous. In my hunger for the singular and unprecedented, I have heretofore eschewed all things which affrighted me. Thus I had no apt conception of my danger, or of yours, or of the sorrow which might ensue from my choice. Instead I rejoiced in my acquired stature among the Insequent.

“I am an acolyte of the Mahdoubt,” he explained as he had in Andelain, pleading to be understood—or perhaps to be forgiven. “My intent was kindly. My particular greed is ever unsatisfied. And being young, I was complacent in my ignorance. I claimed the will of the Insequent without regard to its cost.

“Yet I did not complete my task. I failed my
geas
and you and the wide Earth. Lost among the entrancements of the Viles, and appalled by the horrors of the Lost Deep, I left the Harrow to confront his foes without my aid. Thus I permitted his death and the defeat of his designs. By timidity and weakness, I created true interference from the sophistry of imposition.

“Now I must meet the doom which I have wrought for myself. When the last powers of my people are withdrawn from me, I will pass away, leaving naught to vindicate my life except your continuance among the living.”

Oh, hell! Shaken, Covenant tried to find a response. He had guessed—But he had also hoped that he was wrong.

Weakly he protested, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Indeed?” The Ardent fluttered his clothes in disbelief. “How not, Timewarden?”

Covenant scrambled to muster an argument. “If your people can keep you alive for one more service, they can keep you alive indefinitely. Tell them we
need
you. Tell them we aren’t going to survive without you. Damnation! Tell them
they
aren’t going to survive if you don’t help us. The whole Earth—”

“Timewarden.” Gently the Ardent reproved Covenant. “That also is sophistry. Have I not spoken of fate and water? The Insequent will not credit such an avowal. I myself do not.

“Our strictures are necessary to us. Without them, we cannot be who we are.”

Before anyone else had a chance to object, the Ardent swirled his apparel and vanished as if he had been disincarnated.

—the doom which I have wrought—

At some point in the distant past, Covenant had heard someone say,
There is no doom so black or deep that courage and clear sight may not find another truth beyond it
. But he could not imagine what that truth might be.

A
fter the Ardent’s departure, Covenant found himself thinking obsessively about water.—
writ in water
.—
currents and stagnancies
—The basins of armor did not suffice. They could not. Only the Ironhand, Grueburn, and the Ramen had been able to drink directly from the stream, wherever it was. Like Covenant and—presumably—Linden, the others remained raw with thirst.

He tried to distract himself by remembering as much as he could about the lurker, Sarangrave Flat, and the Spoiled Plains. But he flinched away when his efforts led him to Kurash Qwellinir and Hotash Slay; to the ruins of Foul’s Creche. He was not ready, and had no power.