Against All Things Ending (54 page)

A moment later, she noticed that he was even more besmirched and ragged than he had been when she had last seen him. In fact, he looked like he had been dragged through mud and beaten. The hues of his raiment were stained with mire: most of his peculiar apparel hung in tatters. Seen by sunlight, his once-complacent features appeared haggard, diminished, as if he had lost an unconscionable amount of weight.

Nevertheless he stood erect, feigning strength he did not possess. His strained smile may have been meant as reassurance.

“Here,” he said hoarsely, “is a feast to sate even Giants.” One at a time, he set down his burdens. “Among the Insequent, the Ardent is not the only acolyte of the Mahdoubt. Your plight has been heeded. Unsparingly consumed, such viands will provide for two or perhaps three days. If you enforce a wise restraint, you need not fear hunger while you confront the last crisis of the Earth.”

Covenant stared, almost gaping. For a moment, the Swordmainnir seemed too amazed to react. Then, all together, they surged to their feet and reached for the Ardent’s sacks. With a jerk, Anele sat up, snatched alert by the prospect of food.

“Heaven and Earth!” Liand crowed. Springing upright, he rushed to embrace the Insequent.

Just for an instant, the Ardent looked entirely startled; taken aback as though Liand had attacked him. Then, however, he wrapped his strips of fabric around the Stonedownor. His round face beamed with surprise and delight.

In moments, the Giants had unpacked enough food to nourish a multitude: roasted legs of lamb and whole fowl, slabs of cured beef, a bounty of fruits both fresh and dried, wheels of cheese, rich breads still fragrant from the ovens. Smells and appetite rushed over Linden until she was scarcely aware of anything except her own emptiness.

“You must have told them,” Covenant rasped. He, too, was on his feet. “You must have told them how much we need you.”

“Oh, assuredly, Timewarden.” The Ardent tried and failed to sound airy; unconcerned. “You behold the outcome.” He indicated his bundles. “For your sake, I am preserved yet awhile.”

“Then tell them again. Hellfire! You’re dying right in front of us. Tell them we’re
useless
without you.”

“Timewarden, desist.” The Ardent’s eyes were sunken. He regarded Covenant like a man consigned to starvation. “Do you wish us self-condemned? Be content as you are. While I can, I will linger among you. Then I must depart. The alternative—” He shuddered. “The alternative is the loss of use and name and life for our race. If we defy who we are, we must become naught.”

Quickly Coldspray and her comrades set out supplies in their wrappings: squares of an unfamiliar fabric treated to ward off spoilage. As the Giants readied a meal for their companions, they helped themselves to lamb and cheese, fruits, large flasks like urns. The scent of the wine reminded Linden of springwine’s crisp tang without its distinctive suggestion of
aliantha
.

In spite of her hunger, Stormpast Galesend remembered to place food near Anele so that the old man would not be tempted to leave the protection of stone.

While Bhapa and Pahni joined the Giants, gathering viands for their Manethrall as well as themselves, Covenant glared at the Ardent. “Content, is it? We’re supposed to be content? And you think that’s
likely
? Damn it, I’m not asking them to give up who they are. I just want them to make an exception.

“God in Heaven!” Covenant’s eyes glistened as if he were on the verge of tears. “You’re dying, and we don’t even know your name.”

Around the sand, everyone listened while they ate. Even the
croyel
appeared to be listening. Linden fixed her attention on every word—and tried to remember the physician’s detachment that shielded her from grief. Covenant was right: the cruel necessity which had drained the Mahdoubt’s mind and life had already begun for the Ardent. She could see it. She ached for him as she had for the Mahdoubt. But she did not stop eating. Her own needs compelled her.

Squatting beside trays of waxen fabric, she filled her mouth with cheese and fruit, chunks of beef; swallowed gulps of wine as heady as liquor; took more food and tried to force herself to chew slowly. In its own way, eating was also a defense against grief.

It contradicted despair.

Answering Covenant, the Ardent mused, “In itself, my life is of little consequence. Though I grieve for it, my passing will deprive you of neither power nor purpose. And it is condign that the fate of the Earth is borne by those whose lives began beyond the bounds of our knowledge. The Worm of the World’s End also lives and moves beyond those bounds. Doubtless the service of the Earth’s peoples is needful. In that service, I have played the part of the Insequent. Yet the last task is yours, assuredly so.”

He might have said more, but the
croyel
spoke first. “Somebody feed me,” the succubus snarled plaintively. “I can’t live on air and wishful thinking. None of you can stop the Worm.”

Instinctively Linden jumped to her feet; snatched up her Staff. At once, the creature fell silent. Jeremiah’s gaze remained stilted and vacant, as though he had not made a sound.

Trembling, Linden faced Galt’s captives. God, she wanted the
croyel
dead! Clinging to her son’s back, it seemed to falsify everything that she had ever done for him. Its bitter malice—Only the fact that she did not know how to hurt it without harming him prevented her from striking.

But soon, she promised the monster. As soon as I’m ready. I’ll find a way to cut your heart out.

Almost involuntarily, however, she saw that Jeremiah indeed needed food. Avoiding looking at him, she had failed to recognize his inarticulate hunger. Now she discerned it clearly.

Nevertheless she shied away from feeding him herself. The
croyel
’s eyes and fangs held too many threats. And she could not estimate the scale of its desperation, or the extent of its powers and lore. It might cause Jeremiah to grab for her Staff or Covenant’s ring. It might believe that it could raise theurgy and free itself before the
krill
severed its neck.

She did not want to take the chance.

Over her shoulder, she asked reluctantly, “Liand, will you help me?”

He responded without hesitation. But before he could approach, the
croyel
snapped viciously, “Keep that whelp away from me.” Fury and fear sawed against each other in Jeremiah’s tone. “If you don’t, I’ll teach you what
real
pain feels like.”

In the Lost Deep, the monster had attacked Liand rather than Linden. She did not know why—but she heeded the warning.

She stopped the Stonedownor with a gesture. “I forgot. Apparently you scare that thing more than I do.”

“That is strange,” Liand replied tensely. “I pose no threat to a being of such might. Yet the creature’s actions proclaim its fear. I must consider—I do not aspire to a second injury. Yet mayhap—”

Linden shook her head. “Not right now.” She had no intention of risking him. She understood Pahni’s dread too well. “Right now, Jeremiah just needs food.”

“Bhapa? Do you mind?”

The older Cord promptly collected a handful of fresh fruit, a wedge of cheese, and a waterskin, and joined Linden in front of Jeremiah. “I am willing, Ringthane,” he told her. “Have I not said that my life is yours, subject only to the commands of the Manethrall and the will of the Ranyhyn? Ask, and it is done.”

Linden took a deep breath to steady herself, held it for a moment. “In that case,” she said, “I hope you can feed him. I’m afraid to get too close.” Afraid to get too close to her own son. “I don’t know what that thing can do if it gets its hands on my Staff. Or Covenant’s ring.”

Bhapa nodded. “As you say, Ringthane.” His nerves were strung taut, but he did not delay. A step took him to Jeremiah’s side. Carefully he placed a bit of melon in Jeremiah’s mouth.

For a heartbeat or two, the boy appeared unaware of the food on this tongue. Then, abruptly, he closed his mouth. When he had chewed and swallowed, his jaw dropped open again.

He accepted a piece of cheese; and a moment later, a few sections of a tangerine. He let Bhapa tilt his head for water. Soon he was eating as quickly as Bhapa could feed him.

Hating her own weakness, Linden turned her back on her son and went to confront the Ardent.

He still stood in the center of the circle, holding himself erect with difficulty. She had the impression that he was dwindling—that he had already lost more weight—and her heart twisted. In the Lost Deep, he had striven prodigiously to keep her and her companions alive. He had snatched her back from the jaws of She Who Must Not Be Named. This was the result.

Like the Mahdoubt—

But Linden’s needs outweighed her concern for him. She did not know where else to turn for answers. Biting her lip, she compelled herself to ignore his plight.

“Can you explain it?”

The Ardent regarded her anxiously. “Lady?”

“Why is the
croyel
afraid of Liand? Why not me?”

“Sadly, I have no insight.” By slow degrees, his voice was fading. “In their auguries, the Insequent did not concern themselves with the Stonedownor. And now their prescience has become water, as I endeavored to explain to your companions. I have no more to give, lady. There is no more of me.”

“Then tell me while you still can,” Linden demanded, hating her own selfishness. He was her only chance. “You said that flood changed everything. Now my fate is ‘writ in water.’ But that doesn’t make sense. Breaking open the ceiling wasn’t my idea. I didn’t even know it
could
break. I sure as hell didn’t know where to break it. I just did what the ur-viles wanted,” her last effort before she succumbed to the bane. “That flood wasn’t really my doing. How did it change
any
thing?”

“Ah, lady,” sighed the Ardent. “My end crowds close about me, and I have no true answer. The Insequent have none. Perhaps the flood was in sooth the ur-viles’ deed rather than yours. They are a mystery in all things, and their strange lore has no equal.

“But if you will accept mere speculation—” He sighed again. “Lady, I have observed that your true strength lies in neither the Staff of Law nor in white gold. Rather it lies in the force of self which attracts aid and allies wherever you are, even from among a-Jeroth’s former servants. You inspired the Mahdoubt’s devoir as you did mine, and that of the Demondim-spawn as well. You do not have such friends”—he gestured around him—“because you wield magicks, but rather because you are Linden Avery the Chosen.

“This power defies both augury and foresight. Assuredly it surpasses the cunning of a-Jeroth, who knows no fealty which is not derived from possession or other mastery.”

Such friends—Appealing to her, the Ardent almost succeeded at making Linden weep. But her heart was too desolate for tears.

Before she could summon a response, he turned away. “Fare you well,” he breathed thinly. “I must depart.”

With a visible effort, he dragged the scraps of his apparel from the sand, unfurled them around him. Briefly his ribbands seemed to drift aimlessly in all directions, as if they had forgotten their purpose. But then he made a small sound like a sob, and they rallied.

Fluttering, they erased him from sight.

After a long moment like an open wound, Covenant looked at Linden. “He’s right, you know,” he said roughly. “Lord Foul is cunning as all hell, but he’s never been able to guess what we’ll do when he has us trapped. No matter how carefully he plots and manipulates, he’s never ready for us.”

But his assertion did not comfort her. It could not: it came from a man who would not let her touch him.

E
ventually Linden resumed her meal. Her companions did the same. None of them seemed inclined to talk: she certainly was not. If she had the ability to attract aid and allies, the price was too high. The Land and everyone around her would be better served by despair.

To that extent, at least, she was learning to understand High Lord Kevin.

Seeking numbness, she drank too much wine; and soon she began to drift on a current as slow and necessary as the stream. God, she was tired—Every price was too high. While the Giants were still eating, she stretched out on the sand and fell asleep.

During the heat of the afternoon, she awakened briefly, sweating in direct sunlight. For a few moments, she studied the sky, watching for some indication that the weather might change. Then she moved to a patch of shade and settled herself for more sleep.

This time, she did not awaken until she was roused by the stirring of her companions. With her eyes closed, she felt the Staff of Law propped against a rock nearby. Shadows covered her, easing the pressure of the sun: they covered the watercourse and the swath of sand and the lower hillsides. Among the movements of the company, she smelled food again; heard the Giants murmuring to each other. And when she extended her attention, she sensed Covenant’s absence. Claimed by memories and mortality, he wandered among the broken places of his mind; and his features knotted and released as though he were remembering horrors.