The Last Dark (75 page)

Linden caught a frantic glimpse of Stave swimming. Then Hurl’s hands caught her.

He did not hold her. Treading water, he pitched her back over his head. A blind throw—

Blind and unerring. Deftly Wiver Setrock snagged her out of the air. In the same motion, he, too, flung her behind him.

A heartbeat later, Linden lay in Grueburn’s clasp at the water’s edge. With wary haste, Grueburn retreated up the rocks to press her back against the wall among the other Giants. Her grin as she regarded Linden was feral with glee.

Linden’s mind had gone blank. She stared up at Grueburn as if she did not recognize the Swordmain.

But somewhere deep inside her, a voice was crowing.

You did it. You
did
it.

Did you call me your
daughter
? she shouted at Lord Foul. Watch and learn, you smug bastard!

She could cheer and threaten because the Despiser was not her greatest fear. He was Covenant’s problem. She had chosen a different path to the World’s End.

Wild magic was a necessary step.

At Last

Tumults crashed inward. They threatened to fill the cave, drown the entire company. The Feroce vanished in roaring waves. The air that came with the flood stank of minerals and trapped hate. It surpassed Jeremiah; surpassed the Staff of Law.

But the constrained volume of the river was less than it had been scant days ago, much less; and the cave’s outlet swallowed the immediate brunt of the inrush. On either side, waves slammed like heavy seas against the walls, fell back onto each other. The pond became a boiling cauldron, a contained squall. Surges tore at the Giants’ ankles, knees, thighs. Fluid blows hammered Stave and Branl. Yet moment by moment the flail and rebound of the waters ran down the mountain’s throat.

Gradually the flood seemed to find its balance. Its force receded as the cleft drained. Turmoil slapped at the walls and the company, but did not claim them. Smaller waves sank to the level of knees and then ankles. Soon the water only splashed the feet of the Giants. Its thunderous howl faded.

At the same time, the air tumbling from the opened crevice lost some of its virulence. It had been blocked for ages or eons, and its contagions had congealed until they were thick as mire. But now it ran out like the river; and as it emptied the cleft, it drew air from some cleaner source. Gasping, Linden tasted hints of something that resembled life. When Jeremiah regained his grip on Earthpower, the whole company began to breathe more easily.

His efforts confirmed that he was unharmed.

But the Feroce were indeed gone. If they had survived the torrents, they had allowed themselves to be swept away: back to the cavern and the black lake, to the Defiles Course and the Sarangrave. Linden wanted to think that they were still alive. They had done what they could. Perhaps their High God would forgive their doubts.

A shout from the Ironhand announced that the gap into the crevice had become passable. Branl carried the
krill
closer to light the way as the Anchormaster and half a dozen of his crew dropped down into the water’s former channel, then began scrambling upward. The river frothed against their legs, but they labored higher until they were out of sight.

Through the raw clamor of the current, Covenant told Branl to go ahead. With Coldspray’s assent, the Humbled took Loric’s dagger into the crevice. For a moment, the gem left slashes of argent on the pond’s turmoil. Then the Ironhand followed, bearing Covenant with her, and her size blocked most of the light. The remaining streaks and gleams made the cave and its water look ghostly, transient, as if the whole place were dissolving; losing its place in the reality of time.

Halewhole Bluntfist went next with Setrock and Furledsail. Cirrus Kindwind carried Jeremiah after them. Then it was Frostheart Grueburn’s turn. As Linden scrambled onto Grueburn’s back, she saw a rope trailing from the crevice: a lifeline. Onyx Stonemage gripped the end while someone—Bluff Stoutgirth or one of his sailors—pulled it taut. Muttering her approval, Grueburn held the line to steady her as she bore Linden into the crevice with Stave behind her. Squallish Blustergale supported Scatterwit. Stonemage brought up the rear.

The lifeline was necessary. Somewhere beneath Grueburn’s feet, there was stone: there had to be. But long turbulent millennia had deposited thick layers of silt as cloying as quicksand. The water pounding against Grueburn’s thighs was not the greatest obstacle to her ascent. The silt was worse. She sank to her calves and higher in muck that dragged at every step. While she hauled one foot out of the mire, her weight drove the other deeper. She needed the rope.

For that reason, any Giant above her who happened to find secure footing paused to anchor the line. The result was progress in arduous surges as sailors and Swordmainnir pulled themselves or each other from one patch of solid ground to another.

How the
Haruchai
managed to ascend, Linden could not imagine. Glancing behind her, she sensed an uncharacteristic frown of vexation on Stave’s visage. The strain in his muscles was as palpable as Grueburn’s. At intervals, he clutched at the lifeline, obviously reluctant to require its aid.

How long could he continue? How long could the Giants? Linden had often been amazed by their endurance, but still—The crevice was too narrow for the companions to assist each other side by side, and the silt was
deep
. Each new step seemed to demand more effort than the one before.

A call from above warned the company that Stoutgirth had floundered into a pit where the mire seemed bottomless. His sailors dragged him back; but then everyone else was forced to wait while the Giants in the lead probed for a way past the pit.

Linden felt a flutter of panic. The walls seemed to be leaning in. Surely the crevice was becoming narrower? The current boiling past Grueburn’s legs carried glints of She Who Must Not Be Named like flakes of shed malice: lightless, invisible, yet distinct to Linden’s nerves.

If Frostheart Grueburn lost her balance—If Linden plunged into the water—

Apparently Stoutgirth’s fall and rescue had released gases trapped in the pit. Heavy as fog, sulfur and putrefaction rode the stream. They burned Linden’s eyes, stung her nose, bit into her chest, until the tug of running water took them away.

She could hear Covenant swearing at his helplessness. Jeremiah jerked his head from side to side, flung black fire along the river. Spray stood like sweat on his skin.

Then the Anchormaster reported success. The line began to lurch forward again.

In their turn, Kindwind and Grueburn reached the pit. Now Linden understood Stoutgirth’s mistake. Her health-sense could not measure the varying depths of the silt. It was all so old, so laden with refuse and minerals, so full of the aftereffects of dire theurgies, that it refused percipience.

Helped by Bluntfist and Furledsail, Cirrus Kindwind bore Jeremiah around the rim of the pit: a narrow path. Linden shifted until she hung from Grueburn’s shoulder; dangled over the pit as Grueburn forced her way around it. Stave crossed by floating on his back and pulling himself along the rope. Grueburn and Kindwind waited while Blustergale ensured Scatterwit’s safety. Then Blustergale sent Scatterwit ahead. He stayed behind to assist Onyx Stonemage.

In heaves and sags, the company struggled upward. Aching for Grueburn, and for Jeremiah, Linden concentrated on clinging to Grueburn’s armor—and on holding still so that she would not disturb Grueburn’s balance.

Here the air was definitely better. It became cleaner, demanded less from Jeremiah, as the river dragged its atmosphere with it. Hints of the bane persisted, but they were diminished.

On into darkness, interminably. The fissure became wider. It narrowed again. At intervals, indurated juts of stone interrupted the silt. For long stretches, the muck seemed deeper. The Giants fought for breath to feed their straining muscles, their accumulating exhaustion. Their gasps filled the crevice above the rush of water. Linden could not remember when they had last rested.

Then the rope was drawn tighter. Grueburn gripped it with both hands. She began to move a bit more easily. Behind her, Scatterwit chortled, a sound as forlorn as a groan. The light of the
krill
reached farther down the cleft. It touched Kindwind’s head, flared like fire in Jeremiah’s hair. The wall on the left had begun to lean away from the river. The darkness overhead felt more open.

The leading Giants must have found a place where they could stand; where they could gather on firm rock and brace their feet.

“Soon, Giantfriend,” Grueburn panted. “Soon.”

“It better be.” Jeremiah coughed the words. “I can’t hold on much longer.”

Linden watched the silver on the walls grow brighter as more and more of the company moved past the
krill
. In moments, she caught sight of Branl. Where he stood, the left wall appeared to fall away. But then she saw that the fissure simply became wider. Beyond a rough edge like a doorpost, that wall curved back, continuing the crevice. The river ran there, tumbling more slowly between sheer sides now farther apart. Past the turning, rough stone formed a floor like a platform above the water, vaguely level, and perhaps ten or fifteen paces across.

Bluff Stoutgirth and his immediate companions waited there, chests heaving. Coldspray had put Covenant on his feet. He stood squinting past the glare of Loric’s gem, impatient for Jeremiah and Linden. With Setrock and Furledsail, Bluntfist had taken the rope. Together they hauled as if they hoped to raise their comrades from a crypt. Silt caked their legs, but they ignored that discomfort.

On the platform, some of the sailors began unpacking waterskins and bundles of food.

Eager to slip down from Grueburn’s back—eager to put her arms around Covenant—Linden did not look around. Her legs stung as she dropped to the stone. Moving toward Covenant, she stumbled, had to catch herself. Then he was holding her tight. The urgency of his hug matched hers.

“Hellfire, Linden,” he murmured near her ear. “I thought that was never going to end.”

It was not ended now. The companions had merely found a respite.

From the downward fissure, Stonemage herded Blustergale and Scatterwit out of the river: the last of the Giants. As similar as brothers, Stave and Branl came toward Linden and Covenant.

Linden felt Jeremiah quench the power of the Staff. Instinctively she flinched. But the atmosphere here was kinder to her lungs. Although it was thick with dust and disuse, stale, acrid, the river carried most of its wastes and poisons with it. She could breathe without choking.

When she had held Covenant long enough to ease her heart, she turned to her son.

Jeremiah was sitting on the stone, hugging his knees against his chest in an effort to control the tremors in his limbs. He had dropped the Staff beside him. Dully he stared across the water, a gaze as expressionless as the far wall. Saliva collected on his drooping lower lip: a sight which Linden had not seen since he had emerged from his dissociation.

She knelt at his side, put her arm over his shoulders. “Jeremiah, honey? Are you all right? It’s no wonder you’re tired. You’ve been keeping us all alive.”

His eyes did not shift. He hardly seemed to blink or swallow. His voice was a low rasp, a scraping like the sound of a creature crawling on its belly.

“It isn’t fair, Mom. It’s not. I’m so tired. I can’t go on. I can’t. But I have to have Earthpower. Without it—” Abruptly he released his legs, slapped at his face as if his weariness revolted him. “It protects me.

“You don’t know what it’s like. That mountain is
huge
. And the Worm is in the river. It’s drinking every bit of Earthpower it can find, but it wants more. It wants it
all
.”

Oh, Jeremiah—

Uselessly Linden told her son, “You’ll get stronger. You’re already stronger. We’ll eat something, rest for a while. You’ll feel better. Then we’ll need you again. We’ll have to go back into the river. You’ll be able to protect yourself.”

Leaden with depletion or despair, his head turned toward her. “What are you talking about?” He peered at her as if he were going blind. “The river? Why?” With one hand, he pointed up the wall. “That’s the way. It has to be. The air’s better there. You won’t need me anymore.”

She frowned, momentarily confused. Then she stood to look around.

Giants cast grotesque shadows, shapes that appeared to caper across the walls. Between them, however, the
krill
lit this section of the crevice clearly.

Under tremendous pressure long ago, layers of stone on this side had shifted. Diagonally beginning half a dozen paces beyond the Giants and angling erratically into the darkness overhead, ancient forces had pulled the higher reaches of the wall back from the lower. The result was a crude ledge or shelf: a natural formation that lurched upward, lying level in some places, jutting like a titan’s stairs in others; obstructed here and there by piles of rubble. For short distances, it looked wide enough to accommodate horses. Other stretches were too narrow to let more than one Giant pass at a time.

It ascended beyond the
krill
’s illumination, beyond the range of Linden’s senses, climbing into the secrets of the crevice. She had no way of knowing where it led. But the air drifting down was unmistakably cleaner.

Surely even stone-dwelling Cavewights required unfouled air?

In any case, the ledge went higher. It might go far enough to reach the catacombs.

“You’re right,” she murmured to Jeremiah. “We have to go up.” Then she added quickly, “But that doesn’t mean we don’t need you. It just means that you can stop wearing yourself out for a while. Maybe you can learn other ways to use the Staff.”

“Like what?” he asked as if she had suggested something unimaginable. He had already failed to affect the hue of the wood. He could not undo its effect on him.

Instead of giving him a direct answer, Linden said, “You’re here for a reason, honey. It’s no accident.” For his sake, she spun a web of inferences that made her tremble. “Of course, you’re here because Roger took you. He wanted a way to make me give him Thomas’ ring. And Lord Foul wants revenge. He thinks that you can help him trap the Creator. He’s trying to fill your head with despair so that you won’t fight him.