9.
Hastening Doom
018
In time you will behold the fruit of my endeavors.
Linden could hear Lord Foul as if he stood beside her, laughing like a scourge.
If your son serves me, he will do so in your presence. Jeremiah had done so under Melenkurion Skyweir. He did so now. Or the croyel used his unresisting body and trapped mind as a conveyance for its harsh appetites. Confident of its dominion, the creature faced the Harrow with mockery in its cruel eyes.
If I slaughter him, I will do so before you. Think on that when you seek to retrieve him from me.
Dull-eyed and vacant, Jeremiah remained on his feet only because the croyel compelled him. The false or transmuted alertness and excitement that Linden had seen in her son’s face before she had exposed the succubus was absent. Every sign that he might be capable of outward consciousness was gone.
If you discover him, you will only hasten his doom.
While the Harrow strove to master the croyel, and received only contempt, Linden stood helpless, transfixed by dismay.
—this I vow.
Indirectly, indirectly, the Despiser had urged her to awaken the Worm of the World’s End by resurrecting Covenant. Lord Foul had provided the circumstances and the impetus that goaded her damaged heart. By dismay and desperation, he had encouraged her to surrender her powers so that she would be brought here; so that she would be forced to bear witness and do nothing. So that her futility in the face of Jeremiah’s need would break her at last.
The Despiser had underestimated her. Again. He had failed to grasp the scale of her willingness to suffer for her son’s sake, or the acuity of her flayed perceptions. He did not know that she could hear vast pain masked by Lord Foul’s exaltation.
“Linden?” Liand panted. “Is this your son’s plight? You have described it, but words—” He strained for language. “Linden, that creature—that monster—! What it does to your son is an abomination.”
As if she were clenching her own fist, Linden felt his hand tighten on the orcrest. Fierce with ire, he began to draw forth more Earthpower, and still more. If the white purity of the Sunstone could be used as a weapon, he intended to assail the croyel. His desire to strike was as vivid as a shout.
His spirit was too clean to countenance atrocities: a handicap which she did not share.
She meant to stop him. She needed only the health-sense that his efforts supplied. She did not intend to let him sacrifice himself.
Before she could forestall the Stonedownor, however, the croyel raised Jeremiah’s maimed hand. Undisturbed by the avid depths of the Harrow’s eyes, the creature caused Jeremiah to gesture negligently in Liand’s direction.
Warm as breath, a sudden wave of magic crashed into the young man.
It swatted him away; flung him hard against one of the dark ridges of travertine. The impact nearly shattered Linden’s concentration: it may have shattered his bones. Blood red as an arterial hemorrhage burst from his mouth, splashed incrimination onto the luminous floor. Flopping like a doll stuffed with cloth and cotton, he sprawled face-first to the stone.
Apparently the croyel perceived a greater threat in Liand—or in orcrest—than in the Harrow. Or in Linden.
Instantly inert, the Sunstone fell from Liand’s grasp; rolled away. A stride or two beyond his fingers, it came to rest.
At once, Linden’s health-sense evaporated, denatured by her proximity to the source of Kevin’s Dirt. Without transition, she was blinded to the truth of Jeremiah’s anguish and Liand’s injuries and the croyel’s evil.
At the same time, Anele wrenched free of her. His mouth stretched in a soundless wail as he turned; fled back into the corridor toward the palace.
Linden let him go. He could not aid her now. Perhaps his reappearance among the rest of her companions would serve to disenchant them.
They would take too long—
Part of her yearned to rush to Liand’s side; gauge the extent of his wounds; help him as much as she was able. Part of her burned to leap past him and snatch up the Sunstone, hoping that its touch would restore some measure of her percipience. But she compelled herself to remain motionless. The croyel could crush her as easily as it had broken Liand. She had no defense.
She knew what to do. She had already made her decision. But she had to wait for the right moment.
The moment when both the Harrow and the creature would be distracted.
Where was Roger? Surely Thomas Covenant’s son would not have left the croyel and Jeremiah unguarded? Linden was counting on that. Alone, the power of Kastenessen’s hand was not enough for Roger. Nor were the complex magicks of the croyel. Like the creature, Roger required Jeremiah’s supernal talents. Without them, Roger and the croyel would not survive the destruction of the Arch of Time to become gods.
Gradually the contest between the Harrow and the croyel eased or shifted. Linden saw the change in the loosening of the Insequent’s shoulders, the adjustment of his posture. He must have decided to try different tactics.
“Do you dare me?” His voice held only triumph despite the scorn gleaming in the croyel’s eyes. Beside Jeremiah’s vacancy, he was a figure of sculpted muscle, graceful garb, and dominance. “You see that my flesh and bone are no greater than those of the youth whom you possess. Therefore you conclude that I am a lesser being than yourself. Yet you are sorely mistaken. To your cost, you refuse the consummation of my gaze. Do you not perceive that I have learned the uses of the Staff of Law? And soon I will wield the incomparable forces of white gold. At that moment, my knowledge and magicks will become perfection.
“Doubtless your strengths are ancient and potent. Nonetheless you cannot stand against me.”
Briefly the creature lifted its fangs from Jeremiah’s neck to grin at the Harrow. Then it resumed its dire feeding.
“Nor can you hope for aid here,” the Insequent continued. “The defense which you have devised blocks foe and friend alike. Even the halfhand who has been your companion and ally cannot broach this warded chamber.”
Cannot—? Linden’s chest tightened. The Harrow may have been telling the truth. Before the battle of First Woodhelven, he had pierced the glamour with which Roger had veiled himself and his Cavewights. Surely the Harrow would have recognized the danger if Roger had been present?
But when Roger had arrived to attack the Harrow and Esmer and Linden, he had left the croyel behind. He had approached and struck without the croyel’s support, the croyel’s theurgy.
Nevertheless the deep soil of the Harrow’s disdain matched the creature’s malign gaze.
“Oh, I do not question that he is aware of your location, as the Elohim are not. Indeed, I am certain that he participated in your choice to conceal yourself here, and that he assisted your passage hither. Yet when you erected the barrier which prevents the perception of the Elohim, you excluded him as well. Kastenessen’s hand has grown into him. It has become native to his blood. And Kastenessen is Elohim. Thus your own cleverness delivers you to me.
“No other power will redeem you. You are mine.”
With a flourish of the Staff, the Harrow sent sunshine flame blossoming into the dome.
Unintentionally he renewed a portion of Linden’s health-sense.
Roger had told Linden that Kastenessen craved only the destruction of his people. She believed that. Kastenessen’s pain ruled him. He had no other desires. Through Esmer, he had opposed the Harrow before. He would do so again, if he could—but only because he sought to prevent the Harrow from saving the Elohim. He did not want Jeremiah’s gifts for his own use.
Roger and the croyel had other ambitions.
Mimicking the Harrow’s display in its own fashion, the creature gestured with Jeremiah’s halfhand again.
Linden flinched. She expected an invisible blow which would deprive her of use and name and life. But the croyel’s might was not directed at her. She felt none of its energy in the chamber at all.
Instead she sensed a summons.
Immediately children like incarnations of acid began to emerge from the other openings in the wall.
She knew them too well. They were skest: creatures of living vitriol, deformed and corrosive; deadly despite their small stature. Lit from within by a gangrenous green radiance, as if they were the impossible offspring of the Illearth Stone, they destroyed their foes by dissolving mortal flesh, reducing bones and sinews to macerated puddles. At one time, they had served the lurker of the Sarangrave. But more recently, Linden had seen them tending Joan. Trapped in freezing and hornets and madness within a caesure, Linden had watched acid-children care for Joan’s physical needs while turiya Raver toyed with the frail woman’s derangement. Linden had not expected to encounter them here.
Now she guessed that the skest performed a similar service for Jeremiah, nourishing the croyel through her son’s possessed body. In effect, they kept Jeremiah alive for the creature’s sake—and for Lord Foul’s.
But the skest were also the croyel’s defenders. They issued from their corridors in numbers that seemed great enough to overwhelm the Harrow.
Studying him as closely as she could, Linden believed that he had not yet found a way to evoke wild magic from Covenant’s ring. But with the Staff, the Insequent could wield a flail of burning Earthpower. He would fight to protect himself.
If one of the skest touched him, just one—Would the magicks which had preserved him from the Humbled and Stave suffice here? Linden did not think so. He was mortal: as human as Linden and Jeremiah. His power to ward off plain blows might not guard him against the more fatal touch of emerald corrosion. And skest were not Demondim—or Demondim-spawn. He could not simply unbind them from themselves.
And while he defended himself from them, the croyel could strike whenever it wished.
Clearly the Insequent recognized his peril. He retreated a few steps from Jeremiah and the croyel; surrounded himself with flames. His jaws chewed curses as he clenched Covenant’s ring. Linden felt his extremity as he strove to bring forth argence.
But he was not its rightful wielder.
Neither was she. Yet Covenant’s ring belonged to her far more than it did to the Harrow. Otherwise she could not have saved herself and Anele from the collapse of Kevin’s Watch.
There were scores of skest in the chamber. More came behind them. Some of them burned like kindling when the Staff’s fire caught them: they slumped into acrid pools that frothed and spat, gnawing chunks out of the granite floor. But they were many, and they kept coming. Soon they would be enough to encircle the Harrow’s defenses.
Enough to threaten Linden: enough to kill her where she stood; or to drive her away from her son.
Liand would die in quick agony.
Now, she thought. The time was now.
At last, she moved.
She could not afford to fail.
She had regained only a fraction of her health-sense; but it sufficed to guide her. The croyel had struck Liand with terrible force. He had hit one of the calcified arms of the warding construct: hit it hard. When she scanned the ridge, she saw that the impact had weakened it.
She dashed to that spot, hoping that the skest would ignore her.
The travertine was porous and fragile: she was certain of it. And in that one place, it had been damaged. Nonetheless it was stone. It did not crumble easily. Stooping, she gripped the rimose deposit; dug her fingers in among its bulges and knags until her nails tore and her skin bled; pulled at the ridge until the flesh of her palms was shredded.
The stone held.
Behind her, the Harrow roared curses and invocations in alien tongues. Skest burned like pitch, eating away the perfection of the floor. Again the croyel raised his mouth from Jeremiah’s neck to bare its teeth at the Insequent. The creature’s glee stung the back of Linden’s neck like the first caress of acid.
Her hands were not strong enough.
Part of her wept at her weakness. But that part belonged to the Linden Avery whom she had left behind under Melenkurion Skyweir. The Linden Avery who had stood with Caerroil Wildwood and the Mahdoubt on Gallows Howe did not hesitate.
Surging erect, she kicked furiously at the marred section of the gnarled arm; stomped with the heel of her boot.
Her blow skidded aside. Her own momentum flung her forward. When one kneecap hit the travertine, she felt the bone crack.
Enlivened by Earthpower, her nerves sensed the first flicker of wild magic as the Harrow began to invoke Covenant’s ring. The bastard was going to win—
In spite of her pain, Linden kicked again. Hardly aware of what she did, she started screaming the Seven Words.
“Melenkurion abatha!”
Her second blow struck squarely.
“Duroc minas mill!”
Her third broke a chunk as large as her fist out of Jeremiah’s construct.
“Harad khabaal!”
At once, the inherent power of the construct failed. The ridges lost their darkness. Swiftly the travertine lapsed to a more natural grey.
Staggering, Linden faced a throng of skest.
She barely had time to draw breath, blink tears from her vision, gasp at the agony in her knee. Then Roger Covenant arrived, shedding his glamour directly behind the Harrow.
Ecstatic with triumph, Roger shouted, “SUCK-er!”
Magma blared from his right fist as he punched fury straight through the center of the Harrow’s back.
For an instant, the Harrow gaped at Kastenessen’s hand; at the charred wound where Roger’s fist emerged from his chest. He seemed unable to comprehend what had become of him. Then Roger snatched back his arm; and the Insequent fell dead.
The Staff and Covenant’s ring dropped from his hands.
Chittering incomprehensibly, the skest drew back. Commanded by Roger or the croyel, they cleared a space around Roger, Jeremiah, the Harrow’s corpse. If more of them waited in the corridors, they did not press into the chamber.
Linden’s health-sense had evaporated again, but she was in too much pain to notice the difference. Roger was here. All he had to do now was bend down and pick up his father’s ring. The skest had given him room. He could claim the Staff of Law at the same time, if he wanted it.
His victory would be complete.
Linden had done what she could—and it was too little. She had broken the spell of Jeremiah’s construct. Surely now the Elohim were able to discern his location? Roger she had expected in some fashion. But she had also believed that at least one of the scattered Elohim would care enough to intervene. Or if none of Infelice’s people responded, Kastenessen would—or Esmer—
Here Roger and the croyel could combine their powers. They could escape through time and distance, as they had done before.
Yet no Elohim came. Esmer did not.
And the Ardent had failed the will of the Insequent. Liand was severely injured: he may have been dying. Anele had fled. The rest of Linden’s companions were held in thrall by the astonishment of the palace.
Sobbing at the scream in her knee, she dove headlong toward Liand’s orcrest.
If the Sunstone reawakened even a few tiny glints of her percipience, she would be able to reach out for Earthpower and Law. She did not need to hold the Staff in order to use it: not now. She needed only a small spattering of health-sense—
A body hurtled past her into the chamber. She had no idea who or what it was. Pain and desperation blinded her to everything except orcrest. She hardly heard Roger’s eager roar of defiance.
When her straining fingers closed on the Sunstone, she felt nothing. Nothing at all. The orcrest was only a lump of rock. She could not see it; could not touch its true vitality.
A surge of absolute despair broke over her: a crashing wave. Then it receded. She was too frantic to drown in it, or to be swept away.
Wrenching herself into a sitting position, she cocked her arm to hurl the Sunstone at Roger’s head: the last throw of a woman whose fate was written in water.
Covenant’s ring still lay amid a tumble of chain near Jeremiah’s bare feet. The runed ebony length of the Staff rested an arm’s length away. Roger had not claimed either instrument.
He had not had time.
Through a blaze of argent, Linden saw Thomas Covenant.
Somehow he had emerged from his memories; had shrugged off the enchantment of the palace. He must have sensed Roger’s power, or the croyel’s; must have realized that Linden needed him.
Braced in the act of trying to slash downward with Loric’s krill, Covenant confronted his son. He gripped the dagger in both fists, apparently striving to cripple or sever Kastenessen’s hand. But Roger had blocked his father’s cut with a blast of heat and scoria. Straining to strike, Covenant stood with his blade embedded in the furnace of Roger’s power.
They had not touched each other physically: their blows met in the air between them. Roger’s pyrotic theurgy held Covenant’s blade in a grip of crimson and sulphur, as fluid and fatal as lava. Covenant answered with the salvific possibilities of wild magic channeled and focused by High Lord Loric’s mighty lore. The krill’s pure gem was an expanding cynosure of incandescence.
Too much incandescence. Linden did not need health-sense to guess that Joan was pouring out her madness, trying to hurt the man who had been her husband. Somehow Joan—or turiya Herem—had recognized Covenant’s grip on the krill, Covenant’s intention. While he struggled against their son, she wielded her own ring in an effort to incinerate him.
She could not attack him directly. She was not present; and her own plight hampered her. But if she unleashed enough wild magic through the gem, she might make the krill so hot that it burned the flesh from his bones.
And Roger’s power was the essence of the skurj multiplied by Kastenessen’s immense might. Even a Giant could not have endured such heat.
Leprosy aggravated the numbness in Covenant’s fingers. The Ardent had bandaged his hands in garish strips of magic and knowledge. The handle of the krill was wrapped in vellum. Yet the vehemence directed at him was too great. Linden watched in horror as the vellum charred and curled, cracking into flickers of flame. For a moment, the Ardent’s bandages resisted. Then they, too, began to smolder.
Wailing, the skest crowded back against the walls. The croyel appeared to be searching for an opportunity to attack.
“Hell and blood, Roger!” Covenant shouted: a cry thick with excruciation. “You don’t have to do this! There are better answers!”
“What makes you think I want your answers?” Roger retorted, fierce as scoria. “You’re done being the hero, Dad!” He made “Dad” sound like a vile obscenity. “It’s time somebody put you in your place! I’m just glad that somebody is going to be me!”
The krill’s brilliance nearly blinded Linden. Its echo of wild magic was too bright to be borne. God! she thought, oh, God, there must be caesures all across the Land, Joan is trying to bring down the Arch by herself—Sudden flames undid the bandages from Covenant’s hands. Soon he would be too badly hurt to hold the krill.
In an argent blur cruelly tainted with crimson and malice, Linden saw another figure sprint into the chamber. Indistinct amid the squall of magicks, Stave leapt as if he meant to join Covenant’s battle. But he did not. Instead he stretched out in the air, landed full-length on the stone. His momentum carried him, skidding, beneath the conflagration of Kastenessen’s hand and Joan’s ring and Loric’s krill.
Covenant withstood Roger’s assault because Joan’s efforts increased the krill’s puissance. Nevertheless Covenant’s flesh was dying. His protections were gone: flames ate at his fingers. Only the reek of Roger’s magma masked the odor of burning meat.
Roger’s concentration was fixed on his father: the croyel’s was not. The creature’s gaze resembled howling as it raised Jeremiah’s arm to hurl hate like boulders down on Stave.
Yet Stave had taken the croyel by surprise. Before it could unleash its blast, he collided with the Harrow’s body. A thrust of Stave’s arms shoved the dead Insequent at Jeremiah.
The unexpected impact swept Jeremiah’s feet out from under him. He fell awkwardly atop the Harrow, disrupting the croyel’s magicks.
Through Jeremiah, the croyel clutched at Stave; failed to catch him. Stave was too swift. Snatching up Covenant’s ring, he rolled aside, evading Jeremiah’s hands—
—rolled onto and over the Staff of Law.
Then Linden thought that she heard Stave shout her name. From the core of the clashing theurgies, she seemed to see a black shaft like a spear arc through the air toward her as though it had been aimed at her chest.
She dropped the Sunstone. Pure reflex enabled her to reach out and catch the Staff.
In that instant, she was transformed.
Stave. Of course. When she needed him most.
Of the Haruchai, he alone knew how to silence his thoughts. Perhaps that skill—or the discipline to attain it—lessened the entrancement of the palace. He must have felt her absence and broken free when none of her other companions could do so. If he had been bestirred by Anele’s return, he had not paused to rouse anyone else.
The touch of the Staff restored Linden’s health-sense. Earthpower lifted her to her feet. The torn flesh of her fingers and palms seemed to heal itself. Stave had renewed her true heritage, the birthright that she had wrested from her parents’ legacy of despair.
Jeremiah had already clambered upright. The croyel was summoning enough wrath to crush every bone in Stave’s body.
Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, Linden flung flame and Law into the fight.
She wanted to hurl her fire everywhere at once. Liand needed her. Covenant needed her urgently. Stave had no defense: not against the croyel’s theurgies. The skest might advance at any moment, rallied by Roger or the croyel. Surely one or both of them would turn their powers against her? If they were given an opportunity, they could transport themselves out of danger.
But she was limited by her mortality. She could not focus on so many perils simultaneously.
Trusting that Stave could fend for himself—that Roger and the croyel were done with Liand—that the skest were too frightened to advance—Linden threw her desperation at Covenant’s son.
If Covenant’s hands were crippled or burned away, no power known to her would repair them. Like Mahrtiir’s eyes, like Stave’s eye, they would be permanently lost. Covenant would not be able to hold Loric’s krill. And he would be in too much pain to call up wild magic from his ring.
Linden wept for her son; but she fought for her former lover.
She had defeated Roger once before. She had faced his ferocity and croyel’s together, and had prevailed. But here she was hampered by Kevin’s Dirt. And she could not draw on the supreme energies of the EarthBlood. As soon as Covenant failed—as soon as Roger and the croyel joined their strengths against her—she would die. Magma and malevolence would extinguish her.
Yet somehow Covenant endured his agony; his scorched and melting skin. Roger could not aim Kastenessen’s fist at Linden because he was forced to defend himself from his father.
Before the croyel could strike at Stave, the Haruchai bounded up from the floor. Imponderably swift, he whirled a flying kick at Jeremiah’s head. The creature could not evade him.
But its backward flinch diminished the impact of the kick. Jeremiah’s head snapped sideways: blood and saliva sprayed from his lips: he staggered. Wailing, skest scattered to avoid contact with their master. Yet Jeremiah did not go down.
Stave rushed after him. As Jeremiah hit the wall, Stave was poised to deliver a second blow.
A thin stream of blood dribbled from Jeremiah’s mouth. Nonetheless the croyel was unharmed. Perhaps no merely physical assault could harm it. Spite and eagerness frothed in its eyes as its fangs bit down harder on Jeremiah’s neck.
Involuntarily Jeremiah jerked up his halfhand—and Stave fell back as though he had crashed into an invisible wall.
He could not hope to defeat the croyel. In moments, he would be dead. Briefly, however, he had prevented the creature from aiding Roger against Covenant and Linden.
While she could, Linden poured Staff-fire straight at Roger’s face; at his bitter mockery of his father’s features.
Exalted by runes and blackness, weeping and frenzy, she compelled Roger to turn away from Covenant.
Covenant plunged, helpless, to his knees. Smoke rose from his twisted fingers. But he did not release the krill. As if his flesh had melted onto the dagger—had become one with it—he clutched it while he struggled to regain his feet.
Argent still blazed from the krill’s gem. But now its incandescence began to falter. Joan’s awareness of him was fading. She was too weak to support turiya’s demands on her.
A quick glance told Linden that Covenant’s hands would never be whole again. Given time and peace, she might be able to unclose his fingers from the krill without peeling away too much skin. She might be able to straighten them; heal them enough to let them flex. But with her best efforts she would never make them more useful than blunt stumps—
Distracted, she let a blast of Roger’s rage brush her cheek. He may have burned her badly, perhaps disfigured her; yet she felt no pain. Her cracked kneecap did not trouble her. She had not forgotten Jeremiah and the croyel, or the waiting threat of the skest: she had not forgotten Stave or Liand. For the moment, however, she fought as though nothing mattered except what had been done to Covenant’s hands.
Goading herself with the Seven Words, she forced Roger to retreat from his father.
Somehow Covenant regained his feet. Every movement was shrill with pain; but he did not retreat. Instead he advanced on Roger, still aiming the krill at Kastenessen’s hand.
Together, he and Linden might be able to beat Roger. She knew that Roger feared death. And she did not believe that he would allow harm to his grafted power; his halfhand. If Covenant could endure his suffering a little longer, he and Linden might succeed at driving Roger from the chamber.
Inadvertently Stave broke her concentration. Thwarted in his attack on the croyel, Stave countered by tossing Covenant’s ring toward the ceiling.
Surprise and avarice drew the croyel’s gaze to follow the rise and fall of white gold. Avid for wild magic, the creature dropped its defenses; tried to claw the ring out of the air.
With all of his Haruchai muscle and speed, Stave punched the croyel between its gleaming eyes.
The creature’s head jolted back, ripping its fangs out of Jeremiah’s neck. Quickly, however, the deformed head whipped forward again. Its eyes focused fury on Stave.
As Stave caught the ring, closed it in his fist, Jeremiah’s arm swept upward. Stave was flung into the air; hurled toward the waiting skest.
Stave—! Even his extraordinary reflexes could not save him now. He would land on living acid. His heart, or Linden’s, might have time to beat as much as twice before the corrosion of the skest scoured the skin from his bones. He would die hideously, in swift torment.
Helpless to do otherwise, Linden wheeled away from Roger. With the Staff blazing in both hands, she swept all of her power like a scythe among the skest, trying frantically to cut them down, burn them to ash; clear a space for Stave.
She almost succeeded. Creatures by the score burst into flame and fell apart, spilling viscid conflagration across the floor. Vitriol ate at the Harrow’s corpse. Twisting to right himself, Stave came down on his feet in a pool of fiery fluid.
He tried to leap away. But acid splashed his feet and calves; bit into his legs. Nearly crippled, he managed to sprawl beyond the edge of the vitriol. Then he tried to stand, and could not. Corrosion had eaten too deeply into his muscles. It was still burning.
Linden took a moment that she could not afford to slap her own fire at Stave’s legs. Expecting death, she stopped the damage with Earthpower. Then she abandoned Stave to his injuries; spun away to face Roger’s assault, and the croyel’s, and doom.
As she turned, however, she saw that Roger had not used her distraction to muster a killing blast. The croyel had not followed its attack on Stave. They had not joined together against Covenant.
Instead they had hastened toward each other. Already they had raised their arms, extending their magicks to form a portal. They were about to disappear—
Their powers would translate them to a time or a place where she could not hope to discover them again.
Covenant had seen what they were doing: he must have understood it. He stumbled toward them, aiming to thrust the krill between them before they could complete their sorcery. But he was too late. Linden felt their might gather while he was still too far away.
And he was directly between her and them. She could not fling fire at Roger and the croyel without scathing Covenant.
Stave may have been shouting at her, urging her to strike. He may have believed that Covenant would forgive her.
Nonetheless she froze for a moment.
In that small space of time, a concussion like a burst of thunder shook the chamber.
The floor split in a dozen places. Stone like geysers of rubble or scree spouted upward. The whole chamber lurched as though it had cracked free of its moorings.
Riding a jolt of theurgy, Esmer appeared between Roger and Jeremiah. “No!” Cail’s son roared in a voice of horns and storm. “This I will not permit!”
The blast of his arrival knocked Roger and Jeremiah apart. Fuming, acid leaked away into fissures and upheavals.
Linden had no chance to notice the sudden bile in her throat, the nausea in her guts. Sick with shock, she saw that Esmer’s condition had worsened since his last appearance. Clearly he was unable to treat the wounds inflicted on him during the battle of First Woodhelven. The grime and blood that fouled his rent cymar were unchanged; but now the festering burns and tears in his flesh wept rank fluids. The purulent reek of his hurts was both more human and more painful than the stench of Roger’s halfhand.
He had told Linden that Kastenessen wanted him to suffer for aiding her. His wrath is boundless. But he retained his strength in spite of his bodily distress. He could be as devastating as a hurricane.
“Fool!” he raged at Linden. Spume boiled in the dark seas of his eyes. “You have revealed your discovery of your son to Kastenessen!”
Falling stone hit Linden’s head and shoulders; battered Covenant, Stave, and Liand. Belatedly she raised Earthpower to fend off the detritus of Esmer’s might. As she had during the earthquake under Melenkurion Skyweir, she protected herself: she shielded her companions. As then, she was hardly aware of what she did.
“So what?” she shouted back at Esmer. “You’re already here!” Aid and betrayal. “You’ll do whatever he wants!”
A hail of rock ruptured more of the skest, spilling their substance across the rent floor. The creatures that survived fled into their tunnels.
“In this,” retorted Esmer, “I do not serve him! The skurj will do so! She Who Must Not Be Named will do so!”
Shattered rock continued to erupt, tossing Roger and Jeremiah from side to side, coercing them to defend themselves; holding them at bay. With the Staff, Linden deflected granite rain.
Where—? She expected ur-viles and Waynhim to swarm around her. They keep watch against me. Whenever Esmer had helped or endangered her, the creatures had appeared. They had been profligate with their own lives in her defense.
This time, however, they did not come. Esmer had been too swift for them, or too sudden—
While she warded herself and her friends with flame, Esmer surged like a running wave at Roger; crashed like a breaker over Covenant’s son.
At once, the two of them vanished. For his own reasons, or Kastenessen’s, or Lord Foul’s, Esmer carried Roger away.
The fall of rock ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
The croyel’s dismay drew a yelp from Jeremiah. Frantically the boy brandished his arms. With one hand, he hailed or harried skest back into the chamber. With the other, he slapped Covenant aside as though Covenant’s opposition and anguish were trivial. Then he hurled frenzy like a battering ram at Linden.
She met the burst with Earthpower; blocked it. But it hit her barrier so fiercely that the Staff bucked in her grasp. The creature’s fury shoved her backward.
Its desperation matched hers.
Skest rushed to attack. Covenant tumbled away. His hands seemed fused to the krill.
By sheer force of will, Stave wrenched himself to his feet. He still clenched Covenant’s ring. Its chain swung between his fingers. Limping on savaged legs, he struggled toward Liand.
“Defend yourself, Chosen,” he panted hoarsely. “Preserve your son. I cannot combat the skest. I will aid Liand.”
It was too much. There were too many skest. The croyel was too strong. And Linden could not call on the EarthBlood to make her greater than she was.
Nevertheless she flung herself forward, driven by love and need—and by a new surge of despair. Covenant and Liand and Stave were about to die; and she could not bear to abandon Jeremiah to the croyel’s cruelty.
But her plight required her to strike at her son. In abhorrence, she wielded Earthpower as if she were screaming.
Esmer had aided her. Where was the betrayal required by his conflicted nature? I am made to be what I am. Was it this, that she could only save Jeremiah by attacking him? By killing him? If so, her horror would delight the Despiser.
But she did not believe it. Lord Foul did not desire Jeremiah’s death. Esmer had told her, Your son is beyond price. No matter how keenly Lord Foul relished her distress, he did not wish her to kill Jeremiah. He still had a use for her son——of my deeper purpose I will not speak.
No, this fight did not serve the Despiser’s purposes, or Kastenessen’s: not now that the croyel had been prevented from escaping with Jeremiah. Esmer had not yet revealed his treachery; or he had masked it too cunningly for Linden to see it.
Howling fire, she tried to divide her focus between the croyel and the skest, and could not. The creature feeding on Jeremiah was too strong. And it appeared able to summon an endless number of misshapen children, glowing and fatal.
Stave had wrestled Liand into his arms, but the damage to his legs crippled his efforts to escape. Rife with hurts, Covenant had climbed back to his feet, bracing himself against the wall where Jeremiah had thrown him. In his ruined hands, the light of the krill wavered and pulsed as though it were unsure of its use. For the moment, at least, he was spared Joan’s virulence. In that brief reprieve, he staggered arduously toward the lost boy. Like Stave, however, he had been too badly hurt to move quickly. Agony galled his face. Only stubbornness kept him upright.
Frantic and failing, Linden alternated her attacks. She hit the croyel’s defenses as hard as she could. Then she swept flame through the skest until they ruptured and burned. As soon as she had beaten them back, she scrambled to assail the croyel again.
If she did not flail Earthpower from place to place fast enough, the monster would have time to muster a lethal blast—or one of the skest would touch her companions—or—
It was altogether too much. When Covenant stumbled and fell, she could do nothing to save him.
Galt caught Covenant before his knees struck the floor again. A flicker of an instant later, Clyme also reached the Unbeliever. At the same time, Branl committed his whole body to a blow at Jeremiah’s head.
Flinching, the croyel punched Branl with a fist of theurgy. The Humbled was knocked backward: he collided with the far wall hard enough to shatter bones. Only his preternatural Haruchai toughness spared him from injuries worse than Stave’s.
Before the croyel could attack again, Rime Coldspray charged into the chamber with Grueburn and Cabledarm roaring at her back. From the passage leading to the palace, ribbands like lurid snakes squirmed outward. They coiled around Stave and Liand, snatched the Haruchai and the Stonedownor back from the skest. Another strip of cloth retrieved Liand’s orcrest.
As soon as their path was clear, more Giants rushed to join the fray.
They used their swords, iron and stone, instead of their feet. Their native immunity to fire did not shield them from living acid, although it gave them a measure of protection from the spilth and spray of slain skest. They were not burned as badly as Stave had been. The croyel tried to blast them from their feet, but the Swordmainnir were too many and too strong. And when Jeremiah’s possessor strove to concentrate its force on any single foe, ribbands slapped at its face, flicked at its eyes.
Bluntfist and then Stonemage unclosed their cataphracts, shrugged the stone from their shoulders. Using their armor like spades or bludgeons, they crushed skest; deflected the spatter of green corrosion. In moments, they cleared a space around Covenant, Galt, and Clyme. The whole floor steamed as acid consumed itself on rock. Together, the Giants guarded Linden.
Feverishly the croyel struggled to fling its powers everywhere; but its blows had less and less effect. Galvanized by the arrival of her friends, Linden lashed the creature with Earthpower. While fumes bit into her lungs, she intercepted the creature’s magicks, deflected them, turned them against the skest. From the comparative safety of the corridor, the Ardent extended his raiment to harass the croyel. Bands of color harried the creature as if they were alive.
Dying, the skest filled the chamber with their liquid wails. Chunks of the broken floor boiled and melted, but the lore-hardened stone and iron of the Giants withstood the acid.
Abruptly the croyel stopped striking out. In a chorus of frayed screams, the surviving skest turned and ran, abandoning their master. The Giants seemed to freeze in place. Twisting around each other, bands of viridian and garnet and azure withdrew into the passage.
Instinctively Linden quenched her fire.
Covenant stood behind Jeremiah. At Covenant’s back, Galt supported the Unbeliever. Clyme gripped Jeremiah’s shoulders so that the boy could not pull away.
With both marred fists, Covenant had slipped the krill between Jeremiah’s neck and the croyel’s throat. The lore-forged keenness of the dagger had already drawn a thin line of rank blood across the creature’s skin.
“Listen!” Covenant panted in the croyel’s ear. “Pay attention.” Every word was a rasp of pain. “You know I can’t kill you without killing Jeremiah. I don’t have the right kind of power to keep him alive while I cut your throat. You know that. I know that. But you don’t know me. You don’t know how far I’m willing to go. If you had this knife, you would kill me in a heartbeat. So don’t try me.” Through his teeth, he repeated, “Don’t try me.”
Linden saw terror bubbling like a witch’s brew in the background of the creature’s stare.
As Covenant spoke, the gem of the krill began to shine more brightly. Soon its blaze seemed to efface the creature’s terrified eyes, its ready fangs, its malice. Exposed by incandescence, Jeremiah’s bones became visible through his vulnerable flesh. The heat flooding into Covenant stretched his face in a scream which he refused to utter.
Scowling as if they, too, were in agony, Galt and Clyme kept Covenant from falling; kept the croyel from pulling away.
Finally Linden’s cracked knee failed. If Bhapa and Pahni had not caught her arms, she would have prostrated herself on the wreckage of the floor.
She only knew that Esmer had returned amid a swarm of ur-viles and Waynhim because she felt like vomiting.