Against All Things Ending Part 16

Caverns Ornate and Majestic

At once, Coldspray and several of the Swordmainnir arrayed themselves around Linden, Stave, Liand, and the Cords. Their eagerness for adventure was bright on their faces, and they held their heads high. Behind them, Galesend and Latebirth carried Anele and Mahrtiir. And at the rear of the company, the Humbled escorted Covenant to meet the outcome of Linden's long quest.

The Harrow was too sure that he had beaten his enemies: the only foes that mattered. He would not be ready- Linden was counting on that.

With her companions a.s.sembled around her like a cortege, Linden Avery the Chosen entered the abandoned habitation and loreworks of the Viles.

At first, she concentrated her ragged attention on the figure of the Harrow. Clad like the Mahdoubt, and the Ardent, and presumably even the Theomach, in the means and symbols of his arcane knowledge, he still waited for her. Even now, his oaths bound him. In frustration, he tapped one iron heel of the Staff on the polished floor within the portal. But the slight impact of metal on stone made no sound that she could hear. Instead his tapping gave off evanescent puffs of moonshine and pearl like wisps of incandescence.

When she drew near enough to release him from his impatience, he turned to lead the way again.

Focusing on him, she did not notice her surroundings until she heard or felt Liand's sharp intake of breath, sensed the whispered exclamations of the Giants. Involuntarily, as if she had no will or strength that was not provided by her companions, she lifted her head to look at the high chamber which formed the entrance hall to the Lost Deep.

The sight shocked her like a tectonic shift; a grinding of the Earth's bones so deeply buried that its tremors might take hours or even days to be felt on the surface.

She could not think of the chamber as a cavern, although it seemed as huge as the enclosure of the Banefire in Revelstone long ago. It stretched past the limits of her senses ahead and above her. And every handspan of its walls and vaulted ceiling and floor had been burnished to a lambent sheen, flawless and glowing. Indeed, the shaped rock was the source of the Deep's illumination. Every line and curve, plane and arc of the chamber emitted an eerie lucence composed of commingled and constantly shifting hues. With each beat of her heart, Linden encountered a different blend of the most pastel vermillion, the palest azure; the merest suggestions of charlock and viridian and lime.

In itself, the chamber was immense and wondrous. Yet it did not cause her sense of shock.

Apparently the entire s.p.a.ce had been shaped for no other purpose than to house something that must have been a work of art; the making of beauty and wonder the making of beauty and wonder-Beyond question, the chamber was filled with loveliness filled with loveliness.

Entering here, Linden and her companions had already walked partway into the ramified outlines of an elaborate castle rich in beauty and imaginative largesse. The structure was not solid. Instead it was composed only of outlines like strokes drawn on blank air; sweeps and delineations of-of bone? opaque crystal? smooth travertine shafts? If it had not looked entirely complete as it was, it might have been a model for an edifice which the Viles had once intended to build; a sketch done in three dimensions and mother-of-pearl. Yet no detail had been neglected. Flying b.u.t.tresses radiated outward from the shape of a central keep, linking the keep to an elegant circle of turrets. Balconies and ramparts articulated what would have been the rounded walls of the keep, the supernal circles of the turrets. Bartizans and crenellations expressed the crowns of the turrets. Low walls explained the ramparts and balconies, the airy b.u.t.tresses. In the base of the keep, a lowered drawbridge implied an entrance into a s.p.a.ce filled with rooms and curving stairways: a faery dwelling without walls, barriers, substance.

And it was familiar familiar. Linden had seen it before. During the last days of her former life, its exact duplicate had occupied the hallway inside the front door of her home: hers and Jeremiah's. Amid the mundane surroundings of the house, it had seemed so magical and dream-like that she had not asked him to take it down. She had loved it, and him, too much to wish it dismantled.

Nevertheless it had endured only until Roger Covenant had crashed through it like a wrecking ball, seeking her son-and his father's ring.

Now she understood that Jeremiah had seen this place. He had seen seen it. He had not drawn his castle from the raw stuff of his sealed imagination: he had copied it from it. He had not drawn his castle from the raw stuff of his sealed imagination: he had copied it from this this.

It told her that she was on the right path.

And it was further evidence that Jeremiah's spirit had indeed visited the Land years before Roger had stolen him from her. His racetrack construct in his bedroom had been a door. Roger and the croyel croyel had told her the truth about that, if about little else. had told her the truth about that, if about little else.

Instinctively she stopped, halted by wonder and memory and nameless apprehensions. She did not recollect herself until Liand urged softly, "Linden! Your son is surely nigh. And the Harrow's impatience mounts. We must not linger."

With an effort, she looked at the Stonedownor as though she no longer knew who he was.

"Lady!" snapped the Harrow. "Despite his many follies, the youth speaks sooth. The Lost Deep matches the scope of its makers' dreams. The halls and loreworks are vast, extending for leagues. We need not lose our path among them, but our efforts will prove bootless if you cannot contain your wonder. This realm remains hazardous, as does the bane of the abyss."

His voice expanded to a shout. "We must have haste!"

You're right, Linden thought. You're. Right. But still she did not move. Scattered and broken Tinkertoys held her: the ruin of Roger's pa.s.sage as he violated her home. She saw omens in the castle. Every line of the ramparts prefigured bereavement.

"Cease your reproaches, Insequent." The Ironhand sounded bemused by delight. "If you require haste, it will be vouchsafed to you. But briefly, briefly, we must honor our astonishment." She gazed around as if the sheer size of her pleasure amazed her. "We are Giants, lovers of stone in every guise, yet never have we beheld such glory. This untrammeled perfection-" She stretched out her arms as if she wished to embrace the whole castle. "It is immaculate to the point of melody. In sooth, Insequent, its song is almost audible-"

Some of the Swordmainnir nodded. Others simply stared, entranced and mute.

"We will hasten to your heart's content," Rime Coldspray finished: a sigh of reverence or reverie. "But in a moment. In a moment-"

Her voice faded as she studied the lofty edifice.

"Linden," Liand insisted. "Linden, hear hear me. This place is indeed perilous, though I cannot name our jeopardy." He was a Stonedownor: he should have felt as enthralled as the Giants. "I know only that foreboding fills my heart. We must heed the Harrow or fail." me. This place is indeed perilous, though I cannot name our jeopardy." He was a Stonedownor: he should have felt as enthralled as the Giants. "I know only that foreboding fills my heart. We must heed the Harrow or fail."

Oh, my son.

Deliberately Linden remembered the croyel croyel clinging like a malnourished infant on Jeremiah's back; the claws and toes gouged into his flesh; the fangs chewing on the side of his neck to drink his blood. Then she was moving again. Liand and Stave held her arms while the Harrow strode ahead of her. clinging like a malnourished infant on Jeremiah's back; the claws and toes gouged into his flesh; the fangs chewing on the side of his neck to drink his blood. Then she was moving again. Liand and Stave held her arms while the Harrow strode ahead of her.

As if he were fearless, the man led her straight into the heart of the outlined keep.

Somewhere behind her, the Ardent murmured, "Fear nothing. Here the Harrow's knowledge is sure." Anxiety filled his voice with hues like moaning. "No wards threaten us while we abide his guidance. Doubtless I will revel in memories of this demesne's manifold wonders when-" He faltered and fell silent.

For a moment, Linden feared that only she, Stave, and Liand trailed after the Harrow. Glancing over her shoulder, however, she saw the Humbled behind her, escorting Covenant among them. Covenant's attention was everywhere at once, as though he strove to encompa.s.s every ageless memory implied by the castle and the cavern; but he took no notice of Linden.

Briefly she caught a whiff of Mahrtiir's voice. "Have our companions departed? Why do you not guard the Ringthane?" The words smelled querulous; vexed by helplessness.

Straining her neck, Linden finally felt the Giants shake off their enchantment and start forward. Latebirth still carried the Manethrall: Galesend cradled Anele. At the rear, Cirrus Kindwind herded the Cords ahead of her.

The Harrow pa.s.sed through the central keep as though it did not exist; but Linden was loath to leave it. Here in some metaphysical fashion, Jeremiah had found an image of his secret heart. She wanted to pore over every line of the castle until she understood what had been hidden from her; until she knew how to reach past Jeremiah's torment and lift him free. An impossible hope. Like the stains on her jeans, the text of the castle was indecipherable. She might examine it for years, and it would tell her nothing.

She did not have years. The time left to her could be measured in days at most.

Grimly she tried to quicken her pace.

Now that they were in motion, the Giants caught up with her easily, drawing the Ardent after them. With her companions, she pa.s.sed among the outer turrets toward the far wall of the chamber.

A number of openings awaited her, all filled with modulating radiance. Some were narrow corridors that soon curved out of sight. Others were almost as high as the forehall of Revelstone, and seemed to extend indefinitely through the lucent rock. But the Harrow selected a pa.s.sage without hesitation. Eagerly, urgently, he led the way into one of the narrower tunnels.

At every step, the Staff of Law touched the stone, invoking momentary exhalations of vapor. Linden felt rather than heard her friends' respiration. They breathed scents and colors instead of air.

Beyond the pa.s.sage, they entered another chamber, smaller than the first, but still wide and round enough to accommodate a copse of wattle or a stand of jacaranda-and high enough to accept cedars. Indeed, the s.p.a.ce dwarfed the jut of crude dark rock in its center. Supported by a low mound of unfinished basalt, bitter rock reared upward, gnarled and somehow grisly. It formed two sides that resembled jaws filled with ragged teeth. And between the jaws, there appeared to be a seat: the entire outcropping may have been a throne.

Within the perfection of the chamber's walls, the upraised stone was a maimed thing, deformed by malice or indifference.

Linden could not imagine why the Viles had chosen to create such a shape. But she did not ask the Harrow to explain it. She felt repulsed by it. It seemed to emit an odor like ordure. If it were a sculpture, it was an exercise in derision.

Fortunately the Harrow strode past the jaws and the seat without glancing at them. Still certain, he selected a hallway beyond the throne and entered it swiftly, as if he wished to distance himself from the dire rock.

Trembling for no reason that she could name, and glad that Stave and Liand still held her arms, Linden followed the Insequent with the rest of her company close around her.

This hall was straight, featureless, and long: long enough for Linden to realize that her perceptions were suffering a kind of delinition. The glow of the stone became less a matter of sight and more a flowing series of sensations on her skin: brief caresses as loving as kisses; small sc.r.a.pes that caused no pain; the tickling of feathers; warm breaths. The colors were the mult.i.tudinous susurrus of her companions. Like the Harrow's, her steps were little clouds, and every touch of the Staff on the stone trailed streamers like rills of mist.

She was falling into paresthesia again, the neural confusion caused by the intangible essence of the Viles. Remnants of their lore lingered where they had once flourished. Soon she would have to follow the Harrow by smell and taste as much as by small pennons of illumined fog. Insidiously she was being led astray, guided out of contact with mundane existence.

Without percipience, she could not gauge how the residual theurgy of the Viles affected her companions. She had told them little about her arranged confrontation with the makers of the Demondim: words were impotent to convey the disorientation that the Viles engendered. Yet the pitch and timbre of Stave's hand, and of Liand's, held steady. Somehow they contrived to manage their delirant senses.

If the Giants or Linden's other companions felt any distress, she did not discern it. The shades of their breathing baffled interpretation.

She had experienced similar dislocations before. Nevertheless she was not ready when the hall opened.

As though she had crossed a threshold into an altogether different definition of reality, she entered a s.p.a.ce as open, ornate, and majestic as a palace.

Here her perceptions resumed their normal dimensions; or they seemed to do so. In this place, the complex puissance of the Viles was gone, utterly banished-or else their lore had devised an illusion more oblique and bewildering than paresthesia. Only a vague squirming, an almost subliminal discomfort, warned Linden that her senses were confused; that the substance of what she saw had been fundamentally altered.

To all appearances, she stood in the ballroom of a vast palace or mansion, the dwelling of some supreme sovereign surrounded by incarnate wealth. On a burnished marmoreal floor, rugs overlapped each other in every direction. They were as sumptuous as cushions, and as richly woven as tapestries; yet they were also transparent, as clear as light; simultaneously solid and impalpable. Against the far walls, wide stairways with treads and banisters of flawless crystal arced upward like wings. At precise intervals among the rugs, shafts of gla.s.s spun in delicate filigree rose to five or six times the height of the Giants; and from elaborate arms atop the shafts hung chandeliers in profusion, each bedizened with scores or hundreds of lights as pure and white as stars, and as clinquant as precious metals. Along the walls, golden braziers gave off flames that suffused the air with tranquility. And in the center of the s.p.a.ce, a fountain of ice-translucent and perfectly frozen-spouted toward the distant ceiling. It reached as high as the chandeliers, where it spread outward in a ceaseless spray, droplets as fine and faceted as jewels. Yet no current flowed. No bead fell. The ice was so motionless that it seemed sealed in time rather than in cold.

Above it, on the ceiling itself, mosaics as magnificent as choirs displayed their voices from wall to wall. The magic of their creation made them simultaneously as articulate as glory and as colorless as water.

Helpless to resist her amazement, Linden gazed around the palace like a woman bespelled. As she did so, some indistinct part of her observed that her companions appeared to feel the same dazzlement. Even the Humbled and Stave were lost in wonder. They wandered away from her, away from Covenant, in a kind of rapture, studying avidly every gleaming crystalline miracle. Liand drifted apart. The Giants separated to peer in awe and delight at the filigree shafts, or at the fountain held ineffably in abeyance. Some of them stooped to trail their fingers along the patterns that elaborated the rugs. Like the ecstatic figures in dreams, the Cords and Liand craned their necks to watch the dance of the chandeliers, hear the music of the mosaics. In spite of his blindness, Manethrall Mahrtiir was dazed by munificence.

Anele had awakened. Squirming in Galesend's arms, he asked her to put him down. When he stood on the glowing floor, however, he did not move. Instead he remained where Galesend had placed him, jerking his head from side to side with an air of rapt attention, saying nothing.

For some reason, the Ardent had wrapped his raiment tightly around himself again. Then he sank to the floor in a mound of garish and incondign hues. There he rocked himself from side to side like a child in need of comfort.

And Covenant-He, too, had drifted away. Standing before one of the braziers, he stared into the evanescent mansuetude of the flames as if they had ravished him.

In her tranced state, Linden saw no sign of the Harrow. But she did not care what had become of him. She could not: the palace ruled her as though her mind or her spirit had been consumed by astonishment.

Here she might find it possible to know and feel nothing except glad peace until she became as translucent as the fountain and the stairs, the rugs and the chandeliers.

Some time seemed to pa.s.s before she found the heart of her amazement and recognized the truth, the defining mystery of what the Viles had accomplished in the prime of their power. Inspired by her previous encounter with their theurgy, she saw that the entire palace and everything in it, the walls and rugs, the shafts of gla.s.s, the frozen fountain, the hanging anadems of the chandeliers, the voiced and melodious mosaics, even the golden luxury of the braziers and flames: all of it was made of water. Of water water, pure and irreproachable. The magic enchanting her was the magic that had formed the edifice; the magic that sustained it millennia after its makers had perished from the Earth. Somehow the Viles had woven water into these multifarious shapes, these myriad details, and then had caused the water to remain- The palace was a sculpture, a work of the most sublime art: an eldritch and enduring triumph of ability and will over the fluid inconstancy of time.

Esmer had hardly done the Viles justice when he had called them lofty and admirable lofty and admirable. Their lore was indeed terrible and matchless terrible and matchless.-and all of their works were filled with loveliness.

That such creatures had been lured into self-loathing was an abomination.

One of many. The history of the Land, and of the Earth, was littered with the rubble of atrocities for which Lord Foul deserved to be held accountable.

Yet Linden felt no umbrage, no desire to take action. Only the subtle nagging of discomfort along the length of her nerves marred her tranquility. In this place, this supernal masterpiece, the Despiser's many hurts warranted no concern. She could relax into a measureless contentment that explained more eloquently than any language why the Viles had taken so long to venture out of the Lost Deep. They, too, had been eased by their dreams and their labors; their transcendental achievements. Like them, she would have been reluctant to risk the meaning of her life elsewhere.

Now that she knew the secret of the palace, she saw it displayed everywhere. Tumbling freshets had supplied the substance of the shafts which upheld the chandeliers. Lakes as calm as Glimmermere had made the walls. Brooks giggling over their rocks in springtime had become the rugs; the vociferous mosaics. The fountain was a captured geyser.

A hint of anxiety still twisted in the private channels of her body, but she had forgotten what it meant. If Anele had not placed himself directly in front of her, interrupting her contemplation of miracles, she might not have noticed that he had set aside his pa.s.sivity.

"Anele," he said with exaggerated precision, as if he found words difficult to utter. "Hears bells. Chiming. They disturb-He craves. Needs. Seeks." For a moment, he appeared to lose track of his thoughts. Then he gathered up their broken strands and offered them to Linden. "Redemption."

His hands trembled as he reached out to clasp her shoulders.

His touch was insistent, but gentle; so soft that she barely felt it. Nevertheless a small jolt ran through her as though he had reached past the obstacles of her shirt and her eased spirit to awaken her flesh with Earthpower.

Water, she thought indirectly. That was the secret. Its snared fluidity expressed to perfection the flowing bafflement that the Viles imposed on ordinary forms of discernment; mortal modes of understanding. In the Land's past, she had experienced a trammeled manifestation of that confusion. Here she would have seen smells, felt colors, tasted voices-if the Viles had not frozen water and theurgy into permanence.

While Anele held her shoulders, she found that she, too, heard a m.u.f.fled ringing.

Before he could release her, she grasped one of his hands in both of hers, held it to her heart. Then she looked around, trying to locate the source of the sounds.

She found it between Liand and one of the spun shafts. While the Stonedownor studied the glitter of the chandelier in calm and enraptured delirium, the Harrow struck one heel of the Staff repeatedly on the rug where he stood. From that soft impact arose a silvery tintinnabulation like the urging of distant chimes.

Without Anele's hand clutched in hers, Linden might have lost sight of the Insequent again; or forgotten him. But the effect of the old man's skin against hers, the almost impalpable emanations of his inherited strength, elucidated her perceptions. Earthpower explained the Harrow. He was striving to invoke the fire of the Staff so that he could break free of the palace's ensorcelment.

Linden watched him with nothing more than the surface of her mind; felt only a detached curiosity. After a few moments, she might have lost interest and looked away, in spite of Anele's indirect adjuration. But as she considered the Harrow, he appeared to burst into flame. He and the Staff and his determination to claim Jeremiah became a pillar of conflagration as he began to move, striding toward an ornate stairway beyond the fountain.

Bewildered by magicks, he had forgotten his oath to take Linden with him; or perhaps his need to escape the seductions of water compelled him to neglect her.

As he left her behind, something buried within Linden stirred. Still clinging to Anele's hand, she also began to move.

Earthpower. That was it. She needed Earthpower: more than she could glean from the old man. His legacy was too deeply hidden within him, defended by layers of madness. She required a more direct source- She needed her health-sense.

Walking as Anele had spoken, as if each step demanded an arduous and precise effort, she stepped toward Liand, drawing the old man with her.

None of her companions gave any sign that they could see her; that they knew who she was. No one else could help her.

In the same way that Anele had confronted her, she intruded on the Stonedownor's gaze.

He was her first real friend since she had lost her son. He had enabled her flight from Mithil Stonedown and the Masters with Anele when she had no other aid or guide. He trusted her in spite of all that she had done: he believed in her. Surely he would recognize her now? Surely he would hear her and respond?

He greeted her with a brief frown. Then he stared past or through her as though she had grown too spectral to disturb him.

"Liand." Only her grip on Anele's hand enabled her to speak. "Listen." The Harrow was ascending the stairs. He rose as if he were borne by flame. "I need orcrest orcrest."

The young man did not react. The palace held him in thrall. His slight awareness of her presence had faded.

Linden wanted to slap him, and could not. She wanted to reach into the pouch at his waist and take his Sunstone; but she lacked the strength, or the will. She had surrendered too much, and knew the cost. He did not deserve to have his heritage taken from him.

Fighting her own entrancement, her own weakness, she tugged Anele closer to Liand. Then, interlacing her fingers with Anele's so that the old man would not pull free, she guided his free hand to Liand's shoulder. Mutely she willed Anele to jolt the Stonedownor as he had jolted her.

Through his madness, Anele must have understood what she was doing; or he had his own reasons for desperation, his own fragmented needs. Still trembling, he stroked Liand's shoulder- -and Liand twitched. His black eyebrows arched. His eyes veered into focus on Linden. He peered at her as if she were veiled by water.

At the top of the stair, the Harrow pa.s.sed between hanging curtains and disappeared.

"Liand," Linden said again, "listen."

"Li-" Liand tried to say her name. "Lin-"

"Listen to me," she urged: a small sound, too distant and uncertain to compel attention. "I can't explain. I don't understand. But we need Earthpower. To remember who we are.

"We need orcrest orcrest."

Even the Giants: even the Haruchai Haruchai were beyond her. The palace had turned their inherent strengths against them. And none of them carried any instruments of power. Covenant retained Loric's were beyond her. The palace had turned their inherent strengths against them. And none of them carried any instruments of power. Covenant retained Loric's krill krill; but he had stumbled into his past before Linden's company had crossed the Hazard. Nothing that she could say or do would pierce his memories.

She had to follow the Harrow. If Liand did not rouse himself a little more; just a little- Anele tightened his grip.

This time Liand succeeded at saying her name. "Linden?"

"Orcrest," she repeated. Her voice shook like Anele's arms. The old man had saved her more than once. He had drawn her out of her paralysis when she had first entered a she repeated. Her voice shook like Anele's arms. The old man had saved her more than once. He had drawn her out of her paralysis when she had first entered a caesure caesure, seeking the Staff of Law. "We need it."

For a moment, Liand turned his bewilderment toward Anele. Then he appeared to shudder. "Orcrest?" "Orcrest?" he murmured distantly. "I had forgotten-" he murmured distantly. "I had forgotten-"