White Gold Wielder Part 47

Covenant gagged for breath. Her extremity was more than he could bear. Every inch of him burned for power. Suddenly, he no longer cared whether his attacker would strike him (353 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

again. He rolled onto his chest, wedged his knees under him, tottered to his feet. His attacker raised a threatening arm.

He was battered and frail, barely able to stand. Yet the pa.s.sion raging from him halted the creature in midblow, forced it to retreat a step. It was a Raver, sentient and accessible to fear. It understood what his wild magic would do, if he willed.

His half-hand trembling, he pointed at the creature in front of Linden. It stopped at the last b.u.t.tons. But it did not turn away.

"I'm warning you." His voice spattered and scorched like hot acid. "Foul's right about this. If you touch her, I don't care what else I destroy. I'll rip your soul to atoms. You won't live long enough to know whether I break the Arch or not."

The creature did not move. It seemed to be daring him to unleash his white gold.

No Other Way 429 'Try me," he breathed on the verge of eruption. "Just try me."

Slowly, the creature lowered its arms. Backing carefully, it retreated to stand beside its fellow.

A spasm went through Linden. All her muscles convulsed in torment or ecstasy. Then her head snapped up. The dire glow of the creatures flamed from her eyes.

She looked straight at Covenant and began to laugh.

The laughter of a ghoul, mirthless and cruel.

"Slay me then, groveler!" she cried. Her voice was as shrill as a shriek. It echoed hideously along the crevice. "Rip my soul to atomsl Perchance it will pleasure you to savage the woman you love as well!"

The Raver had taken possession of her. and there was nothing in all the world that he could do about it.

He nearly fell then. The supreme evil had come upon her, and he was helpless. The ill that you deem most terrible. Even if he had groveled entirely, abject and suppliant, begging the Ravers to release her, they would only have laughed at him.

Now in all horror and anguish there was no other way*

could be no other way. He cried out at himself, at his head to rise, his legs to uphold him, his back to straighten. Sea- dreameri he panted as if that were the liturgy of his conviction, his fused belief. Honninscrave. Hamako. Hile Troy.

All of them had given themselves. There was no other way.

"All right," he grated. The sound of his voice in the chasm almost betrayed him to rage; but he clamped down his wild magic, refused it for the last time, "Take me to Foul. I'll give him the ring."

No way except surrender.

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The Raver in Linden went on laughing wildly.

NINETEEN; Hold Possession SHE was not laughing.

Laughter came out of her mouth. It sprang from her corded throat to scale like gibbering up into the black abyss.

Her lungs drew the air which became malice and glee. Her face was contorted like the vizard of a demon*or the rictus of her mother's asphyxiation.

But she was not laughing. It was not Linden Avery who laughed.

It was the Raver.

It held possession of her as completely as if she had been born for its use, formed and nurtured for no other purpose than to provide flesh for its housing, limbs for its actions, lungs and throat for its malign joy. It bereft her of will and choice, voice and protest At one time, she had believed that her hands were trained and ready, capable of healing*a physician's hands. But now she had no hands with which to grasp her possessor and fight it. She was a prisoner in her own body and fee Raver's evil.

And that evil excoriated every niche and nerve of her being.

It was heinous and absolute beyond bearing. It consumed her with its memories and purposes, crushed her independent existence with the force of its ancient strength. It was the corruption of the Sunbane mapped and explicit in her personal veins and sinews. It was the revulsion and desire which had secretly ruled her life, the pa.s.sion for and against death.

It was the fetid halitus of the most diseased mortality condensed to its essence and elevated to the transcendence of prophecy, promise, suzerain truth*the definitive commandment of darkness.

430.

Hold Possession 431.

All her life, she had been vulnerable to this. It had thronged into her from her father's stretched laughter, and she had confirmed it by stuffing it down her mother's abject throat. Once, she had flattered herself that she was like the Land under the Sunbane, helplessly exposed to desecration. But that was false. The Land was innocent She was evil.

Its name was moksha Jehannum, and it brought its past with it. She remembered now as if all its actions were her own. The covert ecstasy with which it had mastered Marid*

the triumph of the blow that had driven hot iron into Na.s.sic's human back (and the rich blood frothing at the heat of the blade)*the cunning which had led moksha to betray its possession of Marid to her new percipience, so that she and Covenant would be condemned and Marid would be exposed to the perverting sun. She remembered bees. Remembered the apt mimesis of madness in the warped man who had (355 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

set a spider to Covenant's neck. She might as well have done those things herself.

But behind them lay deeper crimes. Empowered by a piece of the Illearth Stone, she had mastered a Giant She had named herself Fleshharrower and had led the Despiser's armies against the Lords. And she had tasted victory when She had trapped the defenders of me Land between her own forces and the savage forest of Garro'ting Deep*the forest which she hated, had hated for all the long centuries, hated in every green leaf and drop of sap from tree to tree*the forest which should have been helpless against ravage and ^fire, would have been helpless if some outer knowledge had not intervened, making possible the interdict of the Colossus j of the Fall, the protection of the Forestals.

F Yet she had been tricked into entering the Deep, and so she had fallen victim to the Deep's guardian, Caerroil Wildwood. Unable to free herself, she had been slain in torment and ferocity on Gallows Howe, and her spirit had been sorely pressed to keep itself alive.

For that reason among many others, moksha Jehannum was avid to exact retribution. Linden was only one small morsel to the Raver's appet.i.te. Yet her possessor savored the pleasure her futile anguish afforded. Her body it left un- harmed for its own use. But it violated her spirit as fundamentally as rape. And it went on laughing.432 Her father's laughter, pouring like a flood of midnight from the old desuetude of the attic; a throng of nightmares in which she foundered; triumph hosting out of the dire cavern and plunge which had once been his frail mouth. You never loved me anyway. Never loved him*or anyone else*

She had not mustered the bare decency to cry aloud as she strangled her mother, drove that yoor sick woman terrified and alone into the last dark.

This was what Joan had felt, this appalled and desperate horror which made no difference of any kind, could not so much as m.u.f.fle die sound of malice. Buried somewhere within herself, Joan had watched her own fury for Covenant's blood, for the taste of his pain. And now Linden looked out at him as if through moksha Jehannum's eyes, heard him with ears that belonged to the Raver. Lit only by the ghoulish emanations of the creatures, he stood in the bottom of the crevice like a man who had just been maimed. His damaged arm dangled at his side. Every line of his body was abused with need and near-prostration. The bruises on his face made his visage appear misshapen, deformed by the pressures building inside him. where the wild magic was manacled. Yet his eyes gleamed like teeth, focused such menace toward the Ravers that moksha Jebannum's brother had not dared to strike him again.

"Take me to Poul,'* he said. He had lost his mind. This was not despair: it was too fierce for despair. It was madness. The Banefire had cost him his sanity. "I'll give him the ring.'*

His gaze lanced straight into Linden. If she had owned a (356 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

voice, she would have cried out He was smiling like a sacrifice.

Then she found that she did not have to watch him. The Raver could not require consciousness of her. Its memories told her that most of its victims had simply fled into mindlessness. The moral paralysis which had made her so accessible to moksha Jehannum would protect her now, not from use but from awareness. All she had to do was let go her final hold upon her ident.i.ty. Then she would be spared from witnessing the outcome of Covenant's surrender.

With glee and hunger, the Raver urged her to let go. Her consciousness fed it, pleased it, sharpened its enjoyment of her violation. But if she lapsed, it would not need exertion to Hold Possession 433 master her. And she would be safe at last*as safe as she had once been in the hospital during the blank weeks after her father's suicide*relieved from excruciation, inured to pain*

as safe as death.

There were no other choices left for her to make.

She refused it. With the only pa.s.sion and strength that remained to her, she refused it.

She had already failed in the face of Joan's need*been stricken helpless by the mere sight of Marid's desecration. Gibbon's touch had reft her of mind and will. But since then she had learned to fight.

In the cavern of the One Tree, she had grasped power for the first time and had used it, daring herself against forces so tremendous*though amoral*that terror of them had immobilized her until Findail had told her what was at stake.

And in the Hall of Gifts* There samadhi Sheet's nearness had daunted her, misled her, tossed her in a whirlwind of palpable ill; she had hardly known where she stood or what she was doing. But she had not been stripped of choice.

Not, she insisted, careless of whether the Raver heard her.

Because she had been needed. By all her friends. By Covenant before the One Tree. if not in the Hall of Gifts. And because she had experienced the flavor of efficacy, had gripped it to her heart and recognized it for wha.t it was. Power: the ability to make choices that mattered. Power which came from no external source, but only from her own intense self.

She would not give it up. Covenant needed her still, though the Raver's mastery of her was complete and she had no way to reach him. ' '/ give him the ring. She could not stop him. But if she let herself go on down the blind road of her paralysis, there would be no one left to so much as wish him stopped. Therefore she bore the pain. Moksha Jehannum crowded every nerve with nausea, filled every heartbeat with vitriol and dismay, shredded her with every word and movement. Yet she heeded the call of Covenant's fierce eyes and flagrant intent. Consciously, she clung to herself and refused oblivion, remained where the Raver could hurt her and hurt (357 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

her, so that she would be able to watch.

And try.

"Will you?" chortled her throat and mouth. "You are belatedly come to wisdom, groveler." She raged at that 434 epithet: he did not deserve it. But moksha only mocked him more trenchantly. "Yet your abas.e.m.e.nt has been perfectly prophesied. Did you fear for your life among the Cavewights? Your fear was apt Anile as the Dead, they would have slain you*and blithely would the ring have been seduced from them. From the moment of your summoning, all hope has been folly! All roads have led to the Despiser's triumph, and all struggles have been vain. Your petty*"

"I'm sick of this," rasped Covenant. He was hardly able to stay on his feet*and yet the sheer force of his determination commanded the Ravers, sent an inward quailing through them. "Don't flatter yourselves that I'm going to break down here." Linden felt moksha's trepidation and shouted at it, Coward! then gritted her teeth and gagged for bare life as its fury crashed down on her. But Covenant could not see what was happening to her, the price she paid for defiance.

Grimly, he went on, "You aren't going to get my ring. You'll be lucky if he even lets you live when he's finished with me."

His eyes flashed, as hard as hot marble. 'Take me to him.'*

"Most a.s.suredly, groveler," moksha Jehannum riposted.

"I tremble at your will."

Tearing savagery across the grain of Linden*s clinched consciousness, tfae Raver turned her, sent her forward along the clear spine of the chasm.

Behind her, the two creatures*both ruled now by moksha^s brother*set themselves at Covenant's back. But she saw with the senses of the Raver that they did not hazard touching him.

He followed her as if be were too weak to do-more than place one foot in front of the other*and too strong to be beaten.

The way seemed long: every step, each throb of her heart was interminable and exquisite agony. The Raver relished her violation and multiplied it cunningly. From her helpless brain, moksha drew images and hurled them at her, made them appear more real than Mount Thunder's imponderable gutrock. Marid with his fangs. Joan screaming like a predator for Covenant's blood, wracked by a Sunbane of the soul. Her mother's mouth, mucus drooling at the comers*phlegm as rank as putrefaction from the rot in her lungs. The incisions across her father's wrists, agape with death and glee. There Hold Possession 435 was no end to the ways she could be tortured, if she refused to let go. Her possessor savored them all.

Yet she held. Stubbornly, uselessly, almost without reason, (358 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

she clung to who she was, to the Linden Avery who made promises. And in the secret recesses of her heart she plotted moksha Jehannum's downfall Oh, the way seemed long to her! But she knew, had no defense against knowing, that for the Raver the distance was short and eager, little more than a stone's throw along the black gulf. Then the dank light of Covenant's guards picked out a stairway cut into the left wall. It was a rude ascent, roughly hacked from the sheer stone immemorially long ago and worn blunt by use; but it was wide and safe. The Raver went upward with strong strides, almost jaunty in its antic.i.p.ation. But Linden watched Covenant for signs of vertigo or collapse.

His plight was awful. She felt his bruises aching in the bones of his skull, read the weary limp of bis pulse. Sweat like fever or failure beaded on his forehead. An ague of exhaustion made all his movements awkward and imprecise.

Yet he kept going, as rigid of intent as he had been on Haven Farm when he had walked into the woods to redeem his ex-wife. His very weakness and imbalance seemed to support him.

He was entirely out of his mind; and Linden bled for him while moksha Jehannum raked her with scorn.

The stairway was long and short. It ascended for several hundred feet and hurt as if it would go on forever without surcease. The Raver gave her not one fragment or splinter of respite while it used her body as if she had never been so healthy and vital. But at last she reached an opening in the wall, a narrow pa.s.sage-mouth with rocklight reflecting from its end. The stairs continued upward; but she entered the tunnel. Covenant followed her, his guards behind him in single file.

Heat mounted against her face until she seemed to be walking into fire; but it meant nothing to moksha. The Raver was at home in dire pa.s.sages and brimstone. For a while, all the patients she had failed to help, all the medical mistakes she had made beat about her mind, accusing her like furies.

In the false name of life, she was responsible for so much 436 death. Perhaps she had employed it for her own ends. Perhaps she had introduced pain and loss to her victims, needing them to suffer so that she would have power and life.

Then the pa.s.sage ended, and she found herself in the place where Lord Foul had chosen to wield his machinations.

Kiril Threndor. Heart of Thunder.

Here Kevin Landwaster had come to enact the Ritual of Desecration. Here Drool Rockworm had recovered the lost Staff of Law, It was the dark center of all Mount Thunder's ancient and fatal puissance.

The place where the outcome of the Earth would be decided.

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She knew it with moksha Jehannum's knowledge. The Raver's whole spirit seemed to quiver in l.u.s.t and expectation.

The cave was large, a round, high chamber. Entrances gaped ,lflte mute cries, stretched in eternal pain, around its circ.u.mference. The walls glared rocklight in all directions.

They were shaped entirely into smooth, irregular facets which cast their illumination like splinters at Linden's eyes. And that sharp a.s.sault was whetted and multiplied by a myriad keen reflections from the chamber's ceiling. There the stone gathered a dense cl.u.s.ter of stalact.i.tes, as bright and ponderous as melting metal. Among them swarmed a chiaroscuro of orange-red gleamings.

But no light seemed to touch the figure that stood on a low dais in the middle of the time-burnished floor. It rose there like a pillar, motionless and immune to revelation. It might have been the back of a statue or a man; perhaps it was as tall as a Giant. Even the senses of the Raver saw nothing certainly. It appeared to have no color and no clear shape or size. Its outlines were blurred as if they transcended recognition. But it radiated power like a shriek through the echoing rocklight.

The air reeked of sulfur*a stench so acrid that it would have brought tears to her eyes if it had not given such pleasure to her possessor. But under that rank odor lay a different scent, a smell more subtle, insidious, and consuming than any brimstone. A smell on which moksha fed like an addict.

A smell of attar. The sweetness of the grave.

Linden was forced to devour it as if she were reveling.

The force of the figure screamed into her like a shout Hold Possession 437 poised to bring down the mountain, rip the vulnerable heart of the Land to rubble and chaos.

Covenant stood a short distance away from her now, dis- sociating his plight from hers so that she would not suffer the consequences of his company. He had no health-sense.

And even if his eyes had been like hers, he might not have been able to discern what was left of her*might not have seen the way she cried out to have him beside her. She knew everything to which he was blind, everything that could have made a difference to him. Everything except how in his battered weakness he had become strong enough to stand there as though be were indefeasible.

With moksfufs perceptions, she saw the two creatures and the Raver which controlled them leave the chamber. They were no longer needed. She saw Covenant look at her and form her name, trying mutely to tell her something that he could not say and she could not hear. The light flared at her like a shattered thing, stone trapped in the throes of fragmentation, the onset of the last collapse. The stalact.i.tes shed gleams and imminence as if they were about to plunge down on her. Her unb.u.t.toned shirt seemed to let attar crawl across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, teasing them with anguish. Heat closed around (360 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

her faint thoughts like a fist ' '

And the figure on the dais turned.'

Even moksha Jehannum's senses failed her. They were a blurred lens through which she saw only outlines that dripped and ran, features smeared out of focus. She might have been trying to gauge the figure past the high, hot intervention of a bonfire. But it resembled a man. Parts of him suggested a broad chest and muscular arms, a patriarchal beard, a flowing robe. Tall as a Giant, puissant as a mountain, and more exigent than any conflagration of bloodshed and corruption, he turned; and his gaze swept Kiril Threndor*swept her and Covenant as if with a blink he could have brushed them out of existence.

His eyes were the only precise part of him.

She had seen them before.

Eyes as bitter as fangs, carious and cruel; eyes of deliberate force, rabid desire; eyes wet with venom and insatiation. In the woods behind Haven Farm, they had shone out of the blaze and pierced her to the pit of her soul, measuring and disdaining every aspect of her as she had crouched in fright.438 They had required paralysis of her as if it were the first law of her existence. When she had unlocked her weakness, run down the hillside to try to save Covenant, they had fixed her like a promise that she would never be so brave again, never rise above her mortal contradictions. And now with infinitely multiplied and flagrant virulence they repeated that promise and made it true. Reaching past moksha Jehannum to the clinched relict of her consciousness, they confirmed their absolute commandment Never again.

Never.

In response, her voice said, "He has come to cede his ring.

I have brought him to your will,' and chortled like a burst of involuntary fear. Even the Raver could not bear its master's direct gaze and sought to turn that baleful regard aside.