Panting in silent frustration, he emerged from the crack into a wider seam. There Clyme chose the left. He strode ahead more swiftly, as if he now felt the need for haste. Awkward on his numbed feet, Covenant scrambled to keep up with the Master.
Finally the seam debouched into a junction where several pa.s.sages and breaks crossed each other. Together they formed an open s.p.a.ce six or seven paces across, perhaps ten wide. Its surface was littered with detritus: old rubble, brittle shards of weapons, splintered sc.r.a.ps that may once have been bones. At every step, Covenant tripped on a rock, kicked something metallic, or crushed a desiccated shape to powder.
Against one high bluff of the Hills crouched a pit as black as an abyss: obviously a cave. Two of the intersecting pa.s.sages looked or felt as broad as roads. They were too clear to be natural formations. They may have served as corridors for Lord Foul"s armies long ago. Or they might be lures- Clyme stopped; indicated the pit. "Skest crowd there. At present, they stand in abeyance. Doubtless they will soon pour forth." Then he nodded at one of the broad pa.s.sages. "That path ends in blind stone. There we will render ourselves helpless. The other clear way holds more crowd there. At present, they stand in abeyance. Doubtless they will soon pour forth." Then he nodded at one of the broad pa.s.sages. "That path ends in blind stone. There we will render ourselves helpless. The other clear way holds more skest skest.
"Ur-Lord, will this juncture meet your need? Other choices are open to us, but along them we may be readily overtaken."
Fears thronged in Covenant"s throat. He swallowed hard. "I wanted more room." There was too much at stake. "But I guess we"ll have to make do with this."
"Then I ask again," Clyme said like the voice of the darkness. "What is your intent?"
"Stay with me." Covenant"s hands shook as he pulled the bundle from his waist. "Don"t stay with me." h.e.l.l and blood! I don"t have the courage for this-"It"s up to you." Every choice led to doom of one kind or another. He had already been killed once: he did not want to die again. "I can"t stop now. If I had a better idea, we wouldn"t be here.
"Sometimes we just have to take the chance-"
How many times had he told Linden to trust herself?
Vehement with self-coercion, he gripped the bundle in his left fist and began to unwrap the krill krill. But he was careful not to touch the dagger. Cursing his many trepidations, he bared the haft of the blade; uncovered the gem.
Avid brilliance burst into the night. It glared on every rock, every shard, every sign of ruin. It limned the crowding hills until they seemed to impend over him, stark against the blinded black of the sky.
"At least this way," he panted through his teeth, "the d.a.m.n skest skest won"t attack us until they see what happens next." won"t attack us until they see what happens next."
Before Clyme or Branl could protest, he stroked Loric"s lore-cut jewel with the numb fingers of his halfhand.
In spite of the danger, he rubbed the gem until he smelled scorching flesh.
Come on, d.a.m.n it. You know it"s me. If you can recognize me all the way down in the Lost Deep, you can sure as h.e.l.l feel me when I"m this close. And don"t tell me you"re too tired. You want this. It"s the only way to end what you"re going through.
Branl grabbed his upper arms, clamped them to his sides. Clyme moved to s.n.a.t.c.h away the krill krill.
"No!" Covenant shouted; raged. "h.e.l.l, no! If you stop me now, she wins wins! Lord Foul wins wins!"
Just for a moment, Clyme hesitated.
Then a caesure caesure exploded to life directly ahead of Covenant, three or four paces behind Clyme. The Master wheeled away as if he believed himself capable of protecting Covenant from the violence of ruptured time. exploded to life directly ahead of Covenant, three or four paces behind Clyme. The Master wheeled away as if he believed himself capable of protecting Covenant from the violence of ruptured time.
Branl released Covenant"s right arm. Instinctively? Deliberately? Covenant did not care. He wrenched his left free.
The Fall was big, a tornado of chaos. Most of it had appeared within the substance of the hill. Dismembered instants as devastating as the Worm conflated every moment of the stone"s recent millennia. The force of their insanity chewed the bluff to grit and pebbles, flung scree like a barrage at the sky.
The caesure caesure"s propinquity stung every inch of Covenant"s skin that could still feel pain. Nausea and wrongness wrongness knotted his guts. If he could have unclenched the muscles of his stomach, he might have puked. knotted his guts. If he could have unclenched the muscles of his stomach, he might have puked.
But he was ready for this. He had to be. Why else had he forced himself to leave Linden?
The area around him was clear enough. He had room to move.
This is your mistake, Joan. Not mine. I"m coming for you.
Dropping the sc.r.a.ps of Anele"s tunic, he clutched the krill krill in both hands. Its heat was Joan"s fury; but he knew how to bear it. in both hands. Its heat was Joan"s fury; but he knew how to bear it.
Anch.o.r.ed to everything that he loved by nausea and stings and searing pain, he ran straight into the core of the Fall.
Clyme or Branl may have shouted after him, but he did not hear them. As soon as the gyre caught him, it swept him out of existence.
Sold Souls
Without transition, Covenant staggered onto a featureless plain, infinitely unrelieved, and so cold that it froze the blood in his veins. If time had been possible here, one lurching attempt of his heart to beat would have shattered him. His entire body would have burst into ice crystals and drifted like dust, falling from nowhere to nowhere. But of course his heart did not beat, or he did not shatter, because this gelid moment did not move on to another. It did not imply time of any kind. He could stagger and catch his balance-could turn his head or his whole body to scan the suzerain nothing of the horizons-could walk in any direction if he chose-because this one miniscule fragment of causality and sequence had become the universe. It was all that the Arch of Time contained.
If he wished, he could imagine his breath as frigid plumes and searing inhalations, but such things had no significance. They meant nothing. They would never mean anything.
On some other plane of perception, a dimension simultaneous with the plain and the cold, hornets in their myriads or millions burrowed into his flesh. Each of them was pure excruciation, an instance of agony like being flayed. His leper"s numbness did not protect him. Even one of them might have destroyed him; but his absolute pain was eternally suspended within itself, forever caught between cause and effect. Here there was no difference between one insufferable anguish and a thousand. A thousand stings and a hundred thousand were the same. He endured them all for the same reason that he endured one: like his body, his mind was not given a chance to shatter.
It would never have that chance. In this place, there were no chances.
On yet another plane of perception, however, another overlapping dimension, he found Joan. He was was Joan. He stood where she stood, among wet rocks and reefs which had formed the floor of the Sunbirth Sea only a short while ago. He screamed her horror and rage against the pitiless night. He pounded her abused flesh with his useless fists. He tore out her hair in clumps that did not hurt enough to redeem her. Joan. He stood where she stood, among wet rocks and reefs which had formed the floor of the Sunbirth Sea only a short while ago. He screamed her horror and rage against the pitiless night. He pounded her abused flesh with his useless fists. He tore out her hair in clumps that did not hurt enough to redeem her.
And he remembered.
He remembered her life. His memories were hers. They were broken and whetted, as sharp as flensing knives, and they sliced through him until every vestige of his sanity was cut away.
They had driven her mad. They did the same to him.
And on still another dimension of perception, he recognized turiya turiya Raver, Herem, Kinslaughterer. The Raver wore Joan and him as if they were garments donned at will. In his hands, Raver, Herem, Kinslaughterer. The Raver wore Joan and him as if they were garments donned at will. In his hands, turiya turiya juggled memories and realities like toys. When he found one or another that displeased him, he crushed it; discarded it. The rest he kept aloft so that each possibility and recollection sc.r.a.ped across the whetstone of the air and became sharper. juggled memories and realities like toys. When he found one or another that displeased him, he crushed it; discarded it. The rest he kept aloft so that each possibility and recollection sc.r.a.ped across the whetstone of the air and became sharper.
But the Raver had no effect on Covenant. That sempiternal sickness could not hurt him. He had felt it too often; understood it too well. In Lord Foul"s servants, evil was just another form of disease. It could be endured. It could be ignored. And turiya turiya was only the juggler. He was only malice laughing in wild triumph. His greed for harm changed nothing. He was not freezing emptiness forever. He was not the swarming hornets of maimed time. He was not madness or remembrance. was only the juggler. He was only malice laughing in wild triumph. His greed for harm changed nothing. He was not freezing emptiness forever. He was not the swarming hornets of maimed time. He was not madness or remembrance.
He was not Joan.
And he would never be Linden Avery.
An instant or an eternity ago, Covenant had known what he was doing. He had chosen this plight. He knew caesures caesures intimately. He had spent an age defending the Arch of Time; helping it heal after each violation. He had realized what would happen to him. intimately. He had spent an age defending the Arch of Time; helping it heal after each violation. He had realized what would happen to him.
He would be lost, of course: that was obvious. He had no defense against the temporal inferno of the Fall: no lorewise ur-viles, no ineffable Ranyhyn, no rightful wedding band. No Earthpowerful companions. And his mind was already webbed with flaws, a cracked wilderland of unscalable fissures as trackless as the Shattered Hills, and as fraught with vertigo as the precipice above the sea. Of course he would be lost.
But he would also find Joan. He had had found her. A moment or an eon ago, he had believed that she would be his path. His salvation. His way back to life. Mad or sane, she stood at the center of the Fall"s turmoil. The whirl of instants revolved around her; around white gold and wild magic. They reached from the Land"s past into an unbearable future, but she held the crux of their devastation. The eye of the paradox. And she was still alive. Still human. Moment by moment, her heart continued its fraying labor. Therefore she was also the found her. A moment or an eon ago, he had believed that she would be his path. His salvation. His way back to life. Mad or sane, she stood at the center of the Fall"s turmoil. The whirl of instants revolved around her; around white gold and wild magic. They reached from the Land"s past into an unbearable future, but she held the crux of their devastation. The eye of the paradox. And she was still alive. Still human. Moment by moment, her heart continued its fraying labor. Therefore she was also the present present, her own and Covenant"s and the Land"s. She could stand on the drained seabed because the tsunami had not yet come. The Worm had not.
Covenant had rushed into the caesure caesure because Joan was there. because Joan was there.
She was the only road that might lead him back to life and Linden, and to the last, necessary battles for the Land.
He had known the danger; the acute extremes of his vulnerability. Oh, he had known! He had never learned how to ward off the seductions of lost time, the dizzying call of chasms. For that reason, he had trusted- But he could no longer remember who or what he had trusted. Alone in an irredeemable wilderness of cold while burrowing agony exposed every nerve, he was Joan. Her torment was his. He remembered nothing that was not her.
Somewhere among the multiplied dimensions of his extinction, his human hands still gripped the krill krill: High Lord Loric Vilesilencer"s supreme achievement. But it was wasted here because Covenant himself was helpless. He could not unravel his own mind from the skein of Joan"s deranged memories. The dagger"s implicit fire had no effect on his torment.
You have sold your freedom to purchase the misery of love, turiya turiya Herem told him, laughing. While you remained within the Arch, you were capable of opposition. You enforced boundaries upon the World"s End. Now you are naught but fodder for my delight. Here your life is mine. Herem told him, laughing. While you remained within the Arch, you were capable of opposition. You enforced boundaries upon the World"s End. Now you are naught but fodder for my delight. Here your life is mine.
Covenant heard the Raver, but he did not listen. He was Joan. When the tsunami came, it would destroy her-and him with her. Only turiya turiya would survive. would survive.
If or when Lord Foul decided that he wanted white gold, his servant would know exactly where to find it.
There every tale that Covenant had ever loved would end.
He no longer wondered why the old beggar had not given Linden warning of her peril. The Creator had recognized his own defeat. He had abandoned his creation.
Yet Joan did not think such thoughts; and so Covenant did not. She experienced only pain and betrayal. She felt only rage, wild and ultimately futile. She wanted only to make it stop make it stop.
At one time in her life, many years earlier, she had craved the opposite. More than anything, she had desired her life then to go on and on just as it was, sunlit and always content. With Covenant on Haven Farm. Pregnant with Roger. Surrounded by her beloved horses. Training them, not by breaking them to her will, but rather by comforting them until they trusted her. By luring them one gentle step at a time to want what she wanted. Happy. Pa.s.sive.
She had found pleasure in Covenant"s first ecstasy of writing. She had enjoyed his pa.s.sion for her body. The hurt of childbirth was nothing to her because her husband had written a bestseller, and because she had a son, and because her heart sang in the presence of horses.
Turiya Raver relished those memories. They supplied the excoriation for everything that followed. Without them, she would not have felt so profoundly betrayed by Covenant"s leprosy. Raver relished those memories. They supplied the excoriation for everything that followed. Without them, she would not have felt so profoundly betrayed by Covenant"s leprosy.
From the first instant, she had loathed the maiming of his right hand. It disfigured him; tainted him in her eyes. But perhaps she could have lived with it. It was only his hand. Yet she could not quell her revulsion at what his amputation implied.
Leprosy. Her husband was a leper. His humanity had been cut away. His illness was a form of treachery because it destroyed her contentment. It would make her a leper as well. It would turn her precious, perfect son into a diseased thing; an object of abhorrence. Everyone would shun them, all of them. Even horses might flinch away.
And they would be right to do so. Leprosy was more than an affliction of the flesh. It was a judgment. A condemnation. Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting. Her husband, her husband her husband, would sicken everyone who came near him.
In memories distorted by turiya turiya"s malice and her own fears, Covenant"s novel was a lie. His exaltation in writing was a lie. His love was malevolence, a hunger to inflict his illness on her. If she had killed him then, she might still have been too late to save herself and her son.
But she could not kill him: not then. She had lacked that kind of courage. Instead the shock of his condition taught her that she lacked any any kind of courage. Her sense of violation seemed to have no bottom. It had no end. It dug into her, and dug, until it exposed the fragility buried at the core of her ruined life. She was doing her utmost when she abandoned him. When she divorced him. When she went to live with her parents, putting as much distance as she could manage between herself and her cowardice. kind of courage. Her sense of violation seemed to have no bottom. It had no end. It dug into her, and dug, until it exposed the fragility buried at the core of her ruined life. She was doing her utmost when she abandoned him. When she divorced him. When she went to live with her parents, putting as much distance as she could manage between herself and her cowardice.
Yet distance did not save her. The fumbling inadequacy of her parents did not save her. Just once, she had tried to reach out to Covenant. He had refused to speak to her. In his silence, she had heard the truth. Her husband had betrayed her-and she did not know how to live without him. Forsaking him, she had forsaken herself; had turned her back on sunshine and contentment and horses. He had falsified those things; or her fears had driven her to falsify them.
Excruciated, and unaware of what she did, she had already begun the process of selling her soul.
And whenever she contrived to convince herself that she was seeking help, she went further. Sharing her mind, Covenant relived her misdirected struggles as if they were his. His mind was broken: he could not defend himself. Like her, if in different ways, he had fallen far enough to plumb any depths.
Blank cold so extreme that it seared his spirit.
Hornets denouncing every particle of his mortal flesh.
And Joan.
He had become them all.
Therapist after therapist suggested rea.s.surance, offered guidance back to strength. Some proposed medications. Others did not. But they were all wasted on her. She had never had any strength to which she might return. Weakness was her only resource. Pa.s.sivity defined her. In the end, therapy gave her nothing. It asked her to confront the beating heart of her revulsion; and so it pushed her deeper.
And churches were no better. Religion after religion, they proposed redemption; promised grace to efface horror. They did not require confrontations. Instead they insisted on contrition. Another form of abandonment: the surrender of her will and abhorrence to their forgiving G.o.d.
That might have saved her. Living her life, Covenant prayed that it would. But she could not distinguish between contrition and self-abas.e.m.e.nt; between acknowledgment and blame. And she could not surrender her horror. It alone justified her. Within her, Covenant remembered the precise moment when she had first realized that she could see eyes like fangs in the back of her mind. Piercing her defenses, biting deep, the eyes had a.s.sured her that there was no difference between therapy and religion. Forgiveness was just another way of accepting the disease, the spiritual leprosy, inflicted by Covenant"s betrayal. Like therapy, religion expected her to excuse his crime against her. To take the blame herself.
She embraced revulsion because she understood it. The fangs in her mind approved. Offers of forgiveness only pushed her farther into the Lost Deep of her defining despair, her essential and necessary loathing.
Betrayed, she let everything else go-even her parents-even her son-until she discovered the Community of Retribution.
There she felt that she had found recognition at last.
Among those believers, those fanatics, she reveled in promises of punishment. They made sense to her. She became chattel to the Community"s fierce priests. They made sense to her. She spoke every word that came to her from the eyes in her mind. They all made sense to her. And in return, she was given a kind of peace. Not the peace of forgiveness: the Community of Retribution did not forgive. Rather she received the peace of universal condemnation. Within the Community, she was blameworthy only because the whole world deserved denunciation, and she was part of the world. In every other way-so the believers and their priests taught her-she was innocent because nothing was her fault. She simply existed: she had not done anything, caused anything, inflicted anything. And the world needed retribution.
It needed to exact the cost of her suffering from Covenant.
To that extent, she thought as he did. In her own fashion, she believed that guilt was power. But for her, as for him, the guilt was his. Not hers. The power was his. And if he were punished enough, if he suffered enough, if he met destruction for his crimes, his agony would redeem her.
Ultimately that was why she had returned to Haven Farm, and to him. So that he would try to help her. It was why she had tasted his blood and given him moments of lucidity. With her weakness, she had lured him to his doom in exactly the same way that she would have seduced a horse too vicious for any fate except slaughter.
In torment and frailty, she was still fighting for salvation. Everything else-rage and the Raver, wild magic, self-abuse, carnage-was just confusion.
Because of course eventually she had realized that she had been betrayed again. Eyes like fangs had not spared her that knowledge. Turiya Turiya Herem had not spared her. Covenant was the source of her horror. Her agony and degradation could not end while he lived. But her efforts on Haven Farm had led only to the death of his body. His spirit flourished in the Arch of Time. While she grew weaker, he acquired new strength. He was loved. He was even revered. Retribution was her only conceivable release, and he blocked it. Worse, he Herem had not spared her. Covenant was the source of her horror. Her agony and degradation could not end while he lived. But her efforts on Haven Farm had led only to the death of his body. His spirit flourished in the Arch of Time. While she grew weaker, he acquired new strength. He was loved. He was even revered. Retribution was her only conceivable release, and he blocked it. Worse, he negated negated it. Simply by standing against her, he made her less than nothing. His treachery transformed every single moment and slash of her unceasing anguish into a cruel joke. it. Simply by standing against her, he made her less than nothing. His treachery transformed every single moment and slash of her unceasing anguish into a cruel joke.
Turiya did not let her forget that. Contemptuously he ruled her thoughts. He guided her use of her ring. And he reminded her that her son hated her. Her own son. Who could have spared her; could have made it did not let her forget that. Contemptuously he ruled her thoughts. He guided her use of her ring. And he reminded her that her son hated her. Her own son. Who could have spared her; could have made it stop stop.
Roger had refused to do so because he scorned her pain. He had come for her only to inflict more brutality. Like his father, he had betrayed her utterly.
If she could have found anything within herself except pain and turiya turiya Herem, she would have torn down entire worlds to punish him. Herem, she would have torn down entire worlds to punish him.
Behold! the Raver chortled to Covenant. His glee was the purest sting, the most perfect ice. the Raver chortled to Covenant. His glee was the purest sting, the most perfect ice. Witness the outcome of your long strife! She is yours. You have made her to be what she is. Are you not therefore culpable for her deeds? Witness the outcome of your long strife! She is yours. You have made her to be what she is. Are you not therefore culpable for her deeds?
If Joan"s caesures caesures had not damaged the Law of Time, Linden could not have resurrected Covenant. She could not have roused the Worm of the World"s End. She was not a rightful wielder of wild magic. She did not have enough power. No, the original wounds to the structure of Life and Death had been delivered by Elena, Sunder, and Caer-Caveral. But Falls kept those hurts fresh. Without them, Linden would have failed. had not damaged the Law of Time, Linden could not have resurrected Covenant. She could not have roused the Worm of the World"s End. She was not a rightful wielder of wild magic. She did not have enough power. No, the original wounds to the structure of Life and Death had been delivered by Elena, Sunder, and Caer-Caveral. But Falls kept those hurts fresh. Without them, Linden would have failed.
By the inexorable logic of guilt, the fault was Covenant"s.
Involuntarily he nodded. He did not have it in him to contradict turiya turiya. Like Joan, he had been shattered. The fact that she had fallen too far to be retrieved altered nothing. Indeed, he had not merely made her what she was. By permitting himself to be withdrawn from the Arch, when he could have refused the summons to Andelain, he had removed a vital barrier against her madness and wild magic. To that extent, he had enabled the barren future within which he was trapped.
At one time, perhaps, she had been responsible for herself. Now the burden was his.
Cold and scalding as congealed fire, the flat wilderland ached toward its illimitable horizons. An infinitude of disarticulated instants burrowed like screaming into Covenant"s helpless flesh. Within Joan"s mind, he returned to Haven Farm and horses in sunlight. He lived through what had become of her over and over again, as she did. Endlessly they repeated the cycle of her terrible dismay.
Such things held him. They had always held him, and always would. This moment would never lead to another, and so he could neither escape nor die. Nothing would ever change.
Nevertheless Branl and Clyme stood on either side of him. They remained exactly where they had been ever since this specific instant had been ripped out of its natural continuum.
They did not look at him. They had never looked at him. They were unaware of his presence-or they, too, no longer existed.
"Ur-Lord," Branl said: a gust of vapor as gelid and unbearable as stark ice. "You must return to yourself."
"You must," Clyme said. Plumes of frost issued from his mouth. "We cannot ward you."
"We are Haruchai Haruchai," Branl said. "We cannot share our minds with you."
"We are Haruchai Haruchai," Clyme echoed. "We do only what we can. Nothing more. As we have ever done."
They stood beside Covenant. Companions. He was not alone.