The Last Dark, Page 2

  Unexpectedly, however, they are joined by Findail, an Elohim who has been Appointed to guard against the consequences of the quest’s actions.

  Linden is unable to free Covenant’s mind without possessing him, which she fears to do, knowing that she may unleash his power. When she and her companions are imprisoned in Bhrathairealm, however, she takes the risk of entering Covenant, much to Findail’s dismay. Covenant then fights and masters a Sandgorgon, a fierce monster of the Great Desert. The creature’s rampage through Bhrathairealm allows Covenant, Linden, and their companions to escape.

  At last, Starfare’s Gem reaches the Isle of the One Tree, where one of the Haruchai, Brinn, becomes the Tree’s Guardian. But when the companions approach their goal, they learn that they have been misled by the Despiser. Covenant’s attempt to obtain wood for a new Staff of Law begins to rouse the Worm of the World’s End. Once awakened, the Worm will accomplish Lord Foul’s release from Time.

  At the cost of his life, Seadreamer makes Linden aware of the true danger. She then forestalls Covenant. Nevertheless the Worm’s restlessness forces the Search to flee as the Isle sinks into the sea, taking the One Tree beyond reach.

  Defeated, the Search returns to the Land in White Gold Wielder. Covenant now believes that he must confront the Clave directly, quench the Banefire, and then battle the Despiser; and Linden is determined to aid him, in part because she loves him, and in part because she fears his unchecked wild magic.

  Rejoined by Sunder, Hollian, and several Haruchai, Covenant, Linden, and a few Giants eventually reach Revelstone, where they challenge the Clave. After a fierce struggle, the companions corner the Raver commanding the Clave. There Seadreamer’s brother, Grimmand Honninscrave—with the help of a Sandgorgon—sacrifices his life in order to “rend” the Raver. As a result, the Sandgorgon gains scraps of the Raver’s sentience. Then Covenant flings himself into the Banefire, using its dark theurgy to transform the venom in his veins. When he is done, the Sunbane remains, but its evil no longer grows.

  Afterward, Covenant and Linden, Sunder and Hollian, Vain and Findail, and two Giants turn toward Mount Thunder, where the Despiser now resides. Along the way, Hollian dies. But in Andelain, Caer-Caveral expends his own life to resurrect her by violating the Law of Life.

  Gradually Linden realizes that Covenant does not mean to fight Lord Foul. That contest, Covenant believes, will unleash enough force to destroy Time. Afraid that he will surrender his ring, Linden prepares herself to possess him, although she now understands that possession is a great evil.

  Yet when she and Covenant finally face Lord Foul, she is possessed herself by a Raver; and her efforts to win free leave her unwilling to interfere with Covenant. As she has feared, he does surrender his ring. But when the Despiser turns wild magic against Covenant, slaying his body, the altered venom is burned out of Covenant’s spirit, and he becomes a being of pure wild magic, able to sustain the Arch despite Lord Foul’s fury. As a result, the Despiser effectively defeats himself; and Covenant’s ring falls to Linden.

  Meanwhile, she has come to understand Vain’s purpose—and Findail’s Appointed role. Vain is pure structure: Findail, pure fluidity. Using Covenant’s ring, Linden melds the two beings into a new Staff of Law. Then she reaches out with the restored power of Law to erase the Sunbane and begin the healing of the Land.

  When she is done, Linden returns to her own world, where she finds that Covenant is indeed dead. Yet she now holds his wedding ring. And when Dr. Berenford comes looking for her, she discovers that her time with Covenant and her own victories have transformed her. She is now able to face her old life in an entirely new way.

  “The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant”

  In Book One, The Runes of the Earth, ten years have passed for Linden Avery; and in that time, her life has changed. She has adopted a son, Jeremiah, now fifteen, who was horribly damaged by the Despiser, losing half of his right hand. He displays a peculiar genius: he is able to build astonishing structures out of such toys as Tinkertoys and Legos. But in every other way, he is entirely unreactive, trapped in dissociation. Nonetheless Linden is devoted to him, giving him all of her frustrated love for Thomas Covenant and the Land.

  In addition, she has become the Chief Medical Officer of a psychiatric hospital, where Covenant’s ex-wife, Joan, is now a patient. For a time, Joan’s condition resembles a vegetative catatonia. But then she starts to punish herself, punching her temple incessantly in an apparent effort to bring about her own death. Only the restoration of her white gold wedding band calms her, although it does not altogether prevent her violence.

  As the story begins, Roger Covenant has reached twenty-one, and has come to claim custody of his mother: a claim which Linden denies. To this setback, Roger responds by taking his mother at gunpoint. And while Linden deals with the aftermath of that attack, Roger captures Jeremiah as well.

  Separately, Linden and the police locate Roger, Joan, and Jeremiah. But when Linden confronts Roger, Joan is killed by lightning, and Roger opens fire on the police. In the ensuing fusillade, Linden, Roger, and Jeremiah are cut down; and Linden finds herself in the Land again, where she is informed that Lord Foul now has her son.

  As before, several thousand years have passed in the Land, and everything that Linden knew has changed. The Land has been healed, restored to its former loveliness and potency. Now, however, it is ruled by Masters, Haruchai dedicated to the suppression of all magical knowledge and power. And their task is simplified by an eerie smog called Kevin’s Dirt, which blocks health-sense.

  Yet the Land faces threats which the Masters cannot defeat. Caesures—disruptions of time—wreak havoc, appearing randomly as Joan releases blasts of wild magic. In addition, an Elohim has visited the Land, warning of dangers which include various monsters—and an unnamed halfhand. And the new Staff of Law has been lost.

  Desperate to locate and rescue Jeremiah, Linden soon acquires companions, both willing and reluctant: Anele, an ancient, Earthpowerful, and blind madman who claims that he is “the hope of the Land,” and whose insanity varies with the surfaces—stone, dirt, grass—on which he stands; Liand, a naïve young villager; Stave, a Master who distrusts Linden and wishes to imprison Anele; a group of ur-viles, artificial creatures that formerly served Lord Foul; and a band of Ramen, the human servants of the Ranyhyn, the Land’s time-wise horses. Linden also meets Esmer, the tormented descendant of Kastenessen, a deranged Elohim.

  From Esmer, Linden learns the nature of the caesures. She is told that the ur-viles intend to protect her from betrayal by Esmer himself. And she finds that Anele knows where the Staff of Law was lost thousands of years ago.

  Because she has no power except Covenant’s ring, which she is only able to use with great difficulty—because she has no idea where Lord Foul has taken Jeremiah—and because she fears that she will not be able to search for him against the opposition of the Masters—Linden risks entering a caesure. Accompanied by Anele, Liand, Stave, the ur-viles, and three Ramen—the Manethrall Mahrtiir and his two Cords, Bhapa and Pahni—Linden rides into the temporal chaos of Joan’s power.

  Thanks to the theurgy of the ur-viles, and to the guidance of the Ranyhyn, she and her companions emerge more than three thousand years in their past, where they find that the Staff has been hidden and protected by a group of Waynhim, relatives of the ur-viles. When she reclaims the Staff, however, Esmer brings a horde of Demondim out of the Land’s deep past to assail her. The Demondim are monstrous beings, the makers of the ur-viles and Waynhim, and their power now threatens the existence of the Arch of Time.

  To protect the Arch while she and her companions escape, Linden uses Covenant’s ring to create a caesure of her own. That disruption of time carries her company and the Demondim to her natural present. To her surprise, however, her caesure deposits them before the gates of Revelstone, the seat of the Masters. While the Masters fight a doomed battle against the Demondim, she and her companions enter the ambiguous sanctuary of Lord’s
Keep.

  In Revelstone, Linden meets Handir, the Voice of the Masters: their leader. And she encounters the Humbled, Galt, Branl, and Clyme: three Haruchai who have been maimed to resemble Thomas Covenant in his honor. Cared for by a mysterious woman named the Mahdoubt, Linden tries to imagine how she can persuade the Masters to aid her search for Jeremiah. When she confronts them, however, all of her arguments are turned aside. Only Stave elects to stand with her: an act of defiance for which he is punished and spurned by his kinsmen.

  The confrontation ends abruptly when news comes that riders are approaching Revelstone. From the battlements, Linden sees four Masters racing to reach Lord’s Keep ahead of the Demondim. With them are Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah. And Jeremiah has emerged enthusiastically from his dissociation.

  In Fatal Revenant, the arrival of Covenant and Jeremiah brings turmoil. They are obviously real and powerful, yet they give no satisfactory account of their presence. And they refuse to let Linden touch them—or to use the Staff of Law. Instead they insist on being sequestered until they are ready to talk to her.

  Meanwhile the Demondim mass at the gates, apparently preparing to destroy Revelstone; but they do not attack.

  Shaken, Linden retreats to the plateau above Lord’s Keep to await Covenant’s summons. There she calls for Esmer, hoping that he will answer her questions. When he manifests himself, however, he surprises her by bringing more creatures out of the Land’s distant past: a band of ur-viles and a smaller number of Waynhim, joined together to serve her. Cryptically he informs her that the creatures have prepared “manacles.” And he reveals that the Demondim are now working in concert with Kastenessen. But he avoids Linden’s other questions. Instead he tells her that she “must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood.”

  When Covenant’s summons comes, Linden meets with him and Jeremiah in their chambers. Covenant speaks primarily in non sequiturs, although he insists that he knows how to save the Land. At the same time, Jeremiah pleads with Linden to trust his companion. Feeling both rejected and suspicious, Linden refuses when Covenant asks for his white gold ring. In response, Covenant demands that she join him on the plateau, where he will show her how he intends to save the Land.

  Linden complies. She knows no other way to discover why and how her loved ones have changed. Instead of revealing their secrets, however, Covenant and Jeremiah create a portal which snatches her away from her present. Without transition, she finds herself with them ten millennia in the Land’s past, during the time of Berek Halfhand’s last wars.

  They are near the dire forest of Garroting Deep—and far from the place and time that Covenant and Jeremiah sought. Instead their purpose has been deflected by a man called the Theomach, who appears to have a mystical relationship with time. He is one of the Insequent, a race of humans who pursue arcane knowledge and power in complete isolation from each other: a race whose only shared trait, apparently, is a loathing for the Elohim. The Theomach interfered with Covenant and Jeremiah because he believed that their intentions were dangerous enough to attract the Elohim.

  The result is that Linden, Covenant, and Jeremiah stand in the dead of winter many brutal leagues from Melenkurion Skyweir, where Covenant and Jeremiah hope to use the EarthBlood and the Power of Command to defeat Lord Foul permanently. In desperation, Linden decides to approach Berek for help. She wins the future High Lord’s trust by healing many of his injured—and by introducing him to his own new-born health-sense.

  Afterward the Theomach accomplishes his own purpose by persuading Berek to accept him as a guide and teacher. To show his good faith, he speaks the Seven Words: a mighty invocation of Earthpower which Linden has never heard before.

  With supplies and horses provided by Berek Halfhand, Linden, Covenant, and Jeremiah trek toward Melenkurion Skyweir. But when the exhausted mounts start to die, Covenant and Jeremiah transport Linden to the Skyweir through a series of spatial portals. There Jeremiah reveals the magic of his talent for constructs. With the right materials, he is able to devise “doors”: doors from one place to another; doors that bypass time; doors between realities. Building a door shaped like a large wooden box, he conveys himself, Covenant, and Linden deep into Melenkurion Skyweir, to the hidden caves of the EarthBlood.

  Covenant is now ready to exert the Power of Command. But Linden drinks first, remembering Esmer’s counsel. She then uses her Command to expose the secrets of her companions.

  At once, a glamour is dispelled. Covenant shows his true form: he is Roger Covenant, not Thomas, and he despises all that his father loves. His right hand wields immense power: it is Kastenessen’s, grafted onto him to wield Kastenessen’s savage might. And on Jeremiah’s back rides one of the croyel, a succubus that both feeds from and strengthens its host. The sentience that Jeremiah has demonstrated is the croyel’s, not his own. Gloating, Roger explains that he and the croyel aspire to become gods. Bringing Linden into the past—and bringing her here—was an attempt to trick her into breaking the Arch of Time. So far, she has avoided that danger. But now she is trapped ten thousand years in the Land’s past and cannot escape.

  A terrible battle follows, during which the Staff of Law turns black. Using her Staff, the Seven Words, and the EarthBlood, Linden opposes Roger and her possessed son. While an earthquake splits Melenkurion Skyweir, however, Roger and Jeremiah escape, leaving Linden stranded.

  The experience transforms her. She now believes that only Thomas Covenant can save the Land. At the same time, her determination to rescue Jeremiah becomes even stronger—and more unscrupulous.

  After an encounter with Caerroil Wildwood, the Forestal of Garroting Deep, who engraves her Staff with runes of power, she is retrieved by the Mahdoubt. Here the Mahdoubt is revealed as one of the Insequent. When Linden is returned to Revelstone in her proper time, she learns that Liand has acquired a piece of orcrest, a stone capable of channeling Earthpower in various ways. She also hears that a stranger has single-handedly eliminated the entire horde of the Demondim.

  He is the Harrow, yet another Insequent. He covets both Linden’s Staff and Covenant’s ring, and he has the power to take them by emptying her mind. Fortunately the Mahdoubt intervenes. Violating the ethics which govern the Insequent, she defeats the Harrow, winning from him the promise that he will not wrest the Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring from Linden by force: a victory which costs the Mahdoubt her own life. After assuring Linden that he will gain his desires by other means, the Harrow disappears.

  Then Linden, her friends, and the three Humbled summon Ranyhyn and ride away from Revelstone. Because she still has no idea where Jeremiah is hidden, her stated intention is to reach Andelain and consult with the Dead, as Covenant once did. For private reasons, she also hopes to recover High Lord Loric’s krill, an eldritch dagger forged to channel extremes of power too great for any unaided mortal.

  Along the way, she and her companions come upon a village which has been destroyed by a caesure: a caesure which Esmer controls as a weapon against the Harrow. There she learns that the Harrow knows where Jeremiah has been hidden—and that Esmer intends to prevent the Insequent from revealing his secret. At the same time, Roger Covenant attacks with a force of Cavewights. In the ensuing battle, Linden’s company is soon overwhelmed. Frantic, she takes a wild gamble: she tries to summon a Sandgorgon. Six of them charge into the fight, routing Roger and the Cavewights, and allowing the Harrow to escape.

  Later Linden hears that a large number of Sandgorgons have come to the Land, driven by the rent remnants of a Raver’s malign spirit. In Covenant’s name, they answered Linden’s call. But now they have repaid their debt to him. They seek a new outlet for their own savage hungers, and for the Raver’s malice.

  When Linden and her companions have done what they can for the homeless villagers, they ride on to Salva Gildenbourne, a great forest which encircles Andelain. There they encounter a party of Giants, Swordmainnir, all women except for one deranged man, Longwrath: their prisoner. When the Giants and Linden’s comp
any reach comparative safety, they stop to exchange tales.

  The leader of the Giants, Rime Coldspray, the Ironhand, explains that Longwrath is a Swordmain who has been possessed by a geas. With nine other Swordmainnir, the Ironhand has been seeking the cause or purpose of his compulsion. After acquiring an apparently powerful sword, he has led the Giants to the Land. Here it becomes clear that his geas requires him to kill Linden.

  To protect her, the Swordmainnir agree to accompany her to Andelain. But during the next day, they are assailed by the skurj, fiery worm-like monsters that serve Kastenessen. Two of the Giants are killed. Yet Liand saves the company by using his orcrest to summon a thunderstorm. The downpour forces the skurj underground, and the surviving companions are able to flee.

  At last, they reach Andelain. The sacred Hills are warded by the Wraiths, small candle-flame sprites that repulse evil by drawing power from the awakened krill. Thus protected, the companions hasten to find the krill.

  During the dark of the moon, however, the company meets the Harrow again. Indirectly he has offered Linden a bargain: if she surrenders the Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring, he will take her to Jeremiah. But while he taunts Linden, Infelice, the monarch of the Elohim, appears. She argues passionately against the Harrow—and against everything that Linden intends to do. Yet Linden ignores them both as she approaches the krill.

  There the Dead begin to arrive. While the four original High Lords observe, Caer-Caveral and High Lord Elena escort Thomas Covenant’s spectre. Yet the Lords and the last Forestal and Covenant himself refuse to speak. None of them answer Linden.

  Driven to the last extremity, she raises all of her power from both her Staff and Covenant’s ring, and commits those contradictory magicks to the krill. Doing so, she cuts through the Laws of Life and Death until she succeeds at resurrecting Covenant; drawing his spirit out of the Arch of Time; restoring his slain body.