At that, sudden pain darkened his visage. She jerked to a halt, unable to grasp how she had hurt him. When he did not reply, she took hold of her confusion, forced it to be still. As carefully as she could, she said, “I don't understand. I can't. You've got to tell me what's going on.”
“I know,” he breathed. “I know.” But now his attention was fixed on the gouged centre of the table as if no power had ever been able to lift the knife out of his own heart; and she feared that she had lost him.
After a moment, he said, “I used to say I was sick of guilt. But not anymore.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “It's not a sickness anymore. I am guilt. I'll never use power again.”
She started to protest; but his certainty stopped her. With an effort, she held herself mute as he began to quote an old song.
“There is wild magic graven in every rock,
contained for white gold to unleash or control -
gold, rare metal, not born of the Land,
nor ruled, limited, subdued
by the Law with which the Land was created -
but keystone rather, pivot, crux
for the anarchy out of which Time was made:
wild magic restrained in every particle of life,
and unleashed or controlled by gold
because that power is the anchor of the arch of life
that spans and masters Time.”
She listened to him intently, striving for comprehension. But at the same time her mind bifurcated, and she found herself remembering Dr. Berenford. He had tried to tell her about Covenant by describing one of Covenant's novels. According to the older doctor, the book argued that innocence is a wonderful thing except for the fact that it's impotent. Guilt is power. Only the damned can be saved. The memory seemed to hint at the nature of Covenant's new certainty.
Was that it? Did he no longer doubt that he was damned? He paused, then repeated, “Keystone, The Arch of Time is held together at the apex by wild magic. And the Arch is what gives the Earth a place in which to exist. It's what imprisons Foul. That's why he wants my ring. To break Time so he can escape.
“But nothing's that simple anymore. The wild magic has been fused into me. I am wild magic. In a sense, I've become the keystone of the Arch. Or I will be-if I let what I am loose. If I ever try to use power.
“But that's not all. If it were, I could stand it. I'd be willing to be the Arch forever, if Foul could be beaten that way. But I'm not just wild magic. I'm venom, too. Lord Foul's venom. Can you imagine what the Earth would be like if venom was the keystone? If everything in the world, every particle of life, was founded on venom as well as wild magic? That would be as bad as the Sunbane.” Slowly, he lifted his head, met Linden with a glance that seemed to pierce her. “I won't do it.”
She felt helpless to reach him; but she could not stop trying. She heard the truth as he described it; he had named the change in himself for her. In the Banefire he had made himself as impotent as innocence. The power to resist Despite, the reason of his life, had been burned out of him. Aching for him, she asked, “Then what? What will you do?”
His lips drew taut, baring his teeth; for an instant, he appeared starkly afraid. But no fear marked his voice. “When I saw Elena in Andelain, she told me where to find Foul. In Mount Thunder-a place inside the Wightwarrens called Kiril Threndor. I'm going to pay him a little visit.”
“He'll kill you!” Linden cried, immediately aghast. “If you can't defend yourself, he'll just kill you and it'll all be wasted,” everything he had suffered, venom-relapses, the loss of Seadreamer and Honninscrave, of Ceer, Hergrom, and Brinn, the silence of the Elohim, his caamora for the Unhomed of Seareach, the tearing agony and fusion of the Banefire,
“Wasted! What kind of answer is that”
But his certainty was unshaken. To her horror, he smiled at her again. Until it softened, his expression wrung her out of herself, made her want to scream at him as if he had become a Raver. Yet it did soften. When he spoke, he sounded neither desperate nor doomed, but only gentle and indefeasibly resigned.
“There are a few things Foul doesn't understand. I'm going to explain them to him.”
Gentle, yes, and resigned; but also annealed, fused to the hard metal of his purpose. Explain them to him? she thought wildly. But in his mouth the words did not sound like folly. They sounded as settled and necessary as the fundament of the Earth.
However, he was not untouched by her consternation. More urgently, as if he also wanted to bridge the gulf between them, he said, "Linden, think about it. Foul can't break the Arch without breaking me first. Do you really think he can do that? After what I've been through?”
She could not reply. She was sinking in a vision of his death-of his body back in the woods behind Haven Farm pulsing its last weak life onto the indifferent stone. The old man whose life she had saved before she had ever met Covenant had said to her like a promise. You will not fail, however he may assail you. There is also love in the world. But she had already failed when she had let Covenant be struck by that knife, let him go on dying. All love was gone.
But he was not done with her. He was leaning on the table now, supporting himself with his locked arms to look at her more closely; and the silver glow of the floor behind him limned his intent posture, made him luminous. Yet the yellow lamplight seemed human and needy as it shone on his face, features she must have loved from the beginning-the mouth as strict as a commandment, the cheeks lined with difficulties, the hair greying as if its colour were the ash left by his hot mind. The kindness he conveyed was the conflicted empathy and desire of a man who was never gentle with himself. And he still wanted something from her. In spite of what she had tried to do to him. Before he spoke, she knew that he had come to his reason for summoning her here-and for selecting this particular place, the room of a compassionate, dangerous, and perhaps wise man who had once been his friend.
In a husky voice, he asked, “What about you? What're you going to do?”
He had asked her that once before. But her previous response now seemed hopelessly inadequate. She raised her hands to her hair, then pushed them back down to her side. The touch of her unclean tresses felt so unlovely, impossible to love, that it brought her close to tears. “I don't know,” she said. “I don't know what my choices are.”
For a moment, his certitude faded. He faced her, not because he was sure, but because he was afraid. “You could stay here,” he said as if the words hurt him. “The lore of the old Lords is still here. Most of it, anyway. Maybe the Giants could translate it for you. You might find a way out of this mess for yourself. A way back.” He swallowed at an emotion that leaked like panic past his resolve. Almost whispering, he added, “Or you could come with me.”
Come with-? Her percipience flared toward him, trying to read the spirit behind what he said. What was he afraid of? Did he dread her companionship, fear the responsibility and grief of having her with him? Or was he dismayed to go on without her?
Her legs were weak with exhaustion and desire, but she did not let herself sit down. A helpless tremor ran through her. "What do you want me to do?”
He looked like he would have given anything to be able to turn his head away; yet his gaze held. Even now, he did not quail from what he feared.
“I want what you want. I want you to find something that gives you hope. I want you to come into your power. I want you to stop believing that you're evil-that your mother and father are the whole truth about you. I want you to understand why you were chosen to be here.” His visage pleaded at her through the lamplight. “I want you to have reasons.”