The Last Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

predatory pain lurked inside Jeremiah: she could not believe otherwise. Suffering as calamitous as his possession by the
croyel
might overtake him without presage.
    For that reason, she needed to remain alert in spite of her gladness. But she did not know where to begin trying to identify the truths buried beneath her son’s presence.
    “Chosen,” Stave repeated more sharply. “Linden Avery. I comprehend the force of your son’s awakening, and of your reunion with him. Who will do so, if I do not? I, who have lost a son, and may only yearn bootlessly for his return to life? Nevertheless we cannot remain here.
    “It appears that the Falls have ceased. Yet should the Unbeliever fail in his quest, they will surely return. And the wider perils of the world will not await the culmination of your release from sorrow. The last crisis of the Earth gathers against us. Also the Ranyhyn are restive. I deem that they are eager to rejoin our companions, and that they discern a need for haste.”
    Long before Linden was ready to release him, Jeremiah withdrew. For a moment, he gazed at her with gleaming in his eyes like the stars on the foreheads of the Ranyhyn. Then he turned toward Stave.
    Linden was too full of other emotions to be surprised when Jeremiah reached out and hugged the
Haruchai
.
    Although Stave did not respond, he suffered the boy’s clasp until Jeremiah let him go. But when Jeremiah stepped back, the former Master lifted his eyebrow as if he were mildly perplexed.
    “You are much altered,” he remarked. “Is your condition such that you are able to remember Galt, who kept the fangs of the
croyel
from your neck?”
    Jeremiah nodded. “I remember. He’s your son. He let himself be killed so Anele could get that monster off my back. So Anele could give me all this power.”
    —the hope of the Land.
    Linden watched the boy with a kind of awe. Some part of him must have remained conscious throughout the long years of his dissociation. Other aspects must have been evoked or informed by the
croyel
’s use of him. Otherwise he would not have been able to emerge so swiftly—or to know so much.
    “Then,” Stave said flatly, “I am content that you are indeed restored.”
    As if in confirmation, the Ranyhyn tossed their heads, and Hynyn trumpeted an imperious acknowledgment. From among them, Khelen came forward and nudged Jeremiah, apparently urging the boy to mount.
    Jeremiah, Linden tried to say; but she had no voice. She did not know where to begin. Too many aspects of her relationship with her son had taken on new meanings.
    Briefly the boy stroked the young stallion’s muzzle: a small gesture of affection. Then he turned back to his mother.
    “Mom.” There were tears in his voice again, if not in his eyes. His grin fell away. With his halfhand, he pointed at the bullet hole over her heart. “I’m sorry. I never wanted you to get shot. But I’m glad, too. I needed you so bad—” For a moment, the color of his gaze darkened, hinting at black depths of pain. “I needed you to come after me. I was worse than dead.”
    His pajamas remained torn and stained. The horses ramping across the tops were almost indecipherable. And Liand’s blood still soiled the tattered bottoms, in spite of Linden’s efforts to wash them. She could barely remember that the fabric had once been sky-blue. It would never come clean.
    But before she could reply, Jeremiah shook his head hard; blinked until his expression cleared. Gesturing around him, he snorted, “
Quellvisks
. They were good for something after all.”
    Something which Lord Foul had not foreseen. In a sense, the boy had reincarnated himself from the old bones of monsters.
    Oh, my son. Linden needed to stop weeping. Really, she could not go on like this. When Stave said her name again, his tone had become more peremptory. And he was right. They could not linger here without food or water or their companions. The wonder of her son’s emergence from his portal was a