Ragnarökkr has commenced as foretold in the pagan prophecies of old! The World Tree withers, the bright Worm thrashes in fury as it approaches the land over the broad meres; stars dwindle and the day duskens, the mighty giant-maidens from Jötunheimr proclaim the fates of men and gods, Þórr prepares for a last stand against the sinister serpent…Shudders the ash
Yggdrasill, standing there,
the old tree cries,
--
Jǫrmungandr writhes
in jǫtunn-fury;
the serpent churns the waves,
--
Sól is seen to blacken,
the earth sinks in the sea,
fall from the sky
the bright stars;
--
Then comes the dusky
dragon flying,
a gleaming serpent, up
from Niðafjǫll…*
Wait, wait. Wait! Wrong corner of the multiverse! How did one thus err to roam upon the incorrect paths? Could the author have wallowed too much within the roiling melodies of Der Ring des Nibelungen and the gelid gloom of Norse legends while crafting his storyline, sucking in influences akin to a starving skeeter?
In any event...
The chapter begins where AATE left the reader stranded: Covenant and the two Humbled witnessing the onset of the Land's Götterdämmerung. The Worm, the cousin of the World Serpent introduced in the stanzas above, approaches the Land, munching on nearby Elohim treats on the way.
The leper messiah clings to life in a terrible state, wounded and teetering on the very edge of collapse after his turbulent encounter with his former mate. Caesures, lashes of wild magic, daring cinematic leaps over acid-weakened cliff edges lacking only the horse-drawn carriage and masked bandits...roving in obfuscated labyrinthian ravines and among coral growths sharper than a clone army of Edward Scissorhandses…. Heretofore he has survived quite an escapade, healing his fragmented mind along the way. However, his inner turmoil, the newfound unshattered understanding, but exacerbates the physical ailments. He feels the pain of Joan's death as if he had stabbed himself, while the ache for Linden's love and forgiveness has become unbearable. The trio lacks the company of the Ranyhyn and other possible modes of transportation, and Covenant deems that they can now but damn the Land, marooned from their erstwhile comrades as they stand or slump beyond the skest-riddled Shattered Hills. Loric's dagger lies as lightless as the insides of a bowling ball, and an equal gloom fills the broken idea bulbs above his head. And, if Linden ever sits accused of re-re-repeating her thoughts, so does he now.Beyond him and against the cliffs on either side, wild seas thrashed in the aftermath of the tsunami. He heard their turmoil, a thunderous seethe and crash like the frantic labor of the ocean’s heart. But through the surly dusk of a dawnless day, he could hardly see the eruption and spray and retreat of the lashed waves. There was no sun. Distinct as murders, the stars were going out.
Oh, he needed Linden. He needed to make things right with her before the end.
Time limps on. The Humbled attempt to rouse the ur-lord, reminding him that the world would become wormfood in scant days, unless they reunite with their scattered companions and fight back. They also insist on summoning other Ranyhyn to replace Mhornym and Naybahn, and that Covenant should consent to riding.
He, however, disagrees. No more sundered oaths.
At this, the stiff-necked sidekicks inhale a couple of bees up their noses. Granted, they have hazarded much in the Unbeliever's name, perchance justifying their anger to some degree.Long ago, he had promised that he would do no more killing. Now he was forsworn, as he had been in so many other ways. Covenant meant to say, No. He meant to say, Never. He could not break more promises. But those words eluded him. Instead his knees folded, and he sank to the stone. Some other part of him croaked, “Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.”
For a split second, he broods on the circular or looping quality of time, synonymizing it with a Möbius strip (Note to the author: those little dots on top of certain letters exist for a reason: They are not just fanciful decoration or flyspecks to be wiped away.) This oddball from the world of German mathematics entails a surface with only a single side, thus making it continuous."Do you accuse us? These straits are not of our making.”
For a while, Covenant could not imagine what Clyme was talking about. Then he managed to say, “Oh, you.” He dismissed the notion. “I didn’t mean you.” Perhaps he should have laid the blame at the feet of the Creator; but he did not. “I meant Foamfollower. This is all his fault.
“If he hadn’t insisted on keeping me alive. Making impossible things possible. Laughing in the Despiser’s face. He was always the Pure One, even if he didn’t think so himself. None of us would be here without him.”
Every implication looped back on itself. Every if led to a then which in turn redefined the if.
Indeed, one could compile quite a lengthy list of causes and causalities concerning the characters' actions.
Meanwhile, incredulity fills the Haruchai.
The author hides some deeper meanings into this trait and its consequences. The very least, the Land beneath the reign of jovial Masters would have resulted into something rather different. They might not have shunned the Giants who revel in mirth, and thus stories and knowledge would have spread... As an interesting diversion, Stave comprehends jokes in his own fashion, and behold, how he was treated akin to something noxious found underneath unscrubbed toenails."Ur-Lord,” Branl said finally. “Your hurts undermine your thoughts. Saltheart Foamfollower cannot be held to account for Corruption’s deeds.”
Baffled by the simplification of such reasoning, Covenant tried to shake his head. [. . .] “That’s not the point.” The point was that the Haruchai had no sense of humor. “The point is, I’m not going to ride the Ranyhyn.” Foamfollower would not have known how to laugh if he had not been so open and honest in his grief. “I made a promise.”A vow. “Promises are important. You know that at least as well as I do.”
Covenant reminds the Haruchai of the significance of promises as well, yet the reasoning in their response discords with the concept of equality as much as their warped doctrines of protecting the Land.
How splendid. One can perceive the importance of preserving Covenant's life, but the basic speculation that the oaths of others are less important by default than those of the Haruchai? Once again, this makes me wish the Swordmainnir would play some hockey with these obstinate flintskulls in order to knock some sense into them. With them as the hockey pucks.We comprehend given oaths. Yet yours contradicts ours. If you do not ride, your death becomes certain. This we will not permit while choice remains to us.”
Covenant does not relent, but demands to get the krill. This sparks a frown and the lifting of an eyebrow in the Haruchai, which in regular human terms would signify something as drastic as running up and down the side of the Eiffel tower wearing a neon yellow kangaroo suit and playing the Mission Impossible theme music with a tuba along the way. Still, they do not refuse.
The Unbeliever decides to forge his solemn assurance of not to ride the horses into something tangible, semi-divine with the aid of wild magic. In spite of all his self-doubt and bouts of remorse at the beginning of the chapter, he manages to assert that he is the white gold, something more than a weakling, wounded wretch groveling and gibbering beneath the death of the empyreans. He may not be the rightful wielder of Joan's ring, yet still possesses a claim of some sort to it by marriage. With this ring I bla bla blaa.
Then, as Covenant believes he has spent the last fraying dregs of his strength, something peculiar befalls.As he struck, the scale of his need and the fundamental strictures of his nature brought forth a familiar blaze from the gem: familiar and absolute, as necessary as breath and blood. It shone into his eyes like the nova of a distant star. The power-whetted blade cut inward as though the stone were damp mud. [. . .] Blinking through dazzles, he squinted at Clyme and Branl. At first, they were bright with phosphorescence, as spectral as the Dead. Then they seemed to reacquire their mortality. [. . .] Together they confronted Covenant’s display of power as if they were prepared to decide the fate of worlds. As distinctly as he could, Covenant said, “I forbid you to put me on the back of a Ranyhyn. Find some other answer.”
A distant sensation of power seemed to call him back from the collapse craved by his ravaged body. Involuntarily he straightened his spine, sat more upright. Then he saw [the Humbled] recoil like men who had been slapped. He felt their surprise. Directly in front of him, the figure of a man stepped into the light as though he had been made manifest by wild magic and the eldritch puissance of Loric’s krill.
The visitation limned in power wears robes. Who is this mysterious figure? Some manifestation of the Creator? Covenant himself in another form from beyond time? An unsung Insequent? Lord Foul?
The reader surely is as astonished as Covenant himself to meet Brinn anew after all these millennia. And even more so, as the guardian of the One Tree utters,Yet his features were familiar; so familiar that Covenant wondered why he could not identify them. A man like that--
After two heartbeats, or perhaps three, he noticed that Branl and Clyme were preparing to defend him. Or they were--Hellfire.--bowing. Bowing?
Brinn has never addressed Covenant thus before. Come to think of it, has any other Haruchai either? The guardianship has altered something in his inherent nature: the mask of dispassion has crumbled away, allowing him to display emotions. One has to wonder what has birthed such a development. Notwithstanding, as the Land rushes towards its doom, so also fray apart his strength and theurgies.“My old friend.”
And“All things exist organically. This you know, Unbeliever. As one swells, another dwindles. As the Worm of death rises, the Tree of life declines."
Do the Tree, the Worm, and those stars form some kind of reverse symbiosis with one another? It would appear that the Elohim function as one point of the existence triangle--When instances of Earthpower incarnate become consumed, does the general amount of this "natural force" outside the Worm relapse, thus rendering it unable to nurture the Tree? Questions, questions."I am made less by the deaths of stars and Elohim."
(Apart from the Norse mythology prelude, the serpent & holy tree theme does tear chunks of influence from both the biblical tales and Norse legends: In the latter, Nidhöggr the dragon (called ormur/orm/worm in the original sources) gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree. One of its roots also sucks nourishment from Urðarbrunnr, The Well of Wyrds, associated with the jötunn Norns (three giantesses personifying the fates). A careful observer may recall the Weird/Würd/Wyrm/Worm analogy from the 2nd Chronicles. During Ragnarökkr, Yggdrasill will burn. Several times during AATE I kept thinking that Rime Coldspray's hird bore the fate of the Land in their arms in the form of their human passengers, while trotting hither and thither, escaping one peril after another. Some aspect of the Norns hidden therein, just as Longwrath mirrors Loke from several angles...indeed, one can presage parts of the narrative beforehand based on such parallels.
Spoiler
Like the whole ending.
Brinn dedicated his life to protecting the mystical plant, yet possesses no wherewith to hunt down the serpent and thwack it into pulp. He reveals that the responsibility belongs to Covenant, Linden, and Jeremiah: a final affirmation that these three together form the core of defense against the cessation of time and life. However, a wee quoteling strikes as interesting:
I would recall that this prophecy shadowed only Covenant during the earlier eras. An upgrade?Together you must save or damn the Earth, as it was foretold in the time of the Old Lords.
Now, Brinn has come to grant the company some boons. Before healing Covenant, he addresses the haughty henchmen:
Branl and Clyme bristle with indignation, at least in the boiling recesses of their minds. As usual, for them, finding faults in their own actions becomes a task as impossible as locating a millimeter-long hay in a needlestack. Well...they do admit to suffering from the weakness of uncertainty, and that they have allowed the occasional mini-desecration in the name of the Unbeliever, yet...“Haruchai, Masters, Humbled, I have come to reproach you.”
Then, the Guardian proceeds to remind the Humbled--humbled, indeed, what a perversion of their prideful arrogance--of their yoreday generosity and benevolence, their vow to serve Kevin, et cetera. Again, they respond with a retort as bull-brained as a stampede of bovines, deeming the ak-Haru's accusations unjust. Brinn is furious.Brinn dismissed Branl’s protest with a soft snort. “Your valor is beyond aspersion,” [. . .] “Set aside your pride and hear me. “Doubtless others have spoken of arrogance. I do not. Rather the fault with which I charge you is simony.” [. . .] “You have grown ungenerous of spirit, demeaning what would else have been a proud heritage. You have withheld knowledge from the folk of the Land when knowledge might have nurtured strength. And you have withheld trust from Linden Avery the Chosen, setting yourselves in opposition to her efforts and sacrifices because you were unable to share her love and passion. These are the deeds of misers. They do not become you."
This brings us back to the specific accusatory word, simony. An odd choice from the author, in my opinion, among Satansfist, christen, and other such terms belonging to the sphere of Semitic religions, not an alternate reality with its own gods. Then again, if the realm originally stemmed from Covenant's subconscious and then evolved into something independent thanks to the random quantum fluctuations of the multiverse, perhaps forgivable. Barring the peculiarity, in christian theology the particular offense denotes the trading of ecclesiastical preferments, id est, in less-Latinized lingo, sacraments and holy offices. Brinn incriminates the Masters for selling the Land and its heritage to corruption and decay in order to gain supremacy over it. They have not become 'holier' or mightier of heart through such vain self-aggrandizement. As with justifying the reasons for their mutilation, the duo name Brinn as one of their icons, allegedly pursuing his example, yet the guardian does not cherish that portion of his past.“Are you truly so blind that you see no fault in naming yourselves ‘the Masters of the Land’?” His [Brinn's] voice had become a distant rattle of thunder. [. . .] “The Land is not a thing to be possessed as though it were a garment. It was not created for your use, that you might hazard it in a vain attempt to heal your ancient humiliation.”
Brinn's scope of knowledge extends to unfathomable depths and heights; does the haru-mindlink function across thousands of kilometers, or did the tree-warding post endow him with the ability to perceive the turns of tides in other realms? How else would he have known about the surviving Giants? Whatever the reasons behind his omniscience, he nonetheless continues,“I concede,” he answered, “that I trod your path when I forsook the Unbeliever’s service. What of it? Did Cail not return to speak of the Chosen’s salvific efforts at the Isle of the One Tree? And if you did not heed him, did you also fail to heed the First of the Search and Pitchwife when they described the forming of a new Staff of Law, and the unmaking of the Sunbane?"
Grah, how these deluded bastards make the reader's blood boil."Your restraint and your respect are as miserly as your deeds. Had you permitted them to do so, the Giants would have reminded you that open hands and open spirits were once valued among the Haruchai. Yet for many centuries you have offered the kindred of the Unhomed naught but unwelcome."
“Unwelcome, forsooth!” The ak-Haru’s indignation was a thunderclap. “For the Giants, of all the peoples of the Earth."
Indeed. Which, in a way, converges back to the Masters' incomprehension of humor. Ifs leading to other ifs, which in turn would redefine the original ifs... Now, do Clyme and Branl finally bend the knee and clutch at the robes of their idol in weepy remorse? Of course not: They conceive Brinn has arrived to renew their ancient humiliation from the times of the Insequent Vizard. Therefore, Brinn dismisses them as hopeless cases, and turns to his other tasks.
Do they stand beyond redemption, however? If the reader backtracks their steps to the end chapters of AATE, they may recall Covenant’s own disclosure while having a picnic with the spectres in Andelain:
Hence, their fate remains gaping open…I’ve seen things some of you haven’t. Sure, the Haruchai serve Lord Foul. But they might surprise you. They might surprise him. If anything can sway them, the Ranyhyn can. Or the Ramen.
Thereafter, Brinn reveals that Covenant must slay the raver turiya, lest it might possess the Lurker: a power surpassing even Sandgorgons and other puissant wossnames. Covenant considers the undertaking beyond bonkers: He should protect the more or less indirect creation of Foul? Then again, the Worm would soon gobble the earth, and his own sins against the Landkind have accumulated into a veritable Himalaya. Hence, no matter how deranged the idea and chaotic the events all about him, he feels he must somehow counter-balance his misdeeds. Moreover:
Now, the prince unvaliant requires only a steed. Behold, a wild deus-ex-machina horse appears: Mishio Massima, the Ardent's legacy. SRD crams one of his famed, foreshadowing wordplays within his name: mishio sounds like missio (Latin) and the very cumbrous word maxima reverts back to maximum. Maximum Mission, Greatest Mission...the Ardent weighed about half a Giantess, so perhaps every quest was "maximal" to the poor nag. Now, however, it shall face the true end of everything beneath Covenant's arse: the Grandest Mission of them all, indeed.If that monster challenged Linden, she would have to face it without Covenant or love.
Then, Brinn whistles for the Ranyhyn. Eventually, four appear: he heals the old destriers and shoos them off to a well-earned pension. May they find green fields abounding with amanibhavam and limber fillies to ogle.
The end of the world does not tarry. Every passing second is beyond precious:
Do the Elohim at last feel true fear, and find it necessary to clump together? Do they now realize their own evanescence, that they do not represent utter perfection, and perhaps endeavor to absorb some strength from one another in a vain attempt of survival?The stars appeared to draw closer. They seemed to cry out. Perhaps their wailing was underscored by [the Ranyhyn's] clatter of hooves, irregular and indefinite.
A partial answer breaks the surface of Covenant's roaming thoughts:
Now, however, time cries for action and heroic deeds. The Haruchai have attained new equines, and Covenant crouches ready for his restoration.Yet their proximity only accentuated the voids between them, the immeasurable gulfs of their isolation. Vaguely he wondered whether the Elohim felt the same loneliness. Perhaps that explained their prideful self-absorption, their insistence that they were complete in themselves, equal to all things. Perhaps their surquedry was nothing more than compensation for prolonged sterility and sorrow.
Brinn’s smile was a confluence of hope and regret as he stepped past the krill to touch Covenant’s blamed forehead lightly with one finger. At the same time, he urged quietly, “Recall that the krill is capable of much. With use, it has become more than it was.”
His touch seemed to light a star in Covenant’s brain. Suddenly the dusk in all direction became a swirl of lights: the same swirl which had filled the Isle’s cavern long ago when Covenant had tried to claim a branch of the One Tree.
Covenant has transformed into a Ranyhyn with a Brinn-star on his forehead! Now he can keep his oath of not to straddle one!
Yet, in all seriousness, does Brinn channel a form of Earthpower here? How precisely do the Elohim link themselves to the Tree? Or, are those Brinn-stars Elohim emblems at all? And how has the krill become more potent with use? They do tell practice makes perfect, but that hackneyed figure of speech might pertain to daggers of another ilk. Then again, the readers cannot always ascertain themselves of SRD's symbolism, as according to some other description, this minisword "throbbed" as Covenant shoved it down his pants.
Covenant drifts off as a consequence of the remedy. Ere this occurs, one last, languid thought lingers in his mind...
He needed to make things right with her. He needed to tell her that he loved her--and that he had killed Joan.
* * *
Interesting words:
Surquedry -- overweening pride
Parsimonius -- Excessively sparing or frugal
Actinic (of the krill's light) -- (of radiation) producing a photochemical effect (How can the krill's light induce chemical changes in something? Or does this relate to its scalding heat?)
*Völuspá quotes from here.
Regrettably I don't own a bowling ball, so perhaps as dark as a raven trapped into a tarpit on a snowless polar night? 
) and elsewise refer to concepts incomprehensible to the local population. How well it fits...well, personally have no problems with it. OR it could be an allusion to humor being as alien to the Haruchai as some gimmick from Covenant's homeworld. 
Fits equally well.