Free The Last Dark by Stephen R. Donaldson Page B

he frowned at the blurred outlines of the horizon. “It should already be here. Why isn’t it here?”
    Kevin’s Dirt was less than a league away, a cruel seethe spurred southward by rage. Night continued to fade from the Lower Land, giving way to a preternatural dusk, an imposed twilight. Nevertheless there was no clear daybreak, no sign of the sun.
    “This is wrong,” Linden breathed. “Something is wrong.”
    “Indeed,” muttered Onyx Stonemage through her teeth. “Something comes. I know not what it may presage, but my heart speaks to me of dread.”
    The stars shone like distant cries. Somehow Kevin’s Dirt and even the swell of gloaming made them brighter, louder. A change had come to the firmament of the heavens, a change that threatened the isolate gleams. A change that caused them pain.
    Now? Linden thought. Now? Her sensitivity to organic truth assured her that the sun should appear
now
; that it should already have crested the crepuscular horizon. The absolute necessity of night and day required it, the life-giving sequence of rest and energy, relief and effort. The most fundamental implication of the Law of Time—
    She was wrong. There was no sun. There would be no sun.
    The nature of existence had become unreliable.
    The dusk softened until she could discern the faces around her indistinctly; until she could almost see the details of their grimaces and fears, their clenched expectations. But then the greying of the world seemed to stabilize as though it had found a point of equilibrium between night and day. After that, there was no increase of light.
    The sun was not going to rise because it could not. Forces beyond Linden’s comprehension held the Land in a gloom like the onset of the last dark.
    While Linden struggled to grasp the truth, several of the Giants gasped. Sharply Stave said, “Attend, Chosen.”
    She flicked a glance around her, saw that all of her companions were staring upward.
    For an instant or two, a few heartbeats, startlement confused her. The sky was too full of stars; of lights that glittered like wailing. She could not understand the panoply. She felt the leading edge of Kevin’s Dirt, tasted the shock and horror of her companions, recognized a jolt of vehemence from Jeremiah; but she did not see what her companions saw.
    Then she did.
    Oh, God—
    Stars were going out.
    One. Then another. A pause while realities reeled. Two together as if they had been swallowed simultaneously.
    God in Heaven! The sun was not the only casualty. And the Worm of the World’s End had not yet reached the Land.
    The stars were vast in number, of course they were: numberless beyond counting. By the measure of their profusion, their losses were small; almost trivial. But by the measure of brief human lives—by any measure that included life and death—the scale of the carnage surpassed conception.
    What kind of power could eat
stars
?
    Who could hope to stand against it?
    “Mom!” Jeremiah said urgently. “You need to listen. I’ve been waiting long enough.”
    She could not hear him; could not drag her gaze down to meet his. She was transfixed by the incremental ruin of beauty. She had to watch it because there was no sun.
    “Maybe it’s a good thing I waited.” Jeremiah’s voice was taut with restraint. “Maybe now you’ll understand why my idea is important. Maybe now
I
understand what Covenant was trying to tell me.” But then he could not hold back a yell. “
Mom!
”
    His shout dragged at her attention. “Jeremiah—” His name caught in her throat. Hoarse as a woman who had spent the night howling, she asked, “What is it, honey? What’s so important?”
    Don’t you see it? The stars are going out!
    “You need to
listen
,” he repeated. “I know what to do!”
    Stave regarded the boy steadily. The former Master’s gaze seemed full of the deaths of stars. Mahrtiir continued to peer blindly upward, but he appeared to be tracking the progress of Kevin’s Dirt. Perhaps