The Runes of the Earth

Chapter One: Spent Enmity

When the Ranyhyn had departed, the Cords bore Stave into one of their open-sided shelters and laid him gently down on a bed of thick grass and bracken near the small cook-fire. At Linden’s command, they brought more wood and built up the fire to a sturdy blaze. Shamed that the Ramen had not kept Manethrall Hami’s promises, they would have done more; but Linden sent them away when she was satisfied that Stave had been made as comfortable as possible.

She needed to be alone with his plight; and with her own.

Without some extreme intervention, he would die soon. He had begun to haemorrhage around his broken ribs and punctured lung. Even his extraordinary vitality could not ward him from death much longer.

And the Ramen had no hurtloam. Again they sent out Cords for the healing mud; but to their knowledge the nearest source lay far from the Verge of Wandering.

Because she was afraid, Linden considered simply borrowing a knife and cutting him open. But she knew better. Even with the sterile resources of a modern operating theatre at her disposal, she could not have saved him surgically without transfusions; and she had none to give him. If she used a knife, she would only hasten his death from blood loss.

And she was in no condition to work on him. She was already exhausted. The burned skin of her face throbbed in spite of the soothing effects of amanibhavam. And she had received too many shocks-

Yet his life was in her hands. If she did not rise above herself-and do it now-he would die.

She would have found her fears easier to bear if Stave had not regained conscious while the Cords settled him in his bed. His eyes were glazed with agony, and he could breathe only in harsh gasps; but he recognised her beside him. Dully he watched her every movement.

Without his gaze upon her, she might have felt less ashamed of her limitations. “Chosen,” he said at last, thinly; a blood-spattered trickle of sound between his lips. “Do not.”

There was no room for fear in what she had to do. Because she could not be calm, she held her alarm at bay with anger.

“Shut up,” she told him. “Save your strength. This isn’t up to you.”

She also feared what he might say to sway her.

But he persisted. “Chosen, heed me. There are tales of your healing. Do not heal me. I have failed. I am Haruchai. Do not shame me with my own life.”

If any tears had remained to her, Linden might have wept for him.

A few Cords lingered outside the shelter, Bhapa, Char, and Pahni among them, no doubt hoping to be of assistance. She caught herself on the verge of yelling at them, ordering them furiously away, so that no one else would hear Stave beg.

Instead she instructed them to turn their backs. “And don’t let anyone else in here. I need to be alone with this.”

She did not know how else to bear her own weakness and Stave’s supplication.

When the Cords had obeyed her, she confronted him as though she meant to strike him where he lay.

“Don’t talk like that,” she said like an act of violence. “Don’t tell me not to heal you.” Not to at least make the attempt. “You failed long before we came here, but you haven’t used that as an excuse to give up.”

The Master swallowed blood. “How have I failed?”

“Well, what would you call it? Anele is just a crazy old man,” whatever else he might be. “Until I came along, the Ramen were the only friends he had, and he didn’t see them very often.” God, she needed to be angry. `But he’s been haunting the mountains above Mithil Stonedown for decades.

“You’re the Haruchai. As you keep saying. But you couldn’t catch him. Wasn’t that a failure?”

Stave’s mien gave her no hint of his reaction. He might have felt perplexed or scornful behind his anguish. “He was aided.”

“By ur-viles, you mean?” she countered. “The ur-viles you didn’t even know existed? That’s another failure. You’ve made yourselves the Masters of the Land. The caretakers-But I’ve only been here for three days, and I’ve already encountered half a dozen things you didn’t know.”

She had nothing to give her light except the unsteady radiance of the cook-fire; nothing to guide her except a numinous discernment which she had lacked for ten long years. And Stave would not last much longer.

“Listen to me,” she told him grimly. “You didn’t fail to capture Anele because he was aided. You failed because there aren’t enough of you for the job. You’re spread too thin.

“And you’ve isolated yourselves. Nobody can help you because you won’t even let them know what the dangers are. I understand why you thought that was a good idea. At least I think I do. But you can’t have it both ways. Every choice has consequences. Either you’re the Masters of the Land,” alone and inviolate, beyond compromise, “in which case there simply aren’t enough of you. Or you’re just the Land’s friends, people like the Ramen, in which case you shouldn’t even try to prevent Earthpower from being misused occasionally.”

Did he grasp what she meant? She could not tell. His dispassionate suffering seemed to defy comprehension. But that made no difference to her now. She was preaching to herself as much as to him.

“So you failed,” she assured him more gently. “So what? It isn’t your fault that Esmer beat you. You didn’t lose because there’s something wrong with you. You lost because he’s stronger than you are.” She, too, might fail because she was not strong enough. “It’s the same problem the Bloodguard had with the Illearth Stone.

“Don’t tell me not to heal you,” she repeated. “You’re wasting your breath. And you still have work to do. Somebody has to tell your people what’s been going on, and I’m sure as hell not going to do it.”

Riding the thrust of that affirmation, she sent her senses into him like an appeal for understanding.

Something in her words must have reached him. Instead of clenching his will against her, Stave asked in a growing froth of blood, “What then is your intention? If you will not forewarn the Land-?”

Her percipience slipped into him with the subtlety of a low breeze, hardly more than a sigh: a soft extension of her essence into his.

“When I figure that out, I’ll let you know.” At last, the exertion of her health-sense enabled her to regain her physician’s detachment. She was almost calm as she added, “In the meantime, you can help me.” Help her to think; to concentrate unselfconsciously. “I don’t understand this grievance the Ramen have against your people. What did the Haruchai do that’s supposed to be so terrible?

“And don’t tell me they failed. I already know that.”

“As you wish.” Stave’s voice was a shudder of pain.

Although she had spent ten years without this discernment, its uses returned to her readily. Because she could see, the pain and damage which she perceived poured into her as though they afflicted her own flesh, her own spirit. But she had learned how to accept such hurts in order to determine their sources and take action against them. The Master’s agony did not daunt her.

He was silent for so long that she thought he had forgotten her question-or had lost heart. But at last he lifted his voice faintly to her.

“The Ramen resent that we ride the Ranyhyn, but that is not their grievance. The Ranyhyn choose to be ridden.”

His words and even his difficulty speaking freed Linden to focus on her task.

As her senses filtered past his superficial bruises and internal abrasions to his deepest hurts, however, she realised that she could still honour his wishes. Instead of attempting to heal him, she could simply spare him pain while he died. With her health-sense, she could intervene between his consciousness and his wounds-possess him, after a fashion-so that he felt no discomfort as he slipped away.

If she lacked the courage to do more-and if she were willing to violate his right to bear his own distress-

For her own sake as much as for his, she rejected the idea. More than ever, she needed to be able to exceed herself.

Through his pain, Stave breathed words like secrets for her ears alone. “Rather the Ramen do not forgive that the Bloodguard were accepted by the Ranyhyn, and were proved faithless. This you know. When Korik, Sill, and Doar were defeated by the Illearth Stone and Ravers, they vindicated the ire of the Ramen.”

Linden heard him. On one level, she heard him acutely: his words were as sharp as etch-work. On others, however she heeded nothing that he said. Her attention flowed in other directions, other dimensions.

There. When she had reached beyond the symptoms of his dying to their cause, she saw plainly the punctures and lacerations in his lung, the throbbing ooze of his blood. They might have been mapped in her own body. Two badly splintered ribs. Five separate perforations. Three seeping tears.

In an operating theatre, she would have needed half a dozen assistants to help her cope with so much bleeding.

“Through the defeat of the Bloodguard, however,” Stave sighed, “the fidelity of the Ramen itself is tarnished. They have never ridden the great horses, and yet their pure service has been given to beasts that in turn served willingly men who could not uphold their sworn Vow.”

With her own nerves, Linden measured the seriousness of his injuries. But it was not enough to see. Percipience alone would only break her heart. She required power; the ability to make a difference.

While she watched Stave haemorrhage, she groped as if blindly for wild magic, like a woman fumbling behind her to grasp the handle of a door which lay hidden or lost.

Sweat glinted in fire-lit beads on his forehead; dripped from his cheeks like the unsteady labour of his pulse. His scar underlined the pain in his eyes.

“That their service has been diminished the Ramen do not forgive, who have never broken faith.”

Somewhere among the ramified chambers of herself lay a room full of potential fire, crowded with the implications of Covenant’s ring. Yet it eluded her. When she had time to think, when she went looking for that room consciously, she could not be sure of its location. Her doubting mind had too many qualms. Covenant’s ring did not belong to her: she did not deserve its white flame. If she tried to become the Wildwielder, as the Elohim had said that she must, she might lose every aspect of herself.

Stave’s voice had fallen until it was barely audible. “Are you answered?”

“No,” she replied as softly. “The Ramen must know why Korik and the others did what they did.” Certainly Hami’s people respected their own limitations. Otherwise they would not have been content to merely serve the Ranyhyn. “How can they not forgive?”

Everyone else would forgive her if she failed to save Stave; but she was not sure that she would be able to forgive herself.

“Because,” he whispered, “they were not present.”

In the end, her choice was a simple one. She was a physician. Any one of the Haruchai would have given his life for her. And Lord Foul had Jeremiah.

How else could she earn her own redemption?

When she had become sure, her hand closed on the handle of the door she sought.

“How can it be said?” the broken man continued in wisps; faint puffs of life fading between his lips. “You ask too much. Such speech does not suffice. Even in the unspoken tongue of the Haruchai, it transcends-”

There the difficulties of her task began in earnest.

“The Ramen cannot comprehend what transpired because only Bloodguard accompanied Lord Hyrim to the slaughter of the Giants.”

During the collapse of Kevin’s Watch, she had somehow distorted the ineluctable sequences of gravity and time. But if she did such things now, she would burn Stave’s life to ash.

Still he strove to answer her. “Only Bloodguard witnessed the final murder of the Unhomed while it was yet fresh in cruelty. Only Bloodguard saw the outcome of their terrible despair.”

Even the small handful of wild magic which she had raised for Sahah’s sake would be too forceful here. The Master needed delicacy from her, precision; an accuracy at once as keen as whetted steel and as gentle as trained fingers. The smallest leak of flame from its secret chamber would be enough. The merest fraction more would be too much.

If her self-command wavered for a heartbeat-

Stave was nearing the end of himself. “Only Bloodguard,” he panted weakly, “stood beside Lord Hyrim while Kinslaughterer endeavoured to efface every vestige of the Giants from The Grieve.”

Seeking to tune percipience and wild magic to the same feather-soft pitch, she clung to the arduous sound of Stave’s voice as to a saving anchor; a point of clarity against the tug of her self-doubt.

Pierced by the touch of flame, he gasped. But he did not stop.

“The Ramen cannot know how the Bloodguard loved the Giants. They cannot grasp how the hearts of the Bloodguard were rent by what had transpired. Therefore they presume to scorn our fall from faith.”

The stolid demeanour of his people masked how profoundly they had been horrified. It hid the depth of their rage.

The Bloodguard had striven absolutely to succeed, and they had failed. What other conclusion could such men draw from their defeat, except that they were not worthy?

No wonder the Haruchai had made themselves the Masters of the Land. They sought to ensure that they would never again be found unworthy by an atrocity like the destruction of the Unhomed.

They had turned their backs on grief-

In comprehension and empathy, Linden nudged the punctures in Stave’s lungs shut one by one. Then she reached into him with argence in order to bind their edges together.

“Chosen,” he murmured; his last words to her, “hear me.

“The judgment of the Haruchai is not so lightly set aside. There will come a reckoning between us.”

Another man might have meant between the Masters and the Ramen; but she knew that he did not.

Wild magic was too rough for the task. Inadvertently she hurt him until he nearly screamed behind his locked teeth. Nevertheless she sealed the tissues of his lungs around each wound. Then she closed the pleural rents.

Extravagantly careful, and still unable to spare him agony, she stitched white fire along the worst of his internal lacerations until they were made whole.

Finally she bowed her head over her work. Stave had lost consciousness: he lay as still as death. But he breathed more easily now, and no new blood came to his lips.

When she believed that he would live, she let percipience and power and all the world go.

What then is your intention?

If he had asked her that question now, she might have wept.

Some time later, the sound of voices outside the shelter roused her: soft voices, thick with controlled anger and threats.

Raising her head, Linden discovered that she must have fallen asleep on her knees beside Stave’s grassy bed. Her arms still rested near him. Dried bits of bracken clung to her cheek, and her folded legs had gone numb under her.

Someone-Bhapa? – was saying stubbornly, “We care not. It is her word that she must not be disturbed.”

“You are not blind,” countered a man who may have been Esmer. “It is plain that she has spared the Haruchai from death. Did you not feel the wild magic that destroys peace?

“I must speak with her while I am able.”

“As you spoke with the sleepless one?” a girl responded: a younger voice, possibly Pahni’s. “Already you have betrayed our promise of safety. Even now the Manethralls debate whether you will be permitted to remain among us.”

The man who sounded like Esmer snorted ambiguously. Contempt? Distress? Linden could not tell. “While I am accepted by the Ranyhyn,” he retorted in scorn or alarm, “the Ramen may not deny me, lest they break faith with the meaning of their lives.

“Stand aside, Cords. I must speak with the Wildwielder.”

Groaning, Linden brushed the bracken from her cheek; rubbed her face to restore at least a semblance of consciousness. Esmer wanted to talk to her? Fine. She had a few things to say herself.

Stave could never have stood against him: Esmer had too much power. For a moment, she relived the lurch and spout of force which had kept the Ramen from Stave’s side; the numbing nausea which had eroded her defences. Esmer’s unprovoked violence would delight the Despiser, if Lord Foul knew of it.

If Foul had not caused it in some way-

Just tell me what you’ve done.

Done? I? Naught. I have merely whispered a word of counsel here and there, and awaited events.

Angry herself now, Linden tried to rise; but her legs would not move. How long had she slept? Long enough, obviously, to deaden her nerves. With her arms, she tried to shift her weight-and gasped softly at the quick fire of returning sensation.

You need the Staff of Law.

She had not forgotten; but the advice of her dreams had taken on the weight of despair.

Abruptly, hands came to her aid. With their support, she stood at last. When she could see past the pain in her legs, she found herself gazing into Char’s earnest young face.

Sahah’s brother, repaying a debt. As Pahni and Bhapa did by withstanding Esmer. They had watched over while she laboured for Stave’s life; and while she slept.

They were still trying to obey her.

The cook-fire had died down to small flames, ruddy embers. Its dim light made Char’s face look flushed. Limned in the glow of other fires around the encampment, the forms of Esmer, Bhapa, and Pahni had an infernal cast, ominous and undefined.

“You do not comprehend the difficulty,” Esmer insisted to Sahah’s cousin and half-brother. “You see what I am in part, but you do not know the cost of my nature.” His tone suggested elaborate patience, uncomfortable restraint. “The way is open for me now. But the time when I may speak to the Wildwielder for her benefit is not long. It will soon end.

“You know that I esteem the Ramen for their service to the Ranyhyn. Do not misjudge me now. It is misguided devotion”- his tone said folly- “to refuse me in this.”

Bhapa and Pahni did not stand aside. They did not so much as turn their heads to glance at Linden.

In spite of his frustration, Esmer made no attempt to force his way past them. The man who had nearly killed Stave could have knocked both Cords aside easily. Apparently, however, he had no intention of doing so.

“Let him in.” Sleep and fatigue clogged Linden’s throat: she could barely make herself heard. “I’ll talk to him.”

She was not sure that anything Esmer might say would do her good. But he understood the speech of ur-viles. He possessed invaluable knowledge, if he chose to reveal it.

“The Ringthane has awakened,” Char added as if to confirm her authority. “It is her wish to admit Esmer.”

Reluctantly, Bhapa and Pahni stepped out of Esmer’s way.

He had called himself the son of Cail and the Dancers of the Sea. He had demonstrated an astonishing power for which Linden had no answer. Nevertheless he entered the shelter cautiously, almost hesitantly, as if he were abashed in her presence. The low radiance of the cook-fire turned his emerald eyes the colour of shame.

Again his nearness afflicted her with a sensation of nausea, a disturbing queasiness. In some way, he seemed to undermine her perceptions, her health-sense, even her grasp on reality.

The Cords followed him, plainly concerned that Linden might need their protection.

Esmer did not meet her gaze. When he reached the head of Stave’s bed, he stopped to study the Haruchai. With an uncomfortable frown, he murmured, “You surpass me. Small wonder that you are named “Chosen” and “Wildwielder”. To work such healing with wild magic-”

He risked a quick glance at her face, then turned his head aside. Under his breath, he quoted:

“This power is a paradox,

because Power does not exist without Law,

and wild magic has no Law.”

In an abstracted tone, he told the Cords, “Leave us. I will speak to the Wildwielder alone.”

“You will not,” retorted Bhapa stiffly.

Char and Pahni looked to Linden for her assent.

“It’s all right,” she assured them. She had her own reasons for speaking to Esmer privately. “You can go. He won’t hurt me.”

Not now. Ranyhyn had bowed their heads to her: she had been accepted by the great horses of Ra. And Esmer had made it clear that he honoured their choices.

If the Ranyhyn had arrived sooner, Stave would not have been hurt-

Scowling their mistrust at Esmer, Pahni and Bhapa acquiesced. When Linden had seated herself beside Stave’s supine form, Char also left the shelter. She did not watch where the Cords went; but she assumed that they would continue to protect her privacy.

While she slept, intentions which she could not name had begun to take shape within her. Her present straits were untenable, that was certain. They had to be altered. She could not imagine what Esmer might say to her; but she knew what she would ask him. However, her questions were mere unformed guesses, inchoate intuitive leaps; too disturbing to be shared. For the time being, at least, she did not wish to be overheard by anyone who might misunderstand her-or disapprove.

Still Esmer did not look at her directly. His arms moved awkwardly at his sides, uncertain of their purposes; restless with chagrin. Behind her, Stave bore unconscious witness to Esmer’s constrained deadliness.

She did not hesitate. She was too angry. Too tired of being afraid. “You said you wanted to talk,” she rasped. “So talk. Tell me why I should listen to a man who nearly killed someone who couldn’t possibly hurt him. Where I come from, only cowards do that.”

Esmer shrugged in discomfort. “I am the son of Cail and merewives.” His tone was meek: his manner proffered no challenge. “I descend from the blood and power and betrayal of Elohim, as from other theurgies. And from true service as well, the honour of Haruchai. The fault of my nature does not diminish your importance to me.”

Linden’s guts churned suddenly. Aboard Starfare’s Gem, Findail had not spoken only of Kastenessen. He had also described the doomed Elohim’s damaged lover. Apparently that woman had learned many forms of power from Kastenessen, but no anodyne for her bereavement. Bitter with pain, she had eventually become the mother of the merewives, the Dancers of the Sea, who had seduced Brinn and Cail.

For his weakness, Cail’s kinsmen had judged him a failure. After the quenching of the Banefire, he had left the Land, hoping to find the merewives again. He had preferred the passion and imprisonment of their unending, unrelieved desire to the harshness of his people.

“That’s no answer,” Linden retorted. Everything about Esmer hinted at fatal hazards: she needed to guard herself. And his present meekness only aggravated her ire. “In any case, attacking Stave was a waste of time. What did you think you would accomplish? Even if you killed him, he’s only one Haruchai. Someday the rest of his people will become aware of you. Then you’ll have more enemies than you can count. So what was the damn point? What did you have to gain?”

Why did he wish to approach her now?

Esmer appeared to sigh, although he made no sound. “I am made to be what I am, divided against myself, and eternally at war.”

Abruptly, he seated himself on the bed near Stave’s head. Embers reflected greenly in his eyes as he watched the darkened movements of the Ramen within and around the neighbouring shelters.

“Do you not recall the merewives? Their song inspires those who hear it-those whose hearts are fierce, and can be touched-with a fathomless passion, love so needy and aspirant that the depths of the oceans cannot drown it away. Yet that song is sung in abhorrence, inspired by sorrow and the desire for death. The Dancers of the Sea loathe the love which they call forth, for they were themselves born of such vast yearning. Their nature grants them no mercy, and permits them none.

“In Cail, they found a mate to match them. I am their sum, at once more than both and less than either.”

His shoulders twitched: another shrug. “With blows I have expended my loathing, for a little time. Until its strength is renewed, I am able to set it aside.”

Linden glared at him. “And you had to tear into him right then? You couldn’t wait until you knew whether the Ranyhyn would accept him?”

Esmer’s eyes flared: the muscles at the corner of his jaw knotted. “Did you not hear me?” he said through his teeth. “I am made to be what I am. Every moment of my existence is conflict and pain.”

Linden shook her head. Still he had not answered her. She did not grasp how the loathing of the merewives required his violence against Stave. She could see, however, that she would not get a more satisfying response. He may have told her as much as he knew of his own compulsions.

Or-the thought stung her-he may have told her the exact truth. Perhaps his heritage rode and ruled him with such cruelty that he had no choice but to act on his mothers’ hatred for his father.

The idea shocked her to silence. She was intimately familiar with such legacies. Her father had locked her in an attic with him so that she would be forced to watch him kill himself. And her mother-

No one, she wanted to insist, makes you what you are. You have to choose. She believed that. Nevertheless his mere proximity nauseated her.

In his case, she might be wrong.

Floundering to recover her intentions, her sense of purpose, she changed directions.

“You told the Cords you wanted to talk to me for my `benefit: What earthly good do you think you can do me?”

This time, he sighed aloud. “Wildwielder, I am Elohim and Haruchai, theurgy and skill, betrayal and service. Loathing and love. I have wandered the Earth for millennia in pain, awaiting you. I have been given the knowledge of many things, and have learned more. If you ask, I will answer-while I can.”

Until his abhorrence renewed its strength.

Linden’s mind reeled. Possibilities stooped through her like striking raptors. She could not hold herself upright. Involuntarily, she sagged forward and braced her elbows on her knees, clutched her thoughts between her hands.

If she asked, Esmer might explain Anele’s madness. He might tell her about Kastenessen, or the skurj, or Kevin’s Dirt. He might describe how ur-viles came to be here, when Lord Foul had striven to destroy them all.

Many things-

Hell, he might even know whether she had truly heard Covenant’s voice in her dreams; or in Anele’s mouth.

If you ask-

Hardly aware that she spoke aloud, she whispered, “Can you tell me where to find my son?”

Brusquely Esmer replied, “No. The Despiser is hidden from me.”

Esmer knew that she had a son. He knew that Jeremiah had been taken from her by Lord Foul.

Nevertheless his tone gave her the impression that she had wasted a question.

God in Heaven. With an effort, she fought down an impulse to ask-no, to demand-whether she and Jeremiah would ever be able to return to their own world. She knew better. The bullet hole in her shirt confirmed that she had already lost her former life permanently. Stabbed to the heart, Covenant had not eventually awakened in the woods behind Haven Farm. Nor would she.

Instead she replied harshly, “That’s convenient. I wonder how many other crucial details just happen to be `hidden’ from you.”

Then she held up her hands to forestall a response. “All right, I’ll try again. Why have you been tormenting Anele? That was you on the ridge, refusing to let him talk. And you stopped Covenant from-” A sudden clutch of grief closed her throat. She had to swallow several times before she could continue. “He’s been through so much-” She meant Anele. “I need to know anything he can tell me, but you forced him to shut up.

“If you’re going to answer questions, answer that one.”

Esmer’s gaze seemed to wander the night impatiently, as if he no longer knew why he had insisted on speaking to her. His voice held a new asperity as he said, “I have already done so. I must sate the division of my nature. The desires of the merewives are compulsory, as are the passions of Cail my father. That which lies hidden within the old man displeases the Dancers of the Sea.”

“Oh, hell,” muttered Linden. “Why do they even care? They aren’t exactly here, you know. And they’ve never had anything to do with the Land.”

As far as she knew-

Still he kept his face turned away. “Yet the woman who made them gleaned both lore and power from Kastenessen. His fate taught her the abhorrence which defines the seductions of the merewives.”

Again Linden received the impression that she had wasted a question; that she should have been able to deduce his answer from the things he had said earlier. That her time was running out-

At last, she found the resolve to straighten her back and raise her head so that she could look squarely at Esmer. Soon, she guessed, he would leave her to her confusion and ignorance; her useless ire. If she hoped to gain any “benefit” from his conflicted willingness, she had to do so now.

Fearfully, she asked the question on which she had half consciously decided to stake her survival-and her son’s.

“All right,” she repeated roughly. “I’ll try this.

“Tell me about caesures, Falls. What are they? What do they do?”

Without shifting his gaze, Esmer nodded. “They are flaws in time, caused and fed by wild magic.”

He sounded oddly gratified, as though this question, at least-or his ability to answer it-vindicated him in some way.

“Within them,” he explained, “the Law of Time, which requires that events transpire in sequence, and that one action must lead to another, is severed. Within them, every moment which has ever passed in their ambit as they move exists at once.”

He seemed oblivious to the way in which his words intensified the air between them. Covenant had told her that white gold fed the Falls.

“Wait a minute,” she protested. “Wait. I need to be sure I understand this. You can’t mean that I’m doing it?”

“No,” Esmer stated as if the truth should have been obvious. “There is other white gold in the Land, a ring in the possession of a madwoman.”

Linden groaned to herself. As she had feared from the beginning, Joan must have preceded her to the Land; summoned her. Joan was responsible for the caesures.

“She knows little of what she does,” Esmer continued, “and intends less. Yet there is savagery in her, a hunger for ruin as great as that of the Raver which torments her. As her nightmares devour her, so caesures devour the Land, displacing objects and beings and powers, corroding the Law of Time. That the harm is not greater-that the Law of Time has not already been shattered-is due only to the form of her madness.

“There is no willingness in her. She is merely haunted and broken and used. She cannot choose freely to abdicate her soul. Thus is her power restrained from utter havoc.”

Oh, Joan. For a moment, Linden could not go on. Now she knew surely that she had caused the Land’s peril when she had restored Joan’s ring. Her fears then had been accurate; prescient. But she had set them aside because she had not understood that wild magic might reach across the boundary between realities.

Somehow Joan’s wedding band, the emblem of her weaknesses and failures, had exposed her to the Despiser. The Falls were born of her despair, her self-inflicted pain.

No wonder she had grown calmer when the ring touched her skin. Inadvertently Linden had given her an outlet for her anguish.

“I did that,” Linden murmured. “I was supposed to take care of her, but I didn’t. Instead I made it possible-”

Esmer gave her one quick glance, a look full of emeralds and suffering. Sweat beaded among the shadows on his face, and his lips were pale with strain. Then he turned away once more.

Shaken, she did not immediately recognise that her nausea in his presence was growing worse; that his emanations were becoming more intense. In spite of her dismay, however, her nerves felt him clearly. He lived in endless conflict with himself; and his mothers’ harsh loathing had begun to regain its force.

Trembling as if she were chilled, she forced herself to set aside her chagrin. “Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly.

“Your time is short,” retorted Esmer. “You waste me. If I do not depart soon, I will smother this Haruchai where he lies. Then the Ranyhyn will be lost to me forever.”

She swore to herself. It was too much. She had too many questions, and could not think quickly enough.

Trying to hurry, she said, “I’m sorry. Make it easy on yourself. Just correct me if I’m wrong.

“Anele is here,” brought forward through the millennia, “because he stumbled into a caesure.”

The old man had said as much. But she had not known then that the Falls were composed of severed instants. Now she guessed that within a caesure it might be possible to cross time; that anyone who entered a caesure would almost inevitably emerge somewhen else.

Esmer nodded: an angry jerk of his head.

Still guessing, Linden offered, “So did the ur-viles.”

That would explain how they had survived Lord Foul’s efforts to exterminate them.

Cail’s son snorted as if she had missed the point. “They did not “stumble.” They knew what they did. They entered the Fall to flee the Despiser. Also they sought a time when they would be needed against him.”

Linden bit her lip. “And they found it here? Now?”

“Wildwielder,” he answered, “they have found you.” Complex ire strained his voice. “It is their intent to serve you.”

Through her nausea, she saw implications of violence gather in him; possible lies. Cail’s son would answer her honestly. Would the scion of merewives do the same?

“When you were imprisoned by the Haruchai,” he continued mordantly, “the ur-viles sent a storm to enable your escape. When you were endangered by kresh, they hastened to your aid. And when I first entered your presence, they came to ensure that you would not be harmed.

“They keep watch against me. They know who I am.”

Half sneering, he muttered, “They are puissant after their fashion. Perhaps they might withstand me. But my lore exceeds theirs. Therefore they fear me.”

Linden feared him herself.

Scrambling for some form of confirmation, reassurance, she returned to her earlier question. “But Anele? He really is the son of Sunder and Hollian? He lost the Staff of Law because he left it in his cave?”

Esmer replied with another harsh nod.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Linden finally risked naming her unspoken intent. Hugging her heart, she asked, “Could he find it again? If he went back to the past?”

Abruptly, Esmer jumped to his feet. Linden winced, afraid that he would stride out of the shelter; leave her still too ignorant to proceed. But he did not. Instead he began to articulate his tension by pacing back and forth in front of her. His head jerked as if he were arguing with himself, debating honesty and blows. A sheen of sweat lay on his cheeks.

Still he did not look at her.

“If his madness permits,” he answered between his teeth. “If he is able to remember. Or if he becomes sane.”

Anele had remembered often enough in the past.

Esmer would depart in moments: she felt that clearly. The bifurcation of his nature was too strong for him. He would never find peace until he had used up his mothers’ loathing-or burned away his father’s passion.

There was so much that she wanted to know; but she could live without it. For the time being, at least-To one question, however, she positively required an answer. Otherwise she would be helpless.

“Esmer,” she urged softly, “hang on. Just one more.

“How do I do it?”

“Wildwielder?”

“How do I go back there? To the past? How do I find the Staff?”

She could do what Anele had done; enter one of the caesures. But Esmer had said that within them every moment existed simultaneously. How could she sort her way through so much time? How could she navigate every possibility of three and a half thousand years?

“For you all things are possible.” He spread his hands in a gesture too rough to be a shrug. “You are the Wildwielder.”

Then he protested, “But do you comprehend that we speak of Law? Of sequence and causality which must not be broken? If the past is altered, the Arch of Time itself is threatened. Once rent, it can never be made whole.”

“So I’ll have to be careful.” She would not let him sway her. “If the Staff is lost, then it hasn’t been used. It hasn’t affected anything.” And its mere existence would support the integrity of Time. “If we can retrieve it,” she and Anele, “after it was lost-if we can bring it back to the present without using it-the past won’t be altered. Nothing that has already happened will change.”

As she spoke, Esmer stopped moving. Apparently she had surprised him. Just for a moment, his accumulating conflicts seemed to pause; and in that pause, Linden again received the impression that she had gratified him somehow, nourished some deep need.

Slowly he turned to face her. His eyes reflected green fury and supplication from the embers of the cook-fire.

“Do you regard yourself so highly?” His tone sneered at her; implored her. “Do you deem that you are wise enough to dare the destruction of the Arch of Time?

“The Dancers of the Sea desire the end of all things. Their grief can never be assuaged.”

Then the moment passed. A feral grin twisted his lips: cunning and sorrow glinted in his gaze.

“I will say only this. Look to the Ranyhyn.”

Without another glance at her, he walked away. Five long strides took him out of the shelter. Moving among shadows and dooms, he hastened into the night.

Linden was left alone with Stave’s unconsciousness and her own yearning.

Chapter Two: Dangerous Choices

Early the next morning, a group of Cords brought Sahah to the Verge of Wandering.

The injured woman was wan and weak, barely strong enough to stand; only able to walk for short distances. Her companions had conveyed her most of the way in a makeshift travois. Yet it was clear that the crisis of her wounds lay behind her.

That she had survived the rough journey on a blanket tied between wooden poles, and had arrived able to smile faintly at her friends and relatives, her people, testified eloquently to the potency of hurtloam. Her torn bowels and ripped organs were mending well, with no infection and little fever, while her other hurts improved with preternatural ease.

The wounded Cord and her companions entered the encampment accompanied by the Ramen who had gone out seeking hurtloam on Stave’s behalf. The two groups had encountered each other as they returned toward the Verge of Wandering. Together they brought with them more than enough of the vital mud for Stave’s needs.

Linden had been told that hurtloam would lose its virtue when it was removed from the earth; from the specific moisture and soil which had fostered it. But when she looked into the stone pot which the Cords presented to her, she saw flecks of gold aglow in the damp, sandy soil; and Earthpower called to her nerves like a tantara. Gratefully, she carried the pot to Stave’s bedside and stroked healing into the distended flesh of his wounds.

The eldritch celerity of the hurtloam’s effects still filled her with astonishment, and she watched in wonder as Stave’s injuries were transformed from mute agony to bearable pain, and then to dull, deep aching. No doubt the fact that he was Haruchai sped his recovery. Nonetheless the hurtloam itself seemed miraculous to her-a gift precious beyond description or desert.

No world where such healing was possible merited the Despiser’s malice.

While Stave rested, she dabbed a bit of the hurtloam onto her cheeks to ease the throbbing of her scorched features. However, its influence reached further, soothing her sore muscles and transforming her sunburned skin to a protective bronze hue; granting her the gift of the Land’s vitality.

Then she might have closed her eyes for a time, released from care by simple relief. She had slept brokenly during the night, rousing herself at intervals to check on Stave’s condition. As a result, she was still deeply tired. But he was conscious now, clear-eyed and determined. And the mending of his more dangerous injuries exposed the pain of a wound which hurtloam could not cure: his dislocated hip.

She had made no attempt to set it earlier. She lacked the physical strength for the task. And it had not seemed important then.

When he pronounced her name, she sighed to herself; but aloud she answered, “Yes?”

She would not turn aside from the course she had chosen.

“Linden Avery,” he repeated, “you have surpassed me.” Vestiges of strain still marred his tone, although he had already grown markedly stronger. “The matter now lies beyond me. We must abide the outcome.”

She wished that she had not known what he was talking about.

She had set aside his death; spared him the natural consequences of his defeat at Esmer’s hands. By the extreme logic of the Haruchai, she had violated his personal rectitude. What specific form the “outcome” might take, she could not guess. But she knew that it would involve harsh judgment and repudiation.

When Brinn and Cail had been rescued from the Dancers of the Sea, they had withdrawn from Covenant’s service, in the same way that the Bloodguard had turned from the Lords, and for the same reason: they had considered themselves unworthy. Their descendants would not deal less strictly with Stave. And the fact that he could not have prevented Linden’s intervention would not spare him.

She responded with a shrug. “Don’t we always?” Certainly she had never been excused from the outcome of her own actions, for good or ill. “Maybe this time-”

This time she intended to determine the outcome herself.

“Meanwhile;’ she added after a moment, “I should probably set your hip. The longer it stays out of joint, the more trouble you’ll have with it later.”

Stave shook his head. “Do not.” He sounded sure: as inflexible as ever. “I will tend to it, when I have regained a little strength.”

His tone said plainly, Do not afflict me with more shame.

Inwardly, Linden muttered a curse. “All right.” She did not doubt that he would tend to it,” no matter how much pain he caused himself. “Orthopaedics isn’t exactly my specialty anyway. Just don’t expect me to watch.

“I need to talk to Manethrall Hami:” And to Liand and Anele as well. Not to mention Esmer. “I’ll come back later to see how you’re doing.”

Other exigencies awaited her, which she had postponed while she cared for him. The time had come to face them.

Without waiting for a reply, she left the shelter; walked out into the growing warmth of the morning.

Around her, the encampment bustled with quiet activity. She smelled food among the scents of cook-fires and bracken; saw Cords packing bundles, tending to their shelters, cleaning or repairing their raiment. The Verge of Wandering still lay in shadow, but daylight glowed against the dark outlines of the eastward mountains and glistened on the snow-clad crests to the west. Behind the tang of wood smoke, the air held a crisp sweetness like the taste of aliantha.

Again and again, Linden was forced to remember that she loved the Land.

She did not belong here: she was too dirty. After the crises and urgency of the past three days, she needed a bath. Her hair felt like mud on her scalp. And her clothes were stiff with sweat and grime. In addition, her trudge across the vale had left a latticework of grass stains on the legs of her jeans.

The Ramen were able to move without disturbing the lush, tall grass. The stains which she had acquired in their company might have been the map of her limitations, or an augury of her fate.

But she could not spare the time for baths or comfort. Certainly she could not spend an hour washing her clothes. Esmer had answered a few of her questions, and her purpose was clear.

As she looked around in the piquant dawn, she found Cord Char standing nearby, gazing at her solemnly. Apparently Sahah’s return had only increased her young brother’s determination to attend Linden.

He met her eyes, steady as a promise. “Are you hungry, Ringthane?” he asked respectfully. “Will you break your fast?”

Oh, she was hungry beyond question. But other concerns compelled her. “A little later, thanks,” she replied with wan courtesy. “Right now, I need to talk to Manethrall Hami.”

Char turned immediately, as if she had given him an errand.

“But first,” she added quickly, “tell me about Anele. How is he doing?”

The old man had been violated by a being of fire and abhorrence. Stave had struck him hard enough to damage his brain. Now she feared what he might suffer in the aftermath of such affronts.

Because of the way in which he had been possessed, the Ramen might no longer consider themselves his friends.

Yet she needed him badly; now more than ever. He was the son of Sunder and Hollian. And Esmer had conceded that it might be possible to find the Staff of Law-

However, Char answered without hesitation, “It appears that he is well. He is hardy and enduring. He slept for a time. When he awakened, he accepted viands. Then he wandered away, seemingly without destination or purpose. We keep watch on him, but he”- the young Cord gave a slight shrug- “simply wanders.

“We will retrieve him, if that is your desire.”

Uncomfortable with so much attendance, Linden shook her head. “Not yet, thanks. The poor man doesn’t seem to get much peace when I’m around.” Then she repeated, “But I do need to talk to Manethrall Hami. Would you mind letting her know?”

She intended to take action before her courage failed.

Char acceded with a small bow. He did not seem to hurry; but he quickly disappeared among the shelters, leaving Linden to contemplate her own form of insanity.

Esmer had said, Look to the Ranyhyn. That may have been useful advice; but she did not know how else to follow it, except by asking Hami for help.

Restless with tension, she found it difficult to wait. Fortunately, Hami soon approached between the shelters, trailing a small entourage which included two other Manethralls and Cord Bhapa.

They all bowed formally to Linden as if during the night she had somehow confirmed her status as a visiting potentate. She responded as well as she could. She lacked their fluid grace, however, and her awkwardness made her feel unsure of herself. She had done much in her life-suffered much, accomplished much-but at the moment she did not believe that she had ever done so gracefully.

Like Covenant’s, all of her actions seemed stilted and effortful; expensive.

“Thanks for coming,” she replied to the query in Hami’s eyes. “I’m sure you’re busy. But there are some things you might be able to help me with.” She had to put her decisions into effect. “Can I ask you a few questions?”

The Manethrall bowed again, but less formally. “Ringthane,” she said with a smile, “your courtesy honours us. Yet you need feel no reluctance to speak. You have been accepted by the Ranyhyn. You are welcome among us without stint or hindrance “

Then she gestured toward the centre of the encampment. “Come. Let us gather together under the open sky, so that these mountains may witness our amity. You will break your fast, and we will answer your questions as we can.”

Linden nodded. Because the Ramen could not see her thoughts, their respect discomfited her. Nevertheless she hoped to make use of it. With Hami and the others, she moved toward the circle of trodden ground where Anele had burned her, and Esmer had nearly killed Stave.

Where the Ranyhyn had accepted her.

That, also, she hoped to use.

Yet she would have preferred to talk more privately; in some enclosed space. The clearing seemed rife with memories and implications. And the rising dawn was too vast to be redeemed or spared by any hazard of hers.

Hami had invoked the peaks as witnesses, as if she expected the Earth itself to acknowledge and validate what happened here.

With the confidence of long, unquestioned service, the Manethrall led Linden out into the centre of the clearing. When the Cords had set a few of their wooden blocks in a small circle, Hami sat down and gestured for her companions to join her.

Four Ramen and Linden comprised the group; but the Cords had provided seven seats. As she lowered her weariness to one of the blocks, she wondered who would occupy the two remaining places. Esmer and-?

Bhapa was the only Cord included with the three Manethralls. One of Hami’s companions was the older man who had spoken the invocation for the feast. The streaks of grey in his hair resembled the scars on his arms: paler lines like galls, or the scoring of claws. The other Manethrall was a man with a narrow, avid face and a raptor’s eyes. His aura gave Linden the impression that his life was not arduous enough to suit him; that he hungered for struggle and bloodshed, yearned to give battle more often than his circumstances allowed.

“Ringthane,” Hami began, “here are Manethrall Dohn,” the older man, “and Manethrall Mahrtiir,” the frustrated fighter. “Cord Bhapa you know. He joins us by right of kinship with Sahah, whom you brought back from death. However,” she added with a touch of asperity, “he has not yet gained his Maneing, and will not speak unless you wish it. Rather he will address the Cords on your behalf when our counsels are concluded.”

Bhapa met Linden’s gaze gravely and inclined his head. She saw now that he had lost sight in one eye: a detail which she had somehow failed to notice the previous evening. Perhaps that explained why he had not yet become a Manethrall. At first, she suspected an injury; but when she looked more closely, she realised that he had a cataract. A simple procedure for an ophthalmologist. She might have been willing to attempt it herself, if she could have found a tool, a metaphorical scalpel, more precise than wild magic-and if she could have spared the time.

“These,” Hami was saying, nodding toward the empty seats, “are for your companions. When they have joined us, we will begin. Until then, permit us to offer you food.”

Two-? Linden thought. Liand and-? The Ramen must have known that Stave was in no condition to sit upright on a block of wood. And Anele had left the encampment.

Cautiously she asked, “What about Esmer?”

Manethrall Dohn looked away, and Mahrtiir bared his teeth. Hami’s gaze darkened as she shrugged. “He departed into the mountains after he had spoken with you, and has not returned. Perhaps that is well. His incondign attack upon the sleepless one troubles us. He has gone beyond us. It may be that he should not remain as our companion.”

Her tone suggested that the Ramen would already have spurned Esmer if the son of the merewives had not been accepted, validated, by the Ranyhyn.

Mahrtiir leaned forward sharply. “He is distressed.” The Manethrall had a voice like a rusty hinge. “He wields a storm among the mountains, power and lightning visible across all this vale. We have witnessed his struggle, though we do not seek him out.” For a moment, Mahrtiir’s gaze seemed to burn with reflected theurgy. “It is in my heart that he strives to defy his doom.”

Linden closed her eyes, bowed her head. Instinctively she believed Mahrtiir. With blows I have expended my loathing- The conflicts within Cail’s son were extreme enough for storms.

She needed him as well. She had more questions for him. He understood Anele’s cryptic references to Kastenessen, to skurj, to a broken Durance. She was sure that he could identify the fierce spirit which had possessed Anele. And he spoke the brackish tongue of the ur-viles

His absence was not a problem she could solve, however. When she had set aside images of his “storm among the mountains,” she raised her head and opened her eyes.

Across the clearing, she saw Liand moving toward her, accompanied by Char and another Cord, Pahni. The young woman had a waterskin tied at her waist, and her hands held a bowl of food.

Unhindered by Kevin’s Dirt, Linden saw at once that the Stonedownor had rested little, although he wore his fatigue lightly. The past few days had simply been too exciting to encourage sleep. And perhaps he, too, had witnessed Esmer’s distress during the night. His eyes shone with an almost feverish alertness, and his strides as he approached were full of youth.

When he met Linden’s gaze, however, his expression changed to one of concern, and he quickened his steps. As soon as he reached the circle of seats, he announced unselfconsciously, “Linden, you have not rested. And you are troubled. There is darkness in you.

“What is amiss? Has Esmer harmed you?”

Sighing, Linden reminded herself that he was new to health-sense and had not yet learned to interpret what he discerned.

“I’m fine, Liand.” With an effort, she smiled. “Better than I look, at any rate. Esmer was actually”- she grimaced involuntarily- “helpful. But I wanted to keep an eye on Stave, so I didn’t get quite enough sleep.

“Please. Sit down.” She indicated one of the seats. “We all need to talk.”

Now Liand seemed to realise that he stood among the leaders of the Ramen. Looking abashed, he bowed stiffly to the Manethralls, then dropped himself onto one of the wooden blocks.

At the same time, Pahni came to Linden’s side and knelt to present the waterskin and bowl. In the bowl, Linden found aliantha scattered among dried fruits which she did not recognise and cut pale cubes which smelled like goat cheese.

Gratefully, she accepted Pahni’s offering. As the Cord withdrew, Linden placed a treasure-berry in her mouth and spent a moment savouring its sharp, tonic taste and its gift of energy. Then she raised her eyes to the Manethralls.

“I don’t think Stave can join us. If you don’t mind talking while I eat, you could answer some questions for me.”

Manethrall Dohn assented with a nod; and Hami replied, “Assuredly, Ringthane. Your plight is difficult, and we desire to aid you as we can.”

“Then tell me”- Linden spread her hands to suggest the degree of her incomprehension- “what happened last night. I mean, with the Ranyhyn.” She had never seen such horses. “You said they accepted me. And Stave, I assume? What does that mean?”

Feeling clumsy again, she admitted, “I don’t know anything about them.”

“Ah, the Ranyhyn.” A look of quiet joy came into Hami’s face as she spoke: a look which her fellow Manethralls shared, Dohn gravely, Mahrtiir with a hint of ferocity. “We are the Ramen, Ringthane. It is not our place to speak of them. We are their servants, and in no way their tenders, as some have named us. They are the meaning and purpose of our lives, and while one Ranyhyn remains to gallop among the glories of the world, no Raman will withdraw from their service.

“Indeed, our service itself empowers and sustains our service. We are who we are, and have remained so across the millennia, because the worth of what we serve preserves the worth of our service.”

Linden found her hands trembling slightly as she listened; and the earthenware bowl felt fragile between her fingers, as if its possibilities might break into clay and dust at any moment. The timbre of Hami’s voice affected her more than the Manethrall’s words. In the contentment and purity of Hami’s joy, she seemed to hear the untrammelled devotion of the Ramen: a service so ancient and enduring that it humbled her.

Fearing that she might drop the bowl, she placed it in her lap. Then she folded her hands around it to conceal their unsteadiness.

“Yet you have witnessed with your own eyes,” Harm continued, “that the Ranyhyn are Earthpowerful. They both contain and express the Land’s abundance. Having beheld them, can you wonder at our service? And do you not now know all that is needful concerning the Ramen?”

Linden might have shaken her head; but the Manethrall had not paused.

“That the Ranyhyn have accepted you is beyond question. Summoned solely by your presence, they approached-” Abruptly, Hami’s manner intensified. Leaning forward, she said, “Ringthane, hear me,” urging Linden to share her sense of wonder. “They approached and bowed their heads. Such homage no Raman has ever beheld, not once in all the long years of our service.”

Her gaze burned at Linden; but both Mahrtiir and Dohn watched Hami with a kind of rapture on their faces.

“To the ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, who was once the Ringthane, the Ranyhyn reared, an assembly of the great horses all rampant in his name. Neither before nor since have the Ramen witnessed such obeisance. Yet that honour contained an admixture of fear and compulsion, as the ur-Lord himself acknowledged. To you, we deem, the Ranyhyn have shown a greater homage, for they bowed their heads as though in surrender, and felt no fear.”

Then Hami sat back. For a moment, she rested her hands on the shoulders of her fellow Manethralls. Mahrtiir stared at his clenched fists between his knees; but Dohn raised a hand to squeeze Hami’s fingers in consolation or support.

Liand listened as if he were transfixed: the light in his eyes was as bright as love. The Ranyhyn must have enchanted him.

When Hami spoke again, the intensity had faded from her tone.

“What does this acceptance signify? That, no Raman can answer. It lies between you and Hyn, who bowed her head to you, as it lies also between the sleepless one and Hynyn.” Her manner conveyed her doubt that Hynyn had chosen wisely. “This, however, I am able to say with certainty. Hyn and Hynyn have given their consent to be ridden.

“Such a boon is seldom granted. Once granted, however, it will not be withdrawn. While you live, the Ranyhyn will bear you wherever you wish to go. And if by some ill chance Hyn should perish while you remain alive and in need, another Ranyhyn will take her place, that their acceptance may be preserved.”

Wherever you wish to go, Linden thought in hope and alarm. Look to the Ranyhyn. Almost convulsively, she picked some of the dried fruit from the bowl and tossed it into her mouth, chewing to cover her apprehension. Consent to be ridden. The idea seemed fraught with vast responsibilities and perils.

Briefly she concentrated on eating while she tried to control her trembling.

When Linden did not respond, Hami inquired, “Are you answered, Ringthane?”

With an effort, Linden faced the Manethrall. “I need to think about it.” But her hands still shook, and she did not feel ready to pursue what Hami had said. “I’m sure I’ll want to know more. But tell me something else first, if you don’t mind.”

She needed time to gather her courage.

The woman waited, expectant and willing.

Linden swallowed another treasure-berry, dropping the seed into the bowl to be scattered later. “The Ramen here-” She gestured around the encampment. “I hope there are more of you. Surely you have children? Old people?” Men and women unsuited to the work of Cords and Manethralls? “You aren’t all here?”

Dohn did not appear to hear her question. Instead he gazed away into the mountains as though he were watching for some sign of Esmer. But Mahrtiir grinned with fierce amusement; and Hami smiled.

“Indeed we are not. If we were, we would merit the concern which I hear in your words. However, the Ramen are well. After our own fashion, we flourish. But our trek among these peaks would be unnecessarily arduous for our children, as for our aged. And there are those Ramen-Winhomes, Curriers, Keepers-who are not apt for the rigors of Cording or Maneing. All these we have left encamped many leagues to the south, upon the foothills of the Southron Range.”

Linden did not try to hide her relief. “I’m glad to hear it;” she said with a smile of her own. “I’ve been worried.” Then her smile fell away. “The Land is already in enough trouble. I was afraid that the Ramen were dying.”

Hami nodded her understanding. “That loss, if no other, we have been spared.”

For a moment, she lowered her eyes. When she faced Linden again, her expression had turned sombre. “Linden Avery, are you ready now to speak of this trouble which fills your heart?

“That the Render has returned to torment the Land is certain. If we acted of our own will, we would rather turn our backs on our ancient home than submit any Ranyhyn to Fangthane’s cruelty.” Then she shrugged slightly. “However, we are ruled by the Ranyhyn.” Her tone conveyed no taint of bitterness, although she plainly loathed any threat to the great horses. “And it is likewise certain that you have been accepted. Nor can your wish to oppose the Render be mistaken.” In spite of its firmness, her voice held an almost subliminal tremor; a hint of dread. “Thus we are made to understand that the Ranyhyn also will give battle, in your service.”

The three Manethralls confronted Linden squarely across their small circle as Hami asked, “Ringthane, what is your intent?”

She may have meant, How many of the Ranyhyn are you prepared to sacrifice?

Are you ready now-? Linden would never be ready, she knew that. But Jeremiah was already in torment, and the Land’s sufferings had only begun. Whether or not she would ever be ready made no difference to what was required of her.

Deliberately, she finished the aliantha she had been given; returned the seeds to the bowl; ate another mouthful of cheese and dried fruit. While the Ramen and Liand waited, she drank from the waterskin to clear her throat. To clear her mind.

Then she said, “Esmer knows. He understands what’s happening to the Land. Most of it, anyway.” He might have given her more if she had known how to question him. “He didn’t tell me everything I need, but he gave me some hints-”

She meant to go on at once, riding words like a current so that she would not falter. But Stave stopped her.

“Hold, Chosen,” he said from the edge of the clearing. “For the sake of the Land, I must hear what is decided.”

He spoke softly. Nonetheless strain throbbed in his voice.

Linden turned to look at him-and winced at the sight of his pain. The lacerations inside his chest had not yet healed enough to bear the effort of standing upright. Yet that hurt faded to a shadow beside the bright distress of his dislocated hip. He must have hopped to the clearing from his bed, jolting his hip abominably with every movement.

She wanted to swear at him. The damn fool should have stayed in bed.

The Manethralls also regarded Stave. Dohn softly instructed Bhapa to aid the sleepless one; but before the Cord could rise, Liand surged to his feet and hastened toward Stave. His settled distrust of the Masters had no effect on his concern.

Stave did not allow Liand to touch him. Balancing on his good leg, however, he braced one hand on the Stonedownor’s shoulder for support.

So suddenly that he snatched a gasp from Linden, he clenched his free hand into a fist and punched at his dislocation.

With a sound like a muffled break, his hip snapped back into place.

Sweat stood instantly on his forehead, and he sagged against Liand. Yet he neither flinched nor cried out. Instead he lowered his foot to the ground as if he believed that now his leg would be able to bear his weight.

It did. Somehow it did. Still holding Liand’s shoulder, Stave hobbled toward the ring of seats as if he were dragging Liand’s consternation with him.

Involuntarily furious, Linden breathed, “You idiot!” as Stave lowered himself onto one of the blocks. “Next time, I’ll have the Ramen tie you down. I didn’t go through all that,” wild magic threatening to scale out of control, “just so you could cripple yourself.”

But she perceived at once that he had not done so. He was Haruchai; impossibly hardy. And hurtloam had already wrought miracles of healing within him. His hip would hurt for weeks; perhaps for months. But his blow had caused no permanent harm.

“Chosen,” he replied through his pain, “did you not say that I must warn my people? Then I must hear you now.”

Linden shrugged against her anger. “You won’t like it.”

She would show him, however, that she did not mean to be swayed.

Liand seated himself beside Stave. His concern for the Master had become a look of alarm. Bhapa frowned at Linden with his good eye. Dohn had resumed his vague study of the surrounding mountainsides; but Mahrtiir watched her like a man who had glimpsed the struggle for which his spirit hungered.

Complex uncertainties filled Hami’s eyes as she murmured, “It may be that your words will please no one among us. Yet we also must hear them. The Ranyhyn require it of us.”

Linden faced them all as well as she could. Speaking harshly to contain her fear, she said, “Hell, even I don’t like it, and it’s my idea.”

Then she dropped her gaze to the ground. She could not bear to watch her companions’ reactions.

“Esmer and I talked about caesures, Falls,” she began, clumsy again, incapable of grace. “According to him, they’re flaws in time. Rips. They tear open the barrier,” the necessary boundary, “between the past and the present. Lord Foul wants to destroy the Arch of Time. Caesures are just one of the ways he’s trying to accomplish that.”

One small rent at a time, over and over again, until the entire fabric tattered and fell.

“If Esmer is right, Anele really is the son of Sunder and Hollian. Three thousand and some years ago, he left the Staff of Law behind when he went to investigate a wrongness that turned out to be a Fall. He had no defence when the Fall snatched him out of his life.

“The ur-viles came here the same way,” Linden continued. “Lord Foul tried to exterminate them, back in the time of the Sunbane, but a few of them escaped into a Fall.” Here she had probably encountered every remaining descendant of the Demondim. “Esmer seems to think they came looking for a future when they would be needed.

“Apparently caesures first started to haunt the Land maybe a hundred years ago. They’re comparatively recent. That may be why any of us are still alive. But Esmer says there are limits to what Foul can accomplish with them. The Despiser has access to a white gold ring. In theory, he already has all the power he needs. But he can’t simply tear down the Arch-or even attack it directly. The ring belongs to a woman who is completely broken. Too broken to be anything more than a tool.”

And Covenant had given his life to secure the Arch. In some sense, his spirit still stood against Lord Foul.

After a pause, she avowed grimly, “I believe him. But we don’t have to take his word for it. We already know that Time is essentially intact. We’re still here. The Land is still here. Cause and effect still apply. And I doubt that even ur-viles have the power to elude Lord Foul.

“The Falls are a terrible threat, but they aren’t enough. Foul needs more.”

So far Linden felt only concentration from her listeners, not denial. They all had reason to take Esmer’s words seriously. And no one had suggested a better explanation for Anele’s baffled predicament-or for the presence of the ur-viles.

She had harder things yet to say.

Studying the bare dirt, she said, “The way I see it, the caesures are relatively small. They may span thousands of years, but they don’t cover much ground. And they move slowly. That limits how much harm they can do.

“But I think there’s another limitation,” a restriction in addition to Joan’s insanity. “Esmer didn’t say this,” he had merely asserted that any alteration of the established past would damage the Law of Time, “but I think the Falls only run forward. From the past to the present. Otherwise Foul could send someone into the past,” God, he could even send Joan, “or he could go himself. He could change what’s already happened. That would do more to threaten the Law of Time than the caesures themselves.”

Trying to reassure herself, she concluded awkwardly, “In other words, things could be worse.”

The more she said, however, the more her intentions appalled her. Soon her companions would respond with indignation and dismay. They would certainly oppose her.

She was not Thomas Covenant: she lacked the personal extremity for such risks.

“Ringthane,” Hami responded in a neutral tone, “this is important knowledge. It explains much. But it does not reveal how such peril may be countered. Again I must ask.

“What is your intent?”

In fear, Linden might have countered, Why do I have to make these decisions? What would you do if I weren’t here? She might have demanded, Ask Esmer, not me. He knows what’s going on. I don’t.

But she knew better. She was Linden Avery the Chosen, named Ringthane and Wildwielder. Jeremiah was her son. There was no one else to whom she could offer her burdens.

In spite of her trepidation, she raised her eyes to gaze at each of her companions: at the Manethralls, who feared for the Ranyhyn more than for the Land; at Bhapa, who appeared to feel indebted to her, commanded by blood to repay Sahah’s life; at Liand, who had already shown that he would support her whatever she did; at Stave, who might believe that she served Corruption.

Then she pronounced distinctly, “We need the Staff of Law. I intend to go get it.”

Liand stared at her, his face wide with confusion. Stave raised his eyebrows as if she had contrived to pierce his impassivity. Frowning, Bhapa looked away. He may have been reluctant to hear what she would say next.

Dohn had covered his eyes with his hands. His posture radiated chagrin. Protests gathered on Hami’s visage. But Mahrtiir looked at Linden as if he had heard the call to battle.

She held up her hands to forestall objections which her companions had not uttered. “I know, I know. Anele lost the Staff three and a half thousand years ago. And if I’m right, I can’t get there from here. Caesures only run forward.”

Then she knotted one fist on Covenant’s ring under her shirt. “But Lord Foul isn’t the only one who has access to wild magic.” And he could not truly control Joan: her madness made her unwieldy. “If I can find a Fall, maybe I can make it take me where I want to go.”

Linden seemed to feel the high mountainheads leaning toward her. A moment of shock held the ring. Then several of her companions protested at once.

“You will break the Law of Time! You have said so.”

“Caesures threaten Time. Wild magic itself threatens it.”

“It is impossible. You will fail, and be lost.”

“Anele is mad! He cannot guide you to the Staff!”

But Mahrtiir’s voice rode over the others, ringing with eagerness. “Are you adept at Time? Are such journeys common in your world? How will you find the time you seek?”

Linden closed her eyes; waited for her silence to create a space in which she could reply. She feared that Stave or Liand would cross the circle to shake her; defy her with their bare hands. But their objections, their dismay, seemed to blow past her on the dawn breeze and lose strength.

Then she heard a soft melody as Dohn began to sing:

“Grass-grown hooves, and forehead stars;

hocks and withers earth-wood bloom:

regal Ranyhyn, gallop, run-

we serve the Tail of the Sky,

Mane of the World.”

He may have been granting her permission. Or hope.

As if she had regained her heart, Linden opened her eyes. Because her companions were too many to face or answer all at once, she focused on the Manethralls; on Hami, who seemed to be her friend.

“Anele can guide me to the cave where he left the Staff,” she said with as much conviction as she could summon. “If he gets the chance. He’s already been back there any number of times. All I have to do is take him to the right year.” Any year after the loss that had broken him. “He’ll find his way.

“And I don’t think I’ll hurt the Law of Time. For one thing, it’s not all that fragile. If it were, a hundred years of caesures would have shattered it already,” in spite of Covenant’s poignant surrender. “And for another

“The Staff hasn’t been used since Anele lost it. It hasn’t changed anything. It hasn’t done anything. That’s what being lost means.” Surely the Haruchai, if no one else, would have become aware of it otherwise? “Taking it out of the past and bringing it here won’t disrupt what’s already happened.”

And she had one reason to believe that her extravagant proposal might succeed. The Staff was no longer where Anele had left it. Obsessed by grief and recrimination, he had confirmed that fact over and over again.

Which apparently implied-

– that she had been able, or would be able, to retrieve it.

Leaving the Law of Time intact in the process.

No one contradicted her. She could not read Stave’s heart through his impassivity; but the others around her were too shaken to protest further. They must have believed her; believed that she would do what she had said.

Their silence frightened her more than almost any opposition. She needed to confront and overcome their fears in order to manage her own.

Grimly she forced herself to continue.

“Of course, I’ll need to locate a caesure.” She did not trust herself to create one: not without experiencing one first, reading it with her health-sense; learning to understand it. “But that’s not the real problem.”

Holding Hami’s troubled gaze, Linden said, “The real problem is that I’m not “adept at Time.” I can’t find my way through the confusion in a caesure. I need to reach the Staff at some point after Anele lost it,” or else she would indeed alter the past, “and I don’t know how to do that.”

She was certain that the Manethrall understood her.

“I asked Esmer. He said, `Look to the Ranyhyn. ” Clenching her courage in both hands, one on Covenant’s ring, the other wrapped around itself, she finished, “I assume that means they can help me.”

Hami turned her face away as if she were flinching.

For a moment, none of the Manethralls met the demand in Linden’s eyes. Instead they looked to each other. Linden had never felt in them the kind of mental communion which distinguished the Haruchai. Nevertheless they appeared to acknowledge each other’s apprehensions mutely; to ask each other Linden’s implicit question.

Then Dohn said softly, “The Ranyhyn will choose. They must. It is not our place. This matter is beyond us “

Mahrtiir nodded reluctantly, as if he were being asked to set aside a secret desire.

Hami’s reluctance was of another kind as she faced Linden again. So hesitantly that Linden could barely hear her, the Manethrall replied, “It may be that the Ranyhyn are able to aid you-and will elect to do so. We know nothing of caesures or Falls. We are bound by Time. Yet the great horses are capable of much. That is certain.

“And it is certain also”- she faltered, then went on more strongly- “that they will answer when they are summoned. Once they have consented to be ridden, they will answer when they are summoned, though hundreds of leagues may intervene.”

Linden stared at her. “What do you mean?”

Hami tightened her grip on herself. “Ringthane, hear me. At this moment, there are no Ranyhyn within this vale. We are Ramen and cannot be mistaken in this. Neither Hyn nor Hynyn roams the Verge of Wandering. Yet if you were to summon her, Hyn would approach within moments.” She held up her hand to prevent questions that Linden did not know how to ask. “If you stood in Mithil Stonedown and summoned her, she would appear at once. If you stood above ancient Revelstone itself and could not be approached except through the Westron Mountains, yet would she shortly answer your summons.

“Understand, Ringthane, that I do not speak of distance. The Ranyhyn do not transcend the difficulties of their journeys. Rather their power to answer is a power over days and seasons.”

Linden’s eyes widened in wonder and apprehension. Alarm or hope swelled in her throat.

“The Ranyhyn do not spurn distance,” Hami breathed as though the knowledge dismayed her. “They spurn time. They do not merely respond when they are summoned. Rather they hear that they will be summoned, and they respond. If the distance is great, and the obstacles also, the Ranyhyn will depart moons or seasons before they are summoned, that they may arrive when they are needed.”

On some level beyond language or explication, they had mastered time.

“Oh, God,” Linden murmured, hardly aware that she spoke aloud. “It’s possible. If they help me. I might be able to do it.”

Abruptly, Stave said, “Chosen.” The pain of his hip was palpable as he forced himself to his feet. Stiff with hurt, he moved to stand over Linden. For this one moment, at least, his characteristic dispassion had deserted him. Instead his flat features were knotted with pleading and repudiation.

“Chosen,” he said again.

She stared up at him as though she could not imagine what he would say, although she already knew every word by heart.

“You will not do this.” Complex passions yearned in his voice. “It is abominable. Its hazards surpass endurance. The smallest error will damn the Land utterly.” With a visible effort, he swallowed some of his intensity. “Must I remind you that the Staff supports and sustains Law by its very existence? It need not be wielded in order to affect all that is, all that transpires. If its influence upon the Land’s past is removed, will not Corruption respond with delight?”

Linden bowed her head. She could not face the heat of his denial. “Stave,” she breathed, speaking as much to her clenched hands as to him, “I have to.”

“No,” he countered with unwonted vehemence, “you do not. It is madness. Have you considered that Corruption has required three millennia to regain his strength? Have you considered that he has remained so long reduced because the Staff has been potent against him? Are these matters not plain to you? Unused, the Staff has also not been misused. Therefore it hinders Corruption still. Likewise such atrocities as the Falls have been restrained and limited by the Staff’s hidden suasion.

“If you will not think of such things, then consider the Masters. We are sworn to the preservation of the Land. Toward that end, we have laboured across the centuries to prevent the misuse of power which enables Corruption. You have earned my forbearance. I do not wish to oppose you. But my enmity-the enmity of the Haruchai- is certain if you persist. You are mighty, as we know. Yet I must prevent you. And if I cannot, even your puissance will not avail you against the combined force of the Masters.”

Every word he said was true: Linden knew that. But he had said too much, and she could no longer hear him. Crying, “You don’t understand!” she surged to her feet.

Obliquely, she saw that Liand had come to Stave’s side, ready to defend her if the Master attacked. However, the Manethralls remained seated, watching her with consternation in their eyes. Bhapa crouched as if he had started to rise with Liand, and had been stopped by a word from the Manethralls.

But they were all irrelevant to her now. It was Stave who confronted her, Stave who challenged her; and he could snap her neck with one sharp blow, in spite of his hurts. Even if she were capable of defending herself, she could not bear to think that he would become her enemy. Another foe among so many

Ignoring the pain in his hip, the Master faced her. His mien resumed its familiar flat detachment. “Then inform me, Chosen,” he replied inflexibly. The pallor of his scar seemed to reject whatever she might say. “What is it that I do not understand?”

Desperation rose in her like fury. But it was not anger that filled her voice: it was supplication.

“Don’t you remember last night? Do you even listen to yourself when you talk? I asked you why the Ramen haven’t forgiven you for trying to use the Illearth Stone, and you said it’s because they weren’t present. They can’t know what the Bloodguard suffered in Seareach because they weren’t there.

“But you don’t know me any better than the Ramen know you.” Transformed by pleading, she met his stare as if her own fear could no longer touch her. “Oh, your people remember everything. But you’re like the Ramen. You weren’t there. You were so worried about repeating your mistake with the Illearth Stone that you stayed behind when Covenant and I went to face Lord Foul.

“You weren’t there when Covenant sacrificed himself. You weren’t there when I took his ring and turned Vain and Findail into the Staff of Law, or when I erased the Sunbane, or when-” For an instant, she choked on the memory of Covenant’s farewell. Then she shouted, “And you sure as hell weren’t there when Covenant and I were summoned in the first place!” When Jeremiah had burned away half of his right hand in the Despiser’s bonfire. “You think you have the right to pass judgment, but you don’t know what’s at stake for me.”

Stave appeared to consider her assertion briefly. Then he shook his head. “You have not answered. Your words explain nothing. You make plain that you disdain the necessary choices of the Haruchai. You see it as a fault in us that we will never again hazard being made to serve Corruption. You also pass judgment, yet you reveal nothing.

“We do not propose to bear white gold into the heart of a Fall. It is not our intent to dare the utter destruction of the Earth.”

“Then listen,” Linden begged. He had missed the point completely. Like the Ramen, he did not know how to forgive. “I have to do this.

“Lord Foul has my son.”

Chapter Three: The Will of the Ranyhyn

“Your son?”

If Stave felt any surprise or concern, his body did not show it. Linden could not read his emotions.

Nevertheless she found that she was done with pleading. “His name,” she sighed, “is Jeremiah.” Her efforts to persuade the Master cost her too much of her courage. “Foul took him while we were being translated to the Land. A few days ago. I don’t suppose you can imagine what he’s going through, but I can.” She had been possessed by a Raver. “You can say whatever you want. I’m not going to let anything stop me.”

The Master’s stolid demeanour revealed nothing as he averred, “You must. Your purpose is madness. The Earth will perish, and your son with it.”

Oh, hell. Mentally she threw up her hands. “Then don’t come with me. You should be able to ride in a few days.” His hip would heal sufficiently in that time. “Take your Ranyhyn and go tell the rest of the Masters what I’m doing. They’ll need time to organize your famous “enmity”.”

Do anything you want. Just don’t try to stop me yourself.

Stave lifted an eyebrow. Perhaps she had surprised him in spite of his restraint. However, she heard no change in his tone as he replied, “In one thing, Chosen, you have spoken truly. I do not comprehend. Among us children are precious beyond expression. Yet no Haruchai would permit a greater harm in order to secure the life of any son or daughter.”

Then he stepped back. “It will be as you say. In ages past, the Haruchai have doubted you-and have learned that they were mistaken. And we have not been present to share your burdens. Their cost is hidden from us. Therefore I will not strive to prevent you now. Rather I will bear word of your actions to the Masters. Together we will determine how we must respond.”

Limping, he turned away; left her to the Ramen and Liand.

Linden had gained that much, if nothing more. He had not struck her down.

Yet now her enemies numbered in the hundreds.

Liand’s desire to understand her as well as the Master was tangible between them. But she felt too bereft and vulnerable to answer his unspoken questions. Deliberately she stepped past him in order to stand in front of the Manethralls.

“What about you?” she asked sadly. How could they not turn their backs on her? “A little while ago, you assured me that I’m welcome here.” Without stint or hindrance. “Do you agree with Stave? Have you changed your minds?

“I swear to you that I wouldn’t do this if I could think of any other way to save my son.”

She absolutely required the Staff of Law. To that extent, at least, her dreams of Thomas Covenant had proven themselves.

And he had told her to find him. She could not imagine where else she might look, except in the past.

Hami, Dohn, and Mahrtiir shared a look. Then, together, they rose to their feet.

“Ah, Ringthane,” Hami sighed, smiling ruefully. “Be at peace among us. You have naught to fear from the Ramen. The Ranyhyn have accepted you. Therefore we may not oppose you, though the peril which you intend for them surpasses our imagining.”

“Yet if you will accept my counsel,” Mahrtiir put in, “you will permit me to accompany you. It will aid you to have a companion who is able to care for the Ranyhyn when you cannot. I scout as well as any Raman-and fight as well also. And I am hardy and Earth-wise. I can provide food and shelter where none appear.

“If you do not discover aliantha, what will you eat?” Haste quickened his words. “If you have no shelter, where will you sleep? If you encounter no friends, who will defend you? If-”

Hami placed her hand on Mahrtiir’s shoulder; and abruptly he stopped. Facing Linden with eagerness in his eyes, he repeated, “Permit me to accompany you,” and said no more.

He troubled her. She already knew that she would miss Stave’s knowledge and prowess. Mahrtiir offered her much that she could not supply for herself-and could not reasonably expect from either Liand or Anele. Yet she was reluctant to take more people into danger. And she was not entirely sure that she could trust the Manethrall. He seemed too eager to prove something

But how could she reject any form of help? She would need more assistance than Mahrtiir could give her: that was obvious. Apart from the Ramen, however, there was no one who could aid her except Esmer and the ur-viles; and she had no idea how to ask them.

Slowly she nodded to Mahrtiir. “If you’re willing to face the risk. If your people don’t need you here.”

Surely there were Cords in his care? What would happen to them? She could not lead people as young as Pahni and Char, girls and boys, children, into a caesure.

But Mahrtiir’s gaze lit up as if she had set a match to tinder; and Hami and Dohn said nothing to dissuade him.

Instead the older Manethrall asked a question for the first time. “How will you return?”

Unprepared to reveal what she had in mind, Linden blinked at him dumbly.

Dohn did not meet her stare. He had resumed watching the mountains, apparently looking for unmotivated storms and violence; for signs of Esmer.

“You will enter a Fall,” he explained quietly, “a flaw in Time, and turn it to the past. There you will seek the Staff of Law. Very well. When you have found it” – his tone held an implicit if- “what then?

“At the best, your search will require hours. It may well consume days. The Fall will move on. Perhaps it will cease to exist altogether. You will remain in the past, as unable then to regain your son as you are now.

“How will you return?”

Unwittingly he asked Linden to put her worst fear into words. Ever since she had realised the truth, during her vigil over Stave the previous night, she had avoided thinking about it; admitting it to herself. Yet the Ramen deserved an answer. Certainly Liand did.

Her pulse laboured in her temples as she said, “If I can’t use the first one, I’ll have to make a new caesure.”

During her translation to the Land, she had seen herself rouse the Worm of the World’s End with white fire. Perhaps Lord Foul had already accomplished his aim. By kidnapping Jeremiah, he may have ensured the Land’s destruction. If she misjudged her power, or herself, or the stability of the Arch, she might bring Time to an end.

More because she needed some mundane activity to calm her than because she was still hungry, she resumed her seat in order to drink more water and finish the contents of her bowl. If she meant to risk the ruin of the Earth, she would at least do so on a full stomach.

Thinking sour thoughts, she ate fruit and cheese without tasting them; drank water without washing down the extremity which clogged her throat. Throughout her experience of the Land, she had only followed others: Covenant, Sunder and Hollian; the Giants. Liand had led her away from Mithil Stonedown: the Ramen had brought her to the Verge of Wandering. Until now, she had seldom tried to impose her will on events. For Jeremiah’s sake, she needed to be able to trust her own judgment, but she found that increasingly difficult to do.

Soon the Manethralls left the clearing. Perhaps they had responsibilities which they could not ignore. Or perhaps they simply recognised that she wanted to be alone. For reasons of his own, Bhapa trailed after Mahrtiir.

Liand had seated himself beside Linden, but he did not disturb her with questions. Instead he maintained a companionable silence, offering her the simple balm of his presence.

Nevertheless she could not relax with him. His naive acceptance of hazards which he could not possibly understand seemed to undermine her decisions.

She could justify taking Anele anywhere: he had nowhere else to go; and his broken mind might find mending with her. Moreover she needed him-and not only because he knew the location of the Staff. Lord Foul had spoken through him. If he became sane, he might be able to tell her where the Despiser had hidden her son.

As for the Ranyhyn, their choices were irrefragable; beyond her comprehension. And Mahrtiir clearly needed some outlet for his native intensity.

In her eyes, however, Liand belonged among his people in Mithil Stonedown. If for no other reason than because the Masters had deprived the Land of its history and lore, he seemed painfully ill-equipped to confront the dangers ahead of him.

And she was not sure that she could bear to see him killed in her cause.

When she had finished her self-imposed meal, and had spent a little while studying the high peaks for insights which their bluffs and ice disdained, she turned to the Stonedownor at last.

“What about you, Liand?” Incapable of grace, she tried to cover her stiffness by speaking softly. “Why are you still here?

“I know we’ve had this conversation before. You said you want to help defend the Land. Believe me, I understand that. And you’ve already done a lot.” More than she could have expected from him. “But Stave isn’t wrong. What I’m planning terrifies me. So many things could go wrong-

“This might be your last chance to see your home again.”

Liand faced her soberly; but his voice held a note of affection or amusement as he replied, “Linden, you baffle me. You are wise and valorous, yet you appear as uncomprehending as the Masters. However, your concern is well meant, and I will not take it amiss.”

He thought for a moment, then said, “I might respond once more that the folk of Mithil Stonedown have given you no cause to doubt that they are steadfast. Or I might remark that I have beheld great wonders in your company, and would not willingly forego more. Or I might avow that the loveliness of the Land has only grown more precious to me as my senses have been opened. I have tasted with my eyes and hands and tongue the true glory of the world. To turn homeward now would be to pass from treasure-berries to dust.”

Linden wanted to protest, That’s beside the point. We aren’t talking about aliantha or dust. We’re talking about slaughter or survival. But she restrained herself. She was tired of vehemence. And she had already lost Stave.

Instead she urged, “Then stay here. With the Ramen. You don’t have to waste your life in a Fall.”

The young man shook his head. “You cannot ask it of me. For answer I will remind you of your own words.

“You said that at one time you encountered a man in need. Perhaps he sought to dissuade you from aiding him, as you now seek to dissuade me. If so, you refused. Yet you acknowledged that you could not have imagined what would follow. If you had indeed grasped the nature of your peril, you doubt that you would have been able to endure it. Because of your refusal to abandon him, however, you have become the Linden Avery who now wishes to spare me a similar peril.”

Gently he placed his hand on her shoulder; permitted himself to offer her that much of an embrace. “Do you not know that you are admirable in my sight? Can you not conceive that I have no desire to turn aside from your example? Your intent is not to destroy the Earth, but to redeem it, as you seek also to redeem your son. I will abide the outcome with you.”

Linden wept too easily. She always had. Touched by Liand’s willingness, she blinked against the burn of tears in the corners of her eyes. Precisely because she hungered for hugs, however, she shrugged his hand away: his touch was not the one she craved. With her palms, she rubbed the moist salt from her cheeks. Then she did her best to match his trust.

“If that’s the way you feel, I hope you’ll watch my back. I’ll have my hands full.” Mastering the flow of a caesure would demand all of her resources. “And I’m sure you’ve already noticed that I’m not particularly good at taking care of myself.”

The warmth of his answering smile allowed her to hope that she had found a moment of grace after all.

Above her, daylight swelled into the dawn sky, and birds began to sprinkle the gloaming with calls and soaring. The scent of dew seemed to quicken the grass. Sunshine glided swiftly down the westward mountainsides, pouring illumination into the Verge of Wandering. Nevertheless direct sunlight was slow to reach the depths of the vale. The eastern peaks, jagged as teeth, bit high enough into the heavens to cover her with shadows still.

Linden thought that she would wait until the light touched her before she put her feet to the path she had selected for herself. She wanted to feel the sun’s consolation on her skin, let its benison warm the fear from her bones. However, her sense of urgency made her restless. Finally she could no longer sit still. She needed movement to help her manage her complex apprehensions. Rising to her feet, she asked Pahni how the Ramen took baths.

Smiling shyly, the Cord led her to one of the shelters, set out a basin of warm water for her, and showed her how to wrap herself in a blanket so that she could remove her clothes and rub away grime and sweat with a soft cloth.

Linden wanted to wash her clothes as well, and her hair, but the chill in the air dissuaded her. She had no way to dry her shirt and jeans quickly, and nothing else to wear. Nevertheless she felt somewhat cleansed, slightly better prepared, when she returned to the clearing.

As Liand rose to greet her, she announced, “Let’s go. I can’t keep putting this off. You should get ready.” Presumably he would want to repack his pinto’s supplies. “I’m going to ask one of the Ramen how to call Hyn.”

She felt a quick surge of tension from the Stonedownor, which he made no attempt to conceal. Yet he promised at once, “I will be swift. I need only request viands from the Ramen and tend to Somo’s burdens.”

Smiling anxiously, he hastened away.

Linden tightened her grip on herself as she looked around for someone who might answer her question.

She expected to find Bhapa, Pahni, or Char hovering somewhere nearby, but the first person she saw was Stave. He stood just outside the clearing, watching her as if he had expected her to notice him earlier.

He would know how to summon the Ranyhyn.

She did not want to talk to him, but she forced herself to cross the bare dirt toward him. When he had acknowledged her with a nod, she said severely, “You should be in bed. You need rest. Your hip needs rest. If you don’t stay off your feet for at least the next three days, you’ll be in pain for weeks.”

Even his Haruchai strength could not shrug off what had happened to him.

But he ignored her admonition. “I have not yet departed,” he replied, “because I hoped that you would turn from your intent. However, it has become plain that you will not. I will delay no longer.”

Nodding once again, he limped out into the clearing. His damaged hip seemed to leave a groan in the air as he passed.

Involuntarily, Linden followed him. “Stave, stop. You can’t ride like this. Even you can’t. Be reasonable, for God’s sake.

“Your people are too far away. They can’t respond in time. It won’t make any difference if they don’t hear from you for a few more days.”

Stave said nothing; but he cast her a look of such disdain that she winced and fell silent. Then he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly.

For an instant, the distant birds ceased their cries, and the air itself seemed to go still, hushed with expectation.

Again Stave whistled. Suddenly Ramen crowded the rims of the clearing as if he had summoned them instead of the Ranyhyn.

A third time, his whistle pierced the sky. Now Linden felt an answering tremor under her boots; a shiver of excitement in the ground. Whinnying like the clarion call of trumpets rose above the grass-muffled rumble of hooves.

From the south and the mountains, two Ranyhyn came galloping, proud as flame in the warming day.

Linden would not have recognised them. With Stave beaten and dying in her arms the previous night, she had hardly regarded the great horses; had noticed only the stars on their foreheads and the visceral impact of their power. She assumed, however, that these were Hynyn and Hyn, come in response to Stave’s call.

Both of them answered, although only Hynyn had accepted him.

In spite of their size, the beasts seemed to flow as fluidly as oil between the shelters of the Ramen. When they neared the circle of open ground, however, the smaller of the two, a mare with grave eyes and dappled grey flanks, slowed her pace, trotting to a halt among the gathered Ramen. Her companion, a roan stallion with a regal tail and an air of hauteur, cantered into the clearing to stand before Stave.

The Master greeted Hynyn with a deep bow. When he had raised his head again, he pronounced softly, “Hail, Ranyhyn! Land-rider and proud-bearer.” His voice had a timbre of invocation and ritual; formal respect which his people had not uttered for thousands of years. “Sun-flesh and sky-mane, I am glad that you have heard my call. An urgent journey lies before me. Will you bear me?”

In response, the stallion shook his mane as if in denial, although he stood ready to be mounted.

Stave appeared to hesitate. He glanced around at the assembled Ramen; but their frank adoration revealed nothing except that the Ranyhyn were revered.

Linden frowned. Had Hynyn and Hyn answered Stave’s call only to refuse him? Both of them-?

Stave twitched one shoulder, a slight shrug. Favouring his damaged hip, he gathered himself and vaulted up onto Hynyn’s back. In spite of his pain, he seemed entirely at home astride the Ranyhyn; mounted where he belonged.

Hynyn tossed his head as if to welcome his rider. The Ramen watched, transfixed and disturbed by the sight. Stave had said that the defeat of the Bloodguard had tarnished the fidelity of the Ramen. He may have been right.

Leaning forward, he murmured softly to Hynyn. Again the stallion shook his head and did not move. Stave nudged at Hynyn’s sides with his heels: Hynyn flattened his ears and set his legs. To Linden’s inexperienced eyes, the stallion seemed ready to buck.

Uncharacteristic uncertainty creased the Master’s brows. As if to all of the Ramen, he announced, “Hynyn will not bear me.”

From the edge of the clearing, Manethrall Dohn replied, “You are mistaken, sleepless one. Hynyn has accepted you. However, he does not consent to your intent. He will not bear you where you wish to go.”

Stave’s mien darkened. As far as Linden knew, no Haruchai had ever been both accepted and refused. The Master may have been shocked. And without Hynyn to bear him, he would have to return to Mithil Stonedown on foot.

How far would his stubbornness carry him with a wounded hip?

“What now, Bloodguard?” Mahrtiir asked with sardonic satisfaction. “Will you cleave to the purposes of the Masters? Or will you honour the will of the Ranyhyn? Consult your arrogance. Surely it will not mislead you.”

Stave turned a threatening scowl toward the Manethrall. “You are a fool,” he pronounced distinctly. “There is no contradiction. No Ranyhyn has ever refused to serve its rider. For the sake of all the Land, the Masters must learn what this refusal portends.”

A sarcastic rejoinder flashed in Mahrtiir’s eyes, but he bit it back.

Manethrall Dohn ignored both men. For a moment, he studied the daylight as it filled the vale. Then he announced, “Ringthane, Hyn is here as well, though you did not summon her. She also will not bear you where you wish to go. Nonetheless she desires to bear you.

“Will you not mount?”

Quickly Linden looked around for Liand and Anele. She would be lost without the old man; and she had already told Liand that he could accompany her.

Will not bear you-

Anele was nowhere to be seen. After a brief search, however, she spotted Liand among the Ramen, holding Somo by the pinto’s halter.

– where you wish to go.

Anxious for reasons which she could not have put into words, she turned to face Hyn.

As soon as Linden met her gaze, the mare trotted forward.

Studying the beast, Linden groaned to herself, Oh, God. I can’t ride that. Hyn was too big: Linden’s head barely reached her shoulder. And Linden was no horsewoman. If she fell from that height-and in motion-

Under the Sunbane, she had ridden the Coursers of the Clave, and they were larger than any Ranyhyn. But Cail had supported her then. With his arms around her, she could not have fallen, even by choice.

Hyn approached with a mincing step. Somehow the mare conveyed the unexpected impression that she felt shy in Linden’s presence. When she drew near, however, she nudged Linden’s chest, tangibly urging Linden to ride her.

Her warm breath smelled of sweet grass and freedom; of galloping wildly across illimitable vistas.

Linden looked around for help; and immediately Bhapa came toward her with wonder in his eyes. To both Linden and Hyn, he bowed deeply. Emotion thickened his voice as he said, “Ringthane, you are reluctant to ride. For that we honour you. It is fitting to be humbled by the Ranyhyn. But in this their will must not be thwarted. The fate of the Land rides with you, and you require their aid. You will not regret that you granted their desire here.”

The Ranyhyn wanted something from her. And from Stave.

Bhapa watched her face. “Do you fear that you may fall? There is no need. The Ranyhyn permit no harm to their riders.”

Linden shook her head. She needed the Ranyhyn: she was certain of that. Whether she felt ready or not, able or not, she would have to ride Hyn eventually.

She also will not bear you where you wish to go. Nonetheless she desires to bear you.

What could the great horses possibly want from her?

Linden seemed to have no choice. “All right,” she muttered. “I don’t understand any of this. Never mind that. Help me up.”

Hyn nickered approval as Bhapa interlaced his fingers to form a stirrup. Hurrying so that she would not hesitate, Linden stepped into his hands and reached upward.

Even then she might not have been able to mount. The distance was too great: for an instant, it seemed to symbolise or contain all of her limitations. But Bhapa lifted her higher; and she found herself unceremoniously seated on the mare’s back.

Clutching the silk of Hyn’s mane in both fists, she tried to regain some sense of balance.

With elaborate consideration, Hyn turned until she faced southward, away from the Land. At the same time, Hynyn wheeled more imperiously, bringing Stave to Linden’s side. Both Ranyhyn plainly intended to return in the direction from which they had come.

“Linden!” Liand called anxiously. In haste, he tugged Somo out into the clearing, then scrambled onto the mustang’s back.

Hynyn responded with a stern whinny. Hyn flicked up her hooves one at a time, showing Somo her heels.

When the Ranyhyn started into motion, Somo refused to follow.

Liand barked a command; dug his heels into the pinto’s sides; hauled on the reins. His mount dropped its head and did not move. “Linden!” he shouted again, at once angry and frightened. “Do not-! I must accompany you.”

“Stop,” Linden muttered to Hyn, “wait, don’t go yet. I said he could come with us.”

The Ranyhyn ignored her. Together, stately as frigates, Hyn and Hynyn walked out of the clearing among the Ramen.

Linden nearly lost her seat turning to watch Liand’s struggle with Somo.

Then two of the Cords intervened, obviously urging Liand to accept Somo’s refusal; and Manethrall Dohn explained to Linden, “It is the will of the Ranyhyn. They do not condone the Stonedownor’s presence. Fear not, Ringthane. You will return to find him safe among us. He will yet ride with you.”

Liand protested, an inarticulate gasp of dismay. Flinging himself from the pinto’s back, he ran after Linden. The heat in his eyes and the dogged set of his shoulders proclaimed that he meant to follow her on foot as long and as far as necessary.

Almost at once, however, the Cords stopped him. He wrestled with them furiously until Manethrall Hami snapped his name.

“The will of the Ranyhyn is plain,” she told him severely. “We will not permit you to act against it.” When at last Liand subsided, she added more kindly, “Hyn will ward the Ringthane with her life.”

Liand may have continued to protest. Perhaps Hami reassured him further. But Linden could no longer hear them. Hyn had borne her beyond earshot.

For the moment, the ground seemed to yaw vertiginously on either side of her. She was perched too high on a mount over which she had no control; and her legs were stretched too wide. Only her grip on Hyn’s mane secured her. A precarious hold: the fine hair would slip through her fingers if she relied on it.

She had made plans and promises, but she appeared to have no say at all in whether or not she ever kept her word.

She wanted to demand explanations from Stave, although she knew that he had none to give her. But his pain was vivid in the morning light, and its sharpness closed her throat. In spite of her visceral alarm, she suspected that the behaviour of the Ranyhyn disturbed him more profoundly. She was merely frightened-and frustrated by her inability to act on any of her choices. He was experiencing a violation of the ancient relationship between his people and the great horses.

More for her own sake than for his-as far as she knew, the Haruchai had no sense of humour-she tried to lighten the silence; distract herself from her fears. “Well,” she said, “here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

He did not so much as glance at her.

Linden shrugged to herself. More seriously, she asked, “Do you have any idea where they might be taking us? Can you think of anything that might explain what they’re doing?”

She hardly expected him to respond. The scale of their disagreements and conflicts might make simple conversation impossible.

Having stated his position and made his decisions, however, Stave now seemed content to comport himself as though nothing had changed. “I have no clear answer,” he replied calmly. “Yet there is a tale which was told by Bannor of the Bloodguard during the time of the Unbeliever. It suggests an answer.”

“Please,” Linden put in promptly. “Tell me.”

“This tale,” he said, “concerns the quest of High Lord Elena and ur-Lord Covenant for the Seventh Ward of Kevin’s Lore. Though they knew it not, they sought the Blood of the Earth and the Power of Command.

“You have heard that when ur-Lord Covenant first summoned the Ranyhyn, a great many of them answered, each rearing in obeisance and fear, each offering to be ridden. Yet he refused them, for which the Ramen honour him above all Lords and Bloodguard. Rather than ride any Ranyhyn, he asked of them a boon.

“In Mithil Stonedown he had done cruel harm to a woman of the Land-to Lena daughter of Atiaran, she who later gave birth to High Lord Elena. Hoping, perhaps, to ease that wrong, he asked of the Ranyhyn that one of them would visit Lena each year, for she adored them.

“This service the Ranyhyn fulfilled without fail, until the Unbeliever himself released them from it.”

Gradually Linden’s anxiety receded as she began to feel more secure on Hyn’s back. When they had left behind the shelters of the Ramen, the Ranyhyn increased their gait to an easy, rolling canter which carried them swiftly through the deep grass. At that speed, she might have felt more alarm rather than less. But the mare was able to compensate for her uncertain balance. In spite of her initial trepidation, she found herself relaxing to the sound of Stave’s voice.

She knew what he meant by “cruel harm.” Covenant had told her of his crime against Lena. However, the rest of Stave’s tale was unfamiliar to her.

“In later years,” he was saying, “during High Lord Elena’s girlhood, Lena occasionally allowed her daughter to ride in her place. The High Lord spoke of that time in Bannor’s presence while she and ur-Lord Covenant floated upon the flame-burnished waters of Earthroot.

“She told of a ride which expressed the will of her mount, the Ranyhyn Myrha, rather than any wish of hers.”

Ahead of Hyn and Hynyn, the mountainsides crowded close together, leaving only a narrow gap between sharp cliffs. As the great horses stretched their canter to a run, the cut ravine seemed to sweep palpably nearer. Grass, a few shrubs, and the occasional aliantha blurred past Linden on both sides. To her surprise, she began to enjoy Hyn’s swiftness. The adoration and service of the Ramen were not difficult to understand. Like so much of the Land outside Lord Foul’s influence, the Ranyhyn were tangibly precious.

But she could not be sure that she would prove equal to what they wished of her.

“What happened?” she asked her companion.

“In the High Lord’s tale,” Stave answered, “Myrha bore her to an eldritch tarn enclosed within the Southron Range, where Ranyhyn had gathered by the hundreds. Around the vale of the tarn, the Ranyhyn galloped as though in ecstasy, only pausing at intervals to drink of the tarn’s dark waters.

“When the High Lord also drank, she found herself united in spirit with the great horses, sharing their thoughts and purposes. Thus she learned that she had been brought to partake of the horserite of Kelenbhrabanal, Father of Horses, Stallion of the First Herd. This rite the Ranyhyn held in secret, generation after generation, so that Kelenbhrabanal’s doom would never be forgotten.

“I know not what Hynyn and Hyn desire of us,” he added. “It may be that they wish us also to partake of the horserite. Or they may have some purpose which lies outside the ken of the Haruchai.”

His tone conveyed a shrug through the muted thunder of hooves. Whatever the intentions of the Ranyhyn might be, he apparently did not mean to let them interfere with his own commitments.

Or perhaps he was not so single-minded. His people loved the great horses. And Hyn and Hynyn had imposed their will on him as well as on Linden.

And he seemed reluctant to tell her the rest-

“What was it?” she asked. “Kelenbhrabanal’s doom?”

What had the Ranyhyn wanted from Covenant’s daughter?

“In a time before Berek Halfhand became the first High Lord,” continued the Master, “the Ranyhyn warred against the wolves of Fangthane the Render, and were slaughtered. Grieving for the decimation of the First Herd, Kelenbhrabanal sought to end the conflict by proposing a bargain. The Father of Horses would surrender his own throat to Fangthane. In exchange, the Render would cease his war upon the Ranyhyn.

“To this Fangthane agreed eagerly. But he did not honour his given word. When he had slain Kelenbhrabanal, he unleashed his wolves again upon the Plains of Ra. The slaughter of the Ranyhyn resumed. They would have perished from the Land if they had not gained the service of the Ramen to aid them in their long strife.”

“This knowledge the Ranyhyn shared with High Lord Elena to warn her,” Stave concluded flatly, “but she did not heed them.”

He seemed to believe that he had answered Linden’s question. But she was not satisfied. “What was the warning?” she insisted. “I don’t see what Kelenbhrabanal has to do with Elena. She wasn’t looking for a way to sacrifice herself.”

Not according to the little that Linden had heard of those events.

The Master appeared to sigh. “You know the tale. High Lord Elena sought the Seventh Ward, the Power of Command, so that she might compel Kevin Landwaster from his grave against Corruption. She believed that despair would anneal Kevin’s heart, rendering him from pain to iron, making of him an indomitable tool.

“In this she was wrong, to the great cost of all the Land.

“Bannor deemed then, as do the Haruchai now, that the Ranyhyn had perceived a flaw in the High Lord’s comprehension. By means of their horserite, they sought to alter the course of her thoughts. They wished her to grasp that despair is no more potent or salvific beyond death than it is in life.”

If Bannor and his descendants were right, the Ranyhyn had read Elena’s future in her young eyes. They had seen the time ahead of her: who she would become; what she would do.

And Elena had not heeded them.

Yet they had continued to serve her. To the last, they had hoped that she would learn from their rites. Or they had forgiven in advance her human folly-

Now, like them, Stave was trying to warn Linden.

It was too bad, she thought to herself, that the Masters also were not listening.

Beyond the ravine which led them from the Verge of Wandering, Hyn and Hynyn bore their riders running across mountainsides washed with sunshine, redolent with wildflowers and springtime. Always in sunlight, they rounded one towering granite buttress after another, plunging down into the gullies and sholas which creased the boundaries between peaks, then clattering with undiminished speed up the far slopes. At times the ground they trod looked rocky enough to imperil mountain-goats; yet they galloped on without hesitation. For a while, Linden was sure that they would exhaust themselves. Gradually, however, she became aware that both mounts were in fact holding themselves back: that they had tremendous strength in reserve, and had not yet called forth their true power.

Their restraint may have been meant as consideration for her.

Fortunately the indefeasible security of Hyn’s long strides inspired an almost autonomic confidence. The mare seemed as reliable as the bones of the Earth. Lulled by trust, Linden eventually found herself drifting. The sun’s warmth seeped into her bones, and the whetted atmosphere of the mountains seemed to clean the fear from her lungs. By degrees, her apprehensions faded, and she fell into a doze.

Later she was startled awake by a cessation of motion. The Ranyhyn had halted in a low gully nourished by a sparkling rill. As it danced past a small clump of aliantha, the water chuckled to itself as if high among the mountains it had heard an amusing tale. Hyn and Hynyn had paused to let their riders eat and drink.

Stave had already dismounted. Still half asleep, Linden slipped down from Hyn’s back without remembering to worry about her height from the ground. Unsteadily, she moved to the rill to quench her thirst, then joined her companion beside one of the treasure-berry bushes.

She saw at once that riding had exacerbated his wounds, his internal injuries as much as his damaged hip. His lips were pallid, his skin had taken on an ashen hue, and his pains were as sharp as compound fractures.

Nonetheless he remained undaunted. He had not yet come to the end of himself. And the sapid fruit restored him as it did her. With her health-sense, she could watch the progress of renewed vitality through his body. Soon she believed that he would be able to endure more riding.

Now she noticed that the sun had reached the afternoon sky. The passing of time caused her a pang. She must have dozed longer than she realised. “Did Bannor happen to say,” she asked Stave, “how far away this tarn is?”

The Haruchai regarded her steadily. “It is not certain that the tarn of the horserite is our destination.”

Linden nodded. “I understand. It’s just a guess. But I need something to hope for.”

“As you say.” He gazed up at the highest peaks. “High Lord Elena spoke of riding at a gallop for a day and a night from Mithil Stonedown. Doubtless a portion of the distance was behind us in the Verge of Wandering. More than that-”

With a shrug, he turned to limp toward Hynyn.

Both Ranyhyn had cropped a little grass and drunk from the rill. Now the stallion moved unbidden to stand beside a boulder jutting from the side of the gully. Apparently Hynyn understood that his rider might no longer be able to mount without aid. Once Stave had pulled himself onto the boulder, he could reach Hynyn’s back easily.

Touched by the discernment of the Ranyhyn, Linden followed his example. When she had resumed her seat, Hyn and Hynyn trotted out of the gully to continue their journey.

Thereafter the terrain became more demanding, the ground more broken and rocky, the mountainsides steeper. Bare stone loomed against the sky, grey with age and cold, mottled with lichen. Weather-stunted trees clung arduously to splits in the cliffs, and stubborn stretches of grass gave way to slopes of gravel like the detritus of glaciers. At the same time, the temperature declined as though the Ranyhyn ran toward realms of ice. Hyn and Hynyn had borne their riders far from any soil which could have sustained the rampant grass of the Verge of Wandering. Whenever the twisted thrusting of the granite blocked the sun, Linden found herself regretting that she had not thought to bring one of Liand’s warm cloaks; that Liand himself was not with her.

Of necessity the Ranyhyn slowed their pace, although they still travelled swiftly.

No clouds were visible within the constricted horizons, but Linden could smell a storm on the raw breeze. Somewhere beyond the dominion of these rough peaks, rain and wind and trouble were brewing. Instinctively, she feared that some bitter force gathered to repel the Ranyhyn from their purpose.

Stave betrayed no concern; but that did not comfort her.

Through Anele, Lord Foul had assured her that he had done no harm to the Land. I have merely whispered a word of counsel here and there, and awaited events. She suspected that he held her in too much contempt to lie. Yet he seemed to have vast powers in his service. And she did not believe for a moment that Hyn had borne her beyond his reach-

If you fear what has been “done,” think on the Elohim and be dismayed.

Esmer could testify to the cruelty of such legacies.

Slowly Linden’s discomfort became a remorseless ache which seemed to span her consciousness from rim to rim. She no longer noticed the evolving vistas, or watched the sun’s progress down the narrow sky. At intervals, an unwonted jolt roused her enough to see that her surroundings had grown as sheer as spires, as sharp as knives. Raw granite edges softened only by ice and distance cut away the daylight in swaths, making way for darkness. Then the aching in her legs and back swelled again, and her ability to regard how her world shrank slipped away.

Soon it became too small to contain her son; or Liand and Anele and the Ramen; or her memories of the man she had loved.

Time passed; and the air turned distinctly colder as the Ranyhyn dropped down the far side of a raw pass into an enclosed depth like a pit of gloom, a clenched instance of winter. Descending from remnants of sunlight into shadow, they seemed to leave behind every vestige of spring and warmth and familiarity. Under their hooves, the ground became bitter and broken, old stone warped to shards and twisted out of cognisance by eons of unrelieved ice.

Protected only by Hyn’s generous heat, Linden returned shivering to herself.

Somewhere above the enveloping gloom, daylight still held the peaks, but its touch was lost in shadow, leaving only a premature dusk. In the heavens, early stars glittered coldly against the velvet dark, while ahead of the Ranyhyn midnight crouched like a waiting beast.

Until now, Hyn and Hynyn had shown themselves able and willing to care for the most basic needs of their riders; but Linden could not imagine how they might preserve her against such cold. Conditioned by Covenant’s distrust of his ability to control that wild magic, she had never considered calling on his ring for something as simple and necessary as warmth. If the Ranyhyn did not surprise her with some new providence, she would have no choice but to risk dangers which had dismayed him.

But then the horses sank below some unseen boundary layer like a thermo-cline, and the cold began to dissipate. After its first change, the air remained unpleasantly chill, reminiscent of freezing and loneliness. At least temporarily, however, it had lost its harsh edge. Soon tufts of hardy grey grass emerged among the rough stones. In the deepening shadow, the slope relaxed as grasses spread out over the ground.

Before long, Linden found herself in what appeared to be a cliff-walled glen. With only the distant disinterest of stars for illumination, she could not see its far side except as a deeper ebony amid the gloaming; but the glen seemed to be more than broad enough to hold the horserite that Stave had described. And its grassy floor was relatively flat and smooth: it might have been beaten down by uncounted generations of hooves.

Ahead of her at the centre of the glen lay an area of complete blackness like a disk of obsidian, a rough circle impenetrable to light. It held no sheen of starlight, no reflection of any kind: she would have assumed that it was stone if Stave had not spoken of a “tarn”- and if eldritch waters had not called out to her senses, warning her of power which had welled up from the depths of the Earth.

Hyn and Hynyn had reached their secret destination.

They trotted toward thee tarn eagerly, ears pricked forward, breath snorting in their nostrils. Linden expected them to approach the waters immediately and drink; but after a few paces, Hyn abruptly shrugged her to the ground. Unprepared, she landed awkwardly and nearly fell.

Stave joined her a heartbeat later, catching himself on one leg to protect his hip.

While her knees trembled, Linden watched as the mare and the stallion together hastened to the tarn and plunged their muzzles into the unrelieved dark.

She had time to think, Hundreds of Ranyhyn? Where were the others? Elena had been a child, probably overwhelmed; but she could not have been so dramatically wrong about her own experience. Surely two Ranyhyn did not comprise a horserite? They were not enough-

Then Hynyn and Hyn exploded away from the waters and began to thunder around the dell as if they had plunged into frenzy.

Linden had never witnessed such galloping. She could only make out vague shapes in the caliginous air: running, the Ranyhyn appeared as little more than smears along the shrouded base of the cliffs. Yet they were loud and vivid to the enhanced dimension of her senses, fraught with Earthpower, and bright as bonfires. Drinking from the tarn seemed to have ignited their inherent vitality. They radiated an intense heat. She felt their sweat as though it were the spume of hysteria. If Stave had not described Elena’s visit here, Linden would have guessed that Hyn and Hynyn had gone mad.

But they were only two-

Why were they alone? Where were the rest of the Ranyhyn?

Still shaken by cold, she breathed, “Stave.” She needed some explanation from him. But she could find no language for what she lacked except his name. The furious race of the Ranyhyn tugged at her awareness, her ability to think, sucking her mind away with centrifugal insistence.

As if in response to her unformed question, the Master turned his back on the tarn and began to hobble toward the nearest cliff-wall.

“Wait,” she panted. She had been too long on horseback, come too far from any reality that made sense to her: she had forgotten how to claim his attention. Nevertheless she ached for his companionship. She did not know how to face even this small fragment of a horserite by herself.

“Please, Stave!” she called because he had not stopped; did not appear to have heard her past the labouring hooves of the Ranyhyn. “I need to understand.”

He paused, balancing on one foot. “Then drink of the tarn.” His tone had the certainty of a knell. “Thus will you comprehend what the Ranyhyn wish you to grasp.”

Again he limped into motion.

“Wait!” she repeated. “What do you mean? What’s going on?” His air of refusal frightened her; and fear anchored her against the gyre of the Ranyhyn. “We’re both here. Aren’t you supposed to drink, too?”

Urgently she hastened after him.

He might not have stopped, but Hyn and Hynyn flashed past in front of him, so near that he had to halt in order to avoid a collision. Then they blurred away, indistinct as hallucinations. They seemed to be submerged in the gathering darkness, barely perceptible from any position of clarity.

Stave waited for her to join him. His vague shape in the gloaming conveyed a sigh. When Linden reached him, he pronounced, “This horserite is not for me. I was made to accompany you only so that I might provide for your safety at need.”

Now the galloping of the horses no longer frayed her attention. Instead it called to her like a demand; a form of supplication too proud for pleading.

“How do you know that?” she countered. “Hyn and Hynyn are Ranyhyn. Do you really think they couldn’t take care of me?”

“I am Haruchai,” he replied as if that answer sufficed. “We have no need of horserites.”

His manner seemed to add, Or of waters which blend minds. Among themselves, his people had used a mental form of communication for millennia.

“Oh, bullshit.” Feigning anger to mask her concern, Linden put a hand on his shoulder, pulled herself or him around so that she could peer into his darkened face. “Why not? You people are the Masters of the Land. You’re responsible for it. And this is a warning. You said so. The Ranyhyn brought High Lord Elena here to warn her.” Hundreds of them. Not just two. “Don’t you think you need every warning you can get?”

“We do not,” Stave asserted. “We have heeded the lesson of Kevin Landwaster. We find no value in despair.”

She could see nothing of his expression; but his aura seemed like a rejection carved in stone.

“No,” she protested as if she were sure. “No.” Her hands insisted at his shoulders. “Bannor heard what High Lord Elena said, but none of you heard the warning.”

Again Hyn and Hynyn pounded past, circling the valley with frenzy and fervour glaring in their eyes; the passion of beasts that could not beseech. Somewhere behind the clamour of their hooves, Linden seemed to hear the distant distress of thunder.

“Sure,” she went on, “Kelenbhrabanal’s despair didn’t save the Ranyhyn. I get that. But what did?

“It wasn’t anything grand. It wasn’t Lords or Bloodguard or white rings or Staffs. The Ranyhyn weren’t preserved by Vows, or absolute faithfulness, or any other form of Haruchai mastery. That was the real warning.”

“Linden Avery?” Stave sounded implacable, ready for scorn.

But she had come too far, and needed him too much, to falter now. “It was something much simpler than that. The plain, selfless devotion of ordinary men and women.” The Ramen. “You said it yourself. The Ranyhyn were nearly destroyed until they found the Ramen to care for them.

“They wanted Elena to understand that she would be enough. She didn’t need to raise Kevin from death,” or give up sleep and passion, “or do anything else transcendent,” anything more than human. “All she had to do was trust herself.”

In dreams, Covenant had told Linden the same thing.

Unreadable in the darkness, Stave stared at her. For a long moment while Hynyn and Hyn raced each other around the valley, he said nothing. Then, with careful precision, he asked, “And do you not deem white gold transcendent?”

To that she had no answer except, “Maybe it is. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s nothing more than the person who wields it.” But she did not stop. “Isn’t that beside the point? If nothing else, don’t you need to know why Hyn and Hynyn are alone? Don’t you think it’s important that there aren’t more Ranyhyn here?”

She could not be sure that he had heard her, or that he cared. A moment later, however, she discovered that she had reached him, in spite of his certainty. Without a word of acquiescence or acknowledgment, he turned to hobble in the direction of the tarn.

Again thunder muttered threats in the distance. The air felt charged with Power and turmoil, thick with static and expectation, as though the potent waters of the tarn were disturbed by advancing storms.

Holding her breath to contain the labour of her heart, Linden hurried to Stave’s side; walked with him toward the tarn. Around them, Hyn and Hynyn constricted their circle as if they were focusing their frenzy inward, onto their riders.

Oh, Covenant, she prayed in silence, I hope this is what you wanted. You told me to do something unexpected.

This was the result.

The force of the black waters seemed to accumulate against her at every step. She could discern it clearly enough to know that it was neither toxic nor tainted. Rather it was an expression of Earthpower purer than anything she had ever experienced before. Nonetheless its sheer strength exceeded her. She could not define its nature or guess its effects. It was too extreme for human flesh.

Yet Elena had tasted these same waters as a young girl, undefended by the lore and resources of Lordship.

Linden’s eyes bled tears as she and Stave reached the rock-knuckled edge of the tarn.

Communion. Blending. The Ranyhyn wanted to share their minds with her. Their frenzy

“Stave.” She had to drag her voice up from the bottom of her chest. “Maybe I should go first. In case-”

She could not explain what she feared.

Energy seemed to crackle across the surface of the tarn: incipient lightning; imminent hysteria. In those unreflecting depths, no stars existed. Instead, stark blackness stretched down into the marrow of the world.

“There is naught to fear,” answered the Master. “The Ranyhyn wish only to enlighten you. They will not make you mad.”

Although they might break her heart.

Stooping without hesitation, he lowered his face to the tarn.

His example drew her with it. In this place, with so much at stake, she could not bear to be left behind.

The touch of the water on her lips and tongue was as cold as fire. When she swallowed it, it burned within her like a blaze of absolute ice.

Then she surged upright and began to run with the Ranyhyn, run and run frantically, flinging herself like ecstasy or abjection around the dell as if she had gone out of her mind.

Chapter Four: Heedless in Rain

Linden Avery and Stave of the Haruchai returned to the Verge of Wandering in a scourging rain. Huddled on the necks of their Ranyhyn, they rode into the encampment of the Ramen as if driven by flails, while behind them harsh winds lashed the wracked peaks, and a downpour as bitter as sleet cut into the vale from all directions, twisted to chaos by the tumbling gusts of the storm. Occasional thunder harried their heels. At intervals, shrouded streaks of lightning turned the massed thunderheads the colour of bruises and madness: a swollen, livid hue shot through with argent like unfettered wild magic.

They had been away for two days and a night.

Alerted by scouting Cords, or by some instinctive link with the great horses, a throng of Ramen accompanied by Liand hastened from their shelters to greet the Ranyhyn and their riders.

Stave was able to dismount without aid, although he wavered on his feet. Cold and cruel exposure combined with the aftereffects of his wounds had eroded even his great strength. Perhaps he would have spoken, if words would have sufficed to succour his companion-and if he could have made himself heard through the pummelling torrents.

But Linden’s fingers had to be pried from their grip on Hyn’s neck. She had to be dragged bodily from Hyn’s back. In Liand’s embrace and the support of the Ramen, she hung stiffly, unable to move: rigid with mortification, and chilled to the bone; so cold and deprived and lost that she could not even shiver. She only remained clenched, and breathed in shallow, dying gasps, and wept like the rain, ceaselessly.

Hyn’s steaming warmth was all that had kept her alive. Perhaps at some time earlier in the day, she had sustained herself with white fire. Stave would know, if she did not. But long hours ago the storm had whipped her capacity for power to tatters and rent it from her. If she had not lain along Hyn’s neck and clung there, desolate and unyielding, her flesh would have failed her. There was malice in the gnashing rain, the fanged wind, and she could not have endured it without her mount.

Half weeping himself, and frantic, Liand carried her to the nearest shelter, the nearest cookfire, helped by Bhapa and Pahni. Eager to be of service, Char brought arm-loads of wood and baskets of dried dung to stoke the flames. Hami trickled warmed water between Linden’s pallid lips while the Stonedownor stroked her throat to help her swallow. With unexpected tenderness, Mahrtiir bit into two or three treasure-berries, removed the seeds, then kissed the pulp and juice into her helpless mouth.

Accepting no assistance, Stave staggered into the shelter so that he, too, would be warmed. And both Hyn and Hynyn shouldered their way in among the Ramen, although the sod roof was too low to let them hold up their heads, and the stallion’s shoulders almost brushed the lattice of the ceiling. Together they watched over Linden. Their concern steamed the rain from their coats.

Then Linden gagged; swallowed convulsively; gagged again; and some of the rigor seeped from her muscles. By slow degrees, the warmth of the water and the potency of the aliantha eased into her abused body, while the high heat of the fire wiped cold from the surface of her skin. Her pallid cheeks gradually acquired a hectic flush, stricken and febrile. Shivers began to surge through her, first in brief tremors like the aftershocks of a catastrophe, then in longer and more vehement waves, seizures violent enough to make her thrash in Liand’s arms.

It appeared that she might rally.

After a time, the Ranyhyn withdrew as if they had been reassured. Turning away from the encampment, they disappeared into the teeth of the storm. Most of the Ramen did them homage as they departed. But Mahrtiir continued to prepare aliantha with his teeth; Hami offered small, steady sips of water to Linden’s involuntary swallowing; and Bhapa and Pahni gently chafed her hands and feet, striving to restore her circulation.

Stave had seated himself on the opposite side of the fire. He, too, shivered heavily for a while, in spite of his toughness. But when the Ramen offered him warmed water, he drank it: he accepted a few treasure-berries, a little rhee and stew. Soon he stopped trembling, and his brown skin lost its rime-gnawed hue. A dullness like the glaze of exhaustion remained in his eyes, but he had sloughed away the worst effects of the storm.

Then Manethrall Hami asked him quietly, “Will you speak now, Bloodguard? The Ringthane cannot reveal what has befallen her. Nor is she able to guide our care. The hurt of wind and rain and cold we understand, and will tend. But a fever rises in her which we do not comprehend. It is an ague of the spirit, beyond our ken. We fear to harm her.

“Will you not tell us what has transpired?”

The Haruchai turned his closed features toward Hami. “Let the Chosen speak of it,” he answered, “if she is able.” Behind its exhaustion, his voice hinted at chagrin and old shame. “I will not.”

Perhaps Liand would have replied with indignation or pleading. But he contained himself for Linden’s sake, as did the Ramen, so that she would not be disturbed.

She seemed to sleep for a while. Her shivers receded somewhat. Then she opened her eyes briefly and stared about her with a terrible dismay, although she did not truly regain consciousness. When the moment passed, however, she began to breathe more easily. Hami cajoled more water between her lips, which she swallowed without gagging. The pulped aliantha which Mahrtiir placed in her mouth she swallowed as well. Little by little, she became visibly stronger.

Chills still wracked her without surcease, but now their character changed. The cold gradually lifted from the marrow of her bones, the depths of her lungs, the core of her internal organs; but another fever took its place. She continued to shiver because she had fallen profoundly ill: an ailment so deep that it appeared almost metaphysical.

The Ramen would have given her hurtloam, if their small store of the eldritch mud had not been expended. They would have treated her with amanibhavam, if they had not feared that it would prove too potent for her-or that it was the wrong kind of febrifuge for her needs.

At last Liand was reduced to simply murmuring her name as he held her, repeating, “Linden. Linden,” as if by that unadorned incantation he thought he might exorcise the fever from her soul.

Still she continued to rally. When next she opened her eyes, they were bright with fever, disconsolate as stars; but a faint patina of consciousness blurred their dismay. As if deliberately, she gulped at the cup of water Hami held to her lips. Then her tremors became coughing, and she struggled to sit up in order to clear her lungs.

Liand let her rise, although he held her shoulders so that she would not slump toward the fire or fall to the side.

“God, Stave,” she coughed weakly. Her voice sounded tortured, fatally hoarse, as if she had spent innumerable hours screaming. “Those poor horses-

“Oh, my son.”

Tears streaked her cheeks, although she had no strength for weeping. She needed time to recognise where she was. Leagues and mountains and brutal rain had intervened between her and the horserite; and at first she could recall only Stave, identify only his face across the lashing flames: the man who had accompanied her against his will.

If he had seen just a fraction of what she herself beheld-

But the horserite itself existed only in fragments. That she could not remember: not immediately. Not until she had reconstructed laboriously, in pain and sorrow, the links which connected her to this forgotten shelter, this lost heat; these unimagined faces, half-familiar and doomed. Shivers shattered the past, left it lying around her like splinters of broken glass.

In fever she seemed to pick them up one at a time to lacerate her aggrieved heart.

Hyn-

Very well, she remembered Hyn. The mare had kept her alive. Hyn was Earthpower defined in flesh, at once glorious and suppliant; revered and vulnerable. And Hynyn, who had borne Stave-

And the black tarn, its waters lightless as despair.

She was not ready.

Someone whom she may have recognised appeared to offer her a small bowl containing pulped treasure-berries. She ate a little of the vibrant fruit and grew stronger.

Covenant had once said, There’s only one way to hurt a man who’s lost everything. Give him back something broken.

She would have preferred to remember the storm. She had been forewarned-and did not know how to bear it.

So. Stave: Hyn and Hynyn: the bitter tarn.

And running-

– around and around the floor of the vale as if her heart would burst: as fervid as the Ranyhyn, if without their frantic speed, their fluid power. Together they pounded their shared visions into the beaten ground. She should have been able to grasp the chemical transactions taking place within her. Her health-sense should have allowed her to name the deep potency of the tarn. But her consciousness, her willing mind, had vanished at the first taste of those waters. She had become one with the Ranyhyn; no longer herself.

Only two of them. Not because the others had spurned her, or Stave, or this horserite; but because they felt too much shame. Hyn and Hynyn had been elected to bear the guilt and remorse and risk of their great kin.

Elected for sacrifice-

Beyond question, Linden preferred to remember the punishment of the storm.

Yet memories of the storm could not protect her. The blast which had broken over the mountains during the night had only hastened the fading of her transfiguration; only soaked and lashed and chilled and, finally, numbed her; only restored her mortality. And mortality was no excuse. It could not protect her from the consequences of what she had seen; or of what she meant to do.

Only death had that power.

She could not choose death. Not while the Despiser still held her son. Therefore she remembered. One by one, she retrieved whetted shards from the ground of her mind and cut-

Hyn and Hynyn, brave as martyrs. The mind-blending waters of the tarn, cruel and unutterably cold. Running.

Millennia of shame.

And Jeremiah.

Oh, my son.

“Ringthane,” said a voice which may have sounded familiar. “Linden Avery.” Was it Manethrall Hami? Hami, who had been left behind days ago, behind vast mountains of despair? Linden could not be sure. “You must speak. You are ill. We know not how to succour you.”

Was she ill? Oh, yes. Absolutely. But it was not an ailment of the body. Although everything within her shivered convulsively, she had spent too much time exalted by Earthpower to suffer from merely physical fevers.

She was sick with visions: the memories and prescience of the Ranyhyn.

In some sense, the great horses transcended the Law of Time. They knew when they would be needed. They knew how far they would be required to go-

Hands gripped her shoulders, attempting to steady her. A man’s voice-Liand’s? – murmured her name repeatedly, called her back to herself.

She feared that he would stop if she could not answer. Between tremors, she tried to say, “The tarn,”

She thought that she spoke aloud. Certainly her strained throat felt the effort and pain of sound. But she could not hear herself. The loud rain on the roof of the shelter muffled her voice.

“The horserite.”

Around her, Cords echoed, “Horserite,” as though in awe that she had been so privileged. Softly the woman’s voice, Hami’s, said, “As we deemed. The Ranyhyn possess insight needful to her.”

They did not understand. How could they? They barely existed, rendered vague by shivering. Linden could not focus her eyes on them. Only Stave seemed fully real to her beyond the intervening flames: as irrefutable as stone.

“Just Hyn and Hynyn,” she croaked hoarsely. No other Ranyhyn. “The others couldn’t bear it. They’re too ashamed.”

That shocked the Ramen. They blurred like tears. Voices protested, “No,” and, “No.” Someone hissed through the rain, “It is false. She lies.”

Stave blinked at the glaze in his eyes. Sternly he retorted, “It is sooth.” He nodded at Linden past the fire. “Behold her. Do you discern falsehood?”

“Do not shame yourselves,” Hami told the indignation of her people. “Do you lack sight? She has no falsehood in her.”

Fever had burned away any lies that Linden might have wished to believe.

“We are Ramen,” the Manethrall informed the Cords severely. “We will hear the truth.”

They heeded her, but Linden did not. Her heart seemed to bleed memories for which she had no words and no courage. Running hard enough to vanquish time, she had shared the visions of the Ranyhyn: images not of Kelenbhrabanal and Fangthane, but of the child Elena, daughter of Lena and rape.

Another warning-

At that time, Elena was a young girl, lovely as only a child could be, and innocent in spite of her mother’s instability. Lena had been deranged by violation and yearning, rendered unfit to raise a child. And both of Lena’s parents, Trell and Atiaran, had been broken to some extent by the crime against their daughter. Thus Elena was effectively abandoned by her own family; left to the care of a young, unregarded man who adored Lena. For the Land’s sake, he had effectively adopted Elena. His embittered tenderness, and the boon of the Ranyhyn, were all that had sustained her.

To Linden, the girl’s loneliness and need were as vivid as Jeremiah’s, as acute as her son’s compelled maiming. The great horses had seen Elena clearly. Once each year, every year, a Ranyhyn, an old stallion, had approached Mithil Stonedown in order to relieve Lena’s bereavement; and so he had witnessed again and again how the child’s life was transformed for that brief time. When the mare Myrha had taken the stallion’s place, she had seen her potency in Elena’s heart more vividly than any man or woman who might have loved the child.

“Because of Elena,” Linden explained as clearly as she could, although she had no words. “That’s why the Ranyhyn are ashamed. The horserite doomed her.”

If Jeremiah had been granted Ranyhyn rather than hospitals and surgery after his ordeal in Lord Foul’s bonfire, an excitement like Elena’s might have drawn him out of himself.

Surely the Ramen remembered Elena’s participation in that rite millennia ago? They had not been present. Perhaps no Raman had ever witnessed or shared a horserite. But they must have heard the tale-

“They blame themselves,” she told the eager flames, “for what she became.”

Precisely because the Ranyhyn had recognised the nature of their power within Elena, Myrha had borne her to that long-ago conclave. They saw far ahead in time; sensed the danger which would confront Elena years later. And they had hoped to dissuade her from accepting her heritage of harm.

Now they knew that they had failed terribly.

They had shown Elena the arrogance of Kelenbhrabanal’s despair, thinking to teach her that failure was preferable to violation. Lena should have resisted Covenant with all her strength. Better to combat Fangthane directly and die than to believe that some grand sacrifice might alter Fangthane’s nature-or the Land’s fate.

But Elena had missed the lesson. She was deafened to it by the thunder of hundreds of hooves; blinded by the communion of the Ranyhyn. Covenant’s gift had left her insensible. She already adored the great horses. From their rite, she had learned something akin to worship for Kelenbhrabanal. His sacrifice had seemed splendid to her: an act of valour so transcendental that it could not be tainted or surpassed.

The horserite had not dissuaded her from ruin. Rather it had set her more firmly on the path to destruction.

Speaking hurt Linden’s mouth and throat: words bit like blades of glass, slivers of the past. Nevertheless she forced herself to say, “They think she got the idea of commanding Kevin from Kelenbhrabanal.”

Perhaps she would have raised the Father of Horses himself if he had possessed the mighty lore of the Old Lords.

Now the Ranyhyn saw that they had fallen prey to an arrogance of their own. Discerning Elena’s vulnerability, they had believed themselves wise enough to guide her future.

If Hyn and Hynyn had stopped there, however, Linden could have endured their self-blame; perhaps even refuted it. Her soul would not have sickened within her. The shame of the great horses, she might have said, was itself arrogant. The Ranyhyn had claimed responsibility for Elena’s actions when that burden belonged properly and solely to Elena herself.

But the two horses did not stop. When they had shared their racial memories of Elena, they began their tale again from the beginning-with one appalling alteration. In their visions, they replaced Elena’s visage with Linden’s.

Still trying to warn her.

“Now they’re afraid of me,” she moaned, “for the same reason. They believe-”

She could not say it. It hurt too much.

Their minds united with her, Hyn and Hynyn retold the same story as if it had happened to Linden rather than Elena; as if Linden’s mother and father had been Atiaran and Trell as well as Lena and Covenant. And she experienced it with them: it transpired anew. It held the same abandonment and grief, the same failed cherishing, the same loneliness-and the same exalting in-rush of love for the Ranyhyn. Mercilessly, Hyn and Hynyn described Elena’s introduction to the murder and betrayal of Kelenbhrabanal as if that crisis were indistinguishable from Linden’s experience of the Land with Covenant under the Sunbane.

And still the images of the horserite did not end. The Ranyhyn had erred with Elena, perhaps, by not revealing the true extent of her peril. She had been a child, too young to apprehend the truth of their prophecies. They had feared to overwhelm her.

On behalf of all their kind, Hyn and Hynyn did not make that mistake with Linden.

Instead they found within her a still graver hurt. Galloping in frenzy, they touched the ravaged memories of moksha Raver’s possession, the killing horror of Jehannum’s malice. And with that knowledge, they caused her to experience what was being done to her son.

To damaged Jeremiah, who had no defence except blankness.

Linden could focus only on Stave. Surely he had seen the same visions, felt the same dismay? The Ranyhyn had not brought him to their horserite against his will in order to spare him. Yet he sat beyond the flames as though he were untouched, unmoved; implacable as blame.

Liand had not stopped murmuring her name. But now he crooned as if he meant to comfort her, “Linden, no. No.

“The Ranyhyn do not fear you. They cannot.”

His support could not interrupt her trembling. She was too ill for any solace.

Belabouring the floor of the dell with her pain, she saw Jeremiah’s plight as Hyn and Hynyn wished her to see it: as if he were simultaneously herself occupied by a Raver and Thomas Covenant lost in the stasis imposed by the Elohim. She needed them back desperately, Covenant and her son. All of their lives depended on it: the Land depended on it. And so she reached-or would reach-into him with her health-sense, seeking the place where his mind still lived.

The Ranyhyn elicited it from her, shared it with her: a field of flowers under an immaculate sun, pristine with warmth and promises. Covenant and now Jeremiah met her there, or would meet her, both children again, and unharmed; capable of a child’s love, happiness, joy. Yet the visions of the horserite were unutterably cruel; for when she reached out to Covenant and Jeremiah, trying to restore them with herself, the Worm of the World’s End squirmed from Covenant’s mouth, and her son’s dear face seemed to break open and become vile, bitter as Despite.

Hyn and Hynyn would have been kinder to simply trample Linden under their hooves.

“The Ranyhyn believe,” she said with her last strength, “I’ll do the same thing Elena did.”

Surely Stave would have admitted as much, had he chosen to speak? Yet he said nothing. His eyes held an uncharacteristic softness as he regarded her. Somehow he conveyed the impression that he, too, would have comforted her, if he had known how.

Hyn and Hynyn had given her a warning. Unlike Elena, she recognised that. And she understood that such efforts were necessary to the great horses. They needed to appease their shame. How could they see what they had seen, dread what they dreaded, and not try to guide the hope of the Land?

But she did not know where or when they wished her to step aside from her intentions. And she did not mean to recant any of her decisions. Thomas Covenant had told her to trust herself.

She did not know that she had fallen asleep; or that her friends had stretched her out on one of the beds and covered her with blankets; or that Liand and Bhapa, Char and Pahni, had kept watch over her throughout the night. She did not know whether she dreamed, or what those insights may have cost her. When she awakened, however, aliantha and Earthpower had worked a transformation within her, and she was sure of herself.

Sleep and warmth and nourishment had done much to heal her; but she still could not stop shivering. Now, however, she understood what was happening to her. She shook as if she were feverish because she was sick with fear.

Her plan to enter a caesure and reverse its flow might damage or destroy the Arch of Time. And she had no one to guide her through history’s ramified layers except a blind old man with a broken mind.

Hyn and Hynyn would aid her as they had aided Elena: she did not doubt that. They had declared their allegiance in the horserite, articulated it against the hard floor of the dell. They would bear her wherever she willed. And she had become convinced that their warnings did not pertain to her immediate choices. The dangers they foresaw lay somewhere in the distance ahead of her.

But others around her might not be so trusting; or so desperate. She had told everyone who could hear her that the Ranyhyn feared what she might do-

The visions of the horserite may have inspired Stave to renew his opposition. That was possible. On the other hand, she trusted Liand to stand by her. And Anele would certainly accompany her. Even at his most demented, he would accept any risk which might restore him to the Staff of Law.

But she did not know what to expect from the Ramen. They supported the Ranyhyn utterly, bowed to the will of the great horses in all things. However, they knew now that the Ranyhyn feared her. After millennia of service, they might decide that their responsibilities ran deeper than simple compliance.

Then there were the ur-viles. And Esmer. Both had the power to prevent her, if they elected to do so. Esmer had told her that the ur-viles wished to serve her. But he wielded forces which she could not begin to measure or counteract.

Two days ago-was it only two days? – he had spent the night among the mountains, exerting himself in ways which the Ramen had called storms.

She tried to open her eyes then, impelled by tremors; but they were caked shut. Sleep and the aftereffects of prostration blinded her. She had to lift the rough weight of her blankets in order to raise her hands to her face, rub the crust from her lids.

When she had done so, she blinked her sight clear and looked up into Liand’s waiting concern.

Bhapa and Pahni stood behind him, watching her efforts to rouse herself. Nearby Char tended the fire; kept the flames hot for her sake. But the Stonedownor sat on the bed beside her, bending over her, stroking her hair. His strained visage dominated her view.

“Linden,” he said softly as she focused her eyes on him. “It is good to see you wake. I feared that this ague would hold you until it frayed the thews of your spirit.”

Liand, she tried to say. Oh, Liand. But she could not force her throat to release words.

Tears moistened his gaze for a moment. “If you are able, you must speak. I would urge you to rest silent, but there is an illness within you which we know not how to tend. You must name what is needed to restore you.

“Is it hurtloam? Already the Manethralls have dispatched Cords for it, but the way is long, and they will not return soon. Will treasure-berries succour you? The Ramen have gathered them in plenty. And amanibhavam, if that is your need. Only speak-”

She shook her head, striving to interrupt him. She wanted to tell him that she was not as sick as she appeared; or that she was sick in another way. But the residue of the horserite filled her throat with ashes, and her mouth and tongue had forgotten the shapes of language.

As Liand pleaded with her, Char left the fire and hastened from the shelter. In the distance, she heard him announce, “The Ringthane wakes.”

Oh, God. Linden closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands. Give me courage.

Then Liand thrust an arm under her neck, lifted her into a half-sitting position. Carefully, almost reverently, Pahni offered a bowl of water to her lips. From the bowl came a delicate scent of aliantha.

Lowering her arms, Linden sipped at water mixed with the juice of treasure-berries. Succoured by that gentle touch of Earthpower, she found words.

“Liand.” Her voice was a thin croak, barely audible. “Just hold me. You’re already giving me”- she sipped more water- “what I need. Just hold me until I’m ready to stand.”

At once, he shifted himself behind her; braced her against his chest with his arms around her. Tentatively he protested, “Yet this fever, Linden-”

She shook her head. “I’ll be all right.” His attention to her weakness threatened her resolve. She could not afford to acknowledge that she might fail. She was too fragile” You’re my friend. That’s enough.”

Reaching for Pahni’s bowl again, she gulped down as much as she could swallow. Then she began climbing to her feet.

“No,” Liand objected. “Linden, it is too soon. You suffered sorely in the storm-and the horserite. You must rest. Perhaps on the morrow you will be ready for these exertions.”

Still she strove to stand. He was wrong about her: she was not physically ill. And she had slept long and warmly. She had been given treasure-berries. Her bodily weakness would pass when she began to move around.

He could have held her down, but he did not. Instead he relented; helped lift her to her feet. For a moment, she had difficulty finding her balance. Then, however, her unsteadiness receded, and she was able to stand.

But she could not stop shivering.

While she tried to reassure Liand with a smile, a small group of Ramen entered the shelter: Hami, Mahrtiir, and two or three Cords.

Stave accompanied them. As ever, she could not discern his emotional state. She saw only that he had regained his strength; and that the pain in his hip had declined.

The moisture in their hair and on their faces made her aware for the first time that the rain had not stopped. But it fell more gently now, no longer lashed by the blasts of the storm. And it had become warmer, more spring-like.

The malice which had harried her after the horserite had spent its force and faded from the clouds.

Apparently Esmer had accomplished his purpose-

Or he had seen that the Ranyhyn were too enduring to be daunted, and had decided to change his tactics.

Yet the rain continued steadily, soaking the Verge of Wandering until every step outside the shelters splashed water through the thick grass. From her place between her bed and the fire, Linden could not see the sky; but the hue of the air and the texture of the rainfall conveyed the impression that it might continue for days.

Facing her, the Ramen bowed deeply, as though she had earned their admiration. Stave did not join them, however. He remained behind his companions as if he had nothing to say to her.

Hami’s concern matched Liand’s; but Mahrtiir’s gaze caught gleams of eagerness from the firelight.

“Linden Avery,” Hami began gravely, “Ringthane and Chosen, we are pleased to see you so much recovered. You returned from the horserite in such straits that we feared for your life.” She scrutinised Linden narrowly, then added with a touch of asperity, “Yet you remain fevered. You must rest. Surely Liand has told you so. It is not well to expend yourself when you require sleep and healing.”

Linden felt Liand squirm. “She is the Chosen,” he said a bit defensively. “I have no Power over her.”

Again Linden shook her head, trying to stop Hami as she had interrupted Liand a few moments ago. “Don’t worry about me.” Her voice still croaked despite the soothing effects of aliantha, and her throat hurt as if she had howled for hours against the scourge of the storm. “I’m not as weak as I look.”

Before Hami could respond, she asked, “Where’s Esmer?”

The Manethrall frowned. “Ringthane, your need is plain, but it lies beyond our lore. We know not how you may be restored. That is our first concern. What is Esmer’s part in this?”

She and her companions wanted explanations which Linden did not know how to provide. Nevertheless she had to try.

“Would you get me some more aliantha?” she asked Liand: a husky whisper. “And a little amanibhavam? That’s really all I need.”

The Ramen had never shared a horserite. She did not know how to tell them that the potent waters of the tarn had preserved her from malevolence which might otherwise have slain her.

Liand hesitated for a moment: he may have looked to Hami for advice. But the Manethrall did not react, and after a moment, he referred Linden’s request to Pahni and Bhapa. Clearly he meant to stay at her side; to catch her if her endurance failed.

She wanted to thank him, and the Cords as well, but that could wait. Instead she faced Hami.

“That storm,” she said as firmly as she could. “It wasn’t natural. It had malice in it.”

Still frowning, Hami nodded. “Yet the desire for harm has passed. Only the rain remains.”

Beside the point. Linden persisted. “Has Esmer come back?”

Hami made a sound of vexation. Apparently she distrusted Linden’s insistence on Esmer. Yet she replied, “He returned while you slept. I will summon him, if you wish it.”

Linden shook her head. “When he came back,” she said through waves of fever, “the malice stopped. The desire for harm.”

Mahrtiir had told her, He wields a storm among the mountains.

Hami’s eyes widened. “And you conceive that the malice is his? That he raised ill against you in the storm?”

The idea visibly disturbed the Cords. Mahrtiir muttered a denial through his teeth.

Too fearful to say more, Linden clutched her frangible balance and waited for Hami’s response.

“Ringthane,” the Manethrall sighed, “you judge him harshly. That you have cause to do so is beyond question. In this, however, your mistrust misleads you.

“Throughout his absence from us, we kept watch over him. Ramen witnessed closely the nature of his distress-and of his power. It was not directed against you. Of this we are certain.”

Hami’s gaze urged Linden to give Esmer the benefit of the doubt. His acceptance by the Ranyhyn compelled the loyalty of the Ramen.

Abruptly Stave spoke. “Yet that which he invoked is evil.” His tone left no room for contradiction. “I have felt it. Even now it stalks the Verge of Wandering.

“The Ramen also have felt it,” he told Hami. “Why otherwise do you prepare to depart?”

Depart-? For the first time, Linden met the Master’s gaze. The Ramen were leaving?

She and Stave had returned from the horserite through a scourge of malevolence. Who had inspired the ferocity of those winds, if not Esmer?

“Chosen,” Stave informed her, “Esmer has summoned a darkness more dire than any storm. The Ramen must flee before it.”

With a snarl of anger, Hami rounded on him. “Have you no heart, Bloodguard? You know the severity of that which lies before her. Why then do you seek to hasten her away from rest?”

Involuntarily Linden sagged against Liand. Summoned-? Esmer, what have you done?

At once, Hami turned back to her. “It is for your sake.” The woman’s tone pleaded on Esmer’s behalf. “He seeks to aid you.”

“He has done well,” Mahrtiir put in harshly. “She has named her purpose. He serves her as the Ramen cannot. Nor could the sleepless ones perform what he has accomplished.”

Stave’s voice cut through the responses of the Manethralls. “Assuredly rest would speed the Chosen’s healing.” He sounded unexpectedly vehement. “Where may she do so? Here? In the path of ruin? She cannot. To think otherwise is folly. If she will not flee, as the Ramen must, then she can only confront her peril. There is no rest for her.”

Hami replied with a growl of exasperation. “Have care, Bloodguard. You demean us, and we will not suffer it.

“We intend that the Ringthane should rest until we have determined the course of this evil. Then we will bear her to safety. Already we have readied a litter so that she may continue to rest among us as we withdraw.”

Linden did not look at Hami or Stave. The hostility between them pained her. It seemed to imply that she could not trust either of them. And the Land needed all of its friends. Jeremiah needed them.

Turning away from them, she studied the Stonedownor’s troubled mien. “Liand,” she murmured, “what did Esmer do?”

He gave her a stricken glance, then ducked his head. “I know not. I have not left your side. No one has spoken to me. I did not know that the Ramen mean to depart.”

For a moment, everyone around her remained silent, reluctant to answer her aloud; to put her peril into words. On either side of her, Bhapa and Pahni stood motionless, stopped in the act of offering her amanibhavam and treasure-berries.

Then Mahrtiir said like a hawk, “Chosen, it is your intent to enter a Fall. Esmer has enabled you to do so. He has called Fangthane’s malign creation to the Verge of Wandering.”

When Linden understood what he was saying, her heart lifted as if she had heard trumpets.

Esmer had summoned a caesure.

The news did nothing to ease her complex dread, relieve her emotional fever. If anything, it made her fears more immediate, brought her chosen crisis nearer. Chills and urgency shook her until she felt almost dismembered. Nevertheless Mahrtiir’s announcement seemed to tap a wellspring of purpose deep within her. Days of cruel frustration fell away as if she had cut the bindings of a millstone. At last she would be able to take action; to stop following other people’s decisions from emergency to emergency.

And she would not have to spend days or weeks on horseback, wandering the Land in search of a caesure, while Lord Foul multiplied obstacles against her. She could dare her doom now.

She should have been terrified. She was terrified. But she was also sure. The fever which threatened to paralyze her could only be annealed in fire.

At this moment, just one question remained to undermine her certainty. Her cheeks were flushed like a promise of flames as she confronted Stave past the staring Manethralls and Cords.

“Yes, it’s dire,” she admitted. “I know that.” Still she could not speak above a hoarse whisper. Nevertheless her voice was full of implied conflagration. “But I’m going to do it. I think it’s worth the risk.

“Will you come with me?”

She expected that he would refuse. He had already proclaimed his determination to ride away so that he could warn the Masters. And the horserite may have convinced him to oppose her directly. Why else had he postponed his departure? Yet last night he had gazed at her with an unwonted softness, as though he had been touched in spite of his intransigence-

He faced her flatly: she could not read him. She had never been able to see into the hearts of his people. If he decided to attack her on the spot, she would receive no warning of any kind.

Nevertheless she studied him with fever in her eyes, and waited for him to declare himself.

For a few heartbeats, Stave appeared to consider his options. Then he replied, “The wishes of the Ranyhyn have been made plain to me. If I do not accompany you, Hynyn will withdraw his acceptance.”

Stiffly the Haruchai shrugged. “And the horserite has given me cause to remain at your side for a time.”

Stung by relief, Linden’s eyes misted and ran. She could not clear her sight until her hands found Pahni’s bowl of aliantha; until the taste of treasure-berries filled her mouth and throat with healing.

Already she owed the Ranyhyn a debt too great to be repaid.

While Linden ate aliantha lightly-very lightly-sprinkled with crushed amanibhavam, most of the Ramen left the shelter to continue their preparations for departure. They did not expect Esmer’s caesure to leave any part of their encampment undamaged.

Before he went, Mahrtiir explained tersely that he had selected Bhapa and Pahni to accompany him, rather than any of his own Cords, because of their kinship with Sahah. Then he led them away to gather supplies for an extended journey into the unknown hazards of time.

Char was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he had been dispatched on an errand of some kind. Of her people, only Hami stayed with Linden. At once solicitous and alarmed, the Manethrall fretted over Linden’s condition as Linden stoked her courage with treasure-berries enhanced by the dangerous roborant of amanibhavam.

Her shivering eased somewhat as she absorbed the sustenance of the Land, but she remained perilously labile; close to terror.

When the Ramen had dispersed, Stave approached her. In spite of his native stoicism, he walked with a pronounced limp. Hours on horseback had inflamed his injury. Yet he proposed to ride again soon, as long and as far as she required.

At least “for a time.” Whatever that meant.

As if Liand were not present, the Master announced, “The Stonedownor must remain here. His mount cannot accompany the Ranyhyn. If he attempts the Fall, he will be lost.”

Liand might have retorted hotly; but Linden stopped him by touching his chest with her palm. “Anele has the same problem,” she answered, trembling. “But I need him. And I need Liand. We’ll have to figure something out.”

The young man gave her a look of gratitude; but she kept her attention on Stave. “The Ramen don’t ride. How will they stay with us?”

Stave did not look away. “Their bond with the Ranyhyn cannot be severed. Where the Ranyhyn lead, they will be able to follow. The Stonedownor has no such bond.”

Linden sighed. “Then he can ride with you. I’ll take Anele with me.”

The Haruchai raised an eyebrow. But he did not object.

When she glanced at Liand, she saw him grinning as though she had given him a gift.

Before he could speak, she muttered, “Don’t you dare thank me. I’m not doing you any favours.” Her voice shook with fear for him. “If this doesn’t kill us, we could end up in places worse than your worst nightmares. If I didn’t need your help so badly, I wouldn’t risk any of you.”

Except Anele, who could hardly suffer more than he already did.

Liand went on grinning; but he took her seriously enough to remain silent. Sighing again, she told him, “We’re going to need your supplies. You’d better get them. Bring as much as you can carry.”

The Ramen might provide everything necessary; but she wanted an excuse to send the Stonedownor away. If she could, she meant to spare him the confrontation that awaited her.

“Yes, certainly,” Liand said without hesitation. At once, he hurried away as if he were eager to risk not only his life but his sanity in her name.

Within herself, Linden sagged. Devoutly she prayed that the young man would not have cause to regret his loyalty. However, a more immediate concern demanded her attention. She did not know how near the caesure had come. She might not have much time left.

To Stave, she said abruptly, “Before we do this, I’ve got to talk to Esmer. Will you go with me?” The senses of the Haruchai were more discerning than hers: no doubt Stave knew exactly where to find Cail’s son. “I understand if you prefer to keep your distance. But I could use your company.”

This time, Stave raised both eyebrows. “If you wish it.” He may have felt surprise, but his tone held no hint of alarm. “He stands at the edge of the encampment. The way is not far.”

Gratefully she took his arm. Clinging to the tacit validation of his support, she stepped out into the ceaseless rain.

The mild, steady drizzle drenched her hair; washed the heat of fire and fever from her cheeks. It was indeed much warmer than it had been the previous day. Nevertheless it was cool enough to leach away the residual warmth of the shelter. Her chills seemed to worsen with every step as Stave took her among the busy Ramen past the open centre of the encampment.

Her fear had soaked into the marrow of her bones. She had not forgotten Covenant’s words in Anele’s mouth. You need the ring. But be careful with it. It feeds the caesures. But he had died long ago; and now she did not intend to regard his warning.

He had also said, I can’t help you unless you find me. She did not know how to do so, except by daring the Land’s past.

Esmer had prepared the way, apparently seeking to aid her. Before she went farther, accepted his help, she needed to know how much she could trust him.

Limping, Stave escorted her northward. In that direction, veiled by the rain and the teeming clouds, the Verge of Wandering narrowed gradually toward the Land. There Cail’s son stood alone with his back to the last shelters, ignoring the swift preparations of the Ramen.

If he sensed Linden’s approach, or Stave’s, he gave no sign. Instead he concentrated through the grey drizzle as if he sought to draw the caesure toward him by force of will.

At her first blurred glimpse of him, Linden’s guts knotted, disturbed by the nausea which had troubled her during their previous encounters. He stood like a cynosure against the shrouded background of the rain, bright with the queasy squirming of power. As soon as she saw him, she wondered how she had failed to discern him earlier. His vast capabilities, like his inbred conflicts, seemed as unmistakable as wailing.

In his presence, something within her turned numb. She was no longer sure how to question him.

Yet Stave did not hesitate, although he had more cause for apprehension. And when they were within three or four steps, Esmer turned to regard them with eyes the colour of storm-wracked seas.

Danger seethed in him. For reasons of his own, he attempted a diffident, unconvincing smile. “You are well come, Wildwielder.” His tone was full of obscure fears. They gnawed at each other like old bones. “The Fall is a few hundred paces distant, no more. Soon it will become manifest to your senses.”

He conveyed the impression that he thought she might take offense at his efforts on her behalf.

Deliberately Linden released Stave’s arm so that he could move freely if Esmer attacked. Then she advanced to stand between Cail’s son and the Master.

The Ramen were certain that Esmer had not sent malice against her after the horserite.

Fighting chills, she demanded without preamble, “What’s going on here, Esmer?” The caesure was too near for politeness. “First you practically kill Stave. Then you offer to answer my questions, but you don’t say much. You make it clear that you want to be my friend and my enemy at the same time. And now you’re helping me?

“Do you expect me to believe that this time you aren’t going to hurt anybody?”

Through the wet fabric of her shirt, she clutched Covenant’s ring for courage; but the cold metal gave her no comfort. It felt inert, numb; unreachable.

“For all I know,” she finished, “this is some crazy attempt to help Lord Foul destroy the Land.”

Esmer frowned. Abruptly his manner became acerbic, self-punishing. “Yet you must trust me. I have served you well. And I have brought ruin upon this encampment. When the Ramen return to the Verge of Wandering, they will find wreckage rather than sanctuary. Thus is my nature satisfied. I have harmed those who have given me naught but friendship. If you do not trust me, you will render their losses valueless.”

Linden stared at him. His rapid changes disconcerted her. And she did not know what to make of his assertion. Had he consciously hurt the Ramen to aid her?

At last, she referred her doubt to the Haruchai. “Stave?”

“The Fall approaches,” he stated. “I will not trust this Esmer. I do not lightly accept his aid. Yet he has summoned a Fall like any other. It will meet your purpose, if you are able to master its evil. In this he speaks sooth.”

Harshly Linden asked Esmer, “Is that true? Did you summon a Fall? Or did you create it?”

Did his power resemble wild magic?

“I have no lore to cause such rifts.” His eyes were full of advancing squalls. “When we spoke, I discerned your purpose. Therefore I withdrew among the mountains, that my labours would occasion no other harm. In your name, Wildwielder, I have unleashed fierce theurgies, seeking first to discover the location and course of an apt caesure, and then to compel it hither. Thus I hope to counter the loss which the Ramen will suffer.”

Through her nausea and chills, Linden heard violence and remorse, but no falsehood. Gail’s son might commit atrocities without number, but he would not lie.

For an instant or two, his struggles filled her with empathy. “You’re tearing yourself apart,” she told him more gently. “Do you know that? You should pick a side.”

“I do so constantly.” Now his voice sounded as damp as the rain, drenched in sorrow. “That is my doom.”

His desire to serve her was so poignant that she could feel its ache in him. Apparently Gail’s legacy outweighed the fatal hunger of the merewives, at least for the moment. And he had already called a caesure for her. Perhaps in his present phase he would do more-

“All right.” Linden made a conscious attempt to catch him before his mood shifted again. “Since you seem to be on my side at the moment, tell me about your connection to Kastenessen.”

Why had he sought to prevent Anele from speaking of the Appointed?

At once, Esmer resumed his diffidence. “He is my grandsire. I serve him utterly. As I also serve you.”

In bafflement, she protested, “Damn it, Esmer. You aren’t making sense. Do you mean that Kastenessen and I are on the same side?”

It was possible. Kastenessen had defied the Elohim and his own nature for the love of a mortal woman. He and Linden might have more in common than she had imagined. If he had indeed broken free of his prison, he might be willing to take risks as extravagant as hers for the sake of his lover.

But he was Elohim; and the Elohim whom she had known had not seemed capable of any emotion that she would have recognised as love.

Esmer sighed. Quietly, humbly, he said like the water on his face, “The Elohim speak of Weird as the ur-viles do of Weird. There is also the Worm of the World’s End. It is my doom. I have no other answer.”

The damp soaked into Linden’s bones, aggravating her fever. Chills tugged at her concentration. “All right,” she said again. “All right. I don’t understand, but right now that doesn’t matter.

“Come with me.” Guide me. “Do some good with all that power. If you really want to help me, help me now.”

The sheer intensity of his uneasy puissance made her stomach clench whenever she studied him directly.

In response, Esmer turned his head away. “I must not. In my presence, you will surely fail “

She should have known what he meant. Perhaps if she had been less ill, she would have been able to think more clearly. But her fever continued to pull her away from herself. She could no longer look at Esmer. Instead she searched the grey vista of the rain in the direction of the Land as if her fate were written there, spelled out in falling droplets and cold.

“Chosen,” Stave said at her back, “this gains nothing. He conceals his enmity in confusion, yet it remains enmity nonetheless. It is folly to heed him.”

“Then call the Ranyhyn,” she told the Master faintly. “Let’s do this.”

He complied at once, raising a shrill whistle that sounded strangely forlorn in the drizzle; devoid of resonance or echoes. Unregarded by either Linden or Esmer, he whistled again, and yet again.

When the rain had washed his call from the air, she sensed movement behind her. Ramen approached from the encampment, a throng of them. They had come to say goodbye-

Moments later, a heavy woollen cloak dropped onto her shoulders. Its hood covered her head. The sudden weight surprised her until she felt Liand beside her.

“Linden,” he said severely, “this is madness. You are ill, yet you stand unprotected in the rain. Already your ailment worsens. Are you a child, that you must be warded at every step?”

Before she could reply, Stave commanded, “Attend, Chosen.”

With an effort, Linden withdrew her gaze from the shrouded north, turned her head-and found herself confronted by ur-viles. Somehow they had concealed themselves from her senses; or she was shivering too hard to notice them.

Esmer’s manner had shifted again. Scornfully he pronounced, “They watch against me, as I have said. You did not discern them. Their lore enables them to veil their presence.”

They must have been nearby for some time. Esmer had been aware of them-and had not considered them worthy of comment.

Trembling more violently, Linden leaned on Liand. Now beyond the ur-viles she could see the approaching Ramen, Hami and Mahrtiir first among them. As the Manethralls and Cords came near, the ur-viles moved to form a wedge; concentrate their power.

Its tip pointed, not at Gail’s son, but at Linden.

The leading Ramen quickened their strides. Soon Hami and Mahrtiir stood in front of Linden, with Pahni and Bhapa at their shoulders. Deliberately they interposed themselves between Linden and the Demondim-spawn.

Behind them, Char guided Anele forward. The young Cord looked vaguely crestfallen, as if his pride had suffered a blow. He may have considered himself old enough, experienced enough, to accompany Linden and Mahrtiir in Sahah’s name. If so, he had been refused.

Anele shuffled toward Linden as though he had no say in his own movements. He appeared bedraggled and bewildered, his tattered raiment drenched, as if he had spent days wandering aimlessly about the vale. In spite of his blindness, however, he conveyed the impression that he was aware of her.

The thought that he might have been possessed in her absence disturbed her. With the last of her lucidity, she turned to Char. “Is he all right?” she asked. “Did anything happen to him while I was away?”

The Cord bowed uncomfortably, as if he feared that he had committed some affront. “He has been as he is, Ringthane. Since your departure, he has betrayed little cognisance of us, though he permitted us to tend his needs. He appeared to await your return.”

Again Char bowed. When Linden said nothing, he backed away from her until she lost sight of him among the gathered Ramen.

At the focus of the wedge, the largest of the ur-viles, the loremaster, abruptly began to bark: an insistent guttural gush of sound fretted with peril. Anele cocked his head in a listening attitude, but did not react in any other way. Esmer gazed up into the rain as if he did not deign to hear the loremaster. Yet when the flow of barking stopped, he responded in kind, still letting raindrops splash into his eyes.

The loremaster answered, and Esmer replied: they seemed to argue with each other. The sound of their voices scraped along Linden’s nerves, accentuating her chills until her skin itched and her ears ached.

Mahrtiir held his garrote in both hands, ready for use. Anticipation glinted in his eyes. But he did not speak. Like the rest of the Ramen, he deferred to Hami where Linden was concerned.

Hami ignored the ur-viles and Esmer. “Ringthane,” she said, “we have come to bid you farewell. You must depart soon, as must the Ramen. Ere then, however-”

The woman hesitated, then said intently, “Linden Avery, I will not challenge your choices. The Land’s needs rest heavily upon you-and more so upon you than any other, though all are affected. Both your worth and your risk surpass my estimation.

“Yet it must be said-if the saying of it will not offend you-that your purpose appears unwise. You are ill, and worsening. If you hope to master a Fall, will you not require health and strength?

“You have said that the Ranyhyn fear you. Is this not the cause? That your resolve imperils the Land?”

Linden heard Hami’s words, but she could not attend to them. The clashing speech of the ur-viles confused her. If she listened to their harsh language much longer, she would start to howl.

Unaware of her own motions, she raised her hands to cover her ears. “Tell them to stop,” she urged the Manethrall. “I can’t stand this.”

“You would do well to suffer it,” Esmer retorted immediately. “I serve you still, though you disdain my efforts.”

The loremaster fell silent, clamping shut the thin slit of its mouth until the muscles of its jaw bulged with urgency.

Linden sagged against Liand as if a bubble of distress had burst, releasing her to fever.

“Explain,” Stave demanded of Esmer in her stead.

Cail’s son faced the Haruchai with green threats seething in his eyes. “The ur-viles distrusted her purpose as it appeared to them. They demanded explanation. I have informed them that she will dare the past, seeking the Staff of Law with only a madman’s memory to guide her. Now they have determined to aid her.

“They will accompany her. With their lore, they will pierce the madman’s confusion, sharing that which they descry with the Ranyhyn. Thus she may hope to be guided accurately.”

None of this made sense to Linden: she was too far gone in tremors. Instead of listening, trying to understand, she lifted her face to the rain, as Esmer had done.

Through the spatter on her face, she found that she could hear the distant mutter of hooves. While Stave confronted Esmer, and the Ramen waited in suspense, she wondered vaguely how Hyn and Hynyn alone made so much noise on the sodden grass.

“And this you name service,” Stave countered. “Do you also call it sooth?” Esmer could have killed him where he stood, but he did not falter. “Speak truly, scion of Elohim. I have heard the contention in your words, and theirs. What have you urged of them that they refuse to countenance?”

Another swift change overtook Esmer. He seemed to shrink before Stave, almost cringing. “The ur-viles mean to accompany her, yet they insist that she will fail. Her purpose will serve their former master, whom they have betrayed. I have averred that she is the Wildwielder and must endure the outcome of her choices, but they do not relent.”

More firmly, he added, “Also they do not trust me. That is our dispute.”

Then he turned to Linden; and the pressure of his regard-the sense of troubled seas mounting toward storms-pulled her attention away from the advancing rumble. Involuntarily she looked into the depths of his eyes as if she were capable of comprehending him.

The scale of his distress made her want to vomit.

Diffident again, he said like raindrops, “Wildwielder, they will oppose you if you do not permit them to heal you.”

“Heal”-?” Liand asked. “Are they able to do so? Does their lore encompass her affliction?”

To Linden, Esmer’s words were indistinguishable from the sound of hooves. It seemed impossible that Hyn and Hynyn could be so loud. But Jeremiah was the Despiser’s prisoner. As soon as the Ranyhyn arrived, she meant to ride straight down the throat of the Fall, and to hell with anyone or anything that stood in her way.

Esmer did not reply. Instead he stepped aside, barking dismissively to the ur-viles.

As if in answer, the wedge nudged its way forward, gently urging the Ramen aside until the loremaster stood directly in front of Linden.

The black creature was little more than an arm’s length from her. The wide nostrils in the centre of its eyeless face gaped for her scent wetly.

Liand quickly shifted to Linden’s side; held her with his left arm so that his right was free to defend her. At the same time, Mahrtiir gave his fighting cord a snap and stepped closer. Bhapa and Pahni poised themselves to spring.

Stave now stood at Linden’s shoulder opposite Liand, although she had not seen him move.

Somewhere behind them, Esmer laughed like a crash of surf.

“Ringthane,” Manethrall Hami said urgently. “The Ramen know no ill of these ur-viles. Their service to the Render is many centuries past, and has not been renewed. Yet in your name we will oppose them, if that is your wish. Only speak so that we may know your desire.

“If you are too ill to answer,” she warned Linden, “then I must believe that you require their healing.”

Something was expected of her: Linden knew that. It plucked at her wordlessly. Liand and Stave, the Ramen, Esmer, the ur-viles: they all wanted something. Anele asked her for nothing because he could not. Nevertheless his madness made its own demands. Only the Ranyhyn were simply content to aid her. They had given her their warning in the horserite. Now they would keep their promises.

Unaware of what she did, she watched the encampment for Hyn and Hynyn. When they appeared, her heart lifted as it had when Mahrtiir had informed her of Esmer’s caesure. The stars on their foreheads shone in spite of the gloom and moisture. No mere rainfall could dampen their glory.

And they were not alone. Other Ranyhyn, three, four, five of them, followed Hyn and Hynyn galloping between the shelters toward Linden and her companions.

Seven Ranyhyn. Stave and herself. Anele and Liand. Mahrtiir, Bhapa, and Pahni. Of their own accord, the great horses offered all the help for which Linden could have asked.

No Raman had ever ridden a Ranyhyn; but she did not wish Mahrtiir and his Cords to refuse. The time had come to redefine old commitments.

Fever and sudden joy surged through her. As her heart rose, she raised her arms and her voice as well; shouted in celebration as well as welcome, “Yes!”

She did not see the loremaster produce a knife with a curved and burning blade as if the creature had created the weapon within its black flesh. Nor did she hear the ur-viles growling together as though in invocation. Power swelled through the wedge as the loremaster sliced open its palm, then cupped its fingers to catch the viscid welling of its ebony blood; but she took no notice of it.

She did not realise that the ur-viles had interpreted her cry as permission until the loremaster snatched at her arm, pulling her hand toward it.

In the brief shock before she remembered fear, Linden saw the blade glow like molten metal over her palm: ruddy and lambent; potent as ichor. Then, while she tried to snatch back her hand, the loremaster drew a line of red pain across the base of her thumb. At once, the creature upended its palm over hers; clasped its fingers around hers so their cuts and their blood met and mingled.

Liand struck at the ur-vile’s wrist, but could not break its grip: the loremaster held the power of the whole wedge. At the same time, Mahrtiir flung his garrote around the loremaster’s neck. Instantly a flash of vitriol and flame incinerated the cord.

Alone among Linden’s immediate companions, Stave made no attempt to defend her. He may have believed that the ur-viles could prevent her from entering the caesure.

Her call of welcome to the Ranyhyn became a wail-

– which died in her throat as strength like a charge of coursers pounded from her hand up her arm into the centre of her heart. Between one throb of her pulse and the next, she was exalted; translated from pain and fever and terror into a realm of illimitable possibilities; suffused with cascading health and vitality and life as though she had become Earthpower.

In that instant, she seemed suddenly equal to her fate.

The surge of transcendence vanished almost at once. Yet its brevity was essential. If it had endured too long, she might have torn herself apart in sheer ecstasy. Instead the rush of power left her shaken, simultaneously drained and galvanised, and shivering as if she were still feverish. But she was not ill now. Oh, she was not. Instead she felt reborn, made new, positively redeemed: as fresh with potential as a sunrise.

She could not speak. Waves of renewal rolled through her, tumbling her into a confusion of tears and gratitude and yearning. Somewhere beyond her, Liand pleaded for her attention, although his health-sense must have told him that she was well. In the background, Stave and the Ramen welcomed the Ranyhyn, while Esmer exchanged imprecations or promises with the ur-viles. But she did not return to herself until she felt a hand plucking at her cloak and blinked her eyes clear to find Anele in front of her.

Thomas Covenant’s love shone from him, as it had once before. Standing ankle-deep in the sodden grass, he said to her in Covenant’s familiar voice-but softly, softly, so that only she would hear him- “Go now, beloved. While you can. Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.”

Beware the halfhand.

She stared at the old man, too surprised-and too entirely transformed-to react. Some part of her tried to cry out, but her heart had no words-

Then the light of possession disappeared from Anele’s mien, snatched away by the sudden interruption of the loremaster. Before Linden could protest, the ur-vile reached out with its molten blade and flicked a small gouge in the thin flesh of Anele’s forearm. Snuffling damply, the creature put its mouth to the wound and sucked.

With their lore, they will pierce the madman’s confusion-

Anele suffered the loremaster’s actions without protest or struggle: he seemed unaware of them. Covenant’s brief presence must have reassured him. Mere days ago he had yelled in distress, Creatures make Anele remember!

Had the ur-viles themselves searched for the Staff of Law? For what purpose?

Until the loremaster finished with the old man and stepped back, Linden did not notice that the Ranyhyn had grown restive.

They had arrived together as she had imagined them entering the dell for Elena’s horserite; but now they separated, stamping their hooves and tossing their manes among the Ramen. Hyn came purposefully toward Linden: Hynyn approached Stave. The others ranged themselves before Anele and Liand, Mahrtiir and his Cords.

The three Ramen stared, stricken dumb, as star-browed horses urged them to mount.

As one, the throng drew back. Voices rose through the rain: whispers of astonishment; low cries of expostulation. Hami’s eyes went wide and white as if her ready pride had become chagrin.

Responding to their people as well as to the Ranyhyn, Mahrtiir, Pahni, and Bhapa immediately prostrated themselves like supplicants in the sodden grass. They may have feared that what happened now would undermine the foundations of everything the Ramen had ever done; that the meaning of their lives might crack and fall.

No Raman had ever ridden a Ranyhyn-but nor had any Raman refused the will of the great horses.

Through the confusion of voices, the Ranyhyn made blowing noises that sounded like affectionate jeers as they lowered their heads to nudge at the three prone Ramen.

Linden watched Mahrtiir, Bhapa, and Pahni in suspense, afraid that none of them would move; that the caesure would overtake her before the Ramen could redefine themselves. But then the Manethrall shook himself as if he were gathering his courage and climbed unsteadily to his feet. His voice shook like Linden’s as he announced, “The will of Ranyhyn is plain. We cannot serve the Ringthane-or the Land-if we do not ride.”

The horses replied with a resounding whinny of approval.

“No Raman has ever done so,” objected Hami thinly.

“No Ranyhyn,” Mahrtiir answered, gaining strength, “has ever offered to bear a Raman “

Still Bhapa and Pahni remained prostrate. Like their people, they were caught in a contradiction that they could not resolve. Softly in the background, Esmer exchanged a harsh commentary with the ur-viles.

“Then let it be so,” said a new voice; and Linden saw that Manethrall Dohn had moved to the forefront of crowd. His years and his scars gave him an air of authority. He did not speak loudly, but his words seemed to carry through the rain into the future. “Too long have the Ranyhyn and their Ramen been exiled from the Plains of Ra. Once in this place we determined that we would never again allow Fangthane to ravage the Ranyhyn. We have held to that promise. Yet now my heart misgives me. I fear that we have entered the last days of the Land. If we do not accept this opportunity to strike against the Render, we will be forever homeless.”

For a moment longer, no one moved. Then Mahrtiir reached down abruptly, grabbed Pahni and Bhapa by the backs of their jerkins, and tugged them erect. “Up, Cords,” he growled with hectic eagerness. “Are we craven, that we fear to give our lives a new meaning?”

Under her breath, Linden muttered, “Thank God.” Go now, beloved. While you can. She did not know how much longer she could contain the pressure building within her.

As if Mahrtiir had broken a trance, all of the Ramen seemed to slough off their wonder and dismay. They looked around them; studied the sky; peered anxiously into the north. Singly and in groups, they turned back toward the encampment. Soon only Hami remained with Linden and her companions.

“Ringthane, we must depart,” said the Manethrall. Now that a decision had been reached, she seemed resigned to its implications. “We cannot withstand this Fall.”

Linden turned toward the woman. “Then go, Hami. Take care of yourselves. Protect the Ranyhyn. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done.

“I’ll come back if I can,” she told the concern in Hami’s eyes. “If I can’t, look for me in the Land. You’ll always be needed.”

Hami’s gaze clouded; and her throat worked as if she wished to say more. Instead, however, she bowed deeply, mutely, in the fashion of her people. After that, she wheeled and trotted away after the other Ramen.

Before he left, Char spoke privately to Mahrtiir. Linden winced, thinking that Mahrtiir might rebuff the young Cord in some hurtful way. But then she saw Char offer his garrote to the Manethrall-and noticed as well that Mahrtiir’s hands had been scorched in his attempt to throttle the loremaster.

Mahrtiir accepted Char’s cord with taut grace. Although his fingers hurt, he rumpled Char’s hair: a quick gesture of affection. Then the Cord ran after the rest of the Ramen, and Mahrtiir turned to Bhapa and Pahni, and to the champing Ranyhyn. Satisfied and urgent, Linden faced Liand at last.

“Linden,” he began like a man in shock, “I-”

She stopped him gently. “Liand, thank you. For everything.” She felt almost frantic to be on her way. Nevertheless she took the time to add, “I’m lucky I met you. If you decide you want to go with the Ramen, I’11 still consider myself lucky.”

Her words seemed to pluck away his apprehensions. “Are you mad?” he replied with a sudden grin. “Can you believe that I will let pass an occasion to cross time upon the back of a Ranyhyn? I have been too long a mere Stonedownor. Here I will become more than I was.” He laughed. “I mean to teach Stave and the Masters the error of their mastery.”

Linden nodded. What else could she do? She had already tried to dissuade him too often.

Hurrying now, she strode toward Hyn, calling over her shoulder, “Mahrtiir, it’s time! We need to go.”

Her senses had caught their first taste of the caesure. If it did not slacken its advance or drift aside, it would soon be visible to ordinary sight.

Mahrtiir came promptly to help her mount while Bhapa and Pahni guided Anele to the smallest of the Ranyhyn, a muscular pinto with flaring eyes and shaggy hocks whom they called Hrama. Linden worried that Anele might be afraid to ride; but some visceral interaction between Hrama’s vitality and his own Earthpower seemed to calm him, and he did not protest as the Cords boosted him onto Hrama’s back.

By the time Hyn had turned toward the north, Stave and Mahrtiir were mounted as well. The Manethrall looked exultant, elevated beyond himself, and crowded with anticipation. Stolidly Stave brought Hynyn to Hyn’s side as Bhapa helped Liand vault onto a palomino stallion named Rhohm. Mahrtiir joined Linden opposite the Haruchai. Then Pahni and Bhapa sprang onto their own Ranyhyn, following behind Liand and Anele to ensure that no one fell back or was lost.

At the same time, the ur-viles changed their formation. Running on all fours, they scattered around the riders to form a black ring with their loremaster in the lead. As they did so, they chanted together like a chorus of dogs.

Once in position, the loremaster exchanged its ruddy blade for a pointed iron rod like a sceptre or javelin; and from the metal, dark force flowed around the riders, enclosing them with vitriol.

Esmer had disappeared. Linden scanned the rain quickly, but felt no hint of him. Apparently he had simply folded his power around himself and winked away.

She remained where she was, staring into the gloom. After the brief respite of Esmer’s absence, her stomach felt a renewed nausea as the swirling wrongness of the caesure approached. Peering through the raindrops, she began to discern the visible outlines of the Fall.

The caesure she had seen from Kevin’s Watch had resembled the aura of a migraine: a sickening phosphene dance which seemed to cast every individual mote of reality into chaos. Without her health-sense, she might have believed that the swirl took place among the neurons of her brain rather than within the fabric of existence. But this Fall looked worse; stronger. Multiplied, perhaps, by the pressure of Esmer’s summons, it formed a howl of distortion and madness against the grey backdrop of the rain.

The sight reminded her of damnation. Abandon hope-

Although she was soaked, the caesure’s ill covered her skin with formication, as if fire ants crawled through her clothes.

“Chosen?” Stave asked, questioning her hesitation-or her resolve.

“Oh, hell.” Frightened now on a scale that surpassed prolonged frustration and metaphysical chills, Linden reached into the front of her shirt; drew out Covenant’s ring. Closing the cold circle in her fist, she muttered, “Let’s do it.”

If Joan were indeed the cause of the caesures, then entering one might resemble being plunged into her madness. But Linden had already survived Joan’s torment once-

Joan was stronger now. In the Land, white gold inherited its true power; and her despair fed on itself, swelling ceaselessly. But Linden had grown as well. She was strengthened by the support of her friends as by the healing of the ur-viles. She also held a white ring. And when gunfire had first stripped her of her former life, she had not known that the Despiser would claim her son.

The loremaster heard her and understood. It began to pace forward through the water-heavy grass, holding high its sceptre. Grimly Linden touched Hyn’s flanks with her heels. The Ranyhyn quivered under her, but did not falter.

Then all of the riders were in motion, trotting ahead within the ur-viles’ protective theurgy.

The chanting of the creatures rose. Gradually the Ranyhyn quickened their pace to match the rhythm of the invocation.

Rain splashed past Linden’s hood into her eyes. Now the caesure resembled a vast swarm of hornets. Its power shocked her senses: it seemed to swallow the north in its frenzy. She no longer wondered why Kevin’s Watch had fallen. The wonder was that any aspect of the living world could endure the caesure’s evil.

Anele had done so. His inborn Earthpower had preserved him then. It would again. But the rest of the company would have to rely on the Demondim-spawn- and on Linden’s uncertain ability to use wild magic.

With Stave and Mahrtiir beside her, she gripped Covenant’s ring and followed the ur-viles at a canter into the turmoil of the Fall. At the last instant, she may have shouted Jeremiah’s name. If so, she did not hear herself. The firestorm assault of the caesure had already stricken her deaf and dumb and blind.

Chapter five: Against Time

In an instant, formication became the world. It filled Linden’s senses as though biting ants had burrowed into her flesh, chewing their way deeper and deeper toward the essential fibres-the thews of will and purpose, experience and memory-which bound her identity into a coherent whole. She felt that she was being torn from herself strand by strand; ripped to agony.

She would not have believed that she could endure such pain and remain conscious of it. Surely the human mind could call upon blankness or insanity to defend it? How else had Jeremiah kept himself alive; able to be loved? How else had Anele borne the cost of his bereavements?

Nevertheless she had no means to protect herself. No aspect of her being remained intact to ward her against the meticulous excruciation of the caesure. She had entered a demesne of flux, inchoate and chaotic; altogether devoid of Time’s necessary sequences. Life could not exist outside the stricture of chronology. She remained alive only because she occupied no consecutive moments during which she could have ceased to be.

Instead of dying, she was caught in an eternity of incineration as though she had been struck by a bolt of lightning which would never end.

And yet-

Formication, devouring, was only one of the caesure’s avatars. It had others. Her entire being had become a timeless shriek. Simultaneously, however, she stood alone in a realm of utter white and cold.

It had no features and no dimensions in any direction. It was simply gelid white multiplied to infinity, faceless as snow, demeaning as ice: vast and desolate, entirely uninhabitable: a heatless interstice between the possible moments of existence. The cold was an infinite fire. It would have peeled the skin from her bones if this moment could have modulated forward in time. But here there was no time, no movement, no possible modulation.

Only her solitary presence in that place defined it.

There her loneliness was complete. It seemed less bearable than pain. She could have wailed forever and gone unheard.

Nevertheless some form of movement was permitted to her. She could turn her head. Take steps as though she stood on solid ground. Gasp as freezing bit into her lungs. She could feel the cold stab like a krill through the bullet-hole in her shirt. Surely that implied a state of being in which one thing led to another? A condition in which her pain might be heeded?

But she saw only bitter white, and her steps took her nowhere, and her gasping puffed no vapour into the isolation.

And yet-

Formication tore her apart and white emptiness bereft her simultaneously. And simultaneously again, in still another avatar of the caesure’s evil, she found herself gazing out at a wasteland of shattered stone and rubble. She heard the lorn hiss of the wind punctuated by the rhythmic fall and retreat of surf; and although she did not look, she knew that behind her the seas crashed perpetually against a broken cliff.

The raw damaged rocks before her appeared to be chunks of time, discrete instances of the substance which should have made existence possible; woven the world whole. They were badly battered, torn from their natural union with each other by violence or lunacy. Yet they were intact in themselves; and each of them still implied its place in the former cliff.

Once they had formed a buttress against the sea, an assertion of structure and endurance in the teeth of the surging waves. Although they had been shattered, they retained their essential identity, their obdurate granite selves.

And among them moved sad gleaming creatures like misshapen children.

As the creatures squirmed over and among the stones, they emitted a sick emerald radiance; light the hue of acid and gangrene. They might have been the fouled progeny of the Illearth Stone, if that condensed bane had not been destroyed by wild magic millennia before her own time in the Land.

Nonetheless she recognised them. They were skest, and their touch was death: they were formed of a rank corrosive which devoured flesh. At one time, they had served the lurker of the Sarangrave, herding prey to the lurker’s hungry tentacles. Without aid, she and Covenant and their Quest for the One Tree would not have survived their passage through Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp.

Now the acid-children appeared to serve her, occasionally placing tasteless food and brackish water in her mouth, offering their bitter warmth to her wind-chilled skin, and mewling for pity which she did not deign to provide. At other times, they dissolved from sight, perhaps melting between the rocks in order to replenish her viands, or to restore their own lambent green lives. When they reappeared, they resumed their diligence.

Sharp formication: lost white and cold: a wasted vista of torn stone and skest. All simultaneous, overlapping around her and within her as though they occupied the same space at the same time. If the caesure took other forms as well, they lay beyond the reach of her senses.

Tearing ants and fiery cold slowed her perceptions. Gradually, however, she became aware that in the wasteland among the skest she was someone else: that she inhabited a flesh not her own; gazed about her through eyes which did not answer to her will; made choices over which she had no control. Although she wailed and grieved, she altered nothing, affected nothing. None of her pain or her yearning escaped the mind where she was imprisoned.

She should have died, consumed by fire ants and cold. She should have been driven mad by the loss of her friends and her purpose; of her son. She had brought them all to ruin and deserved no less. Yet she could not escape.

Instead she felt a hand which was not hers clench and rise abruptly toward her head. Through the eyes of her prison, she saw the body’s right fist strike against its temple. Nerves that did not belong to her felt blood weep from an aggravated sore, dripping like tears down an abused cheek. Dissociated whimpers leaked from a mouth that had lost most of its teeth. When the throat swallowed, she tasted the seepage of bleeding gums.

At the same time, a flash of argent fire burst from the ring hanging against a sternum on its chain. Silver anguish blazed and coruscated among the stones, the rent instances, until one of them had been torn to confusion and dust.

Then, simultaneous with her other agonies, Linden understood that she was trapped in Joan’s mind; that the woman who tortured this wasteland of rubble with the sea at her back, the woman whom the skest served, was Covenant’s ex-wife. Charred by the Despiser’s lightning, Joan had indeed found her way to the Land, as Linden had feared.

And here Joan herself had been found by turiya Herem.

Linden knew the Raver’s touch intimately: she could not fail to recognise it. During her own translation to the Land, she had met turiya in Joan’s mind. She had been afflicted with visions of pain and destruction which she still did not know how to bear. But there were no visions now. Even they required sequences and causality which did not exist within the caesure. Instead she felt only the Raver’s insatiable abhorrence of life.

Goaded by turiya Herem’s malice, Joan continued to strike herself, measuring out her despair against her temple. And with each blow, her power lashed out to create Falls, shattering coherent fragments of time until every moment within that fragment was torn apart.

Wild magic could have unmade the entire landscape in one towering gout of power; broken the Arch of Time instantly. Trapped in Joan’s mind, however, Linden understood that she was incapable of such an act. Coercion and insanity fettered her pain: she could utter no cry louder or more sustained than this piecemeal devastation.

Gauged by the scale of Joan’s blasts, the wasteland around her was immense. The Earth might endure and suffer for centuries before the damage became irrecoverable.

To Linden, that seemed still worse than formication and emptiness. Had she remained alive in any coherent sense, able to make choices and act, she might have striven to counteract Joan’s suffering; to hold back the harm of Joan’s self-loathing. But that possibility also Linden had lost.

Her plight surpassed endurance, yet she could not escape it. When the skest had fed her, Joan savaged another of the littered moments-and freezing white loneliness filled Linden’s senses, featureless and forever unrelieved-and myriads upon myriads of gnawing pincers bit her flesh to shreds-and she could not escape it.

Then she might have attempted deliberately to abandon consciousness and knowledge, hoping to find relief. More than once in the past, however, she had felt the same desire; the same impulse to abdicate herself. Watching her father’s suicide. Tortured in every nerve by the ravages of the Sunbane. Imprisoned in Revelstone. Possessed by a Raver while Covenant surrendered to Lord Foul. In some sense, she had sacrificed volition when she had entered Covenant’s mind in order to free him from the imposed stasis of the Elohim.

Now she could not forget what her desire for absence had cost her in the past. Or what it would cost Jeremiah here.

Nor could she forget that her companions suffered as well; that Anele and Liand, Stave, the Ramen and the Ranyhyn, even the ur-viles, had entered this demesne of horror at her behest.

And she remembered that no time had passed.

She was trapped in all moments and none simultaneously. She might spend eternity searching for an escape, and still nothing would have been lost. Nothing would be lost until the bounds of her identity frayed and failed; until she truly and entirely abandoned hope.

Until then, she could still think.

Both Anele and the ur-viles had once survived this same experience. She intended to do the same.

But they had merely entered a caesure, or been taken by it. And when the chaos had flung them forth again, by accident of Earthpower or design of lore, they had emerged thousands of years later. She needed more: not merely to survive and emerge, but to defy the inherent attributes of the Fall. Within itself, it was all moments and none, impossible confusion. Externally, however, it was a specific rock on the littoral of Joan’s madness; a discrete force which moved from place to place through time. Despite its internal insanity, it was like a river: it ran in only one direction.

Linden needed to do more than simply endure until the caesure cast her onto its banks. She needed to swim against the current, drawing her companions with her.

She needed wild magic.

Thinking was a form of movement. And the avatar of freezing whiteness was the only one which allowed her the illusion of movement. Therefore she selected a direction at random-all directions were the same in that place-and began to walk. Then she began to run-

– seeking the door within herself which opened on white fire.

The cold attacked her lungs with relentless ferocity: she should have collapsed in bloody coughing. Yet she did not. No time had passed. She did not need air. Therefore the rending in her chest never changed. She could continue to run, no matter how vast her pain.

In that way, she clung to herself through formication and loss and blazing madness.

But she had lost the door. It lay hidden somewhere within her. Twice before, she had found her way there consciously, and it had opened to her hand. Now, however, the path which might have led toward it had been transformed to chaos. She was in too much pain to rediscover the route inward.

In this excruciating tumult, only Joan had power.

Nevertheless Linden kept running. She believed now that if she stopped she would never become herself again.

Nothing changed. Nothing could change in a realm devoid of cause and sequence. Fire ants and utter loneliness ruled here. Yet Joan continued to feed occasionally, drink occasionally, and strike out; and Linden still ran, fleeing her own despair.

Then the lash of argent from Joan’s ring caused a jagged chunk of granite to detonate in incandescence, momentarily dimming the emerald glow of the skest- and Linden stumbled to an unsteady halt in front of Anele.

He gazed straight at her as if he were aware of her presence, although he could not see her. They did not exist for each other here, and he was blind. Yet his eyes were a milky gleam of Earthpower and intention.

She had not seen him appear: he was simply there, as he both had and had not been all along. Without his inherited strength, he would have remained beyond the reach of her perceptions. Yet here he was more real than she was. Unlike hers, his breath plumed in the frigid air.

In a gust of steam, he said as if he were invoking her, “Please.”

Then he was gone.

He had never been there. He was a figment of her desperation, a reification of her loss.

Nevertheless he had saved her.

Please? Please what?

She knew the answer.

The richness of the Land was written in grass stains on the fabric of her pants: a map like a metaphor for her own heart, both revealing and disguising the location of vitality and treasure. If she could not find the way to wild magic, she could make other use of such guidance.

She was a physician, a giver of care. Her response to pleading and need reached as deep as any pain. And Joan’s violence, against herself as against time, was a form of supplication. In the only language which remained to her, Joan cried out her long madness, her self-loathing, and her hunger for release.

Linden’s years in Berenford Memorial had taught her that the form in which damaged people repulsed aid expressed with terrible eloquence the nature of their wounds. In her own crippled way, Joan needed Linden’s intervention as badly as Jeremiah did.

Linden could not contain her voiceless wailing; had no control over her agony. The cold white emptiness burned as fiercely as scoria, and she had no hands with which she might have reached out to Joan. But she was not helpless.

Despair and isolation and gnawing searched her to the root of her soul. She could do the same. If she had no power herself, she would use Joan’s.

Riding the force of her own anguish and empathy, Linden tuned her heart to the pitch of Joan’s madness.

It was possible: she knew that now. As if accidentally-as if accidents were possible for a soul in such pain-Joan had raised Anele like an echo inside Linden, a knell of death and life. With his appearance and his pleading to guide her, Linden could choose to participate in each new exertion of Joan’s ring.

And she knew how to do so. Once before, briefly, she had been trapped in Joan’s mind. She had met Joan’s ghouls and spectres; Joan’s tormentor. She could find her way because Lord Foul-perhaps unaware that he was aiding her-had allowed her to hear the true name of Joan’s pain.

Knowing that name, Linden added Joan’s agony to her own, and became stronger.

She had no means to impose her will on Joan; could do nothing to stop the remorseless blows which Joan struck against herself. Joan still lived in the Land, still inhabited time: Linden did not. But Linden had no desire for that form of power. Instead of trying to stay Joan’s hand, she used her presence in Joan’s mind, her comprehension of Joan’s despair, to tap into the force of Joan’s blasts.

With Joan’s wedding ring, Linden summoned her companions.

She could find them. If they had not been severed from themselves by anguish, shredded by the cruelty of the caesure’s avatars, she could hope to touch them. They were mounted upon Ranyhyn, as she was. And they were warded in some fashion by ur-viles, whose lore encompassed enormous transgressions of Law.

If she still endured, surely they did also?

Through Esmer, the ur-viles had promised to aid her. The loremaster had mingled its strength with hers. It had sucked memories from Anele’s wounded forearm. And Esmer had suggested that the creatures could communicate with the Ranyhyn.

Thus she may hope to be guided-

With wild magic which she siphoned from Joan’s violence, Linden turned against the current of the caesure and called the ur-viles to join her.

They had made Anele remember-

At first, her borrowed and oblique argence accomplished nothing. In spite of its purity, it did not repulse the fire ants, or soften the cold, or ease Joan’s desolation. Linden remained in her prison, tormented by ruin.

But then Joan made a whimpering sound which brought the skest scurrying to her side; and Linden rode the bitter whiteness on Hyn’s back. The mare trotted through the cold confidently, as though she had always been there and knew exactly where she was going; as though she had waited only for Linden to rouse herself from some unexplained stupor.

The Ranyhyn’s breath sent thick gusts of steam curling past her shoulders to Linden’s face, filling Linden’s nose with the scent of cropped grass; reinforcing the bond between them. Thus tangibly Hyn seemed to recreate the lovable world which should have existed instead of the Fall’s chaos.

Oh, yes.

Lord Foul preached despair. But Linden Avery the Chosen was not helpless.

Again she called out to the Demondim-spawn.

Joan’s whimpers became moaning, nascent sobs. The skest fretted around her, sensing distress which their compelled attentions could not relieve. But now her silver blasts were shot through with blackness and vitriol like streaks of poison in mortifying flesh.

Beside Linden, Anele sat Hrama’s back with an air of disdain, as though the caesure’s afflictions were trivial.

Opposite him, Liand huddled over Rhohm’s neck like a man whose back had been broken. Linden feared to meet his eyes. She could not bear to see how badly he had been hurt.

Still dark acid insinuated itself throughout Joan’s violence. The frigid wasteland appeared to break apart like floes of ice, calving smaller chunks of loneliness; and through the cracks and breaches shone streams of midnight.

The gnawing insects of the caesure’s swirl became hornets again; vibrating augers loud for the taste of Linden’s frailty. Stave held himself stolidly erect, impassive as stone. Under him, Hynyn stamped his massive hooves and tossed his head, imperiously demanding release, while the hornets attacked the encroaching obsidian and burst into flames.

Mahrtiir’s gasping sounded like a splash of blood. Pain crippled his Cords.

Now Joan sobbed aloud, beating at her forehead repeatedly to invoke blasts and breakage. Turiya Herem multiplied her torment. Her skest blundered over the rocks, aimlessly dissolving and reforming themselves. For one brief moment in the tangible Land, her power had become darkness, and she could not expend her pain.

Ur-viles surrounded all of the riders. Their barking chant was palpable in Linden’s ears, a solid thing rife with power, at once frantic and resolute, tattered and untorn. Fed by their lore, vitriol swelled in the caesure, defying the white void and the hornets; enforcing the distinction between chaos and identity.

Then Anele clenched his fist, shedding a thin drop of blood from the gouged flesh of his forearm. As one, the ur-viles seemed to redouble their vehemence.

Together the Ranyhyn lifted their heads. To the beat of the harsh chant, they began surging into the teeth of formication and cold; plunging against the current of severed time.

For a while which might have been an instant or an eon, Linden feared that the Demondim-spawn would falter. That the Ranyhyn would lose their way. That Joan’s unanswerable madness would regain its efficacy. That the hornets howling into and through her flesh would devour the last of her sanity.

Then the migraine aura of the Fall parted on either side of her, and she and her companions ran onto solid earth under a bright sky as though they had been spit out from the belly of Hell’s own leviathan.

Chapter Six: The Staff of Law

Convulsed with relief, Linden slumped from Hyn’s back, stumbled to her hands and knees, then sprawled face-down on the stiff grass as though she sought to embrace the Earth. At that moment, the ordinary solidity of the ground seemed infinitely precious; as healing as hurtloam.

She heard retching nearby. Without looking, she knew that Liand and both Cords had also collapsed from their mounts. She sensed them distinctly, in spite of the aftershocks, the residual excruciation, of the caesure. Sick with distress, Liand and one of the Cords-Bhapa- spewed bile and anguish onto the hardy grass.

The grass was tough because it needed to be. The soil in which it grew was thinly layered over old shale. It received comparatively little rain, and that moisture was soon leached away. Nevertheless its sharp-edged blades grew thickly enough to soften the ground. When Linden breathed, she did not inhale dust, but rather the clenched dampness of roots and the prolonged heat of late summer.

She had been so cold-Now the warmth of the day was bliss, soothing her abraded senses.

Mahrtiir was in no better condition than the other Ramen, but he did not vomit. Instead he lowered himself carefully from the back of his mount and walked away from his companions, tottering as breakably as an old man. His stiffness told Linden that he was ashamed of his weakness and wanted to distance himself while he recovered.

Stave also dismounted, although he displayed none of the battered nausea which afflicted Liand and the Ramen. Rather he seemed essentially whole; proof against pain and distortion. Only his involuntary limp showed that he could be hurt.

“Chosen,” he said near Linden’s head, “are you able to move? We have survived the Fall. That feat deserves acknowledgment.” His tone admitted that he had not expected so much from her. “I know not when we are, but where is plain. Arise and gaze about you.”

She did not lift her head: the sun’s comfort held her. Ignoring the Master, she continued to cast her percipience around her, verifying in the most tangible way possible that she was still alive-and intact.

Only Anele remained mounted, apparently studying his surroundings blindly. She could not tell whether he recognised what he saw.

As for the great horses, they gave no sign that they had just endured an extraordinary ordeal. Hrama seemed content to stand still, providing a safe seat for Anele. The other Ranyhyn had scattered slightly, giving each other room to crop the dry grass. Occasionally one or another of them tasted the air as if searching for the scent of water.

In the background of Linden’s awareness, the ur-viles barked quietly among themselves. They may have been discussing the situation, or debating what should be done now. Like Stave, they did not appear to have suffered in the Fall, although their weariness was obvious.

But the Fall was gone, leaving no evidence of its passage.

Linden and her companions had been marooned.

“Chosen?” Stave asked more insistently. “It is not well to delay. If we have indeed entered the past of the Land, then we must be wary that we do not alter it in some way, endangering the Arch of Time. We are neither seers nor oracles. Our actions may have consequences which we cannot foresee.”

Still she did not rise to answer him. As she tested her circumstances, she caught a hint-the merest whiff of wrongness.

It did not arise from the air, which held only the rising heat of a summer morning. The Ranyhyn certainly had no wrong in them. Nor did her companions, in spite of their lingering hurts. And the ur-viles, like Stave, exceeded her evaluation.

The suggestion of wrongness, of imposed and unnatural harm, seemed to arise from the earth under her.

And it was familiar-

Abruptly she surged up onto her hands and knees; pressed her fingers through the grass to touch the dirt. “Here,” she told Stave softly, almost whispering. “Put your hands here. Tell me what you feel.”

A slight frown knotted the Master’s brows as he knelt in front of her and eased his fingers into the grass.

“Linden?” croaked Liand. Hunching over his stomach as if it were full of broken glass, he crawled weakly toward her. “What is amiss?”

But she was concentrating too hard to speak; and Stave did not reply. Uncertainly Liand worked his hands into the grass as well, trying to feel what they felt.

Yes, Linden thought as she probed the ground. Familiar. And wrong. Its touch evoked a kind of visceral memory; a recall too deeply buried for consciousness, and too disturbing to be forgotten.

It breathed along her nerves, suggesting echoes of rain and pestilence; of fearsome deserts and terrible fecundity.

Then Liand gasped sharply and snatched back his hands. “Heaven and Earth!” he panted. “That is evil. A great wrong has been done here.” Wrapping his arms around his stomach, he struggled to contain his nausea.

Stave met Linden’s gaze and nodded in confirmation.

At last, she lifted her hands from the grass. “Not just here,” she said harshly. “Everywhere in the Land.” Everywhere west of Landsdrop and Mount Thunder. “That’s the Sunbane.”

Her senses had found traces of Lord Foul’s assault upon Law, persistent and vile.

“Indeed,” Stave agreed without inflection. “The Haruchai have not forgotten it. Yet already in this time it is long past.”

She knew that he was right. Any more recent atrocity would have left its effect closer to the surface. Nevertheless her dire recollections of the Sunbane hit her hard. At its height, it had transformed every living and lovely aspect of the Land into a victim of torture; an instance of unforgivable hurt.

“But it’s fresh enough to feel,” she muttered. Then she swallowed her past. More quietly, she asked, “How long ago do you think it was?”

Everything depended upon that. If the ur-viles had misread Anele’s memories-or if the Ranyhyn had erred-

Stave considered the question. “I cannot speak with certainty. Ten score years, perhaps more. Not more than fifteen.” Then he shrugged. “So I estimate.”

Between two and three hundred years? Surely that was long enough-? Surely Linden and her companions had not arrived before Anele lost the Staff?

She trusted Stave’s perceptions; but still her nerves needed reassurance. Even this distant reminder of the Sunbane afflicted her with dread. Raising her head, she flicked a quick glance toward the sun.

It arced across a blue sky already flattened, deprived by depth, by heat and haze. Around it, high clouds made noncommittal shapes against the azure. But it showed no sign of the disturbing corona which had defined the effects of the Banefire.

Nor did the sky betray any indication of Kevin’s Dirt. Here, at least, her health-sense would not be taken from her.

Her stomach still squirmed on the brink of rebellion, but at last she felt strong enough to ignore it. Gathering her courage, she rose to her feet to look around her.

Anele drew her gaze. He sat loosely on Hrama’s back, head bowed and arms dangling, as if he had fallen asleep. In that posture, the angle of the light across his shoulders caught at the raindrops which remained on his cloak, transforming them into a net of pearls; a web woven of reflections and prophecy.

And behind him mountains piled into the heavens, holding up their granite heads in defiance or refusal. The foothills of the range were no more than a league distant.

Percipience and the position of the sun told her that she was facing south. Therefore these mountains were part of the Southron Range. Off to her left, a spur of peaks jutted past her northward: to her right, the cliffs and peaks retreated into the southwest. However, she recognised none of the vistas.

She had entered a region of time and place where she had never been before.

Stave would tell her what he knew, if she asked him; but she did not. Instead she set the question aside temporarily. Other concerns compelled her attention.

Clenching her teeth against the aftereffects of the Fall, she turned to her companions.

Stave and Anele were essentially well, but the Ramen and Liand were another matter. Of them all, only the Manethrall had been able to stand; and he could no longer do so. Now he sat with his back to his companions a short distance away, hugging himself and rocking back and forth like a battered child.

Pahni sprawled where she had first fallen, too shocked to move. Bhapa had crawled a few paces from his vomit: he lay curled into a ball around the memory of his pain. And Liand was in little better condition. His momentary contact with the Sunbane’s residue had cost him the last of his endurance. He had collapsed supine with his hands over his face, panting softly.

The fact that Linden could remain upright testified to the dark lore and blood of the ur-viles. Their power had protected her from the worst of the caesure.

Remembering that the loremaster had cut her, she glanced down at her hand and saw that the small wound had already closed. No, more than that: it had sealed completely, leaving behind nothing more than a faint scar to mark what the ur-viles had done for her.

At one time, they had been the bitter enemies of the Land. Now their desire to serve her was beyond question.

Unfortunately her companions had not received the same eldritch gift. Apart from Stave and Anele, they were in no condition to go on. They needed rest, perhaps hours of it. And aliantha, if she could find any-and if they could force themselves to swallow it.

Hurtloam would restore them, of course. Or the Staff of Law. In this time and place, she might as well have asked for Covenant’s resurrection.

But the ur-viles might be able to provide vitrim. If they had not exhausted themselves-

Even after all that they had done for her, she felt strangely reluctant to approach them; timid in the face of their bestial forms and their black past. Nevertheless she walked cautiously toward the loremaster.

The creatures stopped their low barking as she approached. They turned their faces toward her, sniffing wetly. Their ears twitched. The thin slits of their mouths looked as cruel as cuts.

A few paces from the loremaster, she halted. Staring at the creature’s forehead to avoid the sight of its wide nostrils, she said uncomfortably, “I hate doing this. It feels disrespectful. I can ask you for help, and you can’t even tell me how to thank you. You certainly can’t ask me for anything. And you’ve already done so much-”

Then she admitted, “But Stave is right. Everything we do here is dangerous. And the longer we stay, the more dangerous it becomes. We should get started, but we can’t. Liand and the Ramen are too sick to ride.”

In response, the loremaster made a gesture that she could not interpret. Her health-sense told her nothing except that the creature was alien to her; beyond explication.

Then, however, the loremaster wove its hands as though in invocation; muttered a few guttural sounds which seemed to hang in the air, telic and oddly resonant. Almost at once, an iron bowl as black as obsidian took form in its palms, apparently transubstantiated from within the creature’s flesh.

The bowl held a fluid that gave off the musty aroma of vitrim.

Because she was touched and did not know how else to express her gratitude, Linden sank to her knees in order to accept the bowl from the loremaster’s hands.

The ur-viles spoke in unison, barking a response which told her nothing. The raw sound could have been a curse or a paean-or a warning.

Again they had given her what she needed. Their dark liquid sang to her senses of concentrated restoration. Struggling unsteadily to her feet, she carried the bowl to the nearest of her companions, the Manethrall, and offered it to his lips.

Mahrtiir did not hesitate. His need was great; and his discernment was as keen as Linden’s. Accepting the vitrim, he sipped it carefully.

Its effect was swift. Between one heartbeat and the next, new strength burgeoned in him. The pain was swept from his muscles, and his nausea faded. He seemed to rise up within himself, although he remained seated, hardly able to credit his own recovery.

In a voice still husky with strain, he urged Linden, “Aid the Cords. And the Stonedownor.”

He did not need to add, And yourself.

She ached for some of the roborant. The Fall’s effects clung to her still, aggravating old memories of the Sunbane and loss. But her companions took precedence.

From Mahrtiir, she went to kneel beside Pahni.

The young woman could not raise her head. The bile in her guts threatened to overflow at any moment; and her muscles hung slack along her bones, stretched past exhaustion. But Stave joined Linden then, supporting Pahni so that Sahah’s cousin could take a mouthful of vitrim.

When Pahni had tasted the dusky fluid, Linden and Stave turned to assist Bhapa.

By then Liand had seen what was happening. Still cradling his aggrieved stomach, he crept to the older Cord’s side. He had his own memories of vitrim.

Soon both he and Bhapa were on their feet, with Pahni beside them. They did not stand easily, but Linden saw that their recovery would not take long. Doubtless they would be ready to ride before she was.

Finally she allowed herself to drink from the bowl.

As before, the heavy liquid had a neglected flavour, as if it had been left too long in a lightless room, exposed to dust and stagnation. Yet she swallowed it gladly; and in moments, the caesure’s brutality lost its hold on her, dropping from her shoulders like a shed cloak. The vitrim seemed to expand the boundaries of her mortality. When she returned the bowl to the loremaster, her steps no longer wavered, and her bow of thanks was as deep as an obeisance.

Then at last she turned to Stave; to the only member of her company who may have wished her to fail. She could no longer postpone the larger concerns of her situation.

She had too many fears. She might still be days away from Anele’s lost cave. The Staff of Law may have been found and moved-and used-since Anele’s departure. She may not have arrived at the right time to retrieve it. And any significant alternation of the past might violate the integrity of Time.

She believed that the Law of Time was sturdy enough to withstand an occasional shock. How else had it endured the affront of Joan’s attacks? And she believed as well that the mere existence of the Staff would have a sustaining influence on all Law. Surely she could search for it without inflicting any irreparable harm?

Still she wanted some form of reassurance.

Covenant had told her, You need the Staff of Law. But he had also said, Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.

And somewhere millennia from now an Elohim wandered the Earth, warning people to Beware the halfhand.

“All right,” she said to the Master. “I’m ready now. You said you know where we are?”

He nodded. “Indeed. We stand among the South Plains. The Southron Range rises before us. The mountains to the east form the western bound of the Mithil valley. Many leagues to the west lies Doom’s Retreat. And there”- he pointed across the foothills toward the curving line of scarps and slopes where the spur met the southwestward sweep of the Range- “we will be able to ascend toward the region where I judge that the old man once made his home.”

Clearly caesures traversed distance as well as time: Linden had seen them move. Indeed, she was fortunate that the Fall had not carried her farther from her goal during the intervening centuries.

Studying the mountains, she asked, “How far do you think we have to go?”

Stave glanced at the sun. “We will be among the heights before midday. There, however, the way may become too difficult for riding. Beyond that-” He shrugged.

Linden understood him: he did not know the location of Anele’s cave. But surely it would be somewhere accessible? While Ramen and ur-viles battled kresh in the rift, Anele had said that his dwelling was not so distant from Mithil Stonedown that I could not hasten to the Land’s aid at need, but far enough to attain the freedom from astonishment which my spirit craved.

“Good enough,” she murmured half to herself. “We’ll ride as far as we can. Then we’ll figure out what to do next.”

As she turned toward Hyn, she slipped off her cloak. Warmed by the summer sun and vitrim, she no longer needed the heavy wool. At once, Liand accepted it from her. When he had removed his own as well, he went to Hrama and tugged the cloak from Anele’s back. Then he packed the three garments away among his supplies.

At the same time, Mahrtiir approached Linden with Bhapa and Pahni. The usual fierceness of his mien was complicated by chagrin, and when he spoke his voice held a note of defensive belligerence.

“Ringthane,” he rasped, “we are shamed by our weakness. It ill becomes us.” Sharply he promised, “We will not again be overcome.”

Both Bhapa and Pahni nodded, but without his combative assurance. Already the prospect of their next encounter with a caesure seemed to cast shadows in their eyes.

“We know our peril now,” the Manethrall continued, “and are forewarned. When next we dare a Fall, we will provide for our own endurance.”

He did not say how he proposed to protect himself and his Cords.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Linden sighed. “I’m not worried about you.” In fact, the thought of entering another Fall made her entire being flinch. And she had no more patience for people who judged themselves by inhumane standards. She did too much of that herself. “We aren’t Ranyhyn. We don’t have their gift for time.

Mahrtiir accepted her reply with a bow, but his manner remained defiant.

Linden glanced around; found the ur-viles ready and the Ranyhyn waiting. It was time to go.

With Liand’s help, she gained Hyn’s back. Stave and the Stonedownor placed themselves on either side of her. After they had prostrated themselves before the Ranyhyn once more, the Ramen brought up the rear of the small company, herding Anele ahead of them. This time, however, the ur-viles did not girdle the riders. Instead they formed a loose wedge off to one side, dropping to all fours for speed.

As Linden touched Hyn’s flanks with her heels, all of the Ranyhyn sprang into a gallop southward, pounding the thin grass as fast as the Demondim-spawn could run.

Stave had gauged the distance accurately. More swiftly than Linden had anticipated, the riders left the plains behind and surged up the first slopes of the foothills. And here the terrain had been softened by long ages of wind and rain, heat and cold. The Ranyhyn would be able to sustain their pace for a while yet. If the ur-viles did not falter, the company might be high among the mountains by noon.

Nevertheless a sense of trepidation grew in Linden as the company ascended the hillsides. If she ever hoped to return to her proper present, she would have to rend time with her own hands. She dreaded that prospect.

After a while, however, Anele distracted her. As the heat of the plains gave way to the sharper, thinner exhalation of the peaks, she noticed a shift in his emanations. His earlier passivity was gone. Instead he radiated urgency, and he rode leaning forward with a look of frenzy in his milky eyes.

But he had not suddenly become sane: that was obvious. Rather his madness had resolved into focus. Perhaps he recognised his surroundings. He was being driven now by the same obsession which had impelled him to return to his former home over and over across the decades, searching uselessly for his lost inheritance.

At the same time, another change demanded her attention. Although the ur-viles continued to scramble doggedly upward, they were growing restive. Occasionally at first, then more and more often, one or another of them paused to taste the air, falling behind the other creatures, and barking insistently before they resumed their haste. As a result, the whole wedge lost ground.

Did they scent danger? Foes? Linden had no way of knowing. But the possibilities, the potential hazards, left her dry-mouthed and winded, as though the air were becoming too thin to breathe.

Surely it was impossible that Lord Foul might oppose her here? If her senses had not misled her, and Stave’s perceptions were accurate, the Despiser’s defeat at Covenant’s hands had taken place less than three hundred years ago. And Foul had been thoroughly defeated. The beaten being that remained unextinguished in this time could hardly threaten her.

Yet the ur-viles were troubled, for no apparent reason. And Lord Foul was not Linden’s only enemy. Elohim wandered the Earth at will. For all she knew, they could traverse time as well, or manipulate caesures. And the strange dictates of their Wurd were incomprehensible to her.

If Kastenessen had indeed broken free of his Appointed prison; if his bonds were the Durance of which Anele had spoken-

In addition, the Earth might hold other banes as fearsome as the Illearth Stone. Somewhere kresh lived and multiplied. More than once, Anele had referred to skurj. And Linden feared that Roger Covenant had accompanied his mother to the Land. Because he had power over Joan, he might be able to manipulate her use of wild magic.

Anele’s headlong urgency might lead the company into an ambush-

Finally Linden called over the pounding din of hooves, “Stave! The ur-viles. Something is wrong!”

The Master nodded without a glance at the straggling wedge. “They have lore which even the Old Lords could not equal.” Then he added, “I discern no peril.”

Linden looked over her shoulder at Mahrtiir. Glowering, the Manethrall shrugged: he had no answer.

A moment later, the creatures began to slacken their pace. They had apparently reached an agreement. As the Ranyhyn crossed a low hollow between the hillsides with cliffs soaring ahead of them, the Demondim-spawn halted altogether. At once, they gathered around their loremaster, bickering like a pack of wild dogs.

Damn it. Linden tried to slow Hyn; and in an instant, all of the Ranyhyn responded together, turning in a curve as they reduced their strides.

When he understood what was happening, Anele wailed, “No!” But Hrama ignored his protest, stamping to a standstill with the other Ranyhyn.

In a fury, the old man flung himself from Hrama’s back. As soon as he gained his feet, he began to run.

Above him, a narrow ravine marked by a dry streambed separated the cliffs. Shallow at first, it grew deeper as it cut into the hills; and after a few hundred paces, it disappeared around a bulge in its eastern wall. With surprising speed, Anele headed for the ravine, sure of his destination and determined to reach it. Earthpower and intensity made him preternaturally fleet.

Swearing again under her breath, Linden wheeled toward Mahrtiir. “You’d better go after him,” she panted. “Don’t try to stop him. Just don’t lose him. We’ll catch up with you when we find out what’s bothering the ur-vilest’

The Manethrall nodded his acquiescence. Calling Pahni and Bhapa with him, he sent his Ranyhyn cantering after Anele.

Of his own accord, Hrama joined them. Like the Ramen, the shaggy pinto appeared to respect Linden’s wishes.

Temporarily relieved for the old man, she turned her attention to the Demondim-spawn. “What’s going on?” she asked rhetorically. “Are we in danger? What do they expect us to do?”

But Liand knew no more than she did, and Stave did not respond. The air held no threats. It smelled only of summer and wildflowers, warmed granite and shale, and the slow, distant trickling of melted ice. The breeze carried nothing that might have warned her.

Impelled by uncertainty, she asked the loremaster, “What should we do? Do you need us here? Can I help you? You understand me, but I don’t know what you want.”

But the creatures ignored her while they continued their harsh debate. Some of them had produced short black daggers with blades like forged magma, seething redly. Others made abrupt, intricate gestures as if they were weaving expostulations. Even the loremaster paid no heed to Linden’s appeal.

For a moment, she glared at them with frustration beating like anger in her temples and nameless fears aching in her chest. Then she muttered a curse and turned Hyn away.

“Come on,” she told Liand and Stave. “If they want us here, they can figure out some way to stop us. Otherwise we’re going with Anele.”

At once, Hynyn and Rhohm joined Hyn; and in unison the three Ranyhyn stretched their strides to pursue their companions.

The others had already passed out of sight behind the bulge in the ravine. When Linden, Stave, and Liand reached that point, however, and followed the ascending curve of the streambed beyond it, they spotted Bhapa some distance ahead of them, waiting near a break in the east wall. As they approached, the Cord led them up into the break and darkness.

Its sheer sides, rugged and uncompromising, rose above them. Even at noon, the sun’s light did not reach the floor of the break. But the surface had been softened by millennia of weather and runoff. It posed no threat to the footing of the Ranyhyn. They managed the slope at a trot.

Silt and moss swallowed the sounds of their passage. They followed the crooked path unheralded and unforewarned.

Overhead, an arch of granite spanned the walls like a flying buttress. Beyond it, the last twist of the break revealed sunshine splashed across a slow hillside covered with mountain grasses and wildflowers. When Linden and her companions emerged, they found their mounts wading through rich swaths of eglantine, cornflowers, blue columbine, and paintbrush as stark as blood.

There they joined Pahni. She greeted them with a bow, but did not speak. Instead she pointed beyond her toward a wide, low basin surrounded on the east, south, and west by grey cliffs and grass-dappled mountainsides.

When she followed Pahni’s gesture, Linden spotted Anele halfway across the bottom of the basin, with Mahrtiir mounted beside him and Hrama trailing nearby.

The old man no longer moved so swiftly. Even at this distance, his weariness was plain. Yet he stumbled onward, half falling from stride to stride, his urgency undiminished.

He may have been unaware of Mahrtiir’s presence, and Hrama’s.

Mahrtiir could have stopped him, perhaps even placed him on Hrama’s back. But the Manethrall seemed content to let Anele labour along on foot, presumably so that he would not run too far ahead of Linden and her companions.

The old man was heading toward the southeastern edge of the basin, where a high pile of boulders sprawled against the base of the mountain. Long ago, monolithic slabs and menhirs must have fallen from the cliffs and broken there. Watching him, she guessed that his former home lay hidden among those massive, ragged stones.

He has no friend-

If so, he had chosen a lovely spot for his escape from astonishment. The bluff grandeur of the surrounding peaks contrasted dramatically with the profuse fertility of the basin. And it had plenty of water. Several streams tumbled down from the heights, catching the sunlight in a cascade of sparkles, and gathered to form a lively creek which babbled and ran toward the south and east. Anele could have grown food here easily. And in the heavy winters, he could have warmed himself with wood fires and Earthpower.

To Linden’s eyes, the whole basin seemed to show the benignant influence of the Staff of Law. Even unused, the Staff’s very existence sustained and promoted the natural Law, the essential structures and vitality, of the Land. She herself had formed it for that purpose. In Andelain, she had finally learned to love the Land, and with all her heart she had yearned to preserve and defend its beauty.

The vista ahead of her had the look of a place which had been adored.

Nevertheless an inarticulate foreboding troubled her. The high clouds cast vague shadows across the wildflowers, transforming them from vividness to uncertainty and back again; shedding mute premonitions across the basin. And in the distance, Anele appeared to flounder, hindered by recollections of failure and loss. Suddenly she felt reluctant to follow him. Instead of sending Hyn down into the basin, she remained where she was.

Beside her, Liand leaned forward as if he were eager to discover the future. Both Pahni and Bhapa studied her with puzzlement in their eyes, confused by her hesitation. But she turned from them to Stave, half-consciously seeking to postpone the moment when she would learn whether she herself would fail or succeed; whether she had endangered the Arch of Time for nothing.

“So tell me,” she began awkwardly. “Why did you change your mind?”

She meant, What am I going to do if the Staff isn’t there? But she could not ask that question: it searched her too deeply. She would not have trusted anyone except Covenant to hear her without reproach or dismay.

Stave met her gaze, raising an eyebrow in inquiry.

Linden wanted to look away, but she did not. “You were planning to leave. You wanted to warn the Masters. God knows you have plenty to tell them. But then you changed your mind.” After the horserite. “I can’t help wondering why.”

Stave held her troubled stare. “Chosen,” he replied, “I have elected to accompany you. I will defend you with my life. But I will not account for my choices. I await the proper time and place.

“When it is meet to do so, I will speak of what is in my heart.”

He had promised her a reckoning-

In this time, her need for the Staff was absolute. She could not return to her proper present without entering another Fall. In order to do so, she would first have to create it with wild magic. But whenever she attempted to wield Covenant’s ring, its power might scale out of control. In that eventuality, that likely danger, only Law could preserve the Arch.

By entering Esmer’s caesure, she had created a situation in which any failure or misstep would bring about Lord Foul’s victory.

“One matter, however,” Stave added after a moment, “I will explain, for I deem that you are unaware of it.

“We partook of the horserite together, you and I, but we did not share the same vision. That which the Ranyhyn revealed to you, they did not impart to me. Nor did they grant to you that which they wished me to see and understand.”

Linden stared at him. She had assumed that they had participated in the same memories, the same prophecies; that he had seen the same dangers. And she had felt that he had finally become her friend, in spite or because of those dangers.

But she was wrong. The Ranyhyn had given him other insights, other knowledge. He had accompanied her for reasons which he kept from her.

As if he knew what disturbed her, he continued, “They made plain to me that I must not be parted from you. Therefore I will remain your companion until I have discovered or devised an opportunity to consult the will of my people.”

Because she was afraid, she wanted to say something sarcastic; but she refrained. She recognised that he had given her as much reassurance as he could. For the present, at least, she could rely on him.

With that she had to be content.

While she gnawed on her doubts, Liand touched her arm; asked for her attention. “Linden,” he said tentatively, “Anele and the Manethrall proceed while we delay. Will they not gain the location of this Staff before us? And if they do, is it wise for Anele to hold the Staff? You have explained that any use of such power in this time is perilous.”

Linden sighed to herself. He was right. Hell, even Stave was right. This was not the time or the place-

Nodding to the Stonedownor, she touched Hyn’s sides with her heels; and immediately the mare started down into the basin at a swift canter.

Stave and Liand joined her. Hynyn and Rhohm stretched their legs with Hyn’s, matching the mare’s strides; and the Cords followed a heartbeat behind them. Gathering speed as they went, Linden and her companions followed Anele and Mahrtiir.

Among the wildflowers, butterflies scattered before the swift passage of the Ranyhyn, and occasional bees hummed away in alarm; but she had no attention to spare for them. Liand’s words had crystallised her fears into shapes as sharp as knives.

Ahead of her, Anele’s stamina was flagging, and Mahrtiir did nothing to hasten him. But they had gained ground while Linden spoke with Stave. Already they were nearing the rocks. Before she could overtake the old man, he found his path among the boulders and stumbled out of sight.

At the edge of the piled monoliths, Mahrtiir dismounted, leaving the horses behind in order to accompany Anele.

Moments seemed to stretch out ahead of Linden, longer than the strides of the Ranyhyn. Despite the breeze of their passage, the air between the mountains felt viscid and still; cloying. Yet the great horses were wonderfully swift. If she had not hesitated earlier, she might have caught up with Anele before he reached his goal.

Then finally the riders thudded to a halt beside Hrama and Mahrtiir’s mount. In a rush, Linden slipped from Hyn’s back; stumbled running toward the rocks.

There, however, she faltered: she could not find Anele’s path. Every gap and cranny between the boulders looked the same to her, truncated and depthless, leading nowhere. But Stave sprang ahead of her. His sight was keener than hers, and he must have identified the place where Anele had entered the pile.

Past a leaning slab of granite which appeared to rest squarely against still larger stones, he found a gap like a crevice just wide enough to admit him. Without hesitation, he moved into it.

“Follow the Bloodguard, Ringthane,” Bhapa offered encouragingly. “The Manethrall has marked the path.”

Linden saw no indications among the boulders; but she believed the Cord implicitly-and did not doubt Stave’s instincts. Hurrying, she began to make her way between the stones.

His passage through the caesure had not restored Anele’s mind. If he found the Staff, he might be made whole; or he might lose himself completely.

Deep behind the slab, another gap appeared, a crooked aisle between monoliths propped against each other. Only shafts and streaks of sunlight penetrated the pile, leaving much of the way shrouded in gloom. Beyond Stave’s dark shoulders, however, Linden saw flickering hints of light, dancing flames. And when she reached the end of the aisle, she found herself in the mouth of a cave like an entombed tunnel. The rockfall had concealed the entrance without burying it.

Mahrtiir met her there, holding a torch that burned hotly, dried almost to tinder by age. The rough wood must have hurt his scorched palms, but he ignored the pain.

Linden ran a few steps to catch at Stave’s arm, hold him back. Then she panted to Mahrtiir, “Anele-?”

“He goes ahead,” answered the Manethrall. “This was once a dwelling, though many years have passed since it served that purpose. When I discovered torchwood, I returned to assist you. He will be not be lost. The signs of his passing”- Mahrtiir indicated the disturbed dirt of the floor- “will guide us.”

Still gripping Stave’s arm, Linden pushed the Raman ahead of her. As they strode down the throat of the cave, she asked, “How big is this place?”

“I know not, Ringthane,” Mahrtiir replied. “Mayhap it extends for leagues. But the place of habitation is near.” He hesitated briefly, then added, “If the old man once dwelt here, he abandoned it long ago. However, others have also entered.”

Linden’s heart thudded. “Others-?”

“Time and dust have obscured the marks of their feet,” Mahrtiir told her. The light of his torch cast grotesque shadows across his features. “I cannot determine their kind or number. Nor am I able to declare when they entered and departed. I am certain only that they have preceded us by years or decades.”

Oh, God. Suddenly the darkness ahead of her seemed crowded with catastrophes. Memories of the ordeal of the Fall mocked her as she started forward again.

Then the gullet of the cave opened into a larger space like a chamber in the rock. By the unsteady torchlight, Linden saw the signs of habitation: they seemed to flicker in and out of existence as the flames gusted and leaned.

A neat pile that might once have been bedding lay against one wall. Even in the cave’s dry atmosphere, however, much of the fabric of the blankets and the stuffing of the mattress had rotted away. The rest had been gnawed apart by vermin.

Opposite it stood a trestle table and three-legged stool, both precariously balanced on legs as brittle as twigs. Another, smaller table held clay urns and amphorae for storage, most of which were still intact, although one amphora had slumped to mud, dissolved from within by its contents, and an urn had cracked open, spilling husks of grain like dust across the table.

Near the bed, Linden saw the remains of a large wicker basket which may once have held clothing, but which now contained only nests for mice. A scattering of faggots obviously intended as torches lay on the floor. From them, Pahni and Bhapa took sticks and lit them at Mahrtiir’s torch, adding their light to his.

As they did so, threatening shadows writhed and gibbered across the ceiling.

Lastly Linden noticed a tidy stone hearth designed as much for warmth as for cooking. At one time, its fires had spread soot up the wall behind it; but now most of the black had flaked away, leaving behind bare packed dirt and stone.

Nothing else remained to indicate that Anele, son of Sunder and Hollian, and inheritor of the Staff of Law, had ever lived here.

He was not in the chamber, but Linden knew where he had gone. There was only one other egress, a small opening like a portal in the wall near the hearth. And from it came small sounds which she had heard too often and knew too well: the bereft inarticulate whimpering of the old man’s desolation.

The opening gave access to another cave, an unassuming space, hardly more than a niche or closet in the heart of the mountain. There Anele sprawled on the floor. Too broken even to weep, he slowly raised and then dropped his head over and over again, beating his forehead bloody against the stone. With each lift of his head, he moaned softly. But when he let it fall, the only sound was the sodden thump of his damp flesh hitting the floor.

Linden felt no surprise at all to see that the Staff of Law was gone. Yet she believed that it had once been there; and for a moment she felt herself transported out of tangible reality into a demesne of pure and irreducible woe.

Chapter Seven: Aid and Betrayal

Linden did not know how to contain her dismay.

Somewhere hundreds of leagues and thousands of years away from her, her son was being tortured. Mere hours ago, she had subjected all of her companions to the exquisite agonies of a caesure. And the Staff of Law was gone.

She desired nothing except to save Jeremiah and defend the Land; but she had gained only an empty cave and despair.

On some level, she had believed, trusted, assumed, that she would find the Staff here. Millennia from now, when Anele searched his abandoned home, the Staff would be gone. Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she had chosen to think that the Staff would be gone because she herself had taken it; that Anele’s searching would fail because her venture into the past had succeeded.

She had blinded herself to other possibilities-

In her imagination, she heard Lord Foul laughing like the destruction of stones. When he had led her to hurtloam, he had set her on the path to this place. Without that healing, she would not have been able to elude the Masters long enough to hear Anele’s tale. She would not have known who the old man was, or how he had lost the Staff; would never have imagined violating Time in this way.

With Covenant’s ring, she was a danger to the Despiser; but he had effectively neutralised her by enabling her to do what she had done.

Anele still lay on the floor, stigmatising the packed dirt and rock with his spilled blood. Liand stared at him in shock, as though the depth of the old man’s loss exceeded comprehension. Chagrin trapped the Ramen within the light of their torches, so that their features appeared to waver and blur as the flames gusted. And Stave scowled at the absence of the Staff as if his anger at Linden’s folly had overcome his dispassion.

She did not know how to bear it. It was intolerable. Therefore she refused to accept it.

Her companions deserved a better outcome.

“All right;” she said. “This is bad.” Her voice shook like the torchlight; like flames consuming wood which had dried for decades. “But it could be worse. We aren’t beaten yet”

The Cords gaped at her. Even Mahrtiir, the eager fighter, stared as though she had begun to froth at the mouth. Liand could find no words or air adequate to his shock.

Because she trusted the Stonedownor, Linden held up her hand as if to refuse his unspoken appeal. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything at all.” Then she swept her arm to include all of her companions. “None of you” They could have broken her heart. “Don’t interrupt me. I need to think.”

But Anele continued pounding his head on the floor. In desperation, Linden snapped, “Anele, God damn it-!” Then she whipped a look toward Liand. “For pity’s sake, stop him. He shouldn’t punish himself like this.”

The young man heard her: he could still recognise pain and feel compassion. Shaking off his consternation, he hastened to Anele’s side. With Pahni’s help, he turned the old man over. Then he wrapped his strong arms around Anele’s grief, cradling it against his chest.

At once, Linden turned on Stave.

“You,” she said like an accusation, although she blamed no one but herself. “The Masters. The Haruchai. You remember everything.” She had reason to wonder what he might have withheld. “So tell me this.

“What’s been going on here since Anele disappeared with the Staff? I mean in this time. This region, this part of the South Plains. Have there been any battles? Any signs of power? Strange fertility, unnatural wastes? Unexplained enemies? Dangerous occurrences of any kind?”

Stave tried to respond, but she rushed on. “What about the people who live here? What are their lives like? How have they recovered from the Sunbane? What-?”

“Chosen,” the Master interrupted sternly. “Your question is plain. Permit me to reply.”

With an effort, Linden restrained herself. Chewing on her lower lip, she waited for his answer.

“It is Booth,” he said more quietly, “that we remember much. Yet there are matters which you must understand.

“First, the Haruchai did not lightly undertake to become the Masters of the Land. Until the Staff of Law was lost, the Land had no need of such care. Even then, centuries passed before the decision was made, for we are not hasty in these things. And as new Masters we did not extend our bourne to encompass all the Upper Land until centuries more had passed.

“Between the time of your own knowledge and the time in which we now stand, few Haruchai sojourned so far into the South Plains. To Mithil Stonedown my people rode, that they might honour Sunder and Hollian. And later, when the loss of the Staff had become certain, they aided in searching for it. But they conceived that if the Staff had been removed toward Doom’s Retreat, they would have caught some glimpse of its presence or its use. Therefore they believed that its fate lay among the heights of the Southron Range, where no quest would discover it.”

Stave seemed to consider how much he should reveal. Then he said, “But there is a second reason why the Haruchai made no thorough search in this region. Since the time of the Old Lords, the South Plains to the west of the Mithil River and the south of the Black have been little inhabited. The soil is ill-nourished and knows scant rain. The folk of the Land have found no welcome there.”

Mahrtiir nodded. Apparently the long tales of the Ramen confirmed the Master’s assertion.

“In the time of Berek Heartthew,” Stave went on, “before he became the first of the Old Lords, much of his vast war against Corruption and the servants of evil was waged in the South Plains. The violence of that war blighted the earth, leaving too much harm to encourage human life.”

The Haruchai held Linden’s urgent stare. “Because there are no dwellings in this region, it has no need of Masters. We know the South Plains because our duty to the Land requires it. But we seldom journey here.”

“So you don’t know,” Linden retorted. “Anything could have happened here-anything at all-and you wouldn’t know about it. The Staff could have been destroyed, or used for centuries, and you wouldn’t have any idea.”

“No, Chosen.” An undercurrent of reproach disturbed Stave’s flat tone. “Have you quested so long and arduously in the company of Haruchai, and not learned that we are sensitive to power? Such forces as you imagine could not fail to draw our notice. Kevin’s Dirt does not blind us, and the reach of our senses is great.

“Also I have said that we seldom journey here. I did not say never. Across the centuries, our care has been bounded only by the bounds of the Land. Small theurgies, perhaps, we would not discern. But that is not your fear.

“Your concern is groundless. Of that I am certain.”

Linden should have been grateful for his reassurance; but her emotions burned too hotly. Nevertheless she believed him. Their straits could indeed be worse.

Biting her lip again, she shifted her attention to Mahrtiir.

“You said others have been here. Human or not.” Friendly or not. “Can you tell me anything else about them?”

In spite of his fierceness, the Manethrall looked suddenly timid; or the torchlight cast shadows like fears across his visage. He swallowed roughly. “I cannot. As you have seen, this habitation is well protected. Wind and rain do not enter. Yet dust settles ceaselessly here. Too much has been obscured.”

“But you can still track them?” Linden demanded. “Can’t you?”

Her tone drew a wince from Bhapa.

Mahrtiir squared his shoulders. “We cannot, Ringthane. I am a Manethrall of the Ramen. The Cords with me are skilled. In such things we are adept beyond any other people we have known.

“But we have been preceded by years or decades, as I have said. Many seasons have combined to efface any outward path. And the lowland beyond this cave is both open and fertile, rich with grass. I cannot follow those that preceded us because it cannot be done:”

His answer rebuffed Linden’s hopes; but now she did not hesitate. She could not. If she faltered for an instant, the enormity of what she had done would overtake her. Then she might collapse like Anele, beating out her despair against the stone.

“In that case,” she muttered, hardly aware that she spoke aloud, “we’ll have to trust the ur-viles.”

Creatures make Anele remember!

Outside the encampment of the Ramen, the ur-viles had drawn the old man’s blood in order to reach his memories. But they had previously done something similar to him. They may have done it several times. Surely they had learned enough of his past to know where and how-and when-he had lost the Staff? They must have sought it themselves, for their own reasons. Why else had they continued to probe his madness? Why else had they aided Linden-?

They had not followed Anele to his cave now because they had known that the Staff was gone. Instead they meant to search for it in some other way.

They had served Linden valiantly, but she did not know why. Perhaps they desired the Staff for themselves. She-and Covenant’s ring-might be nothing more than a means to an end. They could not have reached this time, their own past, without her.

She might already be too late.

Immediately she began to run, rushing ahead of the torchlight into the dark.

An instant of surprise held her companions. Then Liand called urgently after her, “Linden! Wait!”

She did not slacken her pace. She trusted him. He would bring Anele as swiftly as he could. If he needed help, the Ramen would not forsake him.

Harried by images of disaster, she crossed Anele’s abandoned home and raced into the throat of the cave.

Stave seemed to overtake her easily, in spite of his damaged hip. Mahrtiir followed close behind them, lighting their way with his unsteady torch.

The ur-viles were too far away-

Ahead of her, precise streaks of sunshine fell among the piled boulders. She no longer needed torchlight. The Manethrall discarded his brand as he ran.

The aisle beyond the mouth of the cave was too narrow to allow either Stave or Mahrtiir past her; but as soon as the passage widened, the Master vaulted over the rocks to block her path. She collided headlong with his hard form.

“Chosen,” he insisted severely, “this is madness. The Staff is lost. Haste and wildness will not recover it.”

Linden thrust against him, trying uselessly to force him aside. “Damn it,” she protested, “why do you think the ur-viles stopped? You saw them. They smelled something.

“We have to catch up with them before they find the Staff.”

She should have stayed with them. But how could she have known that Anele’s desperation would mislead her?

Stave’s visage showed no reaction; but he turned to run ahead of her, leading her between the tall stones. With Mahrtiir behind them, they burst free of the rocks and dashed for their waiting Ranyhyn.

When they reached the ravine above the hollow where they had left the ur-viles, Linden began to believe that she was not too late. She could feel power throbbing in the air: the walls of the ravine channelled emanations of darkness and force upward. Then she knew that the creatures were at work nearby. They had not yet moved away.

To her senses, their theurgy felt like questing.

Still responding to her urgency, the Ranyhyn galloped through the ravine and down the hillside. As they neared the knotted wedge of the Demondim-spawn, however, they slowed to a canter, then a walk. With Hynyn and Mahrtiir’s mount beside her, Hyn came to a halt half a dozen strides from the spot where the ur-viles laboured. There Linden stared, transfixed, at what the creatures were doing. She had never seen power used in this fashion before.

Its obsidian force stung her health-sense so that her vision blurred and her nose ran. A flush like remorse spread across her skin, and her mouth was filled with the taste of copper and yearning.

A low rise swelled in the bottom of the hollow. At the crown of the rise, the ur-viles had gouged or dug a narrow ditch like a gutter in a circle eight or ten paces wide. Now the loremaster, with the other creatures packed tightly behind it, held its iron jerrid or sceptre with the point planted in the ditch; and as the ur-viles chanted together, black power as fluid as oil and as rank as offal streamed from the iron into the gutter.

The liquid seemed to suck away the day’s brightness. Within the ditch, the circle was crowded with shadows that writhed and wailed, although they made no sound. Linden rubbed the damp from her eyes, trying to see more clearly. The loremaster’s iron bled force slowly, yet the ditch was already full. The ur-viles must have begun their invocation soon after she and her companions had departed for Anele’s cave.

Within the circle, the twisting shadows refused to take definite forms. They remained indistinct: shapeless and tormented; allusive as a masque. Yet their very vagueness conveyed a sense of intention; of desire and searching.

“Stave?” she murmured softly.

What the hell are they doing?

But the Master did not answer.

Still the shadows roiled and yearned. But now by increments they appeared to direct their attention away from the wedge and the mountains, across the foothills into the west. Their squirming forms seemed to beckon in that direction.

As they did so, the ditch began to overflow. Viscid black fluid poured like a serpent from the gutter, slithering through the soil and grass as if in obedience to the commands of the trapped shadows.

Slowly at first, then with more celerity, the snake of power glided across the hollow and went questing down the hillside. In moments, it was long enough to have drawn all of the liquid from the ditch. However, the ur-viles contrived to replenish the fluid as rapidly as it flowed away. Their ditch remained full, holding the shadows in place against the direct contradiction of the sun.

The black serpent called to Linden’s percipience, urging her to follow where it led.

After a time, a small group of ur-viles- perhaps a third of the creatures-broke from the wedge and trotted away beside the serpent’s squirming length. They did not run, but they moved quickly enough to outpace their liquid power.

Each of them carried an iron dagger with a crimson blade as bright as burning blood.

With an effort, Linden wrenched herself out of her transfixion. If the lore of the ur-viles could locate the Staff of Law in this fashion, she did not mean to be left behind. Murmuring, “Come on,” to Mahrtiir and Stave, she urged Hyn into motion. “We should see where this is going.” Obediently the mare began to canter around the hollow after the creatures.

The line of darkness did not appear to flow swiftly. And its progress had slowed. Perhaps its power was attenuated by its distance from the circle and the shadows. Or it may have been diminished by the fact that fewer creatures now fed it. Yet it had already dropped into a fold of ground between foothills and begun to squirm up the far slope, searching the rocks and tufts of grass as if it were unsure of its way.

There the trailing ur-viles caught up with it. At once, they placed themselves near the serpent’s head, four in a row on each side, and dropped to their knees facing each other. Raucous as crows, their harsh voices rose as each of them plunged its dagger into the snake’s fluid body.

Fresh power thrummed in the air: the serpent writhed as though it had been goaded. Then it began to move ahead with more speed and certainty.

The ur-viles remained where they were to sustain the fluid.

Its course ran almost due west. In this region, however, the mountains gradually withdrew into the south, drawing their foothills with them. As a result, the serpent’s path angled slowly toward the plains, leading Linden and her companions deeper and deeper into the piled heat of summer.

The moisture in her eyes became sweat as she rode. Helpless to do anything else, she wiped them on the sleeve of her shirt, and concentrated on the tortuous progress of the search.

The serpentine blackness soon began to falter again as its elongation weakened it. Shortly, however, eight more ur-viles came trotting across the slopes, dispatched by the loremaster and the dwindling wedge to extend the reach of their power. These creatures also knelt behind the serpent’s head in order to stab their glowing daggers into its liquid flesh.

Once again, the dark fluid flowed ahead with renewed strength.

Softly, fearing to disturb the ur-viles’ concentration, Linden asked Stave, “How much longer can they keep this up?”

She did not expect an answer; but her constrained urgency demanded an outlet. As far ahead as she could see, the foothills continued to unfold in sequence, as rumpled as a dropped blanket, and devoid of any features-caves or copses, ravines, fallen stones-which might have concealed the Staff.

The Master shrugged. “They are Demondim-spawn. Who can measure the extent of their lore? The Haruchai have seen them perform far greater feats, in Corruption’s service.”

Linden could not think of any reason why the Staff might not have been taken tens or even hundreds of leagues from the place where Anele had lost it.

In the heat of her concentration, she had forgotten the rest of her companions. Fortunately Stave had not. Turning to the Manethrall, he asked Mahrtiir to ride back toward the hollow in case Liand, Anele, and the Cords needed help or guidance.

The Manethrall visibly disliked accepting a suggestion from Stave. However, he apparently recognised that the request was reasonable. Inclining his head more to Linden than to the Haruchai, he turned his Ranyhyn and cantered away.

She hardly saw him go. She had no attention to spare for pragmatic concerns. She had risked too much by coming here, and could think of nothing except the search before her.

Again the flowing liquid began to lose its way. Before it failed altogether, however, the last of the ur-viles arrived to sustain it, leaving only the loremaster behind to command the shadows.

Until then, Linden’s attention had been fixed on the serpent’s progress: she had given no thought to the price which the ur-viles paid for their exertions. They were too alien to be understood in human terms. But now she saw that the Demondim-spawn were trembling with weariness. Their peculiar nature did not protect them from strain and limitation: the necessary, ineluctable, and crippling strictures of Time.

Earlier, she had feared that they sought the Staff for reasons which might conflict with hers. Now she began to worry that they might exhaust themselves before they found it.

Overhead, the sun slipped toward midafternoon. Linden was dimly conscious of thirst and hunger, and of her own deep fatigue. She had known no real rest since the hour when she had first met Roger Covenant. Nevertheless the efforts and lore of the ur-viles held her. Her need for the Staff of Law outweighed every other consideration.

Ahead of her, the lore-serpent slid past an outcropping of rock in a narrow gully and seemed to become confused, no longer able to taste its prey in the thin soil. At the same time, Mahrtiir returned, accompanied by the rest of Linden’s companions as well as by a group of ur-viles.

Tersely the Manethrall explained that when Liand, Anele, and the Cords had emerged from the ravine, the loremaster had led them westward, abandoning its solitary efforts to replenish the ditch and compel the shadows. Instead of simply advancing to the serpent’s head, however, the loremaster had stopped to replace the rearmost ur-viles. Driving its power into the black flow, the largest of the creatures had freed the others to extend the reach of their lore.

They staggered with fatigue as they loped forward. Nonetheless they plunged unsteadily to their knees beside their fading search. Their blades seemed to gutter in their hands, lapsing to iron and then resuming a molten glow spasmodically. Yet they bent as one to their task, chanting in raw voices.

If Bhapa and Pahni felt any weariness, they did not show it. Instead they evinced the unassuming stoicism of Cords in the presence of their Manethrall. But Anele sprawled on Hrama’s neck as though he had given up hope. And Liand made no attempt to conceal his worry and wonder. Nothing in his life had prepared him to comprehend an exertion of power like the lore-serpent.

When he had drawn Rhohm to Linden’s side, the Stonedownor said, “The Manethrall deems that the ur-viles quest for the Staff.” He spoke in a whisper, plainly hoping that the creatures would not hear him. “Yet your apprehension is clear. Do you not desire their aid? Do you mistrust them, Linden?”

“I’m not sure.” She hardly knew what she felt. “Everything they’ve done for us so far has been good. But I don’t know why they’re doing it.

“I’ve heard that they’re driven by some kind of racial purpose.” Their Weird. “For thousands of years, they served Lord Foul. Then they turned against him.” They had created Vain so that a new Staff of Law could be made. “I don’t know what changed.

Nor did she know the limits of their lore. Were they capable of prescience; of reading Time? Was it possible that they had enabled her to fashion the Staff so that later-now- they would have an opportunity to claim it for themselves?

If they shared the loathing of the Viles and the Demondim for their own forms, they might believe that they needed the Staff in order to transform themselves.

Liand nodded. He had learned enough about the ur-viles from Stave to understand her uncertainty. Softly he said, “I confess that I have envied your knowledge of the Land and power. But now I find that I do not envy the burdens imposed by your knowledge

Smiling ruefully, he left her to study the progress of the lore-serpent in silence.

Linden could see signs that it would soon fail altogether. It was stretched too thin: its power dwindled as if the black fluid were being denatured by the summer heat. The ur-viles knelt behind its head in relays, leaving its tail so that their vitriol could continue its search. But each time they did so, weariness sapped more of their strength; and no new power fed the snake.

The sun seemed to cook Linden’s heart as she watched, bringing her closer and closer to Anele’s despair.

Then the black fluid neared the bottom of a narrow crease between hills, and there it stopped altogether. She could see no obstacle in its path-and no feature to distinguish this particular crease from others she had passed. The sand and stone of its bottom suggested a watercourse, fed during the spring by rain and melting snow, but now entirely dry. However, a scattering of low brush grew along the scant ravine’s sides; more shrubs and grass than Linden had noticed on the surrounding hills. Perhaps a little water still seeped through the sand, helping the deep roots of the brush cling to life.

For no apparent reason, the liquid line of the ur-viles’ questing ended in a flat plane as though it had encountered an invisible wall.

Behind Linden, the creatures slumped away from the serpent, withdrawing their blades from its body, allowing its power to wither and fade. In moments, the dark fluid began to evaporate. Its macerated strength curled into the air in midnight plumes and wisps like remnants of shadows.

As the serpent died, she urged Hyn forward. She wanted to study the spot where it had ended. Had the ur-viles simply failed? Or had their searching met a barrier of some kind, an expression of lore which ordinary sight could not detect?

The Demondim-spawn barked at her hoarsely: they may have been trying to warn her. But their cries were too weak and weary to hold her back.

Stave came after her at once. Liand and Mahrtiir did the same. But their Ranyhyn were a stride behind Hyn as Linden neared the line where the dying liquid had been cut off.

Abruptly the mare shied; stopped. Tossing her head, she snorted in disapproval.

“Have care, Chosen,” advised the Master. “There is power here.”

Still Linden could discern nothing. “What kind of power?”

Stave gazed across the hills. “It resembles a Word of Warning such as the Lords wrought to forbid the approach of their foes.”

Harshly Mahrtiir put in, “It lacks such force.” He appeared to relish contradicting the Haruchai.

Stave nodded. “Indeed. It conceals. It does not threaten.”

Linden gaped at the blank air as though she had gone blind. Why could she not perceive-?

She glanced around for Liand to ask him what he could see; and as she did so the edge of her vision caught a faint shimmering in the bottom of the dry streambed, an elusive distortion like a hint of mirage. Instinctively she looked directly at the sand and brush again; and again her senses detected nothing. Yet when she glanced aside, the watercourse seemed to waver slightly.

Guided by uncertainty, as she had been ever since she had first met Thomas Covenant, Linden gradually refined her percipience until, like Stave and Mahrtiir, she could feel the character of the shimmering.

They were right: there was power in the air. If Hyn had carried her into the bottom of the crease, she would have been stung by forces strong enough to stun her. Yet any harm that she might have suffered would have been a necessary side-effect of the power, not its intent. It had been placed here for another purpose.

To conceal something, as Stave had suggested? Or to forewarn its wielders?

Or both?

In any case, its evanescent presence implied-

“Linden-?” Liand began. But he was too bewildered to complete his question.

– that the lore of the ur-viles had not failed. Some potent being or beings lurked nearby.

And it or they did not wish to be found. Or taken by surprise.

“All right,” she murmured under her breath. “All right.”

She could still hope.

Then she asked more loudly, “Now what?”

At her side, Stave shrugged. “I know little of such lore. The Haruchai do not require it. If you will not turn aside, we must continue to rely upon the guidance of the ur-viles.”

Unless Linden called up white fire and simply tore the shimmering aside-

She no longer trusted that she would be able to do so. Her failure to find her own power in the caesure had nearly doomed her and everyone with her.

Thinking that she should return to the ur-viles, see if they were in any condition to take action, she touched Hyn’s neck; and the Ranyhyn turned to trot back toward the creatures.

Already most of their fluid had wisped away into the sunlight; and another group of ur-viles had joined those nearby, sprawling exhausted beside their fellows. More limped over the crest of the hill, their black skin streaked with dust and expenditure. They, too, sagged to the ground with the other ur-viles, too worn out to go farther. Now only the loremaster remained absent. When it reached her, Linden’s company would be complete.

Pitying their prostration, she slipped from Hyn’s back, walked a few steps to stand among the creatures, then slowly lowered herself to her knees so that she would not appear to be looking down on them.

Her companions also dismounted, leaving only Anele astride his Ranyhyn. He ignored them as he had ignored everything since he had been taken from his cave. His battered forehead he veiled in Hrama’s mane.

For a moment, Linden hesitated, unsure of herself. But the pressure of her plight did not release her. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she addressed the creatures softly, pleading with them yet again.

“I don’t know what to do. I keep saying that. This is beyond me. I know you’re exhausted. You’ve already done more than I have any right to ask. But I need even more.”

The thought of confronting the mirage with Covenant’s ring made her stomach clench.

“Is there anything we can do for you? Do you eat aliantha?” She had seen none, but she did not doubt that the Ramen-or the Ranyhyn-would be able to find treasure-berries. “Do you need water?” Liand and the Ramen carried several waterskins. “Can you make more vitrim?”

The ur-viles regarded her with their wide nostrils and did not respond.

All right, she insisted, trying to reassure herself. She could not tell whether the situation required action or not. Nonetheless she did. A form of madness crouched in the background of her mind, awaiting its opportunity to spring. She had to do something-

Somehow she needed to find her way back to wild magic.

Surging to her feet, she turned roughly away and strode past her companions down the hillside toward the dry streambed.

So that she would not blunder into the shimmering, she watched for it askance, approaching it cautiously. Whoever or whatever had placed the barrier there might have no desire to do harm. It or they might recognise the presence of white gold. Hell, they might even recognise her. The ur-viles had certainly done so.

She had to take the chance.

Liand followed a step or two behind her, murmuring her name as though he did not know how else to aid her. And Stave walked at her shoulder. At a word from the Manethrall, Bhapa and Pahni unslung their waterskins and went to offer water to the Demondim-spawn. Mahrtiir himself followed Linden, Liand, and Stave down the slope.

This time, the ur-viles uttered no warnings. All of her companions seemed to understand what she meant to do.

A few paces from the watercourse, Linden stopped. She no longer needed to sense the mirage obliquely: she could feel its implications like a faint tingle on the skin of her face. When she had chosen a steady place to stand, a stretch of bare dirt where the thin soil did not shift under her feet, she lifted Covenant’s ring from under her shirt and wrapped her fingers around it. Then she closed her eyes and went looking within herself for fire; for the hidden door which opened on wild magic.

She should have been able to find it. She was certainly desperate enough. And twice now she had summoned argence by conscious choice. But the knowledge that she had failed in the caesure hampered her concentration. The possibility that she might fail once more-that she might never again have access to the power she needed-blocked her from clarity. She could not rediscover the door.

A low breeze skirled around her, carrying heat to her skin, drawing sweat from her temples and ribs. The pressure of the sun made her feel weak, denatured like the lore-serpent. Instead of white fire, she found a sensation of nausea twisting in her guts as if she were dehydrated or ill.

Abruptly all of the ur-viles began to bark. Their raucous shouts held a note of alarm. Startled, Linden looked back up the slope toward the creatures.

The loremaster had rejoined them. As weary as its fellows, it could barely support itself on all fours. The stain of dust on its eyeless face gave it a stricken aspect, as if it had caught a scent which appalled it.

The heads of all the ur-viles were turned, not toward Linden and the streambed, but in the direction of the open plains.

Liand gasped softly; and Stave said with sudden harshness, “Attend, Chosen.” Wheeling to face northward, Linden muttered involuntarily, “Oh, hell. What’s he doing here?”

Less than a stone’s cast below her, Esmer came striding up the hillside. He moved smoothly, easily, ascending the slope with unspoken puissance. His gilded cymar flowed like water on the breeze, alternately caressing and concealing his limbs. The strange fabric seemed to shift in hue with each step, modulating from the bright blue-and-gold of sun-burnished waves to the ominous shade of storm-frothed seas.

The plain shock of his appearance here, millennia before his proper time, made Linden feel like retching.

He was headed toward a point midway between her and the ur-viles. As he drew near, however, he paused as if to consider both groups. Then he advanced on the Demondim-spawn with a spume of hauteur in his eyes.

Some of them struggled to rise. Others cowered on the ground, nearly grovelling. Only the loremaster managed to haul itself erect. With its sceptre in its hands, it confronted Esmer’s approach unsteadily; but the iron looked cold, inert. To Linden’s eyes, the creature seemed too weak to withstand a blow-or even a rough word. Esmer’s vast power would sweep the loremaster from the face of the hills.

And still she could not find the door-She had lost her access to wild magic entirely.

When he reached the ur-viles, Esmer stopped, clenching his fists on his hips. “This is abject,” he sneered. “Has the mighty lore of the Demondim become so frail? And do you dare to set yourselves against me? You do well to grovel, lest my betrayals destroy you utterly.”

The loremaster responded with a bark of defiance. But Linden felt no force from the creature; no strength at all.

As if he had decided to begin a slaughter, Esmer stooped suddenly to slap a prone ur-vile with the palm of his hand.

Linden felt her heart labouring in her chest. Esmer’s palm struck between the creature’s shoulder blades. She expected a gout of blood; expected to see the ur-vile’s spine shattered. But instead a small iron bowl appeared in Esmer’s hand. He seemed to have snatched it out of the ur-vile’s flesh.

From the bowl, she sensed the unmistakable must and potency of vitrim.

Pacing imperiously among the creatures, Esmer carried the bowl to the loremaster and thrust it at the big ur-vile. “Drink,” he commanded. “Drink, and may the Seven Hells consume your bones. This weakness is intolerable.

“You are needed.”

Then he turned his back on the creatures to stride like an act of violence toward Linden and her companions.

She breathed in hard gasps, trying to quell her nausea. Esmer’s conflicted emanations left her half stunned: she could hardly think. What was he doing here? How had he come?

And why was he so angry?

Fearlessly Stave stepped forward to stand in front of Linden. After an instant’s hesitation, Liand joined him. Muttering Ramen curses, Mahrtiir placed himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Stave and Liand. And Pahni and Bhapa followed Esmer down the slope. The set of their faces said that they were ready to sacrifice themselves, if they were needed.

The Ranyhyn had accepted Esmer. He had been the friend of the Ramen-

“Stand aside!” he barked at Linden’s guardians. For a moment, he sounded like an ur-vile, guttural and enraged; and distant lightnings glared in his eyes. “This delay is fatal. The defenders of the Staff are unsure of you. And they are blinded to white gold. Already they prepare to abandon their covert. They will flee if they are not given battle.

“Then will you be betrayed in earnest, and nothing will undo the harm that I have Wrought.”

He could easily have gone around Linden and her companions; but he seemed to need a kind of permission from them.

Or from her.

“Go ahead,” she breathed, although she hardly heard herself. Her head reeled. The defenders of the Staff-? She wanted to challenge him; demand an explanation. The Staff was here? But surprise and confusion seemed to compel her acquiescence.

Some part of him wanted to help her.

He had already betrayed-?

When she spoke, Stave, Liand, and Mahrtiir stepped out of Esmer’s way. He swept past them scornfully, ignoring Linden as if she had fulfilled her role and no longer had any significance.

Together, she and her companions turned to watch him approach the dry streambed.

He did not pause as he neared the shimmering. Instead he plunged into the crease between the hills like the onset of a gale.

And like a gale, he tore reality asunder.

A tremendous concussion shook the ground. For an instant, dirt and grass and rocks sprang into the air like waterspouts, force-driven geysers. Unable to keep her feet, Linden pitched headlong down the slope; landed with dust in her eyes and mouth. Liand fell beside her: even Mahrtiir staggered to his knees. Only Stave contrived to remain upright.

The blast passed quickly, leaving in its wake a rain of broken stones, rent grass, clods of soil. Blinking desperately to clear her sight, Linden saw Esmer standing undisturbed in the bottom of the watercourse, facing up the ravine. The fall of debris cane nowhere near him.

She coughed convulsively at the dust in her lungs; but she made no sound. Liand appeared to call her name, yet his voice did not reach her. The concussion had taken her hearing.

And-

Oh, God.

The sand on which Esmer stood was no longer the bottom of a small ravine. The crease between the hills was gone; ripped out of existence. In its place stood a wider streambed, higher and more rugged walls. As the slopes rose on either side, the walls piled upward, forming a deep cut in the bedrock of the hills-an incision filled with shadows and implied peril.

At the end of the cut, fifty or a hundred paces up the ravine, gaped the broad mouth of a cave. It seemed as full of darkness as a sepulchre.

Esmer, Linden tried to say. God in Heaven. Esmer! But she heard nothing.

Then Stave came to her side. His hands clasped her shoulders, lifted her to her feet as if she were weightless. His lips moved, conveying nothing.

Liand scrambled upright a moment later. He shook his head, raised his hands to his ears. Fear flashed in his eyes as he realised that he had been deafened. In a rush, he flung his arms around Linden and held her close as if to assure himself that she was whole.

Their deafness would pass: she knew that already. The concussion had only shocked her auditory nerves. If her eardrums had ruptured, she would have felt more pain. In a moment, Liand would discern the same for himself.

Struggling against his embrace, she turned to see what Esmer was doing.

At the same time, the ur-viles launched themselves down the slope, galvanised by alarm or vitrim. Their jaws worked: they appeared to bark frenetically. In spite of their weariness, they held their blades glowing in their fists. As they hastened toward the new ravine, they managed to form a ragged wedge.

At the point of the wedge, the loremaster staggered weakly, hardly able to keep its balance. Nevertheless its sceptre seemed to ache with power, and dark vitriol glistened on the surface of the iron.

Esmer gave them a jeering glance, then returned his attention to the cave at the end of the ravine.

Made visible only by its own intensity, by the discrepancy between its force and the calm of summer, a shock wave lashed through the air from the mouth of the cave. Channelled and focused by the rough stone of the walls, it struck at Esmer like a scourge; fell on him with such vehemence that Linden almost saw the flesh stripped from his bones. She expected him to fall backward in a clutter of disarticulated limbs.

At the last instant, however, he erupted like a burst of sunfire, blinding and incandescent.

Then Linden was blind as well as deaf, lost in a glare that blotted out vision. Heat licked through her clothes as though the air had become flame.

Yet somehow she broke free of Liand’s grasp and began to run, sightless and desperate, in the direction of the ravine. This had to stop. The Staff was in that cave. Its defenders were not her enemies.

When she could see again, she squinted through a chaos of splotches and power-echoes, and found Esmer standing unharmed a few strides ahead of her, wrapped in disdain as if it were armour; as if the force unleashed against him were no more than a petty affront.

Covenant’s ring bounced against her chest as she landed heavily in the sand of the watercourse. No! she cried silently at Esmer. Stop this! Get out of here! They aren’t our enemies!

But she did not pause to see whether he heard her; heeded her. Thrusting him aside, she staggered frantically up the ravine.

No! she cried again, appealing now to the beings hidden in the cave. Please! We don’t want to fight you. We won’t fight you!

Confused by phosphenes, little suns and nebulae, she could not see her footing clearly. Sand shifted under her boots, and rocks tripped her, making her stumble. Still she ran.

In the darkness ahead of her, another shock wave gathered, powerful enough to be palpable through the residual burning of her skin. If it struck her, she would suffer the rent flesh and scattered bones which she had imagined for Esmer. Yet she did not stop.

Before she reached the mouth of the cave, however, and the shock wave ripped through her, she heard a howl in spite of her deafness, a cry of warning in Esmer’s voice. So suddenly that she could not avoid colliding with him, he appeared between her and the poised assault.

He faced into the cave, obviously shouting something which once again she did not hear. With one hand, he pointed urgently at the ring swinging on its chain outside her shirt. With the other, he directed a wall of force back down the ravine, a barrier which prevented Linden’s companions and the ur-viles from following her.

Beyond his forbidding, Liand and Bhapa appeared to call for her; and Pahni clung to them both as if she had lost her voice. But Stave and Mahrtiir had already flung themselves up the hillsides beside the ravine, seeking to bypass Esmer’s barrier. In the streambed, the ur-viles concentrated their wedge, preparing ‘an acid counterstroke.

Linden turned her back on them to continue struggling toward the cave.

Esmer caught her arm to restrain her-and at once released her as a small form emerged from the darkness within the cave.

Of her own volition, she halted.

The figure before her was a Waynhim.

She recognised it instantly, although ten years had passed since its kind had saved her life and Covenant’s in the Northron Climbs. But she had never expected to see one of them again. She had believed that all of the Waynhim, every community or rhysh, had gathered long ago to oppose the depredations of the arghuleh. There most of them had perished, overpowered by the unexpected might of the ice-beasts.

Had enough of the creatures survived to form one last rhysh?

If so, they were absolutely not her enemies. Throughout their long existence, they had served the Land with all the cunning of their strange lore.

But they had always been the deadly foes of the ur-viles-

Like the rest of its kind, the Waynhim was smaller than any of the ur-viles: standing erect, its head reached no higher than the centre of her chest. And its skin was an ambiguous grey, a colour which would have looked pale in direct sunlight, but which appeared darker, tinged with illness or sorrow, in the shadows that filled the ravine. Yet the creature could only be a making of the Demondim. Its pointed ears perched high on its bald skull; its entire body was hairless; and instead of eyes, two wide damp nostrils gaped above its lipless mouth.

It stood just outside the cave. Its mouth moved as though it were speaking; but if Linden had been able to hear she would not have understood what the Waynhim said

The ur-viles must have known that the Waynhim were here as soon as they had detected the scent of the Staff. Without Esmer’s intervention, they and the Waynhim would have already attacked each other.

He replied to the creature: a buzz of implied noise in the bones of Linden’s skull. Again he indicated Covenant’s ring. This time when the Waynhim spoke, she heard a low spatter of sound like the phosphenes which lingered in her vision, complicating the shadows.

The rasp of Esmer’s voice returned; but she did not realise that he had addressed her until he gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. Like the Waynhim’s, his mouth moved incomprehensibly.

With gestures, she tried to tell him that she could not hear.

Esmer scowled in vexation, and his green eyes seethed. He said something over his shoulder to the Waynhim, then spoke as if he were issuing commands to Linden’s companions. But he did not wait for a response. Instead he raised his hands to her ears and tapped them lightly with his fingertips.

The ur-viles held their formation, waiting.

For a moment, Esmer’s touch tingled on Linden’s eardrums. Then she was struck by a blare of sound as loud and compulsory as the calling of sirens.

Suddenly she could hear the strident apprehension of Liand’s breathing, the harsh chanting of the ur-viles. Pahni’s whispers seemed to roar up the ravine. In spite of their sure-footedness, Stave’s and Mahrtiir’s movements along the rims of the walls sounded like the grinding of boulders.

When Esmer asked, “Now do you hear?” he might as well have yelled in her face.

She flinched. “Too loud.” Her own voice bellowed at her. She clamped her hands over her ears. “It’s too loud.”

Esmer looked stricken; inexplicably ashamed of himself. Then he covered his chagrin with a feigned sneer. “It will pass.”

Before she could reply, he turned to bark something at the Waynhim.

Clamorous as an avalanche, Stave and Mahrtiir landed in the sand of the ravine. Confused by the exaggeration of her hearing, Linden feared that they would hurl themselves at Esmer; or at the Waynhim. But they ignored Cail’s son, and her. Instead of attacking, they bowed deeply to the grey creature.

Their actions left Linden momentarily weak with relief.

Esmer seemed vexed, but he did not regard the Haruchai and the Manethrall. When the Waynhim had answered him, he faced Linden again.

“Wildwielder,” he said darkly, “I have introduced you and your companions. As much as I am able, I have explained your purpose here. This is their reply.

“Your name they acknowledge. They know the ur-Lord Thomas Covenant’s companion against the Sunbane. By their lore, they have learned of her role in fashioning the Staff of Law. And assuredly they understand the importance of white gold. For the sake of the great good that she accomplished at Thomas Covenant’s side, in the name of the wild magic that destroys peace, and because I have spoken on your behalf, they concede that you are indeed Linden Avery the Chosen, as you appear to be. Therefore they will make you welcome.”

Gradually the volume of Esmer’s voice receded to a more bearable level. Lowering her hands, Linden found that she could hear him now without discomfort. Stave’s and Mahrtiir’s feet no longer sounded like thunder as they crossed the sand toward her.

“They concede as well,” Esmer continued, “that you have passed through a rupture in the Law of Time. Their lore speaks of this peril. And I am able to compel their belief. They cannot deny my knowledge of such powers.”

His tone darkened to bitterness as he said, “The Haruchai also they recognise, and the Ramen. They, too, will be welcomed, as well as the Stonedownor, for the same reason.”

Esmer paused while a look of savagery mounted in his gaze. “But never,” he concluded, “will they permit the presence of ur-viles in their covert. And they will not give the Staff of Law into your hands.”

Stave nodded as though he had expected this, and approved. But Mahrtiir glared a warning at the Waynhim, and his sore fingers hinted at his garrote.

Instinctively Linden dismissed the refusal of the Waynhim. It was too much: she could not afford to believe that she would fail now. Her head still reeled with the aftereffects of the Waynhim’s defences, and Esmer’s. She had no choice but to act as though she could not be thwarted.

They were Waynhim, and they had the Staff: that was all that mattered. She had nowhere else to turn. If they did not trust her, she would simply have to persuade them.

Quietly, almost calmly, she asked Esmer, “Why not? They know I made it. Don’t they think it belongs to me?”

His ferocity faded at once. Now he appeared to squirm.

“They fear you,” he admitted. “Your presence in this time is a profound violation of the very Law which the Staff supports. How can they believe that your purpose is benign, when you have chosen to pursue that purpose by such hazardous means?

“Also,” he added in a smaller voice, “they fear me. They perceive the peril of my nature. That I act on your behalf tells against you.”

Linden shook her head. The reasoning of the Waynhim did not surprise her. They were not her enemies.

Esmer, on the other hand-

“They have a point,” she said more sharply. “What in hell are you doing here, Esmer?” Then she stopped herself. “No, don’t answer that yet. First tell me how you got here.

Earlier, he had refused to enter the caesure with her. In my presence, you will surely fail. What had he meant, if not that his nature would not permit passage through a Fall?

“You are acquainted with Elohim,” he answered, still squirming. “You know that they stand apart from all Law. I have not inherited their untrammelled separateness, but I have been granted a measure of their freedom.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “Time seldom hinders me.”

“Then why didn’t you just come get the Staff for me? You keep saying you want to help. Why did we have to go through all that pain?”

Esmer looked away. “The Elohim respect the Law of Time. It preserves the Earth. They have no wish to rouse the Worm of the World’s End. To that extent, I am bound by their Wurd.”

Linden swore to herself. As usual, his response was too conflicted and ambiguous to help her. Instead of pursuing the subject, she changed directions.

“You said the Waynhim were blind to my ring. Why is that?”

Esmer’s mien reflected a rolling wave of emotions: anxiety, defensiveness, shame. “It is an effect of my nearness.”

She heard hints in his words, suggestions of insight, but their meaning eluded her. There were conclusions which she should have been able to draw-Too many truths had already slipped through her fingers, leaving her less and less prepared for each succeeding crisis. But she could not think beyond the exigencies of her immediate situation.

Esmer had mentioned betrayal. As if treachery were essential to his identity. And he had avowed that his presence would ensure her failure.

“So if you hadn’t showed up here and broken down their defences,” she said grimly, “we wouldn’t be in this mess. The Waynhim would have sensed the ur-viles, sure, but they would have felt my ring at the same time.

“And the ur-viles wouldn’t have attacked them.” She would not have permitted that. “As far as I can see, the Waynhim are refusing me now because you came all this way to threaten them.”

Stave nodded again.

“So explain it to me, Esmer,” she insisted. “What in hell are you doing here?”

“Wildwielder,” he retorted, “you understand nothing.” His words were scornful, but his tone and his manner ached with regret, apology; self-recrimination. “I feared what might transpire if the ur-viles accosted the Waynhim.

“The breaking of their wards is nothing. If you chose, you might have torn the barrier asunder. Or the ur-viles, given time, could have accomplished as much in your name. But such efforts would have been prolonged, allowing the Waynhim to withdraw. Nor would your actions have relieved their mistrust.

“My intervention has not harmed them. It was necessary only to prevent them from flight, so that you might be granted an opportunity to beseech them.

“Also the enmity among these Demondim-spawn is deep and ancient. That the ur-viles have seen their Wurd in a new way does not comfort the Waynhim. In my absence, how would you mediate between them? And how would you counter their doubt of you? You do not know their speech. You cannot answer their concerns if you do not comprehend them.

“You must not spurn my aid.” Yearning ached in his gaze. “How otherwise may I be redeemed?”

But Linden had no tolerance left for his self-justifications. “That’s not my problem,” she told him trenchantly. “You like to talk about betrayals. I don’t think I can afford your help.”

Turning her back on his puissance, she took a few steps toward the Waynhim.

“You know me,” she told the waiting creature. “I don’t care what Esmer says about me-or about you either. He’s making this all sound complicated when it’s actually simple.

“I’m the woman who made the Staff. Covenant sacrificed himself to protect the Arch of Time, and I used his ring to transform Vain and Findail so that I could stop the Sunbane.

“I came here through a caesure. That’s true. And caesures are evil. That’s true, too. But it doesn’t change who I am.” She believed that. “I just didn’t have any other way to get here.”

She could not read the creature’s reactions. It might have regarded her with empathy or terror, and she would not have known the difference. Yet somehow the Waynhim conveyed the impression that it was not well; that some old sorrow or wound sapped its vitality, leaving it more frail than it should have been. Grief over the near-extermination of its kind? Some other loss or burden? Linden could not tell. Like the ur-viles, the Waynhim baffled her health-sense.

Nevertheless its condition moved her. When she went on, she spoke more gently.

“If I’m going to fight Lord Foul, I need the Staff. I’m no ‘Wildwielder.’ That was Covenant, and he’s dead. And white gold can’t stop caesures. You know that better than I do. Only Law can undo that kind of rupture.

“But that’s not all.” She glanced back at Cail’s son, then told the Waynhim urgently, “Esmer may not have mentioned that Lord Foul has my son, my Jeremiah. Maybe I can rescue him with wild magic, maybe I can’t. But I can’t do it without risking the Arch, and that’s too dangerous. I need the Staff. Otherwise I might do enough harm to end the Earth.”

Even Jeremiah would be destroyed.

“And the Staff belongs to me,” she asserted. “Not just because I made it, but because I’m a healer. That’s what I do.” She chose her words with care. “I’m the right person to use it.”

You’re the only one who can do this.

The creature responded with a spate of harsh barking, bitter as a denial. When the Waynhim finished, Esmer said as if he had lost interest, “They were unaware that you have a son. They sorrow on his behalf. But all else that you have said they knew, and they are not swayed. Your presence is a violation of Law. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.”

At any other time, that argument would have stopped Linden. She recognised its validity. But she could not heed it now. She had already taken risks which she could not undo. She could only hope to justify them with her actions.

“Wait here,” she told the Waynhim abruptly. “I’ll show you why you should give me the Staff.”

The creature inclined its head: a motion which could have meant anything, but which she chose to interpret as consent.

At once, she swung away to stride down the ravine toward her companions.

Deliberately she ignored Esmer. Accompanied by Stave and Mahrtiir, she hastened along the streambed, rushing to find her way through her ramified dilemmas before her instincts faltered or failed.

Although Esmer had withdrawn his barrier, the rest of her company still stood in midafternoon sunlight at the end of the ravine. The ur-viles remained undecipherable to her; but Liand’s charged confusion and the alarm of the Cords reached her across the intervening sand and stone.

They were as human as she was; their needs as great. Any explanation might have eased their hearts. But she could not pause for them. Holding up her hand to silence their questions, she spoke first to the ur-viles.

“You can’t go any farther,” she said brusquely. “You know that. The Waynhim won’t have it. And I suspect you don’t want to.” Unless they craved the Staff for themselves. But if they did, they were too weak to act on their desire. “You’ve already done your part. You’ll have to wait here.”

Then she turned to Liand and the Cords. “Bhapa, Pahni, I want you to take care of the Ranyhyn. Keep them nearby. I don’t know when we’re going to need them again, but it might be sudden.

“As for you-” She faced Liand’s open concern squarely. “Get Anele for me. Bring him into the ravine. If he can’t convince the Waynhim-”

She left the thought unfinished: if the old man could not move the Waynhim, they had no hearts; and she was powerless.

Liand’s gaze still pleaded with her, but he did not protest. When Pahni and Bhapa bowed in acquiescence, he smiled crookedly and did the same.

Touched by his generosity, Linden might have taken a moment to thank him, but her fears did not let her go.

As if she had released them, the ur-viles surrendered to their weariness again. Abandoning their wedge, they sank down to rest in the bottom of the watercourse. At the same time, the Cords and Liand started up the hillside toward the Ranyhyn and Anele.

With Mahrtiir and Stave beside her still, Linden returned to Esmer and the lone Waynhim, walking among the shadows as if she meant to challenge the dark.

Esmer and the creature were talking quietly, but they broke off their exchange as she approached. She could not be sure, but she thought that she saw tears in Esmer’s indefinite gaze.

Too tense to remain silent, she asked, “Now what?”

Esmer lifted his shoulders: a shrug, perhaps, or a clench of self-restraint. “The Waynhim are valiant,” he answered in a low voice, “and too many of them will perish if you do not contrive their salvation. They know their plight, yet they do not flinch from it. I grieve for them, as I do for myself.”

Oh, great, Linden thought to herself. Just what I need. More riddles.

Aloud, she muttered, “So this is what your help is like. You summoned a caesure for me, and the Ramen were driven out of their homes. Now you’re here to “mediate” for me, and something terrible is going to happen to the Waynhim.” He nodded stiffly.

A new concern occurred to her. “What about all the help you gave the Ramen before they came to the Verge of Wandering? How are you going to betray them for that?”

Esmer withheld his damp gaze. “I have already done so. I have brought them near to the Land when you had need of them. No more terrible doom has been required of me.”

Linden wanted to snarl at him; but she kept her ire to herself. While she remained in this time, she could do nothing for the Ramen.

“Then,” Stave remarked to Esmer, “the Chosen and all the Land would be better served without your aid.”

Remembering Esmer’s earlier violence, Linden braced herself to jump between him and the Haruchai. But Cail’s son did not answer Stave’s accusation.

“Ringthane,” Mahrtiir offered slowly, “I cannot account for him.” The Manethrall sounded troubled. “He has been a friend to the Ramen as to the Ranyhyn, giving us no cause for mistrust. Of one thing I am certain, however. No urging of his has caused us to act against the will of the Ranyhyn. For that reason, we regret nothing that we have done, though we have indeed returned to the Verge of Wandering in a time of peril.”

Before Linden could respond, she heard movement behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Liand enter the streambed with Anele. The Stonedownor supported Anele with his arm around the old man’s waist. Anele appeared to have lost all volition and strength: he accompanied Liand only because the young man half-carried him along.

Nonetheless Linden was sure of him. He was an argument that would persuade the Waynhim to aid her. If they were deaf to him, they would hear no other appeal.

“Thank you,” she murmured as Liand and the old man drew near. Then she said, “Let him go. Let’s see what he does.”

Liand complied with a nod. When he had released Anele, he stepped back.

Shadows made pools of darkness in the sockets of Anele’s blind eyes. He appeared entirely lost; too far gone in dismay to be aware of his surroundings or situation. In some preterite way, however, he may have understood what was needed of him. Or perhaps his inborn Earthpower reacted to the lore of the Waynhim. As soon as Liand removed his support, the old man took a few tottering steps toward the creature and dropped to his knees.

Clasping his hands before his face as if he were praying, he bowed his face to the sand. Then he spread out his arms and prostrated himself like an act of supplication.

The Waynhim considered him carefully. It came to stand over him; sniffed all around him as though tasting the tale of his life in his aggrieved scent. And as it did so, the creature increasingly gave the impression that it had been wounded; galled by sorrow or suffering.

If Linden could have seen its cause, the creature’s care and pain would have explained the Waynhim to her. One more hint, a final glimpse or insight, might enable her to comprehend their dilemma.

Trying to elicit that hint, she told the Waynhim softly, “This is Anele, son of Sunder and Hollian. They were chosen to hold the Staff of Law when I passed from the Land, and Covenant was lost. He inherited it from them. You found it in the cave where he lived while he studied the Land, trying to determine the form of service that was right for him.”

She did not add, He only made one mistake. Look at what it cost him. The creature could discern the truth for itself.

When the Waynhim had finished its examination, it barked a few guttural syllables into the gloom and retreated to stand once more near the mouth of the cave. There it stayed, apparently forbidding Linden to enter; refusing her-

After a moment, Mahrtiir demanded tensely, “Esmer, what was said? Has the Waynhim given its answer?”

Esmer hid his surging gaze in the crook of his arm and did not reply.

Stave waited with his arms folded across his chest. His flat features betrayed no reaction.

Linden kept her attention fixed on the creature and the cave.

As the sun declined past midafternoon, the shadows thickened, obscuring the face of the Waynhim, filling the mouth of the cave with potential night. Within herself, Linden fretted; but outwardly she remained calm. The Waynhim could argue that the end did not justify the means, but they could not deny that Anele was the rightful wielder of the Staff or that he was in no condition to bear that responsibility. Nor could they believe that the Staff was not desperately needed. Anele’s plight demonstrated the Land’s more eloquently than any words.

And the delay was not prolonged. Soon the darkness within the cave appeared to condense, concentrating gradually into the form of a second Waynhim.

This creature moved with an arduous limp, as if every movement tormented its sore and swollen joints. As it emerged from the cave, Linden saw that its flesh was afflicted with oozing galls and eruptions like the stigmata of a plague. From half of its face the skin had peeled away, leaving raw tissues which throbbed and bled with each beat of its heart. Boils and blisters distorted its mouth as if it had swallowed acid, and a rank green fluid dripped like pus from both of its nostrils.

Its pain cried out to her, as articulate as weeping, although the Waynhim made no sound.

It came forward a few steps, then stopped, wavering on its feet as if it had reached the end of its strength.

“Heaven and Earth!” Liand breathed. “What has befallen it? Is this an ailment? Has some cruel force wrought such harm?”

“Esmer?” demanded Mahrtiir harshly.

Linden understood now: the poor creature’s suffering gave her the hint she needed. How else might the Waynhim have responded to Anele’s plight, except by revealing their own?

Nevertheless the truth appalled her. And she had no power. Some force or confusion had sealed shut the door to wild magic within her.

Like Anele, still prostrate in the sand beside her, she sank to her knees before the damaged creature and bowed her head.

Gruffly Esmer responded, “The Demondim-spawn are not creatures of Law. They were not born as natural creatures, nor do they wither and perish as the Law of Life requires. Rather they were conceived by lore, created to redeem the loathing of the Demondim for their own forms.”

Ah, God. Linden feared that this crisis would be too much for her; that the dilemma of the Waynhim exceeded her scant strength. But these creatures were not her enemies. And they had shown her what they required in order to trust her.

“Those offspring,” Esmer continued, “which the Demondim deemed worthy, they nurtured. Those which failed their intent, they cast aside. Yet the ur-viles and the Waynhim differ primarily in their interpretations of the Weird or Wyrd or Word which gives them purpose. In their physical substance, they are alike, and the Law which gives form to mortal life has no place in them.”

On her knees with her eyes closed and her chest full of yearning, Linden considered her straits. She could not use Covenant’s ring. But the Waynhim held the Staff of Law; her Staff. How distant was it? How deeply had the Waynhim sequestered it?

Could her health-sense extend so far?

The damaged creature had taken some time to reach the ravine. But its pain was terrible, and all its steps were slow. It could not have come a long way.

With her eyes closed, she listened to Esmer’s voice. It moved her like a lament.

“For that reason,” he explained, “the Staff of Law is inimical to them. Though the Waynhim serve the Land, and have always done so, their service stands outside the bounds of Law. Their lore is in itself a violation of Law. The fact of their service does not alter their nature.

“Therefore the mere proximity of the Staff harms them. If its influences are not guided and controlled by a condign hand, its power must destroy them. Unprotected, no Waynhim or ur-vile can long endure its presence and remain whole “

And therefore the Waynhim understood Linden’s dilemma; the dilemma of every white gold wielder. The damaged creature in front of her demonstrated that they could be persuaded.

Comforted by the knowledge, she sank into Esmer’s words and the Waynhim’s pain; and as she did so, her percipience expanded outward, following the hard guidance of the ravine’s stone walls into the cave.

She did not consciously search for the Staff. The wrong kind of concentration would block her senses. Instead she simply drifted. And she found herself thinking, not of the Staff itself, or of how she had made it, or of its cost, but rather of Andelain and beauty.

If she had not visited that bastion of loveliness with Thomas Covenant, she would not have loved the Land as he did. Until that time, she had known only the Sunbane; and so the ineffable glory of Earthpower had been hidden from her.

“Sensing that the Staff had been abandoned,” Esmer said as if from an impossible distance, “these Waynhim sought it out, that they might preserve it from the Despiser’s Servants.”

Linden could almost hear the Forestal of Andelain’s song. It had been retained in the depths of her memories, melodic as trees, poignant as flowers: an eldritch music which had spangled and enumerated with glory every blade of grass, every petal, every leaf, every woodland creature.

“Yet the nearness of the Staff harms all Demondim-spawn.” Esmer’s voice had become a threnody in the dim ravine. “Over the years, it would unmake these Waynhim entirely. Therefore they selected from among their number one to bear the burden-one to transport the Staff from its former resting place, and here to become its final guardian. Thus the Waynhim hoped to satisfy their Weird without bringing ruin upon this rhysh, for it is the last in all the Land.

“The outcome of their choosing stands before us.”

Perpetually wounded in the name of service.

Like the Waynhim, the Forestal’s song was full of sorrow, carried on an undercurrent of woe. And like the Waynhim, it did not flinch from its own resolve.

Oh, Andelain! Forgive! For I am doomed to fail this war.

I cannot bear to see you die-and live,

Foredoomed to bitterness and all the grey Despiser’s lore.

But while I can I heed the call

Of green and tree; and for their worth

I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.

Linden’s memories of Andelain and music bore her along until she found what she sought: the precise aura and potency of the Staff of Law.

“And yet,” Mahrtiir put in, “they would refuse the Staff to the Ringthane, she who above all others has the greatest need-”

He stopped, unable to express his bafflement and chagrin.

“Manethrall,” answered Esmer, “they must satisfy their Weird. I have named their reasons. They do not count the cost to themselves.”

They did not; but Linden counted it for them. She had spent her life responding to such needs.

Her nerves recognised the Staff with gladness. The Land had gifted her with health-sense, and she could not mistake the Staff’s particular emanations. It was the incarnation of rightness, the tangible bulwark of the strictures, sequences, necessities-the commandments-which made life and beauty possible. While it remained intact, Lord Foul could never entirely extinguish hope.

And she was its maker. Inspired by her love for Covenant and the Land, for all of her friends, she had expended herself in white fire to create an instrument against the Sunbane. She did not need to be in contact with it in order to wield its benison. She needed only to feel its strength and know that it was hers.

Guided and controlled, Esmer had said. By a condign hand.

Kneeling still, with her eyes closed and her head bowed, Linden Avery the Chosen reached out to claim the only power which had ever truly belonged to her.

Somewhere in the distance, Liand whispered, “Heaven and Earth! Look to her. She is exalted-”

Together, as if they had momentarily set aside their antagonism, Esmer and Stave replied, “She has discovered the Staff.”

“What will she do?” Liand asked in wonder.

Stave did not reply; but Esmer murmured softly, “Behold.”

Filling her hands with the vast possibilities of Law, Linden turned her thoughts to the damaged Waynhim standing unsteadily before her.

Her eyes remained closed. She did not need to gaze upon the creature to know its suffering. Its wounds-the inadvertent and unavoidable corrosion of its substance-were plain to her in every detail. Her own flesh felt them.

The Staff of Law had inflicted these hurts. With the Staff, she could heal them.

Thus she answered the denial of the Waynhim. They were the last remnant of their kind, and deserved no less than to be made whole.

When her task was complete, the sun had fallen farther down the sky, and the slow approach of evening left the ravine deep in shadows. Nevertheless her heart felt like daybreak, bright and full of promise.

Chapter Eight: “Contrive their salvation”

When Linden rose at last to her feet, nearly staggering with weariness, the healed Waynhim and its companion made raw-edged sounds which Esmer translated as welcome. Courteously Stave and Mahrtiir returned grave thanks. Leaving Bhapa and Pahni with the Ranyhyn, and the ur-viles to fend for themselves, Linden and her small company followed the Waynhim into the cave.

She leaned heavily against Liand, needing his support. And Mahrtiir held Anele upright: the old man seemed too lost to fend for himself. Stave walked alone, while Esmer trailed behind as if he had been dispossessed.

Formal as a procession, they proceeded along the dark stone throat until they reached a turning, where the passage opened into a wide chamber lit like a meeting hall. There the rest of the rhysh waited to offer welcome also, bowing after their fashion and chittering among themselves like delighted birds.

Healing the creature that warded the Staff, Linden had apparently healed them all. Even the Waynhim which had first met her in the ravine had lost its grieving air, and none of the others showed any signs of harm.

She had in some sense validated the meaning of their lives.

After the summer heat on the South Plains, the atmosphere of the cave felt blessedly cool, soothing to her raw nerves. The Waynhim guided their guests to ledges like seats in the wall of the cave; and when she sat down the worn stone seemed to embrace her in spite of its unyielding surfaces. This sensation, she knew, was an effect created by the Waynhim. They wished her to understand that she had arrived in a place of peace.

The light in the cave had a warm luminescence tinged with emerald and flickers of rust. It arose from a number of stone pots spaced like braziers around the wide floor; and flames danced and twisted at their rims. Yet Linden could see that the fires were fed, not by oil or wood, but by lore. Instead of smoke, they cast a scent of cloves and coriander into the air.

Liand sat near her, although now she did not need his care. The Waynhim had brought her closer to the Staff of Law: she could feel its nearness effortlessly. Its stern beneficence filled her with an unfamiliar contentment.

Stave remained standing as if to do the Demondim-spawn honour. And Esmer wandered aimlessly around the chamber, looking vaguely rueful, troubled by sorrows which he did not explain. But Mahrtiir also sat on one of the ledges, studying the Waynhim as though he meant to memorise every detail so that he would be able to tell his people a tale worthy of his fierce ambitions.

Seated as well, Anele rested against the stone, mumbling into his thin beard. But some essential change had taken place in him. When Linden looked at him, she saw that his old rue and shame had lost some of their vehemence. He had been ground down by too many years and too much regret; and yet, in spite of his mumbling, he appeared almost sane. His proximity to the Staff seemed to soothe him, easing his long bereavement.

The Waynhim offered an iron cup of vitrim to each of their guests, although Esmer waved his aside with apparent disdain. Then they gathered together in the centre of the chamber, forming themselves into a loose wedge with the Staff’s guardian at its tip. Again the healed creature bowed to Linden, barking words she could not understand. When she also had bowed, it walked slowly out of the chamber into one of several side-tunnels that interrupted the walls of the cave. Hushed and expectant, everyone waited while the creature disappeared on its errand.

Soon it returned, bearing the Staff of Law in its hands.

Linden’s heart lifted again at the sight. The Staff’s unique nature spoke to her senses. It was taller than the Waynhim-nearly as tall as she was herself-and formed of a pale wood which gleamed in the lore-light; wood so pale that it might have been carved from the heart of a tree. Its length was smooth, as if it had been polished lovingly for centuries. But its ends were bound with iron bands, the heels of the original Staff of Law which Berek Halfhand had formed from a limb of the One Tree.

Vain and Findail had given their lives to it, rigid structure and fluid vitality. But their qualities had been transformed by wild magic and the passion of Linden’s torn spirit. And their union had been shaped, guided, by the deep knowledge with which Berek had forged his iron. Thus the lore of the ur-viles and the Earthpower of the Elohim had become the pure instrument of Law.

Eagerly Linden rose to meet the Staff. When the creature placed it in her grasp, she felt a rush of warmth from the wood. Its possibilities flowed into her like heat. At the same time, she was filled with memories of Andelain: of hillsides as lush as lawns bedizened with wildflowers and aliantha; of the proud outstretched health of Gilden trees with their wreaths of golden leaves thick about them; of small streams, and groves of oak, and swaths of briar-rose, all vibrant with Earthpower.

She felt that she was remembering the Land as it had once existed in the mind of its Creator, before Lord Foul was imprisoned within the Arch of Time; before Foul had corrupted the Land with hidden banes like the Illearth Stone, and had gained the service of fell beings like the Ravers. And she tasted as well the Creator’s grief. Having created the Arch, the structure of beginning and end which allowed life to exist, the Creator could not alter events within that structure without violating it. Therefore Lord Foul’s imprisonment itself gave him the freedom to destroy what the Creator had made.

Such treasures as the Staff of Law had been brought into being so that the inhabitants of the Land would have the means to oppose Lord Foul themselves; to fight for the intended beauty of the world.

For a moment, at least, while she held the Staff for the first time in many years, Linden felt equal to her enormous task. Unlike Covenant’s ring, the Staff suited her. She understood its uses instinctively; trusted herself with it. Its natural rightness seemed to send healing into every cell and impulse of her being.

She did not realise that she was weeping until she thought to thank the Waynhim and discovered that she could see nothing clearly. Tears blurred her gaze, turning the light to streaks of consolation, and confusing the definition of the figures around her.

When she blinked the tears from her eyes, however, she found that the Staff’s guardian no longer stood before her. The creature had stepped back, making way for Anele.

The old man faced her with his hands poised near the Staff as though he meant to wrest it from her grasp.

Liand and Mahrtiir hovered behind him, waiting to see what he would do; ready to intervene. But they were visibly reluctant to disturb him.

Anele’s hands trembled as he studied the Staff, and his blind gaze seemed to ache with yearning. How many decades had passed since he had last stood in the presence of his birthright? How much recrimination and self-loathing had he suffered before he had fallen into madness?

The touch of the Staff might heal him as well.

Yet he did not close his hands on the immaculate wood; did not so much as brush it with his fingertips. Instead he stood motionless while Linden grieved for him and the entire chamber seemed to hold its breath. Then, trembling, he lowered his arms.

In a small voice, he murmured unsteadily, “I am unworthy of such astonishment. The day has not yet come when I may be whole.” His throat closed on a sob. When he had swallowed it, he whispered, “Until that time, I must remain as I am.

“Do not mourn for me.” The effort of renunciation left him desolate. “Know that I am content to behold the Staff in your care.”

Then he turned away and hid his face in his hands.

Liand’s eyes were damp as he watched the old man. Mahrtiir scowled fiercely, too proud for sadness; but his manner was gentle as he guided Anele back to his seat and offered vitrim to his lips.

For a while, Linden could not stop her tears. The day has not yet come-She believed him: there was no falsehood in him. But the thought that he needed to remain as he was hurt her more than she could express. With the Staff, she possessed the power to impose any healing that he might require. Yet he refused her. He was not ready-or his circumstances were not.

“Linden,” asked Liand softly, “will you heed his desire for forbearance? Your weariness is extreme, but surely it does not outweigh his suffering?”

Hugging the Staff of Law to her chest, Linden cast her health-sense deeply into the old man, as she had done once before in the Verge of Wandering: again she sought the means to succour him. But he had changed in more ways than one. The same yearning or compulsion which had brought him close to sanity had also galvanised his native puissance. She would have to force her way past powerful defences in order to reach him.

That violence might do him harm that she could not repair.

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Look at him,” she told Liand. “He’s choosing to be this way.” His madness, like his blindness, was necessary to him still. “If I try to heal him, he’ll fight me. And maybe he’s right. He certainly has the right.”

And she had neither the wisdom nor the arrogance to make his decisions for him.

After a moment, Liand answered sadly, “I see what you see, though it baffles me. Perhaps he must determine the time and place of his healing.” Then the Stonedownor asked in a tone of pleading, “What does he desire, if not the Staff which he lost?”

“You heard him,” Linden sighed. “He needs to believe in himself. He still thinks he’s unworthy.”

Grieving, she returned to her seat on the stone ledge. Anele had assured her that he was content. And she, too, needed healing. Her tasks were far from complete. She still had to return to her proper time, and could not do so without entering a caesure. But her first experience had nearly destroyed her. Until she became stronger, she would not be able to endure a second.

And Esmer had warned her of betrayals- The Waynhim are valiant, he had said, and too many of them will perish if you do not contrive their salvation. He had brought with him or elicited some peril when he had appeared in this time. Now she and her companions as well as the Ranyhyn were in danger.

Fervidly she clung to the smooth wood of the Staff for comfort. When she had settled herself on the ledge, she drank a few swallows of the musty vitrim and let its potency carry the Staff’s warmth like chrism into the depths of her weariness.

She had rested there for only a short time, however, when Stave and Esmer approached her together. Animosity bristled between them, yet they were momentarily united in their resolve to question her.

Holding the Staff across her lap, she looked into the shifting green of Esmer’s gaze and the steady brown of Stave’s, and waited wearily for them to speak.

“What will you do,” Esmer demanded abruptly, “now that you have obtained your desire? It appears that you are indeed the Chosen, for the Demondim-spawn have chosen you. Perhaps they are not alone in their selection. Will you now cease to be the Wildwielder, setting aside white gold that you may dedicate yourself to the service of Law? If you do so, how will you return to your proper time? And if you do not, how will you bear the burden of such powers?

“Either alone will transcend your strength, as they would that of any mortal. Together they will wreak only madness, for wild magic defies all Law. That is its power and its peril.

“You must declare yourself, so that I”- he caught himself- ”so that all those here may find their own paths.”

He did not need to ask, If you set aside the ring, who will take it up? That question was implicit in every line of his face.

He may have wished to possess Covenant’s ring himself.

While Esmer spoke, Stave stepped aside as if to dissociate himself from his antagonist’s demand. But when Esmer was finished, the Master said, “I also ask this. We must not remain in this time. The hazard is too great. And you must not wield both wild magic and Law, lest you be torn asunder.

“Therefore I ask it. What is your intent?”

Linden considered both men through a blur of fatigue. Stave remained suspicious of her, she was sure of that. Yet she trusted him. Esmer, on the other hand-

Deliberately she turned to Mahrtiir and Liand.

“This depends on you,” she told the Manethrall carefully, “at least to some extent. I already know what Liand will say. And Anele needs to stay near the Staff. But I haven’t asked you.

“Do you want to go back to your people? It should be possible.” Once she had created a Fall, the Ranyhyn would be able to find their way. “But if we do that, I can’t stay with you. I have too many-”

“Ringthane,” Mahrtiir put in before she could explain, “this is needless.” The light from the stone pots glinted in his eyes. “I will accompany you wherever your purpose leads. I seek a tale which will remain in the memories of the Ramen when my life has ended. Such renown I will never earn among them. They are”- his mouth twisted- ”too cautious to be remembered.”

Then he shrugged. “In this I will not command the Cords. However, they feel a debt which they wish to repay.” He grinned at a thought which he kept to himself. “And you have found favour in their sight. They will not be parted from you.”

“All right.” Linden did not try to argue with him, although he and the Cords might well perish in her company. She needed as much rest as she could get. And some buried part of her had already made her decision. Raising her eyes to Esmer and Stave again, she repeated, “All right.

“I’m going to Andelain. I know I’ve got too much power. And I don’t know where to look for my son.” Long ago, the spirits of Covenant’s friends had guided and comforted him there. Perhaps she, too, would find her loved Dead. “I’m hoping that someone there can tell me what to do.”

Esmer made a sound like a hiss of vexation and turned away; but Stave continued to face her with his usual flat stoicism. Whatever her answer meant to him remained shrouded. When her silence made it clear that she had no more to say, however, his manner seemed to intensify.

“Very well,” he replied. “You wish to enter Andelain. Perhaps you will do so. Yet you have not named a more immediate intention. What will you do now?

“As I have said, we must not remain in this time. And the peril grows with every moment of delay. Esmer has threatened a betrayal which it would be unwise to confront. And the hazard that our actions may violate Time accumulates against us. It is folly to indulge in rest when the need for departure becomes ever more urgent.”

Linden groaned to herself. She had hoped to postpone arduous questions for a while; until the benignant warmth of the Staff could knit together her frayed resources. Yet Stave deserved an answer. All of her companions did, the Waynhim as much as the Ramen and Liand.

Searching for a way to convey what she felt, she turned to the Stonedownor as to a touchstone of honesty. “Liand?”

At once, he stopped tending Anele to look at her. “Yes?”

“What was it like for you? In the caesure? What happened to you while we were there?”

His eyes widened, then seemed to grow dark, benighted by memory. “Linden-” He ducked his head to hide his discomfort. Yet he concealed nothing. “To speak of it is difficult. The pain-I had not conceived it possible to experience such pain.

“And to endure it-” His voice sank until it was barely audible. “That I could not have done, had the ur-viles left me unprotected. But I felt their blackness about me through the pain, warding away the worst of the Fall.”

Then he raised his head again. “There is a disturbance in their lore which sickened me,” he told Linden’s concerned gaze. “Yet it was a little thing in the greater evil of the Fall. I would not have survived to speak of it if the ur-viles had not preserved me.”

Linden thanked him quietly, and released him.

“That’s bad enough,” she said to Stave. “The rest of us aren’t Haruchai. And we don’t have Anele’s Earthpower. We’re”- she shuddered- “vulnerable.

“But it’s not the only problem. I don’t know if you realise that I failed. In the caesure. I almost let us all- ” Her own memories nearly choked her. “I couldn’t use Covenant’s ring. I was in too much pain.

“We’re only here because the ur-viles saved us. The ur-viles and the Ranyhyn.” And because she had found a way to make use of Joan’s madness-which she would not have been able to do if the creatures had not given her their strength. “Since I healed you, I’ve been cut off from wild magic.”

A moment of restless movement passed among the Waynhim; but Linden ignored it. “I’m aware of the danger. I need rest”- badly- ”but that wouldn’t stop me if I knew how to get us out of here. I wouldn’t let the fact that I’m terrified of all that pain stop me. But somehow I’m going to have to relearn how to use Covenant’s ring, and I’m not sure I can do that.”

The Staff of Law would restore her, if she gave it time. It would ward her against the Fall’s torment. But it would not give her access to argence. That she had to rediscover within herself; and she did not know how she had lost the way.

Stave stood before her, impassive and unswayed. “The pain will be less severe,” he pronounced. “You will not be required to oppose the current of the Fall.” He paused to glance around the cave. When he faced Linden again, he said, “And you will not be blocked from wild magic. That hindrance is caused by Esmer’s presence, as he has said, and he is gone.”

Startled, Linden looked quickly for Cail’s son. But Stave was right. Esmer had simply faded away; evaporated like water.

She tried to ask, “Why-?” but she could not complete the question.

Moments ago, the Waynhim had seemed restive. They must have been reacting to Esmer’s disappearance.

“Your intention to enter Andelain displeased him,” replied the Master. “Therefore he has departed.”

Displeased-?

While Linden stared at Esmer’s absence, she scrambled to understand Stave’s revelation.

Esmer had refused to enter the caesure with her. In my presence, you will surely fail. And he had said that the Waynhim were blinded to the proximity of white gold. It is an effect of my nearness.

Damn it, she should have known-

But he could not have caused her failure in the Fall. That was the result of her own weakness, not of his interference.

“Chosen.” Stave’s concentration gave his tone a cutting edge. “We must depart now, while Esmer is absent, and his betrayal has not yet come upon us.”

Abruptly Liand jumped to his feet. “You mislead us, Master,” he put in. “The decisions which Linden must make are not as plain as you wish them to appear.”

Before Stave could retort, Liand rushed on. “If I comprehend aright, our presence here endangers the Arch of Time. And we are in peril of Esmer’s betrayal. But there is another peril which you do not name.” He seemed suddenly furious at everything that the Masters had done in the name of their unyielding convictions. “If we hasten to depart, the harm which Esmer has wrought will fall upon the Waynhim alone. Without our aid, it may be that they will be destroyed.

“You are a Master of the Land. Do you deem the Waynhim unworthy of our concern?”

The young man’s anger-and his loyalty-raised an echo of determination in Linden. With an effort, she set aside her confusion and self-doubt. Tightening her grip on the Staff, she concentrated instead on the hope that Stave had given her; and on the passion of Liand’s support.

Stave’s mien hinted at scorn as he answered the young man. “Esmer’s harm is directed against the Chosen. If she is no longer present in this time, the peril to the Waynhim will dissipate. He gains naught by their destruction.”

“Nothing,” Linden countered, defending Liand in her turn, “except a violation of the Land’s history.”

Stave studied her as though she had surprised him.

“You said yourself,” she continued, “that there haven’t been any significant battles or powers in the South Plains. If the danger doesn’t dissipate, and the Waynhim defend themselves, that might change.

“But even if they let themselves be exterminated-” They know their plight, yet they do not flinch from it. “We don’t know what Esmer might have unleashed. Whatever it is, it could be powerful enough to change history no matter what the Waynhim do.”

Liand’s eyes shone as if Linden had vindicated him.

Stave gave a slight shake of his head. “If he were capable of such things, he would have done so ere now. The Arch of Time would already have fallen.”

Yet time remained intact: she knew that. Stave’s words still reached her in sequence. One thing still led to another-

“No,” she said like a sigh. “It doesn’t work that way for him. He’s too conflicted. We’re his friends, or his enemies. He hates you and approves of me. Or maybe it’s the other way around. As far as I can tell, the only simple thing about him is his respect for the Ranyhyn.” Nothing else had compelled him to refrain from killing Stave. “He doesn’t want them hurt.”

Mahrtiir nodded in confirmation.

Closing her eyes, Linden rubbed at the frown knotted between her brows. “Maybe he is powerful enough to bring down the Arch. I don’t know. But he can’t do it. He needs a balance of some kind. He can’t do anything really destructive if he doesn’t help us at the same time. He can’t help us without betraying us.

“He had to at least warn us. He needs that. And if he didn’t, we wouldn’t have a chance to save the Ranyhyn.”

The Master regarded her closely. “You cannot be certain of this.”

“No,” she admitted. When had she ever been certain of anything except her loves? “But neither can you. And until we are sure, I’m not leaving. The Waynhim have already suffered enough. I won’t leave them until I know they aren’t going to be wiped out.”

Esmer had threatened even the ur-viles with destruction.

For a long moment, Stave appeared to consider her words. Then he lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. “Very well,” he said. “You will do as you wish, and I will serve you as well as I am able. In this time, it is useless to oppose you. But understand that nothing has been resolved between us.”

As he turned away, Linden bowed her head over the Staff. She was content with his response. He was Haruchai, inflexible by nature as well as conviction. Yet he had already conceded more than she could have expected from him. She might have closed her eyes then and slept; let vitrim and the Staff work within her undisturbed. But Liand was too restless to leave her alone. And she had been postponing his questions for hours. Sighing to herself, she gave up on sleep in order to relieve some of his imposed ignorance.

While she told him tales of her time with Thomas Covenant, one rambling anecdote after another in no particular order, the Waynhim began to busy themselves around the cave. At first she wondered what they were doing; but then she saw that they were preparing a meal. Apparently they did not live on vitrim alone-or did not expect their guests to do so.

From a side tunnel, they produced a stone pot shaped like a cauldron. One of their flaming urns they placed near the centre of the chamber; and when they had muttered over it for a few moments, intensifying its heat with chants and gestures, they balanced the larger pot on top of it. Then they began sorting ingredients which Linden could not identify into the cooking pot.

As they worked, she continued to talk; and gradually her oblique narrative began to take on another purpose. Instead of answering questions Liand did not how know to ask, she mined her memories: words were the picks and shovels with which she delved for courage and insight. And the names of her lost friends were an incantation. By their magic, she created a place for herself in the Land, a role-and imagined herself able to fulfil it.

“I thought that the Sunbane and the Ravers were as bad as things could get. For a long time, I didn’t think I would ever see anything worse than the shedding of the Haruchai.” Through the Clave, Lord Foul had attempted genocide against Stave’s ancestors, draining their blood to feed the Banefire. “But when Caer-Caveral was gone, and the Sunbane broke into Andelain for the first time-”

The people and places and needs that she remembered explained her to herself.

“Lord Foul was responsible for all of it,” she said quietly. “He isn’t called the Despiser and Corruption for nothing. He’s contempt and despair. Every time any being or power tramples on life, he’s there. Laughing-”

Only the agony of an entire world could appease his own innominate anguish.

“I’m sure there are times when I act like I’ve lost my mind. I probably confuse the hell out of you. But you already know what’s happening for me. Whenever I do something that looks insane, just remember that Lord Foul has my son.”

When she stopped at last, she found all of the attention in the chamber focused on her. The Waynhim had paused in their preparations to regard her as they would an oracle. Mahrtiir’s concentration was as precise as a hawk’s. Even Stave’s posture conveyed an unexpected impression of respect.

Liand had been listening with wonder on his face. As she looked at him, however, he drew an unsteady breath and shook off his entrancement.

“Now I am able to grasp why Anele is troubled when he speaks of “astonishment”. I know not how to name what you have become to me. I feel that I have gained the experience of years in these past days, and every fact or detail which once seemed commonplace has taken on a new significance.

“To my eyes, you do not appear “insane”. Rather you surpass my capacity for expression. When you speak of that which you have done, and of those whom you have known, you appear to inhabit a realm of antiquity and grandeur. I would say that at your side I seem paltry to myself, yet that belies what is in my heart, for it is not I who am diminished, but rather you who are exalted.”

He glanced around the cave as if he sought confirmation, but only Mahrtiir nodded an acknowledgment. Stave and the Waynhim simply studied Linden and listened as if the fates of worlds were being decided; and Anele sprawled on his ledge, sleeping soundly.

Linden did not know how to respond. If he believed that she occupied “a realm of antiquity and grandeur,” how could he understand that she was terrified and confused, or that she depended on his uncomplicated support?

After a moment, she said, “It isn’t like that. I’m more ordinary than you think.” Covenant fit Liand’s description. She did not. “I just can’t afford to let it get in my way.”

Holding the young man’s gaze, she added, “Do you think that I belong in this position? That I was born to wield tremendous powers and make decisions that could affect the world? No. I do it because I don’t know how else to fight for what I love.” Or for herself. “If Lord Foul hadn’t kidnapped Jeremiah, I wouldn’t even be here.”

As she spoke, her weariness seemed to slip from her shoulders, shrugged aside by the importance of what she was trying to say.

“That makes you braver than I am,” she told Liand. “Don’t you know that? You didn’t have to leave Mithil Stonedown. You didn’t have to help me. Hell, as far as you knew, there wasn’t even anything at stake. But you did it anyway.

“You did it because you didn’t believe in your own life. The Masters made it too small for you, and you jumped at your first chance to make it bigger.”

Let Stave take offense if he would. She had not kept secret her reaction to what his people had done.

“If there’s anyone here,” she pronounced like an article of faith, “who deserves to “inhabit a realm of antiquity and grandeur,” it’s you. And Mahrtiir.” She met the Manethrall’s gaze briefly. “Bhapa. Pahni. You’re less selfish than I am. You haven’t lost a helpless kid who needs you. Instead you decided to risk your entire lives for the simple reason that you consider it worth doing.”

In response, Liand regarded her as though she had lifted him out of himself. All of the Waynhim continued to study her closely, and Mahrtiir’s eagerness for battle shone in his eyes.

But Stave stood near the centre of the chamber with his arms folded across his chest and his emotions hidden. His native reticence defied her discernment. But the scar under his eye caught the light of the urns and gleamed redly.

Eventually the Waynhim resumed their preparations; and Linden watched them, haunted by Esmer’s dark promises. Too many of them will perish if you do not contrive their salvation. He might conceivably have been referring to the harm that the creatures suffered from the Staff; but she did not believe so. He had spoken too often of betrayal.

When she realised that she was fretting, she asked the Manethrall if Pahni and Bhapa should be warned of the danger. He assured her, however, that the Cords had been trained as hunters and scouts; sentinels for the great horses. No doubt the ur-viles were wary as well: they had their own reasons to distrust Esmer. And the senses of the Ranyhyn were preternaturally acute. They would be able to detect any threat before it fell upon the Waynhim.

With as much patience as she could muster, Linden waited for the creatures to ready their meal.

Fortunately they did so without further delay. Using wooden ladles, they filled stone bowls with a steaming broth that looked like sludge and smelled like stagnant pond water. These they offered to their guests before partaking themselves.

In spite of its superficial reek, the steam curling from the bowls spoke to Linden’s senses of much-needed sustenance. The aura of the broth was redolent with nourishment; and she was surprised to find that she was hungry. Her first sip threatened to gag her, but the second went down more easily, and the third she swallowed almost eagerly.

Meeting her glance, Liand gave her a rueful smile. Politely he consumed some of his broth. Then he set down his bowl with an air of relief and turned to assist Mahrtiir with Anele.

Together Liand and the Manethrall roused the old man and encouraged him to sup.

While she ate, Linden studied the stone of the cave, trying to read its old, slow, imponderable sentience, as Anele sometimes did. With the Staff in her lap, she thought for a moment that she could detect hints of knowledge in the clenched rock. But her human mind slid past them too rapidly to be sure of their presence.

Because her attention was elsewhere, she did not notice Pahni’s approach until the Cord appeared at the mouth of the outward tunnel.

The young woman-Linden still thought of her as a girl-ventured hesitantly into the cave. She may have feared to interrupt some important conclave or invocation. Her face was set, however, and she did not allow timidity or self-consciousness to hold her back. Avoiding the Waynhim, she advanced toward Linden and Mahrtiir.

All of the creatures stopped what they were doing and turned to consider her with their moist nostrils.

Liand flashed a broad smile at the Cord. But the pleasure fell from him when he recognised the quality of her determination.

Instinctively Linden rose to her feet. She held the Staff upright beside her, its heel planted on the floor, as if she meant to call forth its power.

Mahrtiir stood also; and Stave joined them. Liand mopped unceremoniously at a spill of broth in Anele’s beard, then surged erect as well.

Hurrying now, the young woman offered them a quick Ramen bow.

The Manethrall replied with a brusque nod. “Speak, Cord. We have awaited some word of what transpires in the night.”

In the night-? Linden was surprised to realise that so much time had passed.

Darkness would limit even the unquantified perceptions of the Ranyhyn.

“Manethrall.” Pahni bowed again reflexively. Her voice held a tremor of anxiety as she said, “Shortly before sunset, Esmer came among us. He attempted to draw the Ranyhyn away.” She frowned to mask a distinctly Ramen disdain. “I had not thought him so foolish. He should have known that they would not abandon their riders.”

“He is troubled,” Mahrtiir replied. His tone made it clear that he did not consider being troubled an adequate excuse.

Pahni nodded. “Yet we were concerned, Bhapa and I, for he spoke slightingly to us, foretelling death. Then he departed, though we could not name where or how he had gone.

“Because of his words, we widened our guard over the Ranyhyn. Still we found no sign of peril.

“Shortly after moonrise, however, came Naharahn-the proud mare who has shown me such honour-”

Abruptly the Cord fell silent, flustered by her awe and gratitude.

Mahrtiir did not rush her.

When Pahni had taken a deep breath to steady herself, she was able to continue. “Naharahn made it known to me that something discomfited her. What it was I could not determine by scent or sight or sound. But Whrany, who bears Bhapa, felt likewise disturbed. And their unrest spread swiftly among the other Ranyhyn.”

To herself, Linden groaned. She was not ready to attempt another caesure. But she did not interrupt the Cord.

“Sure of them,” Pahni finished, “Bhapa has descended toward the plains, seeking the cause of their concern. Before he departed, however, we agreed that you must be forewarned.”

As she said this, Pahni looked through her lashes at the Manethrall as if she half expected him to reprimand her for leaving her assigned duties.

He did not. Instead he said, “You have done rightly. Return now to the Ranyhyn.” In spite of his apparent calm, his voice held a rising eagerness. “We will follow when we have offered our respect to the Waynhim.”

With another nod, he dismissed the Cord.

Bowing once more, Pahni turned and hastened, fleet as a colt, out of the cave.

Liand watched her go as if he wanted to run after her; but he made no move to leave Linden’s side.

“It comes,” Stave said impassively. Outside the cave, Esmer’s dark hints were approaching fruition.

Mahrtiir nodded, eager as a blade. He looked like a man who could hear the call of battle.

Linden leaned heavily on the Staff. She was weary yet, deeply in need of rest; entirely unprepared. Yet this was the moment for which she had been waiting. Now the nature of Esmer’s betrayal would declare itself, and she would know what she had to do to save the Waynhim and her companions.

The Staff was a powerful tool, fraught with dangerous possibilities; but it could not help her return to her proper time. Somehow she would have to find her way back to wild magic.

“Linden?” asked Liand. “Does your knowledge of the Land suggest a name for this disturbance?” He glanced at Stave. “Is this another dark wonder which the Masters have concealed from us?”

“I don’t know.” Abruptly she pulled herself upright. She had needs more profound than rest. At this moment, they began with the Waynhim, although they extended far beyond her ability to measure them. “Stave will tell us as much as he can. When the time comes.”

Esmer had asked, How will you bear the burden of such powers? Either alone will transcend your strength. Together they will wreak only madness-

Apparently he had always intended to “help” her face his betrayal by removing the barrier that his presence imposed on her access to Covenant’s ring. “Mahrtiir is right,” she added. “It’s time to go.”

At once, she turned toward the waiting creatures.

The Waynhim knew what threatened them: she was certain of that. Like the ur-viles, they understood Esmer’s intentions better than she did. Yet they had made no obvious move to prepare a defence. And she suspected that they would not, unless she led the way. Surrendering the Staff, they had to some extent made her responsible for the outcome of their lives.

“I wish you could tell me what’s coming,” she said gravely. “I can’t even imagine how much danger I’ve put you in.” She had brought Cail’s son to them. “But it doesn’t change my debt to you. I don’t know what would have happened to the Staff without you-or what would happen to the Land-but I think we would all be doomed.

“One thing I’m sure of. You did the right thing. You’ve been faithful to your Weird.”

With all the dignity she could muster, she bowed, holding the Staff before her in acknowledgment. Then, so that she would not falter, she turned to Stave and said, “We’ve waited long enough. Let’s find out how bad this is.”

The Haruchai also bowed to the Waynhim, as did Mahrtiir and Liand. Then the Stonedownor urged Anele to his feet; Mahrtiir hastened into the lead; and Stave accompanied Linden across the cave toward the egress.

As she and her companions passed, the creatures formed a wedge and followed more slowly, chittering encouragement or farewells to each other.

The angle of the tunnel beyond the cave soon blocked out the light. With the last reflected glow of the urns behind her, Linden could see nothing ahead. At her back, the bare feet of the Waynhim made a faint susurrus on the stone. The sound seemed to pursue her, sibilant and apprehensive, echoing softly about her ears like supplication.

Too many of them will perish-

Trepidation confused her steps; but Stave guided her with a light touch on her arm, ensuring that she did not stumble. The warm certainty of the Staff also sustained her. And soon the darkness receded on either side as the tunnel opened into the ravine, and the night sky spread a swath of starlight overhead. Sand yielding under her boots, she walked along the bottom of the ravine toward the open night of the foothills.

There Mahrtiir awaited her with Pahni. When Linden and Stave reached him, the Manethrall announced in a contained whisper, “Cord Bhapa has not yet returned. The Ranyhyn remain on the hillside above us. They are restive, for the peril draws near. But they will not flee it.” His tone suggested pride in the great horses.

“If you will heed my word,” he added, “we will mount so that they may respond swiftly to your desires.”

Bhapa had only one good eye. His night vision would be hampered-

“What about the ur-viles?” Linden asked, whispering as the Manethrall did.

“An unwary foe,” he replied, “might deem that they have abandoned us, but they have not. Rather they have secreted themselves among the shadows below us.” Between Linden’s company and the advancing danger. “Doubtless they will attempt surprise on our behalf.” He considered the hillside briefly, then said, “It may be, also, that they seek to distance themselves from the Waynhim. If so, they are wise. The Demondim-spawn will not readily trust each other, or fight in each other’s defence.”

Linden peered down the slopes, looked for some hint of the creatures. But she found none. Their lore and their blackness concealed them from her senses.

Yet she could see better than she had expected. Above the jagged line of mountains distant in the east, a sallow moon a few days from its full had risen, shedding its wan light, bilious and unresolved, over the rumpled foothills and sprawling plains. In that uncertain illumination, the undulations of the lowland seemed to seethe gradually toward the horizon, ponderous and fluid as seas, and the shallow vales and clefts which defined the hills were crowded with darkness. The vague shapes of the Ranyhyn, off to her right and uphill from her, were as ill-defined as shadows.

“Ringthane,” insisted Mahrtiir. “Will you mount?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. First I want you to talk to them.” She meant the ur-viles. “You or Pahni. They’ll understand.

“Tell them to come when they hear me shouting.” If she succeeded at tearing open a Fall-and if she could devise no other response to the peril- “I don’t care how they feel about the Waynhim. I won’t be able to save anyone who isn’t near me.”

Nodding sharply, the Manethrall turned away and strode into the night. For a moment, he slipped down the crease of the dry watercourse. Then he seemed to fade from sight as if, like the ur-viles, he had cloaked himself in darkness.

Beyond question the Ramen understood stealth.

“Stave,” Linden breathed to the Master, “tell the Waynhim. I need to know they’ll come to me when I call.”

He did not ask why she did not speak to the creatures herself. Nevertheless she told him, “I have to think.”

Noiselessly the Haruchai withdrew into the ravine; and Liand came to take his place at her side, bringing Anele with him.

The old man stood as though he were alone, wrapped in madness. Holding his head up, he studied the dark with senses other than vision; alert to the nuances of the night. As if to himself, he murmured, “It is wrong. Wrong and terrible. Beings of nightmare walk the hills. They must not be permitted.”

At that moment, he appeared as sane as Linden had ever seen him.

She had to think.

Summon a Fall: that was the obvious solution. Recover her grasp on wild magic and rip open time. Commit her companions, all of them, ur-viles and Waynhim as well, to the known horrors of a caesure so that they would not fall prey to Esmer’s betrayal. But she had pointed out the flaw in that reasoning to Stave. Something fatal had been unleashed on the South Plains; and it would not simply disappear, unmake itself, if she escaped. Deprived of its intended victims, it might seek to vent its destructiveness elsewhere.

It might turn toward Mithil Stonedown. Liand’s ancestors would have no defence. And such an attack would violate the known history of the Land. It would weaken the essential integrity of time.

Therefore Linden could not flee. First she had to meet the danger. She had brought it here: it was her responsibility.

And still she could see nothing. Even her health-sense gave her no hints. The Ranyhyn scented peril on the air, or felt it through the earth. The Waynhim and the ur-viles knew their danger. In some fashion, Anele tasted the approach of nightmares. Yet Linden herself remained effectively blind.

She held her breath for Bhapa’s return, hoping that the Cord would tell her what she needed to know. But when the imprecise night condensed at last into the form of a man, it was Mahrtiir rather than Bhapa who whispered her name.

“I have done as you required. Now I urge you to heed me. We must mount. The swiftness of the Ranyhyn will ward us more surely than any garrote or fist.”

“The Manethrall counsels well,” Stave observed. Linden had not seen him return: like Mahrtiir, he appeared to join her from among the secrets of the dark. “It is said that there is no glory to compare with riding a Ranyhyn in battle.”

Now Linden did not delay. The Ranyhyn were under her protection as much as the Waynhim and the ur-viles. As much as Liand and Anele and the Ramen-

With Mahrtiir in the lead, she and her companions climbed the hillside toward the great horses. Pahni took charge of Anele so that Liand could stay with Linden. And behind them came the Waynhim in formation, chanting rhythmically the rituals of their lore.

However, the creatures did not ascend the slope. Instead they positioned themselves below the Ranyhyn, with the tip of their wedge pointing downward and somewhat to the east. There they awaited the attack.

A warm breeze drifted into Linden’s face. The air had cooled little since sunset, and baked shale, loose dirt, and sparse grass held the heat. The minor exertion of climbing toward the Ranyhyn drew sweat from her temples, made her shirt cling to her back.

Two or three of the horses whinnied softly in greeting. Others tossed their manes or stamped their hooves as if they were eager to run. Linden could not see clearly enough to tell them apart; but Hyn came to her and nuzzled her shoulder, urging her to mount.

With the Staff in her hands, Linden relied on Stave to boost her onto the mare’s back. As he did so, the strained muscles in her legs protested. And she felt Hyn’s disquiet at once. It spoke to her nerves, flesh to flesh: a visceral quiver like a harbinger of panic. The great horses were not easily frightened, but Hyn was afraid now, champing for movement.

When Linden touched the mare’s flank with the Staff, however, Hyn calmed herself, and her quivering subsided.

Around them, the other riders went to their Ranyhyn. Pahni needed Liand’s help to seat Anele on Hrama: the old man had not relaxed his concentration northward, and made no effort to assist them. But the Master mounted Hynyn unaided, and Mahrtiir appeared to glide up onto his horse’s back. When Pahni had given Liand a subtle lift, she sprang lightly onto Naharahn. In moments, Whrany alone remained unridden.

Still Bhapa had not returned.

A silence spread around them, punctuated only by the restless movements of the horses and the low, focused barking of the Waynhim. No night birds called: no insects chirred or whined. The darkness seemed to be holding its breath, and the moon’s yellow light illumined little, as though it winced away from what it might witness. Linden felt an old malice gather among the slopes below her as if it welled up from within the ground. She did not know how to reply to it.

“Chosen,” Stave pronounced suddenly, “be warned. It is dire. We did not know that this evil still endured. The old tellers have said that the ur-Lord destroyed it utterly.”

As he spoke, Linden felt pressure rise against her percipience. At the limit of its reach, her health-sense decried malevolence swelling into the night.

A moment later, she saw a distant flash of emerald like a flaring instance of sickness, an ignition of pure desecration. It was swallowed almost immediately by a black concussion which shook the night, a thunderclap of vitriol flung by one or several of the ur-viles. Before the vicious green vanished, however, she recognised it. It had been etched into her memory by horror.

“God!” she panted. “Oh, God. It can’t be.”

Beyond mistake that flash of rank emerald was the power of the Illearth Stone.

Which should have been impossible. Stave was right: with wild magic, Covenant had extirpated that ancient bane from the Land. And he had won his expensive victory thousands of years before Linden had first been translated to the Land.

Yet she knew from cruel experience that at least one small corrupt flake of the original Stone had survived Covenant’s victory. In the years before that final contest, Lord Foul had given fragments of the Illearth Stone to each of his Giant-Ravers so that they could command his armies. One such fragment had been wielded against the defenders of the Land somewhat to the south and west of Andelain; and during the conflict, a shard had broken off from that piece of the Stone: had broken off and been lost.

The air seemed to grow warmer. It felt like a touch of steam. Nevertheless a chill slid along Linden’s spine as if her sweat had turned to ice.

Lost, the green flake had remained so for centuries, leaking slow ruin into the hills, until it was discovered by a village of Woodhelvennin. By then, the Clave had come to rule the Land, and the lore of the Lords, which might have warned or protected the Woodhelven, had been corrupted. So the village was itself corrupted, generation after generation, until at last the evil shard was used against Linden, Sunder, and Hollian while Covenant rambled in Andelain alone.

Later Covenant had destroyed that virulent flake as he had once shattered the Illearth Stone itself. But Linden remembered it still. She had felt its evil at a time when she did not know how to bear such knowledge.

Now, staring appalled at the lurid emerald after-flash on her retinas, she wondered: if one little piece of that terrible bane had survived, why not more than one? The Giant-Ravers had fought a number of battles against the Land’s defenders. They had channelled immense forces through their fragments of the Stone. Other pieces could have broken off and been lost.

She could imagine no other explanation. Somehow an enemy of the Land had found such a piece. Or Esmer had-

It was possible. Time seldom hinders me. His access to the past made almost any act of treachery conceivable.

The thought that she would have to confront the old bane which had nearly undone both the Council of Lords and Thomas Covenant shrilled along her nerves, making her guts squirm with dread.

Another quick flare of green stained the night. Detonations of acid volleyed around it. The breeze falling from the mountainsides carried intimations of slaughter out into the moonlight.

Among the Ranyhyn, shadows seemed to melt and solidify. Then Bhapa stood at Mahrtiir’s knee, gazing urgently up at the Manethrall. Even in the dark, his left arm and shoulder blazed with damage: Linden’s dismayed nerves discerned a wound like a deep burn. Lingering emerald flickered among fine droplets of black fluid in the hurt. He had been caught at the fringe of a blast; lashed with power.

“Manethrall-” His throat clenched in pain. Forcing himself, he gasped softly, “I know not what they are. But they are many. And they hold-”

He could not find words for what he had beheld.

“We have seen it,” Mahrtiir replied through his teeth. “Mount at once. I cannot now tend to your wound.”

The Cord nodded. For a moment, he appeared to crouch, huddling over his injury; and his hurt burned at Linden as if she, too, had been splashed with acid. Then he flung himself onto Whrany’s back.

“Describe them, Cord.” Stave spoke quietly, but his tone cut through the restiveness of the horses. “What is their appearance? What did you discern of them?”

Green malignance slashed the night, momentarily limning the exposed shape of the foothills. It looked more savage now, and reached farther: its wielders were advancing up the slope, or the ur-viles opposing it had been decimated. Frantic barking rose against the breeze. Scattered blooms and geysers of obsidian tattered the flash of emerald, but could not tear it apart.

Linden clung to the warm wood of the Staff and the broad strength of Hyn’s back, and tried to believe that she was capable of combating a piece of the Illearth Stone.

Without wild magic-

“They are bitter,” Bhapa answered in a congested voice, “and ancient beyond estimation. So I have felt. They appear to rise from the ground as if they have been freed from graves. Some have the size and semblance of trees, though they walk like men.

Others resemble Cavewights and similar creatures. Still others wear monstrous shapes-I have never beheld the like, or heard them named.”

Through his teeth, he groaned, “They are too many. Far too many. The ur-viles cannot hold them.”

Linden’s heart quailed to hear him. Freed from graves-Oh, God. She seemed to hear Stave’s response before he spoke. Animate dead-

“It should not be so,” said the Master. “Yet it is. In this the recall of the Haruchai is sure.”

Earlier, days ago, he had spoken of the lore and bitterness of the Viles made manifest in slain flesh, corpses with the puissance of Lords.

Again emerald beat in the air like the throbbing of a diseased heart. It had come a long way up the hillside. A spatter of blackness answered it, and fell still.

The Ranyhyn stamped and whickered anxiously.

“We have shared it mind to mind across the millennia,” Stave continued, “undiminished and unconfused.”

The vitriol which the ur-viles wield for destruction pulsed in their hearts.

“At first I was reluctant to name what I perceive. It offends Time and all Law. Yet now I am certain.”

Abruptly he stopped.

Clad in cerements and rot, their touch was fire.

Sitting Rhohm at Linden’s side, Liand was a dark ache in the moonlight, an outpouring of innominate alarm. Behind them, Pahni leaned from her mount to succour Bhapa as best she could, while Anele muttered execrations into his beard.

“Speak the name, Bloodguard,” Mahrtiir put in harshly. “Your knowledge is needed.”

Bursts of green evil echoed through the night, accumulating like summer lightning. Linden thought she heard the sound of running; desperate haste. Small swirls of blackness coalesced along the slope below her, still some distance from the Waynhim.

The ur-viles had been routed.

As did the Viles, they persisted outside or beyond life and death. As do the ur-viles, they had forms which could be touched and harmed.

“They are Demondim,” Stave answered. If he felt either fear or uncertainty, he did not show it. “Esmer has brought them to this time.”

Apparently Cail’s son had betrayed Linden and her companions with a vengeance.

If the legends of the Demondim were accurate, and their lore as vast and insidious as Stave had reported, the creatures might be able to destroy the Staff of Law. Given a little time, they could easily exterminate the last of the ur-viles and Waynhim. Even wild magic might not surpass their powers.

“Ringthane,” Mahrtiir asked avidly, “will we not give battle? The ur-viles cannot hold. In moments they will be swept aside, and the Waynhim with them. We must ride to their defence.”

“No!” Linden protested. “We can’t. Not here. Don’t you remember what Stave said? There haven’t been any battles,” any extravagant exertions of power, “in this part of the Land.” Not since she had unmade the Sunbane. “If we fight now,” or if she did, “we’ll violate history. We’ll damage the Arch of Time.”

The mere presence of the Demondim and a flake of the Illearth Stone might suffice to undermine the foundations of reality.

Yet the plight of the ur-viles cried out to her. Their desperate barking had become ragged, frenetic: they were being overwhelmed. And the Waynhim would be next. Already the grey creatures stood at the verge of the Stone’s reach. With each mounting flash of emerald, each multiplied burst of virulence, their doom advanced on them. She could hear them chanting, and knew that they were too weak, too few-

Shapes that she could not define crowded up the slope, dark forms like a storm-lashed wave breaking impossibly upward. They seemed to devour the moonlight so that they were illumined only by green evil. But now other forces were visible as well, quick eruptions of a killing opalescence which appeared to flash from indistinct hands.

“Then what must we do?” snarled Mahrtiir. “It is intolerable that all who aid us must be slain while we stand aside.”

“Protect me,” she answered, acrid with self-restraint. The Waynhim had preserved the Staff for her. The ur-viles had exhausted themselves to help her find it. She wanted to rush to their defence, regardless of the consequences. But she had recognised her true peril. “I need time-”

It is an effect of my nearness.

You will not be blocked from wild magic.

She needed time to rediscover the truth about herself.

At last, the Waynhim released the results of their steady invocation. From their wedge, a shock wave poured down the hillside; a blast which dwarfed the one that had warded their cave. Perceptible only because it was so potent, it crashed against the rising tsunami of the attackers.

A staggering emerald jolt answered the collision. Murderous nacre blazed soundlessly from the hands of the Demondim. Instantly an electric discharge as cruel as fangs and as lurid as the Despiser’s lightning lit the night; and for that brief moment Linden saw the Demondim clearly.

Eyeless like the creatures they had spawned, they resembled their creations in no other way except darkness. Bhapa was right. They looked like huge trees ripped somehow intact from centuries of mould and rot; like Cavewights corroded by time to skeletons and ferocity; like kresh and other rapt beasts resurrected to repay their deaths. Among them marched human corpses, men and women who knew only the animating lust of their possessors. And there were other figures as well, monsters in the shape of nightmares. The Demondim appeared to number in the hundreds, all surging upwards against the assault of the Waynhim-and all so long abandoned to the hungry embrace of worms that they had forgotten whatever they had once known of their mortality.

Linden could not tell which among them held their fragment of the Illearth Stone. Perhaps several did in concert. She saw only that while the Stone blazed its evil seemed to rave from many of the Demondim at once, casting back the darkness; tainting the moonlight with the hues of atrocity.

She no longer believed that her foes held a mere flake of the ancient bane. To her horrified senses, its power seemed as absolute as that of the original Illearth Stone.

When the Waynhim fell, the onslaught would reach Linden and her companions. She had only a little time left. A scattering of moments: a few dozen heartbeats.

Too few to save the world-

The Ranyhyn were growing frantic. Whrany skittered and flinched, apparently feeling Bhapa’s pain, yearning to protect his rider. Pahni walked her mount in tight circles to calm the mare; and Mahrtiir leaned along his stallion’s neck, murmuring fierce promises to the horse’s ears. But Stave sat motionless, with Hynyn as stolid as a statue under him. And Hrama bore Anele steadily in spite of the old man’s angry muttering.

Linden gripped the Staff until her hands were slick with sweat, thinking that she would have no choice except to call forth its power-and praying fervently that an exertion of Law by its very nature would sustain rather than weaken the Arch; that the insult to the integrity of Time would not prove irreparable.

Another tremendous concussion shook the night, emerald shot through with opalescence and ruin, dropping the Waynhim to their knees. Faint bursts of vitriol still attacked the dire force of the bane, but they were few and widely separated. Only a handful of the ur-viles remained alive-

Esmer had foretold death for the Waynhim. He had not mentioned the ur-viles. They had discerned treachery in him from the first, and had set themselves to guard against him. He may have been glad to think that they would all perish.

Yet he could do nothing without contradicting his own intentions. For every betrayal, his conflicted nature required him to offer help. That was why he had left.

So that Linden could use Covenant’s ring.

Stave had assured her that she would be able to do so.

Abruptly she shook off her hesitation. “Here,” she said to Liand. Prompted by an instinct which she could not have explained, she tossed the Staff to him, trusting him to catch it. “Keep it safe for me. I’ll need it later.”

It would only distract her now-and might hinder her in other ways as well. Its essential nature contradicted wild magic.

Liand fumbled for it in surprise, secured his grasp on it; hugged it to his chest. But she did not see his nod of acceptance, or the promise in his eyes. She had already dropped away from him in her mind, bowing her head and covering her face with her hands as if to isolate herself from him and all her companions.

Esmer was gone. And she held Covenant’s ring by right and need. She had inherited it from him in Kiril Threndor; had confirmed her claim upon it by wielding its illimitable fire to shape the new Staff of Law. It had healed a bullet’s passage through her vulnerable flesh. It had preserved her from the collapse of Kevin’s Watch. If she needed it now, it would not be denied to her.

It could not.

Scrambling along the twisted pathways of herself, the lost route to the hidden door, she found the truth. Stave was right. The door had not vanished. It had merely been masked by Esmer’s aura. In his absence, she seemed to rediscover it with ease. She was already desperate: she had forgotten agony and formication and utter bereavement. And at times the ring’s argence had answered her urgent impulses more naturally, more readily, than her deliberate choices.

Between one heartbeat and the next, white fire bloomed from the hard circle under her shirt as though it had arisen straight out of her heart.

If she had opened her eyes, she would have seen the faces of her companions turning toward her, defined by wonder and white fire. If she had reached out with her percipience, she would have felt a shock of recognition and eagerness galvanise the Ranyhyn. Her nerves might have tasted the more distant awe of the Waynhim and the grim determination of the remaining ur-viles. She could have found comfort in the sudden apprehension which momentarily halted the Demondim.

But she had no attention to spare for the external details of her situation. As soon as she found the door, and felt the silver fire of Covenant’s ring spring forth like exaltation, she squeezed her eyes more tightly shut, bowed more deeply into herself, and pulled her concentration down to a point as fine as the tip of a dirk.

With that delicate instrument, she probed the necessary structure of time.

At once, she felt the wrongness of what she did. She was attempting a violation as cruel as possession or rape. On a level too deep for words or understanding, she seemed to feel the woven fabric of existence shudder in dismay. If she made even the smallest mistake, all of reality would be torn apart; and the rending shriek of ruin would be the last sound the world ever heard.

Nevertheless she did not falter now. She was Linden Avery the Chosen, and she meant to prove herself against the Land’s doom.

Lord Foul had taught her to know her own evil. She could still fear what might happen; but she no longer feared herself.

She needed to focus her power and her senses so keenly that she would be able to detect the ligatures which connected one instant to the next; the bonds of sequence which caused one heartbeat, one thought, one event to follow another. If she could identify the ceaseless, evanescent, and ineluctable fact of transition which defined time, she would be able to insert her fire there and sever-

– detaching one moment from the next. Opening a caesure, as Joan did whenever her madness impelled her to strike herself.

Yet she knew that it would not be enough to simply replicate Joan’s actions; to slow and refine her perceptions to the pitch that empowered Joan. If she did, she would have no control over what ensued. Her task was more complex. While she emulated Joan’s insanity, she had to remember that what she did was evil. She had to remember its consequences.

Therefore she cast herself deliberately back into the instant when she had first entered the Fall; when formication had become the world, leaving her capable of nothing except featureless gelid whiteness and Joan’s torment. That excruciation she re-created in her mind as she focused her argence closer and closer to the gap between the instants. With every piercing breath, she relived agony.

That pain helped her cling to herself. It reminded her that she was not Joan; that she was prepared to accept the cost of her own actions.

She had caused this crisis by the extravagance of her choices. Uncounted ur-viles had been slain, and most of the Waynhim would follow. Her friends would die. The Staff of Law might be destroyed. She herself might fall in spite of her powers, abandoning Jeremiah and the Land to Lord Foul’s malice. And all because she had risked leaving her proper time.

Set beside the potential cost of failure, the anguish and evil of creating a caesure were prices that she was willing to pay.

Somewhere beyond her attention, emerald flared and raved, adumbrating malice into the betrayed night. The Waynhim were driven back. The waves of their theurgy, shock after shock like combers in a high wind, were barely adequate to defend them: they could not stand their ground. The explosions of vitriol from the ur-viles had become pitifully brief and slight; too small to hamper the Demondim. The bitter gleaming of the attackers swept resistance aside.

Watching the doomed contest, Mahrtiir and his mount could no longer restrain themselves. Howling defiance, the Manethrall launched his Ranyhyn like thunder down the hillside. At once, Pahni and Naharahn pounded after him, chased unsteadily by Bhapa on Whrany. Pahni added her girlish shout to Mahrtiir’s stentorian roar; but Bhapa was silent.

Only Whrany’s fleet skill enabled the injured Cord to keep his seat. Unable to use his garrote, and fatally weak, he could not fight. Nevertheless he raced after his Manethrall and Pahni, trusting the hooves of his mount to strike for him.

Liand might have followed the Ramen into battle, but his responsibility for the Staff held him back. Stave did not move from Linden’s side. And Anele remained where he was, consumed by his useless imprecations.

If the onslaught came near Linden, she would be defended only by an untried Stonedownor, a madman, and one lone Haruchai.

With some part of her mind, she must have been aware of her companions and the Demondim; must have felt the proximity of the Illearth Stone and slaughter. Her sense of urgency increased moment by moment, and white fire from Covenant’s ring spired higher into the dark, shedding a stark luminescence across the bare hillsides and the thronging battleground.

Nevertheless her peril only fed her concentration, sending her deeper into her task.

It was hard. God, it was hard! Intending to violate time, she violated as well every instinct for healing and health which had shaped her life. Caesures were evil: they attacked the fundamental structures which made existence possible. And she had committed herself to wholeness rather than ruin.

Still she did not hold back. She knew the depth of the Despiser’s malice. She felt the lust and hatred of the Demondim, and the destructiveness of the Illearth Stone. She understood what would happen if she allowed such hungers to feed unopposed, and her whole being rose up in repudiation.

And Liand held the Staff of Law in her name: the only instrument of power in all the Land which might be able to halt or contain the vast wrong of a Fall. If he did not fail her, she could hope to impose limits on the harm she meant to cause.

Guilt is power. Only the damned can be saved.

When she was ready, she cast a silent appeal to Hyn and all of the Ranyhyn. Without them, she would be unable to reach her necessary goal.

Then she released a slash of silver flame which sundered the night.

Through the riven dark, chaos tumbled forth. A tremendous migraine swirl of distortion appeared in the night, destructive as a tornado, and maddening as a swarm of wasps. It seethed with force as though every link and interstice of material reality had been torn apart.

Remembered agony squalled in Linden’s nerves as she saw that she had succeeded.

The caesure boiled no more than a stone’s throw to her right. It seemed to drift toward her with a kind of hideous nonchalance, sure of its might, and in no hurry to devour.

Stave barked a warning, and Liand called her name; but she hardly heard them. With a gesture of wild magic, a sweep of fire, she redirected the Fall, sent it sprawling like an avalanche in slow motion down toward the heart of the battle. At the same time, she scourged it with flame so that it swelled over the ground, growing wider until it was vast enough to consume the entire horde of the Demondim. Then she urged Hyn into motion after it.

As the mare stretched into a gallop, Linden shouted in a voice of argence, “Come now!” praying that the Waynhim and the ur-viles would be able to hear her through the tumult.

At the same time, she prayed that Mahrtiir and his Cords still lived, and could respond.

Stave and Liand rode at her sides. Silver fire lit the stern concentration on the Master’s visage: he looked like a man who believed that he could determine the outcome of Linden’s gamble by sheer force of will. Liand clung grimly to the Staff, holding it ready. His fear of the Fall glared in his eyes, but he did not try to restrain his mount.

Behind them ran Hrama, bearing Anele whether or not the old man wished to follow.

Linden glimpsed Waynhim racing toward her on all fours. Among them, a few ur-viles appeared, splashed with blood as black as night. As Hyn pounded among the massed forces of the Demondim, more Ranyhyn joined her, two or three. But in the light of Covenant’s ring, Linden caught only a brief flash of them. She could not be sure that more than one of them still carried a rider.

Then she plunged into the caesure as though it were a lake of nightmares.

In an instant, utter anguish seemed to swallow her whole. And as the roiling torment closed over her head, she began to drown-

At that moment, she had no reason to believe she had not brought death to all that she held dear.

Chapter Nine: Pursuit

The unspeakable pain of the Fall was the same: the disorientation: the sensory insanity. She was trapped as she had been once before in the simultaneous shattering of too many realities. Every moment which would ever come and go in the caesure’s path was torn apart and flung at her like a bleeding gobbet; and every scrap of time’s shredded flesh as it struck her became a burrowing insect, a wasp or chigger driven mad by dissociation and avid to lay its ruinous eggs within her. At the same time, all perceptible meaning and structure were wiped away, leaving behind only white emptiness and illimitable cold.

Drowning in all the world’s distress at once, Linden could easily have perished, suffocated by icy formication and loss. She could just as easily have been driven mad. But even madness and death required causality, sequence, interconnection; and the Fall had severed every link which would have made such consequences possible.

Yet this experience was essentially unlike her first such immersion. She did not need to compel the current of distortion backward, into the past. Nor was she required to trust that the ur-viles would impose her will upon it. Instead she could let the terrible forces of the caesure carry her forward according to their own peculiar logic. The Earthpowerful instincts of the Ranyhyn would provide for her redemption.

In addition, she was spared another encounter with Joan Covenant’s demented grief. Somewhere Joan still stood among her attending skest, reaching out with wild magic and self-loathing to name her endless pains. But she had not created this Fall, and did not occupy it. Her madness played no part in its ravening.

And Linden had one other advantage as well. Covenant’s ring still shone like a beacon through the fabric of her shirt, lighting her way to survival. Wild magic was in some sense as disruptive as the caesure, untrammelled by restriction. For that reason, it had the power to violate the strictures of time. For the same reason, however, white gold formed the keystone of the Arch of Time. Its unfettered passion anchored the paradox which made finite existence possible within the infinite universe.

Similarly the hot blaze of Linden’s heart anchored her within herself, enabling her to continue to be who she was when every mote and particle of her specific being had been torn asunder.

Duration could not exist within the Fall. Nothing was possible there except devouring pain and infinite cold and devastation. Therefore no tangible interval passed before Hyn galloped free of agony, bearing Linden out into a flood of sunlight and dazzled blindness.

They had arrived on a slowly rising slope which jolted the mare’s hooves like packed dirt.

Because she had been anchored, and wild magic shone from her still, Linden was not overwhelmed by her passage through time and torment. She could still think, and feel, and choose. Although the intense glare of the sun filled her vision, effacing sight, her other senses reached out acutely. With the nerves of her skin, she felt Stave riding strongly on one side of her, impervious to the harm of the caesure. On the other side, Liand held his seat on Rhohm, clinging grimly to the Staff of Law. Protected by its warm clarity, he also was not as sick as he would otherwise have been.

Close on their heels followed Anele, as unmistakably himself as his inborn Earthpower could make him-and as unquestionably insane as the Fall at his back.

Behind Hrama ran three more Ranyhyn, all of them injured, but still essentially whole. For a moment, Linden could not tell if they bore riders. The rampant seething of the Fall and the sudden brightness of the sun blocked her perceptions. Then she discerned Mahrtiir clutching his appalled stomach at Anele’s back; Pahni vomiting helplessly past Naharahn’s withers; Bhapa stretched nearly unconscious along Whrany’s neck. Blood throbbed from Bhapa’s arm and shoulder, streaking his mount’s torn flanks.

Beside the last Ranyhyn raced more than a dozen Waynhim and perhaps half that many ur-viles, all that remained of the bereft creatures which had committed their lives to Linden and the Staff.

And behind them came the Demondim in a teeming horde, ecstatic with power and ravenous for victims.

She had accomplished this much, if no more: she had brought her assailants with her out of the past; had defused their power to disrupt the integrity of time.

Now she would have to fight them. Hyn would be able to outrun the Demondim, but Linden’s company could not flee indefinitely. The ur-viles and the Waynhim were badly hurt; close to exhaustion. And the Ramen were too ill to defend themselves. Pahni and Bhapa might not be able to sit their mounts much longer. Even Mahrtiir’s aura felt fragile. The Manethrall could hardly contain the heaving of his stomach.

Linden had to make a stand.

She intended to turn and strike as soon as she could see.

As soon as she knew where she was. And when.

If the Ranyhyn had misjudged their passage through the caesure- or if some effect of the Fall had cast them out prematurely-she might yet be in danger of altering the Land’s history.

The midday brilliance of the sun still blinded her, however. While Hyn bore her racing over the hard ground, she blinked her eyes frantically, trying to clear the dazzle from her sight, and strove to extend her senses farther around her.

In spite of the sun’s brightness, the air was cool on her sweating cheeks: it smelled of spring. And ahead of her the ground rose gradually, uninterrupted by swelling hills or narrow ravines or streambeds. She was no longer among the foothills of the Southron Range in late summer. Somehow Hyn’s urgent run must have carried her out into the South Plains.

Or the Ranyhyn were able to navigate distance as well as time within a Fall. Linden and her companions may have crossed many leagues while they traversed the years.

But whatever the Ranyhyn had done, the Demondim had matched it. They could not have prevented Linden’s Fall from engulfing them; yet they had emerged still on the heels of their prey. And their passage did not daunt them, or diminish their hunger for slaughter. Stave had said that their lore was profound and oblique, reaching depths which had surpassed the Old Lords. Their understanding of caesures could easily be greater than Linden’s.

And they were unexpectedly swift. They rushed forward as if they were boiling over the ground. For all her speed, Hyn pulled away from the harrying creatures slowly. Perhaps she could not run faster. Or perhaps she held back so that she would not outdistance the rest of Linden’s companions.

Behind them, the Fall still moiled viciously. Linden had made it large, dangerously large, so that it would swallow all of the horde. Now its swirling forces seemed to blot out the world in that direction; and it flowed after the Demondim as though they sucked it in their wake.

Nevertheless Linden and those with her gained distance by increments, creating a small interval of safety between their desperation and the powers which pursued them.

How much time had passed? A score of heartbeats? Two score? In another moment, Linden told herself, when the gap was a bit wider, she would turn to counterattack.

With Covenant’s ring, she might be able to slow the Demondim so that her companions could escape; but she feared to take the risk. Wild magic might inadvertently draw the Fall toward her too swiftly to be avoided, or feed its destructiveness in some way which she could not foresee.

As her vision began to clear, she deliberately silenced the argence shining through the fabric of her shirt. Then, without a word, as if she expected Liand to read her mind, she reached out for the Staff.

He did not fail her. Almost immediately, she felt the smooth wooden shaft slap into her palm.

Its touch sent a thrill of vitality through her, wiping away the last effects of the caesure; retrieving her from the harm which she had imposed on time. In some fundamental way, wild magic did not suit her: it was too extravagant and unpredictable for her. She was a physician by choice, trained to precision and care; and the teeming ramifications of Covenant’s ring threatened at every moment to expand beyond her control.

In contrast, the Staff of Law was a healer’s implement, as careful as any scalpel or suture. When she held it, she grew stronger: at once calmer and more capable, firmly poised between passion and restraint.

Elevated by the essential certainty of Law, she spoke a silent word to Hyn, nudged the mare with her heels. Without hesitation, Hyn peeled away from her course, carrying Linden in a steady curve out of the path of the other Ranyhyn and the Demondim-spawn, and back toward the onrushing horde.

Stave and Liand accompanied her as if they-or their mounts-had known exactly what she would do. But Hrama bore Anele onward with the Ramen thundering behind them, while the ur-viles and Waynhim scrambled to keep pace.

Moment by moment, blinking tears and brightness from her eyes, Linden regained her sight.

With her companions, she galloped down a slow, wide slope which stretched ahead of her until it vanished under the feet of the Demondim and was covered by the towering storm of the caesure. The sun and its shadows suggested that she was riding eastward.

As the Ramen raced past her in the opposite direction, she sensed that Mahrtiir had begun to rally. Hours or days or centuries ago, he had promised that he and his Cords would not again be crippled by the effects of a Fall. Now from a small pouch at his waist he fumbled out a leaf of dried amanibhavam. Crumbling it in his hand, he held it under his nose; inhaled a little of the sharp powder.

The potent grass stung him like a flick of lightning. A seizure took him, and he thrashed violently on his mount’s back. But the spasm passed in an instant. When it ended, it left him restored and eager, galvanised for combat.

Guiding his stallion to Naharahn’s side, he thrust his hand at Pahni’s nose until she breathed in a taste of the amanibhavam. She, too, thrashed for a moment, then recovered visibly.

But Mahrtiir offered none of the leaf to Bhapa. The injured Cord lay unconscious along Whrany’s neck, and might have been unseated by the healing grass. Instead the Manethrall left Bhapa to his mount’s care and led Pahni after Linden toward the charging Demondim.

As soon as the last of the Waynhim and ur-viles had passed her, Linden called Hyn to a halt and looked out over the army of her attackers.

At her side, Liand stopped and stared in dismay. But Stave gazed at the Demondim like a man who had long ago forgotten how to be afraid.

Seen by daylight on the wide plain instead of by moonlight rising among the hills, the horde seemed less vast; no longer as measureless as night and slaughter. Nevertheless the sun did not diminish the creatures. Rather its glare seemed to accentuate their stature and potency.

Linden could not discern them precisely. They wavered in and out of definition as if they passed in front of a rippled glass. At one moment, they appeared as tangible as – flesh and pain: at the next, they were translucent, nearly invisible. Whenever she tried to focus on a specific creature, it blurred away and then emerged several paces closer to her. And as the Demondim advanced, their forms steamed and frothed like acid.

Paled by sunlight, the flaring of power from their hands was barely visible to ordinary sight; but it howled at Linden’s percipience. And it left behind stains of midnight which persisted in the air as if the inherent vitriol of the Demondim had burned holes in the substance of reality. Until the onrushing caesure swallowed those stains, they looked vicious enough to tear down trees and blast boulders.

Still the individual powers of the monstrous creatures were evanescent compared to the raving evil of the Illearth Stone. Among them the Demondim bore an outpouring of emerald so avid and malefic that it seemed to daunt the sun. From the vantage of higher ground and Hyn’s back, Linden could see now that the dire green did not arise from any one place or creature among the horde. The Demondim carried no discrete fragment of the original Stone. Rather they appeared to bring its essence with them as if they could draw on it from some distant source.

“What will you do, Chosen?” demanded Stave. “Is it your purpose to give combat? That is madness. We must flee.”

The sound of his voice distracted her from the horde; and as soon as she understood what he had said, she remembered that he was right. She could not afford to unleash her power until she knew where she was, and when.

The Demondim rushed savagely toward her, with the caesure looming behind them. She had only moments left-

“I have to stop this,” she panted. “It’s too big-” She had made it too big. “For God’s sake, tell me where we are!”

Had they reached the time in which they belonged?

“Linden,” Liand breathed in sudden astonishment. “Heaven and Earth, Linden!”

She did not so much as glance at him. Gripping the Staff, she waited for Stave’s answer.

“I am not yet certain,” he replied flatly. “The season is condign. And Kevin’s Dirt impends above us. It appears that our proper time is nigh.”

Kevin’s Dirt, she thought. Oh, shit! She had not noticed it overhead because she could not force her gaze away from the Demondim. But she believed the Master. Soon her health-sense would begin to fray and fail.

She had to act now, before the horde advanced farther; before the truncation of her senses began to hamper her.

Could she risk wielding the Staff of Law?

She did not know. Yet the Staff itself might protect her from an irreparable mistake. And she had no time left for doubt. The Demondim were almost upon her. Behind them, the caesure which she had created surged forward. It was her responsibility.

Good cannot be accomplished by evil means,

“Linden!” Liand called again, insisting on her attention. “Have you beheld-?”

She did not give him a chance to finish. Slipping abruptly from Hyn’s back, she took three stiff strides toward the leading edge of the horde, then halted to plant one heel of the Staff in the hard dirt.

The Stonedownor shouted after her: a cry rife with alarm. She ignored him. Stave and Mahrtiir sprang from their mounts, poised themselves for battle. She ignored them as well.

From the vibrant wood of the Staff, she brought forth a burst of incandescence as bright as sunlight and as defiant as an oriflamme. While it blazed, she yelled at the Demondim, “Stop right there! This is as far as you go!”

Her unexpected challenge threw the creatures into confusion. She did not know whether they could understand her, and did not care. They were lore-wise enough to recognise the Staff of Law. And they had already felt the presence of Covenant’s ring. At once, the first Demondim scrambled to a halt, blocking the way for the dire shapes behind them. Nacre power spat and frothed, pale as air and ruinous as magma, shedding blackness like glimpses into the heart of the Lost Deep. Indistinct forms steamed darkly, while among them rapt emerald seethed for release.

They could not know that she was bluffing-

Or perhaps they could. They might perceive that she was too human and frail to control both of her powers simultaneously. They needed only a few heartbeats to resolve their uncertainty and resume their ravening onrush.

Nevertheless they had given Linden enough time. As the horde paused, she leaped past it in her mind to confront the Fall.

She had caused this rent in the fabric of sequence and causality herself. And she had been swept up in its chaos only a short while ago. She knew it intimately.

With percipience to guide her, she raised the Staff, directed it over the heads of the Demondim, and unleashed its warm puissance into the swarming core of the caesure.

From the iron-shod end of the wood, flame the rich yellow hue of sunflowers and ripe corn lashed out, a streaming ceaseless flail of fire. The Fall was huge: she had made it so. And it had fed on millennia of severed instants. But the Staff of Law could draw on the fathomless reservoir of Earthpower which defined the Land. Indeed, its possibilities were limited only by the capacities of its wielder. And Linden had already proved herself equal to the Sunbane. The evil before her now was enormous and consuming. Yet it was a small thing in comparison.

Challenged by the direct vitality of the Staff, the Fall failed rapidly. For an instant, it mounted upward, screaming into the heavens. Then it collapsed in on itself with a noise like a thunderclap, sucking down its own viciousness until it winked away like a snuffed candle.

More swiftly than Linden would have believed possible, the caesure was gone, leaving her with warm wood quiescent in her hands. Stave and Mahrtiir stood ready at her sides; and all around her was the sweet scent of meadows in sunlight, swales of grass and wildflowers adorned with dew, and trees budding into leaf.

No longer aware of herself, Linden sank to her knees. Exerting the Staff, she had expended her own substance. Her determination was gone, and the very ground beneath her no longer felt necessary or immediate.

Apparently howling, although they made no sound, the Demondim flung themselves toward her. In the distance, Liand shouted her name as if he had never stopped calling for her.

Then suddenly Stave took hold of her. Lifting her into the air, he threw her onto Hyn’s back. At the same time, Mahrtiir sprang astride his mount; and immediately their two Ranyhyn surged into a gallop, fleeing the horde. Behind them, Stave followed on Hynyn.

Uncertain of her balance, and clinging fervently to the Staff of Law, Linden returned to herself.

There Liand and Pahni joined her. Pounding the hard ground close together, the five horses stretched their strength to outdistance the Demondim.

At first, Linden barely noticed them. For a while, she hardly knew where she was. She felt harried by exigencies which she no longer recognised or understood. By degrees, however, their urgency reclaimed her. Still reeling internally, she glanced around to check on her companions.

Both Stave and Liand were unhurt: they had not encountered the Demondim. But Mahrtiir’s legs had been burned, his hands held bleeding sores, and one cheek wore a swath of blisters. The opalescent blasts of the creatures had nearly slain him. Perhaps he had attempted to garrote one of them. Its acid would have eaten away his fighting cord; chewed into his hands.

Pahni’s pain was obvious; but for a moment Linden could not determine where the Cord had been injured. Then she noticed that Pahni rode leaning to one side, protecting the blood which had soaked her tunic along her ribs.

Reflexively Linden studied Mahrtiir’s and Pahni’s wounds until she was sure that they were not mortal. Given time, the Ramen would heal. With the Staff, Linden herself could heal them. If the Ranyhyn outran the horde far enough-and if she recovered her ability to concentrate-

The great horses also had been scored with corrosion. Blood oozed from galls and welts in their sides. But the Ranyhyn had avoided hurts severe enough to hamper their strides.

Reassured, Linden allowed herself to relax a little. As Hyn strained for speed under her, she grew gradually stronger.

Then Liand gestured ahead. Shouting over the labour of hooves, he repeated, “Linden! Have you beheld it?”

She had not. Since emerging from the caesure, she had not glanced in that direction.

When at last she lifted her gaze toward the west, she saw Revelstone looming there like the prow of a mighty ship.

God in Heaven-Revelstone: Lord’s Keep. A few hundred paces directly in front of her-and some three hundred leagues from the place where she and her companions had entered the Fall.

For a moment, the sight left her stunned; too stupefied to think. Revelstone? Impossible! Even Hyn’s tremendous strength could not have carried her so far in less than ten days-

Then panic clutched her heart, and she urged Hyn to a halt, forcing Stave to wheel back toward her; face her. Ignoring the tumult and hunger of the Demondim, she demanded, “Revelstone, Stave? How in hell did we get here?”

Once the habitation of the Lords, the vast stone castle had later become the fortress from which the Clave had ruled the Land. Ten years ago she had entered Lord’s Keep twice: first as a prisoner of the Riders; then as their foe. For her, the intricately carved castle was flagrant with memories of anguish and bloodshed.

How had the Ranyhyn brought her so far astray?

Liand had told her that Revelstone was important to the Masters.

Stave gazed past her to gauge the pace of the horde. Then he met her shaken stare. Deliberately patient, he replied, “I have said that I would bear tidings to the Masters. When we entered the Fall, you asked no clear destination of the Ranyhyn. Therefore they heeded me. Answering my will, they have borne us hither.”

“God damn it-!” Linden began, then bit down her indignation. What had she expected of Stave? That he would forsake his responsibilities and beliefs merely because she disagreed with him? The Haruchai were not so easily swayed. And he may have served her well. One destination was as good as another when she did not know where to look for her son. In addition, Revelstone might provide a temporary refuge, if she could convince the Masters to aid her-if enough of Stave’s people lived here-and if the Keep’s walls could withstand the Demondim-

Nevertheless Anele would suffer for what Stave had done.

Clenching her hands on the Staff until her knuckles ached, she called Hyn into motion again.

As the mare sped forward once more, Linden stared hard at Revelstone; and her brief hope fell away. She could not imagine how plain granite might rebuff the Demondim. Perhaps the creatures would be unable to pass through solid obstacles; but they had access to the Illearth Stone-

In ancient times, the Keep’s walls had been defended by Lords and lore. Now there were no Lords, or any men and women like them. Yet she and her company raced toward Revelstone simply because Stave had willed it so.

She could not believe that she would find safety there. But where else could she go? The Demondim had not slowed their pace, and she doubted that she would ever be strong enough to withstand them all.

And Revelstone should have been a sanctuary. It had been formed by Giants during the time of High Lord Damelon, many long centuries before Thomas Covenant had first entered the Land; delved by stone-lore and stone-love into the foundations of a wedge-shaped promontory jutting beyond a spur of the Westron Mountains. From the sealed watchtower which guarded its entrance to the elaborately graven ramparts and balconies, embrasures and coigns, which defined its walls, it stood just as she remembered it: proudly, like a work of art, articulating the long-lived adoration and homage of the lost Giants.

Looking at the Keep now, however, another realisation struck Linden like a blow to the heart; another flash of anger and fear-

Her son had tried to warn her.

That also should have been impossible. In his condition, it must have been. Yet Jeremiah, who knew nothing of this place, and had never responded to her love-ah, Jeremiah had used Lego to build an image of Revelstone in her living room only a few hours before Roger Covenant had kidnapped him.

Never having seen them before, he had devised motley models of both Revelstone and Mount Thunder; messages in red and blue and yellow bricks. Using the only language available to him, he had tried to prepare her for his plight-and hers. But she had failed to understand him.

In spite of her chagrin, however, she now knew where to find to him.

But first she needed to re-enter Revelstone. That message had become clear to her as well. Why else had Jeremiah included it in his construct?

Yet the fact that Stave had brought her here implied that Lord’s Keep was more than simply important to the Masters. It was the seat of their Mastery. Here they made their decisions and kept their prisoners. They would not let Anele go. And they might oppose any use of the Staff, or of Covenant’s ring. Indeed, they might believe that their commitments required them to wrest Linden’s powers from her.

Ahead of her, Hrama and Whrany waited with their riders. Bhapa remained unconscious and feverish, sickened by the burst of vitriol which had torn open his arm and shoulder. And Whrany’s injuries appeared to be festering, as if the nacre of the Demondim still gnawed at them. But Anele gazed blindly about him with a look of confusion, apparently wondering where he was, or how he had come here.

The Ranyhyn panted with exertion, blowing froth from their nostrils. Linden could tell at a glance, however, that they were far from the end of their strength. Not so the ur-viles and Waynhim. Utterly spent, and gasping hoarsely, they sprawled in the dirt beside the horses, unable even to hold up their heads. If their makers came upon them now, they would be helpless to defend themselves.

At a thought from Linden, Hyn halted there. Stave and Liand remained mounted on either side of her; but Mahrtiir slipped to the ground at once and hastened to attend to Bhapa.

Now he gave the Cord a scent of his crumbled amanibhavam. The dried grass-blade did not rouse him, in spite of its potency. Nevertheless it appeared to stabilise his condition, reinforcing his body’s natural defences. He coughed a few times and squirmed unquietly, then began to breathe with more ease. By degrees, his fever receded somewhat.

While the Manethrall cared for Bhapa, Pahni also dismounted. Although she looked like she might collapse herself, weakened by the wound in her side, she went quickly to each of the injured Ranyhyn in turn, offering them amanibhavam.

Liand watched Linden with his eyes full of apprehension. He seemed more aware of the gnashing Demondim than anyone around him. And, like her, he distrusted the Masters.

Struggling to contain her fears, Linden confronted Stave. “All right,” she panted urgently. “You brought us here. Now what? How many Masters are there?” She meant in Revelstone. “And what do you think they can do?” They had no, power except their native strength and skill. “We need help, Stave. How can your people fight those things?”

He had promised her a reckoning. How high a price was he willing to pay for his convictions?

She was the only one here who could oppose the horde-and she was already exhausted.

Stave regarded her steadily. Instead of speaking, he extended his hand toward the high bulk of Lord’s Keep against its background of mountains; and at that moment the interlocking stone gates in the base of the watchtower swung open. From the tunnel under the tower, riders cantered outward as if he had summoned them forth.

Four abreast, they emerged row after row, first a dozen of them, then a score; two score; more-And still they appeared: more men on horseback than Linden had ever seen at one time. When the last of them had left the darkness under the watchtower, they must have numbered eighty or a hundred.

And they were Haruchai, all of them: fell-handed warriors mounted on hardy mustangs and heavy destriers, dray horses and racers. They bore no weapons and no pennons; wore no armour; carried no shields; wielded no lore or instruments of power. Nevertheless they rode out from Revelstone to challenge the horde of the Demondim as if no foe could stand against them.

“We will not fail,” Stave replied to Linden. “While one of us remains alive, you will be warded.”

As soon as the full force of the riders had left the Keep, they quickened their pace, accelerating from an easy canter to a headlong charge. Apparently they meant to reach Linden and her company before the Demondim could overtake them.

“Revelstone?” Anele asked in bewilderment. “Is it Revelstone?” But Linden had no time to comfort him.

Briefly Stave cocked his head as if he were listening. Then he informed Linden, “The Ranyhyn have served us well. This day is the second since our departure from the Verge of Wandering.”

His people could communicate so, mind to mind.

But the assurance that she had regained her proper time gave her little relief. The horde would soon draw near enough to strike at her small company. And the Masters might prove as fatal in their own way as the Demondim.

Quickly she urged Stave, “Tell them about the ur-viles.” She did not doubt that his people would defend the Waynhim; but the Haruchai and the ur-viles had been foes for millennia. “I don’t care whether you approve of anything I’ve done. This isn’t about me. The ur-viles have earned your protection.”

Stave nodded his agreement.

Again Anele asked the air plaintively, “Revelstone?”

Linden could feel the Demondim massing at her back: Kevin’s Dirt had not yet dimmed her percipience. And when she turned to look at them, she saw that they were too close. The Masters would barely reach her before the horde did. If their charge did not immediately throw back the onslaught, she and her friends would find themselves in the midst of the battle.

When she had gathered her reserves, she called up a soothing current of strength from the Staff and sent it flowing toward the Waynhim and the ur-viles.

They were not creatures of Law. And her senses could not read them. Still she knew that she would not harm them. She trusted herself here. She had already healed the Staff’s guardian among the Waynhim.

They would die if they remained helpless, unable to fight or run.

The Waynhim stirred almost at once, rousing to lift their heads and sniff at the fraught air. Then the ur-viles did the same. Some of them slapped at their skin as if to beat off insects. Others flung themselves from side to side, or scrabbled at the dirt. Yet they grew stronger.

As soon as they began to regain their feet, Linden called back her power.

Behind her, the horde slowed its pace. New forces gathered and swirled among the monsters. Apparently the Demondim were preparing to meet the charge of the Masters.

“Come on,” she muttered to her companions. “Let’s go.” She had been in danger for too long. “We need some distance.”

With a touch of her hand, she asked Hyn to bear her away.

The Haruchai thundered closer. The hooves of their mounts raised banners of dust from the bare ground.

Twisting on Hrama’s back, Anele appeared to look straight at Linden, in spite of his blindness. “Anele is betrayed,” he announced bitterly. “You have given him to them.”

While she gazed at him in sorrow, he slipped suddenly to the ground, ducked past Rhohm, and dashed away-

“Anele!” she shouted: too late. She had already missed the instant when she might have deflected him.

– directly toward the massed forces of the Demondim.

As his bare feet touched the dirt, his entire aura changed. His baffled bitterness vanished, replaced by savage fire like a yowl of repudiation. Running toward the horde, he seemed to set the air aflame, igniting it with outrage. His feet left smoking burns on the ground, and his whole form glowed like iron in the forge, too hot to be touched or endured.

Any other mortal being would have been flash-burned to ash and cinders. Only his inherited Earthpower enabled him to withstand the abrupt magma which had taken possession of him.

Linden shouted his name. This had happened to the old man once before. In the communal centre of the Ramen encampment, he had become a conflagration in human form. Raging at her, he had nearly scorched the eyes from her skull.

That same spirit had claimed Anele again.

In a clattering rush, the first wave of the Masters swept around Linden and her company toward the Demondim; and Anele flung himself against the monsters as if he meant to challenge their vast evil with the lava of his own pain.

He had taken even Stave by surprise; yet Stave reacted before Linden could do more than flinch and cry out. At his silent command, Hynyn reared and turned, springing away to join the tumultuous charge of the Haruchai.

The Master may have intended to strike Anele down, as he had among the Ramen.

Leaping for their mounts, Mahrtiir and Pahni positioned themselves to defend Linden. The ur-viles and Waynhim rallied together; staggered chanting into loose formations on either side of her. Liand yelled at her, but she could not hear him through the din of hooves. Haruchai pounded past her, row after row of them. Then they seemed to disappear in their own dust.

Desperately she groped for power-and found none. She could not concentrate: the implications of Anele’s transformation seemed to beat about her head, confusing her attention. When she tried to wield both Covenant’s ring and the Staff of Law, neither answered her.

In the Verge of Wandering, Anele had been possessed by flame and fury when he had moved from the rich grass around the shelters onto the bare ground of the clearing. And here he had been similarly changed when he had dropped from Hrama’s back; when his feet had found the dirt-

Oh my God- Anele!

Linden felt more than heard the clash of flesh and bone and force as the Haruchai crashed into the front lines of the Demondim. Too many riders and too much dust blocked her view. Her senses had other dimensions, however. She could still witness the battle.

In spite of their numbers, each of the Masters seemed as distinct as stone: they slammed into the horde like a fall of boulders, heavy and irrefusable. But the monstrous creatures were rife with power. Nacre corrosion beat in their veins, poured from their hands. Any one of them singly had the might to shatter walls, tear down houses. And they had seen the Haruchai coming: they were ready.

As the riders struck, concerted emerald as vehement and fatal as the Despiser’s own ichor erupted in response, coruscating through the hues of gems and verdure to the blinding incandescence of sunfire.

In an instant, the conflict became chaos.

Without transition, the screaming of horses filled the air. Blood and shredded flesh articulated the dust. The first rows of the Masters went down like mown wheat, scythed from their mounts by the vicious strength of the Vile-spawn and the incarnate puissance of the Illearth Stone.

The slaughter among the horses was hideous, but in the initial assault few of the Masters were slain. Prodigiously swift and skilled, they dove from their falling mounts between gouts of ruin unleashed by the hands and limbs and beaks of the Demondim; ducked under staggering concussions of green force; attacked their foes and spun away. Yet each quick evasion and abrupt blow carried them farther into the horde, deeper among the massed creatures; closer to the centre of the Stone’s power. And the Demondim were too many, the Stone too potent.

Monsters fell around the Haruchai; but none of the leading warriors survived.

Yet among the tumult Anele remained palpable, vivid to Linden’s discernment: a figure compacted of scoria and rage. He strode some distance into the battle, then paused there as if he were contemplating carnage. But he struck at none of the creatures. None of them struck at him. Instead he appeared to gather them about him in swirling eddies which veered closer and then were flung away by the forces of the fight.

Her fear for him snatched Linden out of her confusion. Banishing Covenant’s ring from her mind, she raised the Staff high; and from its end shone forth a beacon of flame as yellow as sunshine and as compelling as trumpets.

Holding the wooden shaft before her like a standard, she nudged Hyn into motion.

The mare tossed her head and nickered anxiously, but did not flinch or falter. At a slow canter, she bore Linden toward the battle.

Toward Anele.

Immediately Liand, Mahrtiir, and Pahni placed themselves protectively around her, bringing Hrama with them, while the ur-viles and Waynhim adjusted their formations to guard her back.

Ahead of her, the shape of the fighting shifted. Reacting to the outcome of their first attack, the Masters changed their tactics. Instead of hurtling into the fray, they fanned out on either side of the horde and leaped down from their mounts. There they slapped their horses away so that no more of the vulnerable beasts would be burned or eviscerated. Then they fought the onslaught along its edges rather than forging inward. By so doing, they gave themselves space in which to dodge and duck and strike back and dance away.

At once, they became more effective, altering the proportions of the conflict. More of the Haruchai were able to keep their feet and take advantage of their lightning reflexes: more of the monsters dropped.

Still the Demondim were too many. Too few were stricken down. And they had not yet made concerted use of the Illearth Stone. Effectively focused, that bane could sweep away every living being between the horde and Revelstone.

Then Linden saw in horror that the extravagant efforts of the Masters did not diminish the horde. Instead the trees and Cavewights and men and monsters which fell, apparently slain, seemed to melt out of existence, disappearing into the ground; and from the dirt emerged new shapes to replace them. Now creatures in the form of ur-viles stood among the combatants; monsters that resembled Giants; savage yellow beasts like kresh.

The Demondim arose from the graves of the fallen, Stave had said, and their touch was fire. They could resurrect themselves in every form which had ever been slain before the gates of Revelstone.

It was only a matter of time before all of the Haruchai were killed.

Abruptly Anele vanished from her perceptions. He had stood alone amid the clamour, a cynosure of red heat and fury surrounded by the fading and solidifying forms of the Demondim, the splashing of opalescent corrosion, the daunting concussions of the Stone. Then, without warning, she could no longer discern him. Blankness answered her questing health-sense. As far as she could tell, he was utterly gone, erased from the face of the plain.

Holding a shout of Staff-fire before her, Linden urged Hyn faster. With her companions braced about her, she carried her power into the battle.

The Masters parted from her path. They may have assumed that she meant to measure herself against the Illearth Stone. But she had no such intention. She was too weary and mortal to contend with the Stone’s virulence directly. Not while its source remained hidden from her; unapproachable; immune to assault. Her only thought was to find Anele.

Like the Haruchai, the Demondim withdrew to allow her passage. Or she may have driven them back with the Staff’s lucid flame. She no longer knew what she did. She knew only that she did not mean to turn aside.

Then from within the chaos Hynyn burst into her path, sides heaving, coat soaked and glossy with blood. And on his back sat Stave as if they had endured a furnace together. Acid had charred the Master’s tunic to tatters, scored galls across his ribs and down his arms. And it had eaten away the left side of his face. The bones of his cheek showed through the streaming wound, and his eye was lost in burns. Nonetheless he somehow contrived to support Anele’s limp form in front of him.

The old man still lived. His heart beat: air leaked in and out of his lungs. The Earthpower which had preserved him through so many other ordeals had sustained him again.

Linden might have shouted his name, but he would not have heard her. The heat which had carried him into the fray was gone, leaving him unconscious.

Frantic now, and stretched past her limits, she whirled the fire of the Staff around her, forcing more of the Demondim to pull back. As she did so, she yelled to her friends and Stave-to the Waynhim and ur-viles- to all of the embattled Haruchai- “Run! We’ve got to get out of here!”

The clangour of blows and powers swallowed her cry; yet the Ranyhyn understood her instantly. As one, they turned, half sitting on their haunches in order to launch themselves back the way they had come. With Hynyn among them, they stretched for Revelstone at a pounding gallop.

But now Linden hardly noticed what they did. Between one heartbeat and the next, the battle had dropped away from her. All of her attention was fixed on Anele. She clung to him with her senses as if that might keep him alive.

The Waynhim and ur-viles had been behind her, guarding her back. Now in an instant the Ranyhyn rushed past them, leaving them exposed to the assault of their makers.

Linden did not see that the Masters must have heard her, or had made their own decision to withdraw. As she and her companions broke free of the horde, however, the Haruchai abruptly jumped back from their opponents and began to run. Some of them whistled for their mounts. And some of those calls were answered. But most of the warriors simply ran. A few followed after the Ranyhyn as if to shield their flight. A large majority, however, headed for the ur-viles and Waynhim.

In their own way, the Waynhim had served the Land as diligently as any of the Lords. And Linden had told the Masters through Stave that the ur-viles deserved protection.

Encircling the creatures, the Haruchai took up positions to fight a rearguard action back toward the entrance to Lord’s Keep.

But Linden was unaware of them. She had closed herself to all distractions; and so she did not see that the horde had slowed its pace, allowing its foes to retreat ahead of it. Apparently the Demondim did not desire to overwhelm their last descendants and the surviving warriors, but preferred rather to herd their opponents toward the illusory haven of Revelstone. They let the opportunity for carnage escape them.

While Hyn’s hooves beat the hard ground, Linden counted Anele’s heartbeats until she began to believe that they were not failing; that his peculiar strength had preserved him somehow. Then, gradually, she expanded her awareness to include Stave’s wounds and Hynyn’s laboured gait.

They would live because she did not mean to let them die. She had already lost too many people who had trusted her, and had come no nearer to rescuing her son. Nevertheless she was relieved to discern that they were in no immediate danger.

Hynyn had lost too much blood: the stallion was in acute pain. Yet his hurts were not as severe as Stave’s. The Master’s pulse had a ragged, thready beat, hampered by agony, and his burns fumed hotly, exacerbated by the lingering vitriol of the Demondim. An ordinary man would already have died-

But even Stave’s preternatural toughness might fail him if his injuries were not treated soon. His left eye was already lost, and his other wounds were worse. She was not certain that even the theurgy of the Staff would be enough to save him; and the convictions of the Masters would probably require them to spurn hurtloam.

Linden’s choices had become too expensive. The prices that other people paid in her name, because she had done what she did, seemed too high to be borne.

She was aware of nothing except the hurts of her companions as the Ranyhyn flashed from sunlight into the shadows of the tunnel under Revelstone’s watchtower. For a long moment, their hooves raised a tumult of trod stone and echoes, so that they seemed to gallop through the residue of the battle which they had left behind. Then they burst back into the sun’s warmth in the walled courtyard which separated the watchtower from the main bulk of the Keep, and there the Ranyhyn scrambled to a halt, stopping urgently on stiffened legs.

Before them were the massive inner gates of Revelstone.

The gates stood open as if in welcome. But no lamps or torches lit the hall beyond them, and the wide jaws of Lord’s Keep offered only darkness.

Chapter Ten: Troubled Sanctuary

As she entered Revelstone for the third time in her life, Linden Avery yearned for illumination.

In a sense, she knew the high forehall well. She had struggled and survived here against the Clave and the na-Mhoram’s Grim. But it was dark now, and she could see nothing to assure her that she knew where she was.

Apparently the Masters did not need light. Their sight was acute. And their senses were not truncated by Kevin’s Dirt.

She lacked their abilities. Already she could feel her percipience fading, eroded by the tainted pall which overhung the Land. Soon she would be able to discern only the surfaces around her, none of the depths. She would be blind to all that was not lit and plain.

But she was not blind yet. The Staff of Law in her hands sustained her when she felt too weary to hold up her head.

When she and those with her-her companions and their mounts, the ragged and gasping Demondim-spawn, and the Masters who had survived the horde, along with most of their horses-had entered the prow-shaped promontory of Revelstone, the heavy gates were closed, both those at the base of the watchtower and those within the courtyard. The Demondim had advanced too slowly to kill more of the Land’s retreating defenders; and now the monsters were sealed out of Revelstone. Scores of people, creatures, and mounts crowded the forehall, awaiting decisions.

With the gates shut, Linden could no longer taste the approach of the Illearth Stone; but she trembled to think what would happen when that immeasurable evil was unleashed against the wrought stone of Lord’s Keep.

The choices of the Masters had left Revelstone virtually defenceless. They had denied the Land its heritage of lore and Earthpower. And Stave’s kinsmen had just demonstrated that mere skill and strength could not stand against the powers of the Demondim.

Linden did not dismount. She was reluctant to leave the security of Hyn’s back. Like the Staff, Hyn’s fortitude and loyalty enabled her to exceed herself. In spite of her exhaustion, she called up fire from the Staff and held it flaming over her head. If she could not accomplish anything else, she meant to at least see-

As the warm buttery light reached for the walls of the cavernous hall, she studied the condition of her companions. Only Stave and Bhapa needed care immediately. Mahrtiir and Pahni had suffered less dangerous hurts. Indeed, they had already slipped down from their Ranyhyn to tend Whrany and Hynyn with amanibhavam and tenderness, stifling their wonder at the legendary Keep as well as their ancient animosity toward the Haruchai. And neither Liand nor the Demondim-spawn had been exposed to acid and emerald since passing through the Fall. As for Anele, the old man had emerged scatheless from the horde. He remained unconscious-perhaps Stave had struck him again-but he breathed more easily now, relaxing into natural sleep.

A significant number of the Masters had been wounded, but none as grievously as Stave. Apparently every warrior with serious injuries had fallen to the Demondim. The rest had been able to evade the worst attacks of the monsters.

Gazing around the forehall, Linden estimated that a score or two of the Haruchai had spent their lives to purchase escape for her and her companions.

So much bloodshed-Too much. She had surpassed the limits of what she could accept.

A Master whom she did not know approached her through the restless throng, the wavering shadows, and asked for her attention. He knew her name. No doubt they all did. Stave had already spoken of her.

She could not imagine what else he might have told his kinsmen.

This Master carried himself with a commanding certainty. He may have been a leader among his people. The silver in his hair lent him dignity: the scars on his face and arms testified to his prowess. He wore no insignia or emblems, no marks of status, but the other Haruchai deferred to him subtly, honouring him more by posture and stance than by any overt signs of respect.

Nevertheless Linden ignored him. She had been pushed beyond herself, and other needs were more important to her.

While she could still rely on her health-sense to inform her actions, she sent tendrils of force curling from the comfortable wood in her hands; extended Law and healing to both Stave and Bhapa at once.

Stave’s eye was a scalded mess. She could not repair it: she could only clean it and stop the bleeding. Therefore she closed her heart to it. Fortunately his other injuries were similar to Bhapa’s: far more severe, but alike in kind. She could apply the same balm of Earthpower to both men. However, she did not neglect Stave’s sore hip. And she cleared the cataract from Bhapa’s eye. He might have avoided the worst of his hurts if he had been able to see more clearly; if she had thought to treat his vision when she had first gained the Staff.

Finally she stretched out her care to the most dangerous wounds of the Ranyhyn. She did not know how else to thank them for all that they had done in her name.

While she worked, a hush filled the hall. Pahni, Liand, and Mahrtiir regarded her gravely. The older Master held his peace. None of the other Haruchai made a sound. The Ranyhyn and even the lesser horses ceased their restive stamping, their snorted whimpers. Huddling together, the Waynhim tended to each other in silence, while the ur-viles licked their wounds.

When she was done, a wave of exhaustion broke over her, and she nearly faded from consciousness. She had been under too much strain for far too long. The Staff’s strength lapsed in her tired hands, restoring the darkness of the forehall, leaving her isolated in her personal night.

Then Mahrtiir said softly, “My thanks, Ringthane,” and she roused herself with a jerk. Perhaps she would be able to rest later: she could not do so now. She had other responsibilities which she did not mean to ignore.

“You are Linden Avery the Chosen,” announced a nearby voice, “and you hold both white gold and the Staff of Law. Stave has spoken of you. I am Handir, by right of years and attainment the Voice of the Masters. In their name, I bid you welcome.”

His tone suggested his scars and his age, in spite of its lack of inflection.

“Good for you,” Linden muttered gracelessly. The forehall was as dark as a tomb. It seemed crowded with fears and suffering; demands which she did not know how to meet. “If we’re so welcome and all, how about giving us some light?”

Stave had saved her by bringing her here. Without the aid of the Masters, she would not have been able to keep her companions, or herself, alive. But he had also betrayed her. His people would imprison Anele. And they might well do the same to her.

Jeremiah had tried to warn her

The horses nickered and snorted, clattering their distress against the stone floor with their hooves; but no one answered Linden’s query until Mahrtiir rasped, “It is the Ringthane who asks it, sleepless ones. She has ridden Hyn of the Ranyhyn across fifteen score leagues and uncounted centuries to this fell place. Will you disdain even her?”

As if in response to the Manethrall’s indignation, a torch sputtered and took flame at the far end of the forehall, away from the gates. It revealed a Master carrying an armload of brands. Without haste, he began distributing torches among his people.

Vaguely Linden wondered how many Haruchai had not ridden out to meet the Demondim. How many losses could they sustain, and still hold fast to their convictions?

Were there enough Masters to defend the Keep?

As small fires spread from brand to brand, a flickering light slowly filled the hall. It cast ambiguous shadows among the people and horses until they resembled Demondim, fading in and out of definition.

Liand remained mounted behind Handir, two other Masters, and Mahrtiir’s stallion. As soon as she met the Stonedownor’s worried gaze, he said, “My sight fails, Linden. Soon I will be reduced to what I was in Mithil Stonedown.” The thought clearly grieved him, but he set it aside. “Yet I see naught to trouble me. But my heart misgives me still. I do not trust these Masters, though they have snatched us back from death.”

For his sake, she sighed, “We’re safe enough,” although her voice shook, “at least for now. They may be Masters, but they’re still Haruchai. They’ll take care of us as well as they can.”

And they would do so as long as they could, with Demondim massed beyond the gates, and the power of the Illearth Stone rampant against them.

Handir waited until she was finished. Then he informed Liand, “I have bid you welcome. In the Chosen’s name, I have welcomed you all. Has this no meaning among Stonedownors?”

Facing Linden again, he asserted, “We have become the Masters of the Land because we are Haruchai. While Revelstone stands, you are guests among us, and need fear no harm.”

“Does that include the ur-viles?” she asked promptly. “And the Waynhim? None of us would have survived without them. Even Stave-”

Her throat closed. Too many Haruchai lay dead beyond the Keep’s gates. The Demondim may have already assumed their corpses

“We know nothing of their needs,” the Voice of the Masters said inflexibly. “They will be released to the plateau of Glimmermere, where they may care for themselves as they are able.”

At his words, one of her fears fell away. She had once visited the eldritch lake of Glimmermere: she had seen the unassailable purity of its waters. And she had heard long ago that the plateau above and behind the promontory of Lord’s Keep was guarded by sheer cliffs for many leagues. In Glimmermere’s vicinity, the Waynhim and ur-viles would be beyond the immediate reach of the Demondim; safe as long as the Masters could hold back the horde.

A moment of yearning for the cleanliness of the tarn undermined Linden’s attention, and she missed what Handir said next. Something about the Ranyhyn-? Because he appeared to expect a response, she murmured distantly, “Thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t been more gracious. We’ve been through a lot.”

And her difficulties were far from ended. Entering into Revelstone had merely transformed them.

Before Handir could reply, Mahrtiir snapped, “The Ringthane may accept your wishes, Bloodguard. The Ramen do not. The Ranyhyn will not submit to your care. Rather you will release them also to the upland plateau, where they will be tended by the Ramen, and where they may remain or depart, as they choose. To propose otherwise is arrogance.

“And your welcome is without substance. You avow that you will provide for our safety “while Revelstone stands.” That is scant comfort, sleepless one. You cannot cast down the Demondim, and are utterly surpassed by the Illearth Stone. Yet you make no preparation for defence.”

Shadows shifted ominously across the Manethrall’s visage. “You name yourself “the Voice of the Masters”. Heed my voice, Bloodguard. The gates of Revelstone are mighty, but they will not long remain unbreached. Ere the sun sets, the Demondim will enter this hall, and then it will be revealed that your welcome is as empty as your arrogance. If the Ringthane does not preserve you, the Masters will perish from the Land.”

The gates, Linden thought unexpectedly. Something about the gates-

Handir continued to regard her for a moment as though he wondered whether Mahrtiir spoke for her. Then he turned impassively to the Raman.

“You are mistaken, Manethrall, in many things.” If the Master felt either impatience or scorn, his tone concealed it. “We have offered to care for the Ranyhyn because we seek to do them honour. They have been too long absent from the Land, and we have craved their return. But we intend no disregard toward the Ramen. Nor will we gainsay your word. The Ranyhyn will be released, as you have instructed, and you will tend to them.”

Handir paused, apparently offering Mahrtiir an opportunity to respond. But the Manethrall said nothing, and his fierce glare seemed to defy the Masters. With a shrug, Handir continued his reply.

“Preparations against the Demondim have begun, though you do not witness our efforts. As you have observed, we cannot equal the might of the Demondim. Therefore the watchtower is being filled with wood and oil, and made ready for fire. Any approach to the gates of Revelstone will fall in flames.”

And rise again, Linden thought darkly, until you run out of fuel. If the gates hold at all.

They troubled her for some reason. There was a question that she wanted to ask, but it eluded her. She was too tired to remember-

“Other preparations also have begun,” the Voice of the Masters promised. “You may partake in them, and in the defence of the Keep, if that is your desire.”

Still Mahrtiir glared at the Master on Linden’s behalf, and said nothing.

Again Handir shrugged. The Haruchai with him did not react to Mahrtiir’s belligerence.

“In one matter, however,” explained Handir, “you have spoken sooth. No defence will ward us from the evil of the Illearth Stone. Yet at present the Demondim do not wield it against us. Nor do they approach the gates. For reasons which we do not comprehend, they appear content to remain at some distance, ensuring that we cannot flee, but threatening us in no other form.

“We have heard your voice, Manethrall. Hear mine. Until we have determined how we must respond to the Chosen, we have no better course than to make our guests welcome as best we may.”

Abruptly Linden jerked up her head. Responsive to her mood, Hyn took a step or two forward, moving between Mahrtiir and the Voice of the Masters.

“The gates,” Linden said. “Now I remember. Where in hell did you get gates?”

When she had entered here three and a half thousand years ago, there were no gates below the watchtower. They had been destroyed long before. And the Sandgorgon Nom had shattered the Keep’s inner defences at Covenant’s behest. Yet now both sets of gates were closed: great interlocking stone doors which sealed the Keep as effectively as blank walls.

Stave had said that Giants still visited the Land-

Handir paused as if he were consulting with his people. Then he asked, “Do you require to speak of this now, Chosen? You are weary. Your questions will be answered when you have rested.”

“I don’t know how to trust you,” Linden countered thinly. “Stave knows why. Tell me about the damn gates.”

Handir met her gaze with the ambiguous light of the torches in his eyes. “They were gifted to Revelstone by the Giants of the Search. More I will not say now. We will speak of all that lies between us when you are better able to do so.

“Here is Gait.” With a nod, he indicated a Master standing behind his shoulder. “He will guide you to chambers where you may sleep. We will gather on the morrow to speak of your plight, and of Revelstone’s. There your questions will be answered.” Linden nodded. “All right. That’s fair enough, I guess. God knows I’m exhausted,” so tired that she could barely keep her thoughts in order. “So are my friends.

“There’s just one more thing.”

One more absolute responsibility. Then she would let herself sleep. With an effort, she pushed down the rising force of her weariness, and looked around for Anele.

She spotted him across the hall from her just as two Masters reached up to lift him down from Hrama’s back.

He was still asleep. Otherwise he would not have suffered their touch without protest. But he roused as soon as they took hold of him, and immediately began to struggle, thrashing against them as if the touch of their hard hands burned him.

Reacting to Anele’s distress, Hrama whinnied sharply. The other Ranyhyn tossed their heads and stamped their hooves anxiously. But they did not move against the Haruchai.

However, Hyn answered Linden’s swift alarm by shouldering her way between the warriors and their horses toward the old man. Alert now, and frantic, Linden shouted over the crowd, “Just a minute! Anele stays with me!”

In her hands, she held up the Staff like a threat.

At once, half a dozen Masters came together across her path, forming a barricade against her. Hyn shoved at them with her chest, then stepped back, awaiting Linden’s will.

“God damn it,” Linden protested, “aren’t you listening?” She could have swept them apart in an instant; but she would not. No matter what happened, they were not her enemies. “I said he stays with me! I promised him my protection.”

“Protect!” the old man panted as he twisted against the grasp of his captors. “Linden Avery! Protect Anele!”

Impassively Handir joined the barrier of Masters. The torches cast indecipherable shadows across his face. Galt stood at Hyn’s head as if his mere presence might restrain the mare.

Mahrtiir moved quickly to Linden’s side, with Pahni and Liand close behind him. Like Linden, the Stonedownor had not yet dismounted. Apprehension and resolve clenched his face.

“The old man is ours,” announced Handir. Stave had said the same when he had first captured Anele, after the collapse of Kevin’s Watch. “We do not permit freedom to such beings.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Linden snapped back. “Not this again. Hasn’t Stave talked to you? Don’t you people ever learn?”

Gasping, and unable to break free, Anele abruptly ceased his struggles. His blind gaze reproached Linden.

She did not doubt that Hyn and Rhohm could have thrust past the Masters. No Haruchai would lift his hand against the Ranyhyn. But that forbearance might not extend to her and Liand-or to the Ramen-in spite of Handir’s welcome.

“Sure,” she went on, “he’s full of Earthpower. So are the Ranyhyn. He can do things other people can’t. So can they. That doesn’t make them a threat. His power isn’t something he uses. It’s something he is.

“Hasn’t Stave told you that he loves the Land as much as you do? That the only thing he wants is to be of use?” Anele’s helpless stare tore at her heart. “He can’t forgive himself for losing the Staff until he does something to make restitution.” And his madness made that impossible. “That’s why being a prisoner hurts him so much. He can’t do anything to help the Land when you’ve got him locked away.”

Handir may have shrugged. “Yet the Earthpower within him cannot be set aside. Therefore his deeds will serve Corruption, whatever his intentions may be. And therefore we will not release him.”

Furiously Linden turned to scan the hall for Stave. She had healed him. More than once-He could vouch for Anele.

She found him moving slowly toward her. His wounds had left him painfully weak. Nevertheless he spurned his frailty, holding up his head as though he defied anyone to challenge him.

“Stave,” she urged at once, “tell them. You heard Anele’s story. You know what he’s been through. You’ve seen what he can do. Tell them.”

As if in response, Stave walked arduously past her to join the barricade between her and the old man.

When he had positioned himself among his kinsmen, he faced her. “Chosen,” he said in a wan voice, “you also do not appear to learn. Again you have shamed me with your healing. And I have permitted you to lift the burden of my failures from me. Do you now imagine that my people will heed whatever I might say?

“Anele will not be harmed. That is the given word of the Haruchai. There is no need to fear for him.”

But I promised him! Linden wanted to cry out. Yet she knew that she could not sway the Master. She could not sway any of them.

She felt like tearing her hair in frustration. “I can stop you,” she told Handir through her teeth. “You know I can.”

The Voice of the Masters shook his head. His gaze did not waver. “You hold great powers. Yet if we determine that we must wrest them from you, do you truly doubt that we will prevail?”

Her worst fear-

Perhaps he could see into her heart. He may have known that she would not strike out at him.

“Linden.” Carefully Liand leaned from Rhohm’s back to rest his hand like an appeal on her arm. “They have offered us rest and sustenance, which we sorely need. Many of them were slain to procure our escape. And they have vowed that they will not harm Anele. Would it not be well to grant them their will until the morrow, when we may speak of him again?”

If we’re still alive, Linden thought bitterly. If the Demondim haven’t torn this whole place apart.

Mahrtiir made a spitting sound, but did not protest.

Helpless in the hands of the Masters, Anele’s gasping sounded like sobs.

Linden did not glance at Liand. Instead she glared into Handir’s flat visage.

“He’s terrified of you. With good reason, as it turns out. If you hurt just one hair on his poor old head-” Abruptly she thrust her face closer to the Master. Whispering, she warned him, “If you do that, I’ll know whose side you’re really on.”

Before Handir could respond, she turned Hyn and rode away to the far end of the forehall, seeking to lose herself in shadows because she could no longer bear the reproach in Anele’s eyes.

A while later, still fuming, she entered the chambers which had been prepared for her and closed the door on Galt; nearly slammed it in his face. He was the only Master present, and her distress required an outlet.

She had seen the Ranyhyn led away, accompanied by the Ramen and followed by the Demondim-spawn. She had watched Anele taken from the forehall as gently as his frail resistance permitted. And she had nodded a temporary farewell to Liand when one of the Masters had urged him from her side. Now she was alone with her anger and her fear.

Anele had survived worse affronts than imprisonment by the Masters. Physically he would be well. But his despair might grow too great for his broken mind to contain.

In addition, most of the ur-viles and Waynhim had been killed for her sake. A frightening number of the Haruchai had been slain. Revelstone was besieged: it would soon fall. In spite of all her efforts, she had earned no support from Stave. She had risked the Arch of Time in order to retrieve the Staff; but she still had done nothing to rescue her son.

She was alone because she needed to be. She did not know how else to bear her sense of futility.

She had no idea where in the great Keep her rooms were located. Her scant familiarity with Revelstone was useless when few of the passages and stairways were lit. In fact, few of them seemed to be frequented at all. More than once, her boots had raised dust from the stone. Occasionally Galt had led her through pockets of stale air. And they had encountered no one along the way. The Masters believed that they served the Land; but Lord’s Keep was nearly empty.

Yet her quarters showed signs of care. The rooms were clean and fresh, with oil lamps glowing on small tables and stands, and a faint scent of soap in the air. Rough-woven rugs softened the smooth granite floors, while similar hangings eased the starkness of the walls. And when she closed the door and latched it, the old stone seemed to seal her away from the rest of the Keep, warding her from Masters and peril.

Here she was safe, at least temporarily, and could rest.

There were three rooms, a compact suite. The outer door had admitted her to a chamber with a few stone chairs, a low table for food, and a fireplace with a supply of wood. Beyond it lay a bedroom, empty except for a narrow bed, a large rug, and a shuttered window. And beyond that she found a bathroom with a basin, a rudimentary commode, a small tub, an urn filled with fine sand for scrubbing, and a system of simple valves which opened to release streams of water. A stand in the corner held a pile of flaxen towels neatly folded.

When she thought of bathing, she began to tremble.

Reaction setting in, she told herself. For days she had been under more strain than she knew how to handle: now she had been given rooms that felt safe, even though they were threatened by siege and betrayal. Here she could finally wash off days of grime and frenzy. With the Staff beside her, she might even be able to sleep.

Shivering in the cool air, she returned to the main room, where she built a fire in the hearth, lighting it with one of the lamps and feeding it with slivers of wood until it burned strongly. Then she went back to the bathroom.

Setting aside the Staff cost her an effort. Instinctively she clung to its severe cleanliness. But she needed a bath. When she had propped the wood against the wall, she ran water into the tub and stripped off her clothes.

In the bath, the cold of the water stung her skin. It must have arisen from a mountain spring and been drawn by gravity into pipes and conduits within Revelstone’s walls, where it was kept cold by the surrounding rock. But she fought the chill. Fumbling sand onto her arms and legs, her torso, her head, she rubbed them until she felt raw. Then she pulled her clothes into the water and did the same to them.

For all of her scrubbing, however, she could not remove the grass stains from her pants. They had become part of the fabric, indelible, and cryptic as runes.

And soon the chattering of her teeth drove her from the tub. Wrapping one of the rough towels around her, she hastened toward the warmth of the fire. There gradually the crackling heat soaked into her, easing the clench of her muscles and the deep pang of the cold; and she began to relax.

When she was warm, she returned to the bathroom, wrung out her clothes, and brought them to the fire, hanging them over the backs of chairs near the hearth to dry.

Now she wished that she had a comb. Her hair would be a mess when it dried. But she ran her fingers through it by the comfortable flames, untangling it as best she could. That would have to suffice. She had no energy left for vanity.

Then she began to feel hungry. Knowing the Haruchai, she felt sure that one of them-Galt, presumably-stood outside her door, guarding her; or guarding against her. If she opened the door, she could ask him for something to eat.

She did not. Instead she continued to sit by the fire, staring into the indecipherable dance of the flames while she forced herself to think about her circumstances.

And about Anele.

She told herself that she should prepare for the morrow; for the confrontation she had been promised. Always assuming, of course, that the Demondim could be held back so long. More than that, however, she needed to devise some stratagem which would allow her to bypass the horde and head for Mount Thunder.

She had not forgotten her desire to visit Andelain. If any guidance remained in the Land, she would find it there. But every day that slipped away from her only multiplied Jeremiah’s suffering. Now that she knew where to look for him, she intended to postpone other considerations.

But she could not concentrate: her weary thoughts seemed to bleed away from her. Rather than making plans, she found herself remembering the hazard and bloodshed which had purchased her escape from the Demondim.

Slain Haruchai and slaughtered horses haunted her. Blasts of opalescent acid devoured raw chunks of pain and death, while blurred forms shifted in and out of definition. Fanged flails of emerald scourged flesh to tatters, and yet represented only a small portion of the Illearth Stone’s potential evil.

Despite the peril, however, Anele had dropped from Hrama’s back to become an avatar of fire and rage. When his feet had touched the bare dirt, the bitterness of some other being had taken possession of him. He had been transformed-

– just as he had been in the open centre of the Verge of Wandering.

Linden struggled to grasp the implications.

In at least one phase of his madness, apparently, the old man’s vulnerability was defined or controlled by the nature of the ground on which he stood. For the few days that she had known him in her proper time, she had only seen his feet touch bare dirt twice; and both times he had immediately begun to rave with heat and flame. But in the Land’s past he had evinced nothing similar. Instead every aspect of his madness with which she was familiar had been modified beyond recognition. There, in the presence of the Staff, he had come close to ordinary sanity.

Perhaps his passage through the first caesure had taken him out of reach

And the same was true, she realised suddenly, whenever Anele was on horseback. More than once, she had observed that he seemed less troubled when he rode. During their escape from Mithil Stonedown, Lord Foul’s grasp on his spirit had disappeared when he had been lifted onto Somo’s back. And after that it had not recurred until-

No, it had not recurred at all; not fully. From Somo’s back, Anele had climbed onto the rocks around the Mithil’s Plunge. Behind the Plunge, he had been wracked by an entirely different form of pain. And after that, during their ascent toward the cleft where they had later been attacked by the kresh- during that difficult trudge-

Damn it, she could not remember. But she seemed to recall that he had vacillated between varying manifestations of his insanity, shedding glimpses of Despite and woe. And where they walked had been primarily a kind of scrub-grass, hardy and thin, interspersed with patches of bare dirt and sections of fallen stone.

He had been standing on grass of that same kind when Lord Foul had guided her to hurtloam. And earlier, when the Despiser had first spoken to her through Anele: the same grass.

Dear God, was it possible?

He has no friend but stone.

Did the surface on which he stood determine the phase of his madness? Or did that surface control which of several beings or spirits could locate and possess him?

Thomas Covenant had spoken to her through Anele twice, on the lush grass of the Verge of Wandering: grass so rich and high that she had been unable to walk through it without floundering; the same grass which had stained her pants with a script which she did not know how to interpret.

In the rubble of Kevin’s Watch, and again among the shattered rocks which had filled the cleft, as well as on the piled granite of the ridge above the Verge of Wandering, he had professed to read what was written within the stones. He had seemed almost lucid-On more polished stone, he had appeared more broken and fearful; but still he had seemed able to understand what was said to him-and to offer an occasional coherent response. And-

Linden groaned at the memory.

On a plane of exposed gutrock between the walls of the cleft, he had briefly become sane enough to reveal his past.

If she were right-if her memories had not misled her-it was God’s truth that he had no friend but stone. Every other surface under his feet in this time exposed him to possession and torment.

As she had understood it until now, Anele’s madness had seemed adequately cruel: bitter and undeserved. But this new vision of his plight was far worse. He had become the pawn of powers which would have savaged any less Earthpowerful flesh than his.

She might have stopped then to grieve for him; but implications continued to tumble through her. If she were right, Lord Foul could not know where she was or what she did when Anele was not accessible to him. That probably accounted for the attack of the kresh. The Despiser must have expected her to flee Mithil Stonedown northward, into the South Plains-away from the Ramen and the Ranyhyn and hope. And Anele had been hidden from him on Somo’s back. When the old man had re-entered Lord Foul’s reach beyond the Mithil’s Plunge, the Despiser must have been taken by surprise. Realising his error, he must have sent the kresh in an attempt to prevent Linden from reaching the mountains.

In addition, Anele’s particular vulnerability might explain why the Demondim had slowed their attack. By her reasoning, it was no accident that the horde had not assailed him when he was filled with fire and rage. The dire creatures had recognised an ally. In their midst, Anele’s possessor had spoken to them-and they had heeded him.

For some reason, they wanted Linden and her companions enclosed in Revelstone.

Deep within herself, she trembled at the possibilities. Evils other than the Despiser also used Anele to keep track of her; oppose her; guard against her. I have merely whispered a word of counsel here and there- And Covenant had warned her to beware of him.

Almost involuntarily, she imagined ways in which she might benefit from her new understanding. If it proved true-She could take Anele to the upland plateau, to the rich grass around Glimmermere, and ask him for Covenant’s guidance. Or she could-

The mere consideration of such ideas shamed her. Anele was a broken old man, and he had already experienced too many forms of violation. He did not deserve to be used, even by someone who cared for him.

But the Despiser had taken her son. And Anele’s madness was defended by Earthpower. Unconsciously he had shaped his birthright into a bulwark for his insanity. She could not succour him without committing an act of violence against the choices which he had made for himself.

And his plight did not outweigh Jeremiah’s. It could not; not with her. The old man had friends: Liand and the Ramen; Linden herself; even the ur-viles to some extent. He had episodes of sanity which enabled him to articulate his dilemma. And his heritage of Earthpower protected his underlying identity from the ravages of his possessors. Jeremiah had none of those things.

He had only Linden. If she did not redeem him from Lord Foul, there would be no limit to his agonies.

Therefore-

She hid her face in her hands.

– she had no choice. If she could find no alternative, no other way to reach her son, she would have to make use of Anele. To manipulate his madness so that it served her needs.

The prospect dismayed her; but she did not shrink from it. She had already risked the Arch of Time in the same cause.

Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.

She understood that. But such convictions, like the beliefs of the Masters, were too expensive. She could not afford them.

She might have remained where she was for some time, warming her weariness by the fire, and considering possibilities which shamed her. Before she could remember that she was hungry, however, or that she needed sleep, she heard a muted knock at her door.

Sighing, she uncovered her face and rose to her feet.

Her clothes were still too damp to wear. After a moment’s hesitation, she wrapped a couple of towels tightly around her, then retrieved the Staff and carried it with her as she went to unlatch the door.

The door was stone, and massive as a cenotaph, yet it swung easily on its hinges. It must have been counterbalanced in some way, perhaps by weights within the walls. Lord’s Keep had been wrought by Giants, and they were wizards of stonework.

In the corridor outside her chambers stood Liand, Galt, and a woman whom she had never seen before. The woman held a wicker tray laden with dried fruit, dark bread, cheese, and a steaming bowl of soup.

Liand smiled uncertainly. “Linden.” He seemed reluctant to enter; unsure of his welcome. “This is the Mahdoubt.” He indicated the woman. “I glean that she is the Mahdoubt, though I do not presume to know what the title may signify. When she brought food to my rooms, I inquired of you, and she replied that she had not yet served you. Wishing to ascertain that you are well, I craved her leave to accompany her.”

“Yes. Assuredly.” The woman plainly did not doubt her own welcome. Bustling past Linden, she swept into the room: a short dowdy figure apparently well past middle age, with a crow’s nest of hair askew on her head, plump flesh hanging from her arms, and features which might have been sculpted by an unruly child during a tantrum. About her she wore a robe of astonishing ugliness, a motley patchwork of scraps and swaths seemingly selected for their unsuitability to each other, and stitched together at random.

“The Mahdoubt, indeed,” she pronounced as she bent to place her tray on the low table. “Assuredly. Who else?” She may have been speaking to herself. “Meagre fare for two. Does the Mahdoubt comprehend this? She does. But this flirtatious young man”- she indicated Liand- “has mazed her with blandishments, and so she did not return to the kitchens for a second tray.

“A long trudge, that,” she remarked to the air. “Long and weary. And the Mahdoubt can no longer recall her first youth, though she has been shamelessly charmed.”

For a moment, she studied her tray. Then she bent again and adjusted its position until it occupied the exact centre of the table. When she straightened her back, her manner suggested satisfaction.

“Pssht. It is no matter,” she informed the room. “One tray may feed as many as two, if it be kindly shared.”

In an effort to make herself stop staring, Linden turned to Galt. “‘The Mahdoubt’?” she asked unsteadily.

The Master replied with a Haruchai shrug, at once subtle and expressive. “She is a servant of Revelstone. The name is her own. More than that we do not know.”

A servant-Linden scowled reflexively. Well, of course, she thought. If the Land had Masters, it naturally required servants as well. Men and women who had been born here for uncounted generations had been reduced to waiting on the Haruchai.

What fun.

Riding a wave of renewed irritation, she beckoned Liand into the room and started to close the door on Galt. But then she caught herself. Facing the Master past the edge of the door, she demanded, “Wait a minute. I know you’re here to guard me, but I assume you’re also going to at least pretend that I’m a guest. So tell me something.”

Galt lifted an eyebrow. “Chosen?”

“The gates.” She held him with her glare. “I’m tired of waiting for answers. Where did you get them?”

He cocked his head, apparently consulting his kinsmen. Then he shrugged again. “Very well. As you have heard, the gates were wrought by the Giants of the Search. It transpired thus.

“When the First of the Search and Pitchwife, her mate, had borne the Staff of Law to Sunder and Hollian, they returned to The Grieve. There they awaited some word of what had befallen Starfare’s Gem and the other Giants of the Search.” Covenant, Linden, and their companions had left the Giantship far to the north in the Sunbirth Sea, half crippled among floes of ice. “But when at last the dromond gained Coercri, the Giants did not then return to their homeland. Rather the First led them to Revelstone, that they might behold the handiwork of their lost kindred, the Unhomed.”

At first while Galt spoke, Linden simply listened, glad to hear what had become of her long-dead friends. When she was satisfied that he would indeed answer her question, however, she began to study the Master himself. Distracted by other concerns, she had paid no attention to him in the forehall. And she had seen little of him except his back during their ill-lit trek to her rooms. Now she looked at him as if they had never met before.

He appeared to be less than Stave’s age. The characteristic flat cheeks and brown skin of the Haruchai resisted the definition of years. But Galt’s lack of scars made him seem untried; therefore young.

“You are aware,” he continued, “that the Giants are a deliberate folk, hasty in neither speech nor deed. Though they had been long absent from their Home, they remained in the Land for several years. At first their efforts were dedicated to the restoration of Starfare’s Gem, which had been sorely damaged. Later, however, their hearts turned toward Revelstone, for Lord’s Keep also had known harm.

“They admired greatly the craft of the Unhomed, who had lived and perished in Seareach. In addition, they wished to honour the valour of all those who had striven against the Sunbane. And they desired to express their gratitude for the caamora which the ur-Lord Thomas Covenant granted to the dead of The Grieve. Therefore they determined to offer what they named a “small” restoration to Revelstone.

“They professed that many of the hurts which the Keep had suffered lay beyond their skill. However, the fashioning of gates did not surpass them. Here the Giants of the Search laboured long and mightily so that Revelstone might once again withstand its foes.”

Linden lowered her eyes to mask her own gratitude. Instinctively she did not want the Master to see what his explanation meant to her.

She was about to ask him if her friends had ever found their way Home; but when she looked down, she noticed his right hand.

It might have belonged to Thomas Covenant. The last two fingers had been cut away, leaving a ragged scar in their place. Its smooth pallor suggested that the mutilation had been performed long ago, perhaps in Galt’s youth-or his childhood.

At the sight, she flinched, stung by a sudden host of memories. With his maimed right hand, Covenant had drawn her toward sunlight and love aboard Starfare’s Gem. He had worn his wedding ring on the last finger of that hand. And she herself had cut away two of Jeremiah’s fingers in order to save the rest.

Beware the halfhand. Covenant and Jeremiah.

Now she had found another among the Masters.

“Linden?” Liand asked anxiously. She could not conceal her reactions from him. He had begun to know her too well; or his proximity to the Staff preserved the vestiges of his health-sense.

But she ignored his concern. The inferences which she had drawn about Anele seemed to carry her further. Now she saw implications, portents, too complex for her to articulate. Hugging the Staff to her chest, she asked brusquely, “Tell me about your hand.”

The Master did not deign to glance down at his missing fingers. “I am honoured to be among the Humbled.”

She swallowed curses and waited for him to go on.

“When the Haruchai determined to take upon themselves the burdens of Mastery,” Galt said flatly, “they recognised their peril. It is the peril of Korik, Sill, and Doar.

“Their tale is surely known to you. Ruled by the Illearth Stone, they were made to serve Corruption. First they were maimed to resemble the Halfhand, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. Then they were sent to bear battle and despair against the Council of Lords. Thus was the Vow of the Bloodguard tarnished, and their service brought to an end.”

Linden knew the story: she had heard it from Stave only a few days ago. Still it filled her with dread.

Without haste or emphasis, Galt stated, “The fault of Korik and Sill and Doar lay in this, that they allowed their ire at the destruction of the Unhomed to sway them. They believed that the outrage in their hearts would raise them to the stature of terrible banes and deathless malice. From their example, the Haruchai learned the peril of such passions. When we determined to become the Masters of the Land, we determined also that we would commit no similar fault.

“Therefore in each generation three among us are selected to be the Humbled, so that the Masters will not neglect their resolve, or set it aside. Our hands are severed to resemble Korik’s, and Sill’s, and Doar’s. Among our people, we embody the error which destroyed the service of the Bloodguard. While the Humbled live, the Masters will not forget their peril.”

Linden stared at him in dismay. The judgments of the Haruchai continued to appall her. Again you have shamed me with your healing. Stave believed that he deserved the consequences of his failure to defeat insurmountable odds. And Galt considered his mutilation an honour-

Her voice nearly failed as she asked, “How did they pick you?”

“Chosen,” he replied, “I challenged others of my people, and was not defeated.”

Linden winced. “You wanted this? You wanted to be maimed?”

He regarded her gravely. “There is no higher place among us. Only the Voice of the Masters commands greater deference, and even he will accede when the Humbled speak as one.”

Commands greater deference-Abruptly new suggestions swept through her; hints of insight like a glimpse into the secret hearts of the Masters. Hardly aware of what she did, she closed the door on Galt. Then she leaned her forehead against the cool stone. He had given her what she needed.

Now she knew how she would argue for Anele’s release. The Haruchai had founded their Mastery of the Land on a profound misapprehension.

Perhaps she would be able to postpone making use of the old man’s madness a little longer.

When the rush of inferences had passed, she turned back to Liand and the Mahdoubt. The older woman was looking at her, apparently studying her; and for the first time Linden could see the mismatched colour of her eyes. Her left was the rich blue of violets, but her right held a startling orange which gave the impression that it was about to burst from her head.

In spite of her strangeness, however, the Mahdoubt emanated a comfortable kindness that appealed to Linden. With the last of her dwindling percipience, she saw both solid health and untroubled beneficence in the woman. In response, she felt unexpectedly protective of the Mahdoubt. At the same time, she yearned to be protected by her.

Before either the older woman or Liand could speak, Linden asked, “You’re a servant? Why do you do it? Let the Masters wait on themselves. Why should it be your job to make their lives easier?”

Liand nodded his agreement.

But the question did not ruffle the Mahdoubt. Indeed, she appeared to occupy a space beyond the reach of disturbance. “Pssht, lady,” she replied. “Fine sentiments, assuredly. The Mahdoubt sees that your heart is great. Upon occasion, however, it misleads you.

“There is no dishonour in service. The Mahdoubt labours here, assuredly, and her tasks are weary. Yet by her efforts she is fed and clad and warmed. At night she sleeps beyond harm in a kindly bed, with no rough words.

“Lady, the Mahdoubt has lived too many years to find pleasure in the tending of sheep and cattle. The endless labours of crops and farming exceed her old bones. She and others-pssht, lady, there are many others-are grateful to end their days in the service of Revelstone. How otherwise should they provide for themselves?”

The older woman’s orange eye appeared to flare briefly. “Is there some miscomprehension here?” she asked herself. “Assuredly.

“Lady, the Mahdoubt does not `wait’ upon the Masters. They are who they are, and require no care. Her labours serve the great Keep and all those within it who lack the sufficiency of Masters.”

Comforted by the Mahdoubt’s answer, Linden found herself smiling at last. “I’m sorry.” She could hardly remember the last time she had smiled at all. “I shouldn’t jump to conclusions like that. I’m just frustrated by all this Haruchai purity and absolutism. After a while, I can’t help assuming the worst.”

Again Liand nodded.

“Assuredly, lady,” muttered the Mahdoubt. “Assuredly. Think no more on it. Is the Mahdoubt affronted? She is not. Indeed, the days when aught vexed her are long past.”

In the same tone, she added, “Does the wonder of my gown please you?” She indicated her jarring robe. “Are you gladdened to behold it? Yes, assuredly, it must be so. How should it be otherwise? Every scrap and patch was given to the Mahdoubt in gratitude and woven together in love.”

Linden smiled again. “It’s extraordinary.” She did not know what else to say. Certainly she had no wish to deny the older woman’s pride in her garment.

Liand cleared his throat. “That it is woven in love cannot be mistaken,” he remarked politely. “If I may say so without offense, however, the gratitude is less plain to me. Will you not speak of it, that I may see your gown more clearly?”

The Mahdoubt faced him with her plump fists braced on her hips. “Foolish boy, you must not tease the Mahdoubt so.” Her tone suggested tart amusement. “Matters of apparel are the province of women, beyond your blandishment. The lady grasps the presence of gratitude. And if she does not”- her blue eye flicked a quick glance at Linden- “yet she will. Oh, assuredly. It is as certain as the rising and setting of the sun.”

Before he could respond, she turned for the door. “You must have food. And then you must sleep. Assuredly. Your need for both is great.

“The Mahdoubt will return with a second tray.”

At once, she bustled out of the room as if her movements were as irresistible as tides.

As the door closed, Liand met Linden’s gaze with a perplexed smile. “That,” he said in bafflement, “is an unforeseen woman. I suspect that I should be wary of her, yet I feel only fondness. She has comforted me, Linden.” He sighed. “I do not understand it.”

Linden frowned. “Makes you want to curse Kevin’s Dirt, doesn’t it.” Because her percipience had dwindled, she had felt unable to see deeply into the Mahdoubt.

A grin quirked Liand’s mouth. “Assuredly.” But then his humour fell away. “It is as you say. The loss of my senses is bitter to me. Until we sojourned among the mountains, and all the Land was reborn in my sight, I did not comprehend evil. It has become plain to me now.” Sadness darkened his eyes as he spoke. “Beyond question the Falls are a great evil. Yet I deem them a little wrong beside the deprivation imposed by Kevin’s Dirt. It has blinded the people of my home, and perhaps all the folk of the Land, to the meaning of their lives.”

The lament in his words touched Linden. “Maybe there’s something I can do about that,” she said grimly. “This is the Staff of Law, for God’s sake.” She held its reassuring clarity close to her heart. “Once I’ve slept for a while,” and had some food, “I intend to find out just how powerful Kevin’s Dirt is.”

Liand replied with a dark grin of anticipation. In the brief time that she had known him, he had become a man who wanted to fight; to strike blows in the Land’s defence, although he had no power, and could not hope to stand against Lord Foul.

The change in him affected her like the Mahdoubt’s strange aura. She had relied on his protection from the first. And in turn she ached to protect him. But she did not know how.

She and Liand shared the contents of the Mahdoubt’s tray in silence. His desire for talk was palpable; yet tact or empathy kept him quiet. Wordlessly he seemed to recognise that Linden needed to be left in peace.

She valued his consideration. For the most part, however, her thoughts had shifted, leaving him in the background. Galt had evoked memories which she was too weary to suppress. With the last of her waning strength, she clung to images of Jeremiah, and tried to think clearly.

Years before she had met him, Thomas Covenant had once refused the Land for the sake of a snake-bitten girl. Linden understood his decision. She would do the same for Jeremiah, if she could find no other way to save him. But in his place the Masters would not have made the same choice. For them, the Land’s peril would outweigh the suffering of one lost child.

She knew, however, that she was not being fair to them. Her situation, and theirs, differed from Covenant’s in one important respect. He had refused the Land’s distant plight for the sake of a child in immediate peril. For Linden and the Masters, the immediate peril was the Land’s: the distant plight, Jeremiah’s.

Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.

She could not use Covenant’s example to explain or excuse her decisions.

At last, Liand rose to his feet and announced that he would leave: he must have been able to see that she was about to fall asleep in her chair. She thanked him wanly and let him go.

Trapped in her thoughts, she had not realised how badly she wanted sleep.

But possible horrors followed her into the bedroom. When she had unwrapped the towels and stretched herself out among the rough blankets, she feared that she would not be able to relax. Then she feared that she would, and that ghouls would ride her dreams, tormenting her with sorrow.

Rising to use the bathroom a short time later, however, she found that the daylight filtering through the shutters over her window had become darkness, and the fire in her hearth had died to embers. Somehow night had fallen without her notice.

And in her front room a tray mounded with food had replaced the one which she and Liand had emptied. The Mahdoubt must have slipped into her quarters while she slept.

Linden had forgotten to latch the door when Liand left.

Nevertheless this evidence of the older woman’s care released knots of tension in her. The Mahdoubt’s kindliness seemed to dismiss nightmares and doom.

Hardly aware of what she did, Linden set the latch, tossed more wood into the fireplace, and extinguished all but one of the lamps. Then she toppled like a felled tree back into bed and slept again.

Chapter Eleven: The Masters of the Land

Later she heard Covenant calling her name. “Linden,” he said, and again, “Linden,” insistently, warning her of imminent danger. She knew that she ought to heed him, rouse herself; make choices which her companions could not gainsay or refuse. But instead she endeavoured not to hear him, thinking that if she could make herself deaf he would go away. Perhaps he would cease to exist, and then all of her woes would end at last.

Nevertheless he continued to insist. For reasons which she could not explain, he shone a flashlight into her eyes. He commanded an illumination which pierced her, made her squirm.

A muted thudding accompanied it, a sound like the distant drumbeat which heralded the collapse of worlds.

But when she tried to blink away the dazzle and coercion, she found herself squinting into a fine slit of sunlight which struck her face between the slats of the shutter above her bed. The voice intruding on her dreams was Liand’s, not Covenant’s: less strict than Covenant’s; and anxious for her. At intervals, he knocked on her door, attempting to urge her awake.

With a groan, Linden hauled herself out of bed.

How long had she slept? She had no idea. She felt sodden with sleep, waterlogged with dreams: she had soaked up too much rest to reach wakefulness easily.

“Coming,” she muttered, although she knew that her muffled voice would not be heard through the heavy door. “Damn it, I’m coming. Let me get some clothes on.”

Even in the worst emergencies, her former life had not required her to leave home without clothes.

By the time she had pulled on her jeans, however, and buttoned her shirt, the familiar urgency of sudden awakenings had caught up with her. God, what could have happened? Had the Demondim broken into Revelstone?

Why had they taken so long? They had the Illearth Stone-

Still barefoot, she padded to the door and opened it on Liand’s concern and Galt’s impassivity.

“What?” Her voice was rough with alarm. “What is it?”

Then she stopped, silenced by the abrupt realisation that her health-sense was now entirely gone. She could not discern the extent or nature of Liand’s concern. The polished stone of the Keep was closed to her, lifeless as a sepulchre.

Although she had expected the loss, it hurt her nonetheless.

“Linden,” the Stonedownor murmured as if he were embarrassed. “I crave your pardon. I was loath to awaken you, but the Master would have done so if I did not. The Voice of the Masters has summoned you. The time has come to speak of Anele’s imprisonment”- he dropped his gaze uncomfortably- “and of other matters.”

She waved a hand to dismiss his apology. “Don’t worry about it.” She could not afford to grieve over the effects of Kevin’s Dirt. “I should have been awake hours ago.”

How had she slept so long? She would not have believed that her fears and frustrations would allow her to rest so deeply.

Turning to the Humbled, she asked, “What are the Demondim doing? Are we under attack?”

Without her health-sense, she would not have known it if the Vile-spawn had torn down the watchtower and shattered the gates.

Galt regarded her without expression. “It is strange, Chosen,” he admitted as though the information did not interest him. “Yesterday they arrayed themselves as they would in preparation for a siege. During the night, however, they withdrew. There is now no sign of them within sight of Lord’s Keep. Scouts have been sent to determine if they have truly abandoned their intent against us. Those Masters have not yet returned.”

Linden stared at him. “They’re gone? Is that even possible?” The horde had seemed so single-minded in its hunger for bloodshed. “Kevin’s Dirt doesn’t affect you. Do you mean to tell me that you can’t even sense the Illearth Stone?”

What had Anele’s possessor said to the Demondim? What did that fiery being want? And why were its desires heeded by the Demondim?

Galt faced her steadily. “It is as I have said. There is now no sign of them. Our scouts have not yet returned.”

Well, damn, Linden thought dumbly. She might be able to leave Revelstone after all. As soon as she had persuaded the Masters to release Anele, she could gather her companions and head for Mount Thunder, following the hints which Jeremiah had constructed for her.

As soon as she had persuaded-

Only then did she notice that Galt had not bowed to her: not once since they had first been introduced. Apparently he or his people esteemed her less than Stave did.

Galt may have wished her to understand that the Masters had no intention of letting Anele go.

Well, damn, she thought again, this time angrily. Let them try it. If they think-

Nevertheless the prospect of contending for Anele’s soul calmed her. A physician’s detachment came to her aid, a separation of emotion which she had learned from years of training. Precisely because a struggle awaited her, she comported herself as though she were unafraid.

Quietly she asked the Humbled, “Is Handir waiting? Can we take the time to eat something? I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

Let them try to keep Anele from her.

“There is no need for haste,” replied Galt. His tone seemed to imply that the Masters could wait indefinitely for a woman as weak as she was.

Linden turned back into the room. “In that case,” she suggested to Liand, “why don’t you cut up some of that bread and cheese”- she nodded at the Mahdoubt’s tray- “while I get my boots on? We’ll take it with us.”

Her attitude appeared to confuse Liand, but he promptly stifled his reaction, obeying without hesitation. He may have realised that there were large issues at stake for her, issues which transcended Anele’s release and the departure of the Demondim.

You hold great powers. Yet if we determine that we must wrest them from you, do you truly doubt that we will prevail?

Without the Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring, she would be helpless to defend the Land, or rescue her son.

Carefully, preparing herself, Linden donned her socks and then her boots while Liand sliced bread and cheese into convenient pieces. Then, still calm, she returned to her bedroom to retrieve the Staff.

She had promised the Stonedownor that she would attempt to restore their percipience. Without it, she feared that she would be powerless to sway the Masters.

But when she took the warm shaft in her hands, she found that she did not know how to call upon its strength.

A surge of panic threatened her detachment. She needed the Staff; perhaps more than she needed wild magic. She had pinned all of her hopes on Law and Earthpower. They were the organic antitheses of caesures and Kevin’s Dirt and Despite. And she had fashioned this Staff with her own hands and heart. It belonged to her more profoundly than Covenant’s ring. Yet she could discover no power in it. It was merely wood: lovely to the touch, and flawless, but nothing more.

Panic would not serve her, however. Instead of trying to force some response from the Staff, she required herself to step back emotionally and think.

When she did so, she realised that she had never before been able to raise any kind of power without health-sense to guide her. Not during the collapse of Kevin’s Watch: not when she had summoned the ur-viles to aid Sahah: not in the Verge of Wandering on Stave’s behalf. On each occasion, she had been above the blinding shroud of Kevin’s Dirt. In the rift, she had failed to find wild magic. And during her time with Thomas Covenant, she had never lacked percipience. In the past, Kevin’s Dirt had not existed. And when she had used the Staff the previous day, her senses had still retained most of their discernment.

She had always been able to feel the Staff’s potential like a geyser waiting to be released. Without that sight, she was trapped. She needed the Staff to restore her health-sense, and needed percipience to use the Staff.

Trust yourself. You’re the only one who can do this. But she could not.

Again panic threatened her. She did not hear Liand enter the bedroom; did not notice him until he placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Linden,” he whispered, trying not to be overheard, “what is amiss? Has Kevin’s Dirt deprived the Staff of potency?”

Urgently she stared into his eyes; and the sight of his unaffected worry steadied her. She could not afford to lose her way now. Too many people had staked their lives on her.

She had to think.

Liand’s question gave her a place to start. “No,” she began weakly. “It can’t. This is the Staff of Law. Kevin’s Dirt can’t change what it is. That’s not the problem.” As she spoke, however, her voice grew stronger. She drew courage from the gentleness of his touch on her shoulders. “I am. I can’t figure out how to use it. I need my health-sense.”

The Stonedownor knew virtually nothing about power. For that very reason, he might be able to aid her. He was not hampered by her preconceptions.

If he had trusted her less implicitly, he might have hesitated. But he seemed to believe beyond question that her dilemma was a problem she could resolve rather than an inadequacy she would be unable to overcome. Still whispering, he said firmly, “Yet you also have not changed. Kevin’s Dirt is merely a veil. It cannot alter you.”

Linden nodded. Her reliance on him was as implicit as his trust. And of course he was right. Otherwise the effects of the shroud would have been permanent.

He smiled to encourage her. “Is the wood not warm?”

Warmth, yes. She could feel that. She shifted her hands to confirm it, and was sure. The shaft radiated a palpable heat, delicate and reassuring.

Again she nodded.

“If the wood retains its warmth,” he asked softly, “can you not also touch the source of that warmth?”

She did not know. She had not made the attempt.

Prompted by his clear assumption that she would not fail, she closed her eyes and focused all of her attention on the sensation of the Staff in her grasp.

The surface of the wood was so smooth that it felt almost slick; as immaculate as a clear sky, and yet as full of life and possibilities as the Andelainian Hills. Its energy was unmistakable. And the more she concentrated on it, the deeper that vitality seemed to run. It was a geyser indeed, a tangible wellspring. There was no measurable limit to the amount of Earthpower which might pour forth if the Staff were opened.

All she needed-

– was the warmth itself. Kevin’s Dirt might close her senses, but it could not seal the Staff. By its very nature, the wood’s strength would heal her if she simply immersed herself in its heat.

Wrapping her arms around the Staff, she hugged it to her heart; and as she did so, her senses began to bloom.

In moments, she could feel the shaft glowing like hope in her embrace. With her eyes still shut, she could discern Liand’s simple belief in her. The nerves of her skin tasted the life in his veins; enjoyed the confident beating of his heart. And behind him-

Ah, behind him stood the living gutrock of the promontory, the vital and ageless granite into which the Unhomed had engraved their intricate, enduring, and passionate love of stone. If she had been content to do so, she could have spent days or years entranced by the slow pulse of Revelstone’s rock. Eventually she would have been able to sense and share every life that inhabited the vast Keep, every love, every fear, every desire. Given time, she might learn to hear the words which the stone spoke to itself, as Anele did.

But the thought of the old man brought her back to herself. She had too much to do. Now she would be able to do it.

Tears of relief ran down her cheeks as she reached out to Liand with the Staff’s beneficence and freed his senses from Kevin’s Dirt. She did not need to look at him to recognise his sudden bliss.

“This is temporary,” she told him in a husky voice. “I’ll probably have to renew it every day.” Or every few hours. “But now I know how.”

“My thanks,” he breathed when she was finally able to open her eyes and face him. “There are no words-Only know that you have my”- he swallowed roughly- “entire gratitude.”

“Then we’re even.” Without transition, Linden found that she was eager to confront the Masters. She felt fundamentally restored, in full possession of her powers, as if she had reclaimed a birthright. Armed with the Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring, as with Liand’s trust, she was ready for any challenge. “I could not have done this without you.”

Grinning, he replied, “And still your estimate of yourself falls too low.” Then he indicated the room where Galt waited. “I am inclined to try the patience of these Masters as far as I may. Yet Anele’s plight remains. And I do not doubt that the Ramen grow restive.” After a brief hesitation, he added, “Also I fear that Pahni’s blindness torments her. She lacks Bhapa’s years, and the Manethrall’s, and has not learned to harden her heart.”

“You’re right.” Linden wiped away her tears; secured her grip on the Staff. “We should go.”

He gave her a humorous bow, which she returned. She was smiling as they left her bedroom to rejoin the Humbled.

If Galt had ever experienced impatience, he did not show it. Linden was sure that he knew what had just happened. With his Haruchai senses, he had probably heard every word, felt every change. Nevertheless he remained stolid; impenetrable. Her restoration gave him no discernible qualms. He merely acknowledged her with a nod and turned toward the door.

When Liand had taken a double handful of bread and cheese, and tucked the food into the front of his jerkin, he and Linden followed the Master out into the corridors of Revelstone.

She was vaguely surprised to find them lit at wide intervals by oil lamps and torches. Since the previous day, someone-the Mahdoubt, perhaps, or another servant of Revelstone-had heeded her desire for light. She could see her way along the disused passages, down the echoing stairways, across the uninhabited halls.

If anything, the sparse illumination made the great Keep seem more abandoned than it had earlier. Now she could not imagine hosts of people thriving beyond the reach of her senses. Instead the long stone corridors and high chambers ached with emptiness. Lord’s Keep had been made by Giants to be occupied by men and women who loved it; and now those inhabitants were gone.

Doubtless the Masters respected Revelstone. They may even have admired it. But they could not take the place of people who served Earthpower and stone. The huge gutrock warren needed more than light: it needed use and warmth.

By complex stages, Galt led Linden and Liand inward and downward, deeper into the old heart of the Keep; and as they descended, both the air and the stone grew colder. The shadows beyond the lamps and torches intensified until they became as dark as coverts. Beyond the flat retort of her boot heels, the softer clap of Liand’s sandals, and the nearly inaudible susurrus of Galt’s steps, Linden seemed to hear the muffled breaths and whispers of lurking enmity. With her health-sense, she could feel the tremendous weight of Revelstone’s rock leaning over her as if to watch what she would do.

“Where are we going?” she asked Galt abruptly. The deserted Keep oppressed her in spite of her new confidence. She wanted to hear something other than ramified echoes and emptiness.

“It is near,” replied the Humbled. “We will speak together in the Close, where in ancient times the Council of Lords gathered to debate the Land’s need, and to determine their response.”

Linden sighed. No doubt the Close held meaning for the Haruchai, but she had never seen it. Too much of the Land’s long history was hidden from her, or lost. Its undefined significance seemed to bear down on her like Revelstone’s impending mass.

“Anele will be there?”

“Chosen,” Galt answered, “all of your companions await you, saving only the Demondim-spawn. Already they have dispersed among the upland hills. We do not know if they will return.”

Gone, she thought. The obscure dictates of their Weird-or of their Weirds, if the ur-viles and Waynhim did not agree-had commanded them elsewhere. She had no idea what their departure meant; but at least she could believe that they were safe.

Liand offered her a few pieces of bread and cheese. She accepted them and began to eat while she followed Galt’s strict back.

Then ahead of them she saw an arched entryway which looked like it might once have held doors. If so, however, they were long gone; neglected until they had fallen away. Now the opening gaped like a scream petrified in granite, an outcry so old that only the stone could remember it.

But a brighter illumination shone from the entryway. When Galt led his charges through the entrance, Linden found herself in a huge chamber lit by many lamps: the Close. It was a round cavity, both high and deep, which appeared to have been formed with conflicting purposes. Above her, almost beyond the reach of the light, the groined ceiling was intricately crafted, shaped with reverence, as if to honour everything that was done and said within the chamber. But below the entryway the floor slumped to form a crude pit. At first, the surface sank down in stages which may once have been tiers. Farther down, however, the stone resembled poured magma. She could almost believe that a once-fine audience hall had been subjected to a terrible heat; fire so hot that the floor melted and ran, cooling at last into contorted patterns like memorials of pain at the bottom of the pit.

In the wall opposite her, Linden saw a pair of gaps which may once have been smaller doors. But they had suffered the same damage which had marred the lower half of the Close, and did not appear to be usable.

Among the wracked shapes at the bottom of the Close waited Handir, Stave, and perhaps a score of other Masters. Among them, Linden saw Anele as well as Manethrall Mahrtiir and his two Cords. The old man stood at the back of the gathering, guarded or restrained by two of the Masters. Linden knew at a glance that he had not been harmed; but his physical well-being failed to reassure her.

As soon as she entered the hall, the Ramen ascended the rumpled stone toward her. All three of them were pale with loss and oppression. Bhapa concentrated on protecting his newly healed arm and shoulder as he moved; but Pahni mustered a thin smile for Linden and Liand. Mahrtiir betrayed more discomfort, however. He had difficulty holding up his head, and his fierce features looked uncharacteristically daunted. He climbed the stone with a slight hitch in his strides, a subtle flinch.

The Manethrall stopped a step below Linden, Liand, and Galt, with his Cords behind him in deference. Avoiding Linden’s eyes, he bowed in the Ramen fashion, then asked uncertainly, “Ringthane, are you well? Have you been treated courteously?”

He may have expected her to say that she had not.

Because his distress was vivid to her, Linden held up the Staff of Law like an emblem of authority and bowed formally. “I’m glad you’re here, Manethrall. Liand and I are fine.” The Stonedownor nodded in confirmation, grinning at Pahni. “Mostly the Masters ignored us. But a woman called the Mahdoubt took good care of us.

“How about you? Are you all right?”

Mahrtiir made a transparent effort to gather his resolve. “We are not. At our word, the Ranyhyn were released to the grasses of the upland plateau, and to the eldritch waters of Glimmermere. We accompanied them, preferring service and the open sky to the veiled disdain of these Bloodguard. The Ranyhyn remain there, although we have answered the summons of the sleepless ones in your name. So much is well.”

Linden nodded, waiting for him to go on.

“But, Ringthane-” He faltered; had to force himself to lift his head so that she could see the shame in his eyes. “I fear that I will fail you here. This dire place bears down upon me. The Ramen are born to open skies. Such enclosure darkens our hearts. Yet there is a deeper pain which hampers me.”

He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “Ringthane, we are blinded. We were aware of the nature of Kevin’s Dirt, but we had not experienced it in our own flesh. We-” He scowled in dismay. “I had not known that its bereavement would be so extreme. I am more than half crippled, unfit for your service.”

Still holding up the Staff, Linden shook her head. “Manethrall, you’re wrong. You and Bhapa and Pahni are who you’ve always been,” as worthy as loyalty and valour could make them. “With your permission, I’ll show you what I mean.”

He stared at her, perplexed and uncertain. He could not see her health, or the potency of the Staff. Yet he assented without hesitation.

Law and Earthpower came easily now. They were natural to her: as long as she held the Staff, they could not be taken away. If she had not felt diminished by Kevin’s Dirt earlier, she would not have panicked. With the warm wood in her hands, she had only to desire the cleansing of the Ramen’s senses, and her desire was accomplished.

The joy that lit their faces when they could see again was wonderful to behold. And it was especially acute in Bhapa. Until this moment, apparently, he had not fully appreciated the fact that his ordinary sight had been restored. For years, his vision had been impaired: now he could see in every sense of the word.

As one, the Ramen prostrated themselves at Linden’s feet as though she were as majestic as the Ranyhyn.

Embarrassed, she lowered the Staff, muttering, “Oh, get up. Please. I don’t want to be treated this way.” Again she explained, “It’s temporary. Kevin’s Dirt is still there. But I can renew it as often as we need. And eventually we’ll figure out how to get rid of the cause.”

Obediently the Ramen rose to their feet. Now a palpable current of pleasure flowed between Pahni and Liand; and Bhapa gazed at Linden with gratitude in his clear eyes. But Mahrtiir turned away to glare fiercely down at the waiting Masters.

“Sleepless ones,” he called out in a voice that rang with scorn, “your purpose here has no meaning. Doubtless you will require the Ringthane to defend her actions and intentions. Stave has promised a reckoning, has he not? And you will attempt to account for your mistreatment of sad Anele, who harms no one. But your words and your choices are empty.

“The Ranyhyn have accepted the Ringthane. More, they have honoured her, bowing their heads when they have never bowed to any living being. And in her name they have likewise accepted all of her companions, not excluding Anele. Indeed, at their will they have been ridden by Ramen, a thing which no Raman has ever done before.

“Sleepless ones, Bloodguard, you who have ridden so many Ranyhyn to their deaths, there is no more to be said. No more! All of your doubts and arrogance have been answered. If you will not serve the Ringthane, then you must set aside your Mastery, for you have declared your infidelity to the Land!”

From the floor of the Close, the Masters regarded Mahrtiir in silence. Linden could not read their reactions. Nevertheless their flat stoicism conveyed the impression that they did not consider Mahrtiir’s indignation worthy of a response.

Their lack of affect vexed Linden. It was no wonder, she thought grimly, that the Haruchai spoke to each other mind to mind. They were too enclosed, too deeply immured within themselves, for any other form of communication.

Snarling, Mahrtiir turned back to Linden. “Ringthane, do you choose to submit to this false council?”

“Submit?” Her tone resembled his. “No. But I’ll hear what they have to say, and I’ll answer it. I need them, Manethrall. The Land needs them. I can’t turn my back on that.”

He held her gaze, apparently searching for some flaw in her determination. Then he nodded once, brusquely. “Very well. The Ramen will stand beside you, whatever befalls.

“But heed my warning. These Masters”- he spat the word- “will not treat honestly with you.”

Summoning her professional detachment, she replied, “I’ll take that chance.”

The Haruchai would not deign to lie; not under any compulsion. Not unless they had first lied to themselves.

When she started down into the Close, Liand and Mahrtiir walked at her sides, and the Cords arrayed themselves behind her. Followed by Galt, and deliberate as a cortege, they descended the hurt stone. At the bottom of the pit, however, she paused to see how the gathered Masters would greet her arrival.

For a moment, Stave regarded her with his remaining eye as if he wished to measure her against his shame. Then he bowed as he had often done before, impassive in his respect. But Handir merely inclined his head. He might have done more to acknowledge one of the servants of Revelstone.

The rest of the Masters only gazed at her and waited.

Now Linden was near enough to see that both of Anele’s guards had lost the last two fingers of their right hands. Like Galt, they were the Humbled.

She swallowed a curse; refused to allow herself that show of emotion. As Mahrtiir had just demonstrated, the Masters would not be swayed by outrage.

If they could be swayed at all.

Standing passively between the Humbled, Anele did not react to Linden’s presence. He may have been lost in the labyrinth of his dismay; unaware of her.

“Chosen,” Handir began when she looked toward him again, “you have been made welcome in Revelstone. Yet the Manethrall your companion conceives that he has cause to denounce us. Do you also fault our purpose here? If so, speak plainly, and you will be plainly answered.”

Mahrtiir stiffened at Linden’s side, but did not retort. He had committed himself to her service, and remained silent.

Linden faced the Voice of the Masters squarely. “You know why I’m here. Anele is under my protection. I want you to let him go. And I hope I can convince you to help me. The Land needs you. What you’ve done so far isn’t enough anymore-if it ever was.

“As for your welcome, the Mahdoubt took good care of me. And she did the same for Liand.” The Stonedownor nodded. “We have no complaints.”

Handir held her gaze. “Then I bid you a further welcome to the Close of Revelstone, where in ages long past the Council of Lords gathered to consider the perils of their times. We have selected this to be our meeting place because it has been harmed by despair and Earthpower.

“When the first Staff of Law had been destroyed, the former Bloodguard Bannor sojourned to Revelstone to discover what had befallen the Lords. From his tales of that time, the Haruchai learned that here Trell Atiaran-mate performed a Ritual of Desecration which nearly brought about the ruin of Lord’s Keep. The outcome of his mad grief is written in this wounded stone.

“Here you may behold clearly the reasons which have led us to assume the Mastery of the Land. You stand upon the consequences of mortal power and passion. Here you may see explained the purposes of the Masters, if your eyes are open, and your heart is not inured to pain.

“It is here,” Handir concluded inflexibly, “that you will be accused. Here you will make answer as you are able. And here the judgment of the Masters will be rendered.”

“Accused”? Liand objected in surprise. “Do you jest?”

“It is as I have said, Ringthane,” snarled Mahrtiir. “The sleepless ones have grown too haughty to be endured. Do they welcome us? Then let us depart, that they may no longer be constrained. We have no need of their judgment.”

But Linden gestured both of them to silence. Behind her chosen detachment, she seethed with indignation; yet she exposed none of it. She had expected something like this. Stave had promised her a reckoning. And in some sense she was ready for it.

“All right,” she told Handir quietly. “Accuse away. I’m eager to hear what you think I should have done differently.” Then she let a flick of anger into her voice. “But make no mistake about it. I am going to answer you. And when I’m done, you will by God answer me.

She had earned that right.

The Voice of the Masters studied her for a moment. Then he pronounced, “Let it be so.”

At his word, most of his people left the bottom of the pit to position themselves like sentinels or judges around the lower slopes. Only Handir, Stave, and the Humbled, with Anele among them, remained facing Linden.

Firmly she turned her back on the Masters and stepped aside to sit on a bulge of stone at the edge of the bottom. Placing the Staff across her knees, she beckoned for her companions to join her.

Reluctantly Mahrtiir and Liand sat on either side of her, while the Cords placed themselves behind her. “Linden,” Liand whispered at once, “I mislike this. The Masters do not relent. Permitting them to accuse you, you grant them a credence which they do not merit.”

“The Stonedownor speaks truly,” Mahrtiir put in more loudly. “You are beyond these Bloodguard. Your heed does them too much honour.”

“And there is no fault in what you have done,” added Liand. “Why then should they be suffered to speak against you?”

Linden did not glance at either of them. Nor did she meet Handir’s gaze. Instead she focused her attention on Stave.

“Trust me,” she answered softly. “This has to be done.” Anele’s plight required it-as did Jeremiah’s. “They may call themselves Masters, but they’re still Haruchai,” men so moved by the grandeur of the Old Lords that they had surrendered love and sleep and death to their Vow of service. “They can be persuaded.”

Somehow High Lord Kevin had persuaded them-

The Manethrall glared about him, but did not protest further. After a squirming moment, Liand subsided as well.

Linden went on watching Stave and waited for the accusations to begin. Handir was the Voice of the Masters; yet she did not expect him to recite her crimes. Every question that mattered lay between her and Stave. He had travelled with her, aided her; had been badly injured in her name. And she had shamed him-She was intuitively sure that he would be her accuser.

“In courtesy,” Handir announced, “we will speak as do the folk of the Land, though it is not natural to us. The Chosen should hear all that is said of her.”

With a grave nod, Stave stepped into the centre of the contorted floor. Ignoring Linden’s gaze, he addressed the Close as though his entire race were in attendance.

“She is Linden Avery the Chosen,” he said stolidly, “the companion of ur-Lord Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever during the time of the Sunbane. So much is certain. I have ascertained it beyond doubt. She accompanied the Unbeliever on his quest for the One Tree. She shared his return to Revelstone, putting an end to the evils of the Clave and the Banefire. At his side in Kiril Threndor, she formed the new Staff of Law-the Staff which was then lost, and has now been regained.

“From him she received the white gold ring which is at once the Land’s greatest boon and its most fatal bane.”

At least, Linden thought as she listened to him, he plays fair. He was willing to acknowledge who she was and what she had done, if Handir and the Humbled were not.

“When I had learned that she is indeed the Chosen,” Stave continued without pausing, “I sought to do her honour by explaining the convictions and purposes of the Masters. I described the harm which attends inevitably upon any use of Earthpower. And I offered the support and aid of the Masters in any condign quest which might oppose Corruption.

“She has responded with unfailing defiance. At every turn, she has acted against my counsel. At every turn, she has striven to deny Anele from us, though his madness only accentuates the peril of his Earthpower.”

Feigning calm, Linden helped herself to some of Liand’s bread and cheese; ate as if her own heart and Jeremiah’s life were not at stake. Yet inwardly she squirmed with frustration and yearning, and she could barely swallow.

“I grant,” Stave declared, “that her defiance has yielded unforeseen boons. Because she fled from me, we now know that the Ranyhyn and their Ramen yet live. That is a benison which all who serve the Land must acknowledge.

“And the Staff of Law has been reclaimed. That is of inestimable worth. In itself, it is not a use of power. Yet it is a bastion of Law, and its nature sustains the life of the Land. Unused, its presence among us may hamper the proliferation of Falls, or diminish the pall of Kevin’s Dirt.”

The Master was still trying to be fair.

But then he resumed his accusations. “By the same defiance, however, she has admitted new perils. I have spoken of Esmer, who professes to be the son of Cail and the Dancers of the Sea, and whose dark puissance concerns and dismays even the ur-viles, despite their ancient loathing for the Land. And there are the Demondim, of which I will say more.

“However, the greatest accusation is this. She has a son who has been captured by Corruption. Her desire to redeem him is both proper and seemly. Yet her actions in his name have threatened the destruction of the Arch of Time.”

Mahrtiir muttered imprecations under his breath. Softly Liand asked Linden, “Why do you suffer this? What manner of men advocate the sacrifice of threatened children?”

Placing her hand on the young man’s arm, she gripped him hard to quiet him. She already knew what Stave would say.

The Master ignored her companions. “For the sake of her son,” he proclaimed, “she entered a Fall of Esmer’s summoning, daring the past to seek for the Staff of Law. There she forged an alliance between the Waynhim and the ur-viles, which have ever opposed each other. And when we were beset by the Demondim, as well as by the power of the Illearth Stone, she herself caused the Fall which has delivered both them and us to Revelstone. Doing so, she has inflicted yet another dire bane upon the Land.

“I am Haruchai and fear nothing. Yet I fear to inquire what else she may attempt in her son’s name.”

Mahrtiir breathed an obscenity, but did not interrupt.

“Now she has entered Revelstone holding both white gold and the Staff of Law.” At last, Stave turned to gaze at Linden. His face held no expression, but shadows which she could not interpret haunted his single eye like ghosts. “I do not doubt that she is a woman of honour, and that all of her purposes are benign. Indeed, she has spoken eloquently of her love for the Land. Nevertheless she is mortal, and her powers surpass the strictures of mortal flesh and desire. If ever she knows a moment of despair-which is surely Corruption’s intent-she will wreak such ruin as the Earth has never known.”

Then he looked away. “Thus she re-enacts the error which destroyed the fidelity of the Bloodguard. As did Korik, Sill, and Doar, she commands powers which exceed her. Yet none will question that those Bloodguard were men of honour.

“The first principle of our Mastery,” he told his people, “is that the uses of such power must ultimately serve Corruption. Is it not therefore certain that Linden Avery the Chosen will in the end become a servant of the Despiser?

“She will perhaps reply that she is warded from doom by the purity of her purpose. Her desire, she may assert, is merely to redeem her son rather than to defeat Corruption. Yet her own deeds gainsay her. Twice she has imposed healing upon me against my desires. Thus she has demonstrated that she cares nothing for the honour of those who do not share her purpose.

“Beyond question she has already begun to tread the path of Corruption’s service.”

There he stopped, leaving Linden daunted in spite of herself. His recitation eroded her detachment; her certainty. In his own way, he had told the truth about her. if she accepted his assumptions, she could not contest his conclusion. It was as ineluctable as loss.

Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.

After Esmer had almost beaten Stave to death, she believed that the Haruchai had given her permission to treat him. But she could not say the same for her actions the previous day. In the forehall, she had reached out with the Staff reflexively; had responded to Stave’s wounds simply because he was hurt.

Again you have shamed me- There she had violated her own convictions as well as his. If power could corrupt, then it had already begun to corrupt her.

Now she clutched Mahrtiir’s forearm as well, holding both men to keep them from speaking-and to assure herself that she was not alone. She could not answer Stave’s charges directly. She had already sacrificed her right to do so. And the Masters would not yield to simple contradiction. She had to go further.

She had to show them that their fundamental assumptions were false. That good could come of deeds and risks and even purposes which appeared evil.

“Are you done?” she asked grimly. “Is it my turn yet?”

She was angry at herself; but she knew that anger would not serve her. She could not undo her mistakes. And her ire was merely a defence against pain and fear. Deliberately she put such things aside. Surgeries were full of bleeding which could not be staunched, wounds which resisted repair, deaths which defied refusal. Anger and grief only prevented the surgeon from accomplishing as much as possible.

When Handir replied with a severe nod, she said more gently, “I’m not going to contradict anything Stave told you. It’s the truth. Instead I’ll give you a better answer. In fact, I’ll give you three.

“But just so you’ll know-” she added to Stave. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask your permission yesterday. You’re right. I should have done that.”

And accepted his answer.

Her accuser faced her regret without a word. He had already gone too far to be turned aside.

Sighing, she released her grasp on her friends, wrapped her hands around the Staff, and rose to her feet. As Stave withdrew from the centre of the floor, she took a few steps over the twisted stone, then stopped to plant the heel of the Staff between her feet and hold up her head.

Briefly she considered revealing the advice that she had received from Covenant in her dreams. No doubt Stave had already told his kinsmen what Anele had said when he had spoken for her dead love. And Covenant’s name might carry weight with the Masters. But she did not know what to make of his messages-if in fact they were messages at all, and not the by-products of her dreaming dreads.

Whatever happened, she needed to withstand the Masters on her own terms.

Still facing Stave as if he were the only one of his people who mattered, she said quietly, “We’re wasting time here. The Demondim will be back,” she was sure of that. “We should be deciding what to do, not blaming each other.

“But you’re the Masters of the Land. You’ve done me the courtesy of explaining what you think I’ve done wrong,” when they could have simply left her to the horde, or taken Covenant’s ring and the Staff from her. “You deserve the same from me.”

Only then did she shift her attention to Handir. Obliquely her words were still addressed to Stave. But she had already contradicted and defied him enough. He might hear her more clearly now if she spoke to the Voice of the Masters.

“Tell me something,” she asked abruptly. “How do they do it?”

Handir lifted an eyebrow. “Chosen?”

“The Demondim. How do they use the Illearth Stone? You can sense them.” And the discernment of the Haruchai exceeded hers. “Explain it to me.

“At first I thought they must have found some lost fragment of the original Stone. But now I don’t think so. They have too much power-and too many of them have it at once. And we all know that the Illearth Stone was destroyed.

“So how do they do it?”

The older Haruchai paused for a moment, apparently considering his response. He may have thought that the capabilities of the Demondim were irrelevant to Stave’s accusations. Still he decided to answer.

“The Demondim wield a Fall. Among them they both command and sustain it, causing it to serve them. This Fall spans time to a distant age when the Illearth Stone remained intact. Similarly it extends deep among the roots of Gravin Threndor, to the place where the Stone lay hidden until Drool Rockworm discovered it. Therefore the might which the Demondim employ is great. It arises unhindered from its source.”

Linden frowned. He might be right-Like the Lost Deep, where the Demondim had bred their descendants, the Illearth Stone had once been buried far beneath Mount Thunder. The Vile-spawn could conceivably have known the Stone’s location centuries or millennia before Drool Rockworm uncovered it.

But she needed confirmation. “Are you sure? If they can do that, why don’t they just shatter Time and be done with it? Instead they’re toying with us. Why do they even bother?”

“If Corruption were able to destroy the Arch,” replied Handir, “he would have done so ere now. Some Law or power constrains him, and his servants with him.

“Observe that the Fall violates the Law of Time, but that the use of the Illearth Stone which the Fall enables does not. The Demondim have not altered the past. In some fashion, the Law of Time intervenes to preserve itself.

“This we do not comprehend. We know only that the Falls are perilous and terrible. We cannot say why their evil does not suffice to undo the Arch. The Lords spoke of restrictions inherent to the nature of power. They named `the necessity of freedom,’ among others. However, such lore is beyond our ken. It is only plain to us that the Demondim act as they do because their power extends no further.”

“All right.” Linden nodded, accepting the idea. “For some reason, they have limits.” Obviously something prevented Lord Foul from using Joan’s ring directly. “That might help us. But it’s not enough. Here’s the important question.

“Can you beat them? All of you together?” Every living Haruchai? “Can you prevent them from turning this whole place into a pile of rubble?”

Handir faced her as if nothing she might say could disturb him. “We cannot.”

Trying to pierce his impassivity, Linden made a show of surprise. “And you don’t think you need me? You don’t think you need power? You admit you can’t save Revelstone, much less the Land, but you don’t want help?”

From the edge of the floor, Liand nodded vigorous approval. Mahrtiir watched her with encouragement gleaming in his eyes.

But the Voice of the Masters was not swayed. “Kevin Landwaster heeded such concerns,” he countered. “We do not. Our worth and our purposes are measured by the forces arrayed against us, but we are not judged by victory or defeat, life or death. Rather we value ourselves according to our honour and steadfastness. That the Demondim are able to wield the might of the Illearth Stone does not require us to abandon who we are.

“Knowing this, we do not choose to emulate the Landwaster’s despair.”

Linden stifled a groan. In Handir’s response, she recognised the passion of the Haruchai for absolute judgments. Even Cail, who had served the Search for the One Tree with an almost limitless valour and fidelity: even he had not questioned the final denunciation of the Haruchai. His fault was not that he had succumbed to the merewives, but that he had lived on after his seduction. She did not doubt that the Masters would rather die as a race than retract their chosen form of service.

But she was not prepared to simply strive and fail and die. Not while her son needed her. Not while the Land was in such peril.

And she knew that Handir had not told her the whole truth. He had said nothing of his people’s fear that they would be taken by the passion which had overcome Cail as well as Korik, Sill, and Doar. Liand was right about the Masters. They feared to grieve.

Tightening her grasp on the Staff, she frowned at Handir. “I think I understand,” she said slowly. “You’re mortal. You can’t afford to judge yourselves by standards that transcend your limitations. That was Korik’s mistake. It may even have been Kevin’s.”

There her detachment faltered. Anger began to throb in her voice as she continued.

“But that doesn’t explain why you don’t want help. It doesn’t explain your so-called Mastery of the Land.

“It’s one thing to give your best and then accept what happens. You do that. You’ve always done it. But this time you’ve gone further. This time you think you have the right to prevent other people from doing the same. Isn’t that true? As far as I can tell, you didn’t become Masters because you want to save the Land. You did it because you want to stop anyone else from saving it.

“Am I wrong?” she demanded. “Then say so. Tell me why.”

The Voice of the Masters remained relaxed in front of her; apparently untouched. But his nostrils flared slightly with each breath, and a small muscle clenched and released at the corner of his jaw.

Linden thought that she heard indignation in his tone as he retorted, “That is unjust. We prevent nothing except the use of power.”

“No, you don’t,” she insisted. “You’ve gone much further than that. Stave accused me of healing him without giving him a choice. You’ve prevented anyone from having the choice to use power. In effect, you’ve decided in advance that there hasn’t ever been and won’t ever be anyone in the Land wise enough to use Earthpower well. You’ve prejudged every person and every decision and every action since the day you became Masters. And that just doesn’t make sense.

“Look at it this way,” she said, hurrying so that she would not be interrupted. “You know what’s going to happen when the Demondim come back. You’ll fight them with everything you’ve got, and you’ll be slaughtered. But you don’t know what would happen if you trusted me to help you. Or if you helped me find my son.”

Then Linden shook her head. “But that’s not a good example. I’m not ignorant. And so far you haven’t done anything to get in my way. Here’s a better one.

“You can’t possibly know what the result would be if Liand had the training and resources to be a Graveler.” She did not glance at the Stonedownor, although she felt his surprise. “Sunder did. You know that. And you also know that Covenant would not have lived long enough to save your people from the Clave if Sunder hadn’t helped him. So how can you believe that Liand doesn’t have the right to know as much as Sunder did?”

Abruptly she stopped, nearly panting with the force of her assertion.

Handir raised an eyebrow; but he did not pause to consult with the other Masters. “Linden Avery,” he replied flatly, “we act as we do because the alternative is plainly impossible. We cannot intervene in decisions and actions after their effects have become known. The opportunity to prevent them has passed. And we are too few. All the Haruchai who have ever lived would not suffice to ward from evil every person who might seek to make use of Earthpower.

“Yet we have determined that we cannot stand aside. The evil is too great. And Brinn has become the Guardian of the One Tree. Are we less than he? Must we do less than serve as the guardians of the Land? No. You cannot ask it of us. But if we will serve, how otherwise may our task be accomplished? We must prevent the use of Earthpower. No other way is possible for us.”

Linden did not hesitate. She could not. And in her chambers she had prepared herself for this moment. Handir had given her the opening she needed.

Breathing hard, she glared at him. “Then look at it this way,” she continued, carried on a rising wave of anger. “There stand the Humbled.” With the back of her hand, she slapped a gesture toward the Masters holding Anele. “Galt and-”

Momentarily she stumbled. She did not know their names.

“The Humbled,” Handir informed her, “are Galt, Clyme, and Branl.”

“Fine,” she returned. “The Humbled. They’re supposed to be living reminders that you can’t master evils like the Illearth Stone and Ravers and Corruption. Which sounds good, I have to admit. But how did they get the job? How did you choose them?”

Again she did not grant their Voice a chance to interrupt her. “Christ, Handir, they fought for the privilege.” Her words were flames. They leaped and burned as she uttered them. “They think it’s an honour to be maimed like that. They beat the shit out of each other for the status of reminding you that you need humility.”

Responding to her passion, the Staff began to burn in her grasp. Its fire reached higher with every utterance. If she did not restrain it, the rush of power would light the unharmed ceiling of the Close.

She would be able to see what the love of the Giants had crafted there.

For a moment, she let her fire rise. Then, deliberately, she swallowed her ire until the Staff was quenched. The force of her emotions served only to remind her that she was not helpless. It would not increase her credibility.

Quietly now, she said, “I think you’ve missed the point of what happened on the Isle of the One Tree. I don’t know how Cail told the story, but I was there. I saw it.

“Brinn didn’t win that fight. He lost. In fact, he surrendered,” just as Covenant had surrendered to Lord Foul in Kiril Threndor. “He let the Guardian kill him. And he became the new Guardian by taking the old one with him when he died.

“I’m sorry, Handir,” she finished as calmly as she could. “If you and the Humbled and the rest of the Masters are trying to follow Brinn’s example, you’re going about it the wrong way. You haven’t just denied everyone else the right to make their own choices. You’ve missed the point.”

Handir held up his hand. In spite of his apparent relaxation, however, his gesture had the certainty of a blow. With one small motion, he dominated the Close as if the rectitude and indignation of all his people were invested in him. Even the light seemed to concentrate on him, focused by his underlying authority.

The Cords and Liand stared at him in chagrin. Mahrtiir swore under his breath.

“It is enough,” the Voice of the Masters pronounced like a knell. “We have heard you. Now you will desist. Because you are the Chosen, we have suffered the challenge of your words. But you fault us to no purpose.

“Perhaps you have described us justly. Perhaps not. It alters nothing. Your recriminations do not pertain to the hazard of your actions in the Land. The truth remains that you have dared the destruction of all the Earth for the sake of your son. And now you do not assure us that the danger is past. Rather you seek to disguise your actions by diminishing ours.

“Yet this answer I will grant to you.” The muscles at the corners of his jaw knotted and released to the beat of his words. “It is true that we have placed ourselves foremost in the Land’s defence. For this we might claim to merit respect rather than accusation. But if we fall, the Land will remain, and all who wish to strive against Corruption may do so in any fashion which seems good to them.”

“No, Handir,” Linden retorted at once. “Now you’re just being dishonest.” She had come too far to hold back. “You’ve done everything you can to erase that possibility. You’ve kept the people of the Land from knowing anything about Earthpower, or their own history, or the evils they’ll have to face. I tell you, it’s wrong. You’ve made too many decisions for other people, and you never had the right.

“But I’m not done,” she added immediately. “I’ve given you two answers.” Inadequacy. Arrogance. “I’ve pointed out that you aren’t in a position to judge me. If you refuse to listen, that’s your problem, not mine.

“I’ve got one more answer for you.”

Ignorance.

She was desperate now; on the verge of a risk as great in its own way as daring to enter a caesure. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means. But the Masters had denied every other argument. And she had believed almost from the first that she would not be able to rescue her son without Anele’s help.

As if she knew that she would not be refused, she looked at the son of Sunder and Hollian among the Humbled and said softly, “Anele, come here.”

The old man had given no sign that he had heard or understood what was being said around him. He seemed unaware of anything except the fact that the Masters had claimed him. Without Linden’s protection, he had no defence.

Yet when she spoke his name, he jerked up his head, and his moonstone eyes caught a flare of fire from the lamps. Threshing his arms as if to break free of the Humbled, although they made no effort to restrain him, he crossed the tormented stone and flung himself down in front of her. His thin arms embraced her knees and the Staff in supplication.

“Protect,” he panted. “Oh, protect Anele. They are heartless. They will devour his soul. They devour all things, leaving only pain.”

Liand started forward to attend to the old man; but Linden waved him back. She needed Anele where he was. His contact with the Staff might calm him so that he could heed her.

To Handir, she said, “You don’t really care about keeping him prisoner. You just want to control him so he can’t do any harm. You’ve explained that. I think I understand it. But you haven’t thought it through.”

Her heart ached in her chest as she considered what she meant to do. She had found no gap in the Masters’ defences. Her intentions might taint Anele irredeemably in their eyes. They might go to any extreme to keep him. But she had no recourse that she could see-or accept. Apart from Anele, she had no arguments left except power. And she would not fight the Haruchai. The Land needed them. Too many of them had already spent their lives for her sake.

The old man was her last hope. Therefore she chose to place him in danger.

With one hand, she clenched her courage to the smooth shaft of the Staff. The other she lowered so that it rested on Anele’s dismayed head, hoping that the touch of her palm would reassure him.

Doing so, she also reassured herself.

Although the Masters had conceded nothing, she met Handir’s flat gaze and began.

“Stave must have told you that Anele reads stone. He’s like an Unfettered One. He’s taught himself to hear slowly enough to understand what the rocks are saying.

“Sure, that means he can tell people about the Land’s history.” If he stood on the right kind of stone. “You don’t want that. But it also means he can tell us what the Earth is saying about its own pain.

“He’s already identified threats we wouldn’t know about otherwise. Skurj. A broken Durance. Kastenessen. That alone makes him too useful to be locked away.

“But he has more to offer. A lot more. If he’s free.”

Urgently she wished that she could interpret Handir’s expression. But she had no idea whether he heard her with sympathy or scorn. She had to trust that the Masters saw her more clearly than she did them; that what was in her heart would show through the inadequacy of her ability to express it.

“If I’m right,” she said carefully, “the-I’m not sure what to call it-the “content” of his madness is controlled by the surface under his feet. When he stands on broken stones, he hears them. When he’s on native gutrock, he becomes sane. But when the stone has been worked in some way”- by Giants in Revelstone, or by Liand’s people in Mithil Stonedown- “then he’s like this. He seems to understand what’s happening, but he can’t always respond appropriately.

“But there’s more. Stave wasn’t with us all the time. He didn’t see everything that happened.”

Impulsively she glanced at Stave. She had withheld some of her experience with Anele’s madness from him; had distrusted him to that extent. Her concern that he might take umbrage impelled her to turn away from Handir for a moment.

The look on his face gave her nothing. The puckering of his new scars seemed to imply that he would not forgive her.

It was possible that he did not understand the concept. Perhaps none of the Haruchai did.

Aching, she faced the older Master again.

“When Anele,” oh, Anele, “stands on something other than stone-bare dirt, or different kinds of grass-he can be possessed. Sometimes Lord Foul reaches into him and takes over. The Despiser can see through his eyes, talk through his mouth.

“And there are other beings-” She would not mention Covenant: not here, out of desperation. “You’ve seen one of them, when you were fighting the Demondim. I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t Anele. When his feet touched bare dirt, someone else claimed him.”

A spirit or power whose hatred was magma.

“You probably think that’s a good reason to keep him locked up.” Linden shook her head to dismiss Handir’s objections. “An even better reason than preventing him from saying too much about the Land’s history. But you’re wrong.

“Don’t you see?” In spite of her shame, she spoke as though she had no qualms about sacrificing the old man to her own needs. “If we understand who can possess him, and when, we’ll have a tremendous advantage. By hearing what our enemies say, even when they’re trying to mislead us, we might be able to figure out who they are and what they’re doing.

“But there’s more. Think about how we could mislead them. My God, if we were clever enough, we could make them believe anything we wanted.”

Abruptly Liand put in, “Linden, this troubles me.” His aura had become an ache of worry. “Would not Anele suffer in such use?”

Manethrall Mahrtiir nodded sharply. Bhapa and Pahni watched Linden with uncertainty on their faces.

It seemed that none of her companions had expected her to sound so callous.

Vexed by the interruption, and privately sickened by her own actions, Linden sighed, “Oh, hell, we’re all suffering. Do you actually think it would be any worse than what he’s going through right now? And he wants to be of use. You heard him,” in the cave of the Waynhim. “He doesn’t think he’s earned the right to be healed.”

Then she faced Handir again. “I don’t see how you can call yourselves the Masters of the Land and still believe that he should be kept prisoner.”

Briefly Handir gazed around at the other Masters. He seemed to be communing with them in spite of his promise that their deliberations would be conducted aloud. Before Linden could object, however, he turned back to her.

“We are not persuaded,” he announced. “You must demonstrate his worth.”

She flinched, although Handir’s demand did not surprise her. She had expected it; feared it. Indeed, she had proposed something similar herself. Now, however, her heart rebelled at the idea of asking Anele to perform like a trained animal. She still wanted to postpone the moment when she would be forced to misuse him.

And she could not be certain of his response.

But she had created a situation in which she had no choice but to surrender or forge ahead. When she had risked damaging the Arch of Time to seek for the Staff, she had in some sense misused everyone with her. And the Masters had made it plain that she could not answer them alone, any more than she could rescue Jeremiah or defeat Lord Foul by herself. She had to ask for help, and pray that she would get it.

With a silent groan, she stooped to the old man and urged him to stand.

He seemed reluctant to release her knees. Or perhaps it was the Staff to which he clung, consoling himself with its apt warmth. After a moment, however, he loosened his grasp and rose.

When he had gained his feet, she put her arm around him and hugged him close. “Anele,” she murmured gently, “I need you. I said I would protect you, and I want to keep my promise. But I can’t do this without you.

“We’re standing on stone,” surrounded by stone. “It’s your friend.” His only friend. “It’s always been your friend.

“I need you to tell us what it says.”

He was no longer the Anele who had averred that he was content to see the Staff of Law in her hands. That avatar of his dilemma had been left many centuries in the past. In this time-Linden’s proper time, if not his own-he had been hounded to destitution by loneliness and loss as much as by the Masters. Linden could not be sure that he understood her. She had no reason to assume that he would comply.

By small shifts and stages, however, as if he had to remember separately how to move each muscle, he withdrew from her clasp. Reluctantly he trailed his fingertips along the Staff. Then he let it go.

“It is sooth.” His voice was a low croak which seemed to hurt his throat. “Anele has no friend but stone. It does not comfort him. It is not kindly. It is strict, and full of hurt. But it only speaks. It does not judge. It does not demand. It does not punish.”

The old man shook his head sadly. “For him there is no other solace.”

Hampered by the burden of too much time, he took a few steps toward the centre of the floor. His head began to flinch from side to side. Apparently trying to stop it, he covered his face with his hands. Still his head jerked back and forth as if he feared what he might see in spite of his blindness.

A moan slipped between his lips and fell away, leaving the Close hushed and expectant; waiting.

Linden held her breath. Hardly aware of herself, she retreated to sit once more between Liand and Mahrtiir. Her attention was fixed on Anele. At that moment, nothing else mattered.

Barely audible through his hands, Anele breathed, “Ah, stone. Bone of the world. Forlorn and unregarded. It weeps eternally, yet none heed its sorrow. None hear its endless plaint.

“This stone has known love which the Land has forgotten, the adoration of Giants and Lords. It has suffered rage. It has been afflicted with Desecration.

“In grief and understanding, it speaks to me of fathers.”

Unselfconsciously Linden rested the Staff between her knees and reached out to her companions. But now simply gripping Liand’s forearm, and Mahrtiir’s, did not suffice. She needed to entwine her fingers with theirs and grip them until her knuckles ached.

That tight human clench, the Stonedownor on one side and the Manethrall on the other, seemed to make it possible for her to bear Anele’s words.

Muffled by his hands, his voice was a thin thread of sound in the huge chamber, as inadequate as the lamps to fill the Close, and as necessary.

“First,” he murmured, “always first, it speaks of the father who wrought this harm. He was Trell Atiaran-mate, Gravelingas of Mithil Stonedown. The stone remembers him compassionately, for he was of the rhadhamaerl, beloved of all the Earth’s rock, and the plight of his daughter, his only child, had surpassed his heart’s capacity for healing. Rent by her violation and pain, he here betrayed his love and his lore and himself, and when his hand was stayed the weight of his despair bore him down. What remains is the spilth and contortion of his anguish”

Anele’s head jerked, and jerked again. “That sorrow would exceed any less enduring flesh. But this stone has more.”

His voice seemed to limp between his hands, wincing to the rhythm of words which only he could interpret.

“It speaks of the Elohim Kastenessen in his Durance, father to the malice of the merewives. His daughters are the Dancers of the Sea, and they swim the fathomless deeps in hunger and cruelty, insatiable for retribution, while their own scion is torment. Yet they know glee as well as hunger, for their father has broken his imprisonment, and at his behest the skurj which he once unwillingly restrained have unleashed their cunning and frenzy against the Land.

“And in the same breath, it speaks of the Haruchai Cail, who succumbed to the merewives and fathered their scion. He also is remembered with compassion, for only death has spared him from desolation at his son’s torment. Indeed, there is keening here on his behalf, keening and great sadness. He had been repudiated by his kindred, and his heart could not distinguish between its own yearning and the desire of the merewives. Yet that desire was not love but malice.”

Slowly Anele sank to his knees, borne down by knowledge. He kept his hands pressed over his eyes, and his head beat from side to side as if his ears were full of threnodies. His voice had become a long-breathed gasping, scarcely strong enough to sustain the sentences which the stone required of him.

“And it speaks as well of Thomas Covenant, of the white gold wielder, whose daughter rent the law of death, and whose son is abroad in the Land, seeking such havoc that the bones of mountains tremble to contemplate it. For the wielder also this stone grieves, knowing him betrayed.

“It speaks of Sunder son of Nassic, Graveler of Mithil Stonedown, who abandoned all that he had known for the sake of the wielder and the Land. Him the stone names because the son whom he brought back from death in Andelain lost the Staff of Law. In spite of this father’s valour and love, his legacy is sorrow.

“Also it names the Despiser, who is the father of woe. Yet of him the stone says little. His darkness is beyond its ken.”

Then the old man moaned again, a sound like distant winds complaining past jagged granite teeth. He began to pant heavily as if he were suffocating on words.

“And last, at the farthest extent of hearing, it speaks of Berek the Lord-Fatherer. It has not known him, for Revelstone had not been fashioned in that age, and he did not enter here. Yet he and his line prized and honoured deep rock passionately, and until the Landwaster’s Desecration all the Land’s stone knew the savour of joy.”

Abruptly he dropped his hands to the floor, crouching over them as if he could no longer support the weight of what he heard.

“More,” he panted, “Anele cannot read. A seer might spend his life in study and not hear all that this stone would tell.”

Yet he was not done. While Linden and her companions still watched him and waited, he flung up his head and turned to face her, unerring in spite of his blindness.

“You,” he gasped between ragged gulps of air. “You who promised. Anele begs-Oh, he begs of you.

“Tell him that he has not failed your need.”

Before she knew that she had moved, Linden knelt at his side, her friends and the Staff and all of the Masters forgotten. Wrapping her arms around him, she hugged him to her heart. “Oh, Anele.” Tears which she could not refuse streamed down her cheeks. “Anele.” His old body trembled in her embrace. “Of course you haven’t failed me. Dear God, no. You’ve done more than I could have asked. You always have.

“You poor man.” Releasing one hand, she brushed straggling hair out of his face. Then tenderly she kissed his forehead. “Sometimes you astonish me.”

He had told her, I am unworthy of such astonishment. But he was wrong.

If he understood her-if he remembered any of his own past-he did not show it. Gradually, however, his respiration eased, and the tension receded from his muscles. By degrees, he grew quiet in her arms.

Liand had joined her while she concentrated on the old man. When Anele was still at last, the Stonedownor helped her raise him to his feet. Carefully they supported him to the edge of the floor and seated him between Pahni and Bhapa.

Only then did Linden retrieve the Staff and return her attention to the Masters; to Handir and Stave, who had not spoken since she had asked for Anele’s help.

Shamed by what the old man had endured at her bidding, she no longer made any distinction between the two Haruchai.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said thinly. “I’ve had enough of this. Don’t trust us, or do. Just make up your minds. I’m done trying to convince you.”

She seemed to see nothing in Handir’s mien except denial. Yet it was not the Voice of the Masters who replied to her.

It was Stave.

Although he stood at Handir’s side as if the two of them were united against her, he gave her a deliberate bow. “You are Linden Avery the Chosen,” he began without inflection, “and we have heard you. You have said much, to your cost, and to that of your companions, and to our own. Now I will speak again.

“I have named your perilous deeds. And I have said that I fear what you may do in your son’s name. I do fear it. For such reasons the Masters withhold their trust. Yet one other matter remains unaddressed.”

Linden’s hopes seemed to gutter until she heard Stave say, “My people did not participate in the horserite which you and I have shared. I have not yet spoken of the will of the Ranyhyn.”

What-?

Suddenly she sat up straighter. Her eyes burned as she met his flat gaze. Tightening her grip on the Staff, she waited for Stave to go on.

He had told his people everything else-

“You have observed,” he remarked almost casually, “that my stance toward you was altered by the horserite. You inquired of the cause. I declined to answer. I replied only that I awaited the proper time and place to speak. Both now are upon me.”

Still he spoke to Linden as though his words were meant for her alone. She could only stare at him in mute surprise as he continued.

“When the Ranyhyn Hynyn and Hyn had borne us to the vale and the eldritch tarn of their ancient gathering place, I avowed that I would not take part in their mind-blending rituals.”

She remembered his refusal vividly. I am Haruchai. We have no need of horserites.

“You sought there to humble me,” he said, “as you have done here as well. Yet your words persuaded me when I did not wish to be swayed.

“You spoke of the time which followed Kelenbhrabanal’s failure to redeem the Ranyhyn from Fangthane’s depredations. And you reminded me that the great horses were restored to the Land, not by Lords or Bloodguard, or by any great power.”

Facing Linden, but clearly speaking for the benefit of the other Masters, Stave explained the point which she had made.

“Rather their return to the Plains of Ra was made possible by the Ramen. You spoke of `the plain, selfless devotion of ordinary men and women: And you averred that the Ranyhyn endeavoured to make this known as a warning, so that such men as we are would not conceive that we must redeem the Land through any form of Mastery. To do so, you suggested, would be to repeat the folly of High Lord Elena, and perhaps of Kevin Landwaster and Kelenbhrabanal as well.”

Stave paused as if to consult his memories; to assure himself that he had described her argument fairly. Then he lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug and went on.

“Also you observed that both the form and the substance of the horserite offered a warning which I must not ignore. Therefore I consented to the will of the Ranyhyn. With you I partook of their dark waters, and was transformed.”

Linden nodded, although he had not asked for her confirmation. Intent on him, she listened, unable to turn away.

At last, he lifted his face to the few Masters among the broad empty spaces of the Close. “The perils which the Ranyhyn have foreseen for the Chosen are strait and arduous. They fear her as I do. They fear that the burdens of this age may be too great for her to bear.

“To me the great horses offered no such caution.

“Masters, kinsmen-” Again Stave paused for thought; and again he shrugged. Without raising his voice, he announced distinctly, “When I had drunk of the mind-blending waters, I learned that the Ranyhyn laughed at me.”

Linden stared, unable to conceal her amazement. At her side, Liand’s aura showed that he, too, had expected to hear something very different. But Mahrtiir gave a snort of vindication, which his Cords echoed more discreetly.

Yet the Masters around the Close listened as if they felt nothing: no surprise or indignation; no uncertainty. The features of Handir and the Humbled were as unreactive as engravings.

Stolidly Stave explained, “Their laughter did not resemble Corruption’s, scornful and demeaning. The Giants laugh so, and it gives no hurt. Rather it was kindly and-” He hesitated for a moment, murmuring, “Such speech is awkward.” But then he pronounced clearly, “Their laughter was both kindly and affectionate. The Ranyhyn conceived no ill of me. They merely wished to express that they found amusement in my belief that our service is sufficient to the Land’s need.

“Our Mastery amuses them. In their sight, we are too small to comprehend or gauge all of the paths which may lead to triumph or Desecration. Though they are beings of Earthpower and mystery, they do not claim for themselves either the discernment or the courage to determine the Land’s defence.”

For a few heartbeats, Stave fell silent. He may have felt that his people needed time to absorb what he had said. Then he resumed.

“At the same time, laughing, they desired me to grasp that they have declared themselves utterly to the service of the Chosen. They will bear her wheresoever she wills, until the end of days. Her paths may enter Falls and the hazardous depths of time. Each and all of her choices may conduce to ruin. Yet will they bear her gladly. Indeed, they deem themselves fortunate to serve her.

“It is sooth,” he pronounced as if he were passing sentence, “that she may damn the Land. Yet the Ranyhyn believe that she will not. In their eyes, the Land’s life and hope require them to believe that she will not.”

Around him, tension gathered. It seemed to well up from the twists and flaws of the floor, drift down from the obscured ceiling, until it became so thick that the light of the lamps flickered and dimmed.

Stave’s kinsmen were taking umbrage.

Now his tone appeared to quicken, although his words maintained their uninflected tread.

“Masters, you will decide as you must, according to your beliefs. Doubtless it is difficult for the people who gave birth to the Guardian of the One Tree to consider themselves small. But the Manethrall has spoken aptly, though he knew it not.

“I have shared the horserite of the Ranyhyn, and have learned that we are not greater than they. Nor are we greater than the Ramen, who are content with service, and who do not attempt to alter that which lies beyond them.”

Mahrtiir muttered gruff approval. Surprise and wonder shone from the faces of his Cords.

Stave’s voice took on a palpable sharpness. “Nor are we greater than this Stonedownor, the least of the Chosen’s companions, for he seeks only to join his cause with hers, and to partake in beauties and powers which we have withheld from him.”

As he spoke, the assembled Masters watched him with darkness in their eyes, despite the many lamps; and the muscles at the corners of Handir’s jaw knotted and released with the heaviness of a deathwatch. Slowly the Humbled closed their hands into fists.

But Liand seemed not to notice the tightening among the Haruchai. Instead he simply stared at Stave, astonished to hear a Master say such things. And Linden, who felt the rise of tension, ignored it to listen and hold her breath, waiting for Stave’s conclusion.

Finally he turned again so that he stood facing the Voice of the Masters across the distorted stone. The lamplight emphasised the unwonted intensity in his gaze as he announced, “Because I have heard the laughter of the great horses, I will cast my lot with the Chosen. I cannot do less than the Ranyhyn. Whatever may befall her, I will endeavour to prove that I am equal to my fears.”

Linden hugged the Staff of Law to her chest with both arms, blinking furiously to hold back her tears. She wept too easily and did not mean to do so now.

At last-she breathed to herself. God, at last!

Stave of the Haruchai had brought her to Revelstone for this: so that he could declare himself in front of his people.

He had finally become her friend.

Chapter Twelve: Find Me

She could not imagine what the Masters would do now. But their accumulated judgment had a tangible force which seemed to bear down upon her from the sides of the Close, as heavy as Revelstone’s unillumined rock.

It felt like animosity.

She spared a glance and a quick nod for Liand’s open relief and Mahrtiir’s begrudged approval. Then she rose to her feet, holding the Staff before her like a talisman. At once, Liand and the Manethrall came to stand beside her.

Escorted by her friends, she approached Stave and bowed deeply, hoping that he would recognise the scale of her gratitude. However, the bow which he returned to her resembled a farewell more than an acknowledgment. His manner conveyed the impression that for her sake he had turned his back on more things than she could understand.

She wanted to ask him how the Masters would respond to his profession of faith; but her throat was full of other words which demanded utterance.

Meeting his single gaze, she said with her whole heart, “Thank you. I owe you more than I can ever repay.

“You’ve already done so much for me. You’ve been true-” Her voice broke momentarily. “I can’t even begin to describe how glad I am-“

In this place, she could not go further. Handir had not yet pronounced judgment upon her.

Dispassionately, as if he had no interest in her gratitude, Stave replied, “You are Linden Avery the Chosen. The Ranyhyn have taught me that I cannot refuse your service.”

“Still,” she countered, smiling sadly, “I hope that someday you’ll be sure you did the right thing.”

Because she was determined not to weep, she bowed again, as deeply as before. Then she turned toward the Voice of the Masters.

There she froze. The merciless clarity in his eyes chilled her: it seemed to settle like frost on her bones. She had to swallow a mouthful of dread before she could speak.

Awkwardly she asked, “So what’s it going to be? Are we on the same side?” His gaze covered her with rime. She had to cling to the Staff’s warmth to keep her voice from shaking. “Will you let me have Anele? Will you give me your help?”

“How will the sleepless ones refuse?” put in Mahrtiir. His tone held a sting of asperity. “Stave has confirmed the will of the Ranyhyn. Naught else signifies.”

But Handir did not choose to heed the Manethrall. Instead he replied, “Stand aside, Linden Avery. Another matter requires precedence. I will reply when it has been addressed.”

Commanded by his certainty, she stepped back, drawing Mahrtiir and Liand with her.

For a moment, Handir appeared to commune with all of the Masters mutely, mind to mind. When he was satisfied with their response, he nodded sternly; and the three Humbled moved closer.

Instinctively Linden lifted the Staff higher, thinking that the Humbled meant to reclaim Anele. But they did not. When they reached Handir’s side, Galt moved forward to confront Stave.

They faced each other in silence, as poised as predators, and as relaxed. They might have been living statues, motionless except for the subtle flex of their respiration; sculptures positioned to form a tableau of arcane and ambiguous intent. Then, without warning, Galt lashed a kick at Stave’s chest.

Stave made no move to defend himself. Only a hard flat exhalation indicated that he was prepared for the blow. He stood like stone to receive it.

The kick drove him backward a step; two. Linden could see its impact jolt through him, forceful as a sledgehammer. But then he regained his poise. Only a brief accentuation of his breathing betrayed that he had been struck.

“Heaven and Earth!” Liand cried. Whipping his garrote from his hair, Mahrtiir launched himself at Galt’s back with the suddenness of a panther. At the same time, Bhapa and Pahni leaped to their feet and rushed forward.

“No!” Linden gasped after the Manethrall. “Stop!”

An arm’s length from Galt, Mahrtiir halted; wheeled to face her.

She seemed to feel the power of Galt’s kick in her own chest. She could hardly choke out words.

“This is between them.” She understood Galt’s attack. Long ago she had watched the Haruchai pass judgment on Cail. She had feared that their violence would kill him. “Stave has to do this. You know how he feels about help.”

Unwitting flames licked along the surface of the Staff. Grimly she quenched them.

Mahrtiir hesitated. His desire for battle burned like the fires which lit the Close. But he heard Linden-and respected her judgment. Growling, “Sleepless ones,” as though the words were an obscenity, he returned to her side. With a brusque wave of his hand, he motioned the Cords back to their seats.

“Linden,” protested Liand under his breath, “they are Masters. They may be able to slay him.”

Through her teeth, she repeated, “This is between them.” She could not forget how Esmer had torn into Stave, delivering millennia of rage despite the Haruchai’s best efforts to defend himself. “He’s already been shamed enough.”

Galt did not renew his attack. Instead he withdrew; and Clyme came forward to take his place.

Again the two Masters faced each other in stillness. They may have been sparring mentally, probing each other’s mind for openings or weakness. When Clyme exploded into motion, he did not kick or punch. Rather he leaped high into the air, driving down at Stave’s shoulder with his elbow and all of his weight.

The Master was trying to cripple Stave-

Once again, Stave made no effort to defend himself. This time, however, he shifted slightly at the last instant so that Clyme’s elbow struck muscle rather than bone. The blow almost drove him to his knees; but it broke nothing.

Like Galt, Clyme withdrew, and the last of the Humbled advanced to challenge Stave.

Apparently Branl had decided to try for surprise by attacking immediately. Before Stave could set aside the pain in his shoulder, Branl hooked a vicious punch to the left side of his face: the blind side. Branl’s knuckles dug deep into the puckered flesh of Stave’s scar, pounding against the damaged tissue and bone beneath it.

Stave’s head rocked as if he had been clubbed: he barely kept his balance. But he did not repay the blow. The flat stare of his right eye suggested an acceptance more profound than resignation.

Branl may or may not have been satisfied. Linden could not tell. Sympathetic hurts ached in her chest, her shoulder, her cheek. But the Humbled stepped aside without hesitation.

Slowly the Voice of the Masters stepped in front of Stave.

Linden’s restraint broke. “Oh, come on!” she snapped, although she knew that Stave did not desire her intervention, and would not approve. “How much longer are you going to do this? There’s just one of him, for God’s sake! How much of your self-righteousness do you think he can stand?”

Neither Handir nor Stave answered her. But the Voice of the Masters may have been tired of her objections. Instead of probing mentally, he addressed Stave aloud.

“You have set yourself against the will of the Masters, when that will has not yet been decided. Indeed, you have endeavoured to impose your will upon us, shaming us with your words and your example. But the Masters are not shamed. We will not be shamed.

“We will consider your words and your example when we are ready to determine our path. But we will no longer heed you. Henceforth you are severed from the Masters, as from all of the Haruchai. When the rite of our disapproval has been completed, no hand will be raised against you. If you speak as I do now, you will be answered. But you are excluded from the true speech of the Haruchai, and if you call out you will not be heard. Nor will you be permitted to return to your home among the mountains. There will be no place for you. You have declared your allegiance. Now you must abide its outcome.

“This is my word. I will not alter it.”

So suddenly that Linden hardly saw him move, Handir attacked.

Like the Humbled, he struck only once. Unlike them, however, he used just the palm of his hand. And his blow seemed easy and fluid, hardly more than a light thrust. Yet Stave burst backward as though he had been kicked by a Ranyhyn. He tumbled through the air; slammed helplessly to the rough stone. For a heartbeat or two, he lay motionless.

Before Linden could start toward him, however, he raised his head. When he had braced his hands on the floor, he climbed slowly to his feet. Bright blood pulsed from the corner of his mouth as he resumed his stance. She could not imagine where he found the strength to remain standing.

The Voice of the Masters held Stave’s gaze for a long moment. Then he turned to Linden. “Be content,” he told her stolidly. “The rite has been completed.”

Blood splashed the front of Stave’s tunic, staining the ochre fabric with darkness. He did not deign to wipe it away.

“You’re wrong,” Linden panted. “It’s not over.” She needed all of her resolve to withhold fire from the Staff. “It’ll never be over. Someday you’re going to understand that you’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Handir replied with a slight shrug. When she fell silent, still panting, he said in the same tone, “There is much here which the Masters must consider. We will not choose our response in haste. Nevertheless our debate must now be curtailed.

“Certain of our scouts seek to return. They run before the host of the Demondim, calling to forewarn us as they ride. And they are not alone. They have retrieved two”- he paused and glanced away as if consulting the air, then met Linden’s gaze again- “two strangers from the path of the Vile-spawn.” Complex intentions seemed to undermine the flatness of his gaze. “They hasten toward us, pursued by the Demondim.

“We are summoned to greet the approach of our scouts, and of the strangers with them, as well as to answer an imminent siege.”

Linden scowled bitterly; but before she could pose a question, Handir announced, “This much I may grant, however. The madman Anele we release to you. Let it be upon your head if harm should befall the Land through any deed or inaction of his.

“All else which lies between us must remain unresolved until events permit consideration and decision.”

Expressionless and impenetrable, the Voice of the Masters strode past Linden toward the uneven slope leading up to the entrance of the Close. As one, the Humbled and the other Haruchai followed after him, leaving only Stave behind to guide Linden and her companions.

She would have sworn at his back if she could have thought of a curse harsh enough to breach his dispassion.

As soon as Handir and the other Masters had passed, she hurried toward Stave. “Are you all right?” His bleeding filled her with shame. She felt an almost unbearable yearning to cleanse it from him; to heal him. “Do you want my help?”

He shook his head. “Hurts of the flesh have no significance. The severance from my people is a deeper wound, beyond your succour.” His eye held her stricken gaze without flinching. “In their place, I would have done as they have.”

“But, Stave-“ She tried to protest, but her dismay surpassed her.

Swallowing blood, he continued, “We must witness the approach of the Demondim and these strangers.” A lift of his undamaged shoulder seemed to indicate the silence in his mind. His voice held an added stiffness like a hint of denied bereavement. “If we do not, we will be ignorant of what transpires.”

Still Linden wanted to weep for him; rail at the Masters; demand their acquiescence with fire. But there had been something in Handir’s tone when he had mentioned strangers-Although she could not read him, she had felt a change in his demeanour; a slippage behind his impassivity.

He had recognised the newcomers-

She remained motionless for a moment while her mind wheeled, grasping at possibilities which she could not define. Then she sighed. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

In spite of his injuries, the Haruchai turned at once to lead the way.

When she looked toward her friends, Liand nodded in spite of his chagrin. Glowering, Mahrtiir beckoned for his Cords to join him; and together Pahni and Bhapa brought Anele, encouraging him gently.

As she began the ascent to the entryway, Linden’s sense of loss grew. She felt that she was treading across Trell’s pain; that her boot heels wounded the twisted stone. When she reached the entrance, her mouth had gone dry; and the air beyond the chamber smelled of smoke and ashes, as if something more essential than lamp oil and torches were being consumed.

Now she wished that she had asked Liand to bring water as well as bread and cheese from her quarters. She had gained Stave’s support and freed Anele. The Staff in her hands reassured her. But the price-Revelstone was threatened by Demondim and the Illearth Stone because she had dared the past. The ur-viles and Waynhim had been decimated in her name, and many Haruchai had died. Her defiance had alienated the Masters. And because he had declared himself, Stave had suffered a hurt far more profound than the beating he had received from Esmer. She wanted water to wash down the taste of what she had accomplished.

Nevertheless she trudged onward, following her guide into the unmapped complications of Revelstone.

At first, she and her companions walked the unfamiliar passages in silence. This part of the Keep had not been prepared for guests: there were no lamps, and the torches were far apart, leaving only a faint tang of smoke in the air. But Stave knew the way and did not hesitate.

However, Liand emitted a growing disquiet, and his need to speak soon became palpable. Clearing his throat, he began awkwardly, “Stave-” Then he admitted, “I know not how to address you. I have considered you a Master, but now that title seems”- he faltered briefly- “false.”

I am Stave,” the Haruchai replied. “I need no other name.”

“Very well Liand tried again. “Stave. I wish to say-” For a moment longer, he struggled. Then he took on the dignity which Linden had first seen in him during their flight from Mithil Stonedown. In a firmer voice, he announced, “I regret that I have thought ill of you. Yes, and spoken ill as well. Your courage shames me.”

Stave may have shrugged. “We are all shamed, you no more than I”- he glanced at Linden- “and neither of us more than the Chosen, who should not have been subjected to the disapproval of the Masters.”

He waited until he had led his companions through the intersection of several corridors. Then he assured the Stonedownor, “Yet you need have no fear of me. I have claimed a place at the side of the Chosen, and will not withdraw from it.”

“I do not doubt you,” Mahrtiir put in gruffly. “You have won my esteem as well, Stave of the Haruchai. The Ramen will never again err by demeaning you.”

Stave nodded, but made no other reply.

I have claimed-Again Linden fought back tears. She feared that she would never be done with weeping. She had only been in the Land for a few days, and already she needed so much forgiveness-

Even Anele had refused to let her heal him.

They walked on; and Linden’s thirst increased; and the passages of Revelstone seemed to have no end. Eventually, however, they reached a broad stair which appeared to curve up indefinitely into the dark rock of the Keep. And at the foot of the stair they found a stout figure waiting for them.

The nearest torch was some distance away. In spite of the gloom, however, Linden soon recognised the Mahdoubt. The comfortable complacency of the older woman’s aura was unmistakable.

Still shadows seemed to trail about the Mahdoubt like wisps of fog. But then she faced Linden with her startling eyes; and at once every scrap and tatter of obscurity dissipated, evaporated by her oblique warmth. Now she became more vivid to Linden’s health-sense than any of her companions; more distinct than the stone of the halls. The Mahdoubt’s presence shone in the dimness, lambent with abundance and implications. She appeared to command a personal dimension which was at once more ordinary and more numinous than any other place in the Keep.

Apparently Mahrtiir had not encountered the Mahdoubt before. He started forward to place himself between Linden and the older woman. But Liand caught his arm and explained quickly, “She is the Mahdoubt. She serves Revelstone. And she has cared for us kindly.”

Mahrtiir peered through the dimness. “She serves?” He sounded surprised. “Yet she is-” He hesitated. “There is that about her which-” Then he shook his head. “Perhaps I am mistaken.” To the Mahdoubt, he added, “I crave your pardon. My concerns have misled me.”

Stave said nothing. However, he bowed to the older woman as he had to Linden, acknowledging her worth in spite of his injuries.

The Mahdoubt ignored all of the men. “The lady is thirsty,” she huffed as if to reprove some fault in Revelstone’s hospitality-or in Linden. “She neglects her own needs. Is the Mahdoubt pleased? She is not. Oh, assuredly. Yet it is her burden and her gift to supply care where it is found lacking.”

From within her miswoven robe she produced a flagon of water which she thrust unceremoniously at Linden.

As Linden accepted it, the Mahdoubt continued, “The lady must not delay. Peril awaits her. Peril and pain, most assuredly. Yet the Mahdoubt will hinder her a moment. A little moment.”

The woman stepped closer. “Heed her, lady,” she urged, whispering. “The Masters know not what they do.” She appeared to believe that Stave and the others could not hear her. “Nor does the lady.” She sighed lugubriously. “Nor does the Mahdoubt, alas.”

Then she breathed with an air of intensity, “This, however, she knows assuredly. Be cautious of love. It misleads. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction.”

Linden stared at her. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

The Mahdoubt did not answer. Instead she turned and walked away. As she moved, she appeared to wrap herself in shadows so that she slipped from sight almost at once.

Be cautious of love?

“Strange-” Mahrtiir murmured, gazing after the woman. “For a momenta moment only-I seemed to see another in her place. Yet the seeming was brief. It mystifies me.”

“Stave-?” Linden asked without knowing how to put her question into words.

“She is the Mahdoubt,” he replied stolidly. “She serves Revelstone. Naught else is certain of her.”

With one hand, he gestured toward the stair, urging his companions to ascend.

Linden eyed the heights. She was too tired for this-and understood too little. But the Mahdoubt had given her water, and when she drank deeply she began to feel somewhat stronger. Handing the flagon to Liand, she said with a sigh, “All right. I’m ready. This can’t go on forever.”

With her companions, she followed Stave up the stairs.

They seemed to ascend for a long time; but when the Haruchai at last guided his small company into a side passage, the way became easier. And soon Linden saw more light ahead: not the flickering of torches, or the yellow glow of lamps, but the bright illumination of day.

Stave had brought them to a balcony in the prow of the Keep, a walled projection overlooking the courtyard above the inner gates. From a gap in the ramparts, a narrow bridge of wooden slats hung suspended between the Keep and the watchtower, supported by ropes as thick as hawsers. More ropes served as railings and handholds on either side of the span.

Stave strode out onto the slats without hesitation. After a moment, Linden followed, balancing herself with the Staff, and trusting the ropes to keep her safe.

When she and her companions had crossed the span, Stave led them past tall piles of firewood and clay tubs of oil-the Keep’s first defence against the Demondim-to another walled projection like a coign several levels above the open gates of the tower. From this vantage, they could see a wide arc of Revelstone’s environs: north toward a region of newly planted fields, south and west among the hills that buttressed the Keep’s jutting plateau, and east down the long gradual slope of the bare plain where the previous day Linden and her company had emerged from her caesure, pursued by monsters.

Glancing down, she saw Handir and the Humbled on a similar coign one level below her. Their attention was fixed to the east. As soon as she looked in that direction, she saw what held their eyes.

Some distance away, perhaps half a league, the horde of the Demondim was plainly visible, advancing in an undifferentiated tumult toward the Keep. Even from so far away, the Vile-spawn seemed potent enough to overwhelm the Keep. Their malice howled at Linden’s senses, and a clangour of opalescence stung the skin of her cheeks. At intervals, rank emerald flashed into the skies, staining her vision with images of violence; and concussions followed after them, hard blows which kicked up spouts and ripples of dust all around the horde. Despite the distance, faint tremors reached the watchtower. The stone seemed to shiver in reply, spreading visceral dread along her nerves.

Briefly the effects of the Illearth Stone consumed Linden’s attention. But then Stave pointed out over the plain; and she saw a small cluster of riders racing ahead of the onslaught.

Four Masters mounted on horses galloped for their lives. She could not guess how long or how far they had fled: the frenzy of the horses suggested that they had been ridden hard. But they had opened a gap between themselves and the Demondim. If they did not fall or falter, they would reach the watchtower ahead of their pursuers; in time for Revelstone’s defenders to close the gates.

Peering fearfully across the distance, Linden counted four horses, four Masters. But two of the mounts bore other riders as well: the beasts were badly overburdened. Although their terror goaded them, they were falling behind their companions. And they looked like they were about to founder. At erratic intervals, they stumbled under the weight of their riders.

When she saw them clearly, Linden’s heart seemed to fail her, and she sank to her knees. The Staff clattered, forgotten, to the stone beside her.

The Masters had not rescued strangers. She knew both of them intimately.

One was Jeremiah; her son beyond question. As the Master’s mount pounded the dirt, the boy waved his arms, urging the horse to run faster, and shouted encouragement to the other riders.

Even from so far away, Linden could see that his eyes were afire with excitement.

The other stranger was unmistakably Thomas Covenant.