Fatal Revenant

Chapter One: Reunion

In sunshine as vivid as revelation, Linden Avery knelt on the stone of a low-walled coign like a balcony high in the outward face of Revelstone’s watchtower.

Implacable as the Masters, Stave of the Haruchai stood beside her: he had led her here in spite of the violence with which his kinsmen had spurned him. And at the wall, the young Stonedownor, Liand, stared his surprised concern and incomprehension down at the riders fleeing before the onrush of the Demondim. Like Stave, if by design rather than by blows, he had abandoned his entire life for Linden’s sake; but unlike the former Master, he could not guess who rode with the Haruchai far below him. He could only gaze urgently at the struggling horses, and at the leashed seethe of theurgy among the monsters, and gape questions for which he seemed to have no words or no voice.

At that moment, however, neither Liand nor Stave impinged on Linden’s awareness. They were not real to her.

Near Liand, Manethrall Mahrtiir studied the exhausted mounts with Ramen concentration while his devoted Cords, Bhapa and Pahni, protected mad, blind Anele from the danger of a fall that he could not see.

With Linden, they had crossed hundreds of leagues-and many hundreds of years-to come to this place at this time. In her name, they had defied the repudiation of the Masters who ruled over the Land.

But none of her companions existed for her.

To the north lay the new fields which would feed Revelstone’s inhabitants. To the south, the foothills of the Keep’s promontory tumbled toward the White River. And from the southeast came clamouring the mass of the Demondim, vicious as a host of doom. The monsters appeared to melt and solidify from place to place as they pursued their prey: four horses at the limits of their strength, bearing six riders.

Six riders. But four of them were Masters; and for Linden, they also did not exist. She saw only the others.

In the instant that she recognised Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah, the meaning of her entire life changed. Everything that she had known and understood and assumed was altered, rendering empty or unnecessary or foolish her original flight from the Masters, her time among the Ramen, her participation in the horserite of the Ranyhyn. Even her precipitous venture into the Land’s past in order to retrieve her Staff of Law no longer held any significance.

Thomas Covenant was alive: the only man whom she had ever loved.

Her son was free. Somehow he had eluded Lord Foul’s cruel grasp.

And Jeremiah’s mind had been restored. His eager encouragement of the Masters and their mounts as they struggled to outrun the horde showed clearly that he had found his way out of his mental prison; or had been rescued—

Transfixed, she stared at them past the wall of her vantage point, leaping toward them with her gaze and her health-sense and her starved soul. Moments ago, she had seen only the ruinous advance of the Demondim. But now she was on her knees, struck down by the miraculous sight of her adopted son and her dead lover rushing toward Revelstone for their lives.

Already her arms ached to hold them.

For two or three heartbeats, surely no more than that, she remained kneeling while Liand tried to find his voice, and Stave said nothing, and Mahrtiir murmured tensely to his Cords. Then she snatched up the Staff and surged to her feet. Mute and compelled, she flung herself back into the watchtower, intending to make her way down to the open gates; to greet Jeremiah and Covenant with her embrace and her straining heart.

But the chambers within the tower were crowded with tall mounds of firewood and tubs of oil. At first, she could not locate a stairway. And when she discovered the descent, the Masters refused to let her pass. One of them stood on the stair to forbid her.

“We prepare for battle,” he informed her curtly. His people had already refused her claims on them. “You will be endangered here.”

He did not add, And you will impede our efforts. Nor did she pause to heed him, or to contest the stair. Linden, find me. Her need for haste was too great. In all of her years with her son, she had never seen him react to people and events around him; had never seen an expression of any kind on his slack features. Riding toward Revelstone, however, his face shone with excitement as he waved his arms, urging his companions forward.

She wheeled away from the stair; ran for the suspended wooden bridge which linked the tower to the battlements of Revelstone.

Stave came to guide her. He had not wiped the blood from his mouth and chin. Dark stains marked his tunic. But his hurts did not slow him. And Mahrtiir accompanied him, with Bhapa, Pahni, and Liand grouped around Anele at his back.

They were her friends, but she hardly noticed them.

Fearless with urgency, she followed Stave and Mahrtiir across the unsteady span above the courtyard between the watchtower and Revelstone’s inner gates. Gripping the Staff hard in one hand, she pursued her guides into the sudden gloom of the Keep’s lightless passages.

She did not know the way. She had spent too little time here to learn even a few of Revelstone’s complex intersections and halls. And she required illumination. If she had been willing to move more slowly, using only her enhanced senses, she could have trailed Stave’s hard shape and Mahrtiir’s more legible tension through the wrought gutrock. But she had to hurry. Instinctively, irrationally, she felt that her own rush to meet them might enable Jeremiah and Covenant to reach the comparative safety of the massive interlocking gates, the friable sanctuary of the Masters. As the reflected sunshine behind her faded, and the darkness ahead deepened, she called up a gush of flame from one iron heel of the Staff. That warm light, as soft and clean as cornflowers, allowed her to press Stave and the Manethrall to quicken their pace.

Nearly running, they descended stairways apparently at random, some broad and straight enough to accommodate throngs, others narrow spirals delving downward. Her need for haste was a fever. Surely she could reach the cavernous hall within the gates ahead of Jeremiah and Covenant and their small band of Masters?

Her friends followed close behind her. Anele was old; but his intimacy with stone, and his decades among the mountains, made him sure-footed: he did not slow Liand and the Cords. And after them came the three Humbled, Galt, Clyme, and Branl, maimed icons of the Masters’ commitments. They were as stubborn and unreadable as Stave; but Linden did not doubt that they intended to protect her-or to protect against her. The Masters had rejected Stave because he had declared himself her ally; her friend. Naturally they would not now trust him to fill any of their self-assigned roles.

Fervidly she tried to cast her health-sense farther, striving to penetrate Revelstone’s ancient rock so that she might catch some impression of the Vile-spawn. How near had they come? Had they overtaken Covenant and Jeremiah? But she could not concentrate while she dashed and twisted down the passages. She could only chase after Stave and Mahrtiir, and fear that her loved ones had already fallen beneath the breaking tsunami of the Demondim.

But they had not, she insisted to herself. They had not. The Demondim had withdrawn their siege the previous day for a reason. Possessed by some fierce and fiery being, Anele had confronted the Vile-spawn; and they had responded by allowing Linden and those with her to escape-and then by appearing to abandon their purpose against Lord’s Keep. Why had they acted thus, if not so that Jeremiah and Covenant might reach her? If they desired Jeremiah’s death, and Covenant’s, they could have simply awaited their prey in front of Revelstone’s gates.

Jeremiah and Covenant were not being hunted: they were being herded.

Why the Demondim-and Anele’s possessor-might wish her loved ones to reach her alive, she could not imagine. But she strove to believe that Covenant and Jeremiah would not fall. The alternatives were too terrible to be endured.

Then Linden saw a different light ahead of her: it spilled from the courtyard into the Keep. A moment later, Stave and Mahrtiir led her down the last stairs to the huge forehall. Now she did not need the Staff’s flame; but she kept it burning nonetheless. She might require its power in other ways.

The time-burnished stone echoed her boot heels as she ran into the broad hall and cast her gaze past the gates toward the courtyard and the passage under the watchtower.

Beyond the sunshine in the courtyard, the shrouded gloom and angle of the wide tunnel obscured her line of sight. She felt rather than saw the open outer gates, the slope beyond them. With her health-sense, she descried as if they were framed in stone the four Masters astride their labouring horses. Covenant clung to the back of one of the Haruchai. Jeremiah balanced precariously behind another.

The mustang that bore her son was limping badly: it could not keep pace with the other beasts. And Covenant’s mount staggered on the verge of foundering. All of the horses were exhausted. Even at this distance, Linden sensed that only their terror kept them up and running. Yet somehow they remained ahead of the swarming Demondim. If the monsters did not strike out with the might of the IIIearth Stone, the riders would reach the outer gates well before their pursuers.

The fact that the Vile-spawn had not already made use of the Stone seemed to confirm Linden’s clenched belief that Jeremiah and Covenant were being herded rather than hunted.

She wanted to cry out her own encouragement and desperation; wanted to demand why the Masters had not organised a sally to defend her loved ones; wanted to oppose the horde with Law and Earthpower in spite of the distance. But she bit down on her lip to silence her panic. Jeremiah and Covenant would not hear her. The Haruchai could not combat the Demondim effectively. And she did not trust herself to wield power when the people whom she yearned to save were between her and the horde.

Grimly she forced herself to wait, holding her fire over her head like a beacon, nearly a stone’s throw from the courtyard so that the Keep’s defenders would have room in which to fight if the monsters could not be prevented from passing the gates.

Abruptly the Masters and their horses surged between the outer gates into the dark tunnel. Hooves clanged on the worn stone as first Covenant and then Jeremiah fell into shadow.

A heartbeat later, ponderous as leviathans, the outer gates began to close.

The heavy stone seemed to move slowly, far too slowly to close out the rapacity of the monsters. Through her fear, however, Linden realised that the Demondim had once again slackened their pace, allowing their foes to escape. She felt the impact as the gates thudded together, shutting out the Vile-spawn, plunging the tunnel into stark blackness.

Then the riders reached daylight in the courtyard, and she saw that all six of them were safe. She did not know how far they had fled the Demondim; but she recognised at once that none of them had suffered any harm.

The mounts had not fared so well. Like their riders, the horses were uninjured. But their terror had driven them to extremes which might yet kill them: they had galloped hard and long enough to break their hearts. Yet they did not stop until they had crossed the courtyard and passed between the inner gates. Then, as those gates also began to close, shutting out the last daylight, Jeremiah’s mount stumbled to its knees; fell gasping on its side with froth and blood on its muzzle. Jeremiah would have plunged to the stone, but the Master with him caught him and lifted him aside. The horse bearing Covenant endured only a moment longer before it, too, collapsed. But Covenant and his fellow rider were able to leap clear.

When the inner gates met and sealed like the doors of a tomb, the flame of the Staff was the only light that remained in the forehall.

The Ramen protested at the condition of the horses; but Linden ignored them. She had already begun to rush forward, avid to clasp her loved ones, when Covenant yelled as if in rage, “Hellfire, Linden! Put that damn thing out!”

She stopped, gasping as though his vehemence had snatched the air from her lungs. Her power fell from her, and instant darkness burst over her head like a thunderclap.

Oh, God-

Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.

If she could have found her voice, or drawn sufficient breath, she might have cried out at the Despiser, You bastard! What have you done?

A hand closed on her arm. She hardly heard Stave as he urged her softly, “A moment, Chosen. Handir and others approach, bearing torches among them. You need only constrain yourself for a moment.”

He could still hear the mental speech of the Masters, although they now refused to address or answer him in that fashion.

At once, she rounded on Stave. Behind him, Liand and the Ramen were whispering, perhaps asking her questions, but she had no attention to spare for them. Gripping Stave as he gripped her, she demanded, “Your senses are better than mine.” Like their preternatural strength, the vision of the Haruchai had always exceeded hers. “Can you see them?” See into them? “Are they all right?”

In the absence of the Staffs flame, she knew only blackness and consternation.

“They appear whole,” the former Master answered quietly. “The ur-Lord has ever been closed to the Haruchai. Even the Bloodguard could not discern his heart. And his companion”- Stave paused as if to confirm his perceptions- “is likewise hidden.”

“You can’t see anything?” insisted Linden. Even Kevin’s Dirt could not blind the Masters—

Stave may have shrugged. “I perceive his presence, and that of his companion. Nothing more.

“Chosen,” he asked almost immediately, is the ur-Lord’s companion known to you?”

Linden could not answer. She had no room for any questions but her own. Instead she started to say, Take me to them. She needed to be led. Covenant’s shout had shattered her concentration: she might as well have been blind.

But then the torches that Stave had promised appeared. Their unsteady light wavered toward her from the same passage which had admitted her and her companions to the forehall.

A few heartbeats later, the Voice of the Masters, Handir, entered the hall. A coterie of Haruchai accompanied him, some bearing fiery brands. As they moved out into the dark, the ruddy light of the flames spread along the stone toward the gates. It seemed to congeal like blood in the vast gloom.

Now Linden could see the faces of her companions, confused by erratic shadows. None of them had the knowledge or experience to recognise Covenant and Jeremiah. Perhaps as a reproach to Linden, Handir had called the newcomers “strangers.” Nevertheless Mahrtiir and his Cords may have been able to guess at Covenant’s identity. The Ramen had preserved ancient tales of the first Ringthane. But Liand had only his open bafflement to offer Linden’s quick glance.

Apparently none of the Masters had done her friends the courtesy of mentioning Covenant’s name aloud. And of course even the Masters could only speculate about Jeremiah.

Then the light reached the cluster of horses and their riders within the gates; and Linden forgot everything except the faces that she loved more dearly than any others she had ever known.

Unconscious that she was moving again, she hurried toward them, chasing the limits of the ambiguous illumination.

The inadequacy of the torches blurred their features. Nevertheless she could not be mistaken about them. Every flensed line of Covenant’s form was familiar to her. Even his clothes-his old jeans and boots, and the T-shirt that had seen too much wear and pain-were as she remembered them. When he held up his hands, she could see that the right lacked its last two fingers. His strict gaze caught and held the light redly, as if he were afire with purpose and desire.

And Jeremiah was imprinted on her heart. She knew his gangling teenaged body as intimately as her own. His tousled hair and slightly scruffy cheeks, smudged here and there with dirt or shadows, could belong to no one else. He still wore the sky-blue pajamas with the mustangs rampant across the chest in which she had dressed him for bed days or worlds earlier, although they were torn now, and stained with grime or blood. And, like Covenant’s, his right hand had been marred by the amputation of two fingers, in his case the first two.

Only the eagerness which enlivened the muddy colour of his eyes violated Linden’s knowledge of him.

The light expanded as more torches were lit. Holding brands high, the Humbled followed her, joined by her friends; followed as if she pulled them along behind her, drawing their fires with her. Now she could see clearly the cut in Covenant’s shirt where he had been stabbed, and the old scar on his forehead. Flames lit his eyes like threats; demands. His appearance was only slightly changed. After ten years and more than three millennia, the grey was gone from his hair: he looked younger despite his gauntness. And the marks of the wounds that he had received while Linden had known him were gone as well, burned away by his consummation in wild magic. Yet every compelling implication of his visage was precious to her.

Nevertheless she did not approach him. Deeper needs sent her hastening toward Jeremiah.

She was still ten paces from her son, however, when Covenant snapped harshly, “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch either of us!”

Linden did not stop. She could not. Long days of loss and alarm impelled her. And she had never before seen anything that resembled consciousness in Jeremiah’s eyes. Had never seen him react and move as he did now. She could not stop until she flung her arms around him and felt his heart beating against hers.

At once, his expression became one of dismay; almost of panic. Then he raised his halfhand-and a wave of force like a wall halted her.

It was as warm as steam: except to her health-sense, it was as invisible as vapour. And it was gone in an instant.

Yet she remained motionless as if he had frozen her in place. The shock of his power to repulse her deprived her of will and purpose. Even her reflexive desire to embrace him had been stunned.

At a word from Mahrtiir, Bhapa and Pahni moved away to help the Masters tend the horses. The Manethrall remained behind Linden with Liand, Anele, and Stave.

“He’s right,” said Jeremiah: the first words that Linden had ever heard him utter. His voice sounded as unsteady as the torchlight, wavering between childhood and maturity, a boy’s treble and a man’s baritone. “You can’t touch either of us. And you can’t use that Staff.” He grinned hugely. “You’ll make us disappear.”

Among the shadows cast by the flames, she saw a small muscle beating like a pulse at the corner of his left eye.

Linden might have wept then, overwhelmed by shock and need. Suddenly, however, she had no tears. The Mahdoubt had told her, Be cautious of love. It misleads. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction. And days ago Covenant had tried to warn her through Anele—

Between one heartbeat and the next, she seemed to find herself in the presence, not of her loved ones, but of her nightmares.

In the emptiness and silence of the high forehall, the old man asked plaintively, “What transpires? Anele sees no one. Only Masters, who have promised his freedom. Is aught amiss?”

No one answered him. Instead Handir stepped forward and bowed to Covenant. “Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant,” he said firmly, “Unbeliever and Earthfriend, you are well come. Be welcome in Revelstone, fist and faith-and your companion with you. Our need is sore, and your coming an unlooked-for benison. We are the Masters of the Land. I am Handir, by right of years and attainment the Voice of the Masters. How may we serve you, with the Demondim massed at our gates, and their malice plain in the exhaustion of your mounts?”

“No,” Linden said before Covenant-or Jeremiah-could respond. “Handir, stop. Think about this.”

She spoke convulsively, goaded by inexplicable fears. The Demondim allowed us to escape yesterday. Then they pulled back so that”- she could not say Covenant’s name, or Jeremiah’s, not now; not when she had been forbidden to touch them- “so that these people could get through. Those monsters want this.” Her throat closed for a moment. She had to swallow grief like a mouthful of ashes before she could go on. “Otherwise they would have used the IIIearth Stone.”

The Demondim had not planned this. They could not have planned it. They had not known that she would try to protect the Land by snatching them with her out of the past. If Anele had not been possessed by a being of magma and rage, and had not encountered the Vile-spawn

Surely Covenant and Jeremiah would not be standing in front of her, refusing her, if some powerful enemy had not willed it?

Turning from the Voice of the Masters to Covenant, she demanded, “Are you even real”?”

The Dead in Andelain were ghosts; insubstantial. They could not be touched

Covenant faced her with something like mirth or scorn in his harsh gaze. “Hell and blood, Linden,” he drawled. “It’s good to see you haven’t changed. I knew you wouldn’t take all this at face value. I’m glad I can still trust you.”

With his left hand, he beckoned for one of the Humbled. When Branl stepped forward holding a torch, Covenant took the brand from him. Waving the flame from side to side as if to demonstrate his material existence, Covenant remarked, “Oh, were real enough.” Aside to Jeremiah, he added, “Show her.”

Still grinning, Jeremiah reached into the waistband of his pajamas and drew out a bright red toy racing car-the same car that Linden had seen him holding before Sheriff Lytton’s deputies had opened fire. He tossed it lightly back and forth between his hands for a moment, then tucked it away again. His manner said as clearly as words, See, Mom? See?

Linden studied his pajamas urgently for bullet holes. But the fabric was too badly torn and stained to give any indication of what had happened to him before he had been drawn to the Land.

None of the Masters spoke. Apparently they understood that her questions required answers.

Abruptly Covenant handed his torch back to Branl. As Branl withdrew to stand with Galt and Clyme, Covenant returned his attention to Linden.

“This isn’t easy for you. I know that.” Now his voice sounded hoarse with disuse. He seemed to pick his words as though he had difficulty remembering the ones he wanted. “Trust me, it isn’t easy for us either.

“We’re here. But we aren’t just here.” Then he sighed. “There’s no good way to explain it. You don’t have the experience to understand it.” His brief smile reminded her that she had rarely seen such an expression on his face. Roger had smiled at her more often. “Jeremiah is here, but Foul still has him. I’m here, but I’m still part of the Arch of Time.

“You could say I’ve folded time so we can be in two places at once. Or two realities.” Another smile flickered across his mouth, contradicted by the flames reflecting in his eyes. “Being part of Time has some advantages. Not many. There are too many limitations, and the strain is fierce. But I can still do a few tricks.”

For a moment, his hands reached out as if he wanted something from her; but he pulled them back almost at once.

“The problem with what I’m doing,” he said trenchantly, “is that you’ve got too much power, and it’s the wrong kind for me. Being in two places at once breaks a lot of rules.” This time, his smile resembled a grimace. “If you touch either one of us-or if you use that Staff-you’ll undo the fold. Time will snap back into shape.

“It’s like your son says,” he finished. “We’ll disappear. I’m not strong enough to keep us here.”

“Your son?” Liand breathed. “Linden, is this your son?”

“Liand, no,” Mahrtiir instructed at once. “Do not speak. This lies beyond us. The Ringthane will meet our questions when greater matters have been resolved.”

Linden did not so much as glance at them. But she could no longer look at Covenant. The torchlight in his eyes, and his unwonted smiles, daunted her. She understood nothing. She wanted to scoff at the idea of folding time. Or perhaps she merely yearned to reject the thought that she might undo such theurgy. How could she bear to be in his presence, and in Jeremiah’s, without touching them?

As if she were turning her back, she shifted so that she faced only her son.

“Jeremiah, honey-” she began. Oh, Jeremiah! Her eyes burned, although she had no tears. “None of this makes sense. Is he telling the truth?”

Had her son been restored to her for this? And was he truly still in Lord Foul’s grasp, suffering the Despiser’s wealth of torments in some other dimension or manifestation of time?

She was unable to see the truth for herself. Covenant and her son were closed to her, as they were to Stave and the Masters.

An Elohim had warned the Ramen as well as Liand’s people to Beware the halfhand.

Jeremiah gazed at her with a frown. He seemed to require a visible effort to set aside his excitement. You know he is, Mom.” His tone held an unexpected edge of reproach; of impatience with her confusion and yearning. “He’s Thomas Covenant. You can see that. He’s already saved the Land twice. He can’t be anybody else.”

But then he appeared to take pity on her. Ducking his head, he added softly, “What you can’t see is how much it hurts that I’m not just here.”

For years, she had hungered for the sound of her son’s voice; starved for it as though it were the nurturance that would give her life meaning. Yet now every word from his mouth only multiplied her chagrin.

Why could she not weep? She had always shed tears too easily. Surely her sorrow and bafflement were great enough for sobbing? Still her eyes remained dry; arid as a wilderland.

“All you have to do is trust me,” Covenant put in. “Or if you can’t do that, trust him.” He nodded toward Jeremiah. “We can do this. We can make it come out right. That’s another advantage I have. We have. We know what needs to be done.”

Angry because she had no other outlet, Linden wheeled back to confront the Unbeliever. “Is that a fact?” Her tone was acid. She had come to this: her beloved and her son were restored to her, and she treated them like foes. “Then tell me something. Why did the Demondim let you live? Hell, why have they left any of us alive? It was just yesterday that they wanted to kill us.”

Jeremiah laughed as if he were remembering one of the many jokes that she had told him over the years; jokes with which she had attempted to provoke a reaction when he was incapable of any response. The muscle at the corner of his left eye continued its tiny beat. But Covenant glared at her, and the fires in his gaze seemed hotter than any of the torches.

“Another trick,” he told her sourly. “An illusion.” He made a dismissive gesture with his halfhand. “Oh, I didn’t have anything to do with what happened yesterday.” Despite its size, the forehall seemed full of halfhands, the Humbled as well as Covenant and Jeremiah. “That’s a different issue. But they let Jeremiah and me get through because”- Covenant shrugged stiffly- “well, I suppose you could say I put a crimp in their reality. Just a little one. I’m already stretched pretty thin. I can’t do too many things at once. So I made us look like bait. Like we were leading them into an ambush. Like there’s a kind of power here they don’t understand. That’s why they just chased us instead of attacking. They want to contain us until they figure out what’s going on. And maybe they like the idea of trapping all their enemies in one place.”

Again he smiled at Linden, although his eyes continued to glare. “Are you satisfied? At least for now? Can I talk to Handir for a minute? Jeremiah and I need rest. You have no idea of the strain-”

He sighed heavily. And we have to get ready before those Demondim realise I made fools out of them. Once that happens, they’re going to unleash the IIIearth Stone. Then hellfire and bloody damnation won’t be something we just talk about. They’ll be real, and they’ll be here.”

Apparently he wanted Linden to believe that he was tired. Yet to her ordinary eyes he looked potent enough to defeat the horde unaided.

And her son seemed to belong with him.

She could not identify them with her health-sense. Jeremiah and Covenant were as blank, as isolated from her, as they would have been in her natural world. Yet there she would have been able to at least touch them. Here, in the unrevealing light of the torches, and fraught with shadows, Jeremiah seemed as distant and irreparable as the Unbeliever, in spite of his obvious alert sentience.

If Covenant could do all of this, why had he told her to find him?

Bowing her head, Linden forced herself to take a step backward, and another, into the cluster of her friends. She ached for the comfort of their support. She could discern them clearly enough: Liand’s open amazement, his concern on her behalf; Mahrtiir’s rapt eagerness and wonder and suspicion;

Anele’s distracted mental wandering. Even Stave’s impassivity and his ruined eye and his new hurts felt more familiar to her than Covenant and Jeremiah, her loved ones. Yet the complex devotion of those who stood with her gave no anodyne for what she had gained and lost.

Linden, find me.

Be cautious of love.

She needed the balm of touching Covenant; of hugging and hugging Jeremiah, running her fingers through his hair, stroking his cheeks-But she had been refused. Even the warm clean fire of the Staff of Law had been forbidden to her.

Covenant nodded with an air of satisfaction. Then both he and Jeremiah turned to the Voice of the Masters.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” For a moment, Covenant’s voice held an unwonted note of unction, although he suppressed it quickly. “You know Linden. When she has questions, she insists on answers.” He grinned as if he were sharing a joke with Handir. “You have to respect that.”

Then he swallowed his smile. “You said we’re well come. You have no idea how well come we are.

“You speak for the Masters?”

Abruptly Linden swung away from them. She could no longer bear the sight of her son’s eagerness and denial. She wished that she could close her ears to the sound of Covenant’s voice.

In the light of the torches, her friends studied her. Liand’s curiosity and puzzlement had become alarm, and Mahrtiir glowered. Stave’s single eye regarded her with characteristic stoicism. Anele’s moonstone blindness shifted uncertainly around the great hall as though he were trying to recapture an elusive glimpse of significance.

Because her nerves burned for human contact-for any touch which might reassure her-she hooked her arms around Liand’s and Mahrtiir’s shoulders. At once, Liand gave her a hug like a promise that she could rely on him, whatever happened. And after an instant of hesitation, Mahrtiir did the same. Through his dislike of impending rock and the lack of open skies, she tasted his readiness to fight any foe in her name.

With senses other than sight, she felt Handir bowing to Covenant a second time, although the Voice of the Masters had never bowed to her.

“I am Handir,” he began again, “by right of-”

“Of years and attainment,” interrupted Covenant brusquely. “The Voice of the Masters.” Now his manner seemed to betray the exertion he had claimed; the difficulty of folding time. “I heard you the first time.

“Handir, I know you’re worried about the Demondim. You should be. You and your people can’t hold out against them. Not if they use the Stone. But they’re unsure of themselves right now. By hell, Foul himself is probably having fits.” Grim pleasure glinted through the impatience in Covenant’s tone. “They’ll realise the truth eventually. But I’ve been pretty clever, if I do say so myself.” With her peripheral vision, Linden saw Jeremiah’s nod, his happy grin. “I think we might have a day, or even two, before the real shit hits the fan.”

To her friends, Linden murmured, “Don’t say anything. Just listen.” She could not bear to be questioned. Not now. She was in too much pain. “That’s Thomas Covenant and my son. My Jeremiah. I know them.

“But there’s something wrong here. Something dangerous. Maybe it’s just the strain of what they’re doing.” Being in two places at once? “Maybe that’s making them both a little crazy.” Or maybe the Despiser had indeed done something. Maybe the Elohim had sought to warn the Land against the halfhand for good reason. “Whatever it is, I need your help.

“Mahrtiir, I want Bhapa and Pahni to stay with Liand and Anele.” Liand opened his mouth to protest, but Linden’s grip on his shoulder silenced him. “The Masters won’t threaten you,” she told him. “I trust them that far,” in spite of what the Humbled and Handir had done to Stave. They were Haruchai. “But I have to be alone, and I’ll feel better if Bhapa and Pahni are with you.” She had seen Ramen Cords fight: she knew what Bhapa and Pahni could do. “Whatever is going on here, it might have consequences that we can’t imagine.” Don’t touch him! Don’t touch either of us! To Mahrtiir, she added, “They should be safe enough in Liand’s room.”

In response, the Manethrall nodded his assent.

“Anele is confused,” the old man informed the air of the forehall. “He feels Masters and urgency, but the cause is hidden. The stone tells him nothing.”

Linden ignored him Covenant was still speaking to Handir.

“What Jeremiah and I want right now is a place where we can rest without being disturbed. Some food, and maybe some springwine, if you’ve got it. We have to gather our strength.”

Linden tried to ignore him as well. “As for you,” she continued to Mahrtiir, “I need you to guide me out of here. To the plateau.” He and his Cords had spent the night there. He would know the way. “I can’t think like this. I need daylight.”

She might find what she sought in the potent waters of Glimmermere. The lake could not give her answers, but it might help her to remember who she was.

The Manethrall nodded again. When he left her so that he could speak to Pahni and Bhapa, she turned to Stave. The tasks that she had in mind for him would be harder—

Meeting his gaze with her dry, burning eyes, she said, “I want you to find the Mahdoubt for me. Please.” Be cautious of love. “I need to talk to her.” That strange, kindly woman had given Linden a hint of what was in store. If Linden probed her directly, she might say more. And keep the Humbled away from me. If you can. I can’t face their distrust right now.”

Her memories of Glimmermere-of Thomas Covenant as he had once been-were private and precious. She could not expose them, or herself, to anyone: certainly not to the demeaning suspicions of Branl, Galt, or Clyme.

Stave did not hesitate. “Chosen, I will,” he said as if obstructing the actions of the Masters were a trivial challenge.

At least he was still able to hear his people’s thoughts—

Behind Linden, Covenant appeared to be nearing the end of his exchange with Handir. His voice had become a hoarse rasp, thick with effort. Yet when she glanced at him at last, Linden saw that he was smiling again.

At Covenant’s side, Jeremiah seemed hardly able to contain his anticipation. The only sign that he might still be in Lord Foul’s power was the rapid beating at the corner of his eye.

“I know what to do,” Covenant assured the Voice of the Masters. “That’s why we’re here. When we’re done, your problems will be over. But first I’ll have to convince Linden, and that won’t be easy. I’m too tired to face it right now.

“Just give us a place to rest. And keep her away from us until I’m ready. We’ll take care of everything else.” Darkly he avowed, “I know a trick or two to make the Demondim and even the almighty Despiser wish they had never come out of hiding.”

In spite of her clenched dismay, Linden found herself wondering where he had learned such things. How much of his humanity had he lost by his participation in Time? What had the perspective of eons done to him? How much had he changed?

And how much pain had her son suffered in the Despiser’s grasp? How much was he suffering at this moment? If even the tainted respite of being in two places at once filled him with such glee—

In many ways, she had never truly known him. Yet he, too, may have become someone she could no longer recognise.

She needed to do something. She needed to do it now. If she waited for Covenant to explain himself, she would crumble.

While Handir replied to the ur-Lord, the Unbeliever, the Land’s ancient savoir-while the Voice of the Masters promised Covenant everything that he had requested-Linden strode away into the shadows of the forehall, trusting Mahrtiir to claim a torch and catch up with her before she lost herself in darkness.

Chapter Two: Difficult Answers

How Stave accomplished what she had asked of him, Linden could not imagine. Yet when Mahrtiir led her at last past the switchbacks up through the long tunnel which opened onto the plateau above and behind Revelstone-when they finally left gloom and old emptiness behind, and crossed into sunshine under a deep sky stained only by Kevin’s Dirt-she and the Manethrall were alone. The Humbled had not followed them. In spite of Stave’s severance from his people, he had found some argument which had persuaded the Masters to leave her alone.

Here she could be free of their distrust; of denials that appalled her. Here she might be able to think.

Covenant and Jeremiah had been restored to her. And they would not allow her to touch them. They had been changed in some quintessential fashion which excluded her.

And Kevin’s Dirt still exerted its baleful influence, slowly leeching away her health-sense and her courage-and she had been ordered not to use the Staff of Law. Both Covenant and her son had assured her that its power would undo the theurgy which enabled their presence. In dreams, Covenant’s voice had told her, You need the Staff of Law. Through Anele, he had said, You’re the only one who can do this. Yet now she was asked to believe that if she drew any hint of Earthpower from the warm wood, she would effectively erase Covenant and Jeremiah. The two people in all of life whom she had most yearned to see-to have and hold-would vanish.

She believed them, both of them. She did not know whether or not they had told the truth: she believed them nonetheless. They were Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah, her son. She could not do otherwise.

She had repeatedly insisted that she could not be compared to the Land’s true heroes; and now the greatest of them had come.

And he had asked the Masters to keep her away from him until he was ready to talk. I’m too tired- But she did not protest. While she could still think and choose-while she could still determine her own actions-she meant to make use of the time.

As Mahrtiir had guided her up through the Keep, she had resolved to find some answers.

She was on her way to Glimmermere because she had once been there with Thomas Covenant: a brief time of unconstrained love after the defeat of the na-Mhoram and the quenching of the Banefire. She hoped to recapture at the eldritch lake some sense of what she and Covenant had meant to each other; of who she was. But now she had another purpose as well. The strange potency of Glimmermere’s waters might give her the power to be heardWith Mahrtiir beside her and the Staff hugged in her arms, she walked steadily-grim and dry-eyed, as though she were not weeping inside-out of Revelstone onto the low upland hills which rumpled the plateau between Lord’s Keep and the jagged pinnacles of the Westron Mountains.

Here she could see the handiwork of Sunder and Hollian, who had accepted the stewardship of the Land thirty-five centuries ago. When she had walked into these hills with Thomas Covenant, the Sunbane had still ruled the Upper Land; and a desert sun had destroyed every vestige of vegetation. She and Covenant had crossed hard dirt and bare stone baked by the arid unnatural heat of the sun’s corona. But nowAh, now there was thick grass underfoot, abundant forage for herds of cattle and sheep. With her health-sense, she could see that the gentler slopes ahead of her were arable. Revelstone was nearly empty, and its comparatively few inhabitants were easily fed by the fields to the north of the watchtower. At need, however, crops could be planted here to support a much larger population. And there were trees-God, there were trees. Rich stands of pine and cedar accumulated off to her right until they grew so thickly that they obscured her view of the mountains in that direction. And ahead of her, clumps of delicate mimosa and arching jacaranda punctuated the hillsides until the slow rise and fall of the slopes seemed as articulate as language. Everywhere spring gave the air a tang which made all of the colours more vibrant and filled each scent with burgeoning.

Under the Sunbane’s bitter curse, she had seen nothing here that was not rife with pain-until she and Covenant had reached the mystic lake which formed the headwater of the White River. Now everywhere she looked, both westward and around the curve of the sheer cliffs toward the north, the plateau had been restored to health and fertility. Somehow Linden’s long-dead friends had taught themselves how to wield both Earthpower and Law. While they lived, Sunder and Hollian had made luxuriant and condign use of the Staff. The beauty which greeted Linden’s sore heart above and behind Lord’s Keep was one result of their labours.

Poor Anele, she thought as she walked toward the first trees. It was no wonder that his parents had filled him with astonishment; or that he had been daunted. Throughout their long lives, he had known the harsh aftereffects of the Sunbane-and had seen those enduring blights transformed to health. In his place, Linden, too, might have felt overwhelmed by their example.

Yet neither Anele nor the restoration of these hills dominated her thoughts. At her side, the Manethrall lost some of his severity as he regained the wide sky and the kindly hills; but if he had spoken to her, she might not have heard him. While she walked, the prospect of Glimmermere filled her with memories of Thomas Covenant.

When the threat of the Banefire had been extinguished, she had joined him in the private chambers which had once been High Lord Mhoram’s home. At that time, she had feared that he would reject her; scorn her love. Earlier his intention to enter alone and undefended into the inferno of the Clave’s evil had appalled her, and she tried to stop him by violating his mind, possessing him. That expression of her own capacity for evil might have destroyed the bond between them. Yet when they were alone at last, she had learned that he held nothing against her; that he forgave her effortlessly. And then he had taken her to Glimmermere, where the lake had helped her to forgive herself.

She wanted to hold onto that memory until she reached the upland tarn and could endeavour once again to wash away her dismay.

Don’t touch him! Don’t touch either of us!

She had risked the destruction of the world in order to retrieve the Staff of Law so that she might have some chance to redeem her son; yet both Jeremiah and Covenant had appeared through no act or decision or hazard of hers. For years and years she had striven to free Jeremiah from the chains of his peculiar dissociative disorder; yet he had reclaimed his mind in her absence, while Lord Foul tormented him. She had used all of her will and insight in an attempt to sway the Masters, and had won only Anele’s freedom and Stave’s friendship-at the cost of Stave’s violent expulsion from the communion of his people. And she had brought the Demondim to this time, recklessly, when Revelstone had no defence.

Like Kevin’s Dirt, shame threatened to drain her until she was too weak to bear the cost of her life. Without the Staff’s fire to sustain her, she clung to her best memories of Covenant’s love-and to the possibilities of Glimmermere-so that she would not be driven to her knees by the weight of her mistakes and failures.

But those memories brought others. Alone with her, Covenant had spoken of the time when he had been the helpless prisoner of Kasreyn of the Gyre in Bhrathairealm. There the thaumaturge had described the value and power of white gold; of the same ring which now hung uselessly on its chain around her neck. In a flawed world, Kasreyn had informed Covenant, purity cannot endure. Thus within each of my works I must perforce place one small flaw, else there would be no work at all. But white gold was an alloy; inherently impure. Its imperfection is the very paradox of which the Earth is made, and with it a master may form perfect works and fear nothing.

The flaw in Kasreyn’s works had permitted the Sandgorgon Nom to escape the prison of Sandgorgons Doom. Without it, Covenant, Linden, and the remnants of the Search might not have been able to breach Revelstone in order to defeat the Clave and quench the Banefire. But that was not the point which Covenant had wished Linden to grasp. Long centuries earlier, his friend Mhoram had told him, You are the white gold. And in the Banefire, Covenant himself had become a kind of alloy, an admixture of wild magic and the Despiser’s venom; capable of perfect power.

At the time, he had wanted Linden to understand why he would never again use his ring. He had become too dangerous: he was human and did not trust himself to achieve any perfection except ruin. With his own strict form of gentleness, he had tried to prepare her for his eventual surrender to Lord Foul.

But now she thought that perhaps his words three and a half thousand years ago explained his unexpected appearance here. He had been transformed in death: Lord Foul had burned away the venom, leaving Covenant’s spirit purified. As a result, he may have become a kind of perfect being-who could wield wild magic and fear nothing.

If that were true, he had come to retrieve his ring. He would need the instrument of his power in order to transcend the strictures imposed on him by his participation in the Arch of Time. Without his ring, he would only be capable of what he called tricks.

But why, then-? Linden’s heart stumbled in pain. Why did he and Jeremiah refuse her touch?

She believed that she understood why her Staff threatened them. If Covenant had indeed folded time, he could only have done so by distorting the fundamental necessities of sequence and causality; the linear continuity of existence. Therefore the force of her Staff would be inherently inimical to his presence, and to Jeremiah’s. It would reaffirm the Law which he had transgressed. He and Jeremiah might well disappear back into their proper dimensions of reality.

But how could her touch harm him, or her son? Apart from her Staff, she had no power except his wedding band.

If he wanted his ring back, why did he require her to keep her distance?

She groaned inwardly. She could not guess her way to the truth: she needed answers that she could not imagine for herself. As she and the Manethrall gradually turned their steps northwestward with the potential graze lands and fields of the lowest hillsides on their left and the gathering stands of evergreen on their right, she spoke to him for the first time since they had left the forehall.

“Could you see them?” she asked without preamble. “Covenant and my son? Is there anything that you can tell me about them?” For some reason, Anele had seemed unaware of their presence.

Mahrtiir did not hesitate. “The sight of the sleepless ones is not keener than ours,” he avowed, “though we cannot resist the diminishment of Kevin’s Dirt.” Scowling, he glanced skyward. “Yet the Unbeliever and your child are closed to us. I can descry nothing which you have not yourself beheld.” “Then what do you think I should do?” Linden did not expect guidance from him. She merely wished to hear the sound of his voice amid the distant calling of birds and the low rustle of the trees. “How can I uncover the truth’?” Just be wary of me.

She needed something akin to the fierce simplicity with which Mahrtiir appeared to regard the world.

He bared his teeth in a smile like a blade. “Ringthane, you may be surprised to hear that I urge caution. Already I have dared a Fall-aye, and ridden the great stallion Narunal-in your name. Nor would I falter at still greater hazards. Yet I mislike any violation of Law. I was the first to speak against Esmer’s acceptance by the Ramen, and the last to grant my trust. Nor does it now console me that he has justified my doubts. I judge that I did wrongly to turn aside from them.

“The Unbeliever and his companion disturb me, though I cannot name my concern. Their seeming is substantial, yet mayhap they are in truth spectres. These matters are beyond my ken. I am able to counsel only that you make no determination in haste.” The Manethrall paused for a long moment, apparently indecisive; and Linden wondered at the emotion rising in him. As they passed between mimosas toward the steeper hills surrounding Glimmermere, he cleared his throat to say more.

“But know this, Linden Avery, and be certain of it. I speak for the Ramen, as for the Cords in my care. We stand with you. The Ranyhyn have declared their service. Stave of the Haruchai has done so. I also would make my meaning plain.

“It appears that the Unbeliever has come among us, he who was once the Ringthane, and who twice accomplished Fangthane’s defeat, if the tales of him are sooth. Doubtless his coming holds vast import, and naught now remains as it was.” Mahrtiir’s tone hinted at battle as he pronounced, “Yet the Ramen stand with you. We cannot do less than the Ranyhyn have done. To him they reared when he was the Ringthane, but to you they gave unprecedented homage, bowing their heads. And they are entirely true. If you see peril in the Unbeliever’s presence, then we will oppose it at your side. Come good or ill, boon or bane, we stand with you.” Then the Manethrall shrugged, and his manner softened. “Doubtless Liand will do the same. For the Demondim-spawn, either Waynhim or ur-vile, I cannot speak. But I have no fear that Stave will be swayed by the Unbeliever. He has withstood the judgment of the sleepless ones, and will no longer doubt you. And Anele must cling to the holder of the Staff. He cannot do otherwise.” Mahrtiir faced her with reassurance in his eyes. “When you are summoned before the Unbeliever, consider that you are not alone. We who have elected to serve you will abide the outcome of your choices, and call ourselves fortunate to do so.” I seek a tale which will remain in the memories of the Ramen when my life has ended.

Under other circumstances, Linden might have been moved by his declaration. But she was too full of doubt, of thwarted joy and unexplained bereavement. Instead of thanking him, she said gruffly, “It isn’t like that. I’m not going to oppose him.” Them. “I can’t. He’s Thomas Covenant.

“I just don’t understand.” Then she looked away; quickened her pace without realising it. Her impatience for the cleansing embrace of Glimmermere was growing. And her dilemma ran deeper than the Manethrall seemed to grasp.

If both Covenant and Jeremiah were here-and they indeed had something wrong with them-she could imagine conditions under which she might be forced to choose between them. To fight for one at the expense of the other.

If that happened, she would cling to Jeremiah, and let Thomas Covenant go. She had spent ten years learning to accept Covenant’s death-and eight of those years devoting herself to her son. Her first loyalty was to Jeremiah. Even if Covenant truly knew how to save the LandThe Mahdoubt had warned her to Be cautious of love.

God, she did not simply need answers. She needed to wash out her mind. Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead. She had been given too many warnings, and she comprehended none of them.

Fortunately the high hills which cupped Glimmermere’s numinous waters were rising before her. She could not yet catch the scent of their magic: the mild spring breeze carried it past the hilltops. And the lake itself was hidden from sight and sound on all sides except directly southward, where the White River began its run toward Furl Falls. Nevertheless she knew where she was. She could not forget the last place where she and Covenant had known simple happiness.

She wanted to run now, in spite of the ascent, but she forced herself to stop at the base of the slope. Turning to Mahrtiir, she asked, “You’ve been here already, haven’t you?’ He and his Cords had spent the previous afternoon and night among these hills with the Ranyhyn. “You’ve seen Glimmermere?” She expected a prompt affirmative; but the Manethrall replied brusquely, “Ringthane, I have not. By old tales, I know of the mystic waters. But my Cords and I came to these hills to care for the Ranyhyn-and also,” he admitted, “to escape the oppression of Revelstone and Masters. Our hearts were not fixed on tales.

“However, the Ranyhyn parted from us when we had gained the open sky. Galloping and glad, they scattered to seek their own desires. Therefore we tended to our refreshment with aliantha and rest, awaiting your summons. We did not venture toward storied Glimmermere.” In spite of her haste, Linden felt a twist of regret on his behalf. “Why not”?” “We are Ramen,” he said as if his reasons were self-evident. We serve the Ranyhyn. That suffices for us. We do not presume to intrude upon other mysteries. No Raman has beheld the tarn of the horserite, yet we feel neither regret nor loss. We are content to be who we are. Lacking any clear cause to approach Glimmermere, I deemed it unseemly to distance ourselves from Revelstone and your uncertain plight.” She sighed. Now she understood the blind distress of Mahrtiir and his Cords when she had met them in the Close. But she had scant regard to spare for the Manethrall’s strict pride. Her own needs were too great.

All right,” she murmured. “Don’t worry about it.

“I’m going on ahead. I want you to stay here. I need to be alone for a while. If the Masters change their minds-if the Humbled decide that they have to know what I’m doing-try to warn me.” Glimmermere’s potency might muffle her perception of anything else. “When I come back, we’ll talk about this again.

“I think that you’ll want to see the lake for yourself.” She held his gaze until he nodded. Then she turned to stride up the hillside without him.

Almost at once, he seemed to fall out of her awareness. Her memories of Covenant and Glimmermere sang to her, dismissing other considerations. At one time, she had been loved here. That experience, and others like it, had taught her how to love her son. She needed to immerse herself in Earthpower and clarity; needed to recover her sense of her own identity. Then she could try to make herself heard; heeded.

She was breathing hard-and entirely unconscious of it-as she passed the crest of the hill and caught sight of the lake where Thomas Covenant had given her a taste of joy; perhaps the first joy that she had ever known.

In one sense, Glimmermere was exactly as she remembered it. The lake was not large: from its edge, she might have been able to throw a stone across it. On all sides except its outlet to the south, it was concealed by hills as though the earth of the plateau had cupped its hands in order to isolate and preserve its treasure. And no streams flowed into it. Even the mighty heads of the Westron Mountains, now no more than a league distant, sent their rivers of rainfall and snowmelt down into the Land by other routes. Instead Glimmermere was fed by hidden springs arising as if in secret from the deep gutrock of the Land.

The surface of the water also was as Linden remembered it: as calm and pure as a mirror, reflecting the hills and the measureless sky perfectly; oblivious to distress. Yet she had not been here for ten long years, and she found now that her human memory had failed to retain the lake’s full vitality, its untrammelled and untarnishable lucid purity. Remembering Glimmermere without percipience to refresh her recall, she had been unable to preserve its image undimmed. Now she was shocked almost breathless by the crystalline abundance and promise of the waters.

Taken by the sight, she began to jog down the hillside. She knew how cold the water would be: she had been chilled to the core when Covenant had called her into the lake. And now there was no desert sun to warm her when she emerged. But she also knew that the cold was an inherent aspect of Glimmermere’s power to cleanse; and she did not hesitate. Covenant and Jeremiah had been returned to her, but she no longer knew them-or herself. When she reached the edge of the lake, she dropped the Staff of Law unceremoniously to the grass; tugged off her boots and socks, and flung them aside; stripped away her grass-stained pants as well as her shirt as if by that means she could remove her mortality; and plunged headlong into the tonic sting of memory and Earthpower.

In the instant of her dive, she saw that she cast no reflection on the water. Nothing of her interrupted Glimmermere’s reiteration of its protective hills and the overarching heavens. The clustered rocks around the deep shadow of the lake’s bottom looked sharp and near enough to break her as soon as she struck the surface. But she knew that she was not in danger. She remembered well that Glimmermere’s sides were almost sheer, and its depths were unfathomable.

Then she went down into a fiery cold so fierce that it seemed to envelop her in liquid flame.

That, too, was as she remembered it: inextricable from her happiness with Covenant; whetted with hope. Nevertheless its incandescence drove the breath from her lungs. Before she could name her hope, or seek for it, she was forced gasping to the surface.

For a brief time, no more than a handful of heartbeats, she splashed and twisted as if she were dancing. But she was too human to remain in the lake: not alone, while Covenant’s recalled love ached within her. Scant moments after she found air, she swam to the water’s edge and pulled herself naked up onto the steep grass. There she rested in spite of the wet cold and the chill of spring, giving herself time to absorb, to recognise, Glimmermere’s effects.

Closing her eyes, she used every other aspect of her senses to estimate what had become of her.

The waters healed bruises: they washed away the strain and sorrow of battle. She needed that. They could not undo the emotional cost of the things which she had suffered, but they lifted from her the long physical weariness and privation of recent days, the visceral residue of her passage through caesures, the tangible galls of her fraught yearning for her son. The eldritch implications of Glimmermere renewed her bodily health and strength as though she had feasted on aliantha.

As cold as the water, Covenant’s ring burned between her breasts.

But the lake did more. The renewed accuracy with which she was able to perceive her own condition told her that the stain of Kevin’s Dirt had been scrubbed from her senses. And when she reached beyond herself, she felt the ramified richness of the grass beneath her, the imponderable life-pulse of the undergirding soil and stone. She could not detect Mahrtiir’s presence beyond the hills: his emanations were too mortal to penetrate Glimmermere’s glory. Yet spring’s fecundity whispered to her along the gentle breeze, and the faint calling of the birds was as eloquent as melody. The wealth of the lake was now a paean, a sun-burnished outpouring of the Earth’s essential gladness, as lambent as Earthpower, and as celebratory as an aubade.

In other ways, nothing had changed. Her torn heart could not be healed by any expression of this world’s fundamental bounty. Covenant and Jeremiah had been restored to her-and they would not let her touch them. That hurt remained. Glimmermere held no anodyne for the dismay and bereavement which had brought her here.

Nevertheless the lake had given her its gifts. It had made her stronger, allowing her to feel capable again, more certain of herself. And it had erased the effects of Kevin’s Dirt, when she had been forbidden to do so with the Staff of Law.

She was as ready as she would ever be.

Steady now, and moving without haste, she donned her clothes and boots; retrieved her Staff. Then she climbed a short way up the hillside, back toward Revelstone, until she found a spot where the slope offered a stretch of more level ground. There she planted her feet as though her memories of Thomas Covenant and love stood at her back to support her. Facing southward across the hillside, she braced the Staff in the grass at her feet and gripped it with one hand while she lifted the white gold ring from under her damp shirt with the other and closed it in her fist.

She took a deep breath; held it for a moment, preparing herself. Then she lifted her face to the sky.

She had ascended far enough to gain a clear view of the mountainheads in the west. Clouds had begun to thicken behind the peaks, suggesting the possibility of rain. It would not come soon, however. The raw crests still clawed the clouds to high wisps and feathers that streamed eastward like fluttering pennons. As Glimmermere’s waters flowed between the hills into the south, they caught the sunshine and glistened like a spill of gems.

Now, she thought. Now or never.

With her head held high, she announced softly, “It’s time, Esmer. You’ve done enough harm. It’s time to do some good.

“I need answers, and I don’t know anyone else who can give them to me.” Her voice seemed to fall, unheard, to the grass. Nothing replied to her except birdsong and the quiet incantations of the breeze.

More loudly, she continued, “Come on, Esmer. I know you can hear me. You said that the Despiser is hidden from you, and you can’t tell me where to find my son, but those seem to be the only things that you don’t know. There’s too much going on, and all of it matters too much. It’s time to pick a side. I need answers.” Still she had no reason to believe that he would heed her. She had no idea what his true powers were, or how far they extended. She could not even be sure that he had returned to her present. He may have sought to avoid the pain of his conflicting purposes by remaining in the Land’s past; in a time when he could no longer serve either Cail’s devotion or Kastenessen’s loathing.

Hell, as far as she knew, he had arrived to aid and betray her outside the cave of the Waynhim before his own birth. And he had certainly brought the Demondim forward from an age far older than himself. But his strange ability to go wherever and whenever he willed reassured her obliquely. It was another sign that the Law of Time retained its integrity.

No matter which era of the Earth Esmer chose to occupy, his life and experience remained consecutive, as hers did. His betrayal of her, and of the Waynhim, in the Land’s past had been predicated on his encounters with her among the Ramen only a few days ago. If he came to her now, in his own life he would do so after he had brought the Demondim to assail her small company. The Law of Time required that, despite the harm which Joan had wrought with wild magic.

Even if he did hear her, however, he had given her no cause to believe that he could be summoned. He was descended-albeit indirectly-from the Elohim; and those self-absorbed beings ignored all concerns but their own. Linden was still vaguely surprised that they had troubled to send warning of the Land’s peril.

Nevertheless Esmer’s desire to assist her had seemed as strong as his impulse toward treachery. The commitments that he had inherited from Cail matched the dark desires of the merewives.

He might yet come to her.

She was not willing to risk banishing Covenant and Jeremiah with the Staff. And she was not desperate enough to chance wild magic. But she had found her own strength in Glimmermere. She had felt its cold in the marrow of her bones. When a score of heartbeats had passed, and her call had not been answered, she raised her voice to a shout.

“Esmer, God damn it! I’m keeping score here, and by my count you still owe me!” Even his riven heart could not equate unleashing the Demondim-and the Illearth Stone-with serving as a translator for the Waynhim. “Cail was your father! You can’t deny that. You’ll tear yourself apart. And the Ranyhyn trust me! You love them, I know you do. For their sake, if not for simple fairness-!” Abruptly she stopped. She had said enough. Lowering her head, she sagged as if she had been holding her breath.

Without transition, nausea began squirming in her guts.

She knew that sensation; had already become intimately familiar with it. If she reached for wild magic now, she would not find it: its hidden place within her had been sealed away.

She felt no surprise at all as Esmer stepped out of the sunlight directly in front of her.

He was unchanged; was perhaps incapable of change. If she had glimpsed him from a distance, only his strange apparel would have prevented her from mistaking him for one of the Haruchai. He had the strong frame of Stave’s kinsmen, the brown skin, the flattened features untouched by time. However, his gilded cymar marked him as a being apart. Its ecru fabric might have been woven from the foam of running seas, or from the clouds that fled before a thunderstorm, and its gilding was like fine streaks of light from a setting sun.

But he stood only a few steps away; and at this distance, his resemblance to his father vanished behind the dangerous green of his eyes and the nausea he evoked as though it were an essential aspect of his nature. His emanations were more subtle than those of the Demondim, yet in his own way he seemed more potent and ominous than any of the Vile-spawn.

By theurgy if not by blood, he was Kastenessen’s grandson.

For a moment, nausea and perceptions of might dominated Linden’s attention. Then, belatedly, she saw that he was not alone.

A band of ur-viles had appeared perhaps a dozen paces behind him: more ur-viles than she had known still existed in the world; far more than had enabled her to retrieve the Staff of Law. Only six or seven of those creatures had lived to reach the ambiguous sanctuary of Revelstone and the plateau. Yet here she saw at least three score of the black Demondim-spawn, perhaps as many as four. None of them bore any sign that they had endured a desperate struggle for their lives, and hers.

And on either side of the ur-viles waited small groups of Waynhim. The grey servants of the Land numbered only half as many as the ur-viles; yet even they were more than the mere dozen or so that had accompanied her to Lord’s Keep. Like the ur-viles, they showed no evidence that they had been in a battle.

What-? Involuntarily Linden took a startled step backward. Esmer-?

Millennia ago, he had brought the Demondim out of the Land’s ancient past to assail her.

In alarm, she threw a glance around the surrounding hills-and found more creatures behind her. These, however, she recognised: twelve or fourteen Waynhim and half that many ur-viles, most of them scarred by the nacre acid of the Demondim, or by the cruel virulence of the IIIearth Stone. They had formed separate wedges to concentrate their strength. And both formations were aimed at Esmer. The battered loremaster of the ur-viles pointed its iron jerrid or sceptre like a warning at Cail’s son.

Esmer, what have you done?

Where else could he have found so many ur-viles, so many Waynhim, if not in a time before she and Covenant had faced the Sunbane? A time when the ur-viles had served Lord Foul, and the Waynhim had defended the Land, according to their separate interpretations of their Weird?

Instinctively Linden wanted to call up fire to protect herself. But the creatures at her back had supported her with their lives as well as their lore when no one else could have aided her. They intended to defend her now, although they were badly outnumbered. And the force of her Staff would harm them. For their sake-and because there were Waynhim among the ur-viles with Esmer-she fought down her fear.

As she mastered herself, all of the Demondim-spawn began to bark simultaneously.

Their raucous voices seemed to strike the birdsong from the air. Even the breeze was shocked to stillness. Guttural protests as harsh as curses broke over her head like a prolonged crash of surf. Yet among the newcomers appeared none of the steaming ruddy iron blades which the ur-viles used as weapons. None of them resembled a loremaster. And neither they nor the Waynhim with them stood in wedges to focus their power.

Then Linden understood that the newcomers did not mean to strike at her. They were not even prepared to ward themselves. Their voices sounded inherently hostile; feral as the baying of wild dogs. Nevertheless no power swelled among them. Their yells were indistinguishable from those of her allies.

And Esmer himself sneered openly at her apprehension. A sour grin twisted his mouth: the baleful green of disdain filled his gaze.

“God in Heaven,” Linden muttered under her breath. Trembling, she forced herself to loosen her grip on the Staff; drop Covenant’s ring back under her shirt. Then she met Esmer’s eyes as squarely as she could.

“So which is it this time?” She almost had to shout to make herself heard. Aid and betrayal. “I’ve never seen so many-” She was familiar with Esmer’s inbred rage at the Haruchai. He had nearly killed Stave with it. If Hyn’s arrival, and Hynyn’s, had not stayed his handBecause of the Haruchai, there will be endless havoc!

The Masters would not expect an assault from the direction of the plateau.

If the Waynhim condoned-or at least tolerated-the presence of the ur-viles, she could be sure that she was not in danger. Perhaps the Masters and Revelstone were also safe. Yet she could not imagine any explanation for Esmer’s actions except treachery.

Fervently she hoped that Mahrtiir would not rush to her aid. She trusted him; but his presence would complicate her confrontation with Esmer.

However, Kevin’s Dirt had blunted the Manethrall’s senses. And the Demondim-spawn were able to disguise their presence. If the shape of the hills contained the clamour-or if the sound of the river muffled it-he might be unaware of what transpired.

“Keeping score”?” replied Esmer sardonically. “Count”? Such speech is unfamiliar to me. Nonetheless your meaning is plain. In the scales of your eyes, if by no other measure, my betrayals have outweighed my aid. You are ignorant of many things, Wildwielder. Were your misjudgments not cause for scorn, they would distress me.” She had often seen him look distressed when he spoke to her.

“Stop it, Esmer,” she ordered flatly. “I’m tired of hearing you avoid simple honesty.” And she was painfully aware of her ignorance. “I called you because I need answers. You can start with the question I just asked. Why are these creatures here’?” A flicker that might have been uncertainty or glee disturbed the flowing disdain in his eyes. “And do you truly conceive that I have come in response to your summons? Do you imagine that you are in any fashion capable of commanding me?” Around Linden, the ur-viles and Waynhim yowled and snarled like wolves contending over a carcass. She could hardly recognise her own thoughts. As if to ready a threat of her own, she clenched her fists. “I said, stop it.” She wanted to be furious at him. Ire would have made her stronger. But her writhen nausea described his underlying plight explicitly. He could not reconcile his conflicting legacies, and behind his disdain was a rending anguish.

More in exasperation than anger, she continued, “I don’t care whether I actually summoned you or not. If you aren’t going to answer my questions,” if he himself did not constitute an answer, “go away. Let your new allies do whatever they came to do.” Neither Esmer’s expression nor his manner changed. In the same mordant tone, he responded, “There speaks more ignorance, Wildwielder. These makings are not my ‘allies.’ Indeed, their mistrust toward me far surpasses your own.” He heaved a sarcastic sigh. You have heard me account for my actions, and for those of the ur-viles and Waynhim as well. Still you do not comprehend. I have not garnered these surviving remnants of their kind from the abysm of time in order to serve me. Nor would they accept such service for any cause. I have enabled their presence here, and they have accepted it, so that they may serve you.” “Serve me?” Linden wanted to plead with the Demondim-spawn to lower their voices. Their shouting forced her to bark as roughly as they did. “How”?” Did they believe that less than a hundred Waynhim and ur-viles would suffice to drive back the Demondim? When that horde could draw upon the immeasurable bane of the IIIearth Stone?

“Wildwielder,” Esmer rasped, “it is my wish to speak truly. Yet I fear that no truth will content you.

“Would it suffice to inform you, as I have done before, that these creatures perceive the peril of my nature, and are joined in their wish to guard against me? Would it appease you to hear that they now know their kindred accompanying you have discovered a purpose worthy of devoir, and that therefore they also desire to stand with you’?” “Oh, I can believe that,” she retorted. The ur-viles at her back had already shown more selfless devotion than she would have believed possible from the Despiser’s former vassals. The Waynhim had demonstrated that they were willing to unite with their ancient enemies for her sake. And none of the creatures on the hillside had raised anything more than their voices against each other. “But you’re right. I’m not “content”.

“Why did you bring them here? What do you gain? Is this something that Cail would have done, or are you listening to Kastenessen?” In response, a brief flinch marred Esmer’s disdain. For an instant, he gave her the impression that he was engaged in a fierce battle with himself. Then he resumed his scorn.

God, she wished that the Demondim-spawn would shut up“ It is your assertion that I am in your debt,” Esmer said as if he were jeering. “I concur. Therefore I have gathered these makings from the past, for their kind has perished, and no others exist in this time. They retain much of the dark lore of the Demondim. They will ward you, and this place”- he nodded in the direction of Revelstone- “with more fidelity than the Haruchai, who have no hearts.” Covenant had said that he did not expect the horde to attack for another day or two. Could so many ur-viles and Waynhim working together contrive a viable defence? If she ended the threat of the IIIearth Stone?

She had already made her decision about the Stone. Its powers were too enormous and fatal: she could not permit them to be unleashed. Nonetheless she shook her head as though Esmer had not affected her.

That tells me what they can do,” she replied through the tumult of barking. It doesn’t tell me why you brought them here. With you, everything turns into a betrayal somehow. What kind of harm do you have in mind this time?” He gave her another exaggerated sigh. “Wildwielder, it is thoughtless to accuse me thus. You have been informed that ‘Good cannot be accomplished by evil means,’ yet you have not allowed the ill of your own deeds to dissuade you from them. Am I not similarly justified in all that I attempt? Why then do you presume to weigh my deeds in a more exacting scale?” Linden was acutely aware that the “means” by which she had reached her present position were questionable at best: at worst, they had been actively hurtful. She had used Anele as if he were a tool; had violated Stave’s pride by healing him; had endangered the Arch of Time simply to increase her chances of finding her son. But she did not intend to let Esmer deflect her.

She met his disdain with the fierceness of Glimmermere’s cold and strength. “All right,” she returned without hesitation. “We’re both judged by what we do. I accept that. But I take risks and make mistakes because I know what I want, not because I can’t choose between help and hurt. If you want me to believe you, answer a straight question.” She needed anything that he could reveal about Covenant and Jeremiah; needed it urgently. But first she had to break down his scorn. It protected his strange array of vulnerabilities. He would continue to evade her until she found a way to touch his complex pain.

“You don’t want to talk about what you’ve just done,” she said between her teeth. “That’s pretty obvious. Tell me this instead.

“Who possessed Anele in the Verge of Wandering? Who used him to talk to the Demondim? Who filled him with all of that fire? Give me a name.” Covenant and Jeremiah had been herded- If she knew who wished them to reach her, she might begin to grasp the significance of their arrival.

The abrupt silence of the Waynhim and ur-viles seemed to suck the air from her lungs: it nearly left her gasping. Their raucous clamour was cut off as if they were appalled. Or as ifTrying to breathe again, she swallowed convulsively.

— as if she had finally asked a question that compelled their attention.

Now Esmer did not merely flinch. He almost appeared to cower. In an instant, all of his hauteur fled. Instead of sneering, he ducked his head to escape her gaze. His cymar fluttered about him, independent of the breeze, so that its sunset gilding covered him in disturbed streaks and consternation.

Together all of the Demondim-spawn, those behind him as well as those with Linden, advanced a few steps, tightening their cordon. Their wide nostrils tasted the air wetly, as though they sought to detect the scent of truth; and their ears twitched avidly.

When Esmer replied, his voice would have been inaudible without the silence.

“You speak of Kastenessen.” He may have feared being overheard. “I have named him my grandsire, though the Dancers of the Sea were no get of his. Yet they were formed by the lore and theurgy which he gifted to the mortal woman whom he loved. Therefore I am the descendant of his power. Among the Elohim, no other form of procreation has meaning.” The ur-viles and Waynhim responded with a low mutter which may have expressed approval or disbelief. Like them, if in an entirely different fashion, the merewives were artificial beings, born of magic and knowledge rather than of natural flesh.

Kastenessen, Linden thought. New fears shook her. She believed Esmer instinctively. Kastenessen had burned her with his fury in the open centre of the Verge of Wandering. And yesterday he had influenced the Demondim, persuading them to alter their intentions.

“That’s why you serve him,” she murmured unsteadily. I serve him utterly. You inherited your power from him.” His power-and his hunger for destruction.

“As I also serve you,” he told her for the second time.

Kastenessen. The name was a knell; a funereal gong adumbrating echoes in all directions. Her nausea was growing worse. The Elohim had forcibly Appointed Kastenessen to prevent or imprison a peril in the farthest north of the world. But now he had broken free of his Durance. When Lord Foul had said, I have merely whispered a word of counsel here and there, and awaited events, he may have been speaking of Kastenessen.

She knew how powerful the Elohim could be, any of themKastenessen had provided for her escape from the horde. Had he also enabled Covenant and Jeremiah to reach her? Did he want all three of them alive?

Still scrambling to catch up with the implications of Esmer’s revelation, she mused aloud, “So when Anele talks about skurj-” “He names the beasts”- Esmer shook his head- “nay, the monstrous creatures of fire which Kastenessen was Appointed to contain. They come to assail the Land because he has severed or eluded the Durance which compelled him to his doom.” Behind the Mithil’s Plunge, Anele had referred to Kastenessen. I could have preserved the Durance! he had cried. Stopped the skurj. With the Staff! If I had been worthy.

Did you sojourn under the Sunbane with Sunder and Hollian, and learn nothing of ruin?

According to Anele-or to the native stone that he had touched behind the Plunge-the Elohim had done nothing to secure Kastenessen’s imprisonment.

Aching for Anele’s pain, and for her own peril, Linden asked Esmer softly, “What about this morning? The Demondim let Covenant and my son reach Revelstone.” Covenant had given her an explanation. She wanted to know if he had told the truth. “Was that Kastenessen’s doing too?’

“You do not comprehend,” Esmer protested dolefully; as regret-ridden as the wind that drove seafarers into the Soulbiter. “Your ignorance precludes it. Do you not know that the Viles, those beings of terrible and matchless lore, were once a lofty and admirable race? Though they roamed the Land widely, they inhabited the Lost Deep in caverns as ornate and majestic as castles. There they devoted their vast power and knowledge to the making of beauty and wonder, and all of their works were filled with loveliness. For an age of the Earth, they spurned the heinous evils buried among the roots of Gravin Threndor, and even in the time of Berek Lord-Fatherer no ill was known of them.” Esmer’s ambiguous conflicts had grown so loud that Linden could not shut them out. They hurt her nerves like the carnage before Revelstone’s gates, when the Demondim had slaughtered so many Masters and their mounts.

She had asked about Kastenessen-about Covenant-and Esmer talked of Viles.

“Yet a shadow had already fallen upon them,” Cail’s son continued, “like and unlike the shadow upon the hearts of the Elohim. The corruption of the Viles, and of their makings, the Demondim, transpired thus.” Wait, she wanted to insist. Stop. That isn’t what I need to know. But the accentuation of Esmer’s manner held her. He was right: her ignorance precluded her from asking the right questions-and from recognising useful answers.

“Many tales are told,” said Esmer, “some to conceal, some to reveal. Yet it is sooth that long before the Despiser’s coming to the littoral of the Land, he had stretched out his hand to awaken the malevolence of Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp, as it lurked in the heart of Sarangrave Flat, for he delights in cruel hungers. And from that malevolence-conjoined with the rapacity of humankind-had emerged the three Ravers, moksha, turiya, and samadhi. By such means was the One Forest decimated, and its long sentience maimed, until an Elohim came to preserve its remnants.

“Awakened to themselves,” Esmer explained as though the knowledge grieved him, “the trees created the Forestals to guard them, and bound the Elohim into the Colossus of the Fall as an Interdict against the Ravers, repulsing them from the Upper Land.

“Later the Despiser established Ridjeck Thome as his seat of power, though he did not then declare himself to human knowledge. There he gathered the Ravers to his service when the Colossus began to wane. And with his guidance, they together, or some among them, began cunningly to twist the hearts of the sovereign and isolate Viles. Forbidden still by the Colossus, the Ravers could not enter the Lost Deep. Instead they met with Viles that roamed east of Landsdrop, exploring the many facets of the Land. With whispers and subtle blandishments, and by slow increments, the Ravers obliquely taught the Viles to loathe their own forms.

“Being Ravers, the brothers doubtless began by sharing their mistrust and contempt toward the surviving mind of the One Forest, and toward the Forestals. From that beginning, however, the Viles were readily led to despise themselves, for all contempt turns upon the contemptuous, as it must.” Esmer had raised his head: he faced Linden as steadily as he could. But his eyes were the fraught hue of heavy seas crashing against each other, and his raiment gusted about him in the throes of a private storm.

“In that same age,” he went on, “as the perversion of the Viles progressed, samadhi Raver evaded the Interdict by passing beyond the Southron Range to taint the people who gave birth to Berek Lord-Fatherer. By his influence upon their King, samadhi instigated the war which led Berek through terrible years and cruel bloodshed to his place as the first High Lord in the Land.

“Among the crags of Mount Thunder, Berek had sworn himself to the service of the Land. But he was new to power, and much of his effort was turned to the discovering of the One Tree and the forming of the Staff of Law. He could not halt all of humankind’s depredations against the forests. And as the trees dwindled, so the strength of the Colossus was diminished.

“Nonetheless in the time of High Lord Damelon the Interdict endured. When the Viles turned their lore and their self-loathing to the creation of the Demondim in the Lost Deep, the Ravers were precluded from interference.” Esmer nodded as if to himself. His gaze drifted away from Linden. He may have been too absorbed in his tale, in rue and old bitterness, to remember that he was not answering her. Nevertheless the Waynhim and ur-viles heeded him in utter silence, as if their Weird hinged on his words. For their sake, and because she could not evaluate his reasons for speaking, she swallowed her impulse to interrupt him.

“And the Viles were too wise to labour foolishly, or in ignorance. They did not seek to renew their own loathing, but rather to render it impotent. Therefore the Demondim were spawned free of their creators’ stain. Though they lacked some portion of the Viles’ majesty and lore, they were not ruled by contempt. Instead they were a stern race, holding themselves apart from the Viles in renunciation.

“Yet across the years the Demondim also were turned to abhorrence. Dwelling apart from the Viles, they made their habitation in proximity to the IIIearth Stone and other banes. And the evil within the Sarangrave called to them softly, as it had to the Viles. When at last the Demondim ventured to seek the source of that call, they entered the Lower Land and Sarangrave Flat, and there they met the fate of their makers, for the Ravers gained power over them also.” Complex emotions seemed to tug like contrary winds at Esmer’s cymar, and his voice resembled the threat of thunder beyond the Westron Mountains. “Moksha Jehannum took possession of their loremaster, and turiya with him, luring the Vile-spawn to self-revulsion. Though the loremaster was later slain by the krill of Loric Vilesilencer, the harm was done. The Demondim also learned the loathing of trees, and so came to loathe themselves. Thus they met the doom of their makers, and the labours which created the ur-viles and the Waynhim began.

“Unlike the Viles, however, the Demondim were seduced to the Despiser’s service. Their makers had created within them an aspect of mortality and dross, and they were unable to perceive that the Despiser’s scorn toward them exceeded their own. Nor was their desire to follow the dictates of their loathing restricted by the Interdict. They acted upon the Upper Land while the Ravers were hidden from the Council of Lords, and the Despiser himself remained unknown.

“Throughout the years of Loric Vilesilencer and High Lord Kevin, the Demondim pursued evil in the Land, until at last they participated in the treachery which broke Kevin Landwaster’s resolve and led him to the Ritual of Desecration. That the Demondim themselves would also perish in the Ritual, they could not foresee, for they did not comprehend the disdain of their master. Therefore they were unmade.” The listening creatures had moved still closer. They seemed to hear Esmer with their nostrils as much as their ears. And as they approached, more and more of the Waynhim were mingled among the ur-viles. For the moment, at least, they had set aside their long enmity.

“For millennia thereafter,” Esmer sighed, “the ur-viles likewise served the Despiser and opposed the Lords, following in the steps of their makers, though the Waynhim chose another path. Yet the Demondim had accomplished both less and more than their purpose. The ur-viles and Waynhim were entirely enfleshed. For that reason, their blindness exceeded that of the Demondim-as did their inadvertent capacity for wisdom. Being imprisoned in mortality, they became heir to a power, or a need, which is inherent in all beings that think and may be slain. By their very nature, they were compelled to reconsider the significance of their lives. Flesh and death inspired the ur-viles and Waynhim to conceive differing Weirds to justify themselves-and to reinterpret their Weirds as they wished. In consequence, their allegiances were vulnerable to transmutation.” Linden recognised aspects of truth in what he said, but that did nothing to relieve her distress. Her mouth was full of bile and illness, and she did not know how much longer she could contain her nausea. Esmer’s conflicts aggravated it. The Demondim-spawn may have understood his intent: she did not.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked abruptly. “It isn’t what I need. I have to know why the Demondim didn’t kill Jeremiah and Covenant. You said that Kastenessen convinced those monsters to let me escape. Did he do the same for my son and Covenant’?” A flare of anger like a glimpse of the IIIearth Stone showed in Esmer’s eyes. “And are you also ignorant,” he retorted, “that the Cavewights were once friendly to the people of the Land? I wish you to grasp the nature of such creatures. You inquire of Kastenessen, and I reply. That which appears evil need not have been so from the beginning, and need not remain so until the end.

“Doubtless your knowledge of Viles and Demondim and ur-viles has been gleaned from the Haruchai.” He had recovered his scorn. “Have they also informed you that when both the Viles and the Demondim had been undone, the ur-viles retained the lore of their making? Do you comprehend that the ur-viles continued to labour in the Lost Deep when all of their creators had passed away? Though the Waynhim did not arrogate such tasks to themselves, the ur-viles endeavoured to fashion miracles of lore and foresight which would alter the fate of their kind, and of the Land, and of the very Earth.” He had shaken Linden again. Holding the Staff in the crook of her arm, she pushed her fingers through the damp tangles of her hair: she wanted to push them through her thoughts in an effort to straighten out the confusion of Esmer’s indirect answers.

“Wait a minute,” she protested with her hands full of uncertainty. “Stave said-” He had said, Much of the black lore of the Viles and the Demondim endured to them-and much did not. Both Waynhim and ur-viles continued to dwindle. They created no descendants, and when they were slain nothing returned of them.

Esmer snorted. The Haruchai speak of that which they know, which is little. The truth has been made plain to you, for you have known Vain. You cannot doubt that the ur-viles pursued the efforts of their makers.

At the same time, however, more of these creatures”- he gestured around him- “came into being, both ur-viles and Waynhim. For that reason, I have been able to gather so many to your service.” Linden tried to interrupt him again; slow him down so that she could think. He overrode her harshly. Twisted by the contradictory demands of his heritage, he may still have been trying to answer her original question.

But the ur-viles have created other makings also. They did not cease their labours when they had formed Vain, for they were not content. Their reinterpretation of their Weird was not yet satisfied. Therefore they have made-” Suddenly he stopped as if he had caught himself on the edge of a precipice. Chagrin darkened his gaze as he stared at her, apparently unable or unwilling to look away.

“Made what?” Linden breathed softly. His manner alarmed her.

The ur-viles and Waynhim crowded closer. Ripples of dark power ran among them as if they were sharing intimations of vitriol; nascent outrage.

Linden unclosed the Staff from the crook of her arm and wrapped both of her hands around it. She had too many fears: she could not allow them to daunt her. “Made what”?” she repeated more strongly.

Esmer’s green eyes seemed to spume with anger or dread as he pronounced hoarsely, “Manacles.” She gaped at him in surprise. What, manacles? Fetters?

“Why?” she demanded. “Who are they for?” Or what?

Which of the powers abroad in the Land did the ur-viles hope to imprison?

He shook his head. At the same time, the creatures started barking again, arguing incomprehensibly in their guttural tongue. Some of them made gestures that may have been threats or admonitions. Force rolled through them, small wavelets of energy like ripples spreading outward from the impact of their inhuman emotions; but they did not seek to concentrate it.

Linden wanted to cover her ears. “What are they saying?” Her voice held an involuntary note of pleading. “Esmer, tell me.” At once, the froth of waves seemed to fill his eyes, concealing their deeper hues. They have heard me. They acknowledge my intent, though you do not. Now some debate the interpretation of their Weirds. Others demand that I explain their purpose further.” He folded his arms like bands across his chest. But I will not. The debt between us I have redeemed, and more. In this, there is no power sufficient to compel me.” Around him, the shouting of the creatures subsided to an angry mutter. Or perhaps their low sounds expressed resignation rather than ire.

Manacles-? In frustration, Linden wanted to hit him with the Staff. He still had not answered her question about his grandsire-or shed any light on the conundrum of Covenant and Jeremiah.

Struggling to keep her balance amid a gyre of information and implications which she did not know how to accommodate, she retreated to surer ground.

“All right. Forget the manacles. I don’t need to know.” Not now, when she had so many more immediate concerns. “Tell me something I can understand. How did you convince your ur-viles and Waynhim to come with you?’ She knew why her own small band had combined their efforts against the Demondim. Even now, however, she could not be certain that the truce between them would hold. And those with Esmer had not shared in her battles. “They’ve been enemies for thousands of years. Why have they set that aside?” Esmer raised one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. Closing his eyes, he massaged them briefly with his fingertips. As he did so, he replied in a tone of exaggerated patience, as if he had already answered her question in terms that even a child could comprehend.

“To the ur-viles, I offered opportunity to see fulfilled the mighty purpose which they began in the making of Vain. To the Waynhim, I promised a joining with their few kindred, that they might be powerful in the Land’s service.” Then he lowered his hand, letting her see the wind-tossed disturbance in his eyes. “And of both I required this covenant, that they must cease all warfare between them.” As if in assent, the creatures fell silent again.

Before Linden could ask another question, Esmer added, “Wildwielder, you exhaust my restraint. You have demanded answers. I have provided them, seeking to relieve the darkness of my nature. But one of the Haruchai approaches from that place”- again he indicated Revelstone- “and I will not suffer his presence. I cannot. Already my heart frays within me. Soon it will demand release. If I do not depart, I will wreak-” He stopped. His expression and his green eyes seemed to beseech her for forbearance.

But her nausea and distress were too great. Her son and Thomas Covenant had refused to let her hold them. They might as well have rejected her years of unfulfilled love. Instead of honouring Esmer’s appeal, she said grimly, “If you didn’t insist on doing harm, you wouldn’t need relief.” For an instant, he looked so stricken that she thought he might weep. But then, as if by an act of will, he recovered his scorn. “If I did not insist upon aiding you,” he told her acidly, “I would not be required to commit harm.” He had told her the history of the Viles and Demondim in order to justify himself: she believed that, although it may have been only part of the truth. He wanted her to trust that the creatures which he had brought forward from the past would serve her. At the same time, he was plainly trying to warn herBut she could not afford to think about such things now. He was about to depart: she would not be able to stop him. And she still had learned nothing about Covenant and Jeremiah.

“All right,” she said again, trying to speak more quickly. “I accept your explanation. I accept”- she gestured around at the ur-viles and Waynhim- “all of them. You’re trying to help me, even though I don’t understand it. But I still need answers.

“You said that there’s a shadow on the hearts of the Elohim. What does that mean?” She meant, What does Kastenessen have to do with Covenant and my son? But Esmer had already evaded that question. “Why didn’t they stop Kastenessen from breaking free?’

Esmer groaned as if she endangered his sanity. Gritting his teeth, he said, “The Elohim believe that they are equal to all things. This is false. Were it true, the Earth entire would exist in their image, and they would have no need to fear the rousing of the Worm of the World’s End. Nonetheless they persist in their belief. That is shadow enough to darken the heart of any being.

“They did not act to preserve Kastenessen’s Durance because they saw no need. Are you not the Wildwielder? And have you not returned to the Land? The skurj are mindless beasts, ravaging to feed. Kastenessen’s will rules them, but they cannot harm the Elohim. And you will oppose both Kastenessen and his monsters. What then remains to cause the Elohim concern? They have done that which they deem needful. They have forewarned the people of the Land, speaking often of the peril of the halfhand when the Haruchai have effaced any other knowledge or defence. Their Wurd requires nothing more. While you endure, they fear no other threat.” Linden flinched. She should have been prepared for Esmer’s assertion. Since their first meeting millennia ago, the Elohim had distrusted and disdained Thomas Covenant. They had been convinced even then that she, not Covenant, should be the one to hold and use white gold. And later, just a few days ago, Esmer had said, You have become the Wildwielder, as the Elohim knew that you must.

Nevertheless he filled her with dismay.

“Wait a minute,” she protested. “You have to tell me. What’s “the peril of the halfhand”? You can’t mean the Humbled. They don’t have any power-and they don’t want to threaten the Land. And you can’t mean my son. That poor boy has been Lord Foul’s prisoner ever since he came here. He doesn’t have a ring, or a staff, or lore.” He retained only his racecar, pitiable and useless. “He has power now, but he must be getting it from someone else.

“No.” She shook her head in denial. “You’re talking about Thomas Covenant. But how is he dangerous? My God, Esmer, he’s already saved the Land twice. And he’s probably been holding the Arch of Time together ever since Joan started her caesures. Why do the Elohim think that anybody has to Beware the halfhand?” “Wildwielder.” Esmer seemed to throw up his hands in disgust or apprehension. “Always you persist in questions which require no response, or which serve no purpose, or which will cause my destruction. You waste my assistance, when any attempt at aid or guidance is cruel to me. Do you mean to demand the entire knowledge of the Earth, while the Land itself is brought to ruin, and Time with it?’

“It’s not that simple!” she snapped urgently. “Practically everything is being hidden from me,” and not only by Cail’s son. “When I do learn something, it isn’t relevant to my problems. Even with the Staff, I might as well be blind.

“You’ve at least got eyes. You see things that I can’t live without. You’re in my debt. You said so. Maybe that’s why these ur-viles and Waynhim are here. Maybe it isn’t. But if I’m asking the wrong questions, whose fault is that? I’ve got nothing but questions. How am I supposed to know which are the right ones? How can I help wasting you when you won’t tell me what I need to know?” Esmer’s sudden anguish was so acute that it seemed to splash against her skin like spray; and the doleful green of his gaze cried out to her. In response, her stomach twisted as though she had swallowed poison. Another mutter arose from the watching creatures, a sound as sharp as fangs. The air felt too thick to breathe: she had difficulty drawing it into her lungs.

As if the words were being wrung from him by the combined insistence of the Waynhim and ur-viles, he hissed, “You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood.” For a moment longer, he remained in front of her, letting her see that his distress was as poignant as a wail. Then he left.

She did not see him vanish. Instead he seemed to sink back like a receding wave until he was gone as if he had never been there at all, leaving her with the fate of the Land on her shoulders and too little strength to carry it alone.

The abrupt cessation of her nausea gave her no relief at all.

Chapter Three: Love and Strangers

Linden hardly saw the ur-viles and Waynhim disperse, withdrawing apparently at random across the hillsides. With Esmer gone, they seemed to have no further purpose. They kept their distance from Glimmermere. And none of them headed toward Revelstone. As they drifted away, small clusters of Waynhim followed larger groups of ur-viles, or chose directions of their own. Soon they were gone, abandoning her to her dilemmas.

You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood.

In the west, a storm-front continued to accumulate behind the majesty of the mountains. Leery of being scourged by winds and rain and hostility, she peered for a moment at the high threat of the thunderheads, the clouds streaming past the jagged peaks. But she saw nothing unnatural there: no malice, no desire for pain. The harm which had harried her return to the Verge of Wandering-malevolence that she now believed had arisen from Kastenessen’s frustration and power-was entirely absent. When this storm broke over the plateau, it would bring only torrents, the necessary vehemence of the living world. And when it passed, it would leave lucent and enriched the grass-clad hillsides, the feather-leaved swaths of mimosa, the tall stands of cedar and pine.

Aching, she wished that she could find ease in such things. But Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah had refused to let her touch them; and Esmer had foiled her efforts to find out what was wrong with them. Her fear that they had been herded toward her remained unresolved.

Covenant had claimed responsibility for that feat-but how could she know whether his assertions were even possible? How did his place in the Arch of Time enable him to violate time’s most fundamental strictures? Had he indeed become a being of pure paradox, as capable of saving or damning the Earth as white gold itself?

And Jeremiah had not simply recovered his mind: he appeared to have acquired the knowledge and understanding of a fifteen-year-old boy, even though he had been effectively absent from himself for ten of those years. That should have been enough for her. It was more, far more, than she could have hoped for if she had rescued him with her own strength and determination; her own love.

But he and Covenant had denied her. Her son had gained power-and had used it to repel her. They kept their distance even though every particle of her heart and soul craved to hold them in her arms and never let them go. And they claimed that they had good reason for doing so. Instead of relief, joy, or desire-the food for which her soul hungered-she felt only an unutterable loss.

Don’t touch him! Don’t touch either of us!

Faced with Esmer’s surprises and obfuscations, she had failed to ask the right questions; to make him tell her why Covenant and her son were so changed. Now she had no choice except to wrest understanding from Covenant himself. Or from Jeremiah. Somehow.

Keep her away from us until I’m ready.

Her heart was full of pain, in spite of Glimmermere’s healing, as she turned at last to ascend the hillside toward Revelstone. How had the man whom she had loved here, in this very place, become a being who could not tolerate the affirmation of Law? And where had Jeremiah obtained the lore, the magic, or the need to reject her yearning embrace?

She did not mean to wait until Covenant decided that he was ready. She had loved him and her son too long and too arduously to be treated as nothing more than a hindrance.

But first she hoped to talk to the Mahdoubt. The older woman had been kind to Linden. She might be willing to say more about her strange insights. In any case, her replies could hardly be less revealing than Esmer’s-

As Linden reached the crest of the hills which cupped and concealed Glimmermere, the southeastward stretch of the upland plateau opened before her. Distraught as she was, she might still have lingered there for a moment to drink in the spring-kissed landscape: the flowing green of the grass, the numinous blue of the jacarandas’ flowers, the yellow splash of blooms among the mimosas. But Manethrall Mahrtiir stood at the foot of slope below her, plainly watching for her return. And in the middle distance, she saw Stave’s solitary figure striding purposefully toward her. Their proximity drew her down the hillside to meet them.

She wanted a moment alone with Mahrtiir before Stave came near enough to overhear her.

The Manethrall studied her approach as though he believed-or feared-that she had been changed by Glimmermere. He must have noticed the sudden silence of the birds-She felt his sharp gaze on her, searching for indications that she was unharmed.

He was unaware of what had transpired: she could see that. Both Esmer and the Demondim-spawn were able to thwart perception. And the bulk of the hill must have blocked the noises of her encounter with them. If Mahrtiir had felt their presence, he would have ignored her request for privacy.

Yet it was clear that he retained enough discernment, in spite of Kevin’s Dirt, to recognise that something had happened to her or changed for her. As she neared him, he bowed deeply, as if he felt that he owed her a new homage. And when he raised his eyes again, his chagrin was unmistakable, in spite of his fierce nature.

“Ringthane-” he began awkwardly. “Again you have surpassed me. You are exalted-”

“No, Mahrtiir.” Linden hastened to forestall his wonder. She was too lost, and too needy, to bear it. “It isn’t me. It’s Glimmermere. That’s what you’re seeing.” She attempted an unsuccessful smile. You don’t need to stay away from it. As soon as you touch the water, you’ll know what I mean. It belongs to the Land. To everyone. You won’t feel like an intruder. And it cleans away Kevin’s Dirt.

“I can’t use my Staff right now.” She frowned at the wood in frustration. “You know that. I can’t protect us from being blinded, any of us. But as long as we can go to Glimmermere-“

When they knew the truth, Liand, Bhapa, and Pahni would be delighted. Anele, on the other hand-Linden sighed. He would avoid the lake strenuously. He feared anything that might threaten his self-imposed plight. And his defences were strong. He would use every scrap of his inborn might to preserve the peculiar integrity of his madness.

As Stave came closer, she promised the Manethrall quietly, “You’ll get your chance. I’ll make sure of it.”

The Raman bowed again. “My thanks, Ringthane.” Wryly he added, “Doubtless you have observed that the pride of the Ramen runs hotly within me. I do not contain it well.”

Hurrying to put the matter behind her, Linden said again, “Don’t worry about it. I respect your pride. It’s better than shame. And we have more important problems.”

Mahrtiir nodded. He may have thought that he knew what she meant.

A moment later, Stave reached the Manethrall’s side. He, too, bowed as if in recognition of some ineffable alteration, an elevation at once too subtle and too profound for Linden to acknowledge. “Chosen,” he said with his familiar flatness, “the waters of Glimmermere have served you well. You have been restored when none could have known that you had been diminished.”

He had cleaned the blood from his face, but he still wore his spattered tunic and his untended bruises as if they were a reproach to the Masters. His single eye gave his concentration a prophetic cast, as if in losing half of his vision he had gained a supernal insight.

Did he see her accurately? Had she in fact gleaned something sacramental from the lake? Something untainted by her encounter with Esmer’s ambiguous loyalties?

She shrugged the question aside. It could not change her choices-or the risks that she meant to take.

Without preamble, she replied, “I was just about to tell Mahrtiir that something happened after I-” She had no words adequate to the experience. “I wanted to talk to somebody who could tell me what’s going on, so I called Esmer.” Awkwardly she explained, “I have no idea what he can and can’t do. I thought that he might be able to hear me.”

While Stave studied her, and Mahrtiir stared with open surprise, she described as concisely as she could what Cail’s son had said and done.

“Ur-viles,” the Manethrall breathed when she was finished, “and Waynhim. So many-and together. Have these creatures indeed come to your aid? Do they suffice against the Teeth of the Render?”

Stave appeared to consult the air. With his tongue, he made a sound that suggested vexation. “The actions of these Demondim-spawn are unexpected,” he said aloud, “but no more so than those of their makers. If the spirit of Kastenessen is able to possess our companion Anele, much is explained.”

Our companion-Linden could not remember hearing Stave speak the old man’s name before. Apparently the former Master had extended his friendship to include all of her comrades.

“For that reason, however,” he continued, “the peril that the same spirit moves Esmer, and with him the ur-viles and Waynhim, cannot be discounted.

“Did Esmer reveal nothing of the ur-Lord, or of your son?”

“No,” she muttered bitterly. “I asked him whether Kastenessen helped Covenant and Jeremiah reach Revelstone, but he just changed the subject.”

Mahrtiir opened his mouth, then closed it again grimly. Stave had more to say.

“I mislike this confluence. Plainly the return of the Unbeliever from the Arch of Time holds great import. It appears to promise that the Land’s redemption is at hand. Yet his account of his coming troubles me. That he is able to cast a glamour of confusion upon the Demondim, I do not greatly question. However, his avowal concerning distortions of the Law of Time-” He hesitated momentarily, then said, “And Esmer’s grandsire connives with Demondim while Esmer himself removes Waynhim and ur-viles from their proper time.

“Chosen, here is cause for concern. It cannot lack meaning that such divergent events have occurred together.”

“Stave speaks sooth, Ringthane,” the Manethrall said in a low growl. “Esmer has been altered by your return to the Land. He is not as he was when he first gained the friendship of the Ramen. Had he answered you, his words would have held too much truth and falsehood to be of service.”

Linden agreed; but the thought did not comfort her. She had suffered too many shocks.

Jeremiah is here, but Foul still has him.

What you can’t see is how much it hurts that I’m not just here.

What were Esmer’s surprises-or his betrayals-compared to that?

Fiercely she set aside her failures. Supporting her resolve, if not her heart, on the Staff of Law, she met Stave’s flat gaze.

“I’m worried about the same things. Maybe Covenant can explain them.” Or perhaps the Mahdoubt might share her obscure knowledge. “Is he ready to see me yet? Has something else happened? I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“There is no new peril,” replied the Haruchai. “The Demondim remain in abeyance, without apparent purpose. But the ur-Lord has indeed announced his readiness to speak with you. I have been instructed to summon you.”

His manner suggested that he disliked being “instructed” by either Covenant or the Masters.

“Then let’s go.” At once, Linden started into motion. “Foul still has my son.” Somehow. “If I don’t do something about that soon, it’s going to tear me apart.”

Lord’s Keep was at least a league away.

Stave and the Manethrall joined her promptly, walking at her shoulders like guardians. She set a brisk pace, borne along by Glimmermere’s lingering potency; but they accompanied her easily. Either one of them could have reached Revelstone far more swiftly without her-

As they followed low valleys among the hills and trees, Linden asked Stave, “Did you find the Mahdoubt? Will she talk to me?”

The Haruchai shook his head. It is curious. It appears that the Mahdoubt has departed from Revelstone. How she might have done so is unclear. Demondim in abundance guard the gates, the passage to the plateau is watched, and Lord’s Keep has no other egress. Yet neither the Masters nor those who serve the Keep can name her whereabouts.

“I was shown to her chambers, but she was not there. And those who have known her cannot suggest where she might be found.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Nor are they able to account for her. Indeed, they profess to know nothing certain of her. They say only that she conveys the sense that they have always known her-and that she seldom attracts notice.”

Stave shrugged slightly. “In the thoughts of the Masters, she is merely a servant of Revelstone, unremarkable and unregarded. To me, also, she has appeared to be entirely ordinary. Yet her absence now demonstrates our error. At a time of less extreme hazard, the Masters would seek to grasp her mystery. While Revelstone remains besieged, however, their attention is compelled by the Demondim.”

“I also was baffled by her,” Mahrtiir put in. In some fashion, she appeared to alter herself from moment to moment, yet I could not be certain of my sight. Another woman inhabited her place, or she herself inhabited-” He muttered in irritation. “I do not comprehend it.”

“Me neither,” Linden admitted. But she swallowed her disappointment. If the Mahdoubt had not warned her to Be cautious of love, she would never have thought to ask for the older woman’s guidance.

“All right,” she went on. “Since that doesn’t make any sense, maybe you can tell me something that does. How did you convince the Humbled to leave me alone? If they don’t trust me, shouldn’t they be guarding me?”

Stave considered briefly before saying, “Other concerns require precedence. A measure of uncertainty has been sown among the Masters. They know nothing of the peril which Esmer has revealed. But they have heard Anele speak of both Kastenessen and the skurj. And they are chary of the Demondim. That such monsters front the gates of Revelstone, holding among them the might of the IIIearth Stone, and yet do nothing, disturbs the Masters. In addition, the Unbeliever’s presence is”- he appeared to search for a description- “strangely fortuitous. It is difficult to credit.

“Your power to create Falls, or to efface the ur-Lord by other means, troubles the Masters deeply. However, I have reminded the Humbled that your love for both the Unbeliever and the Land is well known-and that your son will be lost by any act of theurgy. Further, I have assured them that you are not a woman who will forsake those companions who remain in Revelstone. This your fidelity to Anele confirms.

“Also”- Stave shrugged eloquently- “the Humbled will not willingly forego their duty to the Halfhand, regardless of their disquiet. Therefore they heeded my urging.”

Stave’s tone reminded Linden that the Humbled would not otherwise have listened to him.

“They are fools,” growled Mahrtiir.

“They are Haruchai,” Stave replied without inflection. “I thought as they do. Had I not partaken of the horserite, I would do so still.”

He deserved gratitude, especially because of his own bereavement; and Linden thanked him as well as she could. Then she asked a different question. “You mentioned the skurj. Why didn’t you say anything about them before we came here’?”

“Chosen?” Stave cocked an eyebrow at her question.

“You’ve heard Anele talk about them. You were there when that Elohim appeared in Mithil Stonedown,” warning Liand’s people that a bane of great puissance and ferocity in the far north had slipped its bonds and had found release in Mount Thunder. “And you told me yourself that “Beasts of Earthpower rage upon Mount Thunder.” But you haven’t said anything else.”

Until now, she had not needed to know more-

“Your people are the Masters of the Land. If something that terrible has been set loose,” something which resembled fiery serpents with the jaws of krakens, something capable of devouring stone and soil, grass and trees, “someone must have at least noticed. I assume that the Masters can’t fight the skurj, but they must be watching, studying, trying to understand.”

Now Stave nodded. “There has been misapprehension between us. The Masters have no knowledge of the skurj which has not been gleaned from Anele. We-” He stopped himself. “They have beheld no such evil upon the Land. If the skurj have come, they have done so recently, or without exposing themselves to the awareness of the Masters.

“When I spoke of “beasts of Earthpower,” I should perhaps have named the FireLions of Mount Thunder. I did not because I believed them unknown to you. Their life within Gravin Threndor is ancient, far older than the history of Lords in the Land. They came first to human knowledge in the time of Berek Halfhand, the Lord-Fatherer, who called upon them to destroy the armies of his foes. So the tale was later told to the Bloodguard during the time of Kevin Landwaster. Indeed, it has been sung that the Landwaster himself once stood upon the pinnacle of Gravin Threndor and beheld the FireLions. Thereafter, however, they were not again witnessed until the time of the Unbeliever’s first coming to the Land, when he called upon Gravin Threndor’s beasts for the salvation of his companions.”

“So it is remembered among the Ramen,” Mahrtiir assented, “for Manethrall Lithe accompanied the Ringthane and his companions into the Wightwarrens, though we loathe the loss of the open sky. She it was who guided the defenders of the Land from those dire catacombs to the slopes of Gravin Threndor. She witnessed the Ringthane’s summoning of the FireLion- and of the Ranyhyn who bore the Ringthane’s companions to safety.”

“That also the Haruchai have not forgotten,” said Stave. “The courage of the Raman enabled hope which would otherwise have been lost utterly.”

Linden bit her lower lip and waited for Stave to continue his explanation.

“Now, however,” he said, “the FireLions are restive. After millennia of concealed life, they may be observed at any time rampaging upon the slopes of Mount Thunder. They present no peril to the Land, for they are beings of Earthpower, as condign after their fashion as the Ranyhyn. But the cause of their restlessness must be a great peril indeed. When the unnamed Elohim spoke of “a bane of great puissance and ferocity” from the far north which had “found release” in Mount Thunder, no Master knew the form or power of that evil, though all presumed it to be the source of the FireLions’ unrest.

“Upon that occasion, the Elohim also named the skurj.”

“As they did among the Ramen also,” Mahrtiir put in.

The Haruchai nodded again. And Anele has indeed uttered that name repeatedly. But his words revealed nothing of what the skurj might be, or of the FireLions’ unrest. Only when he spoke in the Close did he declare beyond mistake that Kastenessen had been Appointed to contain the skurj, that he has now broken free of his Durance, and that therefore the skurj are a present danger to the Land.

“For that reason, we”- again he stopped himself- “the Masters, and I as well, conceive that the skurj are not the bane which has been released in Mount Thunder. The FireLions have been too long restless, and such devouring harm as Kastenessen was Appointed to imprison would surely have become manifest to our senses. Rather I deem, as do the Masters, that the bane of which the Elohim spoke, and the cause of the FireLions’ unrest, is Kastenessen himself. We surmise that when he had broken free of his Durance, he came alone to Mount Thunder, preceding his former prisoners. Those creatures are the skurj, as Anele has plainly proclaimed. Only now does Kastenessen summon them to his aid.”

Kastenessen again, Linden thought darkly. She did not doubt Stave: his explanation fit Anele’s cryptic references to the skurj, the Durance, and the Appointed. Nor did she doubt that when Lord Foul had whispered a word of counsel here and there, and awaited events, he had been speaking to Kastenessen. He may even have told Kastenessen how to shatter or evade his Durance.

Whether or not the Despiser had also advised Esmer, she could not begin to guess.

But Lord Foul had Jeremiah. Her son had constructed images of Revelstone and Mount Thunder in her living room. And the Masters had reason to think that Kastenessen now inhabited Mount Thunder.

Perhaps he was also responsible for Kevin’s Dirt-

Such speculations left her sick with frustration. They were too abstract: she needed a concrete explanation for what had happened to Covenant and Jeremiah. And she feared the storm of her own emotions when she stood before them again. If they still rejected her touch, she might not be able to think at all.

Still searching for some form of insight, she asked Stave what he remembered of the Elohim’s portentous visit to Mithil Stonedown. Surely he had heard or understood more than Liand was able to recall?

He replied with pronounced care, as though she had asked him to touch on subjects that would cause her pain.

“I can add little to that which the Ramen have revealed, or to the Stonedown’s memory of the event. I saw the Elohim for what he was, oblique and devious. Such names as merewives, Sandgorgons, and croyel were known to me, as they are to you, though they conveyed naught to the Stonedownors. Also the Haruchai have heard it said, as you have, that there is a shadow upon the heart of the Elohim.

“But of the skurj we knew nothing. The Masters do not grasp the purpose of the Elohim’s appearance, for they cannot comprehend his warning against the halfhand. Indeed, they honour those who have been titled Halfhands, both Berek Lord-Fatherer and ur-Lord Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. The Humbled are a token of that honour, as they are of the fault which doomed the Bloodguard.”

A premature twilight dimmed the air as Linden and her companions strode among the low hills. She had been on the plateau longer than she realised. The sun was not yet setting; but the peaks of the Westron Mountains reached high, and the dark clouds behind them piled higher still. She seemed to cross into shadow as Stave answered her.

“Yet, Chosen-” The Haruchai hesitated, apparently uncertain that he should continue. However, he had declared his loyalty to her. His tone remained dispassionate as he said, “I have been cast out from the Masters, but they cannot silence their thoughts. They merely refuse to heed me if I do not speak aloud. For that reason, I know that they are disturbed by the knowledge that your son also is a halfhand.”

Linden flinched involuntarily; but she did not interrupt.

In the time of the new Lords,” Stave continued, the Unbeliever was considered by some the reincarnation of Berek Heartthew, for their legends said that Berek would one day return. It may be that the Elohim fear the Unbeliever because his presence, the rebirth of High Lord Berek’s potent spirit, will dim their own import in the Earth. Or it may be that the Elohim seek to warn the Land against your son, seeing in him a peril which is hidden from us.”

No, stop, Linden protested inwardly. I can’t think-Without noticing what she did, she dragged her fingers roughly through the tangles of her hair: she needed that smaller hurt to contain her larger shock. What, you suspect that my son is a threat to the Land? Now what am I supposed to do? Jeremiah had recovered his mind. He had recovered his mind. How could she bear to believe that he had become dangerous? That the Elohim saw danger in him?

Or in Covenant-?

Where had Jeremiah’s mind been while she had tried and failed for years to reach it?

After a moment, Mahrtiir said gruffly, “This gains nothing, Stave. That we have cause for concern is plain enough. But the youth is no son of ours. We cannot gaze upon him as the Ringthane must. And the burden of determination is not ours, for we hold neither white gold nor the Staff of Law. She will speak with the Unbeliever and her son, and her wisdom and valour will guide her. The speculations of the Masters-mere imaginings, for the truth remains shrouded-serve only to tarnish her clarity.”

The Manethrall’s words offered Linden a way to calm her turmoil. He was right: she could not guess the truth of Jeremiah’s condition-or of Covenant’s. She needed to fight her impulse to jump to conclusions.

“She will learn what she can,” Mahrtiir said, “and do what she must. This the Ramen understand, who have spent their lives in the service of the Ranyhyn. But the Masters have lost such wisdom, for they conceive themselves equal to that which they serve. Among your people, you alone recognise their fault”- the Manethrall grinned sharply- “humbling my pride as you do so, for the Ramen also are not without fault. We have permitted ourselves to forget that at one time, when the Bloodguard had ended their service to the Lords, some few of them chose instead to serve the Ranyhyn among the Ramen. Foolishly we have nurtured our disdain toward the sleepless ones across the centuries, and so we have proffered distrust where honour has been earned.

“Together we must now be wary that we do not teach the Ringthane to share our ancient taints. We may be certain that she will serve the Land and her own loves. No other knowledge is required of us.”

Although her heart trembled, Linden pushed aside the warning of the Elohim. She could not afford to be confused by fears that had no name.

She and her companions were nearing the wide passage that angled down into Lord’s Keep. There she stopped so that she would not be overheard by the Masters who presumably guarded the passage. Resting her free hand on Stave’s shoulder, she turned to meet the Manethrall’s whetted gaze.

“Thank you,” she said gravely. “That helps.” Then she faced Stave. “And thank you. I need to know anything that you can tell me. Even if it makes me crazy.” She grimaced ruefully. “But Mahrtiir is right. I can’t think about everything right now. We have too many problems. I need to take them as they come.

“We’re running out of time. I know that. Those Demondim aren’t going to wait much longer.” And when they resumed their siege, they would unfurl the full virulence of the IIIearth Stone from its source in the deep past. “But I can’t worry about them yet.” She knew what she had to do. “First I need to talk to Covenant and Jeremiah.”

The gloom on the upland continued to darken as storm clouds hid the sun.

“I hope that you’ll forgive me,” she told Stave. “There might be things that I can’t talk about in front of you.” Not until she knew more about the Unbeliever and her son-and about where she stood with them. “If you can still hear the Masters’ thoughts, I have to assume that they can hear yours. And if they even half believe that Jeremiah is a threat- ” She swallowed a lump of distress. “I can’t take the chance that they’ll get in my way.”

Stave faced her stolidly. “No forgiveness is needful. I do not question you. The Masters are indeed able to hear my thoughts-should they deign to do so. Speak to me of nothing which may foster their opposition.”

Mutely Mahrtiir gave the former Master a deep Ramen bow. And Linden squeezed his shoulder. She wanted to hug him-to acknowledge his understanding as well as his losses-but she did not trust herself. Her emotions gathered like the coming storm. If she could not emulate his stoic detachment when she confronted Covenant and her son-and if they still refused her touch-she would be routed like a scatter of dry leaves.

Millennia ago, Covenant had promised that he would never use power again. But he was using power now: he was folding time. He might ask for his ring. Why else had he come so unexpectedly? He might demand-

And somehow Jeremiah had obtained his own magic.

If either of them accepted Linden’s embrace now, she would certainly lose control of herself. And she feared the costs of her vulnerability.

At the end of the long tunnel down into the ramified convolutions of Revelstone, Linden, Stave, and Mahrtiir were met by Galt of the Humbled. He greeted them with a small inclination of his head, hardly a nod, and announced that he would guide the Chosen to speak with ur-Lord Thomas Covenant.

Linden paused to address Mahrtiir and Stave again. “I have to do this alone.” Her voice was tight with trepidation. “But I hope that you’ll stay nearby, Stave.

“Mahrtiir, it might be a good idea to take Liand and the others to Glimmermere. Drink the water. Go swimming. Anele won’t, but the rest of you will be better off.” Unnecessarily she added, “There’s a storm coming, but it doesn’t feel like the kind of weather that can hurt you.”

When the Manethrall had bowed to her and walked away, she returned her attention to Galt.

“All right,” she said softly. “Let’s do this. I’m tired of waiting.”

Saying nothing, the Humbled led her and Stave into the intricate gutrock of Revelstone’s secrets.

The way had been prepared for her, by the Masters if not by Revelstone’s servants. Torches interspersed with oil lamps lit the unfamiliar halls, corridors, stairs. Some of the passages were blunt stone: others, strangely ornate, elaborated by Giants for reasons entirely their own. But the inadequate illumination left the details caliginous, obscure.

As Galt guided her downward and inward, she sensed that he was taking her toward the Keep’s outer wall where it angled into the northwest from the watchtower. The complications of his route-abrupt turns, ascents instead of descents, corridors that seemed to double back on themselves-might have confused her; but her refreshed percipience protected her from disorientation. Concentrating acutely, she felt sure that she was nearing her destination when the Humbled steered her into a plain hallway where there were no more lamps or torches after the first score or so paces.

Beside the last lamp, a door indistinguishable from the one to Linden’s quarters defined the wall of the corridor. She wanted to pause there, rally her courage, before she faced the uncertain possibilities behind the door. But when Galt knocked, a stone-muffled voice called promptly, “Come in.”

Even through the barrier of rock, she seemed to recognise Covenant’s stringent tone; his harsh commandments.

Without hesitation, Galt pressed the door open and gestured for Linden to enter.

Even then she might have faltered. But from beyond the doorway, she heard the faint crackle and snap of burning wood, saw firelight reflect redly off the stone. And there was another glow as well: not the flame of lamps or torches, but the tenebrous admixture of the fading day.

Such homely details steadied her. Very well: Thomas Covenant and her son were still human enough to want a fire against the residual chill of the stone, and to leave their windows open for the last daylight. She would be able to bear seeing them again.

Even if they still refused her touch-

For a brief moment, she braced herself on Stave’s inflexible aura. Then she left him in the corridor. Biting her lip, she crossed the threshold into the chambers that the Masters had made available to Covenant and Jeremiah.

As she did so, Galt shut the door. He remained outside with Stave.

She found herself in a room larger than her own small quarters. A dozen or more people could have seated themselves comfortably around the walls: she saw almost that many stone chairs and wooden stools. Among them, a low table as large as the door held the remains of an abundant repast-bread and dried fruit, several kinds of cured meat, stew in a wide stoneware pot, and clay pitchers of both water and some other drink which smelled faintly of aliantha and beer. The floor was covered to the walls by a rough flaxen rug raddled to an ochre like that of the robe of the old man who should have warned her of her peril.

A large hearth shining with flames occupied part of the wall to her left. Above it hung a thick tapestry woven predominantly in blues and reds which must have been bright until time had dimmed their dyes. The colours depicted a stylised central figure surrounded by smaller scenes; but Linden recognised nothing about the arras, and did not try to interpret it.

Four other doors marked the walls. Three of them apparently gave access to chambers that she could not see: two bedrooms, perhaps, and a bathroom. But the fourth stood open directly opposite her, revealing a wide balcony with a crenellated parapet. Beyond the parapet, she could see a sky dimmed by late afternoon shadows.

On this side, Revelstone faced somewhat east of north. Here the cliffs which protected the Keep’s wedge and the plateau cut off direct sunshine. From the balcony, the fields that fed Revelstone’s inhabitants would be visible. And off to the right, along the wall toward the southeast, would be at least a glimpse of the massed horde of the Demondim.

Then Thomas Covenant said her name, and she could no longer gaze anywhere except at him-and at her son.

Her pulse hammered painfully in her chest as she stared at Covenant and Jeremiah. They were much as she had seen them in the forehall; too explicitly themselves to be anyone else despite their subtle alterations. Jeremiah sprawled with the unconsidered gracelessness of a teenager in one of the stone chairs, grinning with covert pleasure or glee. Although Lord Foul must have tortured him-must have been torturing him at this moment-his features retained their half-undefined youth. But the imminent drooling which had marked his slack mouth for years was gone. An insistent tic at the corner of his left eye contradicted his relaxed posture.

His eyes themselves were the same muddy colour that they had always been: the hue of silted water. But now they focused keenly on his adoptive mother. He watched her avidly, as if he were studying her for signs of acceptance, understanding, love.

If Linden had seen him so in their lost life together, she would have wept for utter joy; would have hugged him until her heart broke apart and was made new. But now her fears-for him, of him-burned in her gaze, and the brief blurring of her vision was not gladness or grief: it was trepidation.

Tell her that I have her son.

He was closed to her, more entirely undecipherable than the Haruchai. Her health-sense could discern nothing of his physical or emotional condition. Past his blue pajamas with their rearing horses, she searched his precious flesh for some sign of the fusillade which had ended her normal life. But the fabric had been torn in too many places, and his exposed skin wore too much grime, to reveal whether or not he had been shot.

Shot and healed.

To her ordinary sight, he looked well; as cared for and healthy as he had been before Roger Covenant took him. She did not know how that was possible. During their separation, he had been in the Despiser’s power. She could not imagine that Lord Foul had attended to his needs.

Covenant claimed that he had folded time, that he and Jeremiah were in two places at once. Or two realities. But she had no idea how such a violation of Time had restored her son’s physical well-being. Or his mind.

Covenant himself was sitting on a stool near Jeremiah. Her former lover had tilted the stool back on two legs so that he could lean against the wall. Lightly held by his left hand, a wooden flagon rested in his lap.

He, too, was smiling: a wry twist of his mouth etiolated by an uncharacteristic looseness in his mouth and cheeks. His gaze regarded her with an expression of dull appraisal. He was exactly the same man whom she had known for so long in the Land: lean to the point of gauntness; strictly formed; apt for extreme needs and catastrophes. The pale scar on his forehead suggested deeper wounds, hurts which he had borne without flinching. And yet he had never before given her the impression that he was not entirely present; that some covert aspect of his mind was fixed elsewhere.

His right arm hung, relaxed, at his side. Dangling, the fingers of his halfhand twitched as though they felt the absence of the ring that he had worn for so long.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Jeremiah said, grinning. “You still can’t touch us.” He seemed to believe that he knew her thoughts. “You’ve changed. You’re even more powerful now. You’ll make us vanish for sure.”

But he had misinterpreted her clenched frown, her deep consternation. She had forgotten nothing: his prohibition against contact held her as if she had been locked in the manacles of the ur-viles. Nevertheless her attention was focused on Covenant. The smaller changes in him seemed less comprehensible than her son’s profound restoration.

Covenant nodded absently. “Glimmermere,” he observed. “I’m pretty damn strong, but I can’t fight that.” His tongue slurred the edges of his words. “Reality will snap back into place. Then were all doomed.”

Was he-?

In a flat voice, a tone as neutral as she could make it, Linden asked, “What are you drinking?”

Covenant peered into his flagon. “This?” He took a long swallow, then set the flagon back in his lap. “Springwine. You know, I actually forgot how good it tastes. I haven’t been”- he grimaced- “physical for a long time.” Then he suggested, “You should try it. It might help you relax. You’re so tense it hurts to look at you.”

Jeremiah started to giggle; stopped himself sharply.

Linden stepped to the edge of the table, bent down to a pitcher that smelled of treasure-berries and beer. The liquid looked clear, but its fermentation was obvious. Somehow the people of the Land had used the juice of aliantha to make an ale as refreshing as water from a mountain spring.

The Ramen believed that No servant of Fangthane craves or will consumealiantha. The virtue of the berries is too potent.

Facing Covenant again, she said stiffly, “You’re drunk.”

He shrugged, grimacing again. “Hellfire, Linden. A man’s got to unwind once in a while. With everything I’m going through right now, I’ve earned it.

“Anyway,” he added, “Jeremiah’s had as much as I have-“

“I have not,” retorted Jeremiah cheerfully.

“-and he’s not drunk,” Covenant continued. “Just look at him.” As if to himself, he muttered, “Maybe when he swallows it ends up in his other stomach. The one where he’s still Foul’s prisoner.”

Linden shook her head. Covenant’s behaviour baffled her. For that very reason, however, she grew calmer. His strangeness enabled her to reclaim a measure of the professional detachment with which she had for years listened to the oblique ramblings of the psychotic and the deranged: dissociated observations, warnings, justifications, all intended to both conceal and expose underlying sources of pain. She did not suddenly decide that Covenant was insane: she could not. He was too much himself to be evaluated in that way. But she began to hear him as if from a distance. As if she had erected a wall between him and her denied anguish-or had hidden her distress in a room like the secret place where her access to wild magic lurked.

Her tone was deliberately impersonal as she replied, “You said that you wanted to talk to me. Are you in any condition to explain things?”

“What,” Covenant protested, “you think a little alcohol can slow me down? Linden, you’re forgetting who I am. The keystone of the Arch of Time, remember? I know everything. Or I can, if I make the effort.”

He seemed to consider the air, trying to choose an example. Then he turned his smeared gaze toward her again.

“You’ve been to Glimmermere. And you’ve talked to Esmer. Him and something like a hundred ur-viles and Waynhim. Tell me. Why do you think they’re here? I don’t care what he said. He was just trying to justify himself. What do you think’?”

Disturbed by his manner, Linden kept her reactions to herself. Instead of answering, she said cautiously, “I have no idea. He took me by surprise. I don’t know how to think about it.”

Covenant snorted. “Don’t let him confuse you. It’s really pretty simple. He likes to talk about ‘aid and betrayal,’ but with him it’s mostly betrayal. Listening to him is a waste of time.”

While Covenant spoke, Jeremiah took his racecar from the waistband of his pajamas and began to roll the toy over and around the fingers and palm of his halfhand as if he were practicing a conjuring trick; as if he meant to make the car vanish like a coin from the hand of a magician.

Covenant’s awareness of her encounter with Esmer startled Linden; but she clung to her protective detachment. You know what he said to me?”

You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood. Did Covenant understand what Esmer meant?

“Probably,” Covenant drawled. “Most of it, anyway. But it’s better if you tell me.”

He was Thomas Covenant: she did not question that. But she did not know how to trust him now. Carefully she replied, He said that the ur-viles and Waynhim want to serve me.”

“How?” Suddenly he was angry. “By joining up with all those Demondim? Hell and blood, Linden. Use your brain. They were created by the Demondim, for God’s sake. Even the Waynhim can’t forget that, no matter how hard they try. They were created evil. And the ur-viles have been Foul’s servants ever since they met him.”

“They made Vain,” she countered as if she were speaking to one of her patients. Without the ur-viles, her Staff of Law would not exist.

And you think that’s a good thing?” Covenant demanded. “Sure, you stopped the Sunbane. But it would have faded out on its own after a while. It needed the Banefire. And since then mostly what that thing you insist on carrying around has done is make my job a hell of a lot harder.

“Damn it, Linden, if you hadn’t taken my ring and made that Staff, I would have been able to fix everything ages ago. I could have stopped time around Foul right where he was when you left the Land. Then Kastenessen would still be stuck in his Durance, and the skurj would still be trapped, and Kevin’s Dirt wouldn’t exist, and Foul wouldn’t have been able to find that chink in Joan’s mind, and we wouldn’t have caesures and Demondim and ur-viles and Esmer and the bloody IIIearth Stone to worry about. Not to mention some of the other powers that have noticed what’s happening here and want to take advantage of it.

“Hellfire, I know you like that Staff. You’re probably even proud of it. But you have no idea what it’s costing me.” He glanced over at Jeremiah. “Or your son.”

Jeremiah nodded without raising his eyes from the racecar tumbling in his halfhand.

“What do you think I’m doing here?” Covenant finished. “I’m still trying to clean up your mess.”

Linden flinched in spite of her self-discipline. He held her responsible-? She wanted to protest, But you said-!

In her dreams, he had told her, You need the Staff of Law.

And through Anele, he had urged her to find him. I can’t help you unless you find me.

Yet he was the one who had found her.

“It’s awful, Mom,” Jeremiah said softly as if he were talking to his car. “There aren’t any words for what it feels like. Words aren’t strong enough. The Despiser is ripping me to pieces. And I can’t stop him. Covenant can’t stop him. He just keeps hurting me and laughing like he’s never had so much fun.”

Oh, my son!

Linden bit her lip and forced herself to face Covenant again. She was beginning to understand why he had warned her to be wary of him. The man whom she had loved would never have held her accountable for consequences which she could not have foreseen.

Nevertheless the discrepancy between her recollections and his attitudes helped her to regain her balance. In a moment, the impact of his recrimination was gone; hidden away. She would consider it later. For the present, she stood her ground.

As she had so often with her patients, she responded to his ire by trying to alter the direction of their interaction, attempting to slip past his defences. She hoped to surprise some revelation from him which he could or would not offer voluntarily.

Instead of defending herself, she asked mildly, as if he had not hurt her, “How did you get that scar on your forehead? I don’t think you ever told me.”

Covenant’s manner or his mood was as labile as Esmer’s. His anger seemed to fade into a brume of springwine. Rubbing at his forehead with his halfhand, he grinned sheepishly. “You know, I’ve forgotten. Isn’t that weird? You’d think I’d remember what happened to my own body. But I’ve been away from myself for so long-” His voice faded to a sigh. “So full of time-” Then he seemed to shake himself. Emptying his flagon with one long draught, he refilled it and set it in his lap again. “Maybe that’s why this stuff tastes so much better than I remember.”

Linden paid no attention to his reply: she heeded only his manner. Deliberately casual, she changed the subject again.

“Esmer mentioned manacles.”

His response was not what she expected. “Exactly,” he sighed as if he were drowsy with drink. “And who do you think they’re for? Not you. Of course not. Those ur-viles are here to serve you.” His tone scarcely hinted at sarcasm. “No, Linden, the manacles are for me. That’s why Esmer brought his creatures here. That’s how they’re going to help their makers. And Foul. By stopping me before we can do what we have to do to save the Land.”

Although she tried to conceal her reaction, she flinched. What she knew of the ur-viles and Waynhim led her to believe that they were her allies, that she could rely on them. But what she knew of Esmer urged doubt. The creatures that had enabled her to retrieve the Staff of Law and reach Revelstone had clearly accepted the newcomers. But if both groups wished to serve her because they felt sure that she would fail the Land-if their real purpose, and Esmer’s, hinged on stopping Covenant-

She could not sustain her detachment in the face of such possibilities. They were too threatening; and the truth was beyond her grasp. She had no sortilege for such determinations. The Demondim-spawn had done so much to earn her trust-If she had not witnessed Esmer’s conflicted treachery, she might have concluded that Covenant was lying.

Trembling inside, she turned away from her former lover. Her lost son was here as well. Even if he, too, blamed her for the Land’s plight, she yearned to talk to him.

He had regained his mind at the cost of more torment than he could describe.

Carefully she leaned the Staff against the wall near the hearth. Although she craved its comforting touch, she wanted to show Jeremiah that he was in no danger from her. Then she took one of the stools and placed it so that she could sit facing him. Leaning forward with her elbows braced on her knees, she focused all of her attention on him; closed her mind to Thomas Covenant.

“Jeremiah, honey,” she asked quietly, intently, “were you shot?”

Jeremiah wrapped his hand around his toy. For a moment, he appeared to consider trying to crush the racecar in his fist; and the pulse at the corner of his eye became more urgent. But then he returned the car to the waistband of his pajamas. Lifting his head, he faced Linden with his soiled gaze.

“You really should ask him, Mom.” Her son nodded toward Covenant. “He’s the one with all the answers.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m just here.”

As if he were speaking to himself, Covenant murmured, “You know, that tapestry is pretty amazing. I think it’s the same one they had in my room the first time I came here. Somehow it survived for seven thousand years. Not to mention the fact that it must have been old when I first saw it.”

Linden ignored the Unbeliever.

“Jeremiah, listen to me.” Intensity throbbed in her voice: she could not stifle it. “I need to know. Were you shot?”

Could she still attempt to save his former life? Was it possible that he might return to the world in which he belonged?

“Maybe they didn’t keep it in the Hall of Gifts,” Covenant mused. “There was a lot of damage when we fought Gibbon. Maybe they stored the tapestry in the Aumbrie. That might explain why it hasn’t fallen apart.”

Jeremiah hesitated briefly before he replied, “I’m not sure. Something knocked me down pretty hard, I remember that. But there wasn’t any pain.” Reflexively he rubbed at the muscle beating in the corner of his eye. “I mean, not at first. Not until Lord Foul started talking-

“It’s strange. Nothing here”- he pressed both palms against his chest- “hurts. In this time-or this version of reality-I’m fine. But that only makes it worse. Pain is worse when you have something to compare it to-”

Covenant was saying, “That’s Berek there in the centre. The o-rigi-nal Halfhand. He’s doing his “beatitude and striving” thing, peace in the midst of desperate struggle. Whatever that means. And the rest tells his story.”

Linden’s gaze burned. If she could have lowered her defences-if she could have borne the cost of her emotions, any of them-she would have wept. Jeremiah conveyed impressions which made her want to tear at her own flesh for simple distraction, so that she would feel some other suffering than his.

Her voice threatened to choke her as she asked, “Do you know where you are? In that other reality?”

That Queen there,” Covenant explained, “turned against her King when she found out he was human enough to actually like power. And Berek was loyal to her. He fought on her side until the King beat him. Cut his hand in half. After which Berek tried to escape. He ran for Mount Thunder. That scene shows his despair. Or maybe it was just self-pity. And in that one, the FireLions come to his rescue.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “It’s dark.” Like Linden, he seemed to ignore Covenant. “Sometimes there’s fire, and I’m in the middle of it. But there isn’t really anything to see. It could be anywhere.”

“So you don’t know where Lord Foul is?” she insisted. “You can’t tell me where to look for you?’

Until she found him, she could do nothing to end his torture.

“It all started there,” Covenant went on, the whole history of the Lords with their grand ideals and their hopeless mistakes. Even Foul’s plotting started there-in the Land, anyway. Not directly, of course. Oh, he sent out a shadow to help the King against Berek. But he didn’t show himself then. For centuries, the Lords were too pure to feel Berek’s despair. Just remembering Berek’s victories was enough to protect Damelon-and Loric too, at least for a while. Foul couldn’t risk anything overt until Kevin inherited a real talent for doubt from his father. But even that was Foul’s doing. He used the Viles and the Demondim to undermine Loric’s confidence, plant the seeds of failure. By the time Kevin became High Lord, he was already doomed.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Jeremiah’s tone was like his eyes: it suggested solid earth eroded by the irresistible rush of his plight. “I want to help you. I really do. I want you to make it stop. But as far as I know, I just fell into a pit, and I’ve been there ever since. It could be anywhere. Even Covenant doesn’t know where I am.”

Linden clenched herself against the distraction of Covenant’s obscure commentary. She needed all of her strength to withstand the force and sharpness of her empathy for her son.

“Poor Kevin,” Covenant sighed unkindly. “He didn’t recognise Foul because no one in the Land knew who the Despiser was. No one told Berek, and his descendants didn’t figure it out for themselves. While Foul was hard at work in Ridjeck Thome and Kurash Qwellinir, the Lords didn’t even know he existed. Kevin actually let him join the Council, and still no one saw the truth.

“I suppose it’s understandable,” the older man added. “Foul confused the hell out of them. Of course, he didn’t use his real name. That would have been too obvious. He called himself a-Jeroth until it was too late for anyone to stop him. And he’s pretty damn good at getting what he wants by misdirection. He always acts like he’s after something completely different.”

Gritting her teeth, Linden continued her questions. “That’s all right, honey,” she assured Jeremiah. “Maybe you can tell me something else that might help me.

“I don’t understand why”- she swallowed convulsively- “why that other reality doesn’t show. You said that you’re fine here. How is that possible, if Foul is still torturing you?”

Despite the damage to his pajamas, he seemed entirely intact.

“It’s sort of funny,” remarked Covenant. “Do you know the real reason Kevin let Foul talk him into the Ritual of Desecration? It wasn’t because Foul defeated him. Kevin hated that, but he could have lived with it. He still had enough of Berek’s blood in him. But Foul beat him before the war even started. What really broke him is that he let his best friends, his most loyal supporters, get killed in his place.”

“He’s doing it,” Jeremiah answered. Again he nodded toward Covenant. “He’s doing something with time to protect me while I’m here.” The boy’s gaze slipped out of focus as if he were concentrating on his other self in its prison. “He’s keeping me whole. That’s another reason you can’t touch me. He’s using more power for me than he is for himself. A lot more.”

Covenant’s voice held a hint of relish as he explained, “The Demondim invited him to a parley in Mount Thunder. Naturally he suspected it was a trap. He didn’t go. But then he felt ashamed of himself for thinking that way, so he sent his friends instead. And of course it was a trap. His friends were slaughtered.

“That,” Covenant finished in a tone of sodden triumph, “is what made Kevin crazy enough to think he had something to gain by desecrating the Land. Losing the war just confirmed his opinion of himself. The legends all say he thought the Ritual would destroy Foul, but that’s a rationalisation. The truth is, he wanted to be punished, and he couldn’t think of anything else bad enough to give him what he deserved.”

Linden wished that she did not believe Jeremiah. Everything that he said-everything that happened in this room-was inconceivable to her. She had not forgotten his unaccountable theurgy. And the Ranyhyn had shown her horrific images of her son possessed- But of course she did believe him. How could she not? He was her son, speaking to her for the first time in his life. His presence, and his healed mind, were all that enabled her to retain some semblance of self-control.

And because she believed Jeremiah, she could not doubt Covenant. He knew too much.

At last she brought herself to her most urgent question.

“Jeremiah, honey, I don’t understand any of this. It’s incredible-and wonderful.” It was also terrible. Yet how could she regret anything that allowed him to acknowledge her? “But I don’t understand it.

“How did you get your mind back? And when? How long have you been-?”

“You mean,” he interrupted, “how long have I been able to talk?’ Now he did not meet her gaze. Instead he looked at Covenant as if he needed help. “Since we came to the Land.”

“Linden,” Covenant suggested, his voice sloppy with springwine, “you should ask him where his mind has been all this time. He made it pretty obvious that he always had a mind. Where do you suppose it was?”

Linden kept her eyes and her heart fixed on her son. “Jeremiah? Can you tell me?”

So far, he had revealed nothing that might aid her.

He twitched his shoulders awkwardly. The tic of his eye increased its thetic signalling. “It’s hard to explain. For a while”- he sighed- “I don’t know how long, I was sort of hiding. It was like a different version of being in two places at once. Except the other place wasn’t anywhere in particular. It was just away.” Flames empty of daylight gave his face a ruddy flush, made him look feverish. “It was safe.

“But then you gave me that racecar set with all the tracks and pylons. When it was done-when you gave me enough pieces, and they were all connected in the right shapes-I had a”- he clung to Covenant with his eyes- “a loop. Like a worm that eats its own tail. I guess you could call it a door in my mind. I went through it. And when I did that, I came here.

“I don’t mean “here” the way I am now.” He seemed to grope for words. “I wasn’t a prisoner. I wasn’t even physical. And I didn’t come here- I mean to Revelstone-very often. There wasn’t anybody I could talk to. But I was in the Land. I’m not sure when. I mean when in relation to now. Mostly I think it was a long time ago. But I was here pretty much whenever you put me to bed.

“The only people I could talk to-the only people who knew I was there-were powers like the Elohim and the Ravers. There were a few wizards, something like that. I met some people who called themselves the Insequent. And there was him.” Jeremiah clearly meant Covenant. “He was the best. But even he couldn’t explain very much. He didn’t know how to answer me. Or I didn’t know how to ask the right questions. Mostly we just talked about the way I make things.

“Once in a while, people warned me about the Despiser. Maybe I should have been scared. But I wasn’t. I had no idea what they meant. And I never met him. He stayed away.”

Linden reeled as she listened. Insequent? If she had tried to stand, she would have staggered. Ravers? But she held herself motionless; allowed no flicker of her face or flinch of her muscles to interrupt her son.

He had known Covenant for a long time; perhaps since he had first completed his racetrack construct. -the best.

“But Mom,” Jeremiah added more strongly, “it was so much better than where I was with you. I loved being in the Land. And I loved it when people knew I was there. Even the Ravers. They would have hurt me if they could-but they knew I was there. I don’t remember feeling real before I started coming here.”

She did not realise that tears were spilling from her eyes, or that a knot of grief and joy had closed her throat, until Jeremiah said, “Please don’t cry, Mom. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Now he sounded oddly distant, almost mechanical, as if he were quoting something-or someone. His tic lost some of its fervour; and as the flames in the hearth slowly dwindled, the hectic flush faded from his cheeks. “You said you didn’t understand. I’m just trying to explain.”

For his sake, Linden mastered herself. “Don’t worry about me, honey.” Sitting up straight, she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. “I cry too easily. It’s embarrassing. I’m just so glad-!” She sniffed helplessly. “And sad too. I’m glad you haven’t been alone all this time, even if you couldn’t talk to me.” When he had crafted Revelstone and Mount Thunder in her living room, he had known exactly what he was doing. “And I’m sad”- she swallowed a surge of empathy and outrage- “because this makes being Foul’s prisoner so much worse. Now there’s nowhere you can be safe.

“I swear to you, honey. I’m never going to stop searching for you. And when I find out where you are, there isn’t anything in this world that’s going to prevent me from rescuing you.”

Jeremiah squirmed in his chair, apparently embarrassed by the passion of her avowal. “You should talk to him about that.” Again he meant Covenant. “He can’t tell you where I am. Lord Foul has me hidden somehow. But he knows everything else. If you just give him a chance-”

Her son’s voice trailed away. His gaze avoided hers.

For a long moment, Linden did not move. In spite of his discomfort, she probed him with every dimension of her senses, trying to see past the barriers which concealed him. Yet her percipience remained useless with him. He was sealed against her.

The ur-Lord has ever been closed to the Haruchai. And his companion is likewise hidden.

All right,” she told Jeremiah finally. “I’ll do that.”

Slapping her palms on her thighs in an effort to shift her attention, she rose to her feet and retrieved the Staff. With its clean wood almost delitescent in her hands, its lenitive powers obscured, she took a few steps across the fading light of the room so that she could confront Covenant directly.

Her detachment was gone; but she had other strengths.

When Covenant dragged his gaze up from his flagon, she began harshly, “You’re the one with all the answers. Start by telling me why you’re doing this. I mean to him.” She indicated Jeremiah. “He hurts worse when he feels it like this,” from the outside. He had said so. “If you really have the answers, you don’t need him. You’re making him suffer for nothing.”

After everything that he had already endured-

“For God’s sake,” she protested, “he’s just a boy. He didn’t choose any of this. Tell me you have a good reason for causing him more pain.”

Covenant’s mien had a drowsy cast in the dying firelight. He seemed to be falling asleep where he sat. In a blurred voice, he replied as if his reasons should have been obvious to her, “I did it so you would trust me.

“I know how this looks to you, Linden. I know I’m not the way you remember me. Too much has happened. And I’m under too much strain-” He lifted his shoulders wearily. “I knew how you would react when you saw how much I’ve changed. So I tried to think of something-I don’t know what to call it-something to demonstrate my good faith.

“I wanted to show you I can give him back. I have that much power. And I know how to do it. If you just trust me.”

“But he-” she objected, trying to find words for her dismay.

“-isn’t any worse off than he was before,” Covenant sighed. Not really. If you think what I’ve done is so terrible, ask him if he regrets being here. Ask him if he regrets anything.”

Before Linden could turn to her son, Jeremiah said, “He’s right, Mom. I don’t regret it, any of it. If he hadn’t brought me with him, I wouldn’t be able to see you. We couldn’t talk. I wouldn’t know you’re trying so hard to rescue me.”

Jeremiah’s response struck her indignation to dust. For at least half of his life, he had given her no direct sign that he was aware of her protective presence-yet now he was willing to endure torments and anguish so that he could speak to her. She had not lavished her love on him in vain.

While she struggled with her emotions, Covenant continued, “I can see what happened to you. That hole in your shirt makes it pretty obvious. And I know you’re worried about him. I can understand that.” He sounded strangely like a man who was trying to convince himself. “Unfortunately I can’t tell you if he was shot. I would if I could. But I wasn’t there. I’m not part of that reality.”

Slowly Linden regained her resolve. She had lost her detachment, and Jeremiah had rendered her protests meaningless. But she was still herself; still able to think and act. And Covenant’s answers disturbed her. They were like a song sung slightly out of tune: instead of soaring, they grated.

She took a moment to turn away and toss another couple of logs onto the fire. She needed better light. Her health-sense was useless: she had to rely on ordinary sight and hearing.

As the new wood began to blaze, she faced the Unbeliever once more. All right,” she said unsteadily. “You can’t tell me if Jeremiah was shot. You can’t tell me where he is. What can you tell me?”

Covenant squinted vaguely at the rising flames. “What do you want to know?”

Linden did not hesitate. “It was Kastenessen who convinced the Demondim to let my friends and me reach Revelstone. You said that you and Jeremiah were able to get here because you tricked them.” I put a crimp in their reality. But how can I be sure that that wasn’t Kastenessen’s doing too?”

Earlier she had believed that Covenant and Jeremiah were being herded rather than pursued.

She expected a flare of anger; but Covenant only peered into his flagon as though its contents meant more to him than her implied accusation. “Because he didn’t know we were coming. He couldn’t. I didn’t start on all this-what we’re doing now-until I knew you were safe.

“When he realised we were on our way here-” Covenant offered her a slack smile. “That made him mad as hell. He was beside himself.” Turning his head, he winked at Jeremiah. “Practically in two places at once.” When Jeremiah grinned, Covenant returned his attention to his flagon. “But you have to remember-He can’t communicate with those damn monsters. The only way he can talk to them is through the old man.” Covenant shrugged. “Since yesterday, that poor lunatic hasn’t been available.”

Abruptly Linden sagged. Hardly aware of what she did, she sank into a chair. Relief left her weak. Deep in her heart, she had been so afraid-Now Covenant had given her a reason to believe in him.

But he was not done. While she tried to gather herself, he said, You might ask why I didn’t make us just appear here.” He sounded dull with drink, sleepy, almost bored. “Riding in ahead of the Demondim was pretty risky. But I wanted a chance to mess with their reality. They can use the damn IIIearth Stone whenever they want. I had to make sure they didn’t attack too soon.

“And I was afraid of you.” He drank again, unsteadily. A little springwine sloshed down his cheeks. “If we took you by surprise-if you didn’t see us coming-you might do something to erase us. I couldn’t take that chance.” He nodded toward Jeremiah. “This isn’t something I could do twice. Kastenessen knows about us now. Hellfire, Linden, Foul himself knows. Neither of them would have any trouble stopping us. Not when I’m stretched this thin.”

By degrees, Linden’s weakness ebbed. At last, something made sense to her. She could follow Covenant’s explanation. Only the imprecise pitch of his voice inhibited her from believing him completely.

Because of his strangeness, she found an unforeseen comfort in the knowledge that he had reason to fear her.

When he was done, she nodded. “All right. I get that. But I had to ask. I’m sure you understand.”

For a moment, Jeremiah turned his grin on her. But Covenant did not reply. Instead he replenished his flagon.

With an effort, she mustered a different question. She had so many-If she did not keep him talking, he might drink himself to sleep.

“So what’s it like?” she asked quietly. “Being part of the Arch of Time?”

“I’m sorry, Linden.” He raised his flagon as if he were driving himself toward unconsciousness. “It’s like Jeremiah’s pain. There aren’t any words for it. It’s too vast, and I’m everywhere at once.

“I feel like I know the One Forest and the Worm of the World’s End and even,” he drawled, “poor ol’ Lord Foul better than I know myself. If you asked me the names of all the Sandgorgons-or what Berek had for breakfast the day he turned against his King-I could probably tell you. If I didn’t have to work so hard just to stay where I am. And,” he concluded, “if I actually cared about things like that.”

Studying him closely-the increasing looseness of his cheeks, the deepening glaze in his eyes, the mounting slur of his speech-Linden said, “Then I’ll try to be more specific. I don’t understand why the caesures haven’t already destroyed everything.

“Joan’s using wild magic. And she’s out of her mind, you know that. God, Covenant, it seems to me that just one Fall ought to be enough to undo the whole world. But she’s made dozens of them by now. Or hundreds.” Ever since Linden had restored her wedding band. “How can the Arch survive that? How can you? Why hasn’t everybody and everything that’s ever existed already been sucked away?”

Surely Anele, a handful of ur-viles, and Kevin’s Watch were not the only victims of Joan’s agony?

Covenant lifted his unmaimed hand and peered at it; extended his fingers as though he meant to enumerate a list of reasons. But then he appeared to forget what he was doing, or to lose interest in it. Returning his hand to his lap and the handle of his flagon, he answered dully, “Because the Law of Time is still fighting to protect itself. Because I’m still fighting to protect it. And because caesures have limits. They wouldn’t be so easy to make if the Laws of Death and Life hadn’t been damaged. Before that, everything was intact. So there’s a kind of barrier in the Land’s past. It restricts how far back the caesures tend to go.

“Joan’s too far gone to know what she’s doing. She can’t sustain anything. So most of her caesures don’t last very long. If they aren’t kept going by some other power-like the Demondim-they fade pretty quickly. And they don’t usually reach as far back as the Sunbane. That gives the Law of Time a chance to reassert itself. It gives me room to work.”

Covenant’s air of drowsiness grew as he continued, “Plus her caesures are localised. They only cover a certain amount of ground, and they move around. She’s too crazy to make them do anything else. Wherever they are at a particular moment, every bit of time in that precise spot happens at once. For the last three millennia, anyway. But since they’re moving, they give those bits of time back as fast as they pick up new ones.”

Abruptly his head dropped, and Linden feared for a moment that he had fallen asleep. But then he seemed to rally. His head jerked up. He widened his eyes to the firelight; blinked them several times; stared at her owlishly.

“But the real reason,” he continued, “is what the Lords called ‘the necessity of freedom.”‘ For some reason, he sounded bitter. “Wild magic is only as powerful as the will, the determination, of the person it belongs to. The rightful white gold wielder.

“In the wrong hands, it’s still pretty strong. Which is why you can create Falls with it”- the statement was a sneer- “and why Foul was able to kill me. But it doesn’t really come alive until the person it belongs to chooses to use it. Foul might not even have been able to kill me if I hadn’t given him my ring voluntarily. And I did not choose to destroy the Arch.” Covenant’s tone suggested that now he wondered why he had bothered to choose at all. “Since he wasn’t the rightful wielder, the power he unleashed only made me stronger.

“Well,” he snorted, “Joan is the rightful wielder of her ring. But she isn’t choosing anything. All she’s really trying to do is scream. Turiya has her. He feeds her pain. But that only aggravates her craziness. He can’t make her choose because she’s already lost. Oh, he could force her to hand her ring to someone else. But it wouldn’t be her choice. And the ring wouldn’t belong to whoever got it.”

Covenant drank again, and his manner resumed its drift toward somnolence. For what Foul really wants, Joan and her ring are pretty much useless. They’re just a gambit. A ploy. The danger is real enough, but it won’t set him free. Or help him accomplish any of his other goals. He’s counting on you for that. It’s all about manipulating you so you’ll serve him.”

The idea made Linden wince. His other goals-Through Anele, the Despiser had suggested that he did not merely wish to escape the Arch of Time. There is more, he had said, but of my deeper purpose I will not speak.

“Serve him how?” Fear which she could not suppress undermined her voice.

“You’ll have to ask him,” Covenant said through a yawn. “He hides from me in all kinds of ways. I can’t tell where he’s keeping Jeremiah, or where he is himself, or what he thinks you’re going to do. All I know for sure is, the danger’s real. And I can stop it.”

In spite of her concern, Linden recognised her cue: she was supposed to ask him how. He had blamed her for everything that had happened since she had formed her Staff. Now he would offer to ease her guilt and responsibility.

She assumed that he wanted his ring. How else could he possibly intervene in the Despiser’s designs? Surely he needed his instrument of power? It belonged to him.

Like Joan, he could not exert wild magic without his ring.

With it a master may form perfect works and fear nothing.

But she was not ready for that. Not yet. She could not rid herself of the sensation that he was speaking off key; that his attitude or his drinking obliquely falsified whatever he said. And the fact that he had not already asked for his ring-or demanded it-troubled her. So far, he had given her explanations which made sense. Nevertheless, instinctively, she suspected him of misdirection. In spite of her relief, her apprehension was growing.

Instead of following his lead, she said, “Wait a minute. You’re getting ahead of me. I think I understand why the caesures haven’t destroyed everything. But are you also saying that they won’t? That they can’t break the Arch?”

Covenant’s head lolled toward Jeremiah. “I told you she was going to do this,” he remarked. “Didn’t I tell you she was going to do this?”

Jeremiah grinned at him. “That’s my Mom.”

Nodding, the Unbeliever faced Linden again. “You’re just like I remember you. You never let anything go.”

He spread his hands as if to show her that he was helpless. “Oh, eventually they’ll destroy everything. You’ve been through two of them now. You know what they’re like. Part of what they do is take you inside the mind of whoever created them. You’ve been in Joan’s mind. You should ask that callow puppy who follows you around what it’s like being in your mind.”

Before she could react to his sarcasm, he added, “Another part, the part that feels like hornets burrowing into your skin, is time itself. It’s all those broken moments being stirred together.

“And another part-the part that’s just freezing cold emptiness forever-” Covenant made a visible effort to appear earnest. “Linden, that’s the future. The eventual outcome of Joan’s craziness. Even that probably won’t bring down the Arch. But there won’t be anything left inside it. No Land, no Earth, no beings of any kind, no past or present or future. No life. Just freezing cold emptiness that can’t escape to consume eternity because it’s still being contained.”

Involuntarily Linden shivered. She remembered too well the featureless wasteland within the Falls, gelid and infinitely unrelieved. She herself had created an instance of that future-and she could not claim the excuse that she had not known what she was doing.

“All right,” she acceded. “I think I understand.” Instead of probing him further, she gave him the question that he had tried to prompt from her. “But how can you stop any of this? You said that you know what to do. What do you mean?”

Wild magic was the keystone of the Arch of Time. How could he step out of his position within its structure-exist in two places at once- and wield power, any kind of power, without causing that structure to crumble?

Earlier in the day, Esmer had said, That which appears evil need not have been so from the beginning, and need not remain so until the end. Had he intended his peroration about the Viles and their descendants as a kind of parable? An oblique commentary on the discrepancy between who Covenant was and how he behaved?

“Hell and blood, Linden,” Covenant slurred. “Of course I know what to do. Why else do you suppose I’m here? You can’t possibly believe I’m putting myself through all this”- he gestured vaguely around the room- “not to mention everything I have to do to protect the Arch-just because I want to watch you try to talk yourself out of trusting me.”

“Then tell me.” Tell me that you want your ring. Tell me what I can do to rescue my son. “Tell me how you’re going to save the Land.”

She wanted to speak more strongly; ached for the simple self-assurance to jar him out of his lethargy. But he baffled her. And the eroded look in Jeremiah’s eyes seemed to leach away her determination. She had no firm ground under her: yearning weakened her wherever she tried to place her feet.

Covenant squinted, apparently trying to bring his glazed vision into focus. That depends on you.”

“How?” She gripped the Staff with both hands so that they would not quaver. “All I have is questions. I don’t have any answers.”

“But you have this one,” he said like a sigh. His gaze drifted to the hearth; filled itself with reflected flames. “That ring under your shirt belongs to me. Are you going to give it to me or not’?”

Linden lowered her head to hide her sudden chagrin. She had expected his request; had practically demanded it. But now she realised that she did not know how to respond. How could she make such a choice? His ring was all that she had left of the man whom she had loved: it meant too much to her. And she wanted it; wanted every scrap of power or effectiveness that she could obtain. Through Anele, Covenant himself had told her that she would need it.

But if Covenant had indeed been perfected in death, so that he could wield wild magic without fear, she had no right to refuse him. He might be capable of recreating the entire Earth in any image that he desired. If she kept his wedding band, she would bear the blame for all of the Land’s peril and Jeremiah’s suffering and her own plight.

“Just hand it over,” Covenant continued as reasonably as his sleepy voice allowed. “Then you can stop worrying about everything. Even Jeremiah. I’m already part of the Arch. With my ring, there won’t be anything I can’t do. Send the Demondim back where they belong? No problem. Finish off Kastenessen so he and the skurj and Kevin’s Dirt can’t bother us anymore? Consider it done. Create a cyst in time around Foul to make him helpless forever? I won’t even break a sweat.

All you have to do,” he insisted with more force, “is stop dithering and give me the damn ring. You’ll get your son back, and your troubles will be over.”

He held out his halfhand, urging her to place his ring in his palm.

The Thomas Covenant who had spoken to her in her dreams would not have asked for his ring in that way. He would have explained more and demanded less; would have been more gentle-

Almost involuntarily, she looked to Jeremiah for help, guidance. But his attention was focused on Covenant: he did not so much as glance at her.

And in the background of Covenant’s voice, she heard Roger saying outside Joan’s room in Berenford Memorial, It belongs to me. I need it.

Once before, Linden had restored a white gold ring. Directly or indirectly, that mistake had led her to her present straits. It had made possible her son’s imprisonment in agony.

“Covenant, this is hard for me.” A tremor of supplication and dread marred her voice: she could not control it. “I need to know more about what it means.

“You swore to me. After the Banefire. You swore that you were never going to use power again.”

“That was then.” His brief intensity faded as the springwine seemed to renew its numbness. “This is now. In case you haven’t noticed, everything’s changed. Just being here uses staggering amounts of power. And how do you suppose I stopped Foul after I surrendered my ring? For something like forever, I’ve done nothing but use power.”

Linden could not argue with him. But his response was not enough. “Then tell me this,” she said, groping for knowledge that might shed light on her dilemma. “Where did Jeremiah get the force to push me away’?” As far as she knew, her son had no lore-and no instrument of theurgy. His only inherent magic was his need for her; his ability to inspire her love. When did he become powerful’?”

“Oh, that.” Covenant flapped his halfhand dismissively. “He has talents you can’t imagine. All he needs is the right stuff to work with. In this case, folding time-being in two places at once-I’m bending a lot of Laws. There’s bound to be a certain amount of leakage. Think of it like blood from a wound. Your kid is using it. As long as I can keep him here-as long as you don’t erase us”- for an instant, his eyes flickered redly- “he’s pretty strong.”

Again his voice conveyed the impression that it was out of tune; that he could not find the right notes for what he said.

Without looking away from Covenant, Jeremiah put in, “I’ve been visiting the Land for a long time, Mom. I learned a lot about magic. But it didn’t do me any good until Covenant brought me here.” His smile was not for Linden. “I mean to Revelstone. Until he gave me my mind back.

“I can’t make something out of nothing. But when I have the right materials, I can build all kinds of doors. And walls.”

Both of them were trying to reassure her, but her alarm increased nonetheless. She could not doubt them, and did not know how to believe them. Her son had become a kind of mage, incomprehensible to her. And Covenant sounded-

Doom seemed to ride on all of her choices, and she had not been convinced.

“So what happens,” she asked, still trembling, if I don’t give up your ring? What will you do if I refuse? Take it?”

Had he changed that much?

If she spurned Covenant’s aid, she might spend days or weeks or months hunting for Jeremiah’s prison. She would almost certainly fail to reach him in time to save his tortured mind.

Covenant dropped his hand; looked down to drink from his flagon, then turned his head to meet Jeremiah’s silted gaze. “I told you that, too, didn’t 17′ His voice was full of dreary bitterness. “I told you she wouldn’t trust me.”

Jeremiah nodded. “Yes, you did.”

Still facing the boy, Covenant informed Linden sourly, “Of course I’m not going to take it. I can’t get that close to you. But I know you, so I came prepared. I still know what to do.”

Slowly he swung back toward her; but he did not meet her gaze. His head hung at a defeated angle, and the firelight cast shadows across his eyes. A faint red heat like embers glowed in the depths of his darkened eyes.

If you won’t let me have my ring, what will you do? What do you think you can accomplish? You’ve got Esmer and a hundred or so ur-viles on one side, and the Demondim with the IIIearth Stone on the other. Kevin’s Dirt is going to blind you over and over again. You don’t know where to look for Jeremiah. Joan will keep making caesures. Kastenessen and the skurj are out there, not to mention the Elohim and who knows how many other powers. The Masters don’t like you, and your only friends are three Ramen, a crazy old man, a kid who’s as ignorant as a stone, and one outcast Haruchai.

“What exactly do you propose to do about all that?”

Linden hardly knew how to face him; yet she did not fall or falter. Instead she held up her head, drew back her shoulders. If Covenant thought to daunt her with his recitation of dangers, he had forgotten their time together, forgotten who she had become. And he could not weaken her by disdaining her friends. She knew them better than he did.

He was asking her about decisions which she had already made.

Searching his hidden eyes for embers, she announced as though she were certain, “I’ll put a stop to the Demondim. Then I’m going to take my friends and ride like hell to Andelain. I want to talk to the Dead. They helped you once when you had no idea how to save the Land. Maybe they’ll do the same for me.”

And it was conceivable that the krill of Loric still remained where Sunder had left it, stabbed deep into the blasted tree stump of Caer-Caveral’s body. Such a weapon might enable her to channel the combined force of Covenant’s ring and the Staff of Law safely.

Groaning, Jeremiah buried his face in his hands as if he were ashamed of his mother.

“Hellfire!” Abruptly Covenant slammed the front legs of his stool down onto the floor. With his halfhand, he covered his eyes as if to mask a burst of flame. Then he dragged his touch down his features; and as he did so, every vestige of his drunkenness was pulled away. Almost without transition, he became the man who had ridden a failing horse into the forehall of Revelstone: commanding and severe, beyond compromise.

Through his teeth, he rasped, “Linden Avery, you damn idiot, that is a truly terrible idea.”

“Is it?’ She held his glare without flinching; did not let her son’s reaction diminish her. “Tell me why.”

Vehemently Covenant flung his flagon against the wall. The wood cracked: chips and splinters fell to the floor: springwine splashed across the rug. “Oh, I’ll tell you,” he growled. “Bloody damnation, Linden! And I won’t even mention the fact that you have no idea how powerful the Demondim really are, or what you’ll have to go through just to slow them down. And I won’t talk about the Dead because they don’t really exist anymore. Not the way you remember them. Too many Laws have been broken. The definitions are blurred. Spirits as vague as the Dead can’t hold themselves together. They certainly can’t give you advice.

“No, ignore all that.” With both hands, he seemed to ward off wasted explanations. “Going to Andelain is a terrible idea because that’s where

Kastenessen is. And he commands the skurj.”

Linden stared at him, stricken mute by the force of his revelations. Every solution that she had imagined for her dilemma-and for Jeremiah’s-

“You’ll recognise them when you see them,” continued Covenant trenchantly. “Foul showed you what they’re like.” Dire serpents of magma with the crushing jaws of krakens and the destructive hunger of kresh: monsters which emerged from chancres to devour the earth. “But he didn’t tell you they serve Kastenessen now because that sonofabitch set them free.

“He hasn’t brought very many of them down from the north yet. But he can get more whenever he wants them. And he always knows where you are. He can feel you through that loony old man. So no matter what you try to do, the skurj will be in your way. He’ll send them wherever you are, and they’ll eat you alive. You may think you’re powerful enough to take care of yourself, but you’ve never fought those monsters before. And your friends don’t have any magic. They don’t have any lore. You’ll lose them all.”

Harshly Covenant finished, “Going to Andelain right now is just about the only purely suicidal thing you could do.”

Without lifting his face from his hands, Jeremiah muttered in a muffled voice, “He’s telling the truth, Mom. I swear to God, I don’t know why you have so much trouble believing him. He’s the only real friend I’ve ever had. Can’t you understand that?”

He had called Covenant the best- For that alone, Linden owed Covenant a debt too vast to be repaid.

Now it seemed that all of her choices and desires had been wrong from the beginning. Misguided and fatal.

And yet-

Her heart could not be torn in so many directions and remain whole.

— her impression of disharmony persisted. Covenant was like a man who knew the words but could not remember the song. Her nerves were unable to discern truth or falsehood. And she trusted Jeremiah. Nevertheless her instincts cried at her that she was being misled in some way.

Her Staff was the only thing that still belonged to her beyond question. Holding it tightly, she asked in a small voice, “What should we do instead?”

Covenant sighed as though he had gained an important concession; and his ire seemed to fall away. More quietly, he answered, “Like I said, I know another way to make this mess turn out right.” Again his eyes gave out a brief red glint like a glimpse of ready embers. “But I don’t exactly enjoy being treated this way. Like I’m some damn Raver in disguise. Sure, I’m not how you remember me. But I deserve better than this. I’ve given you a lot here, even if you don’t realise it.

“I need something in return. A little bit of trust.

“Meet us up on the plateau tomorrow. Maybe an hour after dawn. Over on the south edge, near Furl Falls. Then I won’t have to explain what I’m going to do. I can show you.”

Studying him for some hint of what had caused that momentary molten gleam in his eyes, Linden observed cautiously, “You don’t think that I’ll approve of what you’re planning.”

He sighed again. “I don’t know. You might. You might not. It depends on how badly you want to get your son back in one piece.”

There Linden found a small place of clarity in the wide landscape of her hurt and self-doubt. She recognised emotional blackmail when she heard it. Perhaps Covenant was as benign as Jeremiah believed, and as necessary; but to suggest that her love for her son could be measured by her acquiescence to Covenant’s desires was patently manipulative.

No doubt inadvertently, he restored her conviction that there was something wrong with him; or in him.

Jeremiah had raised his head to watch her in the firelight as though his life depended on her. He seemed to plead with her mutely, beseeching her to let Covenant prove himself.

The need in her son’s muddied eyes tapped a source of tears that she was barely able to contain. He had already endured too much-No matter what she thought of Covenant, she did not know how to refuse Jeremiah.

Stiffly she rose to her feet.

“All right,” she said to Covenant. “I’ll meet you there.” If she did not concede at least that much, she might never learn the truth. “You can show me what you have in mind.”

Then, for the last time in that room, she stood her ground. “But you should know-” Do something they don’t expect. “Between now and then, I’m going to use the Staff.

“I’m telling you because I don’t want to take you by surprise. And I’ll stay as far away as I can. I don’t mean to threaten you.” She absolutely did not wish to disrupt the theurgy which enabled their presence. “But there are some things about our situation that I do understand. I won’t shirk them.”

She did not wait for Covenant’s reply. She had come to the end of her self-control. “Jeremiah, honey,” she said thickly, “I’ll see you in the morning.” On the verge of weeping, she promised, “And I’ll find a way to help you. Even if I’m too confused to make the right choices.”

In response, Jeremiah offered her a smile that filled her throat with grief. At once, she headed for the door as if she had been routed, so that he would not see her lose herself.

Chapter Four: A Defence of Revelstone

In the corridor outside Covenant’s rooms, Linden found Stave waiting for her.

He stood among the three Humbled as though they were all still Masters together; as though his true purposes were in tune with theirs. But as soon as she emerged from the doorway, he moved toward her like a man who meant to catch her before she collapsed. The tumult of her emotions, the torn gusts of confusion and dismay and sorrow, must have been as plain as wind-whipped banners to his senses. Ignoring Clyme, Galt, and Branl, he gripped her quickly by one arm and guided her along the passage, away from bewilderment and loss.

Without his support, she might have fallen. Tears crowded her heart: she could hardly contain them. Only Stave’s firm hand, and her clenched grasp on the Staff of Law, enabled her to take one step after another, measuring her paltry human sorrows and needs against Revelstone’s bluff granite.

She was not Anele: she had no friend in stone. Lord’s Keep had never offered her anything except distrust, imprisonment, bloodshed, malice. She could only be consoled by grass and trees; by Andelain’s loveliness and Glimmermere’s lacustrine potency; by the unharmed rightness of the Land.

Or by her son, who sided with Covenant.

Nevertheless she allowed Stave to steer her through Revelstone’s convoluted intentions toward the rooms which his kinsmen had set aside for her. Where else could she go? The clouds brewing over the upland held no malevolence; but they would bring darkness with them, concealment and drenching rain. Her own storm was already too much for her.

Be cautious of love. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction.

Covenant and Jeremiah were altered almost beyond recognition. They had not simply refused Linden’s touch: they had rebuffed her heart.

Why had Covenant sounded false when he so obviously wished to persuade her, win her confidence? God, she thought, oh, God, he might have been a ventriloquist’s dummy, his every word projected onto him, off-key and stilted, from some external source.

From Jeremiah? From the power, the leakage, that her son had acquired by being in two places at the same time? Or were they both puppets? The playthings of beings and forces which she could not begin to comprehend?

Or were they simply telling her as much of the truth as they could? Did the fault lie in her? In her reluctance to trust anyone who contradicted her? In her unwillingness to surrender Covenant’s ring?

Anele had said that the stone of the Close spoke of Thomas Covenant, whose daughter rent the Law of Death, and whose son is abroad in the Land, seeking such havoc that the bones of the mountains tremble to contemplate it. For the wielder also this stone grieves, knowing him betrayed.

Covenant and Jeremiah were the two people whom she had loved most in all the world. Now she felt that they had broken her.

But she was not broken. She knew that, even though her distress filled her with unuttered wailing. She was only in pain; only baffled and grieved, flagrantly bereft. Such things she understood. She had spent the past ten years studying the implications of what she had learned from Thomas Covenant and the Despiser. Her former lover’s attempts to manipulate her now might hurt like a scourge, but they could not lash her into surrender.

Her desire to weep was merely necessary. It did not mean that she had been undone. When Stave brought her at last to her rooms and opened the door for her, she found the strength to swallow her grief so that she could speak.

“We need to talk,” she said, hoarse with self-restraint. “You and me. Mahrtiir and Liand. All of us. Can you get them for me? If Covenant is right, the Demondim won’t attack before tomorrow. We should have time.”

The Haruchai appeared to hesitate. “Chosen,” he replied after a moment, “I am loath to leave you thus.”

“I understand.” With the sleeve of her shirt, she rubbed some of the tears from her face. “I don’t like sending you away. But I’m in no condition to go with you. And we need to talk. Tomorrow morning, Covenant wants to show me how he plans to solve our problems. But there’s something that I have to do first. I’m going to need all of you,” every one of her friends. “And-” She paused while she struggled to suppress a fresh burst of sorrow. “And you should all hear what Covenant and Jeremiah told me.”

Stave would stand by her to the best of his abilities; but he could not give her solace.

He nodded without expression. “As you wish.” Then he bowed to her and obeyed.

Still stifling sobs, Linden entered her rooms and closed the door.

She felt that she had been absent from her small sanctuary for a long time, and did not know what to expect. Who would provide for her, if the Mahdoubt had left Revelstone? During the day, however, more firewood had been piled beside the hearth, and the lamps had been refilled and lit. In addition, a fresh tray of food awaited her. It was as bountifully laden as Covenant’s had been: like his, it included pitchers of water and springwine.

The Masters may well have elected to side with the Unbeliever, but clearly the servants of Revelstone made no distinction between their guests.

Clinging to the Staff, Linden poured a little springwine into a flagon and drank it. When she could feel that small hint of aliantha extend its delicate nourishment through her, she went into her bedroom and opened the shutters to look out at the weather.

A light drizzle was falling from the darkened sky: the seepage of leaden clouds. It veiled the Westron Mountains, and she was barely able to see the foothills far below her, the faint hue of the White River some distance off to her right. Behind the spring rain, dusk had closed over Revelstone. Full night would cover the plateau and the Keep and the threatening horde of the Demondim before Stave returned with her friends.

The thought of darkness disturbed her. Dangers which she did not know how to confront lurked where there was no light. Abruptly she closed the shutters, then returned to her sitting room, to the kind illumination of the lamps, and knelt to build a fire in the hearth.

The wood took flame quickly, aided by a splash of oil from one of the lamps. Soon a steady blaze began to warm the room.

But light and heat alone could not denature the midnight in her mind. Her head was full of echoes. I deserve better than this. That’s my Mom. They repeated themselves obsessively, feeding her tears. Pain is worse when you have something to compare it to. I need something in return. Their reiteration was as insistent and compulsory as keening. A little bit of trust. Ask that callow puppy who follows you around-

The sound of Covenant’s voice, and of Jeremiah’s, haunted her.

Trying to protect herself, she went back into her bedroom and stretched out fully dressed on her strict bed. Hugging the Staff against her chest, she concentrated as well as she could on the numinous wood’s cleanliness.

She had never seen Berek’s original Staff of Law, but she knew enough to be sure that hers was not identical to his. His had been crafted by lore and earned wisdom from a limb of the One Tree: she had formed hers with urgency and wild magic, melding Findail and Vain. And her own understanding of Law might well differ from Berek’s. For all she knew, the two Staffs had little in common except the iron heels which Berek had forged. The magic which had transformed Vain’s forearm may have arisen from the Worm of the World’s End rather than from the One Tree.

Nonetheless her Staff was a tool of Earthpower, as Berek’s had been, and she had fashioned it in love and yearning to sustain the beauty of the Land. Somehow it would aid her to discover the truth, to rescue her son, and to oppose the Despiser.

With the Staff resting against her exhausted heart, she hardly noticed as she drifted into sleep.

When the sound of knocking at her door awakened her, she sat up suddenly, startled. She could not guess how much time had passed, could scarcely believe that she had fallen asleep. Momentarily befuddled, she thought, Shock. Nervous prostration. The prolonged difficulties of the day had drained her-

Almost at once, however, she remembered her friends. Surging out of bed, she hurried to the door.

Until she saw Stave standing there, with Mahrtiir and Liand behind him, and Pahni, Bhapa, and Anele as well, she did not realise that she had feared some other arrival: a new summons from Covenant and Jeremiah, perhaps; or one of the Masters come to inform her that the Demondim had begun their attack.

Awkwardly, as if she suspected that they might vanish into one of her uninterpretable dreams, she urged her companions to enter. Then she scanned the hall for some sign of the Humbled; for any indication of trouble. But the passageway outside her door was empty. The smooth stone walls held no hint of distress.

Breathing deeply to clear the alarm from her lungs, she closed the door, latched it, and turned to face the concern of her friends.

She was glad to see that they emanated health and vigour, in spite of their concerned expressions. The diminishment of Kevin’s Dirt had been replaced by a vitality so acute that it seemed to cast a palpable penumbra around all of them except Anele and Stave himself. Now she knew what the former Master and Mahrtiir had discerned in her when she had returned from Glimmermere. The eldritch strength of the waters had washed away their bruises and their weariness and perhaps even their doubts. And she perceived with relief that the lake’s effects would last longer than the relatively evanescent restoration which she had performed with her Staff earlier in the day. Kevin’s Dirt would not soon regain its power over them.

For Liand even more than for the Ramen, the experience of Glimmermere must have been like receiving an inheritance; a birthright which should have belonged to him throughout his life, but which had been cruelly denied.

By comparison, Stave’s impassivity resembled a glower. Anele murmured incomprehensibly to himself, apparently lost in his private dissociation: the effect of standing on wrought stone. Yet his blind eyes seemed to regard Linden as though even in his madness he could not fail to recognise the significance of what had happened to her.

In simple relief, Linden would have liked to spend a little time enjoying the presence of her friends. She could have offered them food and drink and warmth, asked them questions; distracted herself from her personal turmoil. But they were clearly alarmed on her behalf. Although the Ramen said nothing, Pahni’s open worry emphasised Mahrtiir’s fierce anger, and Bhapa frowned anxiously.

Liand was less reticent. “Linden,” he breathed softly, fearfully. “Heaven and Earth! What has befallen you? If the Masters plunged a blade into your heart, I would not think to see you so wounded.”

Involuntarily Linden ducked her head as if she were ashamed. His immediate sympathy threatened to release tears which she could not afford. Already the consequences of her encounter with Covenant and Jeremiah resembled the leading edge of the fury which had flailed her after the horserite. If that storm broke now, she would be unable to speak. She would only sob.

“Please don’t,” she replied, pleading. “Don’t look so worried. I understand. If I were you, I would probably do the same. But it doesn’t help.”

Stave folded his arms over his chest as if to close his heart. “Then inform us, Chosen. What form of aid do you require? Your anguish is plain. We who have determined to stand at your side cannot witness your plight and remain unmoved.”

In response, Linden jerked up her head, taken aback by a sudden rush of insight. Perhaps unwittingly, Stave reminded her that behind their stoicism the Haruchai were an intensely passionate people.

The bond joining man to woman is a fire in us, and deep, Brinn had told her long ago. The Bloodguard had broken their Vow of service to the Lords, he had explained, not merely because they had proven themselves unworthy, but more because they had abandoned their wives in the name of a chosen fidelity which they had failed to sustain. The sacrifices that they had made for their Vow had become too great to be endured.

For the same reason, thousands of years later, Brinn and Cail had withdrawn their service to Thomas Covenant. In their eyes, their seduction by the Dancers of the Sea-their vulnerability to such desires-had demonstrated their unworth. Our folly must end now, ere greater promises than ours become false in consequence.

— and remain unmoved. Shaken by memory and understanding, Linden realised abruptly that Stave had made a similar choice when he had declared himself her friend. He had recanted his devotion to the chosen service of the Masters.

Liand had glimpsed the truth when he had suggested that the Masters feared grief. As a race, Stave and his kinsmen had already known too much of it.

Mourning for the former Master, Linden felt her own sorrow recede. It did not lose its force: perhaps it would not. Nevertheless it seemed to become less immediate. Stave’s words and losses had cleared a space in which she could control her tears, and think, and care about her friends.

“You’re already helping,” she told Stave as firmly as she could. “You’re here. That’s what I need most right now.”

There would be more, but for the moment she had been given enough.

When the Haruchai nodded, accepting her reply, she turned to Manethrall Mahrtiir and his Cords.

“I know that being surrounded by stone like this is hard for you,” she began. A faint quaver betrayed her fragility. However, she anchored herself on Mahrtiir’s combative glare; clung to the insight which Stave had provided for her.

As she did so, she discovered that she could see more in the auras of the Ramen-and of Liand as well-than magically renewed vitality and protective concern. Beneath the surface, their emotions were complicated by hints of a subtler unease. Something had happened to trouble them since she had parted from Mahrtiir.

“But we have a lot to talk about,” she continued. “When we’re done, I won’t ask you to stay. We’ll get together again in the morning.”

Bhapa inclined his head as though he were content with whatever she chose to say. But Pahni still stared at Linden with shadows of alarm in her dark eyes. She rested one of her hands on Liand’s shoulder as if she had come to rely on his support-or as if she feared for him as well as for Linden. And Mahrtiir remained as watchful as a raptor, searching Linden as though he expected her to name her enemies; his prey.

The Manethrall’s manner suggested unforeseen events. Yet his reaction to them tasted of an eagerness which his companions did not share.

His manner strengthened Linden’s ability to hold back the effects of her confrontation with Covenant and Jeremiah.

Finally she shifted her gaze to Liand’s, addressing him last because his uncomplicated concern and affection touched her pain directly.

“Liand, please don’t ask me any questions.” He also seemed privately uneasy, although he conveyed none of the Manethrall’s eagerness-and little of Pahni’s fear. “I’ll tell you everything that happened. I’ll tell you what I plan to do about it. But it will be easier for me if I can just talk. Questions make it harder for me to hold myself together.”

Liand mustered a crooked smile. “As you wish. I am able to hold my peace, as you have seen. Yet allow me to say,” he added with a touch of rueful humour. “that since my departure from Mithil Stonedown, no experience of peril and power, no discovery or exigency, has been as unexpected to me as this, that I must so often remain silent.”

Damn it, Linden thought as her eyes misted, he’s doing it again. The unaffected gallantry of his attempt to jest undermined her self-control. Striving to master her tears again, she turned her back and pretended to busy herself at the hearth; prodded the logs with the toe of her boot although they plainly did not require her attention.

Over her shoulder, she said thickly, “Sit down, please. Have something to eat. It’s been a long day. I want to tell you about Covenant and Jeremiah, and that’s going to be hard for me. But there’s no hurry.” If the Demondim did not strike unexpectedly, she intended to wait until the next morning to confront the horde. “We can afford a little time.”

She meant to speak first. Surely then she would be able to put her pain behind her and listen more clearly to the tales of her friends? But she had one question which could not wait.

With her nerves as much as her ears, she heard her friends shift their feet, glance uncertainly at each other, then begin to comply with her request. Stave remained standing by the door, his arms folded like bars across his stained tunic. But Liand and Pahni urged Anele into a chair and seated themselves beside him. At once, the old man reached for the tray of food and began to eat. At the same time, Bhapa and Mahrtiir also sat down. The older Cord did so with deliberate composure. In contrast, Mahrtiir was tangibly reluctant: he appeared to desire some more active outlet for his emotions.

While her companions settled themselves, poured water or springwine into flagons, took a little food, Linden gathered her resolve. Facing the wall beside the hearth, nearly resting her forehead on the blunt stone, she said uncomfortably, “There’s something that I have to know. And I need the truth. Please don’t hold anything back.

“It’s about the caesures. About what you felt going through them. I’ve already asked Liand about the first one.” In the cave of Waynhim, he had told her only that he had felt pain beyond description; that he would have broken if the black lore of the ur-viles had not preserved him. Is there anything else that any of you can tell me? I mean about being in that specific Fall?”

A moment of fretted silence seemed to press against her back. Then the Manethrall replied stiffly, “Ringthane, the pain was too great to permit clear perception. Within the caesure was unspeakable cold, a terrible whiteness, agony that resembled being flayed, and fathomless despair. As the Stonedownor has said, we were warded by the theurgy of the ur-viles. But the Ranyhyn also played a part in our endurance. That they did not lose their way in time diminished a measure of our suffering.”

Linden heard the faint rustle of bodies as her friends looked at each other and nodded. With her health-sense, she recognised that Liand, Pahni, and Bhapa agreed with Mahrtiir’s assessment.

“What about you, Stave’?” she asked. He had emerged from the Fall apparently unscathed. “What was it like for you?”

The Haruchai did not hesitate. “As the Manethrall has said, both the ur-viles and the Ranyhyn served us well. We rode upon a landscape of the purest freezing while our flesh was assailed as though by the na-Mhoram’s Grim. Also there stood a woman among rocks, lashing out in anguish with wild magic. Toward her I was drawn to be consumed. However, turiya Herem held her. He is known to me, for no Haruchai has forgotten the touch of any Raver. Therefore I remained apart from her, seeking to refuse the doom which befell Korik, Sill, and Doar.”

Remained apart-Linden thought wanly. Damn, he was strong. From birth, he had communicated mind to mind; and yet he had retained more of himself in the Fall than anyone except Anele. Even she, with the strength of the ur-viles in her veins, had been swept into Joan’s madness.

Stave’s severance from his people must have hurt him more than Linden could imagine.

But she could not afford to dwell on the prices that her friends paid to stand at her side: not now, under these circumstances. She had her own costs to bear.

“All right,” she said after a moment of silence. “That was the first one. What about the second?” The caesure which she had created, bringing herself and her companions back to their proper time-and displacing the Demondim. “It must have been different. I need to know how it was different.”

Mahrtiir spoke first. For the Ramen, the distinction was both subtle and profound. Again we were assailed by a white and frozen agony which we were unable to withstand. The ur-viles no longer warded us. We lack the strength of the Haruchai. And we did not bear the Staff of Law on your behalf.” Liand had served Linden in that way, freeing her to concentrate on wild magic. “Yet the certainty of the Ranyhyn seemed greater, and their assurance somewhat diminished our torment. This, we deem, was made possible by the movement of time within the caesure, for we did not seek to oppose the current of the whirlwind.”

Linden nodded to herself. Yes, that made sense. Days ago, she had chosen to believe that the temporal tornado of any Fall would tend to spin out of the past toward the future. Mahrtiir confirmed what she had felt herself during her passage from the foothills of the Southron Range three thousand years ago to the bare ground before the gates of Revelstone.

Cautiously, approaching by increments the question which Covenant had advised her to ask, she said. “What about you, Stave? Can you offer anything more?”

The former Master did not respond immediately. Behind his apparent dispassion, he may have been weighing risks, striving to gauge the effect that his answer might have on her. When he spoke, however, his tone revealed none of his calculations.

“To that which the Manethrall and I have described, I will add one observation. Within the second Fall, the woman possessed by despair and madness was absent. Rather I beheld you mounted upon Hyn. Within you blazed such wild magic that it was fearsome to witness. As in the first passage, I was drawn toward the mind of the wielder. But again I remained apart.”

So. Twice Stave had preserved his separate integrity. Like the Ramen, he could not tell Linden what she needed to know.

— ask that callow puppy-

Liand did not deserve Covenant’s scorn.

She continued to face the wall as though she wished to muffle her voice; conceal her heart. “And you, Liand? You were carrying the Staff. That must have made a difference.”

By its very nature, the Staff may have imposed a small pocket of Law on the swirling chaos of the caesure.

“Linden-” the young man began. But then he faltered. His reluctance scraped along the nerves of her back and scalp, the skin of her neck. But percipience alone could not tell her why he was loath to speak, or what he might reveal.

“Please,” she said softly, almost whispering. “I need to know.”

She felt him gather himself-and felt the Ramen regard him with a kind of apprehension. Stave gazed steadily at the Stonedownor. Only Anele continued to eat and drink as though he were oblivious to his companions.

“Then I must relate,” Liand answered unsteadily, “that within the caesure I rode Rhohm upon an endless plain of the most bitter emptiness and cold. About me, I felt a swarm of stinging hornets, each striving to pierce and devour me, though they were not visible to my sight. And at the same time-” Again he faltered. But the underlying bedrock of his dignity and courage supported him. “At the same time,” he repeated more firmly. “it appeared to me that I was contained within you-that I sat upon Hyn rather than Rhohm, and that from my heart arose a conflagration such as I have never known. There none of my desires or deeds was my own. In some form, I had ceased to exist, for my thoughts were your thoughts, my pain was yours, and no aspect of Liand son of Fostil remained to me.”

Before Linden could press him, he added, “You need not name your query. You wish to hear what it is that I beheld within you.

“Our conjoining was severed when we emerged from the Fall, and I became myself again. Yet while we were one, I participated in your love for your son, and for Thomas Covenant. I was filled with your fear and pain, your extremity and desperation. I shared your resolve, which is greater than valour or might.” Liand did not hesitate now, or hold back. “And I saw that you have it within you to perform horrors. You have known the blackest cruelty and despair, and are able to inflict your full dismay upon any who may oppose you.

“This is the knowledge that you seek,” he concluded. “is it not?”

Facing the unwritten stone, Linden groaned to herself: she may have groaned aloud. Was Covenant Jeremiah’s puppet? Were they both puppets? Or did the fault lie in her? Liand, she believed, had answered those questions. In Covenant’s name, she had prevailed against moksha Jehannum and the Sunbane; but Liand seemed to say that she had never truly healed the capacity for evil which Lord Foul’s servants had exposed in her. Her inability to understand or trust Covenant and Jeremiah now was her failure, not theirs.

Softly, speaking more to the wall than to Liand, she breathed, “And yet you’re still my friend.”

“How could I be otherwise?” returned the Stonedownor. “It is possible that your loves will bind your heart to destruction, as the Mahdoubt has warned. It may be that you will repeatedly seek to accomplish good through evil means, as you have done before. But I am myself now, and I am not afraid. I no longer retain all that I have known of you. Yet I have known your loves, and in their name, I am proud to be both your companion and your friend.”

Helplessly Linden sagged forward, bracing her forehead against the cool stone. A cloudburst of weeping advanced on her across the convoluted terrain of her confusion; and she could not bear it. Covenant had as much as said that he did not trust her-and Liand had told her that the Unbeliever had good reason for his caution-and yet she heard nothing in Liand’s tone except unalloyed candour. He was proud-

She might not have been able to fend off her grief; but abruptly Anele spoke. “Anele has been made free of them,” the old man announced with unmistakable satisfaction. “And”- he turned his head from side to side in a way that suggested surprise- “the dark things, the creatures lost and harsh, demanding remembrance-Anele no longer fears them. He has been spared much.”

The unexpected sound of his voice helped her to step back once more from her clamouring emotions.

He sat on wrought stone, with his bare feet on the polished granite of the floor. As a result, he was in one of the more coherent phases of his madness. He may have understood more than he appeared to grasp. Indeed, he may have been trying in his distorted fashion to reassure Linden.

To some extent, at least, he had already demonstrated the truth of his assertion that he was the Land’s last hope. He had made possible the recovery of the Staff.

“For my part,” Mahrtiir put in while Linden mastered herself, “I aver that there is no surprise in the knowledge which the Stonedownor has gleaned.” The Manethrall’s voice was gruff with unaccustomed tenderness. “Breathes there a being in the Land, or upon the wide Earth, who does not nurture some measure of darkness? Surely Esmer would not be drawn to you as he is, did he not behold in you an aspect of his own torment. And has it not been repeated endlessly of the white gold wielder that he will save or damn the Land? That which Liand has witnessed in you alters nothing.”

Bracing herself on the strength of her friends, Linden set aside her bewilderment and loss; her self-doubt. She could not forget such things. They would affect all of her choices and actions. But the faith of her friends restored her ability to contain herself; to say what needed to be said.

When she had wiped her face once more with the sleeve of her shirt, she turned back toward Stave, Liand, Anele, and the Ramen.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “All of you. The things that I have to tell you are hard for me.” And she still needed to hear what had happened to her companions while she had been with Covenant and Jeremiah. “But I think I can do it now”- she attempted a smile- “without being too messy about it.”

Summoning her frayed courage, she pulled a chair close to the table so that she would be able to reach the tray of food. When she had seated herself, poured a flagon of springwine, and taken a few swallows, she met the expectant stares of her friends and began.

She said nothing about Esmer: she trusted that Mahrtiir had told the tale of Esmer’s recent appearance. Embarrassed on Covenant’s behalf, she made no mention of his drinking. And she glossed over his apparently aimless comments about Berek Halfhand and Kevin Landwaster. In retrospect, Covenant’s description of Kevin seemed whetted with foreboding. With so much peril crowding around her and her companions, Linden heard prophecy in Kevin’s plight. He wanted to be punished- But on that subject, she swallowed her fears.

Everything else, however, she conveyed with as much clarity as she could command: Covenant’s strangeness, and Jeremiah’s; the self absorbed and stilted relationship between them; the discrepancy between them and her memories of them; the oblique inadequacy and occasional scorn of their answers. Hugging the Staff to her chest, she admitted that Covenant had asked for his ring-and that she had not complied. With difficulty, she acknowledged that the blame for her reluctance and distress might lie in her. And she finished by telling her friends that Covenant had asked her for something in return. A little bit of trust.

Then I won’t have to explain what I’m going to do. I can show you.

“There’s only one other thing that I can tell you,” she concluded thinly. “They don’t love me anymore. They’ve changed too much. That part of them is gone.”

Finally a wash of lassitude seemed to carry away her last strength. The effort of holding her emotions at bay had wearied her; and she found that she needed the sustenance of aliantha in springwine-and needed as well at least a modicum of numbness. When she had emptied half of her flagon, she took a little fruit and chewed it listlessly. As she did so, she kept her head down, avoiding the uncertainty and trepidation of her friends.

For a long moment, they faced her in silence. They had stopped eating: they seemed almost to have stopped breathing. Then Liand asked cautiously, “If the Unbeliever seeks your aid in his intent, will you give it?”

Linden jerked up her head. She had not considered the possibility-But of course Liand’s question made sense. Why else had Covenant come here, bringing Jeremiah with him? Certainly he wanted his ring. However, he was prepared for the chance-the likelihood? — that she would refuse: he had said so. Then why had he asked for a show of trust? I know another way to make this mess turn out right. He and Jeremiah could have simply dismissed her and put his other plans into effect-unless those plans required her participation.

Meet us up on the plateau tomorrow.

“I have to,” she answered slowly. “I already know that I won’t like what they want me to do. But if I don’t cooperate, I’ll never learn the truth. About either of them.”

In fact, she could not imagine refusing them. They wanted her aid in some way. They had reason to be afraid of her. And they would not let her touch them.

The truth had become as vital to her as her son’s life.

Liand nodded. Although he frowned darkly, he accepted her reasoning.

After another moment, Stave unfolded his arms if he were readying himself for combat. “You have informed the ur-Lord that you intend to make use of the Staff. What will you attempt?”

Linden pressed her cheek against the comforting strictures of the Staff. “I’ll tell you,” she promised. “Before you go,” before she was left alone with her mourning, “we’ll make our own plans. But this whole day”- she grimaced- “has taken a lot out of me. I need a little time.”

Across the table, she faced Liand and the Ramen. “And you have something to tell me. I can feel it. Something happened to you-something more than Glimmermere. If you’re willing to talk about it, I want to hear what it was.”

At once, as if she had prodded a forgotten worry, Mahrtiir, Bhapa, Pahni, and Liand became restless. Anele appeared unaware that Linden had spoken, and Stave betrayed no reaction. But hesitation clouded the eyes of the others. None of them looked at her directly. Liand studied his hands, Bhapa frowned at the hearth as though the flames puzzled him, and Pahni focused her attention anxiously on Liand. Only Mahrtiir conveyed a sense of anticipation; but he closed his eyes and scowled fiercely, apparently attempting to conceal what he felt.

Then, however, the Manethrall opened his eyes to meet Linden’s gaze. “We scruple to reply,” he said roughly. “because we have no wish to augment the burdens which you must bear. Yet I deem it false friendship to withhold what has transpired. Therefore I will answer.

“When I parted from you, some time passed while I gathered together the Cords, the Stonedownor, and Anele so that I might guide them to Glimmermere. Together we traversed the impending stone until at last we regained the open sky of the plateau.

“There we beheld rainfall upon the mountains, and a storm gathering. But we have no fear of the world’s weather. Rather we rejoiced that we were freed from stone and constraint. And we had grown eager for the sight of Glimmermere. Therefore we made haste among the hills, that we might gain the eldritch tarn swiftly.

As we did so, Anele appeared to accompany us willingly”- Liand and Pahni nodded in confirmation- “though you had informed us that he would eschew the waters. He spoke constantly to himself as we hastened-” For a moment, Mahrtiir dropped his gaze as if he felt a touch of chagrin. It may be that we should have attended to his words. You have informed us that his madness is altered by that which lies beneath his feet. Some insight might have been gleaned from him.” Then the Manethrall looked at Linden again. “But we have grown accustomed to his muttering, which is largely incomprehensible to us. And our eagerness distracted us. We were grateful only that he kept pace without urging.”

Linden stared at him. The grass. Damn it, she thought, the grass. The region above Revelstone was not as lush as the Verge of Wandering, but its emerald and fertile greensward resembled the tall grass of that valley. And she had given not one moment’s consideration to how walking across the upland might affect the old man. She had been so shaken by her meeting with Esmer-and so apprehensive about talking to Covenant and Jeremiah-

“I made the same mistake,” she admitted to assuage her own chagrin. “We’ve all had a lot on our minds. Please go on.”

“Nonetheless,” Mahrtiir asserted severely, “the old man was altered. Failing to observe him clearly, we failed both him and you.

“I will not prolong my preamble. Together we gained the shores of the tarn. There we cast no reflection upon the waters, although Anele’s image was plainly visible. True to your word, he would not partake of Glimmermere’s benison. When we drank, however-when we had bathed and been transformed-”

Abruptly the Manethrall stopped, caught by a resurgence of his earlier reluctance.

Leaning forward earnestly, Liand explained on Mahrtiir’s behalf, “Linden, Anele spoke to us. He has not done so ere now. Always his moments of clear speech have been directed to you, or have been uttered in your name.” Bewilderment filled the Stonedownor’s face. “Upon the verges of Glimmermere, however, he addressed each of us in turn. And his manner of speaking-”

When Liand stumbled, Mahrtiir forced himself to resume. His voice was husky as he said, “Ringthane, it appeared to us that his voice resembled his fashion of speech when he accosted you in the Verge of Wandering, before fire and fury possessed him, and he was struck down for your preservation. And his words held such gentleness and sorrow that our hearts were wrung to hear him.”

Linden blinked in shock. Was it possible? Had Covenant spoken to her friends through Anele? Had they heard his voice? Felt his love? While she had been alone with him and her son, struggling to make sense of their strangeness, their disturbing evasions, their glimpses of scorn?

Oh, Linden. I’m so glad to see you.

Covenant had claimed or implied that he was exercising his relationship with Time for several different purposes at once, simultaneously making himself and Jeremiah manifest in Revelstone, seeking the means to oppose Kastenessen, and defending the Arch against Joan’s caesures. Could he also have taken possession of Anele; addressed her friends with “gentleness and sorrow”?

Or-

Not to mention some of the other powers that have noticed what’s happening here and want to take advantage of it.

— were there other beings at work? Forces other than Kastenessen and the Demondim and Esmer and the Elohim? Was some foe whom she had never met endeavouring to manipulate her friends?

Linden, find me. I can’t help you unless you find me.

Oh, God, she thought; groaned. Who’s doing this? How many lies have we been told?

Nevertheless this new surprise galvanised her. Her lassitude vanished: even her inward storm was pushed aside. Throughout her encounter with Covenant, he had sounded subtly false; insidiously out of tune. If Jeremiah had become so much more than the boy whom she had known, Covenant had seemed to be less than himself. The voice that had spoken to her through Anele-like the voice in her dreams-had felt far more true than Covenant himself did.

You need the ring.

Dreaming, she had heard Covenant urge her to trust herself.

“Tell me,” she told the Manethrall and Liand intently. “If that was Covenant-or even if it just sounded like him-I need to know what he said.”

The words themselves might reveal who had spoken them.

In a formal tone, Mahrtiir responded, “First he addressed us generally. His words were these.” Then he altered his voice to produce an unexpected imitation of Covenant’s. “I can only say all of this once. And I can’t explain it. As soon as he notices what I’m doing, he’ll stop me. If I even start to say his name, he’ll stop me before I can finish.

“She can do this. Tell her I said that. It’s hard now. And it’s going to get harder. She’ll have to go places and do things that ought to be impossible. But I think she can do it. And there’s no one else who can even make the attempt.”

The Manethrall paused. When Liand and the Cords nodded, confirming his recitation, he resumed.

“Anele’s possessor then spoke to Liand, saying, “I wish I could spare you. Hell, I wish any of us could spare you. But I can’t see any way around it. What you need is in the Aumbrie. Stave will show you where that is, whether the Masters want him to or not. You’ll know what you’re looking for when you touch it.”

The Aumbrie? Linden gripped the Staff; stifled an interruption. The Aumbrie of the Clave? She had never seen that hidden storeroom herself. But she had heard from Covenant that Vain had found his way to the Aumbrie, seeking the iron bands which had formed the heels of Berek’s original Staff of Law.

“To me,” Mahrtiir was saying. “Anele next addressed himself.” Linden felt the veiled knife-edge of the Manethrall’s eagerness as he quoted. “You’ll have to go a long way to find your heart’s desire. Just be sure you come back. The Land needs you.”

Hurrying past his excitement as if he considered it unseemly, Mahrtiir said, “Last Anele named the Cords. He said, ‘In some ways, you two have the hardest job. You’ll have to survive. And you’ll have to make them listen to you. They won’t hear her. She’s already given them too many reasons to feel ashamed of themselves.’

“We thronged with questions at his words,” the Ramen leader admitted; and Liand nodded vigorously. “We would have urged explanations, though he had said that he could not provide them. But then Anele appeared to grow faint, as though a sudden ailment, or perhaps an undetected forbidding, had fallen upon him. Expressing regret, he fell to the grass, and his eyes rolled as though he had been taken by a seizure.

“The moment was brief,” finished the Manethrall. “He roused himself shortly and became as he had been before, distracted and incomprehensible. To us, it appeared that he was unaware of his words. We surmise that his unnamed foe had indeed become cognisant of him, and had roughly imposed incoherence upon him.

“That is our tale, Ringthane. While we pondered what we had heard, the first of the rain began to fall. Desiring shelter more for the old man than for ourselves, we departed from Glimmermere. Stave met us returning toward Revelstone and guided us hither.”

Pahni continued to rest one hand on Liand’s shoulder, keeping her eyes downcast in an effort to mask her alarm. And Bhapa had lapsed into a reverie: he seemed to study the hearth without seeing it, as if he sought the meaning of Anele’s words behind the restless dance and gutter of the flames.

But when the Manethrall was done, Liand asked at once. “Is it conceivable, Linden? Was Thomas Covenant indeed able to address us through Anele while he was also present with you’?”

Linden held Mahrtiir’s discomfited gaze for a moment, thanking him with her eyes. Then she faced Liand’s question.

“I don’t know.” Her alarm had become a kind of courage. Upon occasion, she had experienced a similar reaction during emergency surgeries. At those times, when detachment and training failed her, her own fear had enabled her to proceed. Under the right circumstances, dread and even inadequacy became as compelling as valour. “Covenant says that he and Jeremiah are ‘in two places at once.’ It’s three if you count taking possession of Anele. I don’t know how he can do any of that.

“And he’s dead.” She forced herself to say this. “I watched Lord Foul kill him.” Through Anele, he had urged her, Just be wary of me. “I don’t know how it’s possible for him to have any physical form. He told me himself that too many Laws have been broken for the Dead to hold themselves together.

“But he did say that there are “other powers”, enemies or beings, that we don’t know about. And he gave me such a strong impression of”- she could not say the word falsehood aloud, not speaking to her friends about Thomas Covenant- “of discrepancy. Like all of the pieces didn’t fit. Or I didn’t understand them well enough to put them together.”

Her Jeremiah had been a wizard at such things, making the pieces fit-

“For all I know,” she sighed, “Covenant never said a word to me until today,” and every voice in her dreams, every word in Anele’s mouth, had belonged to someone else. “I can’t even begin to guess whether he actually talked to the four of you. And I certainly can’t tell you what any of it means.”

“Then, Chosen,” Stave put in flatly. “my question stands. If it remains your purpose to exert the Staff, though such forces may dismiss the Unbeliever and your son, what will you attempt to accomplish?”

Steadying herself on a kind of daring and indomitable trepidation, Linden answered him as plainly as she could.

“Covenant wants me to meet him near Furl Falls about an hour after dawn.” She had explained this earlier: she repeated it more for her own sake than to remind her friends. “But I’m not willing to wait that long. I have to do something about the Demondim. I want Revelstone to have a fighting chance if Covenant fails-or even if he just makes a mistake.”

The Demondim were reputed to be profoundly lorewise. Surely no perceptual trick would baffle them for long?

“Those creatures can use the IIIearth Stone,” Linden went on unsteadily. “Once they decide to attack, they can probably tear this whole place apart in a matter of hours. The Masters won’t stand a chance.

“I want to prevent that.”

Before Stave or Mahrtiir could object, she explained, “Covenant agrees with the Masters. The Demondim are using a caesure to draw power directly from the Stone, even though it was destroyed a long time ago. I can’t feel the Fall-they’re masking it somehow-but it has to be there,” in the midst of the horde. “And if it’s there, the Staff of Law can unmake it.

“I’m going to study those monsters,” she said directly to the former Master, knowing that he would not be able to conceal what he heard from his kinsmen, “until I locate their caesure.” She no longer cared what the Masters might think of her intentions. “And when I can feel it,” when her health-sense had identified the precise miasmic wrongness of the Fall. “I’m going to erase it.”

As if she were not afraid, she concluded, “Without the IIIearth Stone, they’re just Demondim.” Hideously potent in themselves: more than a match for the Masters. But they would need days rather than mere hours to overwhelm Revelstone. “And maybe I’ll be able to cut down their numbers without using more power than Covenant can withstand.”

Stave showed no reaction; made no comment. He may have been content to accept any of her decisions. But Bhapa turned from his study of the flames to regard her with surprise and hope. Pahni raised her head with an air of hesitation, almost of timidity, as though she felt abashed in Linden’s presence. And Liand gazed at Linden as if she had once again justified his faith in her.

However, the Manethrall’s emanations were more complex. Linden might have expected his heart to leap at the prospect of combat; but he made a visible effort to swallow his anticipation.

“Ringthane,” he said carefully. “it is a bold stroke, and I applaud. But I must inquire when you will make the attempt. It is plain to all who behold you that you are weary beyond measure. Will you not eat and rest to refresh yourself? If you sleep, you need not fear that the bale of Kevin’s Dirt will reclaim you. The benison of Glimmermere will not fade so swiftly.

“If you will heed me, I urge that you will be better able to confront the Teeth of the Render when your strength has been restored.”

Liand and Pahni nodded in unison; and Stave said stolidly, “The Manethrall’s counsel is apt. You require slumber. If it is your wish, I will gather our companions and awaken you in the hour before dawn. You will have time enough to confront the Demondim before the ur-Lord desires your presence at Furl Falls.”

Linden would have preferred immediate action. She would have chosen anything that promised to distract her from the poignant throb of her meeting with Jeremiah and Covenant. But she did not argue. All right,” she sighed. “That makes sense. I’m not sure how much sleeping I can do. But I’ll eat as much as I can stomach. And maybe some of this springwine will help.”

Certainly she wanted numbness

In addition, she found now that she wanted to be alone. She had reached the end of her capacity for words. The emotions which remained to her were voiceless; too private to be shared. Long ago, she had loved a man and adopted a son. She did not know how to grieve for them in the presence of her friends.

“In the meantime,” she added, “you should get some rest yourselves. God knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. It could be hard on all of us.”

“As you say, Chosen.” Stave moved at once to the door.

Mahrtiir and Bhapa rose promptly to follow his example. They were Ramen, uncomfortable under the monumental constraint of the Keep. They would find a night on the plateau preferable to being confined in Revelstone, regardless of the weather.

But Liand remained seated. Anele continued to munch distractedly at the tray of food. And Pahni lingered at Liand’s side. Her hand on his arm gently advised him to stand, but she did not insist.

Liand dropped his gaze for a moment, then looked at Linden again. “Linden-” he began awkwardly. “It saddens me that you must be alone with all that has transpired. You asked that I do not question you, and I have complied. But now I must speak. Is it well that no companion remains with you at such a time?”

“It is her wish,” stated the Haruchai. And Mahrtiir commanded Pahni, “Bring the Stonedownor and Anele, Cord. When we have delivered them to Liand’s chambers, we will seek a less constrained place of rest.”

Obediently Pahni left her seat. Taking Anele’s hand, she brought him to his feet. Yet she continued to watch Liand, plainly hoping that he would join her.

Linden covered her face, threatened once more by Liand’s candour. As gently as she could, she told him, You don’t need to worry. Sure, this is hard.” Anele had said as much, in Covenant’s voice or someone else’s. “But I’ve known worse.” She had survived the Sunbane and Rant Absolain’s malice, the na-Mhoram’s Grim and the Worm of the World’s End. She had been possessed by a Raver, and had confronted the Despiser. And her son was here. His mind had been restored to him. If he and Covenant truly did not love her, she might spend the whole night crying, but she would not lose herself. “I have the Staff of Law. And if that’s not enough, I have something even more precious. I’ve got friends.

“Go on,” she said quietly. “Take care of Anele. Try to get some sleep. I’ll see you early tomorrow.”

Liand studied her for a long moment, obviously striving to see past her words into the condition of her spirit. Then he stood up and offered her a lopsided smile. “Linden, you surpass me-continually, it seems. As you say, we will gather upon the morrow. And we who name ourselves your friends with pride will hope to see that you have found a measure of solace.”

She could not match his smile; but perhaps he did not expect that of her. Or perhaps Pahni’s soft gaze was enough for him. When he had joined the young Cord and Anele, Stave opened the door. Together, the Haruchai and Mahrtiir ushered their companions out into the corridor, leaving Linden alone with her thoughts and her desire to weep and her growing terror.

She did not believe that she would sleep. The events of the day had worn her nerves raw. And the prospect of dreaming frightened her. If she heard Covenant’s voice-his voice as she remembered it rather than as it was now-she might lose the last of her frayed resolve. An old paresis lurked in the background of her pain, and it meant death.

But she had underestimated her hunger and fatigue. Her nap before her friends had arrived was not enough: she needed more. When she had eaten her fill, and drunk a flagon of springwine, she found it difficult to hold up her head. Her eyes seemed to fall closed of their own accord. Instead of spending the night as she had imagined, striving to make sense of Esmer and Covenant and her son, she went almost helplessly to her bed.

As soon as she took off her clothes and stretched out under the blankets, she sank into a sleep as empty and unfathomable as the loneliness between the stars. If she dreamed or cried out, she did not know it.

One short night was not enough. She needed whole days of tranquillity and balm. Nevertheless she was awake and dressed, as ready as she would ever be, when a knock at her door announced that her friends had returned for her. Some unconscious awareness of time had roused her so that she could try to prepare herself.

She had opened her shutters briefly to look out at the weather. A drenching rain fell steadily, obscuring any hint of dawn’s approach; and the damp breeze brought memories of winter from the ice-clogged peaks to the west. The prospect of being soaked and chilled felt like foreboding as she closed the shutters and left the lingering embers in the hearth in order to answer the summons of her friends and Revelstone’s need.

Stave stood outside with the Ramen, Liand, and Anele. Liand and Anele wore woollen cloaks, heavy and hooded, although the Ramen and the former Master apparently disdained such protections. But over one arm, Stave carried a cloak for Linden.

Her companions offered her a subdued greeting which she hardly returned: she had already begun to sink into herself, focusing her concentration on the friable structure of her resolve-and on her percipience itself, striving to sharpen her health-sense so that she might be able to penetrate the mystic obfuscations of the Demondim. Distractedly she accepted the cloak from Stave, shrugged it over her shoulders. Clinging to the Staff, she nodded to indicate that she was as ready as she would ever be.

She can do this. Tell her I said that.

Flanked by Stave and Mahrtiir, with the Cords, Liand, and Anele behind her, she set out to confront the innominate powers of the Vile-spawn.

Although she had not said so, she wanted to reach the highest possible vantage above the horde. There distance and rain might conceal her from the monsters until she was prepared to unfurl the Staff’s fire. But Stave appeared to grasp her unspoken desires. Without a word, he led her where she needed to go.

Tense and determined, her small company passed along the intricate passages of the Keep to the wide tunnel which led like a road toward the upland. And as they rounded the last switchback, they began to splash through streams of rainwater. Below them, the streams were diverted into culverts and drains; and Linden wondered obliquely how the Haruchai had contrived to block those waterways when the Sandgorgon Nom had used Glimmermere’s outflow to extinguish the lingering inferno of the Banefire, three and a half thousand years ago. Since then, however, the drains and channels had obviously been re-opened so that accumulating torrents would not flood into the Keep.

As she ascended, Linden seemed to struggle against a current of memories: Covenant’s extravagant bravery when he had quenched the theurgy of the Banefire; her own weakness and Nom’s blunt strength. But then she slogged out of the tunnel into the open rain, and the downpour forced her attention back to the present. It impelled her to pull up her hood and huddle into her cloak; required her to forget who she had been and remember who she was.

There’s no one else who can even make the attempt.

From the shelter of the tunnel, she and her companions turned north and east across the hills toward the promontory of Revelstone. Almost at once, the rain soaked into her cloak. Darkness covered the world, blotting out every horizon: she could only guess where she placed her feet. Nevertheless she sensed that the worst of the storm had passed, that the rainfall was beginning to dwindle as the laden clouds drifted eastward.

Stave and the Manethrall steered her in a northerly curve toward the jut of the plateau, seeking, perhaps, to avoid an unseen hill or some other obstacle. Slowly water seeped through her cloak into her clothes: it dripped from her legs into her boots. By degrees, the chill of night and spring and damp leached the warmth from her skin. More and more, she yearned to draw on the invigorating fire of the Staff. She wanted to banish cold and fear and her own mortality so that she might feel equal to what lay ahead of her.

But if she did so, she would forewarn the Demondim. Knowing that she meant to release Law and Earthpower, Covenant might muster enough of his inexplicable puissance to protect himself and Jeremiah. But the Vile-spawn would recognise their danger. And they would not need prescience to guess her purpose. They would ramify their defences, creating cul-de-sacs and chimeras of lore to baffle her health-sense so that she could not identify their caesure. Or perhaps they would preempt her by unleashing the full evil of the IIIearth Stone-

She knew that bane too well to believe that she could stand against it: not without wild magic. And she trembled to think what might happen to Covenant and her son-or indeed to the hidden Fall of the Demondim-if she were compelled to unveil the force of Covenant’s ring. It’s hard now. And it’s going to get harder. Covenant and Jeremiah might not simply vanish: they might cease to exist in any meaningful form. And the caesure of the Demondim might grow vast enough to devour the whole of Lord’s Keep.

Her own fears as much as the cold and rain filled her with shivering, imminent fever, as she restrained her wish for the Staff’s warmth and consolation. Instead she let her companions lead her to her destination as if she were more blind than Anele, and had far less fortitude.

Immersed in private dreads, she did not sense the presence of the Masters until she neared the rim of Revelstone high above the courtyard and watchtower that guarded the Keep’s gates.

Two of them awaited her. By now, she knew them well enough to recognise Handir and Galt, although she could scarcely discern their shapes in the darkness; certainly could not make out their features. No doubt the other Humbled, Branl and Clyme, had remained with Covenant and Jeremiah.

Galt and the Voice of the Masters stood between her and the cliff-edge of her intent.

She was not surprised to find them in her way. Doubtless they had read her intentions in Stave’s mind. And she was confident that they had informed the ur-Lord- If she had not sunk so far into herself, she might have expected to encounter the Masters earlier.

Perhaps she should have been grateful that only two of Stave’s kinsmen had come to witness her actions; or to oppose them.

“Chosen,” Handir said when Linden and her friends were near enough to hear him easily through the rain, “the Unbeliever requests that you refrain from your intent. He requests it. He does not command it. In this, he was precise. He acknowledges the merit of your purpose. But he conceives that the peril is too great.

“Having been forewarned, he asserts that he will be able to refuse banishment. That is not his concern. Rather he fears what will transpire should you fail. Provoked, the Demondim will draw upon the full might of the IIIearth Stone. From such an assault, only ruin can ensue. The ur-Lord’s design for the salvation of the Land is fragile, easily impeded. If he is assailed by the Demondim, he will be unable to perform what he must.

For that reason and no other, he asks that you turn aside from your intent and await the revelation of his purposes at Furl Falls.”

“And if the Chosen does not fail?” countered Stave before Mahrtiir could retort. “Are the Masters not thereby greatly aided in their service to both Lord’s Keep and the Land?”

The Voice of the Masters did not reply. Instead Galt stated, “Her failure is certain. Our discernment exceeds hers, yet we cannot determine how the Fall of the Demondim is concealed. And if she draws upon Earthpower to enhance her sight, she will be revealed, and the horde will strike against her. Therefore she cannot achieve her aim.

“It is the ur-Lord, the Unbeliever, the rightful wielder of white gold who requests her compliance. How may any refusal be justified?”

Linden stepped closer. She was beyond persuasion: fear and determination and even bafflement had made her as unwilling to compromise as the Masters themselves. Covenant’s indirect appeal and Galt’s reasoning were like the rain: they could fall on her, soak into her clothes, fill her mortal heart with shivering; but they could not deflect her.

Handir had not bowed to her. She gave him no greeting of her own. Ignoring Galt, she asked abruptly. “Did he tell you what this design of his is?”

“No,” Handir answered as though her question had no relevance. “We cannot aid him, and so he did not speak of it. He asked only that we keep the ancient promise of the Haruchai to preserve Revelstone.”

“Then,” she said softly, as if she wished only Handir and the rain to hear her, “it seems to me that you still don’t understand what Brinn did against the Guardian of the One Tree.” If the Master did not consider the specific nature of Covenant’s purpose germane, he could not say the same of the example upon which his people had founded their Mastery. “I tried to explain it yesterday, but I probably wasn’t clear.

“Brinn didn’t beat ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol by defeating him. He beat him by surrendering. He couldn’t stop the Guardian from throwing him off a cliff, so he took Kenaustin Ardenol with him when he fell.”

“This you have-” Handir began; but Linden did not let him interrupt her.

“Doesn’t that strike you as a rather un-Haruchai thing to do? In your whole history, have your people ever considered trying to solve a problem by surrendering to it?”

That may have been why Covenant had asked the Haruchai not to accompany him while he and Linden went to confront Lord Foul. The ancestors of the Masters might have sacrificed their lives to prevent him from giving his ring to the Despiser. Indeed, Covenant may have decided on his own course because he had witnessed Brinn’s victorious defeat.

“So where do you suppose Brinn got the idea? How did he even think of it?” She suspected that Handir knew the answer-that his ancestors had heard it from Cail, and that it was the underlying reason for their repudiation of Brinn’s companion-but she did not pause for his reply. “I’ll tell you. He got it because he already thought of himself as a failure. He and Cail were seduced by the merewives. They surrendered. They proved that they were unworthy before Brinn fought the Guardian of the One Tree.”

He had said, Our folly must end now- But no Haruchai except Cail had harkened to him.

Still softly, almost whispering, Linden finished. “Brinn became your ak-Haru, your greatest hero, because he was a failure. He believed the worst about himself, and he understood surrender.”

If the Masters had heeded Brinn’s example, they would have chosen their Humbled, not by victory, but by defeat.

“It may be so,” Handir admitted after a moment’s silence. “We have not yet determined our stance toward you. But we have become the Masters of the Land, and the import of the Unbeliever’s presence among us is plain. Lords whom the Bloodguard honoured believed that Thomas Covenant was Berek Earthfriend come again. They sacrificed much in his name, trusting that he would save rather than damn the Land. And he has twice justified their faith.

“We know nothing of the rebirth of ancient legends. But we are Haruchai and will not turn aside from ourselves. Therefore we also will place our faith in the Halfhand. Where he is concerned, we discount the warning of the Elohim, for they are arrogant and heartless, and their purposes are often cruel.”

“All right.” Linden looked away from the sound of Handir’s voice. “You didn’t hear Cail, you didn’t hear Stave, and you won’t hear me.” You’ll have to make them listen to you, but that was not her task. “You’ve made that obvious enough.” When she directed her attention past him and the grass-cloaked rim of Revelstone, she could feel the distant moiling of the Demondim. Through the rain, she tasted their opalescence and vitriol, their ravenous hunger for harm, as well as their wary defences and apparent confusion. “But were still your guests, and Covenant didn’t command you to stop me. So unless you have something else to say, I want to get started before those monsters notice me.”

Even if the Demondim could not feel her presence, they might detect the proximity of the Staff of Law.

Handir appeared to hesitate. Then Linden felt rather than saw him move until he no longer stood between her and the horde.

Do something they don’t expect.

At once, she dropped to her hands and knees as if she were sinking back into herself; into her concentration and dismay. She no longer regarded Handir and Galt, or her friends, or the clammy grasp of the rain on her back. If anyone spoke to her, she did not hear. By touch, she crawled through the drenched grass toward the extreme edge of Revelstone’s promontory. She did not know what the limits of the Vile-spawn’s perceptions might be; but she hoped to expose as little of herself as possible.

Then she found it: the outermost rim of the cliff, where the grass and soil of the plateau fell away from their foundation of stone. With little more than her head extended beyond the edge, she cast her health-sense downward.

At first, the rain seemed to plunge past her into a featureless abyss, black and primitive as terror. But as she focused her percipience, she saw with every sense except vision the shaped, deliberate surface of Revelstone’s prow directly below her; the walled and open courtyard; the massed bulk of the watchtower. For a moment, she distracted herself by noticing the presence of Masters within the tower. Then she looked farther.

The crown of the watchtower partially blocked her view of the Demondim. However, only a small portion of the horde was obscured: in spite of the rain and the darkness, she could discern most of the forces gathered beyond the Keep’s outer gates. When she had attuned herself to the roil and surge of the horde’s hatred, its dimensions became clear.

Veiled by rainfall, fiery opalescence seethed in chaotic waves and spatters from edge to edge of the Demondim formation. And through the stirred turmoil of the monsters’ might, amid the randomness of their black vitriol, she caught brief hints and glimpses, as elusive as phosphenes, of the dire emerald which emanated from the IIIearth Stone. That evil was muffled, muted; banked like embers in ash. But she knew it intimately and could not be mistaken.

Yet of the caesure which the Vile-spawn used to reach the IIIearth Stone, she saw no sign.

To her taut nerves, the confusion and uncertainty of the monsters seemed as loud as the blaring of battle-horns. But as she studied what she felt and heard and tasted-seeking, seeking-she began to think that their display of bewilderment was too loud. Surely if such lorewise creatures were truly baffled, chary of destruction, their attention would resemble hers? They would search actively for comprehension and discernment. Yet they did not. Rather their behaviour was like the wailing of confounded children: thoughtless; apparently incapable of thought.

Galvanised by a small jolt of excitement, Linden pushed her perceptions further, deeper. As she did so, she became certain that the Demondim were putting on a show of confusion, that their obvious disturbance was a ruse. It was one of the means by which they concealed their doorway to the IIIearth Stone.

According to Covenant, he had put a crimp in their reality. I made us look like bait. But Linden was no longer convinced that the Vile-spawn feared an ambush. They had some other reason for withholding their attack.

For a time, uncertainty eroded her concentration, and her sense of the horde became blurred, indefinite; as vague and visceral as the wellsprings of nightmares. Instead of continuing to search for some glimpse of the caesure, she felt Kevin’s Dirt overhead, high among the clouds. Independent of wind and weather, it spread a smear of doubt across her health-sense; numbed her tactile connection to the Land’s true life.

If Covenant had lied-

Mahrtiir had assured her that Kevin’s Dirt could not blind her while the effects of her immersion in Glimmermere lingered. Stave had implied that he held the same belief. Nevertheless she seemed to grow weaker by the moment, losing focus; drifting out of tune with the recursive emanations of the horde. She would never be able to identify the Fall unless she awakened the fire of Law to sharpen her perceptions.

Two days ago, the Masters had been able to descry the caesure’s presence because the Demondim had not yet adopted their tactics of concealment. If she had been aware then of any Fall other than her own-and if she had been stronger-

She had missed that opportunity. It would not come again.

Surely it was Covenant who had told her that she needed the Staff of Law?

Yet any premature use of Earthpower would trigger the defences and virulence of her foes.

Trust yourself. You’re the only one who can do this.

Her time with Thomas Covenant long ago had taught her to ignore the dictates of panic.

All right, she told herself. All right. So she could not guess how the Demondim had decided on their present stratagems. So what? She had come to the rim of Revelstone to attempt a kind of surgery; and surgery demanded attention to what was immediately in front of her. The underlying motivations of the monsters were irrelevant. At this moment, under these circumstances, Kastenessen’s and even Covenant’s designs were irrelevant. Her task was simply and solely to extirpate the cancer of the horde’s access to the IIIearth Stone. For the surgeon in her, nothing else mattered.

With assiduous care, Linden Avery the Chosen reclaimed her focus on the manipulative masque of the Demondim.

She had spotted quick instances of the Stone’s green and lambent evil earlier: she saw more of them now. But they were widely scattered throughout the horde; brief as single raindrops; immediately absorbed. And they were in constant motion, glinting like fragments of lightning reflected on storm-wracked seas. When she had studied them for a time, she saw that they moved like the whirling migraine miasma of a caesure-

Then she understood why she could not discern the Fall itself. Certainly the Demondim concealed it with every resource at their command. Behind their feigned confusion, they seethed with conflicting energies and currents, seeking to disguise the source of their might. But still they exerted that might, using it to obscure itself. Each glimpse and flicker of the IIIearth Stone was so immediate, immanent, and compelling that it masked the disruption of time which made it possible.

Linden understood-but the understanding did not help her. Now that she had recognised what was happening, she could focus her health-sense past the threat inherent in each individual glint of emerald; and when she did so, she saw hints of time’s enabling distortion, the swirl of instants which severed the millennia between the horde and the Stone. But those hints were too brief and unpredictable. Their chaotic evanescence obscured them. They were like haemorrhaging blood vessels in surgery: they prevented her from seeing the precise place where her scalpel and sutures were needed.

There she knew the truth. The task that she had chosen for herself was impossible. She was fundamentally inadequate to it. The tactics of the Demondim were too alien for her human mind to encompass: she could not find her way through the complex chicanery and vehemence of the monsters. She would not be able to unmake the caesure unless she found a way to grasp what all of the Demondim were thinking and doing at every moment.

Therefore-

Groaning inwardly, she retreated a little way so that she could rest her forehead on the wet grass. She wanted to console herself with the sensation of its fecund health, its fragile and tenacious grip on the aged soil of the plateau; its delicate demonstration of Earthpower. Even the chill of the rain contradicted in some fashion the hurtful machinations of the Demondim, the savage emerald of the Stone, the quintessential wrong of the caesure; the impossibility of her task. Rain was appropriate; condign. It fell because the earth required its natural sustenance. Such things belonged to the organic health of the world. They deserved to be preserved.

She could not cut the caesure away as she had intended. Therefore she would have to approach the problem in a less surgical-and far more hazardous-manner. She would have to risk a direct assault on the monsters, hoping that they would strike back with the force of the IIIearth Stone. Then, during the imponderable interval between the instant of their counterattack and the moment when she was incinerated, she would have to locate the horde’s now-unveiled Fall; locate and extinguish it. If she survived long enough-

She had no reason to believe that she could succeed. The challenge would be both swift and overwhelming. And if she effaced the caesure, she would be no closer to rescuing Jeremiah or relieving the Land’s other perils. If she failed, she might not live long enough to see Revelstone destroyed because of her.

In her son’s name, she had twice risked absolute ruin. But now the question of his survival had become far more complex. In spite of the fact that he remained Lord Foul’s prisoner, he was here. He had regained his mind. And Covenant, whose every word disturbed her, had averred that his own plans would free Jeremiah at last-

Covenant was concerned that an assault by the horde might prevent him from carrying out his designs. If she confronted the Demondim directly, she might do more than cause a catastrophe for the Land: she might cost her son his only real chance to live.

And yet-and yet-

The Demondim were here. The power of the IIIearth Stone was here. Kastenessen and the skurj were already at work, seeking the destruction of the Land. And somewhere the Worm of the World’s End awaited wakening. How could she turn her back on any immediate threat when she did not understand Covenant, and the Masters had no effective defence?

Trapped in her dilemma, she was conscious of nothing except the ravening powers of the horde and the extremity of her hesitation. She did not feel the rain falling on her back or the dampness of the grass. And she did not sense Stave’s approach. Until he said, “Attend, Chosen,” she had forgotten that she was not alone.

He had said those exact words twice before, both times in warning-and both because either Esmer or the ur-viles had taken her by surprise.

Dragging herself up from the grass, she braced her doubts on the Staff of Law and climbed to her feet.

As if without transition, Liand reached her side and took hold of her arm so that she would not stumble or fall as she turned to find herself peering dumbly into the black face of the ur-viles’ loremaster.

The creature’s nostrils gaped, scenting her through the rain. Behind the storm-clouds, dawn had reached the Upper Land, and the sun drove a dim illumination into the dark; just enough light to reveal the dire shape of the loremaster. Now that she was aware of the creature, she felt rain spatter against its obsidian flesh, run down its torso and limbs-and hiss into steam as droplets struck the blade of molten iron gripped in its fist.

Behind the larger creature stood a packed wedge of Demondim-spawn, as black as ebony and midnight, and as ominous. Even the Waynhim scattered among them seemed as dark as demons. As far as she could tell, those few creatures that had accompanied her here had joined the larger force which Esmer had delivered beside Glimmermere. And they all seemed to be muttering imprecations as they crowded close to each other and Linden, aiming their combined might through the loremaster and its hot blade.

When it smelled her attention, the loremaster lifted its free hand and held its ruddy knife over its palm, apparently offering to cut itself on her behalf.

This same creature had behaved in the same fashion when she was preparing herself for her first experience of a caesure; when she had been sick with fear and the aftereffects of the horserite. At that time, a much smaller wedge of ur-viles had healed her, giving her the strength to find her way through Joan’s madness; to reach the Land’s past and the Staff of Law.

Now the loremaster appeared to be making a similar offer-

Yesterday Esmer had said to her, I have enabled their presence here, and they have accepted it, so that they may serve you. They will ward you, and this place- Revelstone- with more fidelity than the Haruchai, who have no hearts.

Covenant had jeered at Esmer’s assertion. He had warned her that the manacles of the ur-viles were intended for him. They’ve been Foul’s servants ever since they met him. And she had her own reasons for wondering what secret purpose lay behind the assistance of the ur-viles. Esmer’s involvement cast doubt in all directions.

“Linden”- the rain muffled Liand’s voice- “your distress is plain. You fear that you will fail. But here is aid. Few of these creatures are those that have served you with both lore and valour. Yet those ur-viles are here, and the Waynhim with them. It may be that they will strengthen you to succeed.”

He gave his faith too easily-Covenant would have mocked him for it.

Out of the dim dawn, Mahrtiir added, “The Ramen have long known some few of these ur-viles. They have acted for our benefit. And they have succoured Anele.”

Stave said nothing. He had felt Esmer’s fury and might therefore suspect the motives of the ur-viles.

When she did not respond, the Stonedownor turned to Handir. “You speak for the Masters,” he said more strongly. “What is your word now? I have learned that in their time your kind fought long and bitterly against such creatures. Also the Unbeliever desires the Chosen to desist. Will you permit her to be aided now?”

For a long moment, Linden heard nothing except the harsh invocations-or imprecations-of the Demondim-spawn. Then Handir replied dispassionately, “From Stave, we have received one account of these creatures, and from the ur-Lord, another. We cannot discern the sooth of such matters. Yet here we need make no determination. Waynhim now stand among the ur-viles. In the name of their ancient service to the Land, we honour the Waynhim as we do the Ranyhyn. While they participate in the actions of these ur-viles, we will not hinder them.”

Covenant had discounted the Waynhim as though their long devotion meant nothing.

Still the loremaster extended its open palm; poised its blade to shed its own blood.

Trust yourself.

Until now, she had accomplished almost nothing that had not been made possible by the ur-viles- and the Waynhim.

Holding her breath, Linden opened her hand and proffered it to the loremaster.

Swift as a striking snake, as if it feared that she might change her mind, the creature flicked at her with its eldritch dagger, slicing a quick line of blood across the base of her thumb. Then the loremaster cut itself and reached out to clasp her hand so that its acrid blood mingled with hers.

Involuntarily all of her muscles clenched, anticipating a rush of strength and exaltation that would lift her entirely out of herself; elevate her doubts to certainty and power.

In the Verge of Wandering, the loremaster’s ichor had changed her, transcending her sickness and dread; her sheer mortality. It transformed her again now-but in an entirely different way. The wedge in front of her, more than a hundred creatures all chanting together, had called a new lore to her aid; had given her a new power. Instead of strength like the charging of Ranyhyn, she felt an almost metaphysical alteration, at once keener and more subtle than simple health and force and possibility. The creatures had not made her stronger: they had augmented her health-sense, increasing its range and discernment almost beyond comprehension.

Now she could have pierced the closed hearts of the Masters, if she had wished to do so. Hell, she could have possessed any one of them-Or she could have searched out the mysteries locked within the Demondim-spawn themselves. They had given her the power to lay bare the complex implications of their Weird. Or she might have been able to discern the causes of Covenant’s strangeness, and Jeremiah’s. Certainly she could have identified the nature of her son’s unforeseen power-

But she found that she had no desire for any of those things; no desire and no time. The same given percipience which made them possible also made her aware that her enhancement would be ephemeral. She had perhaps a dozen heartbeats, at most two dozen, in which to exercise her whetted perceptions.

And she was already able to descry every single one of the Demondim far below her. The ur-viles and Waynhim had been formed by Demondim: they understood their makers. They had given her the capacity to penetrate all of the defences which the horde had raised against her.

That was enough. She did not need more.

With Stave and Liand beside her, she turned to face the cliff and the siege again. There she raised the Staff high in both hands, gripping her own blood and that of the loremaster to the surface of the incorruptible wood.

Now she beheld plainly all that was required of her. The opalescent surges and crosscurrents of the monsters’ subterfuge were clear, as etched and vivid as fine map-work. And they were transparent. Through them, disguised and concealed by them, she found the means by which the Demondim deployed the IIIearth Stone. With all of her senses, she watched baleful green glints swirl and spit, many thousands of them, outlining precisely the mad hornet-storm of time that allowed the horde to exert the Stone’s evil.

While her heart beat toward the instant when her transcendental percipience would fail, she reached through the veil of emerald to the horde’s caesure.

It was as obvious to her now as the Fall which Esmer had summoned to the Verge of Wandering on her behalf; as unmistakable as the chaos which she herself had ripped in time. Fed by the insight, lore, and vitriol of the wedge at her back, her health-sense at last recognised the exact location and shape, as specific as a signature, of the monsters’ Fall. Each piece of time that Joan shattered with wild magic had its own definitive angles, texture, composition; its own place in the wilderland of rubble at Joan’s feet. With the telic power of the ur-viles and Waynhim in her veins, Linden was able to name unerringly the unique substance which Joan had destroyed to form this particular caesure.

When she was utterly certain of what she saw, she called forth a blaze as bright and cleansing as sunfire from the Staff. In an instant, she had surrounded herself with brilliance and flame, lighting the proud jut of Revelstone as if she had effaced the storm and the gloom, the shroud of rain; as if she had pierced with Earthpower and Law even the vile fug of Kevin’s Dirt.

For perhaps as long as a heartbeat, she considered hurling her fire directly against the IIIearth Stone. Through the open door of the Fall, she could have striven to excise the Stone’s perversion at its source. Then she rejected the idea. If she failed-if she proved inadequate to that unfathomable contest-she would lose her opportunity to unmake the Fall. And if she did not fail, she would alter the Land’s past so profoundly that the Arch of Time itself might break.

Instead, risking everything, she took a moment to search through the rampant insanity of the caesure for Joan, hoping somehow to soothe that tormented woman. In spite of the danger, she spent precious seconds seeking to send care and concern through the maelstrom created by Joan’s pain.

Then she had to stop. She had no more time.

Relinquishing thoughts of Joan, Linden exerted all of her bestowed percipience to concentrate the energies of the Staff. And when she had summoned enough conflagration to reach the heavens, she sent a prodigious wall of fire crashing down like a tsunami on the horde’s Fall.

That caesure was huge, even by the measure of the one which she had created. And it had been nurtured as well as controlled and directed with every resource of cunning and lore that the Demondim could command. It was defended now by the entire virulence and will of the monsters. The woman whom she had been before the loremaster had shared its blood with her would not have been able to overcome such opposition.

As the bestowed potency of her health-sense faltered and failed, however, she heard the horde’s feigned confusion become a feral roar of rage; and she knew that she had succeeded.

Chapter Five: “I know what to do”

Sinking under a sudden wave of exhaustion, Linden might have fallen if Stave and Liand had not caught her, upheld her. As rain and faint dawn returned to the promontory of Lord’s Keep, their gloom filled her heart: as damp as tears, and blocked from the sun by the receding storm.

She felt a kind of grief, the consequences of self-expenditure, as though her success were a complex failure. She had missed her chance to learn the truth about the Demondim-spawn. More than that, she had let slip an opportunity to understand the changes in Jeremiah and Covenant. If only the gift of the wedge had lasted longer-

She had sacrificed her own concerns for the safety of Revelstone. The loss of augmented percipience and blazing Law seemed to blind her.

Nevertheless a grim and satisfied part of her knew what she had accomplished, and how. That was aid, she thought as she blinked at the rain. Out of the Land’s past, Esmer had brought ur-viles and Waynhim to serve her in the truest sense of the word.

So where was his betrayal? How did the presence and assistance of the Demondim-spawn endanger her, or the Land? Had Esmer simply intended to repay a perceived debt? Was that possible?

Linden could not believe that he had come to the end of his self-contradictions.

Still the ur-viles and Waynhim had given her more help than she could have expected or imagined. And in so doing, they had made themselves vulnerable to her. While their bestowed percipience had endured, she could have probed their deepest and most cherished secrets. They had trusted her-

She did not comprehend what motivated them; but she was no longer able to doubt them. Esmer’s intentions were not theirs. When he betrayed her, he would do so through his own deeds, not through the presence or purposes of the Demondim-spawn.

Until her first rush of weariness passed, she did not notice that Liand was speaking to her, murmuring his astonishment.

“Heaven and Earth, Linden.” His voice was husky with wonder. “I know not how to name what you have wrought. Never have I witnessed such fire. Not even in the course of our flight from the Demondim-” She felt his awe through his grasp on her arm. “For a moment while you dazzled me, I seemed to stand at the side of the Land’s redemption.”

Earlier he had told her, You have it within you to perform horrors. But she had not done so here: of that she was certain. Instead she had struck an important blow in Revelstone’s defence.

Sighing to herself, she began to struggle against her fatigue. So much remained to be done

“You have extinguished the Fall,” Stave announced as if she had asked for confirmation. “The bale of the IIIearth Stone is now absent from this time.” Then he added, “Thus the Demondim are enraged. Already they assail the Keep. If the Masters wish to preserve Revelstone, a long and arduous battle awaits them. Yet you have made it conceivable that they will prevail.”

Dully Linden tried to think of some other way that she might oppose the horde. In spite of Stave’s attempt to reassure her, she was not confident that his kinsmen could hold off the Demondim for long. But she had already spent all of her resources. Only the support of her friends and the nourishing touch of the Staff kept her on her feet. And Covenant wanted her to meet him near Furl Falls: a walk of, what, close to two leagues? If she did not rally soon, her friends would have to carry her.

Long ago, the Unhomed had designed Revelstone to withstand the enemies of the Old Lords. In her weakness, Linden could only hope that the ancient granite would prove to be as obdurate as the men who warded it.

With an effort, she turned her attention outward; toward the people and creatures gathered around her.

She was not surprised to find that most of the Demondim-spawn had already dispersed, leaving no trace of themselves in the dawn or the rain. But she felt a small frisson of anticipation when she saw that the loremaster still stood nearby with a wedge at its back. The formation held no more than half a dozen creatures-but they were all Waynhim.

The loremaster’s knife had disappeared. Instead with both hands the black creature offered her an iron bowl.

As soon as she heard the muted guttural voices of the Waynhim, and caught the dust-and-mildew scent of vitrim, her heart lifted. The creatures understood the effects of their earlier gift. Now they sought to restore her. The Waynhim chanted, summoning and concentrating their lore, in order to multiply the lenitive potency of the liquid in the bowl.

At once, she reached for the bowl, eager for sustenance; for any theurgy which might revive her.

As she swallowed the dank fluid in long gulps, she recognised its distilled virtue. It was stronger than any vitrim she had ever tasted. In an instant, it seemed to spangle like sunshine through her veins and along her nerves as if it were a form of hurtloam. It was not, of course: it was not organic or natural in any useful sense. Like the ur-viles and Waynhim themselves, the beverage had been created of knowledge and might which were alien to Earthpower or Law. Nonetheless it met her needs. It did more than give back the energy and courage which she had expended against the horde’s caesure: in some fashion, it restored her sense of her self.

With gratitude in her eyes and appreciation in her limbs, she bowed deeply as she returned the bowl to the loremaster. Then she looked as closely as she could at the creature and its companions. Earlier she had given no consideration to the chance that her efforts against the horde might harm the Demondim-spawn. Now she felt chagrin at her thoughtlessness. A few short days and several millennia ago, she had seen that the Waynhim were damaged by their stewardship of the Staff-

Once again, they had aided her in spite of their own peril.

The artificial nature of the creatures confused her health-sense. Yet she detected no injury in the loremaster, or in its small wedge. The attitudes of the Waynhim suggested fatigue and strain, but nothing more.

Perhaps they had been protected by the fact that every aspect of her power had been directed away from them.

“Thank you,” she said to the loremaster’s eyeless face and slitted mouth. “I don’t know why you turned your back on Lord Foul. I’ll probably never understand it. But I want you to know that I’m grateful. If you can ever figure out how to tell me what you need or want from me, I’ll do it.”

The loremaster gave no sign that it had heard her. It had put its bowl away somewhere within itself. The Waynhim behind it had stopped chanting. A moment after she fell silent, the creatures loped away, taking no apparent notice of Handir and Galt, or of the Ramen and Anele. Soon they seemed to dissolve into the dark air and the rain, and Linden lost sight of them.

She no longer needed Stave’s support, or Liand’s. She was strong enough to face her friends-and almost eager to meet with Jeremiah and Covenant. Briefly she considered expending some of her new vitality against the Demondim. Then she shrugged the idea aside. She did not know what Covenant’s intentions might require of her, or how much power she would be asked to wield.

She had done what she could for Revelstone. The Masters would have to do the rest.

When she looked toward Mahrtiir and his Cords, they bowed in the Ramen style. “That was well done, Ringthane,” said Mahrtiir gruffly. “Your tale grows with each new deed-and will doubtless expand in the telling. We are honoured that it has been granted to us to accompany you.”

Bhapa nodded his earnest agreement, and Pahni smiled gravely. Yet it seemed to Linden that the young woman’s attention was fixed more on Liand than on her.

Without warning, Anele remarked. Such power becomes you.”

He stood with thick wet grass under his feet, but his voice was not Covenant’s-or any other voice that she recognised. It was deep and full, rich with harmonics which she had not heard before. Apparently the force that had silenced Covenant-or Covenant’s imitator-the previous day still allowed other beings to inhabit the old man.

But it will not suffice,” he continued. “In the end, you must succumb. And if you do not, you will nonetheless be compelled to accept my aid, for which I will demand recompense.”

His moonstone eyes glowed damply in the crepuscular air.

“Anele?” Quickly Linden focused her revitalised senses on him. Who are you now’?” But she could perceive nothing except his age and frailty, and his heritage of Earthpower. Even his madness was masked, at least for the moment. “Who’s speaking?”

Anele replied with an incongruously gallant bow. “Lady,” the stranger in him answered. “we will meet at our proper time-if you do not fail the perils which have been prepared for you. But you would do well to heed my words.”

An instant later, the old man’s derangement closed like a shutter on the being who had possessed him. Either the stranger had made a hasty departure, or some force had expelled him.

“Did you hear that?” Linden asked her friends unsteadily. “Did it sound familiar? Have you heard that voice before?’

Liand shook his head; and the Manethrall stated without hesitation. We have not. The distinction cannot be mistaken. Some new being has spoken.”

Oh, shit! she thought in sudden anger. Another one? How many were there? How many of them were her enemies? And how much longer would Anele have to suffer such violations?

When would his pain become great enough to merit healing?

It will not suffice.

Covenant had referred to “other powers”- And Jeremiah had mentioned a race called “the Insequent.” Those people were-or had been-lorewise enough to recognise and respond to her son’s disembodied presence.

The possibility that Linden’s situation might be even more complicated and treacherous than she had realised made her stomach clench. Hell and damn! she muttered to herself as if she were Covenant. This is getting ridiculous. How was she supposed to find her way when she knew so little about what was really going on?

— the perils which have been prepared for you.

Abruptly she wheeled on the Voice of the Masters. “Are Covenant and my son still here’?” she demanded in alarm. “Did I banish them?”

This is bad enough. Tell me that I haven’t made it worse.

Handir’s mien tightened slightly, but he betrayed no other reaction. “The ur-Lord and his companion remain. They were forewarned of your power, and have endured it.” A moment later, he added, “They have departed from their chambers, proceeding toward the upland and Furl Falls.” The moisture on his face seemed to increase the severity of his gaze. “If you have no wish to delay them, we must set forth.”

In response, Mahrtiir growled softly. “If the ur-Lord is delayed, let him be delayed. She is the Ringthane and has demonstrated her worth. Do you question this?”

Torn between relief that she had not erased Covenant and Jeremiah, anger on Anele’s behalf, and anxiety about what lay ahead of her, Linden made a placating gesture toward the Manethrall. “You’re right,” she told Handir. “We should go. Covenant says that he can save us. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

She did not fear that he would attempt the salvation of the Land without her. She had some innominate role to play in his designs. But they would be dangerous: she was sure of that. How could they be otherwise, when she had resisted his desire for his ring?

Whatever happened, she meant to protect her son.

Beckoning for her friends to join her, she walked away from the savagery of the Demondim to keep her promise to Covenant and Jeremiah.

As she trod the sodden grass, the rainfall slanting into her face continued its gradual decline. Behind her, the storm-front blocked the rising sun. But a cold wind was rising, sweeping down onto the plateau from the distant mountains. Its taste and touch implied that it would increase. Already it slapped the dwindling rain at her. Soon the droplets would begin to sting when they struck her skin.

Her cloak was soaked, and most of her clothes were damp. If she remained exposed to the weather, the wind would gradually chill her until she lost the effects of the loremaster’s vitrim. Nevertheless she strode toward the west with determination in her strides and a semblance of clarity in her heart. She feared so many things that she could not name them all; but wind and rain and cold were not among them.

Now Stave, Handir, and Galt guided her along the south-facing rim of the great Keep, avoiding the centre of the promontory. Doubtless this was the most direct path toward Furl Falls. Liand walked steadily at her side, his face set against the weather. Occasionally his attention turned toward Pahni as if every sight of her took him by surprise. Even more than the Ramen, however, he seemed settled in his distrust of Covenant-and of Jeremiah. He had not been raised on legends of the Ringthane who had refused to ride the Ranyhyn. And he knew nothing of Covenant’s victories over the Despiser-or of their terrible cost-apart from what he had heard from Linden. For him, the situation was comparatively simple. His loyalty belonged to Linden.

She felt a desire to stop and talk to him, to explain how Covenant had earned her love and gratitude, and why she was prepared to sacrifice anything and everything for Jeremiah. She wanted Liand to understand why she intended to give Covenant as much help as she could, in spite of his strangeness and his scorn and his oblique cruelty. But she resisted the impulse. Covenant had avowed that he knew how to retrieve the Land from Lord Foul’s malice. Liand would learn the truth soon enough: Linden herself would learn it. Then she would no longer feel a need to justify her choices.

Instead of speaking, she tightened her grasp on the Staff; confirmed with her free hand that the immaculate circle of Covenant’s ring still hung on its chain under her shirt. For Revelstone’s sake, she had already missed one opportunity to explore Covenant’s motives and Jeremiah’s plight: she would not miss another.

Because she restrained herself, she and her companions walked in silence. The Ramen had a clearer sense than Liand did of what was at stake, for the Land if not for her: they were enclosed in a tight, expectant concentration. And Stave was Haruchai, too self-contained for unnecessary conversation. Only Anele spoke; but his incoherent mumbling conveyed nothing.

Then Stave touched Linden’s arm. When she glanced at him, she saw that Galt and the Voice of the Masters had turned their steps away from the line of the cliff, angling across a low rise. In that direction, by her estimate, lay the opening of the tunnel which emerged from Revelstone. Presumably Handir and the Humbled aimed to intercept Covenant and Jeremiah there.

With her companions, she followed the two Masters.

Clouds still occluded the dawn, but the thin grey light was enough. From the top of the rise, Linden could see the wide mouth of the Keep gaping to the rain. Just outside the tunnel, Covenant and Jeremiah stood facing toward her, obviously waiting for her.

They were accompanied by Clyme and Branl, as well as by perhaps twenty other Masters.

Vaguely Linden wondered if these Haruchai were all that could be spared from the defence of Revelstone. She still had no idea how many of Stave’s kinsmen occupied Lord’s Keep.

Covenant did not appear to look at her: he held his head down as if he were lost in contemplation. But Jeremiah waved with the enthusiasm of an excited boy.

The sight of his eagerness smote Linden deeply. She should have been delighted; should have felt unalloyed joy at his conscious and willing presence, his show of gladness. But she could not forget that it was his power which had prevented her from touching him in the forehall.

He and Covenant remained impenetrable to her senses.

Involuntarily her heart tightened, and her face settled into a grim frown, as she strode down the hillside to meet the two people whom she most loved-and whom she most wanted to trust.

At her approach, Covenant glanced up once, briefly, then began to walk away from the throat of Revelstone, heading toward Furl Falls. But Jeremiah called happily, “Hi, Mom! It’s time to get started!” before he moved to join Covenant.

Her son’s tattered pajamas were drenched, but he did not appear to feel the cold. She still did not know whether he had been shot.

The Masters arrayed themselves protectively around the Unbeliever and Jeremiah without impeding Linden’s approach. In a few moments, she caught up with them.

Stave walked like a guardian between her and them. Rain pricked at her face and hands. The wind had teeth now, biting through her cloak into her clothes.

Covenant was closer to her, between Stave and Jeremiah. Carefully neutral, as if she were speaking to the weather rather than to Covenant, she said, “I think that I understand why you didn’t want to tell me what you’re planning.” I deserve better than this. I need something in return. “But why did we have to come out here?” She gestured vaguely at the rain. A little bit of trust. “Why couldn’t you show me inside? And why did you have to wait until now?”

Covenant seemed distracted, his thoughts elsewhere. But he did not pretend that he had not heard her. “It isn’t going to be easy,” he said absently. “We don’t just need distance from the Demondim. We need a smoke screen. Like the Earthpower coming out of Glimmermere. If they catch even a whiff of what we’re doing-” For a moment, his voice faded. Then he added, “But that’s not the only problem. There are other forces that might try to stop us. We needed time to prepare for them.”

“What “forces”?” asked Linden. “You said something like that last night, but you didn’t explain.”

He kept his head down, studying the soaked grass. “Well, Kastenessen for one. Who knows what the hell Esmer is going to do?” He glanced over at Jeremiah. And you’re forgetting that those ur-viles have manacles.”

Linden missed a step. She could no longer conceive any ill of the Demondim-spawn. After what she had just experienced, his suspicions sounded absurd.

“But if I were you,” he went on before she could pursue the subject, “I’d be more worried about the Elohim. They’ve never trusted me. You remember that.

“Of course,” he said sourly, “you have my ring, which suits them just fine. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try to interfere. They haven’t spent all this time warning people to “beware” of me just for fun.”

“I’ve met them,” Jeremiah offered. “I think they just don’t like it when somebody else is more important than they are.”

By slow degrees, dawn leaked though the receding storm; dissolved the darkness over the plateau. Now stands of trees were visible on either side of the route chosen by the Masters: copses of mimosa and wattle, clustered cedars, all dark, shrouded with rain and full of implied secrets. Any number of lorewise beings could have concealed themselves there, and Linden would have caught no hint of them.

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. If Kastenessen wants to stop you, why would the Elohim want the same thing’?” Esmer had told her that they expected her to deal with Kastenessen and the skurj. Are you not the Wildwielder? What then remains to cause the Elohim concern? “They Appointed him to stop the skurj. In fact, they forced him. They made him a prisoner. Why would they want what he wants now?’

“You’re right,” replied Covenant sharply. “You don’t understand.

Especially Kastenessen.”

With elaborate patience, he explained, “You need to realise that he didn’t break his Durance. He didn’t have that much actual power. No, he slipped out. Which he managed to do by becoming part skurj himself.” While Linden stared at him, Covenant muttered as if to himself. “He probably got the idea from Foul. The Despiser loves shit like that.”

Then he resumed his explanation. “Oh, the effect was the same. No more Durance. But the point is, it was hideously painful. Merging with the skurj, even a little bit-It was more painful than you can imagine. Hell and blood, Linden, it probably makes what Jeremiah is going through feel like a picnic.”

“He’s right, Mom,” Jeremiah put in with as much earnestness as his excitement allowed. He was tossing his racecar back and forth between his hands as he walked, catching it deftly with his remaining fingers. “I saw it. Before you came to the Land. It’s horrible. If I ever have to choose”- he shuddered dramatically- “I’ll stay where I am.”

Still studying the rain-matted grass, Covenant nodded. Now Kastenessen is all pain. It’s made him completely insane. There’s nothing else left. And rage is his only outlet. Everything he does is just another way of screaming.

“But he can’t rage hard enough to stop the pain. No one can. Not for long, anyway. So he does what any lunatic does in his situation. He causes himself more pain, trying to make his rage more powerful. Being part skurj isn’t excruciating enough, so he surrounds himself with them, he makes them carry out his rage. And when that doesn’t work, he maims-”

Covenant’s voice trailed away. “Maims what?’ Linden asked at once.

“Himself, of course,” the Unbeliever snorted. “It doesn’t matter what he hurts. All that matters is pain and rage. He’s a walking, talking apotheosis of pain, and nothing is going to make him sane again. I intend to put him out of his misery, but he just doesn’t understand. He can’t. His pain is all he’s got. He’s terrified of losing it. That’s why he wants to stop me.

“If he figures out what’s about to happen, he’ll go berserk. He can’t bring the skurj against us fast enough to make a difference. But he’s still Elohim: He can show up anywhere in a heartbeat. And you do not want to fight that kind of power.”

Abruptly Covenant stopped; turned so that Linden was forced to face him. Again she saw a glimpse of embers in the depths of his eyes, ruddy and threatening. The strict lines of his visage seemed to challenge her. While Stave watched him warily, and her friends crowded close to hear him, the Unbeliever told her harshly. “That’s what I’ve been doing all night.” He seemed to suggest that she had been wasting her time on trivialities. “Distracting Kastenessen. Confusing him with tricks, like I did to the Demondim.”

All right.” Linden struggled to absorb Covenant’s description. “Now it makes even less sense. If you’re right about Kastenessen”- if his condition resembled Joan’s- “how can the Elohim possibly want what he wants?”

“Damnation.” Covenant wiped at the rain on his face; rubbed the hint of fire out of his eyes. “They have different reasons. Kastenessen is just screaming. He hurts, and he wants to fill the world with it. The Elohim don’t trust me. They never have. As far as they’re concerned, the fact that I’m part of the Arch-that I can do the things I do-is a disaster.

Time is too important to them. Their immortality depends on it. They don’t want anybody who even remembers what death means to have the kind of power I do. So they don’t want me to stop Foul. They’re afraid I might change the shape of the Arch. The shape of their Wurd They’re afraid of what that might cost them.

Of course, they’re wrong. I’m not here to change Time. I protect it. That’s my job. But they don’t believe me.”

“He’s right, Mom,” Jeremiah said again. But he sounded far away, hidden behind Covenant.

A sharp gust snatched back the hood of Linden’s cloak, flung rain into her face. Among the trees, the wind droned with trepidation.

Turning as if in disgust, Covenant strode away. “Come on,” he demanded before Linden could try to understand him. “I can’t keep this up indefinitely. And I can’t do it without you.”

Linden nearly stumbled in surprise. Until that moment, he had not acknowledged that she was important to him; that he sought anything from her except his ring.

She hastened to catch up with him again. But when she did so, she found that he had silenced her. I can’t do it-Realities seemed to shift around her, veering from one uncertainty to another. Over the plateau, the rain declined to a thin drizzle that would have felt as soothing as mist if it had not been driven by the wind. Through the gloom, the advance of daylight gave definition to the landscape, clarifying the contours of the hills, distancing the darkness among the trees. Yet she hardly noticed such things. I can’t-

But first I’ll have to convince Linden- When she had resisted his desire for his ring, however, he had insisted on nothing except a little bit of trust. From that, Liand had inferred that Covenant still had a use for her.

But Covenant himself had said nothing of the kind.

Until now.

As he or the Masters led her past a cluster of gnarled and vaulted jacarandas, Linden caught sight of a river in the distance ahead. There Glimmermere’s outflow gathered rain and small streams in its accelerating rush toward Furl Falls. The wind stung her eyes, forced her to shade them with her free hand. But when she had blinked the blur from her vision, she saw the river clearly. Along the watercourse, the hills seemed to bow down in homage to Glimmermere’s waters. Apart from a few knaggy firs clinging to the rim of the cliff, there were no trees. From the vicinity of the falls, nothing would obstruct her view for a long stone’s throw in any direction.

The terrain offered that advantage.

Findail’s kind, and Kastenessen’s, could appear anywhere, flowing up from the ground without warning, or materialising along the rough wind. And Esmer had inherited some of their abilities. But other foes would be plainly visible. Even the Demondim-and they could not reach the plateau without first defeating Revelstone.

In spite of Covenant’s warnings, however, Linden was only vaguely troubled by the possibility of an attack.

She still felt sustained by vitrim. At need, she might find a way to defend herself and her companions without endangering Covenant and Jeremiah. Under the circumstances, she was more afraid of Covenant’s manner-and of Jeremiah’s strange powers.

I can’t do it-

Neither the Unbeliever nor her son loved her. Covenant had been profoundly altered by his millennia in the Arch of Time. And Jeremiah’s heart was fixed on the man who had made it possible for him to be here.

He was the best.- the only real friend-

And he needed her-Did he have a design for the salvation of the Land? A plan that included her? Good. But if he did not, she still intended to learn the truth about him. And about her tormented son.

Gripping her courage, she descended the last slopes toward the vicinity of Furl Falls.

Covenant brought her within a dozen strides of the riverbank, then stopped. “This’ll do,” he said stiffly to Jeremiah. “Don’t you think’?”

Jeremiah tossed his racecar into the air as if he were testing the force of the wind. Then he tucked the bright red toy into the waistband of his pyjamas. “It feels right. If we can’t do it here, we probably can’t do it at all.”

Covenant nodded. The wind rumpled his hair and tugged at his clothes, making him look as wild and driven as a prophet.

Without apparent hurry, the Masters positioned themselves in an arc that enclosed Covenant, Jeremiah, and Linden’s small company between the riverbank and the edge of the cliff. At the same time, Galt joined Branl, Clyme, and Handir in front of Covenant. He was the ur-Lord, the reincarnation of Berek Halfhand. The Voice of the Masters and the Humbled stood with him. And Linden did not doubt that they remained suspicious of her. They distrusted Earthpower and loss-

Gusts flicked her tresses across her eyes. Pulling back her wet hair, she risked taking a step closer to Covenant. If he wanted a “smoke screen” to disguise his actions, he had chosen his destination well. Glimmermere’s outflow still held a measure of its eldritch vitality: its supernal energies sang to her senses. But it was much diluted; too weak to banish him and her son.

“All right,” she said against the wind. “We’re here. What are you going to do’?”

“Enjoy the view,” he replied acidly. Her question appeared to offend him. Or perhaps he felt threatened by her nearness. But then he relented. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We should get started. I’m just about at the end of what I can do.

“But don’t ask me to explain it.” His gaze held hers for an instant, then shied away. During that moment, however, she saw no fire in his eyes. Instead she seemed to detect a transitory glint of anticipation or fear. “I haven’t got the time or the energy. And I’m tired of the way you look at me. Like I’m about to rape somebody. Do what I tell you, and I’ll show you how I’m going to save all of us.”

A little bit of trust. Slowly Linden nodded her acquiescence. What else could she do? She needed answers; needed to understand-If she refused Covenant now, she might lose her only chance to redeem her son.

At once, he commanded, “Then make your friends stand back. They’re in the way. This doesn’t include them.”

Before she could reply, Mahrtiir stepped forward. Ominously relaxed, Stave balanced his weight on the balls of his feet. Liand curled his hands into fists at his sides.

“You are the Unbeliever,” the Manethrall rasped. “Once you were the Ringthane. In this, we do not doubt you. But we stand with Linden Avery. That which falls to her will fall to us as well, for good or ill.”

From his place between Pahni and Bhapa, Anele announced firmly, “I no longer fear the ur-viles.”

Instantly angry, Covenant snapped. “Hellfire, Linden! This is important. I need your goddamn friends to get out of my way.”

His eyes remained shrouded, revealing nothing.

“Linden,” said Liand softly. The mounting moan of the wind snatched at his voice. “I mislike this. How is it that a man who once loved you spurns your friends?”

As if to protect her, Stave placed himself squarely between Linden and Covenant. His single eye regarded her intently.

“Chosen, the Masters will support the ur-Lord in this. If you do not oppose him, they will not oppose you. But he is the Unbeliever, the Illender. The Giants have named him Earthfriend and Rockbrother. The Lords of old entrusted him with the Land’s doom. If he requests it of them, the Masters will aid him.”

Linden heard him. The Masters would use force-And they were too many: Stave, Liand, and the Ramen could not fight them. She would lose everything that might be gained by cooperating with Covenant.

She might cost Jeremiah his redemption.

I can’t do it without you.

The boy moved so that she could see him past Stave and Covenant. His young face wore an expression of pleading which was almost desperation. “Please, Mom,” he said tensely. “We need this. It has to be just you.”

His tic signalled to her in a code that she could not decipher.

— if you do not fall the perils which have been prepared for you.

Deliberately Linden turned away from Covenant and Jeremiah and the assembled Masters. With a gesture, she gathered her friends around her. Vitrim and the Staff of Law gave her the strength to say. “Listen. I know how you feel. I don’t like this any better than you do. But it’s a risk that we have to take. Covenant says that he can save the Land.” He can save my son. “If he fails, I’m not exactly helpless. And you won’t be far away.

“I’m not asking you to trust him. Hell, I’m not even asking you to trust me.” She smiled grimly. “I just think that we can’t afford to miss this chance.”

One by one, she looked around at the people who had chosen to share her fate.

Liand ducked his head as if he were abashed. Mahrtiir glared at her, fierce with disapproval. Stave’s scarred visage revealed nothing. Bhapa frowned like a man who agreed absolutely with his Manethrall. But Pahni’s gaze was fixed on Liand as though she feared for him; wanted him to comply with Covenant’s demand. And Anele’s blind eyes watched the north as if it held secrets that only he could discern.

At last, Stave said flatly. “I see no other road.” And Mahrtiir muttered. “Nor do I.”

Liand flung a look like an appeal at Linden, but he did not protest. Instead he went abruptly to help Pahni draw Anele away from Covenant and Jeremiah, away from Linden.

With a tight shrug, Bhapa joined Mahrtiir and Stave as they retreated perhaps a dozen paces. There Linden’s companions stood in a loose cluster, holding themselves in abeyance.

All of her friends except the old man followed Linden with their eyes as she faced Covenant and Jeremiah again.

More angrily than she intended, she asked; demanded, Are you satisfied?” She felt an inexplicable bereavement, as if like Kastenessen she had maimed herself with her own pain.

She wanted to add, I remember a time when you weren’t like this. But she also recalled vividly that he had rejected the company of the Haruchai when he had left Revelstone to seek out the Despiser. He had always been severe in his purposes-and stubbornly determined to spare as many people as possible from sharing the price of his actions.

He may have been trying to spare her friends, despite his ire and scorn-

The Unbeliever did not reply directly. He seemed to be in a hurry now, driven to complete his purpose. Instead of answering her, he pointed at a spot on the grass one long stride in front of him and ordered. “Stand there. And don’t touch us. Don’t let that damn Staff touch us. If we feel even a reminder of power from you, this whole thing is going to unravel.”

The wind raised an unsteady wailing among the distant trees. It cut at the wet grass; lashed fine spray from the surface of the river. For a moment, it whipped at Linden’s eyes, blinding her with tears. If for no other reason than because Covenant was afraid of her, she wanted to call up Earthpower and Law. Then she would learn the truth in an instant-

— and she would sacrifice her best opportunity to succour Jeremiah. Perhaps her only opportunity.

Rubbing moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand, she moved to stand where her former lover had indicated. There she planted one heel of the Staff near her boots and hugged the incorruptible wood against her chest.

At once, Covenant and Jeremiah separated. Her son came to stand in front of her scarcely more than an arm’s length away. His smile may have been intended to reassure her; but the frantic twitching at the corner of his eye made him appear feverish with excitement or dread. His muddy gaze seemed to blur in the wind, losing definition as the air whipped past him.

At the same time, Covenant positioned himself directly behind Linden, facing her and Jeremiah. Like her son, he stood nearly close enough to reach out and touch her.

I can’t do it-

Jeremiah glanced past her toward Covenant; nodded at what he saw. His smile fell away, replaced by an expression of intent concentration. His mouth moved as if he were speaking, although he made no sound that she could hear. Still he and Covenant were closed to her health-sense. She felt the knotted anxiety and frustration of her friends more acutely than the presence of Covenant or Jeremiah. Only ordinary sight assured her that her son and his companion in fact stood near her.

I can’t-

The Masters tightened their cordon, perhaps preparing to intervene if they saw any sign of her power-or if her friends attempted to intrude.

Slowly, and apparently in unison, Jeremiah and Covenant began to raise their arms, holding their fingers splayed. For an instant, Jeremiah’s hands seemed to point straight at Covenant’s through Linden’s shoulders. But their arms continued to rise until together the two men implied an arch over her head.

— the perils which have been prepared-

Without warning, Anele proclaimed, “I have said that I no longer fear the ur-viles! Did you not heed me?”

At the edge of her vision, Linden caught a glimpse of blackness to the north, upstream beside the river. Instinctively she turned to squint across the wind in that direction.

A tight black wedge of ur-viles had appeared with startling suddenness. They might have been translated from some other realm of existence, although Linden knew that they had only concealed themselves until they were ready to be noticed. Their loremaster brandished an iron jerrid or sceptre fraught with vitriol: the entire formation was a seethe of power, bitter and corrosive. And the wedge seemed huge- Every ur-vile that she and Esmer had brought to this time must have joined together, united by some new interpretation of their Weird. Scores of glowing blades flashed among them, as cruel as lava, and as fatal.

They charged toward the poised arc of Masters, running hard. In seconds, they would be near enough to strike. Yet Linden believed instantly that their assault was not intended for the Haruchai. Handir and his kinsmen merely stood in the way.

The point of the wedge was aimed straight at her-or at Covenant and Jeremiah. The loremaster’s weapon spat acrid theurgy and ruin as the creatures rushed forward.

They had created manacles-

Frozen with shock, she had stared at them for two quick heartbeats, or three, before she realised that there were no Waynhim among them. She saw no Waynhim anywhere. Apparently the

ancient servants of the Land had declined to participate in the actions of their black kindred. But if they had not chosen to join the ur-viles, they also did not interfere.

What had their complex intentions required of them now?

If the manacles were intended for Covenant, and the ur-viles were trustworthy, then he was not.

If. If. If.

But the Demondim-spawn could not tell Linden how to reach her son.

Liand and Bhapa shouted warnings. Jeremiah dropped his arms, plainly stricken with dismay. At Linden’s back, Covenant snarled, “Hell and blood!” Then he yelled at the Masters. “Stop them! We’ve been betrayed!”

The Haruchai had already spun to face the wedge. At Covenant’s command, they moved to intercept the ur-viles.

They were potent and supremely skilled. Nevertheless they were too few to do more than slow the advance of the creatures.

Linden had time to think, Betrayed. Yes. But not by the ur-viles. Suddenly her guts were filled with the nausea that bespoke Esmer’s nearness.

Looking around wildly, she saw him step out of the air on the far side of the river.

His cymar hung loosely along his limbs as if he were impervious to the tangling wind. She could hardly make out his features. In spite of the distance, however, the dangerous and fuming green of his eyes blazed vividly, as incandescent and unclean as small emerald suns tainted by despair.

In a mounting roar, he shouted, You have given birth to havoc, Haruchai, Bloodguard, treachers! Now bear the blame for the Land’s doom!”

Everything happened too quickly: Linden could not react to it. Ignoring Esmer, the ur-viles and the Masters flung themselves toward each other. Vitriol frothed and spattered on the blades of the creatures: the loremaster’s jerrid gathered gouts of darkness. But none of the weapons struck as the Haruchai spread out swiftly to challenge the wedge along its edges. Linden’s companions sprang forward to ward her, Stave and Mahrtiir first among them. And Esmer

Cail’s son made a savage gesture with one hand; gave a howl like a great blaring of horns. Instantly all of the earth under the feet of the ur-viles and the Masters erupted.

Grass and soil spattered upward like oil on hot iron. Gouts of sodden loam and rocks and roots and grass-blades burst into the air and were immediately torn to chaos by the wind. Ur-viles and Haruchai alike were scattered like withered leaves: they could not keep their feet, hold their formations; summon their power. Linden half expected to see them tumble away, hurled across the hillside by Esmer’s violence. But they only fell, and were tossed upward, and fell again, pummelled by a hurtling rain of stones and dirt.

Yet the ground where she stood with Jeremiah and Covenant remained stable. Shock and incomprehension held her friends motionless, but Esmer’s puissance did not threaten them.

He spared them deliberately: Linden could not believe otherwise. Aid and betrayal. He must have wanted Covenant and Jeremiah to succeed-

Abruptly Covenant yelled. “Now, Jeremiah!”

The boy shrugged off his chagrin. Instantly obedient, he repulsed Linden’s companions with a flick of his hand. Then he raised his arms as he had before; swung them upward until once again they and Covenant’s suggested an arch over Linden’s head. Jeremiah resumed his voiceless incantation. Covenant may have done the same.

For a brief moment, a piece of time too slight to be measured by the convulsive labour of her heart, Linden felt power gather around her: the onset of an innominate theurgy. From Jeremiah, it seemed to be the same force which had stopped her in the forehall, but multiplied a hundredfold. From Covenant, however, it had the ferocity of running magma. If it continued, it would scorch the cloak from her back, char away her clothes until her flesh bubbled and ran.

Liand and Pahni may have shouted her name: even Stave may have called out to her. But their voices could not penetrate the accumulating catastrophe.

Then Linden heard and saw and felt and tasted a tremendous concussion. Lightning completed the arch over her head, striking like the devastation of worlds from Jeremiah’s fingertips to Covenant’s.

After that, Covenant and Jeremiah, all of her friends, Esmer, the geyser-scattered ur-viles and Haruchai, the gradual slopes on either side of the watercourse, the whole promontory of Revelstone: everything vanished. The fierce arc of lightning lingered momentarily, burned onto her retinas. The Earthpower of Glimmermere’s outflow persisted. But such things faded; and when they did, everything that she knew-perhaps everything that she had ever known-was gone.

Chapter Six: Interference

The shock was too great. Linden was too human: no aspect of her body or her mind had been formed to accommodate such a sudden and absolute transition.

The sheer sensory excess of her original translation to the Land had left her numbed and dissociated; hardly able to react. And her passages through caesures had been bearable only because she had been protected by power, the ur-viles’ and her own.

This was utterly different. In some ways, it was worse. In a small fraction of an instant, everything that she could see and feel and understand and care about vanished-

— or was transformed.

She hardly noticed that she staggered, instinctively trying to regain her balance on different ground; scarcely realised that the gloom and the battering wind were gone, replaced by dazzling whiteness and sharp cold. The chill in her lungs was only another version of her icy garments. She did not seem to have gone blind because the sunlight was too intense, but rather because her optic nerves simply could not accept the change. If the Staff of Law had not remained, unaltered and kindly, in her embrace, she might have believed that she had been snuffed out. Every neuron in her body except those that acknowledged the Staff refused to recognise where and who she was.

But then she heard Covenant pant as if he were enraged. “Hellfire! Hell and blood!” and she knew that she was not alone.

An autonomic reflex shut her eyes against the concussive dazzling that seemed to fill the whole inside of her head like the clamour of great incandescent bells. And a different kind of visceral reflex caused her to reach for the fire of the Staff. She wanted to wall herself off with Earthpower from the incomprehensible change which had come over the world.

At once, however, Covenant yelled, “Don’t even think about it! God damn it, Linden! Don’t you understand that you can still erase me? I’m still folding time, and it’s fragile. If you use that Staff, you’ll be stuck here alone, you’ll be helpless while Foul destroys everything!”

Cowed by his anger, and belatedly afraid, she snatched herself back from the strength of Law. Gripping the Staff in one hand, she held it away from her so that its dangerous succour would not rest so close to her heart.

She felt Covenant’s fury change directions. Muttering, “Hellfire and

bloody damnation,” he turned his back on her. His steps crunched through a brittle surface as he increased the distance between them.

With her eyes closed and her entire sensorium stunned, she could not find any sign of Jeremiah’s presence.

Or of the Masters. Or of her friends. Somehow she had left them behind. The nausea with which Esmer afflicted her was gone. The ur-viles could conceal themselves whenever they wished.

But Jeremiah-

Now she wanted to open her eyes, look around frantically for her son. But she could not. Not yet. The brightness was too concentrated to be borne; or she was too vulnerable to it. She might damage her retinas-

Covenant? she asked, demanded, pleaded. Where are we? What have you done? But her voice refused to respond.

What have you done with Jeremiah?

“Damn it!” Covenant shouted abruptly. “Show yourself!” His anger carried away from her. “I know you’re here! This whole place stinks of you! And”- he lowered his voice threateningly- “you do not want me to force you. That’s going to hurt like hell.”

“And do you not fear that I will reveal you’?” answered a light voice.

Cupping her free hand over her eyes, Linden began blinking furiously, trying to accustom herself to the cold white glare so that she could see. She had never heard that voice before.

“You,” Covenant snorted. “You wouldn’t dare. You’ll be caught in the cross-fire. You’ll lose everything.”

“Perhaps you speak sooth-” the stranger began.

Covenant insisted. “So what the hell are you doing? Damn it, we’re not supposed to be here.”

“-yet my knowledge suffices,” the other voice continued calmly, “to intervene in your designs. As you have seen.”

Linden fought the stricken numbness of her senses; and after a moment, she found that she could discern the new arrival. He stood a few paces beyond Covenant. Even through the confusion of cold and dazzling, he appeared to be an ordinary man. If he moved, his steps did not crunch as Covenant’s did. Nevertheless his aura seemed comparatively human.

And yet-And yet-

Something about the man conveyed an

impression of slippage, as if in some insidious, almost undetectable fashion he was simultaneously in front of and behind himself; and on both sides-

Perhaps he had simply stepped out of hiding when Covenant demanded it.

“You didn’t have to show me,” retorted Covenant bitterly. “I already know what you can do. Hellfire, I already know what you’re going to do. What I don’t know is why you put me here. This is the wrong time. Not to mention the wrong damn place.”

“The Elohim would have done so, if I did not.” The stranger sounded amused.

The Elohim-? Still blinking urgently, Linden made slits of her fingers; tried to force herself to see through the hurtful brilliance. By slow degrees, her health-sense adjusted to the changed world. Spring had inexplicably become winter-

Covenant swore between his teeth. “No, they wouldn’t. That’s why I brought her. As long as they think she’s the Wildwielder, she protects me.

“Anyway,” he growled. “you hate them. You people might as well be that ‘darkness’ they keep talking about, that shadow on their hearts. So why are you doing their dirty work?”

“It pleases me to usurp them, when I may.” Now the man’s tone suggested satisfaction; smugness. “Also I do not desire the destruction of the Earth. The peril of your chosen path I deemed too great. Therefore I have set you upon another. It is equally apt for your purpose. And its hazards lie within the scope of my knowledge. It will serve me well.”

Covenant, Linden tried to say, listen to me. Where is Jeremiah? What have you done to my son? But the cold scraped at her throat with every breath, making the muscles clench. She was involuntarily mute; helpless.

“No,” Covenant snapped, “it isn’t equally damn apt. It’s a bloody disaster. You people are such infernal meddlers. I wish you would find something else to do. Go start a war with somebody, leave the rest of us alone.”

The stranger laughed. “When such powers are joined in the hands of one who is constrained by mortality, unable to wield both together?” His tone was ambiguous, a mixture of scorn and regret. “When the Elohim as a race gnash their teeth in frustration and fear? My gratification is too great to be denied. If ever she obtains that which will enable her to bear her strengths, your chagrin will provide my people with vast amusement.”

He did not sound amused.

“Amusement, hell,” growled Covenant. “If that ever happens-which it won’t-your people will be frantically trying to stop her, just like everybody else. Only in their case, it’ll be sheer greed. They’ll want all that power for themselves.

“Oh, that’s right,” he added suddenly, mocking the newcomer. “I forgot. Your people hardly ever agree on anything.

Half of them will be after her power. Half of them will be busy at something completely loony, like trying to make friends with the damn Worm of the World’s End. And half of them will be doing the only thing they’re really good at, which is watching the rest of the world go by and wishing they were Elohim.”

At last, the stabbing glare was blunted enough to let Linden make out blurred details through the slits between her fingers. Gradually her health-sense approached clarity. The sun shone hard on a wide field of snow; snow so pristine and untrampled that it reflected and concentrated the light cruelly. At one time, she guessed, it would have covered her knees. But it had fallen some time ago. Days of hard sunshine had melted its surface often enough to compact the snow and form an icy crust. As her vision improved, she could see the scars which Covenant’s boots had gouged in the snow, leading away from her. But he and his companion or antagonist remained indistinct: they were no more than blots on her straining sight.

The surrounding silence was sharper than the chill, and more ominous.

She did not know where she was. She could be sure only that she was still in the Land. Even through the snow and her freezing boots, she felt its characteristic life-pulse, its unique vitality. But this place was not familiar in any other way.

“Covenant.” Her voice was a hoarse croak, raw with cold. “Where’s Jeremiah?”

Instead of responding to Covenant’s gibes, the stranger said, She requires your consolation.” Now he sounded impatient with Covenant. “Doubtless your merciful heart will urge you to attend to her. I will abide the delay.”

The imprecise stain of Covenant’s shape appeared to gesture in Linden’s direction. “Ignore her. She always thinks what she wants is more important than what anybody else is doing. She’s lost here without me. We’re too far from her time. And she can’t get back without me. She can wait until I’m done with you.”

Too far-

She should have been shocked.

— from her time.

Covenant had removed her from Revelstone, from the upland plateau, from her friends-and from the time in which she belonged.

And she can’t get back-

But the incomprehensible jolt of her dislocation was fading as her senses reasserted themselves. She could not be shocked again, or paralysed: not while Jeremiah was missing. At that moment, nothing else mattered.

Don’t you understand that you can still erase me?

Covenant had cause to fear her. She could compel answers-

Squeezing her eyes shut to dismiss tears of pain, Linden opened them again; dropped her hand. “Covenant!” she gasped harshly as she took a couple of unsteady steps toward him. Her boots broke through the stiff crust and plunged into snow deep enough to reach her shins. “Catch!”

In desperation and dismay, she flung the Staff of Law straight at him.

Panic flared in his eyes. Cursing, he jumped aside.

As he stumbled away, one heel of the Staff jabbed through the ice two or three paces beyond him. Then the wood fell flat. Almost immediately, its inherent warmth melted the crust. In a small flurry of snow, the shaft sank out of sight.

“Hellfire!” Covenant panted. “Hellfire. Hellfire.”

Linden stamped forward another step, then stopped as she saw the newcomer clearly for the first time.

He was moving over the fierce whiteness of the snow. And he was closer to the Staff than she was. When he stooped to retrieve it, she could not stop him. Helplessly she watched him lift it in both hands, examine it from end to end.

With her heart hammering, she clutched at the cold circle of Covenant’s ring: her only remaining instrument of power.

A moment later, the stranger moved again. She feared that he would withdraw, but he did not. Instead he came toward her as if he were gliding over the surface of the ice.

He was wrapped from head to foot in russet cloth: it covered him like a winding sheet. His hands and feet were bound. Even his head was bound, even his eyes, so that only the blunt protrusion of his nose and the hollow of his mouth indicated that his face had any features at all. Soon he stood before Linden, holding the Staff in shrouded hands.

“Lady,” he said, “that was foolish. Yet it was also clever. Already the wisdom of my intervention is manifest.” He paused, obviously studying the Staff. Then he announced, “Sadly, it is incomplete. Your need is great. You will require puissance. I return this implement of Law to you with my thanks for the knowledge of its touch.”

Formally he proffered the Staff to Linden.

With her pulse pounding, Linden released the ring and snatched up her Staff.

Then the stranger touched the spot where Covenant’s ring lay hidden under her clothes. That is another matter altogether. I have dreamed of such might-” The light voice softened with awe and envy-and with compassion. “It is a heavy burden. It will become more so. And it is not for me. Therefore I am grieved. Yet I am also gladdened to learn that I have not dreamed in vain.”

Linden ignored him. She had no attention to spare for anything except Jeremiah’s absence. And she had seen Covenant’s fright. She still had power over him.

Driving her boots into the ice and snow, she surged toward her former lover.

“Understand this!” she shouted as she floundered closer to him. “You want something. I don’t know what it is, but you want it bad. And I can keep you from getting it. You need me.” Her hands itched, eager for fire, where they gripped the Staff. “So answer the damn question. Where is my son?”

For an instant, crimson glinted in Covenant’s eyes. Then it vanished, replaced by an expression that may have been alarm. “You’ll be lost-” he began.

“I don’t care! Without Jeremiah, nothing that you do means anything to me!”

He flinched; looked away. “Oh, well. He’ll be here.” His tone may have been intended to placate her. “Esmer helped us get away, but now he’s trying to hold onto your kid. Life would be so much easier if he would just make up his mind. But we were ready for him. And the ur-viles have regrouped. That’s lucky for us. Esmer can’t fight them and keep his grip on your kid at the same time.” Covenant appeared to study the air. “He’ll show up pretty soon. The power we used to slip past time ties us together.”

Aid and betrayal.

Linden was not sure that she believed him. Nevertheless his reply seemed to drain the strength from her limbs; the anger. At the same time, her overwrought nerves finally awoke to the cold. Her cloak had been drenched, and her clothes were wet. God, she was freezing-Winter and ice surrounded her. Wherever she was-and when-this was the coldest time of the year; too cold even for snow.

She had no idea what was going on, or how to understand it. Pretty soon-Deliberately she looked around, hoping to see something that she could recognise; something that would make sense of her situation.

But there was nothing familiar here except Covenant. She stood in ice and snow in the flat bottom of a wide valley surrounded by steep, snow-clad hills, all so white and bright and difficult to gaze upon that they might have been featureless. Sunlight as bitter and cutting as the snow poured down on her from a sky made pale by cold. And the sky held no suggestion of Kevin’s Dirt, or of any other taint. Nothing defined this place except the marks of her boots, and of Covenant’s, and the pain in her lungs. Without her health-sense, she would not have known north from south.

Covenant had told the truth. She was too far from her time.

If she did not find a source of heat soon, she would start to die. She was already shivering. That would grow worse; become uncontrollable. Then would come drowsiness. Soon the cold itself would begin to feel like warmth, and she would be lost.

“All right,” she said, trembling. “Assume that I believe you. I can’t survive this. If I don’t use the Staff-” Her voice shook. “As far as I can see, the cold doesn’t bother you,” either

Covenant or the stranger. “But it’s going to kill me.”

I can’t do it without you.

“Oh, that.” Covenant had recovered his air of superiority. “I’m doing so many things here, I forget how frail you are. Of course I don’t want you to freeze.”

With his right hand, he made a quick gesture that seemed to leave a memory of fire in the air; and at once, Linden felt warmth wash through her. In an instant, her clothes and her cloak were dry: even her socks and the insides of her boots were dry. Almost without transition, she rebounded from harsh cold to a sustaining anger like an aftertaste of the gift which the Waynhim and the loremaster had given her.

“Better?” asked Covenant with mordant sweetness. “Can I finish my conversation now?”

Linden blinked-and found the stranger standing nearby. The swaddled man’s head shifted from side to side, directing hidden eyes back and forth between Covenant and Linden. When he was satisfied with the sight, he said. “There is no need for haste. I mean to accompany you for some little while. We may converse at leisure. And”- now the light voice was arch, almost taunting- “we have not been introduced.”

“You don’t need a damn introduction,” growled Covenant. “You know who she is. And you sure as hell know who I am.”

“But she does not know us,” said the stranger, chuckling. “Would you prefer that I speak on your behalf?”

“Hellfire!” Covenant snapped at once. “Don’t even try it. I’ve already warned you.” Then he sighed. Apparently trying to mollify the newcomer, he began,

“Linden, this is-”

“Proceed with caution, Halfhand,” the man interrupted sharply. “If you step aside from the path which I have offered to you, the Elohim will assuredly intervene.”

“Why?” Covenant demanded in surprise. “Why the hell would they bother? She’s here, isn’t she? That’s all they care about. And you’re going to humiliate them. Eventually, anyway. Why should they give a damn if I mess with you? Hell, I’d expect them to thank me.”

He was part of the Arch of Time. And he had suggested that he knew-or could know-everything that had ever happened. Could he see the future as well? Or was his vision constrained by the present in which he had reified himself?

Now it was the stranger who sighed. “The Elohim are haughty in all sooth. They decline to profit by the knowledge which may be gleaned from humiliation. Yet among them there are matters which outweigh even their own meritless surquedry. They will act to preserve the integrity of Time. They must.”

“But they haven’t been humiliated yet,” countered Covenant. “How does what I tell her about you threaten Time?’

With a show of patience, the newcomer explained. “Because she is here. In this circumstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time. Do you dare to acknowledge that you do not comprehend this? Her place lies millennia hence. She has experienced the distant outcome of events which transpire in this present. If she is given knowledge which she cannot possess by right of that experience-knowledge which may alter her understanding of her own past-a paradox akin to the paradox of wild magic will ensue. Her every deed will have the power of wild magic to undo Time.

“Yet if she acts freely, without incondign comprehension or suasion, her deeds will do no harm. That I will ensure. Therefore you must permit her to command-aye, and to make demands-as she chooses.” Again the man sighed. “I have said that I do not desire the destruction of the Earth. If you are wise-if wisdom is possible for one such as you-you also will not desire it.”

Linden’s impatience for Jeremiah mounted. She could not understand what Covenant and the wrapped man were talking about; and she was sure that they would not explain themselves. They both had something to gain by mystifying her.

Nonetheless their attitudes confirmed that they had reason to fear her. That was a form of power which she could use.

Covenant was saying sourly. “Of course I don’t desire it. Hell and blood! Why didn’t you just say so? All this beating around the bush is giving me a headache.”

Turning to Linden, he indicated the stranger with an exasperated gesture. “Linden, he’s the Theomach. That’s really all I can tell you about him. Except you’ve probably noticed that he’s crazy. His whole damn race is crazy.”

Linden nodded to herself. The stranger, the Theomach, had challenged Covenant to introduce him as a kind of test.

“I don’t care,” she replied with her own acid sweetness. “None of this makes sense to me. And you both know that. I want you to stop treating me as if I weren’t here.

“While we’re waiting for Jeremiah-” She faltered. “He is coming, isn’t he?” Both Covenant and the Theomach nodded. Tightening her grip on herself, she continued, “Then tell me. How did you do that? I didn’t feel a caesure.” She would not have failed to recognise any disruption of time that arose from white gold. “How did we get here?”

Give me something that I can understand.

Perhaps Covenant was free to go wherever he wished. But surely the fact that he had brought her with him endangered Time?

Covenant muttered an obscenity under his breath. “You’re right. We didn’t break through time. We didn’t threaten the Arch. Instead we sort of slipped between the cracks. It’s like folding time. But it takes a lot more power. That’s why I couldn’t do it alone. Being in two places at once is hard enough. Moving us this far into the past really ought to be impossible.”

“Indeed,” remarked the Theomach casually.

“But your kid has his own magic now,” Covenant continued. “I told you that.” Think of it like blood from a wound. “When we work together, we can do some pretty amazing things. Like slip through cracks in time. Or make doors from one place to another.”

I can build all kinds of doors. And walls. In the Land, Jeremiah’s talent for constructs had taken an entirely new form.

“All right.” Linden shook her head in astonishment at what her son had become. “All right. I’ll assume that that makes sense.” What choice did she have? “I’ll try, anyway. So where are we? And when?”

And why? What could Covenant-or Jeremiah-possibly do here that would save the Land?

Scowling, Covenant looked around. Then he said, “Let’s go up there.” He nodded toward one of the hills bordering the valley on the south. “Right now, we’re in the middle of nowhere. If we want to accomplish anything, we have a lot of ground to cover.” He glared at the Theomach. “We might as well get started. You’ll understand better when you can see farther.”

Before Linden could ask about Jeremiah, the Theomach put in, “Your son will appear at the Halfhand’s side. No movement in this time will delay him.”

Swearing to himself again, Covenant began to pound through the ice and snow. The Theomach followed without waiting for Linden to make up her mind. As the stranger stepped lightly over the crust, he said to Covenant, “If you will but consider the path which I have opened to you, you will recognise that you have no cause for anger. True, I have presented new obstacles. But others I have removed. And my path is indeed less perilous.”

When Covenant did not respond, the Theomach said sharply. “I do not speak of her peril, Halfhand. I speak of yours.”

— the perils which have been prepared for you.

Behind them, Linden straggled into motion. She did not intend to be left behind when Jeremiah might rejoin Covenant at any moment. Bracing herself on the Staff, she fought the crust and the cloying snow in an effort to keep pace.

“Fuck that,” Covenant rasped. “Fuck you and your fake concern. I can handle my perils. But it galls the hell out of me that you think you have the right to interfere.”

“Now you are dishonest,” replied the Theomach with a mocking laugh. “It is not my interference that ‘galls’ you. It is your powerlessness to prevent me.”

Again his movements conveyed an eerie sense of slippage. He seemed to accompany himself across the dazzling field as if the theurgy which kept him from breaking through the ice caused him to shift subtly between different places in time and space.

“Believe that if you can,” Covenant retorted. “What I have in mind for you is going to be worse than ‘the destruction of the Earth.’ I’m going to make you and all your people and even the damn Elohim irrelevant.”

Lightly the Theomach answered. “You are welcome to the attempt.”

“What, you think I can’t do it? Hellfire. You aren’t paying attention. I know more about what’s going to happen to you than you do. And I guarantee you won’t like it.”

For some reason, the Theomach did not respond. Covenant may have surprised or shaken him.

Linden floundered after them. The soles of her boots gripped the buried snow well enough; but each step was an awkward hesitation-and-plunge as the ice held her weight for an instant and then broke. Soon she had to pant for air, and each breath drew scalding cold deeper into her lungs. Only the warmth of Covenant’s magic and her desire for Jeremiah kept her going.

If her son appeared, as she had been promised-

The first slopes of the hills seemed far away. And they would not be easy to climb. The pale uninterrupted blue of the sky felt as wide as her incomprehension, and as empty. The white glitter of the field was empty as well, undefined by any trees or shrubs. Even aliantha did not grow in this place. She saw no birds anywhere. If animals had ever crossed this valley, the crust retained no sign of their passage.

There should have been aliantha. Those life-giving shrubs had survived the Sunbane. Surely they could endure this winter? But Linden thought that she knew why the valley was so lifeless. Her health-sense grew steadily stronger in the absence of Kevin’s Dirt; and as she trudged across the iced expanse, she began to feel that she trod on graves. The whole valley held a muffled sensation of death, as if the snow cloaked shed blood and slaughter. The ground had absorbed too much violence to nurture treasure-berries.

Perhaps Covenant or the Theomach would condescend to tell her what had happened here.

Before she could speak, however, a brief flare of energy like an after-flash of lightning shredded the air near Covenant; and Jeremiah staggered to his knees as though he had been created-or re-created- from the raw stuff of emptiness and cold.

He was gasping as if he had survived a fight for his life.

She forgot everything else in her rush to reach him. Instinctively she reached for Earthpower. If Esmer or some other foe still harried her son-

At once, however, the Theomach stepped or appeared in her way. She collided with him hard; stumbled backward.

“God damn it!”

“Do not!” he commanded sharply. His cerement-clad figure confronted her across the trampled snow. “Do not invoke the Staff. And do not attempt to place your hands upon them, neither the Halfhand nor your son. If you err in this, your losses will be greater than you are able to conceive. That I cannot prevent. My purpose lies elsewhere.”

At the same time, Covenant turned toward Jeremiah. “There you are. I was beginning to wonder.”

Jeremiah lifted his face to the Unbeliever. The sweat of intense exertion streamed from his cheeks and forehead: his heated skin steamed in the cold. But he was grinning hugely.

“Jeez, that was hard,” he panted. “I knew Esmer was tough, but I didn’t realise-” In spite of his gasping, his voice seemed to throb with triumph. “It’s a good thing those ur-viles attacked when they did. I didn’t want to have to call for help.”

Covenant nodded. “I knew you could do it. I told you that, didn’t I? He changes his mind too often. There’s always a flaw somewhere.”

Biting her lip, Linden swallowed every natural impulse. “All right,” she muttered to the Theomach. “You’ve made your point. I need them as much as they need me. Now get out of my way.”

The Theomach gave her a shrouded nod and stepped aside.

With more caution, she approached her son and Covenant.

Jeremiah was gazing around; and as he did so, his manner changed. “Jeez,” he panted again. “What went wrong? We aren’t supposed to be here.”

“I know,” replied Covenant sourly. “Look behind you.”

With a boy’s ungainly alacrity, Jeremiah lurched to his feet. His gaze touched Linden for only an instant. “Oh, hi, Mom,” he said absently, as if he had already put her out of his mind. His attention was focused on the Theomach.

“You,” he said in surprise. He was still trying to catch his breath. “You’re one of them. I never met you. But I heard them talk about you. You’re the Theomach.”

The concealed figure sketched a mocking bow. “Assuredly.” Then he added more sternly, “Be guided by the Halfhand, youth. I have set you upon a path which will unmake all of your desires if you step aside from it.”

Jeremiah glanced at Covenant, then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. As long as we’re together, I don’t care how we do this. Covenant knows I trust him.”

His tic was barely noticeable.

Linden took another step closer. “Jeremiah, honey. Are you all right? When I was suddenly here,” wherever here was. “and you weren’t, I thought that I’d lost you again.”

His muddy gaze avoided hers. “I’m fine.” His respiration had almost returned to normal: he was too young-or too full of magic-to breathe hard for long. “It’s what I said, that’s all. Esmer is tougher than he looks.” He flashed another grin at Covenant. “But I beat him.”

Plainly reluctant to talk to Linden, the boy made a show of scanning the valley again. “What do we do now?”

Her son had recovered his mind-and he did not want to talk to her. She bowed her head so that he would not see her face twist or her eyes burn.

“Your mother is being stubborn,” replied Covenant heavily. “As usual. She wants an explanation. We’ll go up there”- he pointed vaguely at the nearest hills- “and take a look around. Maybe then she’ll feel less contentious. Or at least less disoriented.

“After that, well need to make some decisions. Or she will. Thanks to the Theomach, were in a hell of a mess. And he thinks we should let her figure out how to cope with it.

“We’ll have to give that a try,” Covenant concluded in disgust. “He hasn’t left us much choice.”

With his back to Linden, Jeremiah said, “Then let’s go. I think it’ll be OK. Sometimes she does exactly the right thing without even knowing it.”

Taking her torn heart with him, he led Covenant toward the slopes at the southern edge of the valley.

Eventually Covenant moved into the lead. Jeremiah followed in his

footprints while the Theomach remained off to one side, accompanying himself obscurely over the brittle surface. Linden lagged behind Covenant and Jeremiah; used the path that they had trampled to make her own passage somewhat easier.

Sometimes she does exactly the right thing- Her son had given her that, although he obviously preferred Covenant’s company in spite of her dedication and love. -without even knowing it. He may have been referring to the raceway construct which she had enabled him to build. To that extent, at least, he acknowledged her importance in his life. Yet even that oblique validation carried a message of pain.

By buying the tracks and pylons for Jeremiah’s raceway, she had in some sense freed him; or had given him the means to free himself. She had made possible an escape from blankness into the wealth and wonder of the Land. And in so doing, she had lost him to Covenant. But that, she insisted to herself, was not the crucial point. The crux of what she had inadvertently achieved was this: she had supplied her son with an alternative to ordinary consciousness, ordinary responses and emotions; ordinary life. She had made it easier for him to escape than to strive for a more difficult and precious form of recovery.

It was conceivable that Linden had failed her son as entirely-and as unintentionally-as she had failed Joan.

Arguing with herself as she plodded ahead, Linden countered, Yes, that was conceivable. But it was also conceivable that Jeremiah would not have been capable of his present sentience, or his disturbing loyalties, if he had not been granted an escape from his mental prison. His mind might have died, utterly alone inside his skull, if he had not found his way to the Land.

The simple fact was that Linden was too human to know the truth. She could not assign responsibility, blame, or vindication because she was inadequate to gauge the condition of Jeremiah’s soul. He was closed to her. He had always been closed.

In the years since she had travelled and suffered and loved with Thomas Covenant, she had endeavoured to become content with her inadequacy. She would have admitted with unruffled confidence that she healed none of her patients. Instead, at her best, she merely encouraged them to heal themselves. But now, in the Land, she was less able to accept her limitations.

There was too much at stake

She understood almost nothing that had happened since Covenant and Jeremiah had ridden into Lord’s Keep. And she had no reason at all to believe that she was strong enough for what lay ahead of her. But she told herself that such things were trivial. The only inadequacy that truly mattered was her inability to gauge the health or illness of Jeremiah’s restored mind.

How could she make choices, or defend what she loved, when she did not know whether or not he still needed her?

The ascent to Covenant’s destination was as difficult as she had feared it would be. Although the snow on the northward slope had seen less sunlight and formed less ice, it was also deeper. The hillside itself was hazardously steep. And the eldritch heat which Covenant had given her faded ineluctably, leaving her with nothing except her clothes and her exertions to ward off the cold.

Nevertheless she struggled upward. And when she finally gained the hilltop, stood panting in the comfortless sunshine of early afternoon, her doubts and confusion had settled into a grim determination. The Theomach had told Covenant that he must allow her to make her own decisions. She meant to do so. She had never used her inadequacy as an excuse, and did not intend to start now.

While Jeremiah shuffled his feet, Covenant scowled into the distance, and the Theomach hummed tunelessly to himself, Linden scanned her surroundings. Here the glare from the snow was less severe. In this cold, any wind would have cut at her eyes; but the air was almost entirely still. She was able to look around without the blur of tears or the danger of snow blindness.

Covenant had chosen an effective vantage point. On all sides, the unimpeded sunshine etched the shapes and edges of the terrain in sharp detail. From this crest, she saw that the hills which bordered both sides of the valley stood in rough rows that gradually lost height from west to east. And they were only two rows among many: a range of rugged slopes and crooked valleys extended farther than she could see into the northwest as well as toward the southeast. The entire landscape was tossed and crumpled, like a discarded blanket. As it tended eastward, it smoothed out in small increments.

If these were the foothills of mountains in the west, those peaks were too distant to be seen. But as she scanned the vistas, she found that their contours allowed her to see farther into the southwest as well as the southeast. In that direction also, the hilltops sank slowly lower. And beyond their ridges-

She blinked hard in an effort to clear the ache of brightness from her sight. There was something-For a moment, she closed her eyes; rested them. Then she looked again.

Now she was sure that she could see trees. At the limits of vision, deciduous trees clung to each other with their stark and naked limbs. And among them a few tall evergreens-cedars, perhaps, or redwoods-stood like sentinels, keeping watch over their winter-stricken kindred. At this distance, she could see only a sliver of woodland past the obstruction of the hills. But percipience or intuition told her that she was squinting at a forest.

We’re too far from her time. Under the Sunbane, the last vestiges of the ancient woods west of Landsdrop had been utterly destroyed. Yet she remained in the Land: she was sure of that. And there were forests-?

She wanted to demand, Covenant, damn you, what have you done? But determination had settled into her like the cold, and it brought with it a kind of calm. She was frightened enough for rage; could have slipped easily into fury. Nevertheless she refused to be swayed by her emotions. Until she learned the truth about her son, she intended to hold herself in check. She would do anything and everything that fear or imagination suggested; but she would do it coldly. And she would think about it first.

Like paralysis, panic served the Despiser.

“All right, Covenant,” she said when she was ready; when she could bear Jeremiah’s reluctance to look at her. “You promised me an explanation. It’s time.”

“Well, time,” he replied. His voice was a harsh rasp. “That’s the problem, isn’t it. It’s all about time. Even distance is just a matter of time.”

Then he sighed. Gesturing around him, he began. “We’re a little less than two hundred leagues from Revelstone. These are the Last Hills, the last barrier. Where we are now, they separate the Centre Plains from Garroting Deep.”

Two hundred leagues? Linden thought; but she was not truly surprised. The suddenness of her transition to this place had prepared her for imponderable dislocations.

“That piece of forest,” Covenant continued, “is Garroting Deep. Eventually it’ll be considered the most dangerous of the old forests. Of course,” he added, “they’re all places you don’t want to go. In this time, anyway. Morinmoss, Grimmerdhore, hell, even Giant Woods-they’re all protected by Forestals.”

Now she was taken aback, although she tried not to show it. If Forestals still defended the trees, she was deep in the Land’s past; deeper than she had dared to imagine. During the time of the Sunbane, Caer-Caveral had preserved Andelain; but he had been the last of his kind. According to the tales which Covenant had told her long ago, most of the Forestals had disappeared before his first experiences in the Land. If that were true-

Oh, God.

— she was now more than seven thousand years before her proper time.

However, Covenant had not stopped speaking. She fought down her chagrin in order to concentrate on him.

But Garroting Deep is the worst,” he was saying sourly. “Giant Woods is practically benign, probably because Foul and the Ravers spend most of their time south of the Sarangrave. Sometimes you can get through Morinmoss. On a good day, you can survive in Grimmerdhore for a few hours. But Caerroil Wildwood is an out-and-out butcher. He pretty much slaughters anything that doesn’t have fur or feathers.”

While Linden stared at the distant trees in wonder and dismay, the Theomach put in casually, “Perhaps it would profit her to know why the Forestal of Garroting Deep has grown so savage.”

His manner seemed to imply an oblique warning.

“There are a lot of reasons.” Covenant’s tone was leaden with sarcasm. “The Colossus of the Fall is losing its power. Too many trees are being butchered. There are too many people, and they’re too greedy. All the Forestals are getting weaker.

“But Caerroil Wildwood has lost more than the other Forestals. And he knows more about Ravers. You can’t see it from here, of course, but Doriendor Corishev is practically on Wildwood’s doorstep. It’s only sixty leagues from Cravenhaw. And Cravenhaw and Doom’s Retreat are the only gaps into the Land from Doriendor Corishev.

“A long time ago, when the southern kingdoms spread north toward the Land-even before the kings set up their capital in Doriendor Corishev, and samadhi Sheol got involved-they hacked down a lot of trees. A hell of a lot of trees. Which ruined the watershed. And ruining the watershed dried out the southlands. The old domain of the kings was becoming the Southron Waste. So they kept pushing north. Naturally they liked conquest. But they also needed arable land.”

Jeremiah had placed himself so that Linden could not see his tic. He seemed to be keeping an eye on her with his peripheral vision, but he did not look at her directly. Instead he resumed playing with his racecar while Covenant described details that did not interest him-or that he already knew.

“And then samadhi began spreading his poison,” Covenant muttered. “In this time, Foul still hasn’t shown his face. But a century or two ago, samadhi came west behind the Southron Range. Eventually that brought him to Doriendor Corishev.

“When he got there, he didn’t actually possess any of the kings. Not even Berek’s King. He didn’t want to risk getting too close to Caerroil Wildwood. But he incited- In fact, he did a shitload of inciting. He encouraged generations of kings to think all their problems would be solved if they could overrun the Land. Because of him, whole armies tried to slash and burn their way through Cravenhaw.

“That’s where Wildwood beat them. The terrain makes a kind of bottleneck. He could concentrate his power there. And he could smell that Raver. He knew who was responsible for slaughtering his trees. On his own ground, with the full force of Garroting Deep behind him, nothing could stand against him. He stopped generations of kings dead in Cravenhaw-and I do mean dead. In effect, he forced them to turn toward Doom’s Retreat. If they’d kept on trying to force a passage through Cravenhaw, that damn Forestal would have left none of them alive.

“By the time they gave up, he’d developed a grudge you wouldn’t

believe.”

The Theomach nodded as if in confirmation.

With less acid in his voice, Covenant explained, “Berek’s King is-I mean was-the last of their line. I know some of the old legends say the Land was one big peaceful nation, and Berek’s King and Queen were happy, but it wasn’t like that. People tell themselves simple stories because they’re easier to live with than the truth. In fact, the Land was never a nation, and the southern kings never actually succeeded at overrunning it.

But it wasn’t for lack of trying. And Berek’s King was the most bloody-minded and stubborn of them all. His whole lineage was grasping and brutal, but he was something more. He didn’t just take samadhi Sheol’s advice. Indirectly that Raver ruled him. And when Berek’s Queen decided she didn’t like what her husband was doing, samadhi’s influence turned an ordinary struggle for new territory into an all-out civil war.

“Maybe you noticed the smell of death behind us? About a year and a half ago, one of the worst battles of the whole war was fought in that valley. The ground is so full of blood, even birds don’t go there.” With dark satisfaction, Covenant stated, “Under all that snow, we were walking across corpses.”

The idea made Linden wince inwardly; but she kept her reactions hidden. She could no longer estimate how far into the Land’s past she had been brought. Yet Covenant’s revelations changed nothing. A valley drenched in bloodshed changed nothing. He still had not told her anything that explained his intentions, or the Theomach’s-or her own plight. Holding his gaze, she waited for him to go on.

After a moment, he looked away. With renewed sarcasm, he remarked, “But you haven’t noticed what’s going on east of us.” He waved one hand negligently in that direction. “Or maybe you can’t see that far. I’m sure the all-wise and all-knowing Theomach can. In fact, I’m sure that’s why he brought us here.

“There’s smoke on the horizon. The smoke of battle. Good old Berek is fighting for his life. Has been for the past three days.

“Hell and blood!” he snapped suddenly. “I wish I didn’t have to do this. It’s so damn gratuitous.” Then, however, he made a visible effort to master his ire.

“When the Fire-Lions rescued Berek on Mount Thunder,” he said like a shrug, “they won a battle for him. A turning point. But they didn’t win the war. The king’s supporters took up the fight. And samadhi eggs them on from the safety of Doriendor Corishev, where Caerroil Wildwood can’t reach him, and he doesn’t have to worry about the Colossus. Berek still has a long way to go.

“Of course, it’s just a mopping-up operation. He has power now, power no one has ever seen before. Eventually he’ll win this battle. He’ll win the war. But he doesn’t know that. The people fighting and dying for him-or for the Queen-don’t know it. All they know is, they think they’ve found something they can believe in. Something they consider more precious than new territory and fresh resources and plain greed.

“Berek was alone on Mount Thunder. His army was scattered, effectively crippled. But they weren’t all dead. When the Fire-Lions answered him, it was a spectacle you could see for twenty or thirty leagues. Some of his survivors witnessed forces they couldn’t even imagine. And since then the rest have seen him do things-To them, he looks like he’s more than human. Better. They know about his vow, and they’re looking at this war through his eyes.

“That’s the real reason they’re going to win. Even with Berek’s power-which he doesn’t understand yet-they don’t have superior force. And they sure as hell don’t have superior numbers.” Again Covenant’s sarcasm mounted. “But they believe. They aren’t conscripts fighting because they’ll be cut down if they don’t. They’re fighting a damn holy war.”

Linden listened and said nothing. Moment by moment, she became increasingly certain that Covenant was no longer the man who had changed her life. He had lost some aspect of his humanity in the Arch of Time.

“It’ll all be wasted, of course,” he asserted trenchantly. “Just about two thousand years from now, poor doomed Kevin is going to join Foul in the Ritual of Desecration, and everything Berek and his true believers are fighting for will fall apart.

“After that, it’ll be a downhill battle all the way.”

Abruptly Covenant turned on the Theomach. “Which is why I’m so God damn pissed off at you! You and your fucking arrogance. We aren’t supposed to be here. We shouldn’t have to go through all this. She shouldn’t have to go through it.

“And I’m in a hurry. Never mind how hard I have to work just to keep us in one piece, or how long it’s going to take. I can handle that. Hellfire! I’m in a hurry because I’m trying to stop Foul before he finds a way to massacre everybody who has ever cared about the Land, or the Earth, or at least bare survival.”

Before the Theomach could reply, Linden intervened. She suspected that Covenant’s vehemence was a ploy, a diversion; and she had no intention of permitting it to distract her. He still had not come to the point of his explanation.

“Covenant,” she asked sharply. “when is this? How far back did you bring us’?”

Jeremiah gave her a quick, troubled glance, then looked away again. After studying his useless toy for a moment, he put it away in the waistband of his ruined pyjamas.

With a shrug, Covenant seemed to dismiss his anger. He sounded almost nonchalant as he said. “Ten thousand years. Give or take.”

Ten thousand-? Ten thou-?

Still Linden kept her face blank. And if the Theomach hadn’t interfered?” she persisted. “If we were where you wanted? When would that be?’

“Five hundred years after all this.” He indicated Berek’s struggle in the east. “Roughly. I haven’t actually counted. It isn’t worth the effort.”

She stared at him. Her voice rose in spite of her determination to contain herself. “So if we were doing this the way you wanted, we would still be nine and a half thousand years away from where we belong?”

“It isn’t just the time, Mom,” Jeremiah offered as though he wanted to placate her. “It’s the whole situation.”

Covenant nodded. “That’s right. Time is only part of the problem. We’re also not supposed to be here. We’re supposed to be over there.” He pointed past her thin glimpse of the forest. “On the other side of Garroting Deep. Ninety leagues or so, if we could fly.

“But of course we can’t,” he said acidly. “And we can’t go through the Deep. So we’ll have to go around. All the way around. Which is more like two hundred leagues. Up through the Westron Mountains. In the dead of winter. Without food or warm clothes or horses. And we can’t take any shortcuts because the bloody Theomach won’t let us. He’s afraid we might change history.”

“With good cause,” remarked the Theomach ambiguously. “Other puissant beings occupy this age of the Land. And the forces at your command are misplaced here. Any encounter threatens a disturbance of Time which I will be unable to contain. You cannot safely attain your goal except upon the path that I have prepared for you-the path of the lady’s choices and desires.

“Even you, Halfhand, with your daring and folly,” the man stated, “even you must endeavour to avoid or mislead notice.”

“Oh, thanks.” Covenant snorted bitterly. “I didn’t realise that. I feel so much better now.”

“Covenant, stop,” Linden put in. “You can complain as much as you want later. You still haven’t explained anything. You haven’t told me why. What can you possibly hope to accomplish this far from where we belong? You said that you know how to save the Land.” And Jeremiah. “Why do we have to be thousands of years and hundreds of leagues away from where were needed?”

The Unbeliever gave her a look dark with resentment, then turned his head away. “The Theomach is right about one thing,” he muttered. “If we can get there, we might still be able to do it.” He sighed heavily. But what I wanted-

“Ah, hell.” With an air of disgust, he seemed to concede defeat. “I was aiming for the time of Damelon. High Lord Damelon Giantfriend, Berek’s son. I wanted to catch him when he reaches Melenkurion Skyweir. Right before he figures out how to get at what he’s looking for.

“I was planning to sneak in behind him. Before he started thinking of ways to keep people out. Between the two of us, Jeremiah and I can do that, no matter how much lore he has. Then we could just hide until he left. That would leave us free to do whatever we wanted.”

With difficulty, Linden swallowed an impulse to yell at him. “I still don’t understand,” she insisted. “What’s so important about Melenkurion Skyweir? What’s Damelon looking for? Damn it, Covenant, you told me that you know what to do, you talk and talk, but you don’t explain anything.”

Keeping his face turned away, Covenant answered. “The Skyweir is on the other side of Garroting Deep. It’s the biggest mountain in the west. Somewhere deep inside it are the springs that form the Black River. That’s another reason Caerroil Wildwood is so strong. The Black River feeds him. It carries a lot of power. Because one of its springs is the Blood of the Earth.”

While Linden’s mind reeled, Covenant drawled over his shoulder, “Drinking the EarthBlood gives the Power of Command. Hellfire, Linden, I must have told you that.”

Then he announced grimly, “I intend to use the Power of Command to stop Foul. I’m going to do what I would have done if you hadn’t created that damn Staff. I’m going to freeze time around him. And around Kastenessen while I’m at it. Encase them in temporal ice. That way, I can finally put a stop to all these atrocities without risking the Arch.”

At last, the cold found its way through Linden’s clothes to her heart. You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood. Esmer had known exactly what Covenant and Jeremiah had in mind.

Chapter Seven: Taking the Risk

The cold seemed to speak directly to Linden: she saw its uncompromising beauty. Certainly it could kill her. It had no pity. And she was not dressed warmly enough to contain her body’s inadequate heat. The sensation of fire that Covenant had given to her was slipping away. Already shivers began to rise through her undefended flesh. Soon she would lose control of her limbs; or she would have to implore Covenant to succour her again.

Nevertheless the austerity and precision of the cold gave it a numinous glory. The sunlit crystalline untrammelled brilliance of the snow on all sides defined the contours of the hilltop as distinctly as etch-work in purest glass. The air itself might have been glass. Every slope and crest around her seemed to burn as though it were afire with cold.

And winds had shaped and sculpted the crust as it melted and refroze repeatedly between day and night. She could see delicate, dazzling whorls everywhere; sastrugi as scalloped and articulate as hieroglyphs or runes; ridges and hollows as suggestive as the elaborate surface of the sea. With every step that she and Covenant and Jeremiah had taken, or would take, they marred instances of the most casual and frangible loveliness.

Covenant had not stopped speaking: he seemed unaware that she heeded a voice other than his. Trenchant with bitterness, he was saying. Of course, the Elohim could have done the same thing, saved us all this trouble, if they weren’t so damn self-absorbed. And if they didn’t object to messing around with time. That was Kastenessen’s original crime. They Appointed him to contain the skurj because he shared himself with a mortal lover, gave her some of who he was. He wanted her with him, so he gave her the power to stay young. To defy time. To use magicks like his. So naturally the Elohim took offense.”

With her health-sense, Linden felt each probing finger of winter as it found its way through her garments to touch her skin with ice. If she had known how to interpret the speech of wind and weather, she might have been able to name every avatar of the snow and cold: every flake and crystal, every self-sufficient pattern; every broken and unbreakable rumple in the cloak that covered the hillsides. The stark and brittle branches of the distant forest might have spoken to her.

And if you do all that,” she asked Covenant as if she were unaware of her own voice. “what happens to Jeremiah? Will he be freed? Will he be safe?”

Would she be able to find him?

Her son was in more danger than anyone; more peril and more pain. Although he stood at Covenant’s side, his tangible body remained at Lord Foul’s mercy. Because he was her son, the strange bifurcation of his torment seemed too great to be borne.

Covenant sighed. In a gentler voice, he replied, “Unfortunately, no. Oh, his suffering will end. As soon as I freeze Foul, everything he’s doing will stop. But drinking the EarthBlood, using the Power of Command-Unleashing forces on that scale will pretty much overwhelm us. Jeremiah and I will disappear. Well snap back to where we belong.” If he felt any grief at the prospect of losing his physical existence-or losing Linden-he did not show it. “He won’t hurt anymore, but he’ll still be trapped wherever Foul has him. And he won’t know any more about where that is than he does now. He’ll still need rescuing.”

Before Linden could pull her thoughts out of the cold to protest, he added, “That’s one of the reasons you’re here. In fact, I never even considered doing this without you. After Jeremiah and I vanish, it’ll be your turn. Once we’re gone, you can drink the EarthBlood yourself. You can Command-” His tone remained gentle. “Hellfire, Linden, you can Command any damn thing you want. All you have to do is want it, and you and your kid will be reunited. In your proper time. Anywhere you choose. If it’ll make you happy, you two can live in Andelain together for the rest of your natural lives.”

Trembling with relief and cold-with a hope so sudden that it seemed to shake the marrow of her bones-she asked. “Is that true? Is that what you meant? When you said that you can’t do this without me?”

At once, Covenant’s manner became aggrieved. “What, did you think I didn’t care? Did you think I’m not trying to do what’s best for you and Jeremiah as well as for the Land and the rest of the Earth? I’m Thomas Covenant, for God’s sake. I’ve saved the Land twice. And I sure as hell didn’t get myself killed because I like being dead.

“Yes,” he admitted sharply, “you’re why the Elohim won’t interfere. I brought you for that. You’re the Wildwielder. As long as you’re here, they think they don’t have anything to worry about. But I also want to save your kid.”

Abruptly the Theomach began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” demanded Covenant.

The stranger’s laughter stopped. “I find amusement in your justifications.” He did not sound at all amused.

Again Linden seemed to feel an afterflash of power as she had when Covenant had warmed her earlier. The Theomach vanished from the hilltop.

With a shudder, she dragged her attention away from the beauty which the snow and wind and sun had wrought. “Then why didn’t you transport us straight to Melenkurion Skyweir? Why did we have to come here? Into the past?”

And why so far into the past?

But Covenant had turned his back on her. Instead of facing her question, he was staring back down into the valley.

Jeremiah came a step or two closer. Then he met her gaze on Covenant’s behalf. “Because, Mom, the Blood of the Earth isn’t accessible in the time where we belong.” Now her son’s eyes reminded her of Esmer’s: they seemed to blur and run, melting from the silted hue of dark loam to the pale dun of fine sand. “There have never been more than one or two ways to approach it, and Elena’s battle with Kevin wrecked those passages.”

Jeremiah’s tic signalled his discomfort. “But even before that battle, it wasn’t accessible. The first thing Damelon did after he discovered the EarthBlood was put up wards. He thought the Power of Command was too dangerous for anyone to use. He left all kinds of barricades behind. We would have to fight our way in, and you’re the only one of us who can do that. Which would banish Covenant and me before we could accomplish anything. We have to get inside the mountain before Damelon seals it.”

“But”- troubled by Jeremiah’s disquiet, Linden struggled to think- “if Covenant shuts down Lord Foul now,” thousands of years before his first confrontation with the Despiser. “won’t he destroy the Arch of Time?”

Surely such an exertion of Command would unmake all of Lord Foul’s actions for the next ten thousand years?

“He could,” Jeremiah conceded without hesitation. “But he won’t. What would be the point? He’s trying to save the Land, not destroy it. He’ll seal Foul right after we leave to come here. Ten thousand years from now, in the time where you and I belong. That way, the Arch won’t be in any danger.”

Tremors ran through Linden’s chest and arms; through her voice. “Then why are we still standing here?” If she did not draw on the Staff for warmth, she would not be able to remain coherent much longer. “Why don’t the two of you transport us right now? Get us to Melenkurion Skyweir before I freeze?”

The scraps of Jeremiah’s pyjamas gave him scant protection; much less than Linden’s cloak and clothes. Nevertheless he seemed unaware of the chill. His encrypted uneasiness had nothing to do with ice and snow.

He looked to Covenant as if he were loath to answer her without Covenant’s support or approval; and as Jeremiah turned his head, the Theomach came lightly up the hillside. His wrapped feet made no mark on the surface of the crust. Once again, he conveyed the eerie impression that he occupied more than one time and place; that with every step he blurred the definitions of reality.

He ascended as if he meant to accost Covenant. But when he was still nearly a dozen paces away, he halted. Behind his bindings, his eyes seemed to study Covenant for some promise of violence.

“That was just a warning,” Covenant pronounced harshly. “Next time, I’ll actually hurt you.”

The Theomach shrugged. His tone implied its own threat as he said. “Do not doubt that I remain able to frustrate your designs. I have counselled wisdom as well as caution, yet you give me cause to doubt that you will heed me.”

“Just so we understand each other,” Covenant retorted. “I’m on your damn path. I’ll stay on your damn path. But I’m tired of being taunted.”

The stranger nodded once, slowly. Then he seemed to slip sideways and was gone. Linden could not detect any evidence that he had ever been present.

Apparently unsurprised, Jeremiah moved closer to Covenant. When Covenant glanced at him, the boy said, “Mom wants to know why we don’t just transport ourselves to Melenkurion Skyweir. But I think there’s something more important.” He seemed unsure of his ability to form an independent opinion. “It’s too cold for her. She’s going to-”

“Oh, bloody hell,” muttered Covenant. “I keep forgetting.”

His halfhand drew a brusque arc in the air. Linden only registered the gesture as a trail of phosphenes like the sweep of a comet: she hardly saw the red flicker of heat in the depths of his eyes. Then a second tide of warmth flooded through her, washing the ice from her skin in an instant, dispelling shivers from the core of her body. Between one heartbeat and the next, she felt a flush of fire as if Covenant had ignited her blood.

Momentarily helpless with relief, she breathed, “God in Heaven. How do you do that?”

Covenant frowned critically at his hand; flexed his fingers as though they did not entirely belong to him. “It doesn’t matter. Being part of the Arch isn’t exactly fun. It ought to be good for at least a few tricks.”

A moment later, he looked at Linden, and his expression changed to a humourless grin. “But as it happens, there’s a perfectly good reason why we can’t ‘just transport ourselves.’ I mean, aside from the fact that the Theomach won’t let us. He may be right. It could be too dangerous.”

Covenant sighed. “This is a pivotal time for the Land. New possibilities are coming to life. Old powers are changing. In the grand scheme of things, it won’t be all that long before the Forestals start to fade.” Some of his earlier scorn returned. “They’ll make the mistake of thinking the Lords can take care of the forests for them. And of course people just naturally like cutting down trees.”

Then he appeared to shake off an impulse to digress. “But that’s not the problem. The problem is those “puissant beings” the Theomach mentioned. If Jeremiah and I risk using power now, well be noticed. And not in a good way. We could run into opposition. The kind of opposition that might damage the Arch.”

Linden wanted to ask, What beings? But she had more immediate concerns. The heat in her veins had given her a sense of urgency. And it had restored a measure of her earlier determination. Covenant and Jeremiah had answered some of her most compelling questions; but she had more.

“All right,” she said, nodding more to herself than to Covenant. “We can’t do this the easy way. So what are we going to do? You said it yourself. We have two hundred leagues to go. On foot in the dead of winter, with no food or shelter. You and Jeremiah don’t look like you feel the cold, but it can kill me. And I assume that you need to eat. How do you expect us to survive?”

Covenant looked away. “Actually,” he said as if he could taste bile. “that’s up to you.” Then he met her gaze again, glaring angrily. “This whole mess is the Theomach’s idea. He expects you to make the decisions.

“Right now, you sort of are the Arch of Time. Or you represent it. You’re the only one of us who’s all here. Or just here. You’re the only one who isn’t already a walking violation of Time. So you’re the only one who might be able to do things safely. Your kid and I can keep you alive-as long as we don’t attract any attention. As long as no one sees us do anything that isn’t supposed to happen in this time. But you have to take charge.

“Should be simple enough,” he growled in disgust. “All we have to do is reach Melenkurion Skyweir. Without going through Garroting Deep.

“I’m ready when you are.”

Linden stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

In response, Covenant wheeled away from her. Brandishing his fists, he shouted into the air over the valley. “Do you hear that? She thinks you aren’t serious!” He must have believed-or known-that the Theomach was still nearby.

“We don’t really have much choice, Mom,” Jeremiah said tentatively. “We weren’t expecting to end up here. What we wanted to do was pretty easy. This is much more complicated. Right now, we’re as lost as you are.”

Reflexively Linden wanted to reassure him. “That’s all right, honey. I’ll think of something.” In fact, she did not need to think. Her choices were already plain to her. The shaped snow had whispered them to her; or she had seen them in the winter’s irrefusable beauty. “There’s just one more thing that I want to understand.”

She had many other questions, a long list of them. But first she needed to leave this hilltop; needed an answer to the cold. And the potential for redemption in Covenant’s intentions urged movement. For the first time since Roger had taken her son, she seemed to see a road which might lead to Jeremiah’s rescue, and the Land’s.

Covenant spun back toward her as if he meant to yell in her face. But his tone was unexpectedly mild as he said. “Just one? Linden, you astonish me.”

“Just one for now,” she acknowledged. “But it’s important. In spite of the Theomach, you make it sound like there’s hope. If I choose the right path. If we can get to Melenkurion Skyweir. So why did the ur-viles try to stop you?”

The implications of their attack undermined Covenant’s explanations. What did they see that she did not?

“Is that all?” Covenant scowled sourly. “Hell and blood! They’re Demondim-spawn, Linden. Their makers are besieging Revelstone. Don’t tell me you still imagine they want to help you?

“Think, for God’s sake. They made Vain so you could create that Staff, which has effectively prevented me from stopping Foul. Then they guided you to it so you would have the power to erase me anytime you don’t happen to like what I’m doing. Sure, they gave you what you needed to weaken the Demondim. Hell, why not? If I don’t succeed, Revelstone is going to fall eventually, and in the meantime they want to stay on your good side. Every bit of trust they can squeeze out of you serves the Despiser. They’re trying to turn you against me.”

Linden did not believe him: she could not. The ur-viles had done too much-And whenever he reproached her for forming and using the Staff of Law, her instinctive resistance to him stiffened. The man whom she had accompanied to his death would not have said such things.

His scorn and ire made her ache for the Thomas Covenant who had once loved and accepted her.

But she had nothing to gain by arguing. If the ur-viles had intended their manacles for Covenant, they had failed. She would have to live with the consequences of their failure.

All right,” she said as if Covenant’s vehemence had persuaded her. He had enabled her to withstand the cold-temporarily, at least. To that extent, he resembled his former self. “I’m just trying to understand. If I have to decide what we’re going to do, I need to understand as much as I can.”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we call the Ranyhyn?”

Hyn would not be born for thousands of years. Even the herd that had reared to Covenant lived millennia in the future of this present. But Linden did not know how to gauge the mysterious relationship between the Ranyhyn and Time. Her constrained linear conceptions had been proven inadequate repeatedly. Hyn’s far distant ancestors might already be aware of her need for them.

But Jeremiah covered his face as if she had embarrassed him. And Covenant exploded. “Hellfire and bloody damnation! That’s another terrible idea. In fact, it’s even worse than wanting to go to Andelain.”

Holding his glare, Linden made no effort to interrupt him.

“Maybe they can hear you,” he told her hotly. “Maybe they can’t. If they can, they’ll probably answer. They’re loyal enough for anything. That’s not the point. You’ll be asking them to violate the Land’s history. To risk the Arch.”

“How?” she countered.

Covenant made a visible effort to recover his composure. “Because right now there aren’t any Ranyhyn in the Land. After Foul killed Kelenbhrabanal, he drove them away. If they hadn’t left, he would have exterminated them. They won’t come back for another three or four hundred years. Until they find the Ramen-or the Ramen find them. Without Kelenbhrabanal, they need the Ramen to lead them.

“If you summon them now-and they answer-the consequences will ripple for millennia. And they’ll only get worse. One thing will lead to another. They’ll cause more and more changes.”

Linden waited coldly until Covenant was done. Then she said without inflection. “I didn’t know any of that. There are too many things that you haven’t told me. I don’t have any way to tell the difference between good ideas and bad ones.”

“She’s right,” Jeremiah put in hesitantly. “We’re asking an awful lot of her. It isn’t her fault if she gets some of it wrong.”

His apparent reluctance to defend her-or to disagree with Covenant in any way-made her bite her lip. She needed that small hurt to conceal her deeper pain. She had spent much of his life caring for him with her whole heart; and during that time, Covenant had become more essential to him than she had ever been.

She remembered a Covenant who would not have blamed her-

She did not fault her son for his loyalties. She loved him enough to be grateful that he had grown capable of the kind of attachment which he felt for Covenant. But her helpless rage at what the Despiser had done mounted with every fresh sign that Jeremiah did not love her.

Covenant avoided her gaze. “I get mad too easily,” he admitted as if he were speaking to the empty air. “I know that. It’s the frustration-What I’m trying to do is hard as hell. And it hurts. But it’s nothing compared to what Jeremiah is going through. I want to help him so bad-” After a moment, he added, “And you. And the Land. You didn’t cause any of these delays and obstacles. But they’re making me crazy.”

He seemed to be attempting an apology.

Linden did not care. He could have asked for her sufferance on his knees without swaying her. For Jeremiah’s sake, however, she replied quietly, “Don’t worry about it. Eventually we’ll learn how to talk to each other.

“We’re all tired of frustration. We should go before it gets any worse.”

The relief on Jeremiah’s face was so plain that she could not bear to look at it.

Covenant jerked his eyes to hers. A sudden intensity exaggerated the strictures of his face. “Go where? You still haven’t-”

Linden cut him off. “Where else? Berek’s camp. You said that he’s in the middle of a battle. But he has food. He has warm clothes.” Even true believers could not fight on faith alone. And I’m willing to bet that he has horses. If we can reach him”- if she could endure the cold long enough- “he might be persuaded to help us.”

She was serious: she did not know how else she could hope to reach Covenant’s goal. But she also wanted to hear what he would say about ripples now. If her choices and actions were somehow consonant with the Arch-The Theomach had asserted that her deeds will do no harm. That I will ensure.

Surely entering Berek’s camp would be less dangerous than redirecting the entire past of the Ranyhyn?

“I told you,” Jeremiah crowed. “Sometimes she does exactly the right thing. This is going to work. She’ll make it work.”

For a long moment, Covenant studied her sceptically, as if he suspected a trick of some kind. Then he seemed to throw up his hands. “It’s worth a try. Berek is still in the dark about almost everything. He hardly knows what he can do, or how he can do it. He isn’t likely to recognise the truth about any of us. And he definitely has horses.

“I should warn you, though,” he added grimly. “You’ll have to make this work because I sure as hell can’t. He doesn’t realise it yet, but he’s full of Earthpower. He can erase us. If he so much as touches us, this whole ordeal will be wasted.”

Linden nodded to herself. She was not surprised: she was only sure. If she stepped aside from the Theomach’s “path,” he would correct her.

At first, she led the way, not because she knew the location of Berek’s battle, but because she was in a hurry to leave the hilltop. She did not want to exhaust herself by following the difficult crests: she needed the less arduous passage of the valley bottom, in spite of its death-laden atmosphere. So she headed downward across the slopes at the best pace that she could manage, keeping her back to the west.

Her haste caused her to slip often as her boots skidded over buried stones or bones. Sometimes she fell. But her cloak gave her a measure of protection from the snow. She did not slow her steps until she reached the floor of the valley.

There the implications of the fallen were stronger. The mere thought that she trod over abandoned corpses daunted her. But the sun was westering; and with its light behind her, she did not suffer from its flagrant glare. Now she moved more slowly for the same reason that she had hurried to reach the valley: she feared exhaustion. The laborious hesitation-and-plunge of every step drained her strength. And the cold grew sharper as the sun lost its force. If she tried to walk too quickly, she would soon defeat herself.

Before long, Covenant and Jeremiah caught up with her. For a time, they matched her burdened plod, keeping a safe distance from her. But they both seemed proof against exertion as well as cold; and gradually they began to draw ahead as if they were reluctant for her company.

“Covenant, wait,” Linden panted. “I have another question.” She did not want to be left behind.

Covenant and Jeremiah exchanged comments too low for her to hear. Then they slowed their strides.

Hardly able to control her breathing, she asked. “How far do we have to go’?”

“Three leagues,” Covenant answered brusquely. “Maybe more. At this rate, we won’t get there until after dark.”

Until even the insufficient warmth of the sun had vanished from the Last Hills.

If she did not think about something other than her own weakness, she would lose heart altogether. “I have no idea what were getting into,” she admitted. “I know that there are things the Theomach doesn’t want you to say. But what can you tell me?”

Covenant scowled at her. “You want me to describe the battle? What does it matter? People are hacking at each other, but they’re too tired to be much good at it. From one minute to the next, most of them don’t know if they’re winning or losing. There’s yelling and screaming, but mostly it’s just hacking.”

Linden shook her head. She had already been in too many battles. “I meant Berek. You said that he doesn’t realise what he can do. Or how he can do it. But he summoned the FireLions. He must have some kind of lore.”

“Oh, well.” Covenant seemed to lose interest. “It wasn’t like that. He didn’t exactly summon the FireLions. He didn’t even know they existed. But he got their attention, and for that he only had to be desperate and bleeding. And he had to have a little power. The real question is, where did he get power?

“According to the legends, when Berek was desperate and bleeding and beaten on Mount Thunder, the rocks spoke to him. They offered him help against the King if he pledged to serve the Land. So he swore he would, and the rocks sent the FireLions to decimate the King’s forces.

“But that doesn’t actually make sense. Sure, the stone of the Land is aware. That’s especially true in Mount Thunder, where so many forces have been at work for so long. But it doesn’t talk. I mean, it doesn’t talk fast enough for most people to hear it.

“So how did Berek do it?” Covenant asked rhetorically. “How did he tap into the little bit of Earthpower he needed to call down the FireLions?”

Concentrating so that she would not think about her weariness, Linden waited for him to go on.

“This is the Land, remember,” Covenant said after a moment. She could not read him with her health-sense; but his manner betrayed that he was losing patience again. His tone gave off glints of scorn. “Earthpower runs near the surface. And Berek has what you might call a natural affinity. He just didn’t know it. The damn stones were more aware than he was.”

“Then how-?” Linden began.

Without transition, Covenant seemed to digress. “It’s easy to criticise Elena,” he drawled. “Silly woman. Didn’t she know despair is a weakness, not a strength?” He was talking about his own daughter. “Didn’t she know Kevin dead was bound to be weaker than he was alive?

“But she had precedent. She understood that better than anybody. Which is probably why they made her High Lord. No matter what you’ve heard, the Old Lords were all about despair. It gave them some of their greatest victories. And it’s what saved Berek.

“It opened him up. Tapped into his natural affinity. Being half insane with pain and blood loss and despair made him raw enough to feel what’s really going on here. What the life of the Land is really like. That’s all it took. When he finally felt the Earthpower in Mount Thunder, he felt it in himself as well. And the FireLions felt that. They responded to it because that’s what they do.”

As Covenant’s restiveness mounted, he began to pull ahead, taking Jeremiah with him. Without turning his

head, he finished, “The rest of it, all the legends people told about him-That stuff was just a way to make what happened sound heroic.”

Because of Berek, everything in the Land had changed. It had been made new. He had given its inhabitants their heritage of Earthpower. Yet Covenant disdained Berek’s achievement.

She did not ask him to wait for her: she hardly wanted his company now. But in one sense, he had not answered her question. Breathing painfully, she increased her pace for a moment.

“Just tell me one more thing,” she panted at his back. “What’s Berek like? What kind of man is he?”

If she wanted the first Halfhand’s help while he fought a fierce battle that would leave many of his supporters dead, she needed to know enough about him to gain his sympathy.

Covenant quickened his strides. Keeping his face to the east, he replied harshly, “He’s charismatic as all hell. Basically a good man, or his despair wouldn’t have left him so raw. And half the time he has no earthly idea what he’s doing.”

Then, for no apparent reason, he added. “When Elena summoned Kevin, he didn’t fail her. She failed him.”

After that, he and Jeremiah left Linden to struggle along as well as she could.

Gradually the uneven shadows of the hills spread into the valley. As much as possible, trying to conserve her strength, Linden followed the trail that Covenant and Jeremiah broke in the crust ahead of her. But more and more often, their way took her into the shade; and then she understood that the coming night would be far more cruel than the day. The temperature of the air seemed to plummet whenever she crossed out of the light.

She did not know how much longer she could go on.

When Covenant and Jeremiah were forty or fifty paces ahead of her-far enough to fade in the shadows, so that she could only be sure of them when they returned to sunlight-she began to draw cautiously on the sustenance of the Staff, evoking a slow current of heat and fortitude from the untroubled wood. Doubtless her son and her former lover would warn her if she endangered them. They had too much to lose. And she needed the nourishment of Law and Earthpower. Without it, she would have to ask for more of Covenant’s inexplicable fire; and that prospect increased her sense of helplessness.

The more time she spent with him, the less she trusted him.

She was prepared to support his purpose. But she would do so for Jeremiah’s sake, and to oppose the Despiser, and so that she would not find herself stranded ten thousand years before her proper time. Covenant had been too profoundly altered: Linden no longer knew how to believe in him.

In that fashion, she continued her burdened trudge through the snow and the cold while the shadows deepened and the valley grew dim. Long after she should have fallen on her face, she kept walking because the Staff of Law nurtured her.

But then, in one of the last swaths of sunshine, she saw Jeremiah dropping back. He let Covenant forge ahead alone so that she would be able to catch up with him.

Of its own accord, Linden’s heart lifted. Involuntarily she pushed herself to move faster; and as she did so, she quenched the Staff’s subtle warmth. She did not intend to threaten her son.

He started talking as soon as she drew near enough to hear him. He sounded tense; uncomfortable with her. Or perhaps he had been afflicted with Covenant’s frustration, Covenant’s impatience. He almost babbled as he said. “This isn’t normal. We’re too far south. The winters aren’t usually this bad.”

Nevertheless he had elected to accompany her, at least for a while. He must have felt some concern for her, despite his devotion to Covenant. That was enough to encourage her.

“It’s an after-effect of the war,” Jeremiah went on as if he could not stop. “when Berek was losing. Nobody in this time knows Foul. They won’t meet him until after Kevin becomes High Lord. But he’s in the Land. He has a home where nobody can stumble on him by accident. He’s waiting. Until the Lords become powerful enough, they won’t have a realistic chance of breaking the Arch.”

As Linden drew level with him, Jeremiah matched his pace to hers. He kept a distance of four or five steps between them, and he stayed on her left: she could not see his tic. But he did not pull ahead again, or fall behind. And he did not stop talking.

“But earlier Foul wasn’t just waiting. Once samadhi started this war, Foul did what he could to help Berek’s King win it.

“Of course, if that happened, there wouldn’t be any Lords. But Foul didn’t want Lords then. He wanted the King to win. That whole kingdom had the right attitude. I mean the right attitude for Foul. He could manipulate them easily. If they won, he could teach them how to set him free. They could use the Earthpower in the Land to provoke the Creator until the Creator had to intervene. That would break the Arch. Or Foul could get them to rouse the Worm.

“So Foul tried to help Berek’s King by sending darkness out of Ridjeck Thome. Malice so thick it blotted out the sun. It practically broke the hearts of Berek’s people And it weakened Berek himself. Almost got him killed. He’s a great warrior, but when he fought the King, he’d lost a lot of his strength. That’s why the King was able to beat him.

“This winter is sort of left over from losing the sun for a season or two.”

Jeremiah was watching Linden sidelong, apparently studying her, although he looked away whenever she turned toward him. But the air’s getting warmer,” he said. “Can you tell?” His voice had taken on a faintly pleading tone. “This valley goes down into the Centre Plains. It’s still going to be cold when the sun sets. But Covenant can help you. All you have to do is ask.”

He seemed to want her to accept her dependence on Covenant.

She wanted to hear her son justify his loyalty to Covenant. He had called Covenant the best. How had Covenant won Jeremiah’s heart? But she did not wish to risk alienating him. Instead of rejecting his implicit appeal directly, she said, “I’m hanging in there, Jeremiah, honey. I’ll make it somehow.

“But it really helps when you talk to me. Can I ask you something?”

The boy frowned at Covenant’s dark shape as if he were unsure of himself. “I guess, Mom. If it’ll do any good. Depending on what it is.”

They were deep in shadow; still far from the nearest dwindling patch of sunshine. Without light, Linden could not insist on an answer to the question that mattered most to her. For the moment, she concentrated on other concerns.

“I understand that there are things you can’t tell me,” she began, keeping her tone as neutral as possible. “They’ll interfere with the-I’m not sure what to call it-the continuity of what we’re doing.” In this circumstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time. “But I’m curious. How do you know the Theomach? You said that you’ve never met him, but you obviously recognised him.”

“Oh, that.” Jeremiah’s relief was plain in his voice. Clearly her question did not trouble him. “I heard about him, that’s all. He’s one of the Insequent.

“I told you I’ve been here a lot. I mean, in the Land. And around the Earth. Sort of disembodied, like a ghost. Most of the time, I didn’t choose where I was. Choosing is hard. And I never knew when I was. But once in a while, I met one of the Insequent. They talked about him. The Theomach. I guess he’s their biggest hero. Or he’s going to be. It’s confusing. I don’t know when any of them talked to me, but it seems like it must have been after where we are now. I can’t see why he’s supposed to be such a big deal, so maybe being a hero comes later.

“But there was one-I saw him a bunch of times. I don’t think that was an accident. I think he was looking for me. He called himself the Vizard. He said he wanted us to be friends, but I thought he really just wanted me to do something. When I saw him, he almost always talked about the Theomach. I got the impression he was jealous or something.”

In the distance ahead, Covenant passed back into sunlight; and the sudden change seemed to make him flare as if he had emerged from a dimension of darkness.

Waiting for her opportunity-for the burst of light that might be her last chance-Linden asked carefully. “What did he want you to do?”

Jeremiah shrugged. “Build something, I guess. Like the door that let me come here. Only what he wanted was really a trap. A door into a prison.”

Simply to keep her son with her, she asked. “Why did he want that?”

“Oh,” he replied as if the subject were inconsequential. “it was for the Elohim. All of them. I guess they hate each other. The Insequent and the Elohim. The Vizard thought if I made the right door it would lure them in and they wouldn’t be able to get out. And maybe if he just talked about it enough I would know how to make it.

“But I wasn’t really listening. I didn’t like him. And nothing made sense. I didn’t understand why he hated the Elohim. He didn’t seem to have a reason. I decided he just wanted to prove he’s greater than the Theomach, so I stopped paying attention.”

A few steps more: only a dozen or so. Jeremiah could not conceal his disquiet. He had retrieved his racecar and was playing with it tensely, flipping it back and forth between his hands. Ahead, Covenant had vanished back into shadow. As the sun fell closer to setting, the shadows grew darker: Linden could hardly be sure that he still existed. And Jeremiah gave her the impression that he might bolt at any moment, overcome by the stress of talking to her.

“Just a little longer, honey,” she urged quietly. “I can see that it’s hard for you to be around me. But there’s one thing I have to know. I’m not sure that I can keep going without it.”

“What is it?” His manner was suddenly thick with distrust.

Linden hazarded a moment or two of silence. Then through the crunching of her boots and the crisp stamp of the Staff, she said, “You won’t have to talk at all. You can just show me.”

Half a stride ahead of her, Jeremiah crossed into the light of the sun.

It was pale with constriction and approaching twilight, but it seemed bright as morning after the gloom of the shadows. As soon as she reached the sunshine herself, and her son was fully illumined, she halted. Bracing her fears on the Staff, she said. “Jeremiah,” as if she had the right to command him, “take off your shirt. Let me look at you. I have to know if you were shot.”

Harsh as a blow, he wheeled to face her. The mud of his gaze roiled with darkness and anger. At the corner of his left eye, the muscles beat as steadily as a war-drum; a summons to battle.

Startled and afraid, Linden flinched as if her son had threatened her.

But he complied. Vehemently, almost viciously, he undid the remaining buttons of his pajama top; tore it from his shoulders; flung it to the snow at his feet. If he felt the cold, he did not show it.

As if she had demanded a violation he resented fiercely but could not refuse, he turned in a circle, letting her scrutinise his naked back as well as his chest. But there were too many stains on his skin, too much grime. If he had been wounded and healed, she could not find the scars.

He must have recognised her uncertainty. Abruptly he stooped, punched his fists through the icy crust, and scooped up handfuls of snow. Then he slapped the snow onto his chest and stomach, rubbing furiously until he had cleaned away the marks of struggle and torment.

In the sun’s failing light, his skin looked as healthy and whole as if she had bathed him herself; as if he were the son whom she had loved and tended for so many years.

Are you satisfied?” he hissed venomously. “Mom?”

Oh, God. Instinctively Linden hugged the Staff to her chest, covered her face with her icy hands. Sweet Jesus. The previous day-or ten thousand years in the future-she had asked Jeremiah if he had been shot. At first, he had tried to avoid an answer. Then he had replied, I’m not sure. Something knocked me down pretty hard, I remember that. But there wasn’t any pain.

But he had not been shot. Somehow Barton Lytton’s deputies had missed him. Instead he had merely been struck, perhaps by Roger’s falling body. Therefore he remained alive in the world to which he had been born; the world where he belonged. His life, his natural birthright, could still be saved. In fact, if she understood what she had once experienced herself, and what Covenant had explained about his own visits to the Land-

She heard Jeremiah retrieve his shirt and shove his arms into the sleeves; heard him stride angrily away. But she could not uncover her eyes to watch him leave her. If she understood the rules, the Law, governing translations to the Land, Jeremiah could not be slain here while he remained alive in his proper reality. Lord Foul might torture him until his mind tore itself, but the Despiser could not kill him. Instead Jeremiah would only remain in Lord Foul’s power until his summoner passed away. Then he would be released to his former life. And his body would bear no sign of what he had endured. Only his sane or shredded mind would suffer the consequences of his time in the Land.

My son-Unregarded tears froze on Linden’s cheeks and fingers. Covenant had indeed offered her hope. But he had also misled her. Worse than that, he had lied to her.

If he succeeded against the Despiser, Jeremiah’s summoner would die. Linden knew Joan too well to believe otherwise. Joan was too frail, too brittle, to preserve herself. Wild magic and her own agony were too destructive to be endured. Without the imposed goad and sustenance of Lord Foul’s servants, she would perish quickly.

Then Jeremiah’s torment would end. He would vanish from the Land. Linden would remain because she was already dead. Even Roger might remain, seeking such havoc that the bones of mountains tremble to contemplate it. But Jeremiah-

If he returned to his natural world a mental cripple, she would not be there to care for him. He would be lost to her forever.

That was the lie. Covenant had said that he’ll still be trapped wherever Foul has him, but Jeremiah would not be, he would not. He’ll still need rescuing. Yet surely Covenant knew that Joan’s death would release the boy?

Nonetheless Linden had been given a reason to hope. The Despiser’s defeat would spare her son’s life.

And she had another reason as well; an entirely different kind of reason. The Blood of the Earth. You can Command any damn thing you want. All you have to do is want it, and you and your kid will be reunited. Anywhere you choose. She could block Jeremiah’s return to the world of her death: she could keep him in the Land. Then she would not need to fear for the condition of his mind. Here he could be truly restored, healed.

But she would still lose him. If it’ll make you happy, you two can live in Andelain- There Covenant had misled her. Jeremiah’s vehemence toward her moments ago, like his devotion to Covenant, proclaimed the truth. If she enabled him to remain in the Land, he would not choose to live with her. He did not love her. He had never loved her. For years while she had lavished her heart on him, he had been absent from himself. Dissociated and unreactive, he had been more conscious of Covenant’s friendship than of anything that she had done or felt.

From his damaged perspective, he had no cause to love her-

An uncertain future in his natural world or a life of wholeness in the Land. The Power of Command would enable her to provide one or the other for her son. But that choice was not hers to make: it belonged to him. Either way, he would be lost her to her; but her bereavement was beside the point. She had already lost him. And he was not responsible for her dedication-or her sorrow.

Covenant was another matter entirely. He had lied to her. Deliberately he had tried to obscure the true crux of Jeremiah’s straits-and of her own.

She needed to talk to him. She needed to talk to him now.

But when she snatched down her hands and opened her eyes to the dying light, she found the Theomach standing in front of her.

Instinctively she clasped her numb fingers around the Staff. But she did not call upon its power. She felt no threat from the Insequent. To her health-sense, he still appeared to be an ordinary man beneath his strange habiliments; devoid of any inherent theurgy. If she had not fallen so far down into her grief and anger, she would have discerned him as soon as he approached her.

Instead of fire, she drew a little heat from the ready wood, a little comfort, so that she would not collapse into shivering.

She meant to demand, Tell me. I have to know. Why did Covenant lie to me? But before she could form the words, the Theomach held up his hand to forestall her. His wrapped and hidden face regarded her with an attitude of grave attention.

“Lady,” he said in his light voice, “understand that your son’s plight is not a simple matter-as yours is not. Even the Halfhand is not free of pain.

“I may say nothing of his designs. You must earn the knowledge that you seek. However,” he added as she started to protest, “I will accompany you now, if you will permit it. In recompense for your courtesy, I will answer any questions which do not undermine the integrity of Time, or of my own purposes.” Then he lowered his voice as if he did not wish to be overheard. “Also I will ease your passage through this winter, so that you need not hazard either your own fire or the Halfhand’s. Perhaps my aid will enable you to gain your destination with strength sufficient for what must be done.”

Linden stared at him. He had surprised her out of her immediate turmoil, but she did not forget it. And she was sick to death of people who sought to manipulate her by concealing the truth. However, she understood nothing about the Theomach-and he had offered to answer questions.

After a moment, she said stiffly, “I’m not sure that I want company.” Convince me. “Let’s start with this. If Covenant stays on your path-and I do-will I get a chance to find out what he isn’t telling me?”

The Theomach bowed as though her query signalled acquiescence. “Lady, I believe that you will. You have displayed cleverness, and perhaps wisdom as well. You will contrive opportunities to wrest what veracity you may from your companions.”

What veracity you may-Linden heard disturbing implications in the words, but she was too distraught to consider them. She already knew that she did not trust Covenant.

And her son had not been shot. He would live, whatever happened.

“In that case,” she replied, “I can’t pretend that I don’t need help. What can you do to make this easier?”

Her companion gestured along Covenant’s and Jeremiah’s trail. “Words will not demonstrate my intent. Walk and you will witness my aid.”

Linden stared at him for a moment longer. Then she sighed to herself. Gripping the Staff tensely in one hand, she resumed her long floundering trudge through the snow.

But she did not flounder: her boots did not break through the crust. Instead she found herself striding like the Theomach over the unreliable surface, unimpeded by brittle ice or clogging snow. The iron heel of the Staff struck the crust with a muted thud like a buried echo, but did not pierce it.

The change relieved her tired muscles and worn resolve more than she would have thought possible. She felt lighter, as though a portion of her mortal dross had been lifted from her. -with strength sufficient for what must be done. She had no idea what the Theomach meant; but now she could believe that she would be able to reach her immediate goal.

All right,” she said when she had passed back into the shadows and could see no more sunlight along her way. “That’s one promise you’ve kept. As long as you don’t vanish again-”

“I will not.” Her companion sounded mildly offended. “Here my path lies with yours. You serve my purpose. Therefore I must serve yours.”

“Good.” She nodded to herself several times, arranging her thoughts to the rhythm of strides and echoes. “In that case, I’ll try a few questions. I need something to think about besides the cold.” She meant, Besides Covenant’s lies and my son’s life.

As she walked, she continued to pull a gentle current of warmth and sustenance from the Staff. She needed more support than the Theomach could give her.

“As you wish, lady.” Now his tone suggested an admixture of satisfaction and secret relief. “I will answer as our circumstances permit.”

“The Theomach” seems a bit unwieldy,” Linden began. “Do you have a name?”

“I do. But it is not for your use.”

His words were brusque, although his manner was not.

She shrugged. “Never mind, then.” She had not expected him to reveal himself. “Since Jeremiah has already mentioned your people, maybe you can tell me something about them.

“Why do you hate the Elohim? And what did the Vizard want with Jeremiah? Do your people really think that my son can build a trap,” a prison. “to hold the Elohim?”

The Theomach replied with a shrug of his own. “Lady, we loathe the Elohim for their arrogance, and for their ease. Every other being that strides the Earth must strive for knowledge and power sedulously, at great cost. But the Elohim are power. They do not strive-and seldom encounter unease. Yet they do not scruple to determine the deeds and dooms of any striving being that mischances to attract their opprobrium.

“The differences between us are various and vast, but the chiefest is this. The Elohim have no hearts. I am not present in the Vizard’s thoughts. All of the Insequent hold their own counsel and knowledge, and some are spiteful. But where our interests oppose those of the Elohim, we are seldom petty. There larger concerns move us.”

For a moment, the Theomach walked beside Linden in silence, appearing to shift slightly in and out of definition with every step. Then he added, “Does your son possess both the knowledge and the prowess to devise a snare which the Elohim could not evade, and from which they would not escape? Of that I will not speak. It is a matter for another time. A distant time, lady.”

In the setting dark, Linden was slow to realise that the hills on either side of the valley had begun to slump away. But when she extended her health-sense, she felt the changing shapes of the terrain. Gradually the Last Hills were fading toward the flatland of the Centre Plains.

Vexed by all of the secrets that surrounded Jeremiah, she let a taste of acid into her voice. “Then I don’t suppose that you’ll tell me how you’re going to “humiliate” the Elohim yourself?”

“I will not.” Her tone did not ruffle the Theomach’s aura. “Were I to do so, you would feel the Arch of Time tremble to its roots. The Halfhand should not speak as he does.”

Linden took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. In an abstract sense, she understood his refusals and obfuscations. She was ten thousand years away from her own present. She could not begin to guess what the consequences of her actions might be. And inevitably her choices would be influenced by what she was told. Whatever the Theomach’s motives might be, they required him to strike a complex and ambiguous balance between his impulse to aid her and his determination to preserve the security of Time.

Although the details of their situation were very different, Covenant and Jeremiah faced the same problem. With the Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring, Linden had the power to alter the Land’s past irrevocably. If she acted on knowledge which she should not have been able to possess-

More to herself than to her companion, she muttered, “Are we having fun yet?” Then she resumed her questions.

“We’re going to Berek’s camp because we’re in an impossible position. We need help, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to get it. But it’s pretty obvious that this is what you had in mind for us. If all you wanted was to interfere with Covenant’s plans, you could have left us anywhere. You picked this place. This time.

“I assume that what we’re doing suits your purpose, whatever that is. But isn’t it dangerous? For God’s sake, we’re about to meet the most famous of the Land’s old heroes.” Covenant had warned her about ripples. No matter how careful we are, he’ll see and hear things-”

“Lady,” the Theomach put in, be at peace.” His tone was gentle; meant to soothe her. “I have said that you serve my purpose. Therefore I must serve yours.

“Here the preservation of the Arch need not trouble you. That burden is mine. At great cost, I have garnered knowledge which you lack, and my knowledge is profound. Be assured that I will watch over you. Indeed, I have already done so. I have set you at a distance which ensured that my theurgy would not be witnessed, but which will not prevent the accomplishment of your intent.

“Where my guidance is needed, I will provide it. And I will accommodate the effects of both your presence and your deeds. You need only trust in yourself-and heed my counsel. In the fullness of time, my aid will demonstrate its worth.”

To her surprise, Linden found that she believed him. He was not closed to her: she could hear his sincerity.

In dreams, Covenant had told her to trust herself. And he had sounded like himself; like the Covenant whom she remembered rather than the man who led her eastward. The man who had lied-

“And I guess,” she murmured to the cold and the waiting night, “that I’ll have to take your promises on faith.”

Her companion answered her with a silence that seemed to imply assent.

By slow degrees, stars began to prick the darkening sky as if they were manifesting themselves like Covenant and Jeremiah across an unfathomable gulf of time. Warmed by Earthpower, Linden could endure the piercing accumulation of the cold. Nevertheless the first few stars seemed as chill as absolute ice, gelid with distance and loneliness. She could have considered herself one of them, unfathomably alone in spite of the Theomach’s presence.

Still she had to make use of the time which had been given to her-or imposed upon her.

“In that case,” she went on. “can you tell me why you interfered with Covenant and Jeremiah in the first place? What was so dangerous about what they were trying to do’?”

“Lady,” the Insequent answered without hesitation, “I do not consider it plausible that you would have been able to avoid High Lord Damelon’s notice. From this arises the true peril. He holds the Staff of Law. The first Staff, of which yours is but an unfinished semblance.”

Linden wanted to ask, Unfinished? But the Theomach did not pause.

“Surely it is plain that the simultaneous proximity in Damelon’s presence of two such implements of Earthpower would cause a convulsion in the Arch. And your own knowledge that such an event both did not and should not occur would increase the violence of the violation. You are fully aware that your Staff was created many centuries after the destruction of the Staff which Damelon Giantfriend will hold upon his approach to Melenkurion Skyweir. That awareness would sever the continuity of the Land as it exists within your own experience. It would sever the essential continuity of Time.”

In this circumstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time.

His explanation shocked her. “Then why-?” She faltered in dismay, unable to complete the question. Why would Covenant want to take that kind of risk? What had he hoped to accomplish?

“Lady, nothing is certain,” her companion said as if he wanted to reassure her. “Yet the peril cannot be doubted. In fear, I disturbed the Halfhand’s designs. And also in pride,” he admitted, “for assuredly the Elohim would have done so if I did not. Here both your presence and your ignorance ward the Halfhand. But neither would suffice to forestall the Elohim if High Lord Damelon became cognisant of your Staff.”

He paused for a moment, then added carefully, “It is sooth that you aid my purposes. But I do not require such service. I am able to achieve what I must. I was not compelled by my own needs to thwart the Halfhand.”

His tone asked Linden to believe him. She heard an emotion in it which may have been sympathy or pleading.

The heavens held too many stars: she could not imagine them all. They seemed as profligate and irredeemable as the motes of dust in a wilderland. Directly or indirectly, Covenant had lied to her. And he had planned to chance exposing Linden and Jeremiah and the Land and Time itself to the possibility of a catastrophic encounter with Berek’s son.

As she walked on across the surface of the snow and ice into the unknown dark, she clung to the Staff of Law, her Staff; and to Covenant’s ring on its chain under her shirt; and to the warning that Esmer had given her.

You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood.

She absolutely did not trust the man who had brought her son back to her with his mind restored and his heart shut against her.

Some time later, long after her comparatively easy progress had become a stupefied trudge of hunger and weariness, and even the Staffs given warmth had been enclosed in a cold as pitiless as the sky’s bedizened infinity, she caught the first scent of smoke.

When she noticed it initially, she was not sure of it. But soon it became unmistakable: wood smoke, the distinctive tang of a campfire. Somewhere within the range of her senses, people had lit flames against the winter’s cruelty.

She lifted her head as her pulse quickened. “Is that-?” she asked the Theomach. Studying the smells, she detected many fires. And now the smoke carried faint intimations of cooking; of meats being roasted, stews bubbling, poultices steeping over the fires.

“Berek’s camp is nigh,” her companion confirmed. “Half a league, no more. Shortly we will encounter those who scout the night for the protection of their comrades.”

As her percipience attuned itself, Linden became conscious of more than fires and food. She heard or felt muffled groans, oaths muttered in anger or pain, occasional sharp commands. They came to her through the silence, carried on the frigid air. And her nerves found an early taste of suffering; of wounds that threatened death, and hurts that were worse than dying. Among them, she perceived the sickly odours of illness, malnutrition, infection: fetid bowels, running sores, flesh in all of the crippling stages of putrefaction: the consequences of a prolonged and brutal struggle. Camped somewhere ahead of her were the remnants of two desperate armies; forces which had warred against each other season after season in a running battle across much of the Land’s terrain. Berek and his warriors-and their enemies-must have been marching and fighting and dying for two years or more. Those among them who had somehow remained hale enough to give battle must be pitifully few-and growing fewer by the day.

“If I am not mistaken,” the Theomach remarked after a brief pause, “the Halfhand and your son have marked the presence of Berek’s scouts, and have concealed themselves in darkness, awaiting our accompaniment ere they venture farther.”

Linden hardly heard him. She had begun to push her pace into a shambling rush, not because Covenant and Jeremiah might be in danger, but because she was needed. She was a physician; and Berek’s sick, wounded, and dying numbered in the hundreds.

People are hacking at each other, but they’re too tired to be much good at it. Sheer attrition should have forced them to surrender this war seasons ago.

“How many men has Berek got left?” she asked the Insequent.

“Men and women,” he amended. “Perhaps thirty score.”

“And how many of them are actually fit to fight?”

“Perhaps a third.” His tone suggested a shrug. “Others contribute as they can. They serve as wagoners and drovers, foragers and healers. Still others are able only to be conveyed in wagons and litters while they await their deaths.”

Linden swore under her breath. She had always hated wars. This one sickened her, and she had not yet encountered it.

For Jeremiah’s sake, and Covenant’s, she stemmed the flow of Earthpower from the Staff, although she craved its generous vitality. Then she asked the Theomach, “What about the other army? The King’s supporters?”

“Their numbers are thrice Berek’s. And they have this vantage, that they abandon their wounded and infirm as well as their dead. Thus they are unencumbered, as Berek is not. And indeed his straits are more narrow than I have described, for he retrieves the living fallen among his foes and accords to them the same succour which he provides for his own, scant though that succour assuredly is.

“Yet he continues to harry his foes toward Doom’s Retreat. They have lost heart and purpose, and give battle only because they fear to do otherwise. They adjudge Berek by the standard of themselves, and so they believe that to surrender is to be slaughtered.”

Linden went on swearing to herself. Now she wished that she could run; that she had the strength-Every passing moment meant more death.

When Covenant and Jeremiah appeared suddenly out of the dark, they startled her as if she had forgotten all about them. They moved without a sound. Here the snow was not as deep as it had been in the valley, and the ice did not break under them.

“Linden, slow down,” Covenant whispered urgently. “Berek has scouts out here. One of them just missed us.

And there are outriders closer to the camp. We need a way to get around them.”

Linden strode past him and her son without hesitation. Deliberately she raised her voice. “Well, we certainly aren’t going to sneak up on them. We aren’t their enemies, for God’s sake.” And she was needed. “Maybe those outriders will let us use their horses.”

“Mom!” Jeremiah protested; but she did not pause, even for him.

The Theomach matched her stride. “Lady,” he remarked, “it grows ever more apparent that your folly is wisdom disguised.”

In response, she began to shout, punctuating each sentence with a stamp of the Staff. “Listen to me! I’m a healer! The people with me are my friends! We want Berek’s help, but we also want to help him!”

If the scouts did not hear her, they were too far gone in privation and weariness to be of any use.

Almost at once, however, they reacted. Leather slid over slick ice as they ran. Linden heard the muted jangle of armour, the scrape of drawn blades.

She continued ahead; but she stopped shouting. She had attracted enough attention.

Covenant swore as he and Jeremiah scrambled to catch up with her. Then the night in front of her seemed to solidify, and she found herself facing three warriors with their swords drawn.

Reluctantly she halted. She could not make out their features, but she felt their trepidation as well as their exhaustion: two men and a woman who had endured for seasons or years on raw courage and belief alone. The woman had a badly infected cut in one bicep. One of the men had been slashed across the side of his face recently. The other bore so many smaller wounds that Linden could not count them all.

“There are four of us,” she stated. Her voice shook with exertion. “I’m a healer. The others are my friends. We’ve been walking all day. From the west,” she added because she guessed that Berek’s foes were in the southeast. “And we’re too tired to have much patience. We need to talk to Berek. But first I want to help your wounded. Some of them can still be saved.”

If she distanced herself from Jeremiah and Covenant, she could use her Staff.

“Spies would say the same,” countered the woman. The arm holding her sword trembled. “Doubtless Lord Berek” — she stressed the title grimly- “will speak to you when our Warhaft has ascertained your true purpose.”

“When you see the truth,” Linden retorted, “you’ll regret that you held us back. If you want to escort us to your camp, we won’t give you any trouble. But we aren’t going to waste time on some useless interrogation. This is too important.” She wanted to yell, but she swallowed the impulse. “Too many of your people are dying.”

Turning to the man with the smaller wounds, she commanded, “You. Go tell your outriders that we’re coming. They can warn Lord Berek. And maybe they can spare some horses for us.”

When none of the scouts moved, she said between her teeth. “Do it now. I won’t tolerate delays.”

“You are mistaken,” the woman replied more harshly. Her sword-arm stiffened. “You will tolerate this delay, and more. We have not suffered the struggles and pain of this war to be daunted by imperious strangers whose purposes are hidden. You will remain where you stand until we have gathered a force sufficient to ensure that you cause no harm. Then we will escort you to our Warhaft. Mayhap he will deign to treat gently with you.”

Linden did not hesitate: she was done with hesitation. “Jeremiah,” she ordered quietly, holding the scouts with her glare. “ask them to step aside, please.”

“Mom?” he protested; then. “Covenant?”

“Do it carefully,” she insisted. “Don’t hurt anyone.”

“Hellfire,” Covenant muttered. “You know your mother. If we don’t help her, this mess is going to get worse fast.”

Linden resisted a fierce desire to thrust her way between the warriors; to force them aside with the Staff if necessary. Biting her lip, she waited for Jeremiah.

The scouts took a step backward, prepared to swing their weapons. Their stances shouted belligerence; nerves stretched past weariness into unthinking rage. Then Linden felt a warm wave of force flow past her from Jeremiah’s outstretched hand. At once, the man with the slashed face lurched out of her way. The woman and the other man stumbled aside.

While her son’s weird theurgy held, she set off quickly in the direction of the camp with the Theomach silent at her side and Covenant and Jeremiah following close behind her.

When the scouts recovered their balance, they swore in fear and anger; tried to rush an attack. But Jeremiah’s unseen magic repulsed them: they rebounded from it as though they had encountered a barricade.

Walking with as much speed as she could manage, Linden asserted as if she spoke to the frigid darkness, “I’ve already told you that I’m a healer. I want to help. And we don’t want trouble. You’re in no danger. There’s no need to turn this into a fight. You’ve done too much fighting as it is.

“Why don’t you just escort us while one of you lets Lord Berek know that we’re coming? If nothing else, you have to think that we’re strange enough to be worth his attention.”

For a long moment, the scouts held back. Then, abruptly, the woman sheathed her sword. “Very well,” she rasped. “It will be as you have said.”

She made a rough gesture that Linden felt rather than saw; and at once, the man with the smaller wounds sprinted away, clearly heading toward the nearest of Berek’s outriders. The woman jogged to catch up with Linden at a safe distance, while her comrade took a similar position on the far side of Linden’s small company.

After a brief hesitation, Jeremiah lowered his barrier. Linden sent him her silent gratitude, hoping that he would be able to read her aura. But she did not pause to thank him aloud. The woman who led the scouts was speaking again.

“Comprehend me, however,” she said in a bitten voice. “I accede because I know not how to oppose you. But you are folk of power, hazardous in this war. If by any word or deed you threaten the Lord, or cause harm to those who stand with him, I will contrive to slay you. I have learned much of death. By some means, I will evade your eldritch force and end your haughtiness.”

Linden sighed. Without turning her head, or shifting her attention from the burgeoning and hurtful emanations of Berek’s camp, she asked, “Don’t you have anyone with you who can hear truth? I would have thought that by now,” under the influence of the Land’s rich Earthpower. “some of you would start to notice changes in what you can see and feel and hear.”

“What do you know of such matters?” demanded the woman suspiciously. She seemed unaware that Jeremiah’s barrier was gone.

“This war,” Linden replied. “It changed on the slopes of Mount Thunder. That’s when Lord Berek started to show signs of power you hadn’t seen before. But I find it hard to believe that he’s the only one.” Surely Berek was not alone in his sensitivity to the true life around him? “There have to be more of you who can sense things that seem impossible.”

Now the woman sounded less sure of herself. “Krenwill avers that he has become able to distinguish truth from falsehood.” A jerk of her head indicated the scout striding opposite her. At first, I deemed him a fool. Yet I have beheld proofs-Commonly now, our Warhaft enlists his aid in the questioning of prisoners, for the Lord frowns upon harshness toward our foes when they cannot defend themselves.”

Linden glanced at the man, a vague shape in the night. With every step, the sensations of Berek’s camp became stronger: the fear and pain bordering on madness; the frantic fatigue; the stunned, almost unreactive resolve. And now she could smell horses, already half maimed by inadequate provender and far too much exertion. The cold carried the scents of dung and rotting straw as clearly as sounds.

“Then listen,” she told the scout Krenwill. “I’m a healer. I want to help. Not with the war. With the wounded. And my companions don’t mean you any harm.”

The man studied her in silence for a moment. Then he announced softly, “I hear truth, Basila. If her words are false, she does not know them to be so.”

Linden felt a grudging, uncertain relief from the woman. Still suspiciously, Basila asked. “You say that you desire Lord Berek’s aid. What do you wish of him?”

The clatter of hooves on ice came faintly through the dark, growing louder. Linden counted two riders approaching cautiously. And they were alone. Presumably the man who had run to warn them had continued on toward the camp.

“Horses,” she answered, brusque with the effort of sustaining her haste. “Food. Warm clothes. I want to get as far away from here as possible.

“That’s a lot to ask, I know,” she added. “But first I’m going to earn it.”

If the stubborn hostility of men and women who had seen too much war did not prevent her-

“Wisdom indeed,” the Theomach remarked to the forlorn multitude of the stars. Then he told Linden. You have been well chosen, lady.”

“Hell and blood,” Covenant muttered at her back. “How did the two of you become such buddies? I’m the one who’s trying to save the damn world.”

“There is your error,” replied the Theomach over his shoulder. “You aim too high. The Earth is too wide and rife with mystery to be saved or damned by such as you.”

Peering ahead, Linden studied the approach of the riders. Long ago, Covenant had told her of prophecies which the Council of Lords had preserved concerning the white gold wielder.

And with the one word of truth or treachery,

he will save or damn the Earth

because he is mad and sane,

cold and passionate,

lost and found.

She did not know what she would do if the outriders blocked her path. She needed to reach Berek’s camp while she still had enough stamina to be of some use. But she was reluctant to call on Jeremiah’s aid again. She did not understand his power, and feared its consequences.

With a muffled clash of tack and an uneasy skitter of hooves, two mounted horses condensed from the dark. Involuntarily she slowed to a stop; leaned on the Staff while she strove to steady her breathing. The riders were both women. When they had halted, one of them asked gruffly. “What transpires, Basila? All darkness is fraught with peril, and the coming of these strangers does not rest lightly upon us.”

Basila’s manner conveyed a shrug. “Krenwill conceives that the woman speaks sooth.”

That she means no harm?” insisted the rider. That she is a healer, and intends healing? That she seeks aid of the Lord?”

“Aye,” Basila replied. And Krenwill said. “If there is falsehood here, or peril, she has no knowledge of it.”

“And the theurgy which compelled you to let them pass?” the rider continued. “Does it ward them still?”

Basila extended her arm toward Linden; moved closer until she was almost near enough to touch Linden. Then she let her arm drop. “It does not.” As if she wished to be fair, she added, “And we received no hurt from it. We were merely” — she shrugged again- “repelled.”

“Then we will not tarry,” the rider announced. She radiated a desire for haste that had nothing to do with Linden’s urgency. Rather she seemed to feel exposed on the open plain; eager for light-and for the support of Berek’s army. “Warhaft Inbull will adjudge the matter. A healer we would welcome gladly. But that the woman speaks sooth promises little for her companions.

“Resume your watch,” she told the scouts. “This seems a night for hazards. If four strangers approach from the west, eight may follow, or a score, or-” She left the thought unfinished. “Epemin and I will continue your escort.”

Relieved, Linden started forward again with her companions. At once, the two riders separated, turning their weary horses to take the positions that Basila and Krenwill had occupied; and the scouts drifted back into the night.

Linden forgot the scouts as soon as they were gone. Her percipience was focused on the growing emanations of Berek’s camp. Her face felt frozen, and all of her skin ached with cold. Nonetheless her nerves were certain.

She was nearing a large body of men and women-and a much smaller number of horses. She sensed the turmoil and determination among the warriors; the prolonged strain of overexertion and blood loss and insufficient food; the instances of agony and anguish. As well as she could, she watched the east for the glow of campfires. But her eyes themselves felt frozen, and ordinary sight was of little use to her. Unable to sustain herself with Earthpower while Covenant and Jeremiah were nearby, she had nothing to rely on except her health-sense.

In her concentration, she was slow to realise that the nearer rider, the woman who had spoken earlier, was speaking again. “I am Yellinin,” the woman said, “third after Warhaft Inbull in the tenth Eoman of the second Eoward. He will require your names. And if indeed you come as friends, I would wish to speak of you courteously. How shall I introduce you to the Warhaft?”

Linden bit down on her numb lip. She had no time, and less strength, for questions. And she had caught her first glimpse of firelight. It dimmed the stars, diminished the depth of the night-and limned a long, low rise ahead of her, the last obstacle between her and the encampment. The sight increased her feeling of urgency. Nevertheless she tried to contain her impatience.

“I’m Linden Avery. The man beside me is the Theomach. Thomas Covenant and my son, Jeremiah, are behind us.” Then, because she was desperate in her own way, she asked, “Can’t we just skip arguing with your Warhaft? I don’t mean to be rude myself. But you have an appalling number of wounded. I can feel them from here. It would be better for all of us if you took me straight to your field hospital”- she grimaced at the awkwardness of using a term which might not be familiar to Yellinin- “or wherever you care for your wounded.

“Let me prove myself,” she urged the rider as they began to ascend the rise, and the light of uncounted campfires grew brighter. “Then your Warhaft-or Lord Berek-can decide what he thinks of me.” Suddenly an idea came to her. “In the meantime, you can take my companions to your Warhaft. Let him ask them as many questions as he wants.” Linden wished him joy of the experience. Together, Covenant, Jeremiah, and the Theomach were probably cryptic enough to confound tree trunks or plinths of basalt. But if Berek’s cutters and herbalists had no other resources, she would need to draw on the Staff of Law-and for that she required as much distance from Covenant and Jeremiah as possible. “Think of them as hostages to ensure my good faith.”

“Mom,” Jeremiah objected: he sounded frightened. And Covenant muttered, “Bloody hell, Linden. Just when I think you’ve run out of terrible ideas.”

Her son’s alarm tugged at her as Covenant’s vexation did not. But she kept her back to them; hardened her heart. Her attention was fixed on the injuries of Berek’s people, and her gaze focused her appeal on Yellinin. If she had not been so tightly clenched to her purpose, she might have said, Please. I beg of you.

“Wisdom, as I have proclaimed,” the Theomach announced. “Lady, I am both pleased and gratified.”

The mounted woman leaned down from her saddle, trying to study Linden’s face in the dim glow of the camp. “You ask much, Linden Avery,” she replied severely. “If I judge wrongly-or if Krenwill’s hearing has misled him-you may cause great woe.”

“And if I’m telling the truth,” Linden countered. “you’ll save lives.” She did not slow her strides to accommodate Yellinin’s uncertainty.

After a moment, the outrider said slowly, feeling her way. “It was the one whom you name Jeremiah-was it not? — who wielded theurgy against Basila and her comrades? If you are parted from him, he will be unable to ward you.”

Her tone added, And in your absence, he will be free to wreak any harm which he may desire.

“Yes,” Linden answered at once. “it was. But I don’t need his protection.” If she had been a different woman, she could have challenged Berek’s foes for him; perhaps routed them. “He won’t use his power again unless Covenant tells him to-and Covenant won’t do that.” Covenant had accepted the path which the Theomach had laid out for him. Linden was confident that he would not risk Berek’s enmity: not in the Theomach’s presence. “I can’t promise that your Warhaft will like their answers. But they won’t fight him.”

“Assuredly I will not,” the Theomach offered lightly. “And I will watch over your companions.”

“Linden.” Covenant’s voice was harsh with warnings or threats. “You know what can go wrong here.”

“Sure,” she replied over her shoulder. Disturbances in the integrity of Time, lethal discontinuities. And she had been warned that Berek held enough Earthpower to erase Covenant and Jeremiah- “But you know what we have to gain. You’ll be all right without me for a while.”

Abruptly Yellinin dismounted. Leaving her horse, she came to Linden. In spite of her obscured features, her sword and cuirass, and her warrior’s bearing, she radiated concern rather than suspicion as she grasped Linden’s arm and pulled her away from her companions.

Softly, tensely, Yellinin said, “Linden Avery, if you choose to part from your comrades, I must inform you that Warhaft Inbull is not known for gentleness. Lord Berek endeavours to restrain him, but he has suffered much in this war-lost much, endured much-and has become cruel. Upon occasion, he has refused Krenwill’s aid because he desires to discover truth with pain.

Is it truly your wish that your son should be delivered to the Warhaft?”

For the first time since she had become aware that she was needed, Linden faltered. Instinctively she looked at the pleading on Jeremiah’s face. He, Covenant, and the Theomach had stopped: they stood watching her; waiting for her. She could not read Covenant or her son; but the meaning of Covenant’s scowl was obvious, and Jeremiah’s open chagrin seemed as poignant as a cry.

— has become cruel.

He’s full of Earthpower. If he so much as touches us, this whole ordeal will be wasted.

But the call of the wounded was too strong. She was a physician, and could not refuse it.

Like Covenant and the Theomach, Jeremiah had resources which surpassed her ability to measure them.

Deliberately Linden turned back to Yellinin. “My companions don’t mean any harm.” She made no effort to conceal the pressure rising in her. “They won’t cause any trouble. I keep saying that. But they can protect themselves if they have to. Right now, people are dying. Your people.” She could feel them: they were as vivid to her as the ravages of the Sunbane. “The sooner I get to work, the more of them I can help.”

The outrider remained caught in indecision for a moment longer. Then she shook it off. She was a fighter, uncomfortable with doubt and hesitation.

“Accept my mount, Linden Avery,” she said as if she were sure. Her hand released Linden’s arm. “If you are indeed able to feel the wounded and dying, you will have no difficulty discovering where they lie. Should any seek to thwart you, reply that you act by Yellinin’s command. Epemin and I will escort your comrades to the Warhaft. If I have erred, I will bear his wrath, and Lord Berek’s.”

“I don’t believe it,” Covenant growled under his breath. “Here she is, completely lost, with no idea what’s at stake-and total strangers still do what she wants.”

“That’s my Mom,” Jeremiah sighed glumly. He sounded like a boy who had resigned himself to an unjust punishment.

But Linden ignored them now. As soon as Yellinin let her go, she strode to the woman’s mount; grabbed at the reins.

When she had found the stirrup, she heaved herself into the saddle.

“Thank you,” she said to the outrider. “You’re not going to regret this.” Then she called, “Jeremiah! I’m counting on you!” She did not trust Covenant. “Don’t make these people sorry that they helped me.”

No one responded-and she did not wait. Digging her heels inexpertly into the horse’s sides, she headed for the top of the rise as swiftly as her shambling mount could carry her.

God, she loathed war.

Chapter Eight: The Stuff of Legends

Her mount was no Ranyhyn, and the beast was frail. It stumbled under her whenever a hoof skidded on the glazed ice. She could feel its heart strain against its gaunt ribs. But as soon as she was thirty or forty paces beyond her companions, Linden began to draw Earthpower from the Staff, using its vitality to nurture her horse as well as to warm her numb skin, her cold-stiff limbs. Surely she would not endanger Covenant and Jeremiah now, when her mount increased the distance between them with every stride?

Gradually the horse grew stronger. Its gait increased toward a gallop as she fed it with the substance of life.

Then she crossed the crest of the rise, and Berek’s camp appeared like a tapestry woven of fires and tents and wagons; picket lines and latrines; gritted pain, exhaustion, and graves.

The encampment seemed huge, although she knew that it was not. The surrounding dark dwarfed it. Nevertheless it was all that the night contained. The larger host of Berek’s foes lay beyond the reach of her senses. Even the stars were lessened by the human multitude of the camp’s fires.

As she crossed the ridge, she was already near enough to see individual figures; dim tottering shapes that moved among the tents and campfires. Most of the tents were small, hardly big enough for two or three warriors to share their meagre warmth. But a few were larger: mess tents, perhaps, or command posts. One of these occupied the centre of the encampment. Linden guessed that it was Berek’s. However, three of the tents were the size of pavilions, and their burden of suffering drew her toward them immediately. Enclosed by thick clusters of wagons, they had been erected along the northern edge of the encampment, as far as possible from any attack; and they called out to every dimension of her health-sense, beseeching her for succour. There the most grievously wounded of Berek’s army carried on their faint and fading struggle for life.

Linden was an unskilled horsewoman, but she knew enough to turn her mount’s head so that the beast directed its lengthening strides toward the pavilions. At the same time, she urged more power from the Staff to protect the horse from slipping on the treacherous slope. In that way, she gathered her own strength as well as her mount’s, so that she would be able to bear what lay ahead of her.

Her haste attracted attention at several points along the edge of the camp. And as she approached the light, her open cloak, red shirt, and stained jeans marked her as a stranger; a likely threat. Shouts rose against her. At least half a dozen warriors ran for their horses, plainly intending to intercept her.

In response, she summoned fire like a shout from the end of the Staff and kicked awkwardly at her mount’s sides, trying to compel more speed.

Her display made the men and women racing for their mounts hesitate. More shouts scattered through the camp, dragging warriors urgently away from their chores and cookfires. Doubtless Berek’s forces were acquainted with theurgy. The King whom they had opposed had been counselled by a Raver. They had felt black malevolence from the east, and knew their Lord’s unforeseen might. A few of them had witnessed the salvific rampage of the FireLions. Nonetheless it was likely that none of them had ever seen Earthpower in thetic fire. And apparently most of them had not yet felt the first stirrings of health-sense. They could not look at Linden’s emblazoned rush and recognise that she wielded the same Law which had brought the FireLions to Berek’s aid.

Commanders yelled orders. A few warriors flung themselves onto their mounts, followed by others-and by still others. As Linden reached level ground and sped toward the tents of the wounded, holding aloft her pennon of power, a thickening barricade of riders surged into formation across her path.

She could not fight them. Nor could she bear to be stopped. In her ears, the need of Berek’s wounded and dying was as loud as a wail, and as compulsory as blood. Even the men and women who rode out to refuse her were rife with injuries.

Mustering fire, she called in a voice of flame, “By Yellinin’s command! I’m a healer! Let me pass!”

Again Berek’s warriors hesitated. Some began to rein in their mounts: others veered aside. But an older veteran, hardened and glaring, yelled back, “Yellinin’s command does not suffice! Halt and answer!”

Linden swore to herself. If she could elude the riders, she suspected that her mount would be able to outdistance them. Its energy was the Staffs. But they were mere heartbeats away. And the prospect of delays and argument was intolerable.

Shouting, “In Lord Berek’s name!” she mentally stamped one heel of her Staff against the frozen ground. With Earthpower and Law, she sent a concussion like the tremor of an earthquake rolling under the hooves of the advancing horses.

Covenant and Jeremiah had withstood worse when she had closed the caesure of the Demondim. The Theomach might not protect them; but they had risked too much: they would not allow themselves to be banished now.

Instinctive animal terror cleared her passage. Some of the beasts stumbled, pitching their riders. Others shied; reared; wheeled away. Their panic forced the riders behind them to struggle for control.

Through the momentary turmoil, Linden’s mount raced like Hyn, pounding the ice and dirt toward the tents of the wounded. Followed by shouts of rage and alarm, she ran for her destination.

She was now little more than a hundred paces from the edge of the encampment. When she dismounted, she would be within twenty or thirty steps of the nearest pavilion. But during her dash at the camp, Berek’s commanders had readied a wall of swords and spears to resist her. Warriors stood clenched against their fear. Damn it: this was the cost of her haste. She had left behind anyone who might have spoken for her. Now she seemed to have no choice except to fight or fail.

But she had seen too much death and could not do otherwise than she had done.

She began to pull on her mount’s reins, slowing the beast so that the warriors ahead of her would see that she did not mean to hurl herself onto their weapons. While riders swept toward her, she eased the horse to a canter; to a walk. Then she slipped down from the beast’s back and left it.

A heartbeat later, horses clattered to a halt behind her. But she did not turn toward them. Striding directly at the wall of warriors, she let the Staffs fire die away. She wanted Berek’s people to recognise that she had no wish to harm them. Then she said as calmly as she could, knowing that she was close enough to be heard, “By Yellinin’s command, and in Lord Berek’s name, let me pass. Please. I would beg you, but I don’t have time. Your friends are dying in those tents.”

Still the points of the spears and the edges of the swords confronted her. Berek’s forces had grown accustomed to fear and death: they may not have been capable of heeding her.

“I’m a healer.” She walked straight at the barricade of warriors. “I intend to help. Either cut me down”- she did not raise her voice- “or let me pass.”

No one answered her. She heard no order given; felt no conscious decision reached. Yet something in her tone or her manner, her strangeness or her steady stride, must have inspired conviction. When she drew near enough to spit herself on the first of the spears, it lifted out of her path. Abruptly several men and women lowered their swords. More spears followed the example of the first. The warriors stared at her with fierce concentration: their eyes held every shade of apprehension and doubt. Nevertheless they parted so that she could walk between them.

For a moment, tears blurred her sight. “Thank you,” she murmured unsteadily, “thank you,” as she moved unhurt into the encampment.

Men and women formed an aisle for her, a gauntlet, all with their weapons held ready-and all motionless in spite of their uneasy tension. Here and there, firelight reflected in their eyes, or on the battered metal of their breastplates. Many of them wore hardened leather caps in lieu of helmets; leather vambraces and other protection. All were variously clad in blood and bandages. As individuals, they ached with weariness and old wounds, entrenched loss and desperation. Together they hurt Linden’s senses like a festering abscess. Yet she caught only hints of hopelessness or despair. Berek’s people were sustained by their deep belief in him. It kept them on their feet.

She loathed war and killing. At times, she did not know how to accept humankind’s readiness for evil. But she was already starting to admire Berek, and she had not yet met him. His spirit preserved his people when every other resource failed. And he was the reason-she was sure of this-that they had refrained from slaying her. She had invoked his name. They strove to prove themselves worthy of him.

Roughly she rubbed away her tears. Without hesitation, she followed the aisle and her raw nerves toward the nearest pavilion.

As she approached the heavy canvas, torn and filthy from too much use, her perceptions of distress accumulated. The naked human suffering ahead of her was worse than any she had faced before.

She had spent years preparing for such crises. Nothing in that tent was more severe than the mangled cost of car wrecks or bad falls; the outcome of drunken brawls and domestic abuse; the vicious ruin of gunshots. Berek’s people were not more severely damaged than Sahah had been, or others of the Ramen, or the Masters who had opposed the Demondim.

But there were so many of them-And they were being given such primitive care-During the last strides of her approach to the pavilion, she felt three of them die. More than a score of them lingered on the absolute edge of death, kept alive only by simple unbending steadfastness; by the strength of their desire not to fail their Lord. Before long, they would slip away, some stupefied by their wounds, others in pure agony. And this was only one tent: there were two more.

Never before had Linden faced bleeding need on this scale: not by several orders of magnitude. The grim frantic hours that she and Julius Berenford had spent in surgery after Covenant’s murder were paltry by comparison.

And her nerves were raw; too raw. She felt every severed limb and broken skull, every pierced abdomen and slashed joint, as if they had been incused on her own flesh. Nevertheless she did not falter. She would not. Confronted with such pain, she would allow nothing to prevent her from doing what she could.

Trust yourself.

As if she had forgotten her own mortality, she thrust the stiff fabric of the opening aside and strode into the tent.

She hardly noticed that no one entered behind her.

The tent was supported by four heavy poles, each more than twice her height. And the interior was illuminated by oil lamps, at least a score of them. Nevertheless she could scarcely descry the far wall. The whole place was full of smoke, a heavy brume so thick and pungent that her eyes watered instantly and she began to cough before she had taken two steps across the dirt floor.

God damn it, she might have shouted, are you trying to suffocate them? Almost at once, however, her senses came into focus, and she saw and smelled and felt that the rank fug arose from burning herbs. It was a febrifuge of some kind, intended to combat fever. In addition, it had a degree of virtue against infection. Beyond question, it hurt the lungs of the wounded. But most of them had grown accustomed to it, or were too weak to cough. And it kept some of them alive.

They lay on the iron ground in long rows, protected from the cold only by thin straw pallets padded with blankets. But the blankets had been fouled by months or seasons of blood and pus and sputum, urine and faeces: they were caked and crusted with disease. Still coughing, Linden discerned pneumonia and dysentery rampant around her, exacerbating the bitter throng of wounds and a host of other illnesses.

Then she understood that the true horror of this war was not that so many people were dying, but rather that so many still clung to life. Death would have been kinder-The men and women who served as Berek’s physicians had wrought miracles against impossible odds.

There were three of them in the tent, two men and a woman: three to care for twenty or thirty times that many wounded and dying. As one of them came toward her, she saw that he wore a thick grey robe nearly as vile as the blankets. A length of rope cinched his waist, and from it hung several pouches of herbs-his only medicines-as well as a short heavy sword and a crude saw which he obviously, too obviously, used for amputations. He trembled with fatigue as he approached, a heavy burden of sleep deprivation. Rheum dulled his gaze, and the weak flat sound of his cough told Linden as clearly as blood work that he had contracted pneumonia.

Nevertheless he did his best to accost her. “Begone,” he wheezed irritably. This is no place for you, stranger, madwoman. I will summon-”

Linden silenced him with a sharp gesture. Before he could protest, she drew flame blooming from her Staff.

She had spent ten years without percipience and Earthpower, restricted to the surface of life. During that time, she had lost much of her familiarity with the Land’s gifts. But in recent days, she had made repeated use of the Staff. Unaware of what would be required of her, she had nonetheless trained her nerves and sharpened her perceptions for this crisis, this multitude of pain. To that extent, at least, she was ready.

Carefully she sent out sheets of yellow fire, immaculate as sunshine, and wrapped them like a cocoon around the physician.

She knew exactly what he needed: she felt it in her own blood and bone. Swift as instinct, she found his tiredness, his illness, his unremitting exposure to infection, and she swept them away.

She barely heard the other two physicians yell in alarm. From their perspective, their comrade must have appeared to blaze like an auto da fe. And she paid no heed to the answering shouts from outside the tent. When warriors burst past the tent flaps behind her, she ignored them. Her concentration admitted no intrusion.

The physician’s heart had time to beat twice or thrice while she worked. Then she released him from fire. The emotional and spiritual toll of his labours she could not heal, but she left him physically whole: staggering with surprise, and exalted by relief and wellness.

At once, Linden turned away and dropped to her knees beside the nearest of the wounded.

This warrior was a woman, and Linden knew that she was not yet dying. She might linger for several days, excruciated by fever and infection. The sword-cut which had split her breastplate and opened her ribs was not necessarily fatal. With cleanliness and rest, it might heal on its own. But her left foot had been amputated above the ankle, and there her real danger lay. Her shin suppurated with infection and anguish. Slivers of bone protruded from the mass of pus and maggots where one of the physicians had attempted to save her life.

She was far from being the most needy warrior here. She was simply the nearest. For that reason, Linden had chosen her.

The other physicians still called for help. Linden heard quick steps at her back; swords drawn. No one here could comprehend what she was doing. They saw only fire and were afraid. She needed to show them what her actions meant before a blade bit into her back.

Hurrying, she closed her eyes; refined her attention; swathed the wounded woman in Earthpower. With flame, she burned away infection and maggots, cleansed poisons, excised and sealed necrotic tissues, knit together shards of bone. And she caused no pain: the bright efficacy of the Staff was as soothing as Glimmermere’s lacustrine roborant.

Near her, the physician yelled frantically, “Halt!” She felt him leap to intercept the stroke of a sword. “Do not!” His voice became a roar as he found his strength. “Heaven and Earth, are you blind? She has mended me!”

There must have been whetted iron mere inches from her neck; but Linden allowed nothing to interrupt her as she assoiled the fallen woman’s injuries.

When she was done, she quenched the Staff and raised her head.

The rumpled hood of her cloak touched the edge of a sword. “What madness is this?” demanded one of the warriors behind her, a man. “She has set flame to a woman who might have lived, and you wish her spared?”

“Unclose your eyes,” retorted the physician. “Behold what she has done. It is not harm.

“By my life,” he added more softly, in wonder, “I had forgotten that there was once a time when I was not ill.”

The healed woman tried to lift her head from the pallet. “What-?” she asked weakly. “What has become of my pain? Why am I not in pain?”

Daring Berek’s people to cut at her now, Linden braced herself on the Staff and rose to her feet. She felt their astonishment; their reluctance to credit what they saw and heard. They had so little experience of the Land’s true life-They could not imagine its implications.

However, the physician did not leave the warriors to reach their own conclusions. Suddenly resolute, he commanded, “Begone!” as he had tried to command Linden. This lady”- he could hardly find words for his amazement- “will do no hurt. Mayhap she will work great good, if she is not hindered. Depart, that I may beseech her aid.”

Flapping both arms, he gestured in dismissal until the men and women behind Linden complied. Then he turned to her while his fellow healers hastened among the rows toward him.

“My lady,” he began, flustered by healing and hope, “I comprehend naught here. Such fire-It is beyond-

“But”- he seemed to grasp himself roughly with both hands- “I do not require comprehension, and must not delay. Will you grant us further flame? We are badly surpassed. The need is too great to be numbered. Our simples and implements redeem few. Most perish.” The rheum in his eyes had become tears. “I will prostrate myself, if that will sway you-”

He began to sink to his knees.

Still Linden did not falter. The tent had become an emergency room, and she was a surgeon. Grabbing quickly at the man’s arm, she said, “Of course I’ll help. That’s why I’m here. But I need you to do triage for me.” When he frowned at the unfamiliar word, she explained. “I should treat the worst cases first, but I don’t know who they are. You’ll have to tell me.” Guide me. The sheer scale of the suffering around her confused her perceptions. “And get me some drinking water.”

She would need more than the Staff could provide to sustain her during the ordeal ahead.

The man’s mouth formed the word “cases” in silent confusion. Nevertheless he grasped her meaning. “Then commence with the fifth in this row,” he replied, nodding to Linden’s left. He seemed ready to obey her smallest word. “Palla and Jevin will direct you further.” Plainly he meant his fellow physicians. “I am Vertorn. I will command wine from the guards to refresh you.”

Good enough, Linden thought. She had to get to work. Pausing only to say, “I’m Linden. Don’t be afraid of anything you see,” she strode toward the pallet Vertorn had suggested.

When she saw how badly the man there had been slashed and pierced, she might have quailed, overwhelmed by the scale of her dilemma. He looked like he had been hung up like a dummy and used for weapons practice. His life was little more than a wisp of breath in the back of his throat. With her Staff, she had the capacity to fill the entire tent with vivifying flame. The iron-shod wood was constrained only by her own limitations. But she was too human to function in that way. She had to see what she strove to heal; needed to focus her attention on each individual wound and illness. In her hands, an undefined broadside of Earthpower might do more harm than good. She could only struggle to save one patient at a time, treat one need at a time, as she had always done.

And they were so many-

But during the single heartbeat when her courage might have broken, she felt a woman immediately behind her slip into death. After that, she did not hesitate. Unfurling the Staffs severe and kindly puissance like an oriflamme, she began her chosen task.

She had called herself a healer. Now she set about justifying her name.

She did not know how long she laboured; could not count the men and women whom she retrieved from the ruins of war. When smoke and strain blurred her vision, the woman, Palla, led her by the hand while the man, Jevin, called out the location of her next patient. Whenever Vertorn thrust a flagon into her grasp, she gulped down a few swallows of whatever it contained. Everything else was a nightmare succession of rent flesh, shattered bone, rampant infection, and multiplied agony.

People were reduced to this by battle and pain: they became nothing more than the sum of their sufferings. And like them, she shrank. Long after she had passed the conscious borders of her endurance, and had become mere scraps of awareness, fragments composed almost exclusively of health-sense and Earthpower-blinded by tears, deaf to sobbing and wails, nearly insensate-she continued from hurt to hurt, and did not heed the cost. That she could not save them all, just one tent of three, meant nothing to her. Only the wound immediately in front of her held any significance: the mortifying infection; the instance of pleurisy, or pneumonia, or scabies, or inanition; the mute or whimpering protest of savaged flesh.

Dimly she felt in Pallas touch, heard in Jevin’s voice, that their ailments were no less than Vertorn’s had been. But she had nothing to spare for them. And she neglected to draw on the Staff for her own needs. She had grown unreal to herself; had become mere percipience and flame. A healer who collapsed from exhaustion could treat no one. But she trusted the steady exertion of so much Earthpower to protect her from prostration.

Then, however, she finished tending a man whose abdomen had been savagely lacerated-and Jevin did not call her to a new location. Nor did Palla draw her along the rows.

Instead a voice that may have been Vertorn’s addressed her.

“My lady?” he said tentatively. “My lady Linden. You must desist. You must restore yourself. Lord Berek has come. He requires speech with you.”

When Linden did not respond, the physician reached through flame to slap her cheek lightly. “My lady, hear me. It is Lord Berek who desires to speak with you.”

Linden drew a shuddering breath. Unsteadily she released the Staffs power; let it fall away. Then she found herself hanging between Palla and Jevin while they struggled to uphold her. Blinking at the smoke in her eyes, the blood, the lingering sight of wounds, she saw Vertorn offer a flagon to her lips.

“Drink,” he commanded, peremptory with trepidation. The wine is rank, but I have included herbs to nourish you. You must be restored. It is imperative.”

Dully she accepted a few swallows from the flagon. The wine had an acrid taste, raw and biting, but it gave a small measure of energy to her overstrained nerves and muscles.

Lord Berek-

There was something that Vertorn wanted her to understand.

Lord Berek has come.

She tried to say, Let him wait. This is more important. But she was not strong enough. And Vertorn’s interruption forced her to recognise that she could not refuse him. She had only reduced the suffering in the tent; the argute throb of infection and fever; the predatory crouch of death. She would not be able to end it alone.

She needed help-

The thought that Berek wished to speak with her seemed inconsequential; unworthy of regard. But she had to speak to him.

Now she clasped the Staff hungrily, almost begging for its beneficence. Without its nourishment, she would hardly be able to walk. The plight of the wounded required more from her.

When she had imposed a degree of Earthpower on her depleted nerves, her worn heart, she murmured hoarsely. “You’ll have to lead me. I can’t see very well.”

There was too much smoke in the air. And the outcome of sword-cuts and disease was more vivid to her than mere rows of rancid pallets or insignificant tent poles.

Jevin and Palla continued to support her. While she moved-slowly, slowly, feeble as an old woman-she sent some of the Staff’s sovereign healing, as much as she could muster, through herself into the physicians. Faintly she gave them a little Earthpower, a small portion of health. Like Vertorn, they were essential: they would have to care for the fallen when she was gone.

In spite of the smoke, she saw her task clearly. It was too much for her. Somehow she would have to win Berek’s aid.

She must have been closer to the opening of the tent than she realised. When Vertorn stepped aside, bowing his deference, she beheld Berek Halfhand for the first time.

Involuntarily she stopped; stared. She had not expected to encounter a man who seemed more compelling, more crucial, than the injuries and deaths of his warriors.

There was Earthpower in him, that was obvious: as potent as Anele’s inheritance, but closer to the surface, more readily accessible. However, his numinous energy was not what caused him to stand out from his escort of warriors as if he were somehow more real than they, more significant and substantial.

Nor did his vividness, his particular intensity, arise from his physical presence. He was little more than half a head taller than Linden: a stocky man, broad of shoulder and girth; prematurely bald, with deep eyes, a short-cropped beard the colour of old iron, and a nose that had been dented by a blow. His hands looked as heavy as truncheons, and they had seen hard use in spite of the loss of two of his fingers; the same two which had been amputated from Covenant. The slashed and battered condition of his cuirass and vambraces proclaimed that he did not remain aloof from battle. He was a powerful man, familiar with fighting for his life. Yet that also did not account for his obvious dominance, his air of unmistakable authority. Most of the men and women in his escort were muscular and injured, marked by an interminable series of fierce engagements.

No, it was his emotional aura that made him seem more distinct, more necessary, than the people with him. Covenant had said, He’s charismatic as all hell, but Linden saw more. With her full senses, she discerned that he was haunted by death; that loss and despair had been carved into the bedrock of his nature. And the sheer depth of his bereavements had taught him a desperate compassion. She loathed war, but her abhorrence lacked the intimacy of his, the hideously prolonged exposure to that which rent his heart. Now he grieved for his foes as much as for his own forces. When he slew them, he did so as if he were weeping; as if his strokes were sobs. He fought-and fought endlessly, season after season, battle upon battle-only because the darkness which drove his enemies left him no choice. And because he had given his oath to the Land.

He would have questions for her. He would demand answers. And Linden could not imagine arguing with such a man, or attempting to persuade him. When Vertorn announced with a bow. “My lord Berek, here is my lady Linden,” she did not respond. Nothing that she could say would raise her to the stature of the man who had created the first Staff of Law and founded the Council of Lords.

Yet Berek bowed to her as though her muteness were eloquence, and his gratitude enfolded her like an embrace. “My lady,” he said in a voice made gruff by incessant shouting. “your coming is a great benison, a boon beyond our conception. Already you have wrought miracles among us. Yet even a sightless man may behold your weariness. Will you not rest? With your consent, I will provide food and safety, and such small comforts as we possess, and will count myself glad to do so.”

Without warning, tears which were not caused by smoke and fatigue filled Linden’s eyes. She had not expected gentle courtesy from a man fighting for survival. Nevertheless she stiffened slightly; drew back as if she had taken offense. Surely, she would have said if she had not forgotten her voice, surely your wounded are more important? There are two more tents.

Berek studied her, apparently gauging her silence. Then he offered in the same tone, “If you will not rest, name any aid that you require. If it exists, and if it is possible for us, it will be granted to you.”

He seemed to understand that she could not turn away from his injured, his dying. In her place, he would have felt as she did.

Roughly Linden squeezed the tears from her eyes. Like wild magic, her voice was hidden from her; but she searched until she found it.

“Lord Berek,” she said in a thin croak. “My lord.” That was as close as she could come to matching his courtesy. “You’ve changed. You see different things now. New things.”

He nodded, frowning. “It is strange to me, glorious but unclear.” Her question may have perplexed or disturbed him: he had reason to wonder how she knew such things. Yet he answered without hesitation. “I cannot identify the significance of that which I now behold.”

You will, Linden would have told him. Just give it time. But too many people were dying. She could not afford to waste words. Instead she asked. “Have you seen any mud-or fine sand-that sparkles? Gleams? Like it has bits of gold in it? Or flecks of sunlight?”

Berek’s frown deepened. “I have, my lady.” Plainly he wanted to inquire, What do you know of this? How is it that you comprehend my transformation? But he did not. “It lies along the flow of water in streams and rivers. Sadly, I have no lore to name it.”

Her heart lifted a little. “Is there any of it nearby?”

“There is, my lady.” Again he did not question her. “We endeavour to place our encampments near water, as armies must. A creek lies a stone’s throw distant. When we broke the ice to draw water, I glimpsed a sand such as you describe.”

To herself, Linden breathed, Thank God. “It’s called hurtloam.” Unexpected hope filled her with trembling. “It’s full of the same power that’s changing you, the same power that you saw in the FireLions. It heals.”

Hearing herself, she wanted to wince. Heals was too small a word for the mystery of hurtloam. But she continued in spite of her inadequacy. “We need it. As much as you can find. Bring it here. And carry it in stone.” Stone would preserve its efficacy. “I’ll show your people how to use it.”

Surely now he would question her, and expect to be answered? Surely he would not comply merely because she had spoken?

But Berek turned at once to his escort. “Hand Damelon.”

A young man stepped forward promptly. Linden would have guessed that he was no older than Liand, although he had seen as much hard combat as anyone around him. He saluted by tapping his right fist twice against his twisted and mended cuirass, then asked. “My lord?”

Linden was too tired and numb to feel surprise. Damelon-Through the grime and blood of battle, the young man’s resemblance to his father was unmistakable, although he was somewhat taller and not as broad. Also he lacked Berek’s damaged nose as well as Berek’s emanation of Earthpower.

She was looking at the future High Lord Damelon Giantfriend, the man who would one day discover the Blood of the Earth.

Humbled by the presence of legends, she hardly heard Berek say, “Hand, you have gathered the names of those who report alterations to their sight and senses.”

“I have, my lord.” Presumably a Hand was an aide of some kind. “Some two score remain able to wield their weapons.”

In response, Berek ordered. “Inform each Haft and Warhaft,” although there was no command in his voice. He had no reason to doubt that he would be obeyed. All who are able to discern the gleaming in the sand will hasten to the creek, bearing any stone which may be used to convey the sand hither. They will search diligently for as much as may be found. Others will bear torches to light the search.”

Damelon nodded. “At once, my lord.” With a second salute, the young man strode quickly out of the tent.

Berek returned his deep gaze to

Linden. “Surely there is more, my lady?” His voice was rough with compassion. “You are one, and those who suffer, many. For their sake, will you not name further aid?”

Linden took a step backward. She had felt another warrior perish, a man no more than half a dozen paces away. Everywhere in the tent, she heard wounds cry out for succour.

“Just let me work, my lord.” She doubted that Covenant, Jeremiah, or the Theomach would-or could-help her. And Covenant and Jeremiah would not be able to abide Berek’s presence. Assuming that they had reached the camp unhindered- “I can’t think of anything else.” She did not feel equal to the challenge of explaining aliantha. “We need to talk. I know that. But first-” She gestured weakly around the wide tent.

“Yet you are weary,” Berek countered, “nearly falling. Is there naught that you require for yourself?”

Linden paused for a moment. Almost timidly, she murmured. “I left three companions behind. I hope that they’re safe.” Then she turned her back on Berek Halfhand.

While she reached out mentally for the strength of the Staff, she whispered to Palla, “Guide me, please. I need to rest my eyes.” She did not know another way to contain her weeping.

If Berek’s people found enough hurtloam, she could allow herself-

As Palla led her away, Berek commanded gently. “Healer Vertorn, you will interrupt the lady Linden after each healing. You will not permit her to continue until she has swallowed a little of your wine and eaten a mouthful of bread.”

“My lord, it will be done,” replied the physician. Linden felt him hurrying after her.

But she soon forgot such details. Within moments, she had immersed herself once more in the hurts of the wounded and the fire of the Staff.

This time, however, she did not neglect to draw on Earthpower for support. And she did not resist Vertorn’s efforts to minister to her. The prospect of hurtloam had that effect on her: she no longer felt driven to care for every need except her own.

At some point during her endless progress back and forth around the tent, she became peripherally aware that Berek had not departed. He seemed to be standing guard, not over her, but for her; ready to give her his assistance if she required it. But she did not let his presence distract her from the next sword-cut and spear-thrust, the next trauma, the next putrefying infection. She swallowed wine and chewed bread as Palla guided her from patient to patient, and did not relax her flames.

By degrees, she grew stronger, in spite of her exertions. Vertorn’s herbed wine was a mild restorative. Bits of bread gave her a little nourishment. And the Staff sustained her. It could not redeem her mortality, but it preserved her concentration so that she was able to work effectively.

Then the first of the hurtloam arrived, carried in stone urns or on brittle pieces of slate. Linden dipped her finger into the glittering sand to show Vertorn, Palla, and Jevin how little was required for each wound, and how wondrously it took effect; and as she did so, she granted healing to herself. Spangles of revitalisation lit the blood in her veins, coursing through her heart until her pulse lost its febrile weakness, and the trembling in her muscles receded. Gradually the illimitable gift of the Land restored her to herself.

She was dimly amazed by the abundance of the vein of hurtloam which Berek had discovered. A score of his people made several trips each to convey the sand. Perhaps this was simply another instance of the Land’s largesse, undiminished because it had not been used until now. Or perhaps, like the FireLions, it expressed the Land’s response to Berek’s oath.

When Linden could finally blink the smoke and tears from her eyes-when she was able to see as well as feel the excitement, the near ecstasy, of the three physicians-she sent Vertorn, Jevin, and the irregular stream of warriors bearing hurtloam to the other tents. Those warriors, too, had been healed as they gathered the sand, and they carried their burdens with eager alacrity.

She did not think about ripples or time. She thought about lives that would have been lost, men and women who still needed care; and she was not afraid.

For a while, she and Palla laboured over the pallets alone, moving as efficiently as they could through the array of injuries and infections. But soon she realised that the worst was over. Dozens of warriors remained stricken, but none were near death. Some would cling to life for another day or two, some considerably longer. And Berek understood hurtloam now: he would search for it everywhere. In addition, Linden saw in Palla that touching the ineffable sand had awakened the physician’s latent health-sense. She, and Vertorn and Jevin, and perhaps every warrior who had been healed by it, would be able to recognise hurtloam for themselves.

If Linden rested now, she would not have so many-too many-lives on her conscience.

To spare herself, she began a more partial form of treatment, focusing on infections, pneumonia, and other illnesses rather than wounds. These required her keenest percipience, but they needed subtler care; demanded less raw power.

In her concentration, she did not immediately notice the growing mutter of voices outside the tent; the occasional shouts. But then she heard Covenant rasp distinctly, “Hellfire! Get your hands off me, you overgrown oaf!”

“Covenant!” protested Jeremiah. “We can’t-Berek-!”

Other voices protested as well. “Warhaft!” Yellinin shouted. “Lord Berek commanded courtesy!” And Basila added, “Are you deaf? The tale of her healing is everywhere!”

But Krenwill, who had vouched for Linden’s truthfulness, countered, “You do not see them, Basila. I did not until we gained the light of the encampment. They are sealed against discernment. Unnaturally sealed. They may conceal vast powers. Fatal powers, Yellinin. If they mean harm to Lord Berek-”

“Warhaft Inbull!” roared a man who sounded like Damelon. You will desist! Lord Berek has commanded courtesy.”

“I will not,” a guttural voice retorted. “Let Lord Berek chastise me if he must. I will not hazard his life on the faith of strangers merely because they journey with a woman who heals.”

Oh, shit. Forgetting the wounded, Linden dropped her fire and ran.

Ahead of her, the tent flaps burst open. Both Jeremiah and Covenant were flung inward by a huge man with rage on his face and blood on his knuckles.

An instant later, Damelon sprang in front of the Warhaft, attempting to restrain Inbull by main strength. But the big man swatted Damelon aside as though the Hand were a minor annoyance.

Linden saw him clearly, in spite of the smoke; saw him as if he were surrounded by torches. He looked as solid as oak, with massively gnarled limbs and a mouth full of broken teeth. The heavy slash of a sword had cut deeply into the left side of his face and head, smashing bone and cutting away flesh; chopping out a crease which had collapsed his features. The only expression left to him was a grimace as suggestive of death as a rictus.

Between one heartbeat and the next, running frantically, Linden understood that he was a traitor. His brutality was the self-loathing of a man who had turned his back on a cause in which he had once believed. She did not know how or why his loyalties had changed. Nonetheless his betrayal was as palpable as a chancre.

He had brought Covenant and Jeremiah here violently because he hoped to provoke an attack.

At the same time, almost simultaneously, she saw Jeremiah stumble to his hands and knees near Berek’s feet. And she saw that he had been hit. His left eye had been struck as if with a club. Some of the bones there may have been cracked. His eye had already swollen shut, silencing the cipher of his tic.

His blood still tainted the Warhaft’s knuckles. That was how Inbull had prevented Jeremiah from defending himself and Covenant. The Warhaft had taken her son by surprise, her son, striking him down before he recognised his peril.

And at the same time again, as though the images were superimposed, Linden saw Covenant struggling to avoid a collision with Berek. Covenant, too, had been struck: he staggered as if his ribs had been broken. But his efforts to recover his balance were hindered by the fact that he kept his right hand, his halfhand, thrust deep in the pocket of his jeans.

Frowning darkly at the clamour, Berek turned in time to reach out with one strong hand. While Linden strove to shout a warning and could not-the crisis came upon her too swiftly-Berek caught Covenant by the shoulder and steadied him.

Then Berek snatched back his hand as though he had been scalded. Involuntarily he gasped-

— and Covenant did not disappear.

Nor did Jeremiah. He remained on his hands and knees, staring with his good eye at Covenant and Berek in dismay.

Cursing, Covenant jerked away from Berek; into Inbull’s reach.

The Warhaft cocked his fist as if he had been justified by Berek’s reaction-and still Linden could not summon a shout. Although she ran desperately, she hardly seemed to move.

In a tone like the bite of a sword, Berek snapped. “If you strike again, Warhaft, I will have your head.”

Without warning, Linden was wrenched to a halt, caught in the grasp of the Theomach. Somehow he had passed through the throng of warriors as though they did not exist; or he did not. Now he stood in front of her. Catching her arms in a grip as compulsory as manacles, he absorbed the force of her haste effortlessly.

Her heart may have had time to beat once. She heard both Covenant’s voice and Berek’s, Covenant swearing viciously, Berek demanding explanations. But then everything blurred as if the Theomach had lifted her partway into a different reality, shifted her slightly out of sequence with her surroundings; and all sound was cut off. She seemed to stand with the Insequent in a hiatus between moments, a place where causality and result had not yet moved on to their next incarnation.

Within their private silence, the Theomach urged her softly. “Say nothing, lady. Do not speak here. There are intentions at work which you do not yet comprehend, and upon which the outcome of this time in large measure depends.”

She fought him briefly. When she realised that she could not break free, however, she ceased struggling. Only her Staff and Covenant’s ring would aid her here; and they might prove disastrous.

Able to raise her voice at last, she shouted into the Theomach’s face, You did this! This is your path. Jeremiah can’t defend himself. There’s nothing Covenant can do. You haven’t left them any choice!”

He shrugged. “That is sooth.” His wrapped face made him appear as cryptic and careless as an oracle. “I regret that I did not foresee the Warhaft’s falseness and brutality. I desire only to aid Lord Berek. Therefore I employ your wisdom-aye, and your valour also-to appease his mistrust toward strangers. Thus I am indeed culpable for the harm which has befallen your comrades.”

Linden spat an oath. At that moment-between those moments-the Theomach’s intentions meant nothing to her. Ignoring his near-apology, she demanded. But why didn’t Covenant vanish?” And Jeremiah? “He said that Berek’s Earthpower is too strong-”

The Insequent studied her through his cerements. “The force within Lord Berek has not yet fully awakened.” As he spoke, he eased his hard clasp on her arms. “And he whom you name Covenant is more hardy than he has encouraged you to believe.”

Then he urged again, “Still I must insist, lady. I must caution you. Say nothing in the presence of others. When Lord Berek speaks with you and your companions alone, as he must, be chary in your replies. If you are at any time uncertain of what may be said, permit me to answer in your stead. By my true name, which is known to you, I assure you that my first purpose is to aid Lord Berek-and to preserve the Arch of Time.”

He did not wait for her to find a response. When he released her, her surroundings-the tent and the smoke, the pallets of the wounded, the conflicted outrage facing Berek sprang back into clarity; and she heard Covenant snarl. “-fire, Berek, this is intolerable. We don’t deserve it.”

“You do not.” Berek’s voice held its cutting edge. “Warhaft Inbull has harmed you, and will answer for his deeds. I demand only the name of the power which has burned my hand.”

Freed from the Theomach’s theurgy, Linden would have rushed to Jeremiah’s side. She might have forgotten that he had forbidden her to touch him. But the Insequent arrived ahead of her. Without apparent transition or movement, he stood between Berek and Linden’s companions. Yet Berek was not startled. None of the observers reacted to the Theomach’s suddenness. He had cast a glamour on their senses-or on Linden’s.

“My lord Berek,” he said smoothly, “permit me to intercede. I am the Theomach. The fault of this contention is mine. This man and this boy are companions of the lady. She names them Covenant and Jeremiah, her son, as she names herself Linden. They have come by my guidance. I drew them hither because I deemed her aid a treasure beyond estimation, and because I desire to aid you also. Surely her companions may be forgiven much, despite their unruly puissance, for the sake of what she has wrought.”

At last, Linden was able to move normally. With a few quick strides, she skidded to her knees beside Jeremiah, almost within reach of his battered head. “Jeremiah, honey,” she panted. “are you all right? How badly did he hurt you?”

Her furious desire to lash out at Inbull, she suppressed. The Theomach had warned her. And she judged Berek to be a man who would not let the Warhaft’s mendacity pass.

Inbull may have hurt Berek’s own son as well.

Reflexively Linden stretched out her hand to Jeremiah.

“Don’t, Mom,” he gasped. His face was full of alarm. “Don’t touch me. Don’t heal me. Or Covenant. We’ll be all right. The Staff-” Blood spread down his cheek, catching in his nascent stubble until the left side of his face seemed webbed with pain; snared in deceit and cruelty. “Even hurtloam will erase us. You don’t understand how hard this is.”

Oh, Jeremiah. Linden stopped herself. Her upper arms throbbed where the Theomach had gripped her. Swallowing a rush of grief, she asked, “Can you heal yourself? That looks pretty bad. He must have cracked some of the bones.”

She could not determine how gravely he had been injured. He remained closed to her; unnaturally impenetrable, as Krenwill had claimed.

“Covenant will take care of it.” Jeremiah pulled himself up from his hands, kneeling beyond her reach. His attention shifted back to Covenant and Berek; dismissed Linden.

Berek continued to confront the Theomach. Doubt rasped in his voice as he asked, “What aid do you offer, stranger?”

The Insequent tapped his bound chest with his fist twice, imitating Damelon’s earlier salute. “My lord, if it is your will, I will teach you the meaning of your new strengths.”

Berek raised his eyebrows. “And whence comes this un-looked-for wish to aid me?”

“That, my lord,” the Theomach replied, unruffled, “I may not bespeak openly. The lore which I offer is for you alone.”

Berek returned an unconvinced snort. But he did not press the Theomach. Instead he looked at Linden. His eyes seemed to probe her soul as he said, “My lady Linden, you have performed such service here that no honour or guerdon can suffice to repay it. Yet the task entrusted to me exceeds these wounded. It requires also the defeat of the Queen’s foes. Ultimately it demands the nurturance of the Land. Therefore I must remain wary while my heart swells with thankfulness.

“Will you claim my sufferance on behalf of your companions?”

Abruptly wary herself, and abashed in Berek’s presence, Linden rose to her feet. Hugging the Staff to her chest, she met his gaze, although his penetration daunted her.

“Jeremiah is my son,” she began awkwardly. “Covenant is-”

For a moment, she faltered. She did not need the Theomach’s warnings to convince her that any reply might prove dangerous. Like Joan, if in her own way, she bore the burden of too much time. The wrong word might ripple outward for millennia.

But Covenant, Jeremiah, the Theomach, and Berek Halfhand were all studying her. With an effort, she forced herself to continue. “Where I come from,” she said carefully, “Covenant is a great hero. There are things about both of them that I don’t understand. But they’re with me, and I need them.”

Then she squared her shoulders. “I made the decision to come here. If it was a mistake, it’s my doing, not theirs.” Unsteadily she finished. “We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

Berek scrutinised her for a moment longer. Then he nodded decisively. “My lady, we will speak with less constraint in my tent, you and your companions”- he glanced at the shrouded figure of the Insequent- “not excluding the Theomach.

“Hand DameIon?”

Berek’s son stepped forward. “My lord?” He was flushed with the effects of lnbull’s blow; but Linden saw that he had not been seriously hurt. Not like Jeremiah-The breastplate of his cuirass had absorbed much of the impact.

“Has Warhaft Inbull dared to harm one of my Hands?” asked Berek. His self-command did not waver. Nonetheless Linden heard the throb of cold fury in the background of his voice.

“He has dared, my lord,” Damelon replied stiffly, “but he has not succeeded. His affront does not merit your concern.”

Berek flashed his son a quick glance of concern and approbation. However, his tone did not relent. “I command here. The affront is mine to gauge, and to repay.” Then he told Damelon. “While I do so, escort the lady Linden and her companions to my tent. See that they are provided with warmth and viands, and with water for the cleansing of wounds. If their hurts require any healing that we may supply, command it in my name. I will attend upon them shortly.”

Hand Damelon saluted again. “At once, my lord.” Like his father, he kept his anger to himself.

Turning to Linden, he gestured toward the opening behind Inbull. “My lady, will you accompany me?”

“We will, Hand,” the Theomach answered for her. His manner suggested a smile of satisfaction. “Accepting your courtesy, we hope to honour you in return.”

Linden let the Insequent take charge of the situation. He understood its implications better than she did. But she did not allow him to hurry her. Stooping to Jeremiah, she asked. “Can you stand, honey? Are you able to walk?”

“Hell, Linden,” Covenant growled under his breath. “Of course he can. This is important.”

“He’s right, Mom.” Jeremiah did not look at her. “It already hurts less.” With a teenager’s graceless ease, he surged to his feet. “I’ll be fine.”

Linden nodded, too baffled to question him further. According to Covenant, Berek’s touch would banish both of them. Yet they remained. She felt that she had been given hints or portents, glimpses of revelation, which she could not interpret. What did Covenant dread, if Berek’s inchoate strength posed no threat? Why had she been forbidden to hug or care for her son?

Wearily she trailed behind Jeremiah as he followed Covenant, the Theomach, and Damelon out of the tent; away from needs that she could comprehend toward an unfathomable encounter with the dangers of time.

While she and her companions passed between Berek and Inbull, the Warhaft glared hatred at them. If he feared Berek’s wrath, he did not show it. Either he was too stupid to recognise his own peril, or he knew Berek better than she did.

As she had earlier, Linden walked along aisles of warriors who had gathered to catch sight of the strangers. They all had their own wounds, their own ailments, their own yearning for restoration. But they kept their wonder and pain to themselves while she and her companions were led and warded by Damelon.

Berek’s tent was a frayed and soiled stretch of canvas supported by a single central pole. When Damelon ushered his charges inward, Linden found herself in a space large enough to hold twenty or thirty warriors standing.

In every respect, Berek’s quarters were as rudimentary as the tents of the wounded. His pallet and blankets resembled the bedding of the fallen. Apart from a low table on which rested an old longsword in a plain scabbard and a wooden chest that-she could only guess-might hold maps, the tent had no other furnishings. Two small oil lamps hanging from the tent pole cast a dim yellow illumination that seemed to shed no light, reveal nothing: the whole space was full of uncertainty like implied shadows. And scraps of ice still glazed the dirt floor. Her breath plumed as she looked around. She did not know how long she had laboured at healing; but midnight had surely passed, and winter had sunk its teeth into every vulnerable instance of warmth.

After ushering Berek’s guests into the tent, Damelon ducked past the flaps to call for braziers, honeyed wine, cured meat, dried fruit. When he returned, he said, “My lady, I crave your pardon. Our rude comforts are no true measure of our gratitude. The day will come when we stand again within the walls of Doriendor Corishev. Mayhap then you will permit us to celebrate your benisons in a more seemly manner.”

He may have been taught to speak so, with confidence and conviction, by his father’s knowledge of despair.

Linden sighed. “Don’t worry about it, please.” Barred from using the Staff, she had no defence against the cold except her cloak. And she was so tired-Already she had begun to shiver again. “We can only imagine what you’ve suffered. If you can give us heat and food, we’ll be all right.”

‘”All right, — Covenant muttered sourly. “Sure. Why not?”

The Theomach turned to him as if in warning; but Damelon ignored both of them. Instead he studied Linden like a man who wanted to imprint her on his thoughts. “You are gracious, my lady. I will not question you. That is my lord Berek’s task. But warmth and viands you will have.” More softly, he said. “Soon you will be able to rest.”

Perhaps his own percipience had begun to awaken.

Moments later, the tent flaps were pushed aside, and a pair of warriors entered, bearing a blackened metal brazier between them. It was full of coals and fire, so hot that it had to be carried on the shafts of spears. More warriors followed until the tent held four flaming pans. Then Berek’s people brought ironwood stands to support the braziers. By the time the men and women left, heat began to bless the air.

Then other warriors brought hard clay urns of warmed wine, its acidulous aroma softened with honey. A tray laden with meat and fruit arrived. Linden, Covenant, and Jeremiah were given flagons: wine was poured for them. But the Theomach refused with a bow. Nor did he touch the food. Apparently he lived on some form of nourishment entirely his own.

For a long moment, Linden held the Staff in the crook of her arm and simply cupped her flagon with both hands, savouring its heat and its sweet scent. Then she sipped gently. She had felt frozen for so long, in spite of her own efforts and Covenant’s to fend off the cold. If he and Jeremiah had not been somehow more than human, they would have suffered from frostbite.

Questions swirled around her, but she was too tired to sift them into any kind of order. What did the Theomach want with Berek? Why had Covenant lied about his vulnerability to Berek? How had Berek failed to discern lnbull’s betrayal? And how could she and her companions hope to reach Melenkurion Skyweir? She had seen for herself that Berek would be able to offer them nothing except starving horses, tattered blankets, and a little food.

How much power did Jeremiah have? And how in God’s name could Linden try to learn the truth-any truth-when she had to guard against the possibility that some action or inaction of hers might threaten the integrity of the Arch?

Ripples-As far as she knew, she had not altered the essential nature of Berek’s struggle, or the outcome of his war. Not yet. Otherwise the Theomach would have intervened. But even her trivial knowledge of the Land’s history could be fatal. With a word, she might affect Berek’s actions, or Damelon’s, altering the flow of cause and effect for generations.

The Theomach was right: she had to let him speak for her as much as she could-and to pray that Covenant would do the same in spite of his resentment.

She was not conscious of hunger; but she forced herself to chew a little tough meat and dried fruit, washing them down with honey and acid. She had to be able to think clearly, and could not imagine doing so.

Lost in questions, she ignored Damelon’s departure. But then he returned, bearing a bowl of hot water and some relatively clean scraps of cloth. These he offered to Linden, suggesting that she tend to Jeremiah’s injury.

“I can’t,” she muttered before she could catch herself. “He doesn’t want me to touch him.”

The Hand gave her a perplexed frown. While he hesitated, however, the Theomach stepped forward. “Nonetheless, my lord Damelon,” he said smoothly. “the cleansing of her son’s wound will comfort the lady.” Turning to Jeremiah, he inquired, “Will you permit me?”

“I don’t need-” Jeremiah began, but a fierce glare from Covenant stopped him. “You’re right,” he told the Theomach with a shrug. “It’ll make Mom feel better.”

Covenant kept his right hand grimly in his pocket.

Saluting as he had to Berek, the Theomach accepted the bowl and rags from Damelon’s mystified hands. His manner suggested pity as he moistened a cloth, then reached out carefully to stroke drying blood away from Jeremiah’s cheek and eye.

That task should have been Linden’s. For a moment, her grief became a kind of rage, and she trembled with the force of her desire to extract real answers from her companions. But she contained herself. There was too much at stake for anger. Her emotions would exact too much from those who needed her.

For a moment, the Theomach continued to wash Jeremiah’s wound assiduously. Jeremiah suffered the Insequent’s ministrations with glum resignation. And Covenant took long draughts of the harsh wine with an air of outrage, as if he were swallowing insults. Then Linden felt Berek approaching: his aura of Earthpower, compassion, and grimness preceded him like a standard-bearer.

Damelon seemed to become aware of his father’s nearness almost as soon as Linden did. Bowing to her, the Hand murmured. “My lady,” and left the tent.

When Berek entered, he came like a man wreathed in storms. Indignant lightnings flickered in the depths of his eyes, and his expression was a thunderhead. Linden might have flinched if she had believed, even for an instant, that his ire was directed at her; or at Jeremiah and Covenant. But she grasped instinctively that he would not have been so unguarded if any of his guests had angered him.

“What have you done about Inbull, my lord?’ she asked without thinking. “He’s betraying you. You must know that?”

The Theomach stiffened, but did not speak. Instead he dabbed at Jeremiah’s eye as if he had heard nothing to alarm him.

Berek took a moment to compose himself. He poured wine into a flagon, drank a bit of it, grimaced ruefully. When he faced Linden’s question, he had set aside his personal storm.

“The Warhaft has betrayed us. He betrays us still. Therefore he is of use.

“It is well that you did not accuse him in his presence. He believes himself unsuspected. Rather I have encouraged him to consider that he is secretly valued for his harshness. This night, I have strengthened his misapprehension.” The memory brought back Berek’s anger and disgust, although he did not unleash them. “He has contrived a means to communicate with the commander of our foes. Warmark Vettalor is a man with whom I am well familiar. We served together before my Queen broke with her King. I know his method of thought. Through Inbull, I am able to supply the Warmark with lies”- Berek snarled the words- “which he will credit. While the Warhaft’s falseness remains unexposed, I hold an advantage which Vettalor does not suspect.

“I loathe such deceit,” the first Halfhand admitted bitterly. “But my forces do not suffice to defeat Vettalor’s. And I have no source of supply apart from the battlegrounds where I prevail, and the food which I scavenge from needy villages, while Vettalor retreats ever nearer to the wealth of Doriendor Corishev. It would be false service to my Queen, and to my warriors, and to my oath, if I declined the benefits of Inbull’s treachery.”

Which explained his ire and disgust, Linden mused. It explained why despair clung to him in spite of his salvation by the FireLions and his subsequent victories. By his severe standards, he bartered away his self-respect to purchase victory.

The Old Lords were all about despair. It gave them some of their greatest victories. To that extent, at least, Covenant had told her the truth. It’s what saved Berek.

With an effort, Linden said quietly, “I see the problem.” She wanted to cry out, He hit my son! But larger considerations-Berek’s as well as her own-restrained her.

Whatever the Theomach’s motives might be, he had given her good advice.

Nevertheless she pushed Berek further. “What did you tell Inbull about us?” She wanted some indication, however oblique, of where she and her companions stood with the future High Lord.

Drinking again, Berek replied, “Naught. His uncertainty concerning you will serve me well. I have merely”- his voice carried a sting of repugnance- “assured him privily that I find worth in his brutality.”

Flourishing his arm in an obvious attempt to attract Berek’s attention, the Insequent finished cleaning Jeremiah’s wound. With the blood and grime gone from her son’s face, Linden saw to her surprise that he had already begun to heal. Despite the swelling, he could slit open his left eye. To her ordinary senses, his eye itself appeared bloodshot, but essentially undamaged.

When Berek voiced his approval of the Theomach’s care, the wrapped man replied, “My lord, it suffices that I have been of service. If I may say so without disrespect, however, greater matters than this boys hurt or lnbull’s betrayal lie between us. We would do well to speak of them while we may.”

“Perhaps.” Berek’s worn sound grated against the Theomach’s light assurance. “Certainly you are strange to me. And your offer of aid is disquieting, for it appears to be given without cause. We will speak of it. If my many needs compel me to endure lnbull’s betrayals, I can refuse no other assistance. But the queries which fill my heart pertain chiefly to the lady Linden.

“Of her companions, I ask nothing. She has vouched for them, and her word contents me. To them I say only”- now he turned to Linden’s son and the Unbeliever- “Jeremiah, Covenant, I regret that my use of Inbull has harmed you. If you wish any boon that I may grant in my present straits, you need merely name it.”

Jeremiah ducked his head; said nothing. Glowering with the heat of embers in his eyes, Covenant muttered, “Just give Linden whatever she wants so we can leave. We’re in a hurry. We shouldn’t be here at all.”

“My lord Berek,” the Theomach put in insistently, “you do well to accept the lady’s word. And the man suggests truly that his only desire is to depart. Will you not accept my word also? The powers which this man and this boy aye, and the lady also-command have no meaning here. Her purpose, and that of her companions, lies at a great distance from all that you do. It will in no wise affect you. For the sake of your many needs, you must speak to me.”

Berek folded his arms across his thick chest. In a voice as heavy as his hands, he announced. “Stranger, I do not accept your word. Yet we will speak, since you would have it so. If you seek to be heeded, tell me what you are.”

“My lord,” the Theomach replied promptly, “I am three things. First, I am a seeker after knowledge. My people live in a land too distant to be named, for its name would convey nothing. We have no concern for the small affrays of the Earth. Yet we wander widely-though ever alone-questing for knowledge wherever it may be gleaned. My questing has brought me to you.”

While the Insequent answered, Linden crossed the tent to align herself with Covenant and Jeremiah. They had brought her here. Although she did not trust Covenant, he and her son were her only defence against Berek’s probing.

“Second,” the Theomach continued, “I am a warrior of considerable prowess. At your leisure, you may test my claim in any form that pleases you. For the present, I will state plainly that none of your foes can stand against me in battle.”

Whispering in the hope that only Covenant and Jeremiah would hear her, Linden asked. “Is that true?”

Perhaps Berek did not hear her. If he did, he kept his attention and his deep gaze fixed on the Theomach.

But Covenant was less discreet. “Hell, yes,” he growled. “You have no idea. You’ve seen that knowledge he’s so proud of in action. Think about what he could do in a fight.”

If the Theomach were able to step between moments, he could strike as often as he wished without being seen or opposed-

Still he spoke as if he and Berek were alone. “Third,” he continued, “I am a teacher. Much has occurred to you and within you that remains unexplained. I comprehend such matters, and I desire to impart my understanding. Lord Berek, my instruction will increase your strength and insight. It will ensure your triumph in this war.”

“Oh, please,” Covenant put in sardonically. “Tell him the truth.” His impulse to provoke the Insequent seemed to increase with every swallow of wine.

The Theomach shrugged. “In truth, I do not doubt your triumph, my lord, with or without my aid. Against Warmark Vettalor and such force as he commands, yours is the feller hand. Yet I fear no contradiction when I avow that my guidance will preserve many lives among your warriors. And I state with certainty that you will never fully grasp the extent of your oath, or the import of your larger purpose, without my teaching.”

“You are facile, stranger,” said Berek gruffly. With his arms folded, he looked as immovable as a tree. He had become the centre on which his world turned, and he kept his self-doubt hidden. “You speak of aid, but you do not reveal your purpose. Why do you offer your assistance?”

If the Theomach had any acquaintance with self-doubt, he, too, concealed it. Shrugging again, he admitted, “My lord, I have no reply that will readily content you. The questing of those who seek for knowledge is by necessity oblique, instinctive, and indefinite. They themselves cannot name their object until it is discovered. I am able to say only that I believe I will gain knowledge in your service-aye, knowledge and honour-which would otherwise remain beyond my ken.”

“He’s a plausible bastard,” Covenant remarked after a long gulp of wine, “I’ll give him that.”

Slowly the Theomach turned his secreted face toward Covenant. His manner caused Linden to hold her breath in apprehension.

“He’s telling the truth,” murmured Jeremiah uncomfortably.

“Oh, sure,” Covenant snorted. “So could I. If only life were that simple.”

But Berek refused to be distracted. “If you indeed desire to aid me,” he demanded, “and wish to be known as the Theomach rather than as a stranger, I require some sign of truth or fealty. Display evidence of your knowledge. Demonstrate that your aid will not serve my foes.”

Again the Theomach turned his head toward Covenant and Jeremiah like a warning.

Abruptly Covenant tossed his flagon into the nearest brazier. “Come on, Jeremiah.” The coals were dimmed, and the reek of burning wine and honey steamed into the air. Then the wooden vessel took flame, making the tent bright for a moment. “Let’s go find Damelon. Maybe he’ll help us pick a fight with Inbull.” He held his left hand over his sore ribs, still keeping his halfhand in his pocket. “I want to repay some of this pain.”

At once, Jeremiah set his flagon down beside Berek’s longsword. Avoiding Linden’s gaze, he accompanied Covenant obediently. They kept their distance from both Berek and her as they crossed the tent and ducked out under the flaps.

Linden appealed to Berek with her gaze, mutely asking him to call her companions back. But he answered her aloud. “A measure of retribution at their hands will serve my purposes. And Hand Damelon will ensure that Inbull suffers no lasting harm.”

“It is well,” pronounced the Theomach. He may have been giving his approval to Berek’s words-or to Covenant’s and Jeremiah’s departure. Then, however, he made his meaning clear. “In their absence, I may speak more freely.”

Linden swallowed a desire to follow her son. She ached to protect him. And instinctively she wanted to avoid being alone with Berek. But she needed his help. And she could not imagine how the Theomach would convince Berek of anything.

The future High Lord searched the Insequent closely. “Do so, then.”

“My lord Berek”- the Theomach’s confidence was palpable- “you require evidence of my fealty, and I provide it thus.

“The tale is told that in your despair upon the slopes of Mount Thunder, ancient Gravin Threndor, the FireLions or the mountain or the very Earth spoke to you. Yet to avow that you indeed heard their speech is not sooth. It is merely a convenience, a means for passing over that which cannot be explained. The truth is both more simple and more profound. Inspired by despair and desperation, you called out for succour, offering your oath in recompense. This you did because your need was absolute, and because you sensed, in a fashion which defies your explication, that Mount Thunder was a place of power amid the supernal loveliness of the Land. How or why your appeal was received and answered, you cannot declare.”

Berek made a visible effort to mask his surprise; but his growing wonder was clear in spite of his self-control.

“Nonetheless,” the Theomach continued, “a form of speech occurred. Words became known to you, Words which you did not hear, and which you could not comprehend. Because they had been given to you, their puissance was evident. Also no other course remained to you. Therefore you uttered them aloud. When the FireLions replied, you were as astonished as your foes.

“Since that moment, however, the Words have gone from you. You recall them only in dreams, and when you awaken, naught but sorrow remains.

“Is this not sooth, my lord?”

Berek nodded as if he were unaware of the movement. His troubled awe revealed that the Theomach was right.

“Then heed me well.” Now the Insequent’s tone took on a gravitas that compelled attention. Even the light appeared to condense around him, as if the lamps and the braziers and the very air were listening. “The Words were Seven, and they are these.

“The first is melenkurion, which signifies bastion or source. The second is abatha, suggesting endurance, or the need for endurance. Third is duroc, a reference to Earthpower, the substance of the fire which the lady wields. Fourth comes minas, which also means Earthpower, but in another sense. It indicates Earthpower as a foundation rather than as a form of theurgy.”

As he spoke, each Word seemed to resonate and expand until it strained the fabric of the tent. “The fifth Word is mill, which cannot be defined in human speech, but which implies invocation. The sixth, harad, may be understood as a stricture against selfishness, tyranny, malice, or other forms of despair. It binds the speaker to make no use of Earthpower which does not serve or preserve the munificence of creation. And last is khabaal, to which many meanings may be ascribed. In your mouth, it is an affirmation or incarnation of your sworn oath to the Land.”

The Theomach paused as if to let Berek-or perhaps Linden-absorb his revelation. They were silent. Echoes filled Linden’s ears: she felt the potency of the Words ramify around her, multiplied toward horizons that lay beyond her comprehension. They encompassed possibilities which were too vast for her.

She had never heard Covenant mention the Seven Words. But the Theomach had just restored them to Berek’s conscious mind. Surely they had not been lost before Covenant’s first translation to the Land?

They had been given to her as well-

A moment later, the Theomach said. “This tongue is spoken nowhere, other than by one race that I scorn to name, for it is the language of the Earth’s making and substance rather than of the Earth’s peoples. Yet it may be discovered, word by word, by those who seek deeply for knowledge-and who do not wish to bend or distort that knowledge for their own ends.”

Then, unexpectedly, he turned to Linden. She could not see his expression through his bindings. Nevertheless she received the clear impression that he sought to sway her as much as to convince Berek.

“Aloud,” he said distinctly, “the Seven Words are spoken thus. Melenkurion abatha. Duroc minas mill. Harad khabaal.”

Before he had pronounced ten syllables, the Staff of Law burst into flame. With each Word, the fire mounted until it enclosed her in conflagration: power gentle as a caress, entirely without hurt or peril, and jubilant as a paean. Soon the whole tent was full of blazing like joy and rebirth, exuberance and restoration: the true vitality of Law.

Some part of Linden clung to it, revelling in its exaltation. It resembled the gift of vitrim and the benison of Glimmermere, the tang of aliantha and the sovereign gold of hurtloam; the Land’s limitless potential for glory. However, another aspect of her was mortal and afraid. The Words were distilled puissance. She had not chosen them, and could not hope to control their implications.

Reflexively she strove to quell the flames-and as soon as she did so, they fell away. Without transition, the fire was quenched, leaving her to the truncated insight of the lamps and braziers.

Within herself, she staggered at the suddenness of the change. When she remembered to look at her companions, she saw that Berek was both stunned and eager. He seemed unable to comprehend what he had heard and seen-and yet he had been lifted up in spite of his bafflement. A long burden of bereavement had fallen from his shoulders; and for a few moments, at least, fanged loss no longer gnawed at his spirit.

The Theomach watched her and Berek with apparent satisfaction. Are you content, my lord?” he asked as if he were sure of the answer. Will you now accept my companionship, that I may aid and tutor you?”

Shuddering with effort, Berek mastered himself. When he had swallowed several times to clear his throat, he said hoarsely. “My gratitude is certain. I will say more when my lady has assured me that she is unharmed.”

Linden could not rival his self-command; but she replied as clearly as she could, “Look at me, my lord. You can see. I’m as surprised as you are.” And she wanted to weep with regret at her own weakness. “But I’m not hurt.”

Slowly Berek nodded. “Yes, my lady Linden. I am indeed able to discern that you are whole. Therefore I will say to the Theomach”- still slowly, he turned to the Insequent as if each small movement cost him an exertion of will- “that my gratitude is certain, but my acceptance remains in doubt. One further glimpse of your knowledge will content me.”

The Theomach waited, motionless; but whether he intended to acquiesce or refuse, Linden could not determine.

With rigid care, Berek said, “You spoke of the munificence of creation. Will you name that munificence? Wherein does it lie? What is its nature? What does it portend? If these Seven Words will bind me, I must know that to which I will be bound.”

“Life,” replied the Theomach simply. “Growth. Enhancement.” Then he added in a tone like an apology. “You will understand, my lord Berek, that neither I nor anyone may grasp the mind of this world’s Creator. The needs and desires of that which is eternal surpass finite comprehension. Yet I deem that the Earth, and within it the Land, were formed as a habitation where living beings may gaze upon wonderment and terror, and seek to emulate or refuse them. The Earth and the Land are a dwelling-place where life may discover the highest in itself, or the lowest, according to its desires and choices.”

Berek frowned, not in disapproval or chagrin, but in intense consideration. For a long moment, he regarded the Theomach as though he strove to penetrate the stranger’s secrets with his burgeoning health-sense. Then he asked over his shoulder, “My lady Linden, do you conceive that the Theomach speaks sooth?”

His question startled Linden, and she answered without thinking, “I don’t care.” If she had paused for thought, the sheer weight of his query would have sealed her voice in her throat. “I want it to be true. So do you. Isn’t that what matters?” Who was she to articulate the meaning of life? “Isn’t it the only thing that matters?”

Berek growled in the back of his throat, a wordless sound fraught with both recognition and uncertainty. Still studying the Insequent, he announced formally, “Then I will say to my lord Theomach that I accept your companionship. Both aid and guidance will I greet with welcome. A man who speaks as you have done must be heeded, whatever his intent may be.”

The Theomach responded with a bow and a salute, tapping his fist to his chest in homage. Interfering with Covenant’s designs, he had gained what he wanted for himself. Inadvertently Linden had helped him win a measure of Berek’s trust.

Having made his decision, however, Berek did not hesitate to move on. “Now you will leave us,” he informed his new counsellor. “I must speak with my lady Linden alone.”

Oh, God. Linden flinched. Abruptly the entire space of the tent seemed to become a pitfall: she felt beset by snares which she did not know how to avoid. In this circumstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time. One wrong word-

At once, the Theomach demurred. “My lord, this is needless. That which the lady desires of you is simple, and I do not doubt that her requests will be easily met. Nor will she and her companions endanger you in any fashion. You have accepted my aid and guidance. Do not unwisely set them aside.”

Berek drew back his shoulders, lifted his chin. His tone was mild, but its mildness veiled iron. “My lord Theomach, I have said that my gratitude is certain, as is my welcome. Yet my wisdom is my own. If I prove unwise, as I have often done, it will be through no fault of yours.”

Linden wished that she could see the Theomach’s eyes. She had the impression that his gaze shifted rapidly between Berek and her, searching for an argument that would sway the Halfhand-or for a way to warn her of perils which he could not state aloud. But then he repeated his bow and salute. Instead of stepping between moments to address Linden where Berek could not hear him, he turned to the flaps and left the tent.

A crisis was upon her, and she was not prepared for it. The Seven Words still echoed around her, baffling her with hints of hope and calamity.

But she had spoken and acted by instinct for long hours now. She was too weary to do otherwise. Trust yourself. If she had truly heard Covenant’s voice in her dreams, not that of some malign misleading chimera-

As Berek stepped closer with gentleness on his face and resolve in his eyes, Linden shrugged off her cloak as if to rid herself of an obstruction. The braziers had warmed the air: soon she would be too warm, alarmed or shamed by her conflicted doubts. Clinging to the Staff with both hands, she braced herself to meet his probing gaze.

He approached until he was little more than an arm’s length away. There he stopped. Deliberately he folded his arms across his chest: a gesture of determination. He seemed to tower over her as he said, “My lady, you are troubled. Surely there is no need? My gratitude is boundless, and my respect with it. The aid that you have both given and brought is beyond estimation. Why, then, do you fear me’?”

Linden could not answer him: any explanation would reveal too much. Instead she fell back on matters that she understood; subjects which she could broach safely. “Lord Berek, listen,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “There are things that you have to do. Essential things. If you don’t do them, you could win this war and still lose, even with the Theomach’s help.”

Speaking brusquely because she was frightened and tired, she told him. “You’re killing your own wounded. Do you know that? Those blankets and pallets-the bandages-the tents They breed death. Your healers don’t see it yet, but you will.” The restoration of the Seven Words would evoke his latent powers. You can’t prevent your people from being cut down,” hacked at, pierced, trampled, “but you can save some of their lives.”

Perplexed and frowning, Berek began. “With hurtloam-”

“No,” Linden countered. “I don’t know when you’ll be able to find more of it, or how much of it you’ll find. And it starts to lose its effectiveness as soon as its scooped out of the soil. You can’t carry it very far.”

In haste because she could not bear to be interrupted, she said harshly, You need to take a day off from this war. A day or two. Let your enemies retreat. If you think that they might counterattack, use Inbull to scare them out of it. Instead of fighting, soak every blanket and scrap of bandage in boiling water. If you can replace the pallets, burn them. Otherwise pour boiling water over them. And tell your healers-tell all of your people-to wash every wound. Those injuries have to be kept clean.

“I don’t care how long it takes. Make the time. Your people are dying in droves, and I can’t stay. If you want to save any of them after I’m gone, you have to keep them clean.”

The grief in his gaze wrenched her heart. And if we cannot, my lady?” he asked softly. If the blankets fall to tatters when they are boiled, and the bandages likewise, and we glean no resupply from the encampments which our foes abandon? What must we do then?”

“Oh, God.” The extremity of his plight was unmistakable: it exceeded her courage. In his place, she would have been paralysed by dismay long ago. If the Theomach can’t tell you what to do, you’ll have to find more hurtloam. And if you can’t find enough hurtloam”- she swallowed a lump of empathy and anguish- “you’ll have to pour boiling water on those infections.” The burns would be terrible, but they would slow some of the poisons. “Anything to keep them clean.”

As she faltered, however, he grew stronger. His bravery was founded on the needs of the people around him. He had come so far and accomplished so much, not because the FireLions had responded to his desperation, but simply because he could not turn away from the plight of his people and his Queen. He was full of grief and understood despair: therefore he rejected both fear and defeat.

“My lady,” he said with rough kindness, “we will attempt your counsel. I cannot avow success, yet the gift of your lore will be treasured among us. As occasion permits, we will garner its benefits. You teach the worth of healing. It will not be forgotten. Songs will be sung of you to lift the heart, and tales will be told that surpass generations. Wherever those who serve my Queen and the Land are gathered together-”

“No!” Linden protested frantically. The thought of ripples appalled her. They would expand- “No, it’s better, believe me, it’s better if you don’t talk about this. I mean anything that’s happened tonight. Don’t discuss it, don’t refer to it. Don’t keep the story alive. I’m begging you, my lord. I’ll get down on my knees if you want.” Vertorn had offered to prostrate himself: she would follow his example. “And the Theomach will insist-I can’t stay. And I don’t deserve-”

A legend of Linden the Healer would alter the Land’s known history. It might do enough harm to topple the Arch.

Berek raised his hands: a gesture of placation. “My lady,” he murmured to soothe her. “My lady. Quiet your distress. There is no need. I will honour your wish.

“All in this camp will deem it strange that I do not speak of you. But if you seek the boon of my silence, it will be granted. And in this I may command my Hands, Damelon and the others. My Hafts also may heed me. My word will not still every voice. Yet I will do all that can be done, since you desire it so.”

Linden stared at him until she was sure that she could believe him. Then she sagged. Thank God-she thought wanly. Thank God for men who kept their promises. If she had been equally confident of Covenant’s word, she would not have felt fretted with dread.

“I might inquire, my lady,” Berek continued after a moment. “what harm resides in the tale of your deeds. But I will not. My silence on that score is implicit in the boon you seek.

“Yet,” he said more sternly. “there are queries which demand utterance. My oaths of service, to my Queen as to the Land, require this of me. Understand that I intend neither affront nor disregard. However, I must be answered.”

Wincing inwardly, Linden started to say, Don’t, please. You don’t understand the danger. But Berek’s deep gaze held her. His will seemed greater than hers. She did not know how to refuse anyone who had suffered so much loss.

Berek’s mien tightened. “My lady Linden, it is plain that you bear powers-or instruments of power-greater than yourself. I know naught of such matters. Nonetheless I am able to discern contradiction. Though your powers exceed you, you have it within you to transcend them.”

Her mouth and throat suddenly felt too dry for speech. She should not have been surprised that he was able to perceive Covenant’s ring under her shirt. Still she was not prepared. And neither the Theomach nor Covenant was here to advise her.

“My lord,” she said weakly, trying to fend him off. “I can’t talk about this. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. It won’t affect your war, or your Queen-or your oath,” not without destroying Time. Bitter with memories, she added, “And you haven’t earned the knowledge. You aren’t ready for it. It can only hurt you.”

She could not gauge what anything that she might say-or refuse to say-would cost Berek. Similar knowledge had damaged her immeasurably. But it had also redeemed her.

He did not relent. “Yet I wish to hear them named.”

His eyes and his tone and his vital aura compelled her. Guided only by intuition, she held the Staff in one hand. “My Staff is about Law and Earthpower. It exerts the same force as the Seven Words, but in a different form.” With the other, she indicated Covenant’s hidden ring. “This is white gold.” She felt that she was accepting responsibility for all of the Earth’s millennia as she said. “It wields the wild magic that destroys peace. But it isn’t natural here.

“If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask the Theomach.”

She saw that she had baffled him; and she braced herself, fearing that he would demand more. Yet he did not. Instead he rubbed at his bald scalp as though he sought to massage coherence into his scattering thoughts.

“This is bootless, my lady,” he grumbled. “It conveys naught.” Then he dropped his hand, and his uncertainty with it. “However, I will not press you, for your discomfiture is evident. Instead I will pose a query of another kind.

“It has been averred that your powers and your purpose do not pertain to me. How may I be assured of this? My

force is greatly outnumbered. And as I drive my foes before me, I strengthen them, for they draw ever closer to Doriendor Corishev and reinforcement. I can not ignore the prospect of a threat from another quarter.”

“The Theomach-” Linden tried to offer.

“My lady,” Berek interrupted more harshly, “I do not ask for aid. That the Theomach may well provide, as he has avowed. Rather I ask how I may fear nothing from the needs which compel you. There is no wish for harm in your heart, of that I am certain. Your companions, however, are closed to me. I know naught of them but that they wield strange theurgies, and that their manner is ungentle.

“Answer this, my lady, and I will not disturb you further.”

Linden sighed. “My Lord, there are only two things that I can tell you.” To describe Covenant’s intentions in this time would be ruinous. “First, were going northwest-and we have a long way to go. Something like two hundred leagues. Everything that Covenant and Jeremiah and I are trying to do, everything that brought us here in the first place-It’ll all be wasted if we don’t cover those two hundred leagues as quickly as possible.

“Second,” she continued so that Berek would not interrupt her, “the last thing that the Theomach wants is trouble from us. And I do mean the last. You have no idea how powerful he is. I don’t understand it myself. But you can be sure of this. If we try anything that might threaten you, he’ll stop us. We can’t fight him. Not here. No matter how strong you think we are.”

The Insequent had demonstrated his ability to override Covenant’s intentions. She was sure that he meant her no harm; but she did not doubt that he would banish Covenant, Jeremiah, and her in an instant if they endangered his relationship with Berek-or the security of the Arch of Time.

Berek regarded her sombrely. In his gaze, she could almost trace the contention between his visceral impulse to trust her and his necessary concerns for his people, his Queen, his oath. Then she saw his expression soften, felt the tension in his shoulders relax; and she knew before he spoke that she had gained what she needed most from him.

“My lady Linden,” he said with wry regret. “these matters surpass me. I lack the lore to comprehend them. But a trek of two hundred leagues in this winter-That I am able to grasp. It will be cruel to you, bereft as you are of food, or horses, or adequate raiment.

“To the extent that my own impoverishment permits, I will supply all that you require”- he held up his hand to forestall any response- “and count myself humbled because I cannot equal your largesse. The knowledge of hurtloam alone is incomparable bounty, yet you have given more, far more. If you are thus generous in all of your dealings, you will need no songs or tales of mine to honour you, for you will be fabled wherever you are known.”

Linden wanted to protest, No, my lord. You’re the legend here. I’m not like that. But his unanticipated gentleness left her mute. She was too close to tears to find her voice.

If she could have believed in Covenant’s honesty, her gratitude would have been more than she knew how to contain.

Chapter Nine: Along the Last Hills

For three days, Linden, Covenant, and Jeremiah rode into the northwest, hugging the Last Hills as closely as they could without venturing onto terrain that would hamper their gaunt and weary horses. Over her cloak and her old clothes, Linden wore a heavy robe lined with fur which-according to Hand Damelon-had been scavenged from one of Vettalor’s abandoned camps. Her hands she kept swaddled in strips cut from the edge of a blanket: a wider strip she wrapped like a scarf around her mouth and neck. Still the cold was a galling misery, day and night. And during the day, hard sunlight glanced like blades off the crusted snow and ice, forcing her to squint. Her head throbbed mercilessly.

With Covenant and Jeremiah riding nearby, she could not draw on the Staff of Law, even to sustain her abject mount. Instead she carried it quiescent across her lap; clung to the reins and the saddle with her abused hands. Somehow Covenant had endured Berek’s touch. Still she feared that he and Jeremiah would not be able to withstand close proximity to the Staffs power.

They had their own difficulties. Their mounts were restive, hard to control. The beasts shied at every shadow despite their weariness. At times, they made frail attempts to buck. Linden suspected that the horses sensed something in her companions which she could not. On a purely animal level, they were disturbed by the secretive theurgy of their riders.

But Covenant and her son scorned their mounts’ uneasiness. They stayed near Linden at all times, as though they meant to ensure that she did not use her Staff. And they appeared oblivious to the cold; preternaturally immune to the ordinary requirements of flesh and blood. They had refused cloaks and robes, did not wear blankets over their shoulders. Yet they revealed no discomfort. Only Covenant’s seething impatience and Jeremiah’s glum unresponsiveness betrayed their underlying discontent.

They ate the stale bread, tough meat, and dried fruit that Berek had provided: they drank the water and the raw wine. Those simple human needs they retained. And at night, they built campfires which generated enough heat to encourage slumber. As far as Linden knew, however, neither of them slept. Whenever she was roused by cold or nightmares, she saw them still seated, wakeful and silent, beside the fading coals. At daybreak, they were on their feet ahead of her.

They hardly spoke to each other: they seldom addressed her. Nor did she question them, although the throng of her doubts and concerns clouded her horizons in every direction. She and her companions were constrained because they were not alone.

At Berek’s command, Yellinin rode with them, leading a string of six more horses laden with supplies: food, drink, blankets, and firewood, as well as provender for the mounts; as much of Berek’s generosity as the horses’ meagre strength could carry.

The outrider herself said little. Berek had ordered her to ask no questions; and she obeyed with hard-bitten determination, stifling her curiosity and loneliness. She could not have been sure that she would ever see her lord or her comrades again. Yet even when Linden tried practical queries-How far have we ridden today? Do you think that this weather will hold? — Yellinin answered so curtly that Linden’s more personal questions seemed to freeze in her mouth.

At all times, Covenant kept his right hand hidden in his pocket. Linden supposed that he did so in order to conceal his one resemblance to Berek Halfhand. But she felt sure that his caution was wasted. With his awakened senses, Berek must have discerned the truth for himself.

Jeremiah also was a halfhand, although he had lost different fingers. Legends might grow from such small details

By the end of the third day, Linden reached the limit of her endurance. Yellinin’s emotional plight nagged at her like a bad tooth: she was acutely aware of the slow erosion which wore the outrider’s determination down to bereavement. Nor could she ignore the leaden distress of the horses. And the questions that she needed to ask her companions were becoming a form of torment: as bitter as the cold, and as relentless.

In addition, she felt a grinding anxiety for Jeremiah. According to Yellinin, the riders had covered no more than twenty-five leagues when the sun set on the third day. Measured by the necessity of ascending among the Westron Mountains in order to avoid Garroting Deep, their progress was paltry. At this rate, Covenant and Jeremiah would never attain their goal. The horses would not survive: Linden was sure of that. If she could not sustain herself with Earthpower, she herself would fail long before she caught sight of Melenkurion Skyweir.

Her son would be Lord Foul’s prisoner forever.

That night, as she faded shivering toward sleep, she realised that most of her decisions in this time had been inspired by cold; predicated on the brutality of winter. She had chosen to trek toward Berek’s camp because she was freezing and could not think of an alternative. But when she had achieved her aim-horses, blankets, food-she had accomplished nothing. The journey ahead of her was still impossible, just as it had been four days ago. Yellinin and her mounts were giving as much help as their worn flesh allowed, and it was not enough.

Linden had already watched too many innocents suffer and die for her sake.

Now the cold required another decision of her. She had to accept that her choices had been proven inadequate; that the obstacles in her road were not ones which she could surmount. The time had come to admit that she was too weak to carry the burden of Jeremiah’s need, and the Land’s. This winter demanded more strength than she possessed.

Therefore she would have to find a way to trust Covenant.

The next morning, when she struggled out of the scant warmth of her blankets, she learned that two of the horses had died during the night: Covenant’s mount, and Jeremiah’s. Then she could no longer deny the truth. The cold had beaten her. If bearing her companions killed just two horses every three days-and if there were no storms-and if the terrain did not become more demanding-Yellinin’s dogged aid would nonetheless cease to serve any purpose long before the Last Hills merged with the mountains.

Coughing at the bite of ice in her lungs, Linden gathered what warmth she could from the campfire while Berek’s warrior cooked a breakfast of gruel laced with fruit. She took as much time as she needed to eat what she believed would be her last hot meal. For a while, she held her robe open to the flames, hoping that the fur would absorb enough heat to preserve her. Then, when Yellinin had prepared mounts for the riders, and had withdrawn to ready the remaining horses, Linden quietly asked Covenant and Jeremiah to ride ahead without her.

To answer Covenant’s vexation and Jeremiah’s alarm, she explained, “I need a little distance so that I can use my Staff. Don’t worry, I’ll catch up with you.” She could hardly miss their trail through the hard snow. “I want Yellinin to turn back. But convincing her probably won’t be easy. I’ll have to show her that we don’t need her, and for that-”

Linden indicated the Staff with a shrug.

“It’s about time,” muttered Covenant as if he had expected her to make up her mind days ago. “Just don’t trust her. Berek didn’t send her out here to help us. He wants her to warn him if we double back. Hell, he probably has scouts on our trail right now, just in case we kill her and try to take him by surprise.”

Staring at him, Linden felt a slash of yearning for the Thomas Covenant of her memories. Surely he could see that Yellinin was dying to return to her people? But she did not argue. Her suspicions ran too deep. If she challenged him, she would make him wary; and then she would lose any possibility that he might reveal the truth about himself.

“Just go,” she urged him stiffly. “And brace yourself. I’ll take care of Yellinin.”

Jeremiah attempted an unconvincing smile. “Thanks, Mom. You’re doing the right thing.” To Covenant, he added. “The Theomach won’t object. He trusts her now.”

“I know,” Covenant sighed as he and Jeremiah mounted their new horses. “I’m just too bloody frustrated to be gracious about it. This is our fifth day, and we’re still nowhere near Melenkurion Skyweir. These damn delays are killing me.”

Rolling its eyes, Jeremiah’s mount flinched. Covenant’s emaciated mustang stumbled awkwardly. But they kept their seats. In moments, they rode out of sight around the curve of a hill.

Linden remained where she was, clinging to the last of the campfire while she waited for Yellinin.

When the other horses were ready, the outrider walked grimly toward Linden. Daylight emphasised her years as well as her weariness: she seemed old for a warrior, aged by interminable seasons of battle and injury. And her eyes betrayed her uneasiness. Clearly she had guessed why Linden had stayed behind to talk to her; and her heart was torn. Her devotion to Berek’s commands vied with a vivid ache for her comrades and her cause. Studying her, Linden recognised her reluctance to die for people who refused to reveal either their loyalties or their purposes.

When Linden did not speak at once, Yellinin asked cautiously. “What transpires, my lady? Why have your companions departed?”

In the outrider’s tone, Linden heard that Covenant had named at least one aspect of the woman’s dilemma. Yellinin was worried that Covenant and Jeremiah, if not Linden herself, might still pose some inexplicable threat to Berek’s army.

“I need distance,” Linden replied in wisps of vapour. “I’m going to use my Staff. That’s dangerous for them.” And for herself: without Covenant and Jeremiah, she would be stranded in this time. “If they’re far enough away, they’ll be safe.”

Yellinin frowned. “My lady, you know that I have been commanded to question nothing. Yet it may be that I will fail in my duty if I do not speak. Therefore I ask what use you will make of your fire.”

“Two things.” Linden could not bring herself to say, I don’t want you to throw your life away. “With your permission, I’ll do what I can to make you and your horses stronger. And I hope that I can persuade you to rejoin Lord Berek.”

Before Yellinin could object, Linden said, “You and your horses have already suffered too much. No matter what I do, they won’t last much longer. And we don’t need you to guide us. Covenant knows the way.

“I want you to pack three horses with as much food as they can carry. I’ll ride one and lead the others. We’ll send the mounts that Covenant and Jeremiah have now back to you. Then I want you to leave. Tell Lord Berek that I sent you away because you’ve already done more for us than we had any right to ask.”

Yellinin set her jaw in spite of her tangible wish to comply. “My lord Berek’s command was plain.”

“I know.” Linden sighed a gust of steam. The dying embers of the campfire no longer warmed her. She closed her robe to hold in as much heat as she could. In the cold, her face felt stiff with renunciation. “And he expects to be obeyed. But something else about him is plain as well. If he could think of a way to win his war without sacrificing any more lives, he would do it in a heartbeat. He doesn’t want you to die, Yellinin.”

Earnestly Linden said. “Once I use my Staff, you should be able to do what Krenwill does. You’ll hear truth. Then you won’t have to worry about what Covenant and Jeremiah and I have in mind. You’ll believe me when I say that they don’t want to turn back-and I wouldn’t allow it if they did.”

Yellinin made a visible effort to stifle her yearning. “Then I will accept the hazard of your fire, my lady. For the sake of the horses, if for no other cause, I cannot refuse.

“But I will not consent to part from you,” she added dourly. “I have not experienced Krenwill’s discernment. I cannot be certain of its worth.”

Linden studied Yellinin for a moment longer, measuring the quality of the outrider’s torn desires. When she felt sure that her companions had ridden far enough to protect themselves, she closed her eyes and caused gentle Earthpower to bloom like cornflowers and forsythia from the apt wood of the Staff.

Enclosed in fire, Yellinin could not conceal her amazement at the fundamental healing and sustenance of Law. Her first taste of percipience as she watched her horses gain new vitality filled her with shock and wonder. Her own abused flesh was soothed in ways which she had never experienced before. Now she could understand the true nature of the forces which had transformed Berek Halfhand. And her heart belonged to him, in spite of her gratitude for Linden’s gift. When the flames subsided, and Yellinin heard the truth of Linden’s assurances, her resistance slowly faded.

Glowing with gladness, she gave Linden her consent; her eager cooperation. As soon as she had rearranged the burdens of the beasts as Linden had requested, she tapped the breastplate of her cuirass in salute. Then she stood at attention while Linden mounted and gathered up the reins of the other horses.

Linden believed that she was doing the right thing; that she could not have justified any other choice. Nevertheless the outrider’s attitude exacerbated her own sense of isolation. She seemed to be leaving behind her last ally as she rode away alone.

On a completely irrational level, she wished that Berek had come with her. She needed someone of his stature to help her face the conundrum of Covenant and Jeremiah.

The renewed vigour of her mounts allowed Linden to pursue her companions at a canter. She caught up with them within half a league.

Apparently Jeremiah had been watching for her. As she approached, he turned almost immediately to Covenant; and at once, they reined in to wait for her.

Neither of them spoke to her. They seemed to know without explanation what she had done. When she had joined them, Jeremiah said diffidently to Covenant, We should change horses right away. If we keep Yellinin waiting, she might change her mind. And well be able to travel faster — he glanced at the mounts with Linden- “at least for a while.”

“Sure.” Covenant sounded almost amiable, as if the outrider’s absence eased his frustration. “Let’s do it.”

Together, he and Jeremiah dismounted, turned their horses back the way they had come, and slapped them into motion. The beasts trotted off promptly, relieved to escape their riders. Their energy would not last: that was obvious. But Linden had confidence that Yellinin would care for them. Berek’s army could not afford to lose mounts unnecessarily.

Jeremiah reached the saddle of his fresh horse without much difficulty, although the beast’s sides quivered fretfully at his touch. But Covenant’s mount shied away whenever he tried to step up into the stirrup. Swearing almost cheerfully, he manoeuvred the horse against Jeremiah’s so that it could not evade him. Then he swung himself into the seat with a fierce grin.

The instinctive repugnance of the beasts for Covenant and Jeremiah disturbed Linden. And releasing Yellinin did not make her feel any less helpless. She still could not imagine how any of them would survive to reach Melenkurion Skyweir.

For the time being, however, she kept her many questions to herself. The relentless cold numbed her thoughts; sapped her will. It was rife with implications of failure. And she did not know what had caused the change in Covenant’s manner. Yellinin’s absence seemed to free him from some unexplained constraint.

As Linden and her companions resumed their plod northwestward through the raw and glistening winter along the margin of the Last Hills, Jeremiah rode on her right, between her and Covenant. Since their departure from Berek’s camp, his wound had healed completely: she could see the twitch at the corner of his eye signalling. However, its indecipherable message had lost some of its urgency. Like Covenant’s, Jeremiah’s spirits had lifted.

After a while, he asked Covenant. “How much longer do you think we’ll have to do this?” His tone suggested that he already knew the answer; that he had posed the question for Linden’s sake.

“Today,” Covenant answered casually. “Maybe tomorrow.” He did not glance at Linden. “After that we should be safe enough.”

“Safe’?” Linden inquired. The idea that any form of safety might be possible in this winter seemed inconceivable.

“From the Theomach,” explained Jeremiah. He sounded cheerful. “So far, we’re doing things his way. We aren’t attracting any attention. We haven’t violated what people know about this time. But we’re travelling too slowly. We need to go faster. That’s why we had to get away from Yellinin. So she won’t see us use power.

“The Theomach still won’t like it. If he senses it, he’ll think he has to interfere again.” Jeremiah rolled his eyes in mockery. “So we’ll wait until we’re farther away. We’ll give him a chance to get caught up in Berek’s war. Then we won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

A reflexive tug of hope surprised Linden. She craved anything which might alleviate the impossibility of their trek.

Covenant had warned her that the dangers were real. If Jeremiah and I risk using power now, we’ll be noticed. We could run into opposition. But the cold persuaded her that attempting to pass through the Westron Mountains would be worse.

“How are you going to do it?’ she asked carefully. “Covenant said that your magic isn’t safe here.”

The kind of opposition that might damage the Arch.

The Theomach had mentioned puissant beings.

“It’s better if we talk about this later,” Covenant replied. “Tonight, if you can’t wait any longer.” He did not so much as glance at Linden. “Every league takes us a little closer to the Theomach’s limits. And Berek is going to want more from him by the hour. More help. More knowledge. Berek is starving to understand what he can do. He’s desperate for it. The more he gets from the Theomach, the more he’s going to want.

“We probably wouldn’t be overheard where we are,” Covenant admitted. “But I don’t want to take the chance.”

Where we are, Linden thought with a forlorn ache. Apart from Yellinin, she had not seen an ordinary human being for more than three days of abrading cold. On her right, the Centre Plains were a bitter wasteland, snow-cloaked and featureless as far as she could see: a tangible avatar of the gelid loneliness within a caesure, the ruin which represented the ultimate outcome of Joan’s madness. And on her left, the Last Hills raised their heads in forbidding scarps and crags. Some of their lower slopes were mild; others, more rugged. But boulders and bare granite knotted their crests. And all of them were clotted with ice or caked with brittle snow.

She could not wait for the interminable shivering length of another day to pass. She felt too much alone.

When she and her companions had ridden in silence for a time, she said tentatively, “All right. You can stop me if I ask anything dangerous. But this isn’t hard only on you. It’s tough for me, too. You at least have a plan.” Something to look forward to. “I’m just lost.”

She did not want to freeze to death in the middle of nowhere for no reason which she could comprehend.

“If nothing else,” she pleaded. “I need you to talk to me. I need to hear voices.”

Her longing for the companionship of Liand, Stave, the Ramen, and even Anele was so poignant that it closed her throat.

Jeremiah seemed to consult with Covenant, although she heard nothing pass between them. Then he glanced at her sidelong. “That’s OK, Mom,” he replied uncomfortably. “You can ask. Just try to be careful. If the Theomach hears us, a question might cause just as much trouble as an answer.”

His willingness surprised Linden; but she did not want to miss her chance. Striving for caution, she said. “So why does the Theomach care what we do now? Didn’t he get what he wanted?” Obliquely, inadvertently, she had helped him win a place at Berek’s side. “Unless I missed something-”

He claimed that she knew his true name; but she had no idea what it was.

Jeremiah nodded. “He’s done with us.” Apparently he saw no danger in discussing the Insequent. “He’s where he has to be. Where he’s supposed to be. He would have gotten there anyway, but you made it easier for him. He should be grateful.

“But he still wants to protect the Arch. Or he says he does, anyway. He put us here. That makes him responsible for us. If you can believe him, I mean.

“He isn’t worried about you.” Jeremiah’s tone hinted at anger. “You he trusts. And he knows how to cover for you. But he thinks Covenant and I are capable of-ire emphasised the muddy hue of his eyes- “practically anything. He doesn’t understand-” Swallowing convulsively, Jeremiah fell silent. Covenant rode gazing into the distance as if he had no interest in the conversation.

Cover for you? “Understand what?” Linden asked.

Jeremiah curled his hands into fists on his mount’s reins. Fiercely he retorted, He doesn’t understand how hard were trying to do exactly the right thing. Mom, if we deserved what he thinks of us, Covenant wouldn’t have brought me to you in the first place. It isn’t just insulting, it’s so frustrating-”

Again Jeremiah stopped. This time, he made an obvious effort to master himself. When he continued, he sounded sad; pained.

“And it’s a lot worse for Covenant than it is for me. We’ve had to endure too much Earthpower. He’s holding us together. But that’s not all. He’s keeping what’s really happening to me-what Foul is doing to my actual body-” Jeremiah shuddered. “He’s my friend. He’s keeping me from going crazy.”

Then he shrugged unhappily. “I told you I didn’t like the Insequent.”

One called the Vizard had urged him to construct a snare for the Elohim-

His manner made Linden regret her question. “I’m sorry, honey,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you. In a way, I can understand the Theomach’s attitude. I’m your mother, and I forget what you’re going through. You’re so brave about it, you don’t let it show. The truth is”- she searched their shared distress for words- “worse than I can imagine.”

Jeremiah shrugged again. “That’s okay.” Like Covenant, he did not look at her. “Covenant protects me pretty well.” For a moment, his tic conveyed the incongruous impression that he was winking.

Shaken by images of what the Despiser might be doing to her son, she let the hard silence of winter reclaim her. Apart from the occasional faint whisper of the breeze, the only sounds were the erratic thud and crunch of the horses’ hooves, muted when they struck hard snow, sharper when they broke through crusts of ice. The plains and the hills were locked in unrelieved cold: cloudless, brilliant, and punishing. Studying the sky, she found no sign of a change in the weather. Nevertheless the chill grew deeper as the terrain climbed higher. The air scraped at her throat and lungs, and the warmth that she had garnered from Yellinin’s last campfire had been leeched away.

Eventually she would be forced to ask Covenant for heat. Or she would need to separate herself from her companions so that she could draw on the Staff.

Seeking distraction, she sifted her throng of questions for one to which the Theomach could not object. Finally she said, “I was surprised that Berek found so much hurtloam.” And so close to his camp. “I don’t have much experience with it, but I’ve never seen that much hurtloam in one place. Is that normal?” She meant, In this time? “It seemed too good to be true.”

Jeremiah glanced at Covenant. But Covenant rode as though he had not heard her; and after a moment, Jeremiah said. “You don’t know much about the geography of the Land,” as if he were explaining her situation to himself. “You’ve never seen a map. And the Sunbane confused everything.”

Then he seemed to gather his thoughts. “Some of it’s about time. Where we are-I mean, when-there’s more of practically everything. More trees, more Forestals, more griffins, quellvisks, and other monsters, more Cavewights, more powers. Between now and the time where we belong, things get used up. Or killed in Foul’s wars. Or ruined by the Sunbane. Or just lost. But that’s not the main reason.

“Berek found so much hurtloam, and he’s going to keep finding it, because he’s moving toward the Black River. The Black River comes out of Melenkurion Skyweir.”

Linden listened intently. Long ago, she had ridden a raft through the confluence of the Black and Mithil Rivers with Covenant and Sunder. But Covenant had told her only that the Black separated the Centre Plains from the South.

“There are a lot of springs under that mountain,” Jeremiah continued. “They come out together at the base of the cliff. Most of them are just water, but one of them is EarthBlood. It’s only a trickle, but it’s intense- When the Black River pours out into Garroting Deep, it’s full of Earthpower. That’s part of why the Deep is so deadly. Caerroil Wildwood draws some of his strength from the river.

“Of course, it gets diluted. The Black joins the Mithil, and after that you can hardly tell it comes from Melenkurion Skyweir. But the Last Hills are right on the edge of Garroting Deep. From there, the power of the EarthBlood spreads into the plains.

“All that hurtloam is sort of a side effect,” he concluded. “Earthpower has been seeping out of the mountain practically forever. Maybe that’s why the One Forest used to cover the whole Land. Back in those days-ages ago-you could have mined hurtloam along every stream and river in the Centre and South Plains.”

His explanation saddened Linden. While she grieved quietly for what the Land had lost, or would lose, over the millennia, Jeremiah turned to Covenant. “She’s getting cold again,” he observed with more certitude than he usually displayed when he spoke to Covenant. “You have to keep her warm.”

“Oh, hell,” Covenant muttered distantly, as if his thoughts were lost in Time. “You’re right. I should pay more attention.”

As before, Linden felt no invocation; discerned no rush of power. She saw only the abrupt arc of Covenant’s right hand as he gestured absentmindedly, leaving a brief streak of incandescence across her vision. At once, however, heat flushed through her, banishing the cold in an instant, filling her clothes and cloak and robe with more warmth than any campfire. Her toes inside her meagre socks and boots seemed to burn as their numbness was swept away. When Covenant’s strange theurgy faded, it left her blissfully warmed-and unaccountably frightened, as if he had given her a minuscule taste of poison; a sample of something dangerous enough to destroy her.

Presumably he protected himself-and Jeremiah-from the elements in the same fashion; but she could not see it.

For the rest of the day, she rode in silence, huddling into herself for courage as she huddled into her robe for protection. Covenant had suggested that he might answer her at the end of the day’s ride: she needed to be ready. The nature of his power eluded her percipience. And he had already indirectly refused to explain it. Therefore his peculiar force aggravated her sense of vulnerability. She was utterly dependent upon him. If he abandoned her-or turned against her-she could keep herself warm with the Staff. She might conceivably be able to stay alive. But she would be helpless to return to her proper time.

For that reason, she contained herself while the horses trudged abjectly northwestward along the ridge of hills. At intervals, she and her companions paused to feed and water their mounts at the occasional ice-clad rill or brook, or to unwrap a little food and watered wine from one of Yellinin’s bundles. But the halts were brief. Covenant seemed eager to cover as much ground as possible; and Jeremiah reflected his friend’s growing anticipation or tension. Neither of them appeared to care that they were killing their animals, despite their insurmountable distance from Melenkurion Skyweir.

Jeremiah had implied that he and Covenant intended to use their innominate magicks for some form of translocation. And Covenant had admitted that to do so would be perilous.

Gritting her resolve, she kept her mouth shut throughout the prolonged misery of the day. Explicitly she did not ask Covenant for more heat, although Jeremiah prodded him to ease her whenever her shivering became uncontrollable. Nor did she mention that their small supply of grain and hay for the horses would not last for more than another day. Instead she fed the beasts as liberally as they needed. She could not bear to deprive them-and she had too many other worries. If necessary, she would demand more compassion from her companions later.

At last, they rode into a premature dusk as the sun sank behind the hills; and Covenant surprised her by announcing that they would soon stop for the night. She had expected him to continue onward as long as possible, but instead he muttered, “It’s around here somewhere. We’ll spot it in a few minutes.”

A short time later, Jeremiah pointed ahead. Squinting into the shadow of the hills, Covenant nodded. When Linden looked there, she saw what appeared to be a narrow ravine as sheer as a barranca between two high ice-draped shoulders of stone. Why Covenant and Jeremiah had focused their attention on this particular ravine, she could not guess. They had passed any number of similar formations since they had left Berek’s camp. Nevertheless Covenant aimed his staggering mount in that direction. With Jeremiah and Linden, he rode up the ragged slope and into the deep cut of the ravine.

When the three of them had entered the defile and passed a short way along its crooked length, he halted. His voice held a note of satisfaction as he said, “Shelter.” Then he dismounted.

Shelter? Linden wondered numbly. Here? Untouched by the sun for more than a brief time every day, the ground was frozen iron. Against one wall of the barranca lay a streambed. She could detect a faint gurgling of water under its ice. But shelter? The shape of the ravine concentrated and channelled the slight breeze of the open plains until it became a fanged wind so sharp that it seemed to draw blood. If Covenant intended to spend the night here, he would find Linden and the horses as cold and dead as the ground in the morning.

But she did not protest. Instead she slid awkwardly from her mount’s back and stood shivering beside the exhausted beast, waiting for an explanation.

“Rocks,” Covenant told Jeremiah when the boy joined him. “A big pile. Put them right by the stream. We can get water at the same time.”

Obediently Jeremiah began to gather stones, prying them out of the hard dirt as if his fingers were as strong as crowbars, and stacking them in a mound where Covenant had indicated.

Covenant looked at Linden. She could not make out his expression in the thick gloom, but he may have been grinning. “It’s these walls,” he informed her. “All this old granite. It’ll be damn near impossible for the Theomach to eavesdrop. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

Shelter, Linden thought. From being overheard. She would be able to ask as many questions as she wished-as long as Covenant kept her alive.

Apparently he did not expect a response. While she struggled to unburden and feed the horses, he went to help Jeremiah gather rocks.

When they had raised a mound the size of an infant’s cairn, Covenant began to gesture at the stones, weaving a lattice of phosphenes across Linden’s retinas. Almost at once, the rocks started to radiate comfort. As he sent his power deeper and deeper among them, the surface of the mound took on a dull ruddy glow. Soon the pile poured out enough heat to scald her flesh if she touched it, and some of the rocks looked like they might melt. Warmth accumulated as it reflected back and forth between the walls of the barranca until even the wind was affected: a kind of artificial thermocline deflected the frigid current upward, away from Linden and her companions.

Gradually the ice in the streambed began to crack and evaporate. Before long, a rivulet of fresh water was exposed beside the cairn. When a wide swath of the ice had melted, the horses were able to drink their fill without standing uncomfortably near the fiery stones.

Covenant’s theurgy disturbed Linden, despite her relief. Its effects lingered in her vision, but his magic itself remained hidden; closed to her senses. He could have been Anele in one of the old man’s self-absorbed phases, gesturing at nothing.

When she was satisfied with the condition of the horses, she knelt beside the brook to quench her own thirst. There she noticed that the water flowed into the ravine instead of out toward the plains. She and her companions had not encountered a stream as they entered the barranca. Apparently the water was snowmelt, and the ravine’s floor sloped downward as it twisted deeper among the Last Hills.

Careful to keep his distance from Linden, Jeremiah unpacked food while she set out blankets on the softening ground. Covenant continued to gesture until he had infused the mound with so much heat that it seemed to have magma at its core. Then he lowered his halfhand. Shaking his fingers as though they had cramped, he took the last of the wine and retreated to sit against the wall of the ravine opposite the brook. There he began to drink with an air of determination, as if he wanted to insulate himself from Linden’s questions. The glow of the stones seemed to light echoes in his eyes, filling them with implied flames.

She did not hurry. At a comfortable distance from the cairn, she was able to remove both her robe and her cloak, and set them near the stones to dry, without shivering. When she drew breath, her lungs did not hurt. There was no pain in her throat as she ate dried meat, stale bread, and old fruit; drank more water. Under other circumstances, she might have felt soothed rather than threatened.

But she had too many questions. She needed to ask them.

Jeremiah had settled himself near Covenant against the ravine wall. Protected by blankets from the dampness of the thawing dirt, Linden sat on the floor of the barranca so that she could watch her companions’ faces.

She had spent the day attempting to organise her thoughts. And she had already decided to avoid challenging Covenant directly. If she made him angry-or cautious-she might lose more than she could hope to gain. Instead of voicing her deeper concerns, she broke the silence by saying with feigned nonchalance, “I’m just curious. What did you two do to Inbull?”

I want to repay some of this pain.

Covenant’s attitude then, like his misdirections and falsehoods, violated her memories of the man he had once been.

He emptied the wineskin, tossed it aside; wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing much.” Obliquely Linden noticed that he was not growing a beard. His physical presence was solid, demonstrable; but it was also incomplete. “Jeremiah held him down while I kicked him a few times. I wanted to break some of his ribs. But he’s too tough. I just bruised him a bit.”

The Unbeliever snorted a laugh. “Damelon didn’t like it. For a warrior, he’s still pretty squeamish. He’ll have to grow out of that if he wants to make a good High Lord. But he didn’t let anyone interfere.”

Linden studied him sharply, watching the alternation of embers and darkness in his gaze. Beyond question, he was not the man whom she had known. He had blamed the change on millennia of participation in the Arch of Time; but she was less and less inclined to believe him. The difference in him was too great.

She could not conceal her underlying seriousness as she changed the subject.

“I keep thinking about what happened in Berek’s camp. It worries me. Is it really true that we didn’t change the Land’s history? How is that possible? I healed too many people,” affected too many lives. And too many people know about it. How can that not-?”

“Hellfire, Linden,” Covenant interrupted with apparent good humour. “Don’t waste your time on that. If you have to worry, pick something worth worrying about. It’s the Theomach’s problem. He brought us here. He has to clean up after us.

“I don’t know how he’ll do it. I could figure it out, but why should I bother? He’s right where he’s supposed to be. Where he would be if he hadn’t interfered with me. Now it’s up to him to make sure there’s no damage.

“At any rate, he’s serious about preserving the integrity of Time. More than anything, he doesn’t want to make the Elohim notice him. They will if he lets history twist out of shape.”

Covenant’s eyes reflected the pale crimson-orange of the cairn. “Keeping everything on track shouldn’t be hard,” he mused. “being as how he’s Berek’s teacher and all. You changed some things, sure, but that can be a ripple or a thread. If he finds a way to weave what you did back into the tapestry of what’s supposed to happen, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“How can he do that?” Linden asked reflexively. Covenant’s unconcern troubled her. He was too glib-

“Hell, Linden,” he drawled, “you saw how effective a story can be. Mount Thunder didn’t really talk to Berek. Or not in a way he recognised. All he did was bleed, and feel desperate, and mumble some nonsense he didn’t understand. But he says the rock spoke to him, and people believe him because the Fire-Lions came to his rescue. It’s how he tells the story that makes him the kind of hero his whole army is willing to die for.”

Nonsense-? She bit her lip. She was determined not to confront him; not to protest in any way. But she knew that the Seven Words were not nonsense-

“If the Theomach is clever enough when he talks about you,” Covenant continued, “he can make it fit right in with all the old legends.

“And I won’t even mention how stone ignorant Berek is.” He snorted contemptuously. “Eventually the Theomach is going to make him High Lord. On his own, Berek sure as hell couldn’t acquire all that lore and power. He’s got too far to go to be the kind of man who can find the One Tree and make a Staff of Law. He’ll believe anything that damn Insequent tells him.”

As an afterthought, Covenant added. “And I’m still part of the Arch. Did you forget that? You can’t see it, but I’ve never stopped defending Time.”

Now Linden had to grit her teeth to stifle her protests. Covenant’s scorn repulsed her. Berek did not merit his disdain.

But this was the approach which she had chosen-and this was why she had chosen it. So that Covenant would speak more openly; expose more of himself. The first words which she had heard the Theomach say were, And do you not fear that I will reveal you? She wanted to provoke the revelations which the Theomach had withheld.

And she did not intend to risk alienating Jeremiah any further. She had already lost too much of him, and would lose more. For his sake as well as her own, she swallowed her indignation.

Controlling herself grimly, she asked, “What do you think, Jeremiah? Can the Theomach really protect the Land from what I’ve done?”

The boy shrugged without looking at her. “Sure. It’s what he’s good at. He must have spent a long time learning enough about time and history to interfere with us. For him, stopping a few ripples is probably trivial.”

His reply reminded her that it was not the Theomach who had objected to the idea of summoning the Ranyhyn: it was Covenant.

“All right,” she said slowly. If you say so, I believe you. It’s just that the Theomach confuses me.” She hesitated for a moment, then turned back to Covenant. You may not have heard him, but he told me that I already know his “true name”. Is that even possible?”

“Of course it’s possible,” retorted Covenant sardonically. “It has to be. He wanted you to do things his way. If he said something like that, and you could be sure it wasn’t true, he would be cutting his own throat.”

“But it can’t be true,” Linden countered. “How could it? I never even heard of the Insequent until Jeremiah mentioned them. How could I-?”

Covenant held up both hands to silence her. “It’s no good, Linden. You can’t ask us that. The Theomach was right about one thing. While were here, we can’t distinguish between what you know and the Arch of Time. You’ve seen and heard and experienced too much about things that haven’t happened yet. In fact, most of them aren’t going to happen for thousands of years. If we even try to answer a question like that, the Elohim will erase us. They could make us disappear before we got to the second syllable.

“And since they’re the fucking Elohim,” he sneered, “they might not bother to put you back where you belong. They don’t approve of messing around with Time.”

“All right.” In spite of her visceral distrust, Linden accepted his assertion. Both he and the Theomach had made the same point days ago. If they agreed with each other, she could assume that they were telling the truth-or some aspect of the truth. “I can live with a certain amount of ignorance.

“But it would help me to know more about what we’re trying to accomplish. Can you tell me why you wanted to reach the EarthBlood when Damelon first discovers it?” The Theomach had said, The peril of your chosen path I deemed too great. And he had explained his reasons to Linden privately. “How would that have been better? You have so much power-Wouldn’t Damelon notice us? Wouldn’t that cause all kinds of trouble?”

Covenant seemed inclined to humour her. “You should stop obsessing about the Theomach,” he said easily. “He likes to talk, but most of what he said was bullshit. He just wanted your help.

“I could have kept Damelon from catching even a whiff of us. And Jeremiah has talents the Theomach can’t grasp.” With embers for eyes, Covenant gazed at the opposite wall. “What we had in mind was better because we wouldn’t have had to come this far back. The closer we stayed to your ‘present,’ the safer we would have been.” For a moment, his voice held a splash of acid. “And we wouldn’t have had to cope with this winter, or the distance, or Berek, or any of the other problems we have now.

“Personally, I’m going to be delighted when the bloody Theomach finally gets what he deserves.”

“All right,” Linden said again, sighing inwardly. “I’ve been confused for so long that I’m getting used to it.” From her perspective, the difference between being nine and a half instead of ten thousand years away from her proper time was too vague to have any significance. Impelled by a growing sense of alarm, she edged closer to her more fundamental questions. “But there’s something that I really do need to know.

“Tell me if I have this right. We’re trying to find the Blood of the Earth. You want to use the Power of Command to trap Lord Foul and Kastenessen. Then I can use the same Power to free Jeremiah. And get back to where I belong.”

She would never leave the Land. She was already dead in her natural reality. But Jeremiah was not: she had seen his chest unmarked by bullets.

Covenant nodded, shedding shadows and reflected fire. “That’s the general idea. But you’ll have to think of a way to do everything you want with one Command. The EarthBlood is more powerful than you can imagine. No one survives tasting it twice.”

“In that case-” Linden faced her son squarely, although he still did not look at her. The emanations of the cairn felt like fever on her cheeks. “Jeremiah, honey. I have to ask you what you want from me.

“I assume that Joan will die as soon as Lord Foul stops keeping her alive. When that happens”- her throat closed for an instant- “you’ll leave the Land.” She no longer cared that Covenant had lied about this. “The EarthBlood might let me do something about that.

“I might be able to protect your mind. Keep it the way it is now,” although she could not be confident that any Command of Earthpower would survive the translation between realities. “Or I can concentrate on rescuing you from wherever you’re hidden. I can try to free you so that you’ll be able to live the life you want here.” If she could phrase her Command to accomplish such things. “But I can’t do both. And I can’t make that choice for you. It’s up to you.”

She did not believe that any single act of will would affect both her and her son. She would not be able to save herself as well as him. Aiding him would doom her: she would remain where she was now. And no caesure would help her. Neither the Law of Death nor the Law of Life had been broken yet. If she succeeded at creating a Fall, the Arch would surely be destroyed.

When-or if-Covenant succeeded in his designs, Jeremiah would be lost to her forever.

Covenant turned his head to look at her. Slowly he rubbed his cheeks. As he did so, the echoes of heat faded from his gaze. His eyes held only darkness.

She thought that she was ready to accept her bereavement until Jeremiah said without hesitation. “I want to stay here. With Covenant.” Then tears burst from her, as hot as the stones, and as impossible to console. She was barely able to keep herself from sobbing aloud.

She had been obsessed by her desire to save Jeremiah from the Despiser, consumed by images of his torment: she had hardly considered the outcome of Covenant’s designs. Now she saw what would happen.

Her desire to put her arms around her son was so acute that it cut her heart.

Stop, she told herself. Stop.

It doesn’t help.

Cold seemed to creep up her back even though the furnace of stones retained its fierce radiance.

We still have to get there.

And she did not trust Covenant.

I want to repay some of this pain.

The peril of your chosen path I deemed too great.

And I won’t even mention how stone ignorant Berek is.

This version of Thomas Covenant had lied to her about Jeremiah’s circumstances as well as her own: a revealing mistake.

Deeply shaken, Linden strove to master her tears. She could not meet Covenant’s scrutiny, and did not try. Instead she clung to her Staff with her head bowed until the first torrents of her dismay had passed.

She meant to ask him how he intended to reach Melenkurion Skyweir against The kind of opposition that might damage the Arch. But when she had swallowed her grief and scrubbed away her tears, she did not raise that subject immediately. Instead she asked in a raw voice. “What about Roger?”

Glowering suddenly, Covenant turned away.

With a visible effort, Jeremiah met her gaze. The muscles at the corner of his left eye clenched and released erratically. “What about him, Mom?”

“I don’t know where he is, or what he wants, or what he’s doing.” Linden was pitifully grateful to have this much of her son’s attention. “I’m pretty sure that Lytton’s deputies killed him. But Anele told us that he’s here. In the Land.” Seeking such havoc that the bones of mountains tremble to contemplate it. “Shouldn’t we be worried about him?”

Someone must have healed him during his translation, as she had healed herself with wild magic. Lord Foul? Or Kastenessen? Was the enraged Elohim sane enough for such a task? Joan certainly was not-

Reluctance seemed to erode Jeremiah’s eyes until they slipped away from hers. “I don’t see why,” he murmured uncomfortably. “When Covenant stops Foul, there won’t be anything left for Roger to do. He’s just a man. He doesn’t have any power.”

He will if he can get his hands on Joan’s ring, Linden thought. But she kept that fear to herself. Joan’s white gold did not belong to Roger: he was not its rightful wielder. If Covenant had told her the truth about anything, Roger’s ability to unleash wild magic would be limited.

But even limited wild magic-

Grimly Linden strove to appear calm. She did not want what she was thinking to show on her face.

— might be enough to release Lord Foul after Covenant snared him.

And if Roger failed or died, some other dark being might make the attempt.

Covenant’s design for the salvation of the Land did not take Joan’s ring into account. Another revealing mistake; one which might prove fatal.

Abruptly Covenant surged to his feet. Keeping his back toward Linden, he moved to stand over the small cairn as if he felt a need for heat; more heat than ordinary flesh should have been able to endure. Then he gestured along the barranca. For no apparent reason, he announced, “This place is called Bargas Slit. Or it will be, when somebody gets around to discovering it.” He sounded strangely cheerful, despite his glower earlier. “It has a name because it’s unique. It goes all the way through. In fact, it’s the only place north of the Black River where you can walk into Garroting Deep without having to climb the Last Hills.”

He may have sensed the direction of Linden’s thoughts. Once again, his manner conveyed an impression of disharmony: it seemed poorly tempered, slightly off pitch.

“We can leave the horses here. We won’t need them anymore. If we get an early start, we can be at the edge of the Deep by mid-morning.”

Linden stared at his back, but he ignored her. When she looked at Jeremiah, she found him playing with his racecar, concentrating intently as the toy tumbled back and forth among his fingers.

She cleared her throat, hoping that Covenant would face her. When he did not, however, she said carefully, “I don’t understand. Didn’t you say that we can’t go into Garroting Deep?”

“That’s right.” His tone was amiable. The heat of the rocks seemed to give him an obscure pleasure. “And we can’t go over it either. It’s Caerroil Wildwood’s domain. On his own turf, his power is absolute. Every bird and breeze in the whole forest needs his permission just to move from one branch to another. If we try to get past him, well all three of us be dead before your heart can beat twice.

And I don’t mean banished,” he said with an odd timbre of satisfaction. “sent back where we came from. I mean stone cold absolutely by hell dead. The only good part is, it’ll happen so fast we won’t have time to feel bad about it.”

Baffled, Linden asked. “Then why do you want to go there? What’s the point?”

“Because,” he told her without hesitation, “there are times when it’s useful to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

He sounded unaccountably proud of himself.

Before Linden could think of a response, he added. “You should get some sleep. I’m serious about an early start.”

Still without looking at her, he picked up one of the blankets, returned to the place where he had been sitting, and wrapped the blanket around his head and shoulders as if to conceal himself from her questions. Hidden by the dirty fabric, he seemed to blend into the wall of the ravine. The dull laval glow of the mound barely revealed his shape against the inaudible rock.

Jeremiah promptly followed his example. In moments, her son, too, was little more than an extrusion of the stone.

Linden had not seen either of them sleep; not once since they had entered Revelstone ten thousand years in the Land’s future. Doubtless they would not slumber now. But they made it plain that they would not answer if she spoke.

Esmer had told her, You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood, but she did not know what would happen to Covenant and Jeremiah if she did as Cail’s son had instructed; if she tried to save her boy before Covenant could act on behalf of the Land.

Jeremiah was lost to her, no matter what she did. Nevertheless she loved him-and the Land. And she had no intention of forgetting about Roger. Or Joan? ring.

Chapter Ten: Tactics of Confrontation

As Covenant had promised, they emerged from Bargas Slit by mid-morning; and Linden saw Garroting Deep clearly for the first time. After a long cold trudge through the constricted dusk of the barranca, she and her companions regained open sunlight no more than a stone’s throw from the verge of the great forest. Behind them, the Last Hills formed a ragged, crumbling wall against the Centre Plains and the rest of the Land. Ahead of them spread the vast expanse of Caerroil Wildwood’s demesne, dark and forbidding as far as she could see.

Standing under the sun on the bare hillside beside the ravine’s small rivulet, she felt that she was in the presence of something ancient, ineffable, and threatening.

Although she stretched her health-sense, she could discern no sign of theurgy or peril; no hint of anything that resembled the numinous music which she had last heard in Andelain. She saw only trees and more trees: majestic cedars and firs interspersed with pines, occasional lambent Gilden, and other evergreens clinging stubbornly to their leaves and needles; oaks, elms, and sycamores, aspens and birches denuded by winter, their boughs stark and skeletal in the sunshine. A few scrub juniper, desiccated ferns, and aliantha lived between the trunks, but for the most part uncounted centuries of fallen leaves formed a rich carpet of decay and sustenance.

Nonetheless Garroting Deep seemed irreducibly ominous. Its dark foliage and naked branches whispered warnings in the morning breeze. For millennia, the trees of the Land had suffered slaughter; and here, in their potent and baleful heart, they nurtured outrage.

Linden had hoped to catch a glimpse of the Westron Mountains, and perhaps even of Melenkurion Skyweir. But Garroting Deep was too wide, and too many of its trees were giants, towering monoliths as mighty as sequoias: they hid what lay beyond them.

Before dawn that morning, she had left the horses behind, as Covenant had instructed. An unavoidable decision: one of the mounts, the beast that he had ridden last, had perished during the night; and the two remaining animals could not bear three riders. Instead of using one or both of them to carry supplies, she had spilled what was left of the grain and hay to the ground, and had abandoned the horses to fend for themselves. There was nothing more that she could do for them. When she had packed as much food as she could lift comfortably into a bundle which she slung over her shoulder, she had followed Covenant and Jeremiah deeper into the gloom and the scraping wind, rough as a strigil, of Bargas Slit.

Their passage along the ravine had seemed interminable and bitter; fundamentally doomed. Covenant had called Garroting Deep the most dangerous of the old forests. He had said that Caerroil Wildwood is an out-and-out butcher. Yet now he sought out that fell place and its fatal guardian. There are times when it’s useful to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Standing at last in sunlight near the edge of the trees, she understood him no better than she had the previous evening. Garroting Deep was impassable. And the slopes of the Last Hills here looked even more rugged than those facing the Centre Plains. Over the ages, the forest had lapped against them like a sea; had broken them into cliffs and gouges as though they had been raked by claws. Finding a route along them would be far more difficult than she had imagined.

Fortunately the atmosphere here was warmer than the winter of the Centre Plains. The trees absorbed and held more of the sun’s heat; or Caerroil Wildwood exerted himself to moderate the aftereffects of Lord Foul’s long shadow. There was no snow within the Deep itself. And the small scarps and fans of ice clinging to the hills looked porous, vaguely rotten; made frangible by evaporation and old resentment.

The journey ahead may have been impossible. Nonetheless Linden was grateful to escape the worst of the cold.

She dropped her burden so that she could rest her shoulder and arms. “All right,” she remarked to Covenant. “this is definitely ‘a rock and a hard place”. How does it help us?”

“Well,” he drawled without meeting her gaze, “that’s not exactly what I meant.” He was studying the line of hills to the northwest. “But it’s a step in the right direction. For one thing, the Theomach won’t be able to keep an eye on us anymore. The Last Hills have soaked up a lot of rage from the Deep. And of course,” he added sardonically. “the stone of the Land has always sympathised with trees. All that rock and indignation will shield us pretty thoroughly.

“Which means,” he said with harsh satisfaction. “we can finally start to travel faster.”

“But you-” Linden began, alarmed in spite of her determination to maintain a calm facade. Then she caught herself. Taking a deep breath, she asked more casually, “Won’t we be noticed? You said something about “opposition”.

“It’s a risk,” he admitted. “We’ll try to minimise it. Stay below the radar.” Abruptly he glanced at Jeremiah. “What do you think? That ridge?’ He pointed. “The one with the crescent of obsidian? Looks like about three leagues to me.”

Jeremiah considered the distance for a moment. Then he suggested, “What about the next one? It looks like somebody took a bite out of it. I think it’s a bit more than four leagues.”

“Fine.” Covenant nodded decisively. “Your eyes are better than mine. As long as you can see it-”

At last, he turned to Linden. “We want to do this with as little fanfare as possible.” His eyes seemed empty, devoid of embers; almost lifeless. “The more effort we put into it, the more attention we’ll attract. So we’re going to move in short hops. Strictly line-of-sight. And we’ll stay as close to the Deep as we can. The way the Forestal and his trees talk to each other emits a lot of background noise. Ordinary people can’t hear it, but it’s there. It’ll make us harder to spot.”

“What are they saying?” Linden asked impulsively.

Covenant shrugged. “How should I know? I’m not a piece of wood.”

He had claimed that he was The keystone of the Arch of Time-I know everything. Or I can, if I make the effort.

Jeremiah looked at her, but she could not read his expression. His soiled gaze may have held reproach or commiseration. “Actually, Mom,” he said uneasily. “they’re talking about us.” The muscle at the corner of his left eye twitched. “They hope we’ll go into the forest. They like the taste of human blood.”

Before she could respond, he asked Covenant with his familiar diffidence, “You’re ready, aren’t you’?”

“Hell, yes,” muttered Covenant. “I’ve been ready for days.”

Like the taste-And if they liked it so much that Caerroil Wildwood reached out past the borders of his demesne? What then?

“Just tell me one more thing,” Linden said, hurrying. “The Theomach can’t see us anymore. Having me with you is supposed to placate the Elohim. Whose ‘opposition’ are you worried about’?”

Covenant seemed too impatient to answer. Instead Jeremiah said, “It’s better if we don’t tell you, Mom.” His tone reminded her of his anger when she had insisted on seeing whether he had been shot. “They’re more likely to notice us if we say their names.”

Ah, hell, Linden sighed. In this circumstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time. Perhaps that made sense. In the wrong time and place, unearned knowledge could be more dangerous than ignorance. She was acutely aware of the manner in which her companions manipulated her. Nevertheless she had come too far, and had accepted too much, to infuriate Covenant and threaten her son with protests.

All right,” she said warily. “Just tell me what to do.”

“It’s simple, really.” Jeremiah recovered his equanimity quickly. “All you have to do is stand still. And make sure you don’t touch either of us. We’ll do the rest.

“We’ll be using as little magic as possible, so we don’t need much preparation. And we won’t have to worry about wearing ourselves out. I know four leagues doesn’t sound like much. But if nothing goes wrong, you’ll be amazed how much progress we can make.”

Covenant kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot, lifted his palms to the morning breeze, turned his head from side to side as if he were studying the conditions for travel. Then he said brusquely. “Let’s do it. I’m not getting any younger.”

Obeying gestures from her son, Linden retrieved her bundle, braced the severe comfort of the Staff against her chest. Reflexively she used her free hand to confirm that she still bore the unyielding circle of Covenant’s ring. Then she pulled her robe more tightly around her cloak and moved to stand near Covenant.

Jeremiah positioned himself at her back: Covenant faced her. Now she seemed to see sparks or glowing coals in the deep background of the Covenant’s gaze. But he did not appear angry. Instead his mien suggested anticipation or fear. His strict features were distorted by a grin like a snarl.

Slowly he raised his arms until they pointed into the air above Linden’s head. As he did so, he began to radiate heat as if he had eased open the door of a furnace: the conflagration of his true nature. Glancing behind her, she saw that Jeremiah had lifted his arms also. From him, she felt a mounting pressure, warm and solid; a force which would drive her to her knees if it became too strong.

In some fashion, Covenant and Jeremiah were creating a portal-

To her right, the Last Hills rose bluff and uncaring, too enwrapped in their slow contemplations to heed beings as brief as Linden and her companions. But on her left, Garroting Deep seemed to glower avidly, hungry for the taste of flesh. The cold sky and the comfortless sun covered her with their disregard.

Softly she breathed. “I’m trusting you, Jeremiah, honey.”

She meant, Don’t betray me. Don’t let Covenant betray me. Please.

Then the divergent forces arching over her head combined and gathered to form a concussion as lurid as lightning, as bleak and disruptive as thunder. In that instant, everything around her ceased to exist-

— and was instantly re-created as though nothing had occurred. Covenant’s arms, and Jeremiah’s, held no power. The sky and the hills and the trees seemed unaltered; untouchable. The sun had not moved.

Nevertheless Linden stumbled, disoriented by the unexpected angle of the ground under her feet. Covenant and Jeremiah jumped away to avoid her as she floundered for balance. A second ago, less than a heartbeat, she had been standing on a hillside that sloped downward toward Garroting Deep. Now she found herself on a surface which tilted in the opposite direction.

She and her companions must have gained the ridge that Jeremiah had suggested: she appeared to be standing on the treeward side of a notch or gouge in one of the granite ribs of the hills. Somehow Covenant and Jeremiah had avoided arriving amid a cluster of shattered rocks nearby. Those jagged shards would surely have caused her to fall.

A sharp veering sensation unsettled her: the visceral effect of movement without transition. For a moment, she had difficulty remaining on her feet. But the hills here were distinctly themselves; beyond question not the slopes and crags which had risen above her when she had emerged from Bargas Slit. As she concentrated on their uncompromised shapes, she slowly regained her stability.

Breathing deeply, almost gasping for calm, she panted. “Just like that.”

She felt vaguely appalled, even though she had known what would happen. As far as she could determine, no harm had been done, either to her surroundings or to any aspect of Law. The mundane physical exertion of movement had simply been replaced by an effort of theurgy. Surely she had no cause for chagrin? Yet she felt unaccountably distressed, as if she had been aided by an act of violence.

“Just like that,” agreed Covenant. Behind his apparent satisfaction, Linden heard an undercurrent of acid. “It isn’t much. But every little bit helps. And once we reach the mountains”- he gestured toward the northwest- “we won’t have to be so careful. That damn Forestal won’t be able to get at us.”

His distaste for Garroting Deep was unmistakable. Yet he had chosen to come near the forest-

— between a rock and a hard place.

Linden remembered, aching, that Thomas Covenant had viewed the woodland beauty of Andelain with a boundless love. He had treated Caer-Caveral with respect and honour. And she herself was only frightened by the Deep’s clenched anger: she understood it too well, and saw too much loveliness hidden in the heart of the forest, to be repulsed by it.

She did not comprehend the man who claimed that he was leading her to the Land’s salvation.

I want to repay some of this pain.

Yet his sore ribs-like Jeremiah’s battered face-had healed with remarkable celerity. And he must have known that his hurt would be brief. Under the circumstances, he might have considered it trivial. In his previous incarnation, he would certainly have done so. He had allowed Joan to hurt him repeatedly; had sacrificed himself for her

The Thomas Covenant who had twice defeated Lord Foul would not have sought to punish Inbull.

Linden missed her former lover as sorely as she grieved for her son. Nevertheless she was forced to acknowledge that he was gone. There was no portal to that past.

Four “short hops” later, Linden and her companions had covered fifteen more leagues-according to Jeremiah’s estimates-and she found that her imbalance, her almost metaphysical sense of dislocation, was growing worse. Each succeeding rupture weakened her. More and more, the energy which Covenant and Jeremiah invoked appeared to resemble Lord Foul’s iterated lightning when the Despiser had taken Joan’s life. Linden had seen eyes like fangs among the savage blasts of the storm. Now she saw-or seemed to see-the Despiser’s carious malice in each detonation of theurgy which bore her along the marge of Garroting Deep.

She may have been hallucinating; imagining nightmares to account for her disorientation and weakness, her loss of perceptual coherence. Nonetheless a sense of crepitation gathered in her nerves like an accumulation of static, primed for a discharge which would shred her flesh.

She had also seen Lord Foul’s eyes in the bonfire which had maimed Jeremiah-

Struggling to manage her mounting paresthesia, she begged. Can we take a break? Something’s wrong. I need-”

“No!” snapped Covenant. “They’re aware of us now. We have to keep going.”

The strain in his voice-the strident admixture of exultation and dread-snatched at her attention.

He was sweating profusely, as if the cost of carrying his many burdens had finally begun to break down his unnatural endurance. The whites of his eyes glistened with incipient panic. His hands shook.

Wheeling to face her son, Linden saw that he, too, was sweating as though he had run for leagues. Alarm or concentration darkened the muddy hue of his gaze. And his mouth hung open, as slack as she remembered it: he looked like he might start to drool at any moment, lost in his personal dissociation.

The subliminal mutter of Garroting Deep’s many voices had grown louder. A kind of aural brume filled the forest, ominous and inchoate, confusing Linden’s percipience.

“What’s happening?’ she asked her son urgently. “They’re aware of us? What does that mean?”

“They’re fighting us.” His chest heaved. “Putting up barriers. We have to push our way through. If we can’t outrun them-”

“Come on,” Covenant demanded. “They’re going to catch us.”

Immediately Jeremiah flung up his arms, casting his magic to complete the arch of Covenant’s heat over Linden’s head. Their blast of power blinded her; snuffed out the stubborn bulk of the hills and the crouching menace of the trees; cast her adrift.

This time, however, the wrench of movement was not instantaneous. Instead of staggering without transition, flailing to find her balance on a hillside for which her muscles were not prepared, she seemed to hang suspended in a darkness as absolute as extinction. While her heart beat frantically, she heard nothing, saw nothing; felt nothing except her own fear. The tangible world had passed away, leaving her alone in a void like the abyss between the stars.

Then, distinctly, she heard Covenant rasp, “Hellfire!” Heat struck her like a hand, slapping her back into existence.

She fell. For one small instant, a tiny sliver of time, she appeared to fall interminably. Then her feet hit the slope of a steep hill, and she tumbled headlong downward.

She lost her grip on the Staff: her bundle of food vanished in residual midnight. Instinctively she ducked her head, tucked herself into a ball. When she collided with the hard earth, the impact drove the air from her lungs, but she rolled instead of breaking.

Dirt and rock and sky whirled around her indistinguishably, too swift to be defined. There was no sunlight: she had plunged into shadow. Gloom and stones crowded around her as she rolled. Her companions and the Staff were gone. Covenant and Jeremiah were closed to her, Covenant wanted to repay some of this pain, but she should have been able to discern the presence of the Staff, her Staff, the instrument of Law which she had called into being with love and grief and wild magic.

An instant later, she felt her opportunity. Kicking out her legs, she caught herself in mid-plummet and stumbled to her feet.

Her surroundings continued to whirl, dusk and sky and bitter yearning in a vertiginous gyre. She may have splintered bones, torn open flesh: if so, her hurts brought no pain. Shock muffled everything that she might have known about herself.

Covenant and Jeremiah had disappeared, but she did not stand in shadow. As the spinning of the world slowed, she saw clear sky overhead; saw the sun. Its cold illumination should have reached her. Yet the gloom persisted. She stood near the bottom of a hollow between two outstretched ribs of the Last Hills. To her left, veiled by impossible twilight, lay the threatening wall of the forest. Through the dusk, she saw jutting plinths of stone below her, sharp spurs that strained out of the dirt like doomed fingers clutching for air and open sky; release. Among them, she thought that she recognised the shape of her bundled supplies.

A few steps farther down the slope, near the jagged stones, she saw the unmistakable length of her Staff. Its clean wood glowed softly in the eldritch twilight.

But Covenant-Her son-

“Linden!” Covenant shouted.

Jeremiah called. “Mom!”

She barely heard them. Their voices were wrapped in dusk, muted and unattainable: they seemed to come from some other dimension of reality, a plane beyond her grasp. She would have tried to answer them, but she had no air in her lungs; had forgotten how to breathe.

Stiff-kneed and lurching, she made her way down into the hollow to reclaim the Staff.

“Linden!” Covenant may have howled, raging. “Hell and blood!” But she could not be certain that she heard him.

As soon as her fingers closed on the immaculate surface of the wood, a taste of Law flowed into her, and she regained an aspect of herself. Gasping, she began to suck air fervently into her lungs. Between one heartbeat and the next, she discovered that she had suffered a dozen scrapes and bruises, but had broken nothing. A moment of the Staffs flame-only a moment-would be enough to ease her battered condition. If she dared to raise power in this preternatural shadow, and could be sure that Jeremiah and Covenant would not suffer for it-

She restrained herself, however. The comfort of the Staff in her hands was enough to sustain her until she could determine why her son’s voice and Covenant’s reached her as though they occupied some other time and place, a world beyond her grasp.

The sun shone on the Last Hills and Garroting Deep, but its light did not touch her. It could not illumine the hollow, or the straining stones, or the consequences of her fall.

“Mom!” Jeremiah called from the far side of the heavens. “Can you hear me?”

She should have tried to respond. But her throat was full of twilight and trepidation: she seemed to have no words and no voice. Moment by moment, the Staff reawakened her health-sense. She felt intentions in the caliginous air. An impression of purpose and desire swirled about her as though the gloom were mist. She was in the presence of sentience, encompassed by a being or beings as impalpable as thought, and as analystic.

Puissant beings- They’re going to catch us.

But her perceptions remained vague, as disquieting as a badly smeared lens: they spurned accuracy. Instead her paresthesia intensified in spite of her grasp on the Staff. She saw the sound of her own hoarse breathing as if it emerged from her mouth in twisted blotches of distress. In the gloom, she heard shapes and precision which her senses were too blunt to identify. The cold was the distant clatter and collision of thunder. Her hurts smelled like bile, tasted like sulphur.

Confusion filled her sight, muffling her companions’ shouts. Evening crept along her skin like the play of ruinous fingers: it probed her flesh to determine who and what she was. Loud forms twisted and squirmed around her, evanescent as tendrils, dangerous as tentacles; but an eerie delinition prevented her from hearing them clearly.

Somewhere beyond her, Jeremiah was saying, howling, murmuring,

“Covenant, they’ve got her! The Viles! They don’t want us. They want her.”

The shadow had a voice which she could not hear. They had voices which surpassed her senses, etiolating Jeremiah’s fright, forcing her to mistake the colour of her own heartbeat. At the same time, however, she felt crepuscular ropey streamers coalesce into deeper darkness: she saw them speak. They had only one voice, but they were many. They said many things. She saw one of them-or saw several of them one at a time.

Limned in condensation and grue, the voice announced, Her, as if it had heard Jeremiah. Of course. How should it be otherwise?

Distinctly she heard tentacles curl and shift; saw them pronounce, The others are perilous. They have power. They exert themselves. And they responded to themselves, Yet hers is as great, and she does not. Within her she holds the devastation of the Earth, yet she permits the others to have their will.

It is unseemly, the same voice said or answered. It is a mystery. And again, or differently: Our lore does not account for this.

With the nerves of her skin, Linden felt Covenant raging. “Hellfire, Linden! Give me my ring! Just throw it. I’ll catch it. I can’t protect you without my ring!”

Viles, she thought dimly. Sensory distortion made a writhen vapour of her mind. She could not think consecutively. Covenant wanted his ring. The beings around her were Viles, the makers of the Demondim: absent in her proper time, but present here. He had always wanted his ring, ever since he had first ridden into Revelstone with Masters and Jeremiah.

Spectres and ghouls. Tormented spirits.

Esmer had tried to warn her. Instead of answering her most necessary questions, he had described the history of the Viles and Demondim.

Her former lover hungered for wild magic: he craved it to repay some of this pain, although he had not said so.

Fragments of the One Forest’s lost soul. Creatures of miasma, evanescent and dire.

Do you not know, Esmer had asked her, that the Viles were once a lofty and admirable race?

It must be extinguished. The voices spoke to themselves, wisps and tendrils of elusive, impermeable darkness, using words which Linden could see but not hear, feel but not smell or taste.

It does not concern us. In the swirl of shadow, she recognised hebetude, condescension, disdain. It does not interest us.

New possibilities are coming to life. Old powers are changing.

It interests us intimately, an image or sensation argued. She is a lover of trees.

She is. Still she does not concern us.

Deliracy possessed her, a whirl of memory and confusion as lurid as fever, gravid as nightmare. Eidolons spoke so vividly that she winced. I can’t do it without you. At the same time, Esmer continued his remembered impatient peroration. For an age of the Earth, they spurned the heinous evils buried among the roots of Gravin Threndor-

“Damnation, Linden!” Covenant’s fury crawled down her spine. I can’t help you unless you find me. “Give me my ring!”

— and even in the time of Berek Lord-Fatherer no ill was known of them.

Ravers did this, she thought disjointedly. Esmer had told her so. Sounds danced around the desperate fingers of stone. Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead. She could not escape the rampant blurring discontinuity in her nerves, the disorder of her mind. The Ravers began cunningly to twist the hearts of the sovereign and isolate Viles.

Still words effloresced in the hollow. She does. She must be extinguished. Her power must be extinguished.

With whispers and subtle blandishments, and by slow increments, the Ravers obliquely taught the Viles to loathe their own forms.

Other shapes and images agreed. We will not survive her presence.

Their transformation had begun with mistrust and contempt toward the surviving mind of the One Forest, and toward the Forestals.

Somewhere beyond or beneath perception, Jeremiah replied, “She can’t hear you. They’ve overwhelmed her. She’s lost.”

Linden, find me.

Lost, she echoed. Oh, yes. Nothing in her life had equipped her to disentangle such chaos. If she could have lifted her fingers to the ring hanging from its chain around her neck, she might have drawn it over her head and tossed it aside, abdicating its indelible responsibility. But even that effort surpassed her. Her grasp on the Staff of Law was all that preserved her from tentacles of twilight, and she clung to it with both hands.

Survive her presence-? That made no sense. She posed no threat to such creatures. Even Covenant’s plans would not affect the fate of the Viles. Heeding the Ravers, they had decided their own doom.

Is that cause for regret? multifarious voices countered in visions, pictographs, as ultimate as ebony. It is not. We are not what we were.

And she is a lover of trees. Another Vile-or the same Vile in another avatar. Let her destroy them as she does us. She will reproach herself hereafter. We will be spared.

Spared? Linden saw indignation. Do you name extinction “spared”?

We do. Existence is tedium. Naught signifies. What are we, that we should seek to prolong it?

— a lover of trees. In spite of her fragmentation, the reiteration of that accusation touched something deep within her, some delitescent capacity for passion and choice. She was Linden Avery, a lover of trees in all sooth. Long ago, her health-sense had opened her to the vital loveliness of the woods and blooms and greenswards of Andelain. Their beauty had exalted her when she had taken hold of Vain and Findail with wild magic in order to fashion a new Staff of Law. Now she grasped that Staff in her mortal hands.

Because she was who she was, and did not mean to fail, she opened her mouth so that a shape could emerge into the swirling, interwoven gloom. It formed a yellow moire, oneiric and tenuous.

“Why?”

In response, she smelled surprise. As it bled across her senses, its tang was unmistakable.

She speaks, one or all of the Viles displayed across her vision. And one or several replied, What of it? It is not lore. And again: Ignorance and falsehood guide her kind. Their boredom reeked. It was ever so. They are a pestilence which the Earth endures solely because their lives are brief.

Were the Viles lofty and admirable? Perhaps they had once been. Perhaps they remained so. In the texture and hue of their voices, however, Linden discerned the black urgings of moksha, turiya, and samadhi.

They also do not concern us.

Under other circumstances, she might have been appalled. Now she was not. She had uttered a single word-and the Viles had heard her.

“Why?” she repeated. Her voice was fulvous in the imposed twilight; tinged with brimstone. “Why are you here?

Why do you care? This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

Another scend of surprise stung her nose, her eyes. Tears ran like stridulation down her cheeks.

She does not merely speak. She speaks to us. She desires to be heard.

What of it? they answered themselves in knots and coils of darkness. She holds great powers without lore. No word of hers has meaning here.

Have done with this, several Viles urged at once. Extinguish her. Her life does not profit us.

Others disagreed. She saw their severity as they answered, When power speaks, it is wisdom to give heed.

And still others: When have we ever done otherwise? And others, contemptuously: In what fashion does unexercised power imply wisdom?

Their debate made her stronger. She held the Staff of Law. And they were divided in their desires. They were Viles, on the cusp of learning to despise themselves.

The Elohim considered her the Wildwielder. If they were right, the

Viles should have feared her. She might bring Time and all existence to an end.

“You can hear me,” she pronounced, speaking now in lambent chrysoprase and jacinth rather than saffron blots. “I deserve an answer. If you think that you have the right to destroy me, you owe me an explanation. I haven’t done anything to you. I wouldn’t harm you if I could.

“Why are you here?”

Semiprecious gems winked and hinted among the streaming tendrils. Then they were gone.

We will not heed her. Disdain and scruples crept over her skin. We must.

Before she could insist on a reply, all or several or one of the Viles stated in stark obsidian, Lover of trees, we are here because the others exert hazardous theurgies-and you permit them, holding powers which have no need of theirs. Your folly compels us. The wood that you claim must defy them, yet it does not.

Simultaneously other avatars proclaimed, You strive toward Melenkurion Skyweir and the Power of Command. But the master of white gold has no use for the EarthBlood, and its Power cannot Command wild magic.

You serve a purpose not your own, and have no purpose.

The voices daunted her. Her commingled senses confounded her. The Viles knew too much; and yet they did not know enough to recognise their true peril. Nor could they comprehend her love for her son. They were not mortal.

We will not survive-

The wood that you claim must defy them-

They had answered her. Yet they had not told her what she wanted to know.

Shaping her bafflement into a form of persistence, she said. “No. Not that.” Now the words emerged as emerald and malachite; reified consternation. “I’ve already told you. That doesn’t have anything to do with you.

“Why are you here? In this part of the Land? You live in the Lost Deep.” — in caverns as ornate and majestic as castles. “If you weren’t so far from where you belong, you wouldn’t know or care about us.”

There they devoted their vast power and knowledge to the making of beauty and wonder, and all of their works were filled with loveliness.

Covenant and Jeremiah may have continued calling to her, but she could not feel their voices.

This time, the surprise of the Viles smelled of decay and old rot; mouldering. She has lore. To assume ignorance misleads us.

She does not, they declared scornfully. No mere human knows of our demesne.

Separately and in unison, one at a time, together, they announced, She has been taught. Advised. Therefore she hazards devastation.

Therefore, they concluded, she must be answered.

Therefore, they also decided, she must not.

Their darkness gathered until it threatened to blot out the sun. Are we not Viles? Do we fear her? If they chose to extinguish her, they would be able to do so. The bewilderment of her senses left her vulnerable.

When she fell, they might claim Covenant’s ring-

Yet she saw them pronounce clearly, We do not.

We do not, they agreed. We also have been advised.

Their ire and assent as they answered her smelled as mephitic as a charnel. Lover of trees, they flared like a plunge into a chasm, lightless and unfathomable, we have learned that this remnant of forest despises us. Its master considers us with disdain. We have come to discover the cause of his contumely. We have done naught to merit opprobrium among the woodlands.

Linden might have been horrified; incapable of argument. But Esmer had prepared her for this. That which appears evil need not have been so from the beginning, and need not remain so until the end. Hidden among his betrayals were gifts as precious as friendship.

In shapes as ready as knives, colours as obdurate as travertine, she countered. “That’s a lie. You were “advised”. You said so. By the Ravers. But they didn’t tell you the truth. These trees don’t despise you. They’re too busy grieving. It’s humans they hate. My kind. Not yours.”

“Damnation,” said Covenant in a visceral mutter, a sensation of squirming across Linden’s defenceless skin. “She’s trying to reason with them.”

“I told you.” Jeremiah’s voice made no sound, but she could see it. It was crimson, the precise hue of blood; bright with disgust and grudging admiration. “I remember her. She doesn’t give up.”

“Then we’ll have to do it.” Covenant’s reply itched like swarming ants. “Get ready.”

Linden’s heart yearned for her companions. But she ignored them. She could not reach them now. Surrounded by Viles and implicit death, she had brought herself to a precipice, and could only keep her balance or die.

The makers of the Demondim might resolve their hermetic debate by snuffing out her life. But the risks if she swayed them were no less extreme. Contradicting the seductions of the Ravers, she might irretrievably alter the Land’s history. A cascade of consequences might spread throughout time. If the Viles did not learn to loathe themselves, they would not create the Demondim-who would in turn not create-

With every word, she risked the Arch of Time.

Nevertheless she did not allow herself to hesitate or falter. Here, at least, she believed that calamity was not inevitable. The Law of Time opposed its own disintegration. And the effects of what she did might well prove temporary. Her arguments might do nothing more than delay the gradual corruption of the Viles.

The wood that you claim must defy them, yet it does not.

“Sure,” she continued as though her companions had not spoken, the Forestal is angry. His trees have been slaughtered. But his rage isn’t aimed at you. If you don’t threaten Garroting Deep, he won’t even acknowledge that you’re here.”

Risking everything, uttering sulphur and incarnadine to the gloom, she averred, “You’ve been lied to. You’re being manipulated. The Ravers hate trees. They want you to do the same. Not because they care about you. Not because you’re in any danger. They just want you to start hating.” Extinguishing. “If you do that enough, you’ll end up just like them.”

All contempt turns upon the contemptuous, as it must.

For an immeasurable time, the Viles were silent. Linden felt serpentine darkness coil and twist around her, a nest of snakes and self-dissent; smelled subterranean stone and dust, caves so old and deeply buried that they may have been airless. Get ready. Jeremiah and Covenant had reached a decision, but it lay beyond her discernment. Sensory confusion cut her off from everything except the hollow and the dusk.

Then all or some of the black tendrils repeated, She has lore. And others insisted, It is not lore. It is given knowledge. She has been taught. She merely holds powers which surpass her.

They debated among themselves, gathering vehemence with every assertion. Then the others must concern us.

They do not. They are no mystery to us.

This contention is foolish. The fierceness of the voices blinded Linden. She no longer saw sounds: she felt them. They scraped along her skin like the teeth of a rasp. We cannot accuse her. She has spoken sooth. We also are moved by given knowledge. Have we not heeded those who report that we are despised?

We have. What of that? We seek only comprehension. The intent of her companions is far otherwise. And she consents by withholding her strength. For that reason, we confront her.

Unrestrained anger. For that reason, she must be extinguished.

Stern contradiction. For that reason, she must be understood. Her inaction requires justification.

As one, the voices turned against Linden. Give answer, lover of trees. Why do you permit the purposes of the others, when you have no need of it?

There her determination stumbled. The Viles’ question was more fatal than their ire. In this circumstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time. How could she explain herself without violating the strictures of history? Her choices could only be justified by events which had not yet occurred; events which would not occur for thousands of years. If she answered, the repercussions would exceed any hope of containment.

Desperately she countered the challenge of the Viles with one of her own.

“You aren’t thinking clearly. You’ve got it backward. Before you question me, you have to question yourselves. Why do you listen to Ravers? Don’t you realise that they’re lying? Beings like you?” — lofty and admirable- “I can’t answer you if you aren’t able to recognise the difference between truth and lies.”

Instantly the twilight grew darker. She saw only stark ebony as if it were the benighted hearts of the Viles. The scents of offal and new blood and repudiation were flung into her face. The ground under her boots thrummed as though the bones of the Last Hills had begun to vibrate. The taste of dead branches and twigs filled her mouth, as bright as brass.

Voices clawed at her skin. She dares to speak so. To us. When they replied to themselves, they spoke in fangs. Yet she speaks sooth. We have heeded that which desires only slaughter.

We seek comprehension.

We seek meaning. Our lives are sterile.

Nonetheless their vehemence no longer threatened Linden. Their conflict did not include her. If she felt savaged by it, that was a side effect of their black theurgy.

They uttered falsehood. What of that? they countered. They also spoke sooth.

Truth may mask lies. It may mislead.

Yet it was indeed sooth. Was it not? Have we not acknowledged that it was?

We have. We were informed without chicane that we are self-absorbed spectres, affectless and wasted. The loveliness we devise and adore is without meaning or purpose. Our lore is great, and our strength dire, yet we are but playthings for ourselves. This is sooth. We have acknowledged it.

Linden groaned. She flinched at the touch of every claw and tooth. There could be no question about it: the Ravers had been at work. She recognised their malignancy, their acid gall.

And have we not also acknowledged that therefore we may be deemed paltry by the wider world? Have we not come to this place seeking truth? Is not our first purpose to determine if the Forestal indeed views us with scorn? Only when that is known can we consider the cause of his scorn.

Yet is not our reasoning flawed, as the lover of trees has proclaimed?

She is specious. Unjustified. Her own reasoning is flawed.

No, she wanted to protest. No. Everything that you heard from those Ravers was a lie. Even if it sounded like the truth. You can’t listen-

But she had no voice and no will: she hardly seemed to think. The mounting debate left her mute as well as blind; nearly insensate. She had come to the end of words as though it were the end of worlds.

Agreed, the Viles continued, scoring her flesh, rending her courage. Yet our reasoning is also flawed. We acknowledge that we are self-absorbed and affectless. But we mislead ourselves if we conclude that therefore we are deemed paltry. The attitude of the wider world cannot be inferred from the disdain of those whom she names Ravers.

No. We have not erred in that fashion. We have come to this woodland that we might distinguish truth from falsehood.

We have erred in precisely that fashion. We have come to this woodland expecting to discover that we are scorned. We have been taught scorn for ourselves. Is this wisdom? Is it just? Do we merit disdain because we have clung to loveliness, ignoring the concerns of the Earth?

That’s it! Linden fought to say; to confirm. That’s what the Ravers want. -scorn for ourselves. But still she could not speak. Somehow the Viles had silenced her. They would not permit her to intrude on their dissension.

When she felt Covenant’s voice roar through her clothes, “Now, Linden! Run!” she did not hesitate, although she could not tell where she was and had no idea where she was going.

She feared a collision with the upthrust stones; feared falling; feared the outrage of the Viles. She could hardly be certain that she still held the Staff of Law. Every step carried her from nothing to nothing. Under her feet, the packed dirt sounded as unsteady as water: it felt as suffocating as a cave-in. Nevertheless she attempted to flee, seeking the tone or scent of higher ground.

For an instant, she thought that she heard the Viles muster black madness against her. But then a gap opened in her writhing paresthesia. Through it, she felt Covenant hurl a torrent of heat and fire down into the hollow, power as liquid as magma, and as destructive. At the same time, Jeremiah’s unexplained magic gathered until it seemed to tower over the forest. Then it crashed like a shattered wall down onto the trees of the Deep.

Chaos erupted among the Viles: rage and force virulent enough to strip flesh from bones. Simultaneously, however, the disruption faded from Linden’s senses, swept aside by Covenant’s fire, or by the horrendous response of the Demondim-makers. In that swift rush of clarification, time and her frantic breathing and even the urgent throb of her heart: all seemed to stop at once.

In tiny increments, minuscule fragments of infinity, she saw the hillside under her feet; saw herself striving to run diagonally up the slope toward Covenant and Jeremiah; saw the Staff clenched in her urgent fist. Above her, Covenant faced the Viles with heat spouting viciously from his halfhand. While she watched, the creatures parted like mist to evade his attack, then swirled together to concentrate their corrosive theurgy.

A mere shard of an instant later, she saw Jeremiah standing near Covenant with his back to the Viles, flinging repulsion like frenetic blows into Garroting Deep. Exposed. Defenceless-

The sides of the hollow blocked Linden’s view of the Deep. Nevertheless she felt as well as heard an abrupt cavalcade of music among the trees.

It shocked her; held her nearly immobile in mid-stride while slivers of time accumulated to create a single moment. The leaves sang a myriad-throated melody of ineffable loveliness while the twigs and boughs contributed chords of aching harmony and the trunks added a chaconne as poignant as a lament. Each note seemed as pristine and new as the first dew of springtime, dulcet as daisies, thorny as briars. Together the thousands upon thousands of notes fashioned a song of such heartbreaking beauty that Linden would have wept to hear it if she had not been trying feverishly to run-and if her companions had not stood in the path of havoc.

Within the profound glory of the music lay a savage power. Her nerves were stunned by the sheer magnitude of the magic which the singing summoned. It was not merely beauty and grief: it was also a tsunami of rage. Somewhere beyond the hillside, Caerroil Wildwood must have come to the verge of the Deep; and there he sang devastation for every living being that opposed him.

Separately the Viles and the Forestal were potent enough to banish Covenant and her son, her son. Together their energies would rend both of her loves. Jeremiah and Covenant would not simply disappear: they would perish utterly.

Without Covenant’s support, the Arch of Time itself might be undone.

Then we’ll have to do it. Get ready.

She could not reach them; could do nothing to protect them.

She had scarcely finished one stride and begun the next, however, when Covenant and Jeremiah turned away from their peril. Running headlong, they sprinted down the slope toward her. Again Covenant yelled. “Now, Linden!”

Behind them, a tremendous explosion shook the hills as focused serpentine vitriol struck lucent melody. The impact seemed to jolt the sky, jarring the sun, spilling winter brightness back into the hollow: it made the ground under Linden’s boots pitch and heave. At once, time began to race like Covenant and Jeremiah, like Linden herself, as if opposing forces had knocked the interrupted moments loose to bleed and blur. The Viles released an unremitting gush of black unnatural puissance. Caerroil Wildwood sang in response, using the given lore of the Elohim and the sentient Earthpower of trees by the millions. Suddenly Linden and her companions were able to close the gap between them.

“Now!” Covenant panted yet again. “While they’re fighting each other!”

She stopped as if he had commanded her; as if she understood him.

Scrambling to a halt, he and Jeremiah positioned themselves on either side of her, front and back. They flung up their arms. Against a background of incompatible magicks as flagrant as an avalanche, she felt their powers rise. She had time to think, They did this, they tricked-

There are times when it’s useful to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Then thunder or lightning arched over her head, and everything vanished as though her existence had been severed with an axe. During the immeasurable interval between instants, she and her companions fled.

Without transition, the acrid midnight of the Viles and the angry music of the Forestal sprang into the distance. Unbalanced by the shifting ground, Linden stumbled; flung out her arms to catch herself. Then, still reeling, she looked wildly around her.

Covenant and Jeremiah had brought her to the ridge of another twisted rib among the Last Hills. On one side, the slopes rose into intransigent bluffs and crags: with each translocation, their resemblance to nascent mountains increased. On the other, Garroting Deep lapped against the hills as though the trees had been caught by winter and cold in the act of encroaching on their boundaries. With her first unsteady glance, Linden saw no significant change in the forest. Slight variations in the textures of the woodland: trees differently arranged. Nothing more. Yet she sensed that the intentions of the Deep had been altered at their roots.

The forest no longer hungered for human flesh. Instead Garroting Deep’s mood had become outrage, and its appetite was focused elsewhere.

In the southeast, at least two or three leagues away, the Viles and Caerroil Wildwood made war on each other. Their might was so intense that Linden could descry each scourging strike of scorn and blackness-and each extravagant note, each instance of pure fury, in the Forestal’s vast song.

Rampant obsidian and glory were plainly visible, hectic and unappeased, against the horizon of the hills. Even here, the ground trembled at the forces which the combatants hurled at each other.

Both Covenant and Jeremiah had dropped to their knees to avoid Linden’s floundering. But Jeremiah still held his arms high. From them, energies poured upward as if he sought to ward away or channel the collapse of the sky. The muscles at the corner of his eye sent out messages which she could not interpret.

A heartbeat later, wood began to rain from the empty air. Deadwood, twisted and knaggy: leafless twigs and branches of every size and shape, all broken by weather or theurgy from what must once have been a majestic oak. Linden and her companions could have been beaten bloody or killed by the sudden downpour. But Jeremiah’s power covered them. Twigs as slender as her fingers and boughs as thick as a Giant’s leg rebounded in mid-plunge and toppled to the dirt in a crude circle around the rim of Jeremiah’s protection.

Unbalanced by shock and surprise, Linden braced herself on the Staff. Too much had happened too quickly: her nerves could not accommodate it. She still seemed to see the speech of the Viles blooming darkly in her vision, clawing at her skin. All of that wood had fallen from the featureless sky, and she had done her utmost to sway the makers of the Demondim from their doom.

But she had failed. -a rock and a hard place. The Viles would never forgive the forests of the Land now. They had learned the loathing of trees-

Almost at once, Covenant jumped to his feet. “Get to it,” he snapped at Jeremiah. “We don’t have much time.” Then he faced Linden. “Do what I tell you,” he demanded harshly. “Don’t ask questions. Don’t even think. We’re still in danger. We need you.”

She did not think. When she said, “You tricked them,” she was surprised to hear herself speak aloud. “The Viles and the Forestal.” Like Covenant, Jeremiah had leapt upright. In a rush, he gathered the deadwood, tossing or tugging the heavier branches into a pile, throwing twigs by the handful among them. “You made them think that they were attacking each other.”

And she had helped him. Her attempts to reason with the Viles had distracted them-

“Damnation, Linden!” yelled Covenant. “I told you-!” But then he made an obvious effort to control himself. Lowering his voice, he rasped, “We don’t have time for this. I know you feel overwhelmed. But we can’t afford a discussion right now.

“The Viles aren’t stupid. They’re going to figure out what happened. They’ll know who to blame. If that damn Forestal stops singing at them, they’ll come after us. And even he can’t hold them. Any minute now, they’ll find a way to evade him.

“Linden, we need you.”

Tense with purpose, Jeremiah hurried around the circle of wood, collecting branches of all sizes.

Linden was not sure that she could move. If she tried to take a step, she might collapse. Covenant had told her not to think. She seemed to have no thoughts at all.

“Can’t you outrun them?”

“Hellfire!” Blood or embers flared in his eyes. “Of course we can outrun them. If we have time. But they can move pretty damn fast. We need time.”

As soon as they broke off their engagement with Caerroil Wildwood-

“You planned all of this,” she responded dully. “Or you planned for it.”

“Snap out of it!” Covenant retorted, yelling again. “Do what I tell you!”

Already Jeremiah had gathered half of the torn and splintered wood. In the distance, combat blazed and volleyed, wreckage against song, burgeoning disdain against ancient wrath.

“Where did all this wood come from?” she asked. “What’s it for?”

“Linden!” Covenant protested: a howl of frustration.

But Jeremiah paused, sweating despite the cold. “There was a dead oak at the edge of the trees,” he said without looking at her. “Or almost dead. Anyway, it had a lot of dead branches. I hit it. We picked up the wood when we escaped. We’re going to need it when we get to Melenkurion Skyweir.”

Abruptly he resumed his task.

Trying to think, Linden wondered, Torches? Campfires?

But Jeremiah had broken enough boughs for a full bonfire-and most of them were too large to be carried as torches.

She gave it up: it was beyond her comprehension. The aftereffects of synaesthesia left her in disarray. Her synapses seemed to misfire randomly, afflicting her with instants of distortion and bafflement. Sighing, she made an effort to stand without the support of the Staff.

“All right,” she murmured to Covenant. “We don’t have time. This makes me sick. What do you want me to do?”

She could not imagine how she might impede the pursuit of the Viles.

“Finally!” Covenant growled.

“Go down there,” he told her at once, indicating the southeastward slope of the ridge. “Twenty or thirty paces. That should give us enough room. Use the Staff. Make a Forbidding. As big as you can. That won’t stop them, but it’ll slow them down. They’ll want to understand it.”

Linden peered at him, blinking vaguely. “What’s a Forbidding?”

“Hell and blood!” Now his anger was not directed at her. “I keep forgetting how ignorant-” Grimly he stopped himself. For a moment, he appeared to study the air: he may have been searching through his memories of time. Then his gaze returned, smouldering, to hers. “Don’t worry about that. What we need is a wall of power. Any kind of power. It just has to be dangerous. And it has to cover that whole hillside.

“Go,” he insisted, gesturing her away. “Do it now.”

Linden watched her son piling wood. In some sense, Covenant was telling her the truth. She felt the garish battle in the distance shift as the Viles adjusted their tactics to counter Caerroil Wildwood’s clinquant melodious onslaught. The creatures might soon break free. She took a step or two, still gazing at Jeremiah with supplication in her eyes. Please, she had tried to urge him earlier. Don’t betray me.

She did not understand why he needed so much wood.

And she could not conceive of any barrier except fire.

Fire on the verge of Garroting Deep.

Hardly aware of what she did, she trudged downward. Her mind was full of flames. Flames at the edge of the forest. Flames which might leap in an instant to dried twigs and boughs. If she did not tend them constantly, keep them under control, any small gust of wind might

Lover of trees.

Still she descended the hillside, trying to find her way through memories of twisted blackness, solid irruptions of sound, music that should have been as bright and beautiful as dew. What choice did she have? They’re going to figure out what happened. They’ll know who to blame. She had baited a trap by trying to reason with the Viles. They would attempt to kill Covenant. They would certainly kill her son. Moment by moment, Caerroil Wildwood was teaching them to share his taste for slaughter.

But fire-? So close to Garroting Deep? The Forestal would turn his enmity against her. If any hint of flame touched the trees, she would deserve his wrath.

As she moved, however, she grew stronger. That simple exertion reaffirmed the interconnections of muscles and nerves and choice: with each pace, she sloughed away her confusion. And when she had taken a dozen steps, she began to sip sustenance from the Staff, risking the effect of Law on Covenant and Jeremiah. That strengthened her as well.

By degrees, she became herself again. She began to think.

What would happen if she raised a wall of fire here?

Caerroil Wildwood would see it. Of course he would. And he would respond-For the sake of his trees, he would forego his struggle with the Viles in an instant.

Then the Viles would be released to pursue the people who had tricked them. Linden and her companions would be assailed by both forces. It was even conceivable that the Forestal and the Viles would form an alliance-

If that happened, what she knew and understood of the Land’s history would be shattered. The ramifications would expand until they became too fundamental to be contained.

Covenant was urging her to hazard the Arch of Time.

You serve a purpose not your own, and have no purpose.

He and Jeremiah had decided to set Caerroil Wildwood and the Viles against each other before they had entered Bargas Slit. They may have decided it days ago. And they had kept it from her.

In the distance, the battle raged on. The Viles may have been trying to disengage, but they had not succeeded.

“No.” Linden did not shout. She did not care whether or not Covenant heard her. “I won’t do it. I won’t. It’s too dangerous.” Turning sharply, she began to stride back up the slope. “You’ll have to think of something else.”

Quenching the Staff so that it would not imperil her companions, she approached them with her refusal plainly written on her face.

“Linden, God damn it!” Covenant raged down at her. Wailing like a child, Jeremiah protested. “Mom!”

She ignored them until she was near enough to meet Jeremiah’s stricken stare, Covenant’s hot ire. Then she stopped.

“It’s too dangerous,” she repeated as if she were as resolute as Stave, as certain as Mahrtiir. “Fire is the only barrier that I know how to make. I won’t risk the trees.

“If you can’t outrun the Viles, you’ll have to come up with another plan,” another trick.

God, she missed Thomas Covenant: the man he had once been. Her disappointment in her companions was too profound for indignation.

They froze, poised on the brink of eruptions. Briefly their disparate faces mirrored each other. In them, Linden saw, not alarm or dismay, but naked anger and frustration. Jeremiah’s eyes were as dark as blood. Ruddy heat shone from Covenant’s gaze. She had time to think, They don’t care about the Deep. Or Caerroil Wildwood. Or me. Maybe they don’t even care about the Arch. They just want to do what they’ve been planning all along.

Then together Covenant and Jeremiah wheeled and ran, rushing to collect the last twigs and branches.

A moment later, they were done: their pile of deadwood was complete. In the distance, music and vitriol vied for harm. Quickly Covenant and Jeremiah moved to stand facing each other, leaving space between them for Linden and the Staff.

Grieving, she entered the ready arch of their arms.

According to Jeremiah, their next dislocation took them four leagues farther along the Last Hills. Another burst of power crossed five. Then three. Then five again. Indirectly they violated time rather than space: they excised the hours and effort necessary to travel such distances.

Their mound of broken wood accompanied them through every imponderable leap. Somehow they drew it with them without enclosing it in their arc of power.

Eventually they stopped. While Linden stumbled to her knees, utterly disoriented by the shifting ground and the veering horizons, the unsteady stagger of the world, Covenant and Jeremiah retreated from her. “This should be far enough.” Covenant seemed to struggle for breath. “We can rest here. At least for a few minutes.”

The anger in his voice was as raw as his respiration.

Linden’s head reeled: her entire sensorium foundered. She could not discern any sign of the distant battle.

“Covenant,” Jeremiah gasped. He sounded more tired than irate. “This isn’t a surprise.” He may have been warning his only friend. “She is who she is. She’s never going to trust us. Not until we prove ourselves.”

Breathing deeply, Linden lifted her head; focused her eyes on the Staff of Law and refused to blink until it no longer yawed from side to side. Through her teeth, she insisted. “It was too dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” asked Covenant. His tone had become level despite his hard breathing. Apparently he had decided to curb his anger. “All you had to do was give me my ring.”

When she was sure of the ground under her, she climbed to her feet. “Not that,” she said, trembling. “Fire. The only barrier that I know how to make. I might have broken the Arch.”

Jeremiah did not look at her. His face was slick with sweat, flushed with intense exertion. His tic signalled feverishly. But Covenant faced her. Apart from his ragged respiration, he now seemed completely blank, sealed off; as severe as one of the Masters. The sporadic embers in his eyes were gone, extinguished or shrouded. In spite of her resolve to avoid challenging him, she had made him wary.

“I don’t see how.”

She forced herself to hold his gaze. “Flames would have spread to the trees. I couldn’t prevent that unless I stayed behind.” Surely she was still Covenant’s and Jeremiah’s only protection against the Elohim? “But even if they didn’t,” even if she had remained to control her conflagration, “the Forestal would have forgotten about the Viles as soon as I raised fire that close to the Deep. Or he would have joined them. They had a common enemy.” That was Covenant’s doing, and Jeremiah’s. “They might have come after us together.” Cold seeped through her cloak, her robe. It oozed into her clothes. “Then-”

Covenant cut her off. “Oh, that. That was never going to happen.”

In a tone of enforced patience, he said. “I know I haven’t given you all the explanations you want. And you obviously don’t like it. But we didn’t have time. I couldn’t afford to spend a few hours teaching you other ways to use the Staff. And I didn’t know I needed to tell you why the Arch wasn’t in danger.

“The Viles aren’t stupid. They’re capable of alliances. But Wildwood isn’t. I don’t mean he’s stupid. He just doesn’t think that way.

“He’s a Forestal. He doesn’t think like people-or even Viles. He thinks like trees. And for them, life is pretty simple. Soil and roots. Wind and sun and leaves. Birds and seeds. Sap. Growth. Decay.” Just for an instant, Covenant’s deliberate restraint cracked. “Vengeance.” Then he flattened the emotion in his voice. “As far as they’re concerned, there’s no distinction between sentience and fire or axes. Anything that’s mobile and has a mind can kill them. The Viles are just like us. We’re already Wildwood’s enemies. By definition.

“Trust me,” he concluded heavily. “There was never any chance he would join the Viles.”

Never any chance that the logic of the Land’s past might be severed

“He’s right, Mom,” Jeremiah offered. His gaze had paled to the hue of sand. “We couldn’t make Wildwood team up with the Viles even if we wanted to. Which of course we don’t. All we want is to get to Melenkurion Skyweir. So Covenant can save the Land-and you can save me.”

Linden could not argue; not with her boy. But she was not appeased. She had been used. -a rock and a hard place. Covenant and Jeremiah had deliberately exposed her to the Viles-and for what? So that she would surrender Covenant’s ring? And when she ignored him in order to argue with the Viles, he and Jeremiah had created a conflict between them and Caerroil Wildwood.

What would he have done if she had complied? Would he have abandoned her to the debate of the Demondim-makers?

His design for the salvation of the Land made no provision for his ex-wife’s wedding band-or for their fatal son.

“What about the battle’?” she asked in anger and misery. “Doesn’t that affect history?”

“Hell, no,” Covenant snorted as if he had come to the end of his forbearance. It confirms what was going to happen anyway. Now the Viles despise Wildwood. They despise Garroting Deep. They’re ready to listen to the Ravers. And nobody else knows they ever fought. We didn’t change anything.”

He made the statement sound like an accusation.

A moment later, he and Jeremiah prepared their next arch so that they could move on. As she stepped between them, Linden felt like weeping. But she refused her tears; her intensifying bereavement. They had become useless to her.

Chapter Eleven: Melenkurion Skyweir

Sickened by disorientation and doubt, Linden Avery arrived with her companions on the broad plateau of Melenkurion Skyweir high above Garroting Deep early in the afternoon of that same day.

Safe from the Viles, Covenant and Jeremiah moved in longer and longer jumps, carrying their jumble of wood with them. But they continued to respect the threat of Caerroil Wildwood’s power. Instead of crossing over the forest, they followed the line of the Last Hills until they gained the packed snow and ice of the Westron Mountains at the northwestern limit of the Deep. Then they turned toward the south among the crags, devouring distance in instantaneous bursts of twenty or thirty leagues.

The intervening crests and tors blocked Linden’s first sight of Melenkurion Skyweir until Covenant and Jeremiah paused to rest before opening their final portal. While they recovered from their exertions, however, she was given a brief opportunity to study the mighty peak; see it for what it was.

The effects of dislocation and the hard cold of the mountains, the air as sharp and pointed as augury, had already left her gasping. Otherwise Melenkurion Skyweir might have taken her breath away.

Made brilliant by sunshine, it dominated the south. Indeed, it seemed to command the entire range. Although the neighbouring peaks and spires-mottled by endless ice and snow, defined by raw granite against the pale cold depth of the sky-were gigantic in themselves, they resembled children beside the towering head of the Skyweir, with its crown and chin raised to the heavens as if in defiance. As it presented its nearly sheer front to the east, it created the impression that it had been frozen in the act of striding massively toward Landsdrop and the Sunbirth Sea, drawing with it like acolytes or escorts all of the other mountains.

But while its eastern face fell precipitously for fifteen or twenty thousand feet, its other slopes were more gradual. On the north and west, they blended with the lower peaks in scalloped cols and coombs, or in ragged moraines. Those sides held centuries or millennia of impacted ice like glacial fragments; scraps and swaths of ice so old and deep that in sunlight they were more blue than the winter sky.

Backed by rugged grandeur, the single titan of Melenkurion Skyweir confronted the east and Garroting Deep as though here, at least, if nowhere else in the Land, the Earth’s fundamental rock had risen up to watch over the dark trees.

Somehow the mountain appeared impervious to doubt or reproach; immune to time.

The thin, sharp air held no taint, and the angle of the sun had not yet cast the Skyweir’s eastern face into shadow. As a result, Linden could discern the precise contours of the plateau which girdled the tremendous stone. It began among Melenkurion Skyweir’s northern slopes, spread out below the stark eastward cliffs, and disappeared behind the mountain’s bulk toward the south. From her vantage, the plateau resembled a wide altar, a gathering place for humility and worship. The whole mountain and its surrounding rock might have been a fane erected for and sanctified to the august beauty of the world.

And somewhere deep within that temple lay hidden the spring of EarthBlood, the source of the Power of Command: the Power with which Covenant had promised to end Lord Foul’s malice, and Kastenessen’s: the Power that would enable Linden to redeem her son.

She would be left behind; alone and lost in this time. Jeremiah would be free at last. But there would be no one to prevent Roger from seeking out his mother’s ring.

Shivering in the cold-at this elevation, the chill resembled shards of glass-she gazed through her steaming breath toward Melenkurion Skyweir and tried to imagine how she might navigate the complex ramifications of her suspicion and grief.

The coming crisis would end her life. If other outcomes were possible, she could not see them.

Her companions were too eager to pause for long. “We should go,” Jeremiah murmured to Covenant. “She lost her supplies back there.” Among the Viles. “She’s hungry and thirsty, and it’s going to get worse. We should try to do this quickly.”

Covenant nodded at once. “Linden,” he said, peremptory with anticipation, “come on. You can pull yourself together later. We’ll have time to talk soon enough.”

Neither he nor Jeremiah felt the cold. They were oblivious to the weaknesses which defined her. Yet she seemed to hear real concern in her son’s voice, and so she did not hesitate. After all, he was right. Covenant’s strange powers could warm her, but they did not spare her from hunger and thirst and weariness. She was already shivering. Soon she would lose more of her frayed strength. And searching for the Blood of the Earth might require hours or days.

Obediently she moved to stand between her companions while Jeremiah and Covenant summoned their eldritch doorway.

Afterward, as she staggered to regain her balance, she found that her son and her former lover had brought her to the centre of Melenkurion Skyweir’s plateau. They were halfway between the towering plunge of the cliffs and the jagged rim of the plateau; at the midpoint of the wide altar. Jeremiah’s collection of torn branches and twigs had landed with a clatter nearby. As always, he and Covenant had stepped away so that she would not touch them inadvertently, either with her hand or with the Staff.

Starving for stability, Linden lowered herself to her knees, then placed the Staff beside her and braced her hands on the bare stone. The granite here was free of ice and snow: the entire plateau appeared to have been swept clean. She thought that if she extended her health-sense toward the mountain’s depths, she might draw some of its knowledge and permanence into herself. Perhaps she would find a form of courage among Melenkurion Skyweir’s fundamental truths.

For a moment, she felt only cold through her palms and fingers, through the knees of her stained jeans; cold as irrefragable as the stone, and as unyielding. But then her percipience grew sharper, and she realised that the chill, the reified frost, was not as severe as she had expected it to be. Somewhere far beneath her, beyond the range of her senses, ran a source of warmth.

The Blood of the Earth: Earthpower in its purest and most absolute incarnation. Its implied presence seemed to throb like a pulse in the veins among the mountain’s roots.

As she attuned her perceptions to the rock, however, she realised that she was wrong, not about the stone’s comparative warmth, but about its pulse. The beating deep under her hands and knees was not the rhythm of Melenkurion Skyweir’s heart. It was a tremor of strain, the slow tectonic grinding of imponderable pressures so distant that they were barely palpable. Somewhere far beneath the plateau and the immense peak, irresistible forces were rising. Her nerves caught the first dim elusive hints of a mounting cataclysm, a convulsion which would alter everything.

The sensation reminded her of the damage which she had felt in Kevin’s Watch when she had first arrived in the Land. But the subcutaneous tremors here were not the result of imposed harm or unnatural powers. Rather they were an expression of the Earth’s internal necessities, as natural as the world’s slow respiration, and as potentially destructive as a hurricane, an avalanche, the calving of icebergs.

Clutching at the Staff, Linden struggled to her feet. When Covenant and Jeremiah turned to look at her, she announced unsteadily. “There’s going to be an earthquake.”

Covenant nodded. “I know.” His unconcern was plain. “And it’ll be massive. It’ll split the Skyweir from top to bottom. Right where we’re standing, there’ll be a crevice all the way down to the Black River. Something like four thousand feet. When he gets here, Damelon is going to call this place Rivenrock. And the mountain will have two crests. The quake will crack it along a seam in the stone. It’ll look like two mountains shoved together.

No one in the Land will even know it happened. Except Wildwood, of course-and he won’t care. Once Earthroot fills up, the flow of water will return to normal. He won’t be affected.” Covenant shrugged. “Oh, sure, people are going to feel the quake. Even as far away as Doriendor Corishev. But this place is so remote-No one will know the quake hit here, or what it did to the mountain. When Damelon shows up, he’ll think Melenkurion Skyweir was always split like that.

“But it won’t happen for years and years. A decade at least. We don’t need to worry about it.”

“All right.” Linden tested her perceptions and found that she believed him. The almost subliminal vibration in the stone disturbed her health-sense as if the surface under her had become subtly unreliable; but the peak’s heavy intransigence held. It might hold for a long time- “That’s a relief,” she admitted. “It makes me nervous.”

According to the Theomach, Melenkurion Skyweir could be approached safely in this time-or more safely than while High Lord Damelon searched for the mountain’s secrets.

“But Jeremiah is right,” she went on. “Without supplies,” or the use of the Staff, “I’ll be in real trouble.” She would need Covenant’s aid-or a bonfire-to survive a night exposed to the mountain winds. She was weary; deeply aggrieved. And she had no idea how long a fumbling trek into the bowels of the Skyweir might take. “Can I assume that you know the way to the EarthBlood?”

Covenant bared his teeth. “I do.” He sounded pleased with himself. “There are two of them. But we won’t use them.”

Before she could react, he explained, “One is way the hell on the other side of the mountain. The other involves getting down into Garroting Deep and then following the Black River upstream. Which naturally Wildwood won’t let us do. But in any case, both routes are bloody difficult. We could be clambering in the dark for days. And you still wouldn’t have any food”- he shrugged again- “although I’m sure we’ll find water easily enough.”

Linden held his gaze warily. “So you’re going to transport us?”

If Jeremiah did not need his wood for campfires and torches, what purpose did it serve?

Covenant’s grin widened. “Unfortunately, no. That won’t work. The Blood of the Earth is just too damn powerful. It puts out too much interference. Once we get close to it, I’m going to need every ounce of power I can muster just to keep the two of us”- he nodded toward Jeremiah- “from evaporating like steam.

“And we still have the Elohim to worry about. They don’t approve of what we’re trying to do. You haven’t stopped us yet, and they don’t know why. If they can tell we’re going in, they might lose patience with you. I don’t want to take the chance.”

Linden studied him. With an effort, she kept her voice low. “Then what are we going to do?”

Still grinning, Covenant looked at her son. “Tell her, Jeremiah. Why should I have all the fun?”

Jeremiah ducked his head as if he were embarrassed; but he, too, was grinning. The fever of his tic contradicted his obvious excitement.

“That’s what all this wood is for. It’s one of the main reasons we had to make the Viles and Wildwood fight each other. So I could get enough branches.

“I’m going to build a door.” Eagerness seemed to crackle and spatter in his voice. “Like the one in my bedroom that let me visit the Land. Like that one, it won’t look like a door. It’ll be more like a big box. Once we climb inside, and I put the last pieces in place, we’ll disappear here- his gaze touched Linden’s briefly, then dropped away- “and reappear there. Where were going.”

The muddy hue of his eyes had turned the colour of dark loam.

“And the best part is, the Elohim won’t know what we’re doing. We’ll be invisible. They’ll think we’re just gone.”

Linden stared at her son as though she had never seen him before.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Covenant put in. Now his smile looked false; feigned and strangely vulnerable. “If he can do all that, why didn’t he do it days ago? Why didn’t we come straight here from Revelstone? We could have avoided the Theomach completely. And why can’t the Elohim see us? Don’t they know everything? They sure as hell think they do.”

Linden shook her head, effectively dumbfounded. In one sense, she understood what she heard. The words were simple; within her grasp. But in another, she was completely baffled. Jeremiah might as well have spoken in an alien tongue. He was going to build a door? When he had talked earlier about using his raceway construct as an entrance to the Land, his explanation had had the same effect: it conveyed nothing that she knew how to comprehend.

Jeremiah? she wanted to ask. Jeremiah-? But she had no language for her question. Her son had remained cruelly unreactive during all of their time together; and yet for years he had been capable-?

One of the Insequent, the Vizard, had tried to persuade him to build a prison for the Elohim.

She was so cold-

“Come on, Linden.” Covenant’s voice seemed to reach her from a great distance; across a gulf of millennia and ambiguous intentions. “It’s going to take him a while to do this. It has to be done exactly right. Let’s leave him to it. We can go for a walk.” He missed a beat, then said. “We need to talk.”

She hardly heard him. “I would rather stay here,” she murmured. “I want to watch. I could watch him all day.”

She had spent innumerable hours absorbed in her son’s inexplicable abilities.

“Actually, I could too,” Covenant said without conviction. “But this is important. We’re only an hour or two away from saving the world. We need to be clear.”

His tone rather than his statement caught Linden’s attention. His eyes were dull, almost lifeless. The embers which smouldered sporadically in his gaze had been banked with ash; hidden away. His grin had become a coerced grimace.

Apparently he had chosen to suppress his anger and frustration; his disappointment in her.

“All right.” She, too, needed to be clear. The time had come for decisions which surpassed her. Tightening her grip on the Staff, she checked to be sure that his ring still hung from its chain around her neck. “Let’s walk.”

Movement might hold her shivering at bay.

Covenant gestured toward the rim of the plateau. Keeping a safe distance between them, he accompanied her as she started in that direction.

But he did not speak. When he had been silent for a few moments, her thoughts reverted to her son, drawn there by the mystery that Jeremiah had become.

“How does he do it?” she asked; almost pleaded. “Is this more “leakage”? Power he gets from being in two places at once? Because time is bleeding?”

“No, no.” Covenant flapped one hand dismissively. “Making a door like this one-or the one in his bedroom-That’s natural talent. The right shapes can change worlds. They’re like words. He does it all himself. Leakage is when he puts up a barrier. Or when we move from one place or time to another. Then he’s using what spills out while I fold time.”

Linden nodded as though she understood. Jeremiah’s ability to prevent her from touching him was an acquired magic. He had not been born with it. She wanted to believe that it was not inevitable or necessary; that she would be able to hug him before the end.

“This talent-” She remembered faery castles, unexplained monuments, wooden toys. Revelstone and Gravin Threndor. “How big is it? How far does it reach? What can he do?”

Ever since she had first discovered his gift for building, she had prayed that he might construct his own escape from his mental prison.

Again Covenant grimaced. “I’ll get to that. None of this is as simple as you want it to be.”

Instead of continuing, however, he fell silent again.

Gradually they neared the edge of the plateau. Covenant seemed to be waiting for that. He wanted to show her something that could only be seen from the precipice above Garroting Deep. Or he wanted to be sure that he was entirely out of Jeremiah’s earshot. Or he-

He did not slow as he approached the rim; but Linden held back. Kevin’s Watch had been shattered under her, and she still did not know how she had saved herself and Anele. She feared another fall.

Nonetheless Caerroil Wildwood’s demesne opened before her with every step: an unfurling tapestry of trees, dark with winter and old hate. Hills lay under the forest like the waves of a sea, seething too slowly for her limited senses to descry. Soon she could see the crooked line of the Black River through the woods. True to its name, its waters did not reflect the cold sky or the comfortless sunlight. Rather the river seemed thick with Earthpower and slaughter.

Covenant had called the Forestal an out-and-out butcher.

At last, he stopped with his boots on the jagged verge of the plateau. Now it was Linden who kept her distance, from him as well as from the cliff. For a while, he waited for her to join him. Then he turned to face her, sighing quietly.

When the water comes out down there”- he indicated the base of the sheer drop behind him- “it’s sort of red. In the right light, it looks like blood. The ichor of the Earth. But Wildwood uses it to wash the death out of Gallows Howe. That’s what turns the river black.”

Without pausing, he said, “Your kid makes doors. All kinds of doors. Doors from one place to another. Doors through time. Doors between realities. And doors that don’t go anywhere. Prisons. When you walk into them, you never come out. Ever again.”

Linden gripped the Staff of Law until her knuckles ached; bit down sharply on her numb lip until she felt the pain; said nothing. Her son had such power-

“I can’t explain how he does it. Talent is always a mystery. But I can tell you a couple of things.

“First, he has to have the right materials for the door he wants to make. Exactly the right wood or stone or metal or bone or cloth-or racetracks. And they have to be in exactly the right shapes. In theory, he could have made a box or portal to take us straight here from Revelstone just after Damelon arrived.

“Incidentally,” Covenant remarked, “that’s how we were going to make sure Damelon didn’t know we were there. Jeremiah would have built a door to hide us.” Then he continued.

“But in practice, he didn’t have the right materials. There wasn’t enough”- Covenant spread his hands- “whatever he needed in Revelstone. And putting one of his doors together takes too long. The ur-viles were always going to try to stop us. Plus no one ever knows what Esmer might do.

“No,” he asserted. “we had to travel the way we did. And we had to use you and the Viles to distract Wildwood so we could get the wood your kid needs for this door. Without it, the Elohim are definitely going to interfere.

“That’s the other thing. The Elohim. They’re-I don’t know how to put it.” His mouth twisted in disgust. “They’re vulnerable to certain kinds of structures. Like Vain. Maybe because they’re so fluid. Specific constructs attract them. Exactly the right materials in exactly the right shape. Other structures repel them. Or blind them.

“That’s one reason Findail haunted you the way he did. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t get away from Vain.

“With the right materials, Jeremiah could make a door to lure the Elohim in and never let them out. Which is what the Vizard wanted. They wouldn’t be able to stop themselves. But this door they just won’t look at. It’ll take us where we want to go, and they won’t know we’re doing it.” Covenant gave another stiff shrug. “Hell, they won’t even know they don’t know.”

Linden stared in awe. Her son could do such things. The idea filled her with wonder and reverence; potential joy. Jeremiah had always been precious to her, but now he seemed priceless in ways which she could not have imagined.

Yet the mystery of his abilities was also fraught with anguish. She had not known: she had never known. Now he was going to be taken from her. Again. Just when she had finally been granted a glimpse of his true nature-

We’re only an hour or two away-

Beyond question, she needed to be clear.

Abruptly Covenant changed directions. “Of course, we don’t have to do this. It’s not too late. You can still give me my ring.”

She met his lightless gaze without faltering. “Then what?”

He failed to hold her stare. Something within him appeared to cringe or hide. Glancing aside, he frowned at the uneven rock of the plateau.

“Then we go back where you and your kid belong,” he said flatly. “I stop Foul. And put Kastenessen out of his misery. With that kind of power, I can find where Foul’s been keeping Jeremiah. When Joan dies, the caesures stop. Everybody lives happily ever after.”

“And what if-?” Linden began. Then she halted. For Jeremiah’s sake, she did not wish to provoke Covenant.

“Go on, say it,” he urged without rancour. “What if I’m not telling the truth? Isn’t that what scares you? Isn’t that why you’re afraid to trust me?’

Instead of answering directly, she countered. “Covenant, what’s happened to you?” Encouraged by his restraint, she risked saying. “You talk about how much strain you’re under, but it was always like that. Ever since I’ve known you, everything has always mattered too much, there were always too many lives at stake, the Land was always in too much peril.” And he had judged himself harshly, accepting his own hurts while he struggled to spare the people around him. “But you didn’t react the way you do now.” He had tended her when she had been most frail; wounded and broken. Even when she had opposed him, possessed him, he had covered her with forgiveness. “Now you don’t seem to care about anything except making me do what you want.”

For a moment, he looked at her, still frowning. His eyes were empty, unreadable; devoid of depth. Then he bowed his head. His fingers tapped against his thighs as if he required an outlet for a tension which he was determined to conceal.

“I miss my life, Linden.” He seemed to address the grass stains on her jeans. “I miss living. When you made that Staff, you trapped me. I know it’s not what you intended, but it’s what you did. I’ve been stuck for millennia. It’s made me bitter.

“I yell because I hurt. And I don’t tell you everything because you don’t trust me. I don’t know what you’re going to do. I’m sure you won’t hurt your kid, but I don’t know what you might do to me. If you won’t give me my ring-” His tone suggested that she might destroy him out of spite.

Slowly he raised his eyes until he appeared to be studying the band hidden under her shirt. “That’s why I need to be sure we’re clear. I’m stretched too thin for any more surprises. I have to know what you’re going to do.”

There Linden reached her decision.

Jeremiah had made his choice. He wanted her to prevent Joan’s death from banishing him. He wanted to stay in the Land, conscious and whole. With Covenant. The EarthBlood would enable her to grant his desire.

Then she would lose him forever. For his sake, she could bear that. In addition, she would be lost herself, trapped ten thousand years before her proper present. And in this time, she and her Staff and Covenant’s ring would pose a profound threat to the Arch of Time; a living affront to the Land’s history. But she could worry about that later, after Jeremiah and the Land had been spared. She could even set aside the conundrum of Roger, the peril of Joan’s white gold. Such things were problems for a future in which she would play no part.

Nevertheless Covenant’s underlying falseness surpassed her. She could not suffer it.

He feared the Staff of Law. He insisted that any contact with her would unmake the distortion of Time which allowed him-and Jeremiah-to exist in her presence. Yet Berek’s touch, Berek’s awakening strength, had not harmed him. And he showed no fear when he proposed to approach the Land’s purest and most potent source of Earthpower.

He wanted her to believe that she was more fatal to him than Berek Halfhand or the Blood of the Earth.

When he had said to her in dreams, Trust yourself, and, You need the Staff of Law, and, Linden, find me, he had sounded more true to himself, more like the man who had twice redeemed the Land, than he ever did when he spoke in person.

More than once long ago, she had believed that he was wrong; that his actions would lead to loss and doom. More than once, she had tried to prevent him. And he had shown her that he had made the right choice. By the simple force of his courage and love and will, he had forged salvation from the raw materials of disaster.

But he had done so without imposing his desires on her. Nor had he ever-not once-suggested that she was responsible for his dilemmas.

Do you not fear that I will reveal you?

Therefore she did not hesitate. Carefully neutral, and deliberately dishonest, she replied. “We’re clear. Jeremiah will take us to the EarthBlood.” She was astonished that her voice did not tremble. Yet it remained steady, as if she were stronger than the stone of Rivenrock. “You’ll drink it and use the Power of Command. After that, you’ll disappear,” undone by the scale of the powers which he had released. “and I’ll take my turn so that I can save Jeremiah.”

She had made her choice. Nevertheless she prayed that she was wrong; that she would be given a reason to change her mind; that Covenant would do or say something to account for his lies-or perhaps merely to show that he cared about her fate. The man whom she remembered would not have been content to abandon her in the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir.

But this Covenant seemed to have no room in his heart for her. Lifting his head, he let her see the flicker of embers in his eyes as he said. “Good.”

With that one word, he sealed her decision.

Beware the halfhand.

When they returned to the centre of the plateau, Linden found her son constructing what appeared to be a crude cage. Around a clear space large enough for at least three people to stand without touching each other, he stacked crooked branches to form walls. Some of the limbs looked so heavy that he must have had difficulty lifting them: others seemed too slight and brittle to support the weight above them. And they gave the impression that they were precariously balanced, almost haphazardly poised on top of each other. Yet he worked steadily, without faltering or hesitation. Guided by an instinct beyond her comprehension, he used his stolen boughs and twigs as if they were Tinker toys or pieces of an Erector set, and all of his movements were certain. Even his maimed hand never fumbled.

With unconvincing nonchalance, Covenant asked, “How’s it going, Jeremiah?” but the boy did not answer. His concentration was as complete as it had ever been in Linden’s living room. His eyes had resumed the muddy hue with which she was familiar-the colour that she had learned to love-and he seemed lost in his task; reclaimed by dissociation.

Already he had raised the walls of his construct to the height of Linden’s chest. When she walked around it in a vain attempt to understand it, she saw that he had left a gap in the side toward Melenkurion Skyweir’s cliffs. Once we climb inside- For a moment, she wondered whether the opening would be too small for her. But he knew what he was doing. If she turned sideways, and handled the Staff carefully-

Without apparent effort, Jeremiah picked up a log which he should have needed help to lift and put it in position, propping its ends atop branches that were obviously too unstable to hold its weight. Yet the structure did not topple: it hardly wobbled. Then it seemed to become visibly sturdier.

As he began to devise a roof for his edifice, Linden felt faint emanations of power from the construct. And they grew stronger with every added branch. Somehow the shapes and positions and intersections of his materials evoked a form of theurgy from the dead wood.

His magic did not smell or taste familiar. Certainly it did not resemble any manifestation of the Earth’s essential vitality that she had encountered before. Nor did it remind her of the darkness of the Viles, or the malign vitriol of the Demondim. It did not imitate the illimitable liquid possibilities of the Elohim, or Esmer’s storm-charged potency, or the dangerous eagerness of wild magic. Yet she discerned no wrongness in the energies of the construct; no violation of Law.

Linden’s son had brought into the Land a form of puissance entirely his own.

When he had finished bracing and balancing dead limbs to fashion a roof, the entire construct seemed to thrum with constrained readiness. At the same time, it looked as solid and irrefusable as the rock of its floor. And on a level too visceral for language, it called to Linden. Although the wood was dead, it possessed-or Jeremiah had given it-a palpable intention, a will to be used. In spite of her rapt surprise and her many fears, she wanted to enter the portal immediately.

But this was Jeremiah’s magic, not hers. She needed his instructions or permission: she owed him that. Out of respect for his talent, his accomplishment, she waited until he stepped back from his task and looked around, first at Covenant, then at her.

“Good,” Covenant pronounced with obvious approval. “That should do it. Looks like we’re ready.”

Linden’s reaction was stronger. When Jeremiah met her gaze, blinking as though he had been asleep, she allowed herself a moment of simple humanity. “Oh, Jeremiah, honey,” she breathed. “My God. You said that you could do this, but I had no idea-I didn’t really understand. This is the most wonderful-”

Her throat closed. Under other circumstances, her eyes would have filled with tears. But there was no room for weeping or grief in what she meant to do.

His tic intensified, signalling until he could hardly open his left eye. “I’m glad you like it,” he said bashfully. “I could do a lot more, if I had the right things to work with.”

Then he faced Covenant again. “We should go. You’ve been under too much strain for a long time.”

Covenant grinned fiercely. “I’m ready. If I get any readier, I’m going to rupture something.”

He must have believed that he had persuaded Linden-

“Then, Mom-” Jeremiah kept his face turned away from her. You go first. Be careful with the Staff. It won’t fit. You’ll have to poke it through a gap. Once you’re inside, get down on your hands and knees at the back. Brace yourself. Well be in there with you. When the ground shifts, you might touch one of us. Or the Staff might. We won’t have room to dodge.”

“All right,” she murmured. “I understand.”

She approached the opening slowly, searching for the best way to enter. She did not fear treachery here. It would serve no purpose. But she had to be sure that she did not dislodge any detail of Jeremiah’s design.

At last, reluctantly, she placed her Staff near the opening. Without it, she turned sideways, trusting percipience to guide her as she hunched down and stepped warily into the structure.

Inside the cage, she grasped the Staff by one end and pulled it after her. Near a corner of the back wall, Jeremiah had left a space between the branches and Rivenrock’s granite. As she drew the Staff inward, she slid one of its heels through that space. With elaborate care, she positioned the Staff so that it lay on stone near the wall without touching any of the deadwood. Then she knelt over it, planting her hands and knees so that she could simply crumple and lie flat if she lost her balance-and so that she could grab the Staff quickly if she needed it.

At once, the cold of the rock began to soak into her like water. Aching spread from her palms and fingers toward her wrists: shivers accumulated in her chest like the mountain’s impending earthquake.

The precise emanations of the construct did not waver or change. Although they had called to her, they did not react to her presence. The thoughtless intention humming in the wood was not yet satisfied. Or it had not been completed-

As soon as she was in position, Covenant followed, moving brusquely as if he were confident that he would not disturb Jeremiah’s theurgy. Unlike Linden, however, he did not kneel or sit down. Instead he stood crouching with his hands braced on his thighs for support.

He had placed himself as far from Linden as he could without obstructing Jeremiah. His eyes watched the boy: she could not see them.

I yell because I hurt. Perhaps he understood Kastenessen. Everything he does is just another way of screaming.

And when that doesn’t work-

Yet Covenant did not give the impression that he was in pain. He was closed to her health-sense; but her ordinary perceptions had been whetted by years of training. She saw nothing to confirm his claims of distress and exertion.

For a moment after Covenant had entered the crooked box, Jeremiah remained outside to gather up the last twigs and small branches. Then he, too, slipped through the opening without hesitation, sure of his relationship with his construct.

“Get ready, Linden.” Covenant’s voice was husky with anticipation. He sounded like a man on the verge of a defining triumph. “It won’t be long now.”

And when that doesn’t work, he maims-

Carefully Jeremiah fitted his larger pieces of deadwood across the gap, set them in position to complete his portal. As he did so, the power constrained within the construct increased again. Its vibrations grew more urgent. The cage still seemed stable, inert; petrified in place. It made no audible sound. Nonetheless its thrumming affected Linden’s nerves as if it might shake itself apart at any moment.

When he had adjusted the final branches, he began to balance his twigs among them apparently at random. The mute call of the construct became a cavernous growl. She felt it in the base of her throat, the centre of her chest.

“Fuck the Theomach,” Covenant muttered through his teeth. “Fuck the Elohim. Fuck them all.”

Then Jeremiah was finished. Instantly Melenkurion Skyweir and Rivenrock, the sunlight and the wide sky, disappeared as though they had been wiped from the face of the world. Linden and all of her choices were plunged into absolute darkness.

She felt the stone under her slip and tilt. She started to drop down, lie flat: then she caught herself. The tilt was slight; so slight that the Staff did not move. Braced, she was able to keep her balance while her senses reeled, scrambling to accommodate realities which had been profoundly altered.

The rock under her fingers was wet. Dampness filled the air: already a spray as fine as mist moistened her cheeks, her hands. She felt inestimable masses crowding around her, basalt and obsidian, schist and granite on all sides; league after league of the Land’s most ancient stone.

Jeremiah had transported her into the depths of the mountain.

The surface on which she knelt had been worn smooth by eons of water. Yet it was warm rather than cold; palpably heated by the energies within the Skyweir. The droplets on her face felt like sweat.

The imminent tremors which had disturbed her on the plateau were stronger here. Underground, she was closer to the pressures which would one day split Melenkurion Skyweir to its foundations: But that upheaval would not happen now. More force would be required to bring about the inevitable crisis.

Those sensations were small things, however; effectively trivial. The unexplained moisture in the air and the nearly audible groaning among the mountain’s roots were dwarfed as soon as she recognised them, swept away like the plateau and the open heavens by raw power.

She was surrounded by Earthpower, immersed in it. Its primeval might seemed as immense as the Skyweir itself, and as unanswerable. By comparison, the healing potency of Glimmermere and the mind-blending waters of the horserite tarn were minor instances of the Earth’s true life, and everything that Linden had done since she had returned to the Land paled into insignificance. Here was the uncompromised fount of the Land’s vitality and loveliness. If it had not been natural and clean, as necessary as sunlight to every aspect of the living world, its simple proximity would have undone her.

And yet-

As soon as she recognised the concentrated presence of Earthpower, she realised that she had not yet reached its source. The vast strength flowing around her had been attenuated by other waters. The spray that beaded on her forehead, trickled into her eyes, ran down her cheeks, arose from less eldritch springs. They were rich with minerals, squeezed from the mountain gutrock to nourish the world. If she had submerged herself in them, they might have washed the weariness from her abused flesh. But they were not the Blood of the Earth.

Now she shivered, not because she was cold, but because she was afraid. The crux of her intentions was near, and she might fail.

“Jeremiah?” she croaked. “Honey? Covenant?” But no sound answered her. Silence entombed the space around her. Earthpower stilled the spray and the stone and the damp air.

Panic clutched at her chest. She jerked up her head, closed her fingers around the Staff. Then she stopped.

The wood of the construct had begun to shine. Or perhaps it had been shining all along, and her senses had failed to register the truth. Every bit of deadwood from the smallest twig to the heaviest bough emitted a murky phosphorescence. Each detail of the cage was limned in nacre, defined by moonlight. Yet the glow shed no illumination. She could not see the stone on which she knelt, or the Staff clutched in her hand. The portal’s luminescence referred only to itself.

Nevertheless the white outlines enabled her to discern the black silhouettes of her companions. Covenant still crouched in one corner of the box. Jeremiah remained near the place where he had sealed his construct.

Linden’s pulse drummed in her ears. Around her, the lightless phosphorescence of the wood intensified. Covenant and Jeremiah sank deeper into darkness as the nacre mounted. Briefly the cage resembled a contorted meshwork woven of sterile wild magic, affectless, its purpose exhausted.

A heartbeat later, the entire construct flared soundlessly and vanished as every scrap and splinter of deadwood was consumed by the aftereffects of Jeremiah’s theurgy.

She expected unilluminable midnight. Instead, however, a warm reddish glow opened around her as if the last deflagration of Jeremiah’s door had set fire to her surroundings.

The light was not bright enough to hurt her eyes. She blinked rapidly, not because she had been dazzled, but because the sudden disappearance of the box exposed her to the full impact of Earthpower. Ineffable puissance stung her eyes and nose: tears joined the spray on her cheeks as if she were weeping. Through the blur, she saw Covenant stand upright, arch his back as if he had been crouching for hours. She saw her son look at Covenant and grin like the blade of a scimitar.

Then her nerves began to adjust. Slowly her vision cleared.

She and her companions were on a stone shelf at the edge of a stream nearly broad enough to be called a river. Jeremiah’s construct had brought them to a cavern as high and wide as the forehall of Revelstone. The arching rock was crude, unfashioned: clearly the cavern was a natural formation. But all of its facets had been worn smooth by millennia of spray and Earthpower.

And they radiated a ruddy illumination that filled the cave. The particular hue of the glow-soft crimson with a fulvous undertone-made the rushing current look black and dangerous, more like ichor than water. The stone seemed to contemplate lava, imagine magma. It remained gently warm, stubbornly solid. Nevertheless it implied the possibility that it might one day flow and burn.

Linden had seen illumination like this before, in the Wightwarrens under Mount Thunder. Covenant had called it “rocklight,” and it was inherent to certain combinations of stone and Earthpower. It had not been caused by Jeremiah’s theurgy. Instead his portal had temporarily blinded her to the lambent stone, the tumbling stream. Spray and warmth and Earthpower had entered through the gaps among the branches: light had not.

In spite of the water’s speed and turbulence, it was utterly silent. It raced along its course without the slightest gurgle or slap. She might have believed that she had been stricken deaf; that the concentration of Earthpower was too acute for her ears. But then she heard Covenant speak.

“Good,” he announced for the third time. “We’re almost there.”

Only the water had been silenced by the weight of Earthpower.

Involuntarily Linden’s gaze followed them current as it spilled into a crevice at the end of the cavern. But when she turned her head in the other direction, she felt a rush of astonishment. The source of the stream-and the fine spray-was a high waterfall that spewed from the cave’s ceiling and pounded in turmoil down onto a pile of slick stones and boulders at the head of the watercourse. Every plume and spatter of the torrent caught the fiery light in a profuse scattering of reflections: the waterfall resembled a downpour of rubies and carbuncles, incarnadine gemstones; profligate instances of Earthpower. Yet the towering spectacle was entirely soundless. The bedizened tumult of spume and collision had no voice.

“How-?” Linden breathed the question aloud simply to confirm that she could still hear. “How is it possible’?”

She did not expect an answer. But Covenant muttered, “Beats the hell out of me. I’ve never understood it. There’s probably just too much Earthpower here for our senses to handle.”

Like the waterfall, the spray on his face sparkled redly. His features were webbed with droplets of light and eagerness.

“That’s just water,” he said, dismissing the lit implications of the falls. “When it finds its way out of the mountain, it’ll be the Black River. But the Blood of the Earth comes in here. It leaks out through those rocks.” He indicated the foot of the waterfall. “That’s what causes all this rocklight. Earthpower has soaked into the stone. But it’s too thin for what we need. We have to get to the source.”

Linden could see no obvious way in or out of the cavern. But Covenant pointed at the waterfall. “Through there.”

“There’s a tunnel on the other side,” added Jeremiah. His muddy gaze had assumed the colour of hunger; avarice. The corner of his eye beat frenetically. In his right hand, his halfhand, he clutched his racecar as though it were a talisman. It leads to the place where the EarthBlood oozes out of the rock. That’s where we have to go. Covenant has to drink right from the source. Otherwise there’s no Power of Command.”

“But how?” Linden asked weakly. “That much water-We’ll be washed away.”

For a moment, Covenant looked at her directly; let her see rocklight like coals in his eyes. In the presence of more Earthpower than she had exerted since the time when she first formed her Staff of Law and unmade the Sunbane, he showed no sign of strain; gave no hint that he could be effaced.

Grinning avidly, he replied, “No, we won’t. I wasn’t when Elena brought me here. You’ll probably have to crawl. But you can do it. All this Earthpower-It’s making you stronger. You just don’t feel the difference because there’s so much more of it.”

Then he turned back to the falls as though he had no more attention to spare for her. Motioning for Jeremiah to join him, he moved toward the gemmed cascade.

Jeremiah complied at once. Side by side, he and Covenant headed through the spray to essay the wet jumble of rocks.

As she watched them stride away, panic tugged at Linden again. She had to blink constantly at the sting of puissance; could hardly breathe against the might and dampness of the mist. Reflections of rocklight confused her, threatening her balance. Covenant was wrong. She could not withstand that torrential mass of water.

But she had already made her decision. She had to try-

For a moment longer, she watched Covenant and Jeremiah take their first steps into the waterfall. As they ascended the clutter of stone, she saw forces which should have crushed them crash onto their heads and shoulders, and splash away swathed in jewels. At erratic intervals, the mountain’s epitonic bones trembled.

Then, fiercely, she set down the Staff so that she could fling off both her robe and her cloak: protections which she had been given by people who wanted to help her. She did not need them in the warm cavern. And she feared that their weight when they became soaked would drag her to her death.

Clad only in her red flannel shirt, her jeans, and her boots, as she had been when she had first left her home to pursue Roger Covenant and his victims, Linden Avery took up the Staff and set herself to bear the brunt of the waterfall.

Spray drenched her before she reached the falls itself. Her face streamed: her shirt and jeans clung to her skin. She felt a fright akin to the alarm which had afflicted her at the Mithil’s Plunge. Ahead of her lay a fatal passage in which everything that she had known and understood might be transmogrified into the stuff of nightmares.

As soon as she felt the first impact of the falls, she knew that she would not be able to climb the rocks standing. The worn granite and obsidian were as slick as glazed ice, and the water had the weight of an avalanche. Helpless to do otherwise, she dropped to her hands and knees. Then she wedged one end of the Staff into a crack between the stones and pulled herself up the shaft as if it were a lifeline.

The wood was smooth and wet: perhaps it should have been as slippery as the rocks and boulders; as unreliable. But she had fashioned it out of love and grief and her passion for healing. Her hands did not lose their grip as she crept slowly deeper into the full force of the waterfall.

It threatened to smash her; carry her away. She could not draw breath. Nevertheless she dragged herself along the Staff until she found a place where she could jam one arm securely among the stones. Anchored there, she used her free hand to haul the Staff after her and brace its iron heel against a boulder. Then she worked her way up its length again while the falls bludgeoned her, filled her eyes and nose and mouth, tore at her clothes.

Once more she anchored herself, raised the Staff higher, gripped it desperately so that she could climb the rocks. And before she reached the end of the shaft, her head emerged from the pitiless cascade into complete darkness.

Gasping, she scrambled out of the waterfall onto flat stone. Her arms and legs quivered as though she had ascended a precipice: she felt too weak to shake the water out of her eyes. No glint or suggestion of rocklight penetrated the falls. She crouched over the Staff in untrammelled midnight. If her companions made any sound-if they waited for her instead of hastening toward their destination-she did not hear it. She only knew that she could hear because her gasping seemed to spread out ahead of her, adumbrated by the constriction of granite.

The rock under her was as slick as the stones of the waterfall. It was not wet; had not been worn to treachery by ages of water. Rather it resisted contact. The scent and taste of Earthpower was far more concentrated here, so thick and poignant that it made her weep: too potent to condone the touch of ordinary flesh. Stone which had become half metaphysical spurned her hands, her knees, her boots.

And the smell-The odour of distilled strength swamped all of her senses. She foundered in it. It transcended her as profoundly as any caesure, although it held no wrongness. In its own way, it was as immense and fraught with mass as Melenkurion Skyweir. Her mere brief mortality could not encompass it.

Instinctively she pressed her forehead to the stone, performing an act of obeisance to the sovereign vitality of Earthpower.

The wood of the Staff had become hot. It radiated heat as if it had been forged of molten iron. It should have burned her unbearably; scalded the skin from her fingers; set fire to her drenched clothing. But it did not. It was hers. Her relationship with it enabled her to hold it, unharmed, in spite of its inherent response to the EarthBlood’s extravagance.

A tunnel, Jeremiah had said. On the other side.

Still she heard nothing. Covenant and Jeremiah must have gone on ahead of her. Covenant had told her that if she did not drink the Blood of the Earth immediately after he and Jeremiah disappeared, she might be too late to save her son from the consequences of Joan’s death. Yet they had left her behind.

She needed light. And she needed to be able to stand on stone which repulsed every touch. If she could not catch up with her companions-

“She made it,” Covenant remarked abruptly. Linden thought that she heard satisfaction in his voice.

I can’t do it without you.

He bore the flagrant hazard of the tunnel easily, as though it had no power to affect him. He had lied about his reasons for seeking to avoid Berek Halfhand’s touch. And hers.

“I told you she would.” Jeremiah sounded like the darkness. “You did, when you were with Elena. And you weren’t half as strong as she is.”

Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.

Tears coursed from Linden’s eyes. She could not stop them.

“Jeremiah, honey,” she panted, still braced on her hands and knees as if in supplication. “where are you? I can’t see.”

The peril of your chosen path I deemed too great. Therefore I have set you upon another.

But if Jeremiah possessed the ability to construct portals which would foil the perceptions of even the Elohim, surely he could evade High Lord Damelon’s discernment? Where was the peril? What had the Theomach meant? Had he simply been ignorant of Jeremiah’s talent? Or had he foreseen some more oblique danger?

I do not desire the destruction of the Earth. If you are wise-if wisdom is possible for one such as you-you also will not desire it.

Fuck them all.

Without warning, a sulphurous illumination blossomed in the darkness. Light with the hue and reek of brimstone shone from the clenched fist of Covenant’s halfhand. Through her reflexive weeping, Linden saw him and Jeremiah. They were no more than two or three strides away.

Both of them seemed taut with impatience or excitement.

Beyond them, a tunnel as straight as a tightened string led away from the waterfall into fathomless night. Its ceiling was little more than an arm’s span above Covenant’s head; but the passage was wide enough for two or three people to walk abreast beside a small rill running toward the falls.

In the red and charlock glow, the fluid of the rivulet had the rich deep colour of arterial blood. And it shouted, yelled, positively howled of Earthpower.

It was the living Blood of the Earth. It had seemed pure in the cavern of the waterfall, but it was more so here; far more. Nothing that Linden had ever done with her Staff could match the absolute cleanliness and vitality of the liquid flowing past her.

Somewhere beyond Covenant and Jeremiah lay their destination.

“Come on, Linden,” Covenant said harshly. “You don’t have to grovel here. It’s undignified. And I’m sick to death of waiting.”

He wanted her to stand. She needed to stand. He may have recognised the lie when she had said, We’re clear. That was possible. He may have remembered her well enough-

Why had he and Jeremiah waited for her? Was Covenant honest after all? More honest than she had been? Or did he simply want her to witness what he did, for good or ill?

“All right,” she muttered through her teeth. “Give me a minute.”

Perhaps he feared that she would attack him from behind if he did not wait; that she would dare-If she had made her suspicions too obvious-

Wherever she placed her hands, they tried to skid out from under her. She could not trust her weight to them. And her boots might have been coated with oil. Every shift of her balance threatened her with slippage.

But the Staff had been formed for Earthpower. When she braced one of its heels on the rock, it held; gave her an anchor.

Carefully, by small increments, she rose to her feet. Still she felt her boots trying to slide away. One slip would pitch her onto her face. But the Staff gripped the stone, and she clung to the Staff.

“Are you ready?” demanded Covenant. “Hellfire, Linden, it’s not that hard. I did it, and I didn’t have your damn Staff.”

She ignored the embers glaring in his eyes; did not risk gazing directly at his fiery halfhand. Instead she looked at her son. Facing the hunger which distorted the colour of his irises, the fervid clutch of his halfhand around his racecar, the frantic cipher of his tic, she tried to accept them, and found that she could not.

Silently, hardly moving her lips, she said, If I’m wrong, I’m sorry. Try to forgive me.

Then she threw herself headlong toward her companions; stretched out into a dive along the glazed surface of the stone.

In a flare of brimstone surprise and fury, both Covenant and Jeremiah leapt aside. Cursing viciously, Covenant hugged the tunnel wall opposite the rill of EarthBlood. Tense with shock, Jeremiah did the same. Neither of them lost their footing.

Linden landed heavily; skidded past them. As she hit the stone, she slid, and went on sliding, as if she would never stop. She felt only the impact: no friction, no abrasion; nothing that would slow her. She wanted that. She counted on it. Otherwise Covenant and Jeremiah might get ahead of her again.

But her slide took her closer to the rivulet. She did not know what would happen if she plunged into the Blood of the Earth, but she doubted that she would survive an immersion. More by instinct than intention, she dragged one heel of the Staff along the stone.

The iron seemed to meet no resistance. Nevertheless she began to lose momentum. Within half a dozen paces-and mere inches from the rill-she coasted to a halt.

Covenant’s curses followed her down the tunnel. They drew closer as he and Jeremiah rushed to catch up with her.

Shedding incessant tears, Linden called yellow flame like sunshine out of the Staff; a sheet of fire from the entire length of the wood. For an instant, her fire guttered as if it were humbled in the EarthBlood’s presence. Then it shone forth strongly. And while her blaze lit the tunnel, she used that exertion of Earthpower to secure her footing so that she could stand. Then she wheeled to confront her companions as though they had become her foes.

Covenant stamped to a halt a few paces away from her. The fire had fallen out of his hand: he stood glaring at her with no light on his visage except hers. Jeremiah came a step closer, then stopped as well. His precious face was bright with dismay.

“Hellfire and bloody damnation,

Linden!” raged Covenant. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing’?”

“Mom, what’s wrong’?” panted Jeremiah. “Did you fall? Are you hurt? Are you trying to banish us?”

The wood that you claim must defy them- Linden gripped her Staff grimly and did not falter. You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood. She stood between her companions and their goal.

Indirectly Esmer had prepared her for her encounter with the Viles. Had he also betrayed her?

“Oh, stop,” she breathed heavily, feigning anger to disguise her sorrow and resolve. “I’m obviously not going to “banish” you. You’ve never been in any danger. There’s more power here than I could ever muster. It doesn’t bother you. And when Berek touched you-”

She left the rest of her protest unsaid. Covenant and Jeremiah had some other reason for rejecting contact with her. But she did not waste her scant strength on recriminations. When Covenant started to swear again, she took a step backward. And another.

“You said that you want to be clear,” she reminded him. Her voice was husky with effort and Earthpower. “So do I. I don’t”- she grimaced- “trust this situation.”

“Linden.” Covenant suddenly became calm. He kept his gaze away from hers; did not let her see his eyes. But he sounded almost gentle. “You don’t have to make a fight out of this. Talk to us. Tell us what you want. We’ll figure it out together.”

She continued moving slowly backward. She could not see either him or Jeremiah clearly. Her vision was an irredeemable smear of tears. But her tears were not weeping, and her nose ran only because it was stung by Earthpower.

“So you say.” Even now she lied without hesitation. “Here’s the problem. I can’t debate with you anymore.” If Covenant carried out his stated intentions-and if she succeeded at saving her son-she would be abandoned here, ten thousand years away from where she belonged. “You’ll come up with too many arguments, and I won’t be able to think.” Her mere presence and power in this time might suffice to alter the Land’s history; unmake the Arch. The Thomas Covenant whom she had known would not have asked or expected that of her. “So I’m just going to drink the EarthBlood first. I’m going to get Jeremiah away from Lord Foul with his mind whole. I’ll make sure that he can stay in the Land after Joan dies. Then I’ll get out of your way and let you do whatever you want.”

“Mom!” Jeremiah protested urgently. If you do that, I will vanish. I won’t be with you anymore!”

Still retreating along the tunnel, Linden gazed at him through her tears. “I believe you.” A surge of grief slipped past her self-command. Then she forced it down. “I’ll never see you again. But at least I’ll know that you’re safe.”

Another faint shudder undermined the stone, but she did not lose her balance.

If she severed the bond between her son and Covenant, Covenant might become honest. But she did not intend to rely on that slim possibility.

If you err in this, your losses will be greater than you are able to conceive.

“Damnation, Linden.” Covenant still spoke calmly, although he crowded after her with an air of desperation. “It isn’t that simple. What makes you think I can stand by while you use the Power of Command? You’re the only one of us who’s real enough to survive forces on that scale.”

He and Jeremiah pushed toward her. Yet they did not risk coming near enough to be touched by her fire. Upheld by the Staff, she took one step after another.

She could feel the crushing mass of the mountain lean over her. It seemed to hold its breath as though it awaited her decision; her actions. You serve a purpose not your own, and have no purpose. That may have been true earlier. It was not true now.

The intensity in the air increased. It exceeded Linden’s ability to measure its increments-and went on increasing. The untrammelled might of the EarthBlood accumulated at her back.

“I’m not so sure,” she retorted, still pretending ire which she did not feel. “You’re part of the Arch of Time. There’s nothing you can’t do.”

She had seen Thomas Covenant become a being of incarnate wild magic. Even the imponderable capabilities of the Elohim would be too weak to contain him. He could have brushed aside their interference. If he feared them, he had some other reason.

“Hellfire!” he countered more hotly. “That isn’t how it works. Right now, I’m as mortal as you are. You’ve got my ring. You’ve even got your damn Staff. I’ve got nothing. And your kid has less than that.

“When I was here before”- he lowered his voice again- “I had my ring. That’s the only reason I wasn’t wiped off the face of the Earth when Elena summoned Kevin. Without it, I’m vulnerable. Why do you think I had to let the Theomach push me around? Why do you think I’ve been worried about the Elohim? While I’m in two places at once, two different kinds of reality, I’m practically crippled.”

Linden took another step backward, and another, holding the Staff of Law alight. She could not gain what she needed by any form of argument or persuasion. Through Anele, Covenant had told her, I can’t help you unless you find me. Then he had ridden into Revelstone with her son on the strength of his own will? No. Either the being who had spoken to her days ago had deliberately misled her, or the man who stood before her now was false in ways that exceeded her imagination.

“Maybe that’s true,” she muttered through her teeth. “Maybe it isn’t. I really don’t care.” If her son had let her touch him, she might not have been able to go on lying. But he and Covenant gave her nothing which would have compelled her to tell the truth. “I only care about Jeremiah. I’m going to save him. The Land is your problem.”

He should have known that she was lying. He and Jeremiah both should have known.

Then the tunnel expanded into a widening like a cul-de-sac; and at once, every nerve in her body recognised that she had reached the source of the EarthBlood. Covenant and Jeremiah might not attempt to rush her through the flame of the Staff, but she could not be sure. She trusted nothing. Facing the rill, she turned sideways so that she could glance into the end of the passage without losing sight of her companions.

At the back of the cave, a rude plane of stone as black as obsidian or ebony protruded like the exposed face of a lode from the surrounding granite. Peering at it, Linden blinked furiously, strove to clear her sight. The dark wet rock appeared to shimmer: its sharpness and stark purity overwhelmed her eyes. Through the blur, she seemed to see a facet of weakness in the substance of reality, a place of distortion where the tangible rock and the possibilities of Earthpower merged.

From the whole surface of the plane seeped the gravid liquid of the EarthBlood. Trickling down the face of the lode, it gathered in a shallow trough before it flowed thickly away down the length of the tunnel.

There, Linden thought in wonder and terror: there was the source of the Power of Command. In that trough, the concentration of Earthpower was so extreme that it seemed to fray the fabric of her existence, pulling her apart strand by strand.

She would have to drink-

“Mom!” Jeremiah cried, pleading with her. “I don’t want that. I don’t want you to rescue me if the Land is still at Foul’s mercy! My life isn’t worth it.”

“Hell and blood, Linden!” Covenant shouted. “You don’t have to do this! Weren’t you listening to the Viles? The Power of Command can’t touch wild magic, and whoever holds my ring doesn’t need the Power!

“For God’s sake! If you can’t do anything else, at least give me back my ring! Give me a chance to save the Land!”

For a moment, Linden hesitated; questioned herself. Could she carry out her intent without the EarthBlood, using only the Staff? Both Covenant and Jeremiah feared the fire of Law, that was obvious. But she did not believe that she possessed enough sheer power. No flame of hers would be more potent than the air of the tunnel-and her companions breathed it without wavering. She could not gain what she needed with the Staff alone. And she could not wield the Staff and Covenant’s ring together. She had done so once, when she had unmade the Sunbane. But then she had been insubstantial, already half translated away from the Land. She had occupied a transitional dimension, a place of pure spirit; supernal rather than human. And Lord Foul’s frantic exertion of wild magic had opened the way for her; attuned her to a power which was not hers by right. Here the contradictory theurgies of white gold and the Staff would destroy her.

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.

She had made her decision. The time had come act on it.

Trust yourself.

I want to repay some of this pain.

In the end, she placed more faith in her dreams than in Covenant or her son.

Be cautious of love. It misleads. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction.

“Jeremiah, honey,” she said through her determination and woe. “I love you. Try to forgive me.”

Before her companions-or her own fears-could intervene, Linden Avery the Chosen stooped to the trough and drank the Blood of the Earth.

Then she jerked erect, stood rigid as stone, while utter Earthpower reified in liquid transformed her mouth and throat and heart-her entire body-to exquisite unendurable fire.

Now it was not only the Staff of Law that shed flame: her whole being had become a conflagration. She burned like an auto da fe, as if she had been ignited by the sun’s inferno. Yet her flesh was not consumed, and her only pain was the agony of an intolerable exaltation. The EarthBlood raised her so far above her limitations and alarms that the discrepancy threatened to incinerate her, not because it was wrong or hurtful, but because she was inadequate to bear it.

If she did not express her incandescence at once, utter her Command, the puissance she had swallowed would sear her to the marrow of her bones.

All you have to do is want it-

Enfolded from head to foot in unanswerable fire, she turned to her companions.

She could see them clearly now. Flames had burned away her tears; her weakness. Covenant stared at her with his mouth open as if he were enraptured by eagerness and dread; and the red embers which filled his eyes shone so hotly that they fumed in the viscid air. Jeremiah had thrown his head back as if he were howling. In his halfhand, he clutched his racecar; held it out toward her as though it might ward off an attack.

When Linden spoke, her words were a shout of fire. With the full force of the Power of Command, she demanded of her companions. “Show me the truth!”

Then she watched in horror as her loves flew apart like leaves in a high wind.

Chapter Twelve: Transformations

While her Command compelled obedience to her will, Linden remained clad in fire. Briefly she had become Earthpower, and could not be refused. She saw every detail with lucent precision while her desires were imposed on her companions.

Covenant’s jeans and T-shirt slumped away as the truth was revealed. They became an indeterminate grey shirt and khaki slacks. Three bullet holes formed an arc across the centre of his shirt. They had been healed; but their edges were still crusted with blood.

His features blurred as though she had begun to weep again, although she had not; could not. His face became rounder, softer. Lines of severity melted from around his mouth, leaving his cheeks unmarked. The corners of his eyes no longer expressed any intimacy with pain. And he shrank slightly, grew shorter. At the same time, his torso swelled with self-indulgence. Even his posture changed. He stood with a familiar combination of looseness and tension: the looseness of weak muscles; the tension of poor balance.

A glamour upon itIt was not Thomas Covenant who stood before her, exposed by fire and Command. It was Covenant’s son, Roger, seeking such havoc that the bones of mountains tremble to contemplate it. Linden could not fail to recognise him now.

Do you not fear that I will reveal you? The Theomach must have knownThe embers were gone from Roger’s eyes: his gaze had regained the exact hue of his father’s, the troubled colour of suffering and ruin and unalloyed love. Nevertheless he had been altered; terribly transformed. His right hand was whole, but it had lost its humanity. Instead it was composed of magma and theurgy, living lava and anguish. Its fiery brutality reminded her of the devouring serpents she had seen during her translation to the Land, the malefic creatures of lava and hunger that Anele had called the skurj.

Roger Covenant’s right hand had been cut off. It had been replaced by thatAnd when that doesn’t work, he maimsSomewhere in the background of Linden’s mind, a voice gibbered, Oh God. OhGodohGodohGod. But she hardly recognised her own fear.

Kastenessen had merged part of himself with the skurj. Roger himself in his father’s guise had told her that. The deranged and doomed Elohim’s escape from his Durance had been more painful than you can imagine.

Kastenessen is all pain. It’s made him completely insane.

She had been given hints. And she blazed with Earthpower: her perceptions were preternaturally acute. She jumped to conclusions instinctively, instantaneously-and trusted them completely.

Being part skurj isn’t excruciating enough, so he surrounds himself with them, he makes them carry out his rage. And when that doesn’t workSweet Jesus. Kastenessen had severed his own right hand and given it to Roger Covenant. He had granted Roger the magic to conceal himself from her percipience; had turned Roger into an entirely new kind of halfhandThe truth of the man who had brought her here appalled her; shocked her to the core. Roger’s presence in his father’s place exceeded her sharpest fears. Nevertheless the sight of her son was worse.

Jeremiah also had been concealed. Now his plight was unmasked. He stood gazing vacantly at her or through her; unaware of her. The stain in his eyes seemed to blind him. His mouth hung open, the lower lip slack. Drool ran down his chin. His twitch was gone, erased from his empty features.

Linden saw at a glance that he had relapsed to his former unreactive dissociation.

But there was moreDespite his overt passivity, his arms did not dangle at his sides. Instead his fists were raised in front of him. In his right, his halfhand, he clutched his racecar; gripped it so hard that he had crumpled the metal. In his left, he held a piece of wood as slim and pointed as a stiletto, a splinter of the deadwood which he had gathered from Garroting Deep.

From his shoulders, his blue pyjama shirt hung in tatters. Horses reared from scrap to scrap, torn apart by blows and falling. Bruises covered his arms and chest. Yet the unassoiled discoloration of his contusions did not mask the violence of the bullets which had pierced his flesh. His rank wounds, one in his stomach, the other directly over his heart, oozed dark blood that formed a web of crust and fluid on his torso, trickling at last into the waistband of his pyjama bottoms.

He had died in his natural world. Like Linden: like Joan. He would never be freed from the Land.

Yet even that was not the worst.

A small hairless creature like a deformed child clung to his back. Its clawed fingers dug into his shoulders: its sharp toes gouged his ribs. Its malign yellow eyes regarded Linden while its teeth chewed ceaselessly at the side of Jeremiah’s neck and its mouth drank his life.

And from the creature came waves of eldritch force so cruel and bitter that they turned the air in Linden’s lungs to ash. In its own way, the creature was as mighty as Roger. Its power matched the potential for savagery and devastation of Kastenessen’s severed hand. But the creature’s strength had more in common with the black lore of the Viles than with the laval hunger of the skurj- or with the covert transformations of the Elohim. It was an altogether different threat; a danger comparable to the Illearth Stone in its violation of Law.

Nonetheless Linden recognised it instantly. Twice before, she had met a similar magic, a comparable ferocity.

The creature was one of the croyel: a parasite or demon which throve by giving power and time to more natural men or women or beasts as it mastered them. Long ago, Findail the Appointed had described the croyel as beings of hunger and sustenance which demnify the dark places of the Earth. Those who bargain thus for life or might with the croyel are damned beyond redemption.

But Jeremiah was not damned, she insisted to herself. He was not. He was not like Kasreyn of the Gyre: he had made no bargain. He could not have made one. Lost within himself, he more closely resembled the arghuleh of the Northron Climbs, mindless ice-beasts which had simply been enslaved by the croyel. The bargain here was Lord Foul’s, not Jeremiah’s.

Still her son was effectively possessed. The Ranyhyn had done what they could to forewarn her. But her fears had tended toward Ravers-or toward the Despiser himself. She had not come close to imagining Jeremiah’s true peril.

Empowered by the Blood of the Earth, Linden screamed raw fire down the stone throat of the tunnel.

Her flame was met by a blast of heat like the opening of a furnace. Roger’s given hand flung its own brimstone conflagration against her, vicious as scoria. If she had not been enclosed in Earthpower, and warded by the Staff of Law, she would have died before her heart could beat again. Instead, however, she was only quenched. The flame which the EarthBlood had given her was snuffed out: the illuminating fire of the Staff vanished as though it had been doused.

The sudden vehemence of the attack staggered her. For a brief moment, a small sliver of time, she tottered on the brink of the trough. Then, reflexively, she dropped to her knees, snatching herself back from a second contact with the Blood.

Reclaimed by mortality, her vision blurred again. Only Roger’s crimson virulence remained to light his malice and Jeremiah’s emptiness and the insatiable eyes of the croyel. But she saw them as nothing more than shapes and points of light; instances of bereavement.

“Actually, Dr. Avery,” Roger drawled, “I like this better. If you weren’t so damn determined to interfere, Foul and Kastenessen and I would already have everything we ever wanted. I suppose that ought to piss me off. But it doesn’t. Ever since I first met you, I’ve wanted to crush you. Now I can.” If he had struck at her then, he might have slain her. She was lost and aghast, overwhelmed with rue: she could not have defended herself. White gold was a mystery to her, too complex and hidden to be approached in the EarthBlood’s presence. The resources of the Staff seemed to have passed beyond her reach.

But Roger held back. His desire to crush her entailed something more than mere death.

For her son’s sake, and the Land’s, Linden used that moment of life and breath to regain as much of herself as she could.

Vestiges of utter Earthpower lingered in her yet. They left incandescent suggestions in her veins. Her heart throbbed with remembered might. She could still think, and had already begun to tremble with fury.

Leaning her weight on the Staff, gripping it with both hands while she knelt, she panted as though she were nearly prostrate. “That’s why you didn’t want me to touch you. You weren’t afraid of my power. You knew that if I touched you, I would feel the truth.” Roger and the croyel had feared her health-sense. “Your disguise wouldn’t hold.” Roger glanced at Jeremiah’s master; gave a harsh burst of laughter. Then he faced Linden again with flame frothing from his fist. “Of course,” he jeered. “I’m just astonished it took you so long to figure it out.” She ignored his scorn: it could not hurt her now. “And it’s why you didn’t want me to summon the Ranyhyn. They would have recognised you right away.” “Of course,” he repeated, mocking her. “Go on. You can’t stop there.” Jeremiah did not speak. He did not react in any way. He could not. The croyel ruled him, and the creature no longer needed either words or gestures. It had stolen into her son’s mind in order to find the memories and knowledge which would give substance to its charade, and to Roger Covenant’s. Now it was done with pretence.

Linden trembled, scrambling inwardly, and grew stronger. “It’s also why you didn’t want me to go Andelain. You couldn’t fool the Dead. They would have exposed you.” “Well, sure.” Roger shrugged. “If that’s the best you can do. But I have to admit, I’m disappointed. You’re supposed to be a doctor. Keen mind. Trained intellect. I expected more.” Think, Linden commanded herself. If she could understand her straits, she might find her way through them.

Clearly Esmer had advised her well. And then he had counterbalanced his aid by opposing the ur-viles when they had tried to prevent Roger and the croyel from snatching her out of her natural present.

“Tell me,” she demanded hoarsely. “You like to gloat.” He coveted her dismay. “What am I missing?” Roger snorted another laugh. “For one thing, you brought this on yourself. All of it. If you hadn’t gone to get that damn Staff-and if you hadn’t told Esmer you wanted to visit Andelain-nothing that’s happened since would have been necessary. You forced us to intervene. Once you had the Staff, we had to keep you out of Andelain.” Linden sensed as much as thought that he was attempting to mislead her again. He was not closed to her now. Her senses discerned subtleties of truth and falsehood. He-or Lord Foul-had wished to preclude her from Andelain: she believed that. But her Staff was not his real concern. If he and Jeremiah had not ridden into Revelstone, they would have been in no danger from her.

Roger and his masters or guides-the Despiser and Kastenessen-had a deeper reason for seeking to ensure that she did not approach the Andelainian Hills.

Trying to probe further, Linden asked, “You said “for one thing”. What else have I missed?” Again Roger appeared to consult his companion. Then he replied in a voice full of scorn. “Why not? You obviously think I’m stupid. You want to keep me talking so you’ll have time to recover. But you really don’t understand. You don’t understand anything. I can’t lose here.

“I’m going to answer your questions for a while because I want you to know what despair feels like.” Long ago, Thomas Covenant had said to her, There’s only one way to hurt a man who’s lost everything. Give him back something broken. Roger and Lord Foul had done that to her now. But Roger’s father had not allowed his pain to rule him.

“Go on,” she said more firmly. “I’m listening.” Roger flicked his lurid hand; sent an arc of fire like a streak of molten stone across the ceiling of the cave. But he did not direct his force at her. A grin of grim delight showed his teeth as he replied. “For another, there was always the chance you might actually give me my ring. That would have saved all of us no end of trouble.

“I tried to talk you into it. The croyel thinks I should have tried harder. But I knew you wouldn’t do it. You love power too much.” Linden heard him clearly. He meant that in her place he would not have surrendered his father’s ring. He did not comprehend her at all.

“That’s not an answer,” she retorted. As the transcendence of her Command faded, she recovered more and more of herself. “Why did you care if I went to Andelain? Tell the truth for once. You’re part Elohim. And the croyel-” The creature had raped her son’s trapped mind in order to manipulate her. “They seem like they’re capable of anything. If the two of you aren’t strong enough to destroy the Arch of Time on your own, why didn’t you just come here? What did you need me for? What was so important about keeping me away from Andelain?” Jeremiah himself, the ensnared boy whom Linden had adopted and loved, did not react. He could not. He wandered a chartless wilderness of loneliness and abandonment while the croyel clung like a tumour to his back. His disfocused gaze and his damp mouth promised only sorrow.

Nevertheless he struck without warning. Dropping his ruined racecar, he sprang at Linden. A reflection of ruddy fire flashed on his oaken dagger as he raised it high. Guided and compelled by the fulvous glare and sharp teeth of the croyel, he hammered his splinter of deadwood into the back of her right hand where it gripped the Staff.

He may have wanted to nail her hand to the long shaft; cripple her somehow. If so, he failed. The clean wood of the Staff was impervious to his stiletto. When it had pierced her hand, his sharp scrap of Garroting Deep was turned aside.

For a moment, however, the pain of her wound nearly unmade her. It bit into her nerves like fangs and acid. She scarcely felt the warm spurting of her blood as it streamed over her left hand and down the Staff; yet she might as well have been crucified. She would have lapsed into shock at once if the air of the cave had not filled her lungs with distilled Earthpower. But instead she cried out as though Jeremiah’s blow had ripped through the centre of her chest. A brief rush of tears joined the pulsing flow of her blood.

Then, as suddenly as a crisis of the heart, she detached herself from the pain; distanced it as though it belonged to someone else. Dispassionately she surveyed the shard jutting through her hand. The confusion of her health-sense was gone: in chagrin and desperation, she had at last tuned her perceptions to the precise pitch and timbre of the Earth Blood’s atmosphere, and her eyes no longer required the protection of tears. She could see her injury distinctly. Apart from the pain, it was not serious: that was plain. Her son’s-no, the croyel’s-dagger had skidded between the bones. It had missed the larger arteries and veins. She would not lose dangerous amounts of blood. If she survived Roger’s and the croyel’s intentions, any untainted application of Earthpower would heal her.

But she could not unclose her fingers from the Staff. The wound paralysed them: their nerves had shut down. And she had no attention to spare for them. Other exigencies consumed her.

She could see clearly; might never weep again. Nevertheless she made no attempt to stand. Instead she remained on her knees as though the croyel’s attack had accomplished its purpose.

Roger waited until Jeremiah had stepped back; resumed his pose of slack passivity. Then Covenant’s son jeered, “Shame on you, Dr. Avery. You should know this. The Theomach is a meddling asshole, but he doesn’t lie. And I told you the truth.

“Why did we need you? Because otherwise the Elohim would have stopped us. They’re terrified somebody is going to wake up the Worm of the World’s End. As long as we had the Sun-Sage, the Wildwielder”- he pronounced her titles contemptuously, scathing her- “they could convince themselves they didn’t need to do anything. They believe you’re going to protect the Arch and deal with Kastenessen, so why should they bother?

“No, Doctor. The question you should be asking is, why did we have to take you out of your own time to get what we wanted?” He paused, apparently expecting her to respond-or enjoying her helplessness. But she was not beaten: not yet. Her detachment defended her from the excruciation of Jeremiah’s dagger in her hand. And her son’s enslavement galvanised her. While Roger mocked her, she gathered herself.

He still had not explained why he-or his masters-considered it vital to keep her away from Andelain. The creature had attacked to distract her.

Apart from the claiming of your vacant son, I have merely whispered a word of counsel here and there, and awaited events.

Goaded by her son’s suffering, Linden wanted to rage at Roger, This is all your doing. Kastenessen is in too much pain to think. Lord Foul isn’t willing to risk himself. And Esmer can’t pick a side. It’s on your head. Even your own mother-You’re responsible for all of it.

He had kidnapped her son; had dragged Jeremiah into the path of death.

But she remained where she knelt as if she were transfixed between her own agony and Jeremiah’s. She did not choose to waste the remnants of her will and courage on empty recrimination.

It was clear that Roger would not explain his fear of Andelain. She set that issue aside.

All right.” She did not raise her voice above a lorn whisper. She had no strength to spare. “Tell me, since that’s obviously what you want. Why did you take me out of my own time’?” “It’s complicated,” he said at once, gleefully. “Of course, we told you the truth. The EarthBlood really isn’t accessible where you belong. Elena’s battle with Kevin is going to tear this whole place apart. There won’t be anything left of this tunnel and that nice convenient trough.

“But Foul still wants to tear down the Arch of Time. He wants to escape. He wants revenge. And he’s tired of being defeated by my shit of a father. This way-” Roger cast another swath of fire and eagerness around the cave. “Dr. Avery, this way he can’t fail.

“First,” he explained as if he were proud of himself, “there was always the chance you might do something to violate Time. We gave you plenty of opportunities. If you did, good. We’d be spared the trouble of coming here. But if you didn’t, you still might trust us enough to let one of us drink first. Then we could Command the Worm to wake up.” He grinned ferociously. “Since you haven’t done either of those things, we can just kill you and drink anyway.

“But even if that doesn’t work-if we can’t kill you, which doesn’t seem very plausible under the circumstances-you’re still stuck here.” His halfhand blazed, casting familiar embers into his eyes. “Ten thousand years in your own past. With a Staff of Law. And my ring. Every breath you take is going to violate Time. And you can’t escape without a caesure.” He snarled a laugh. “I almost hope you survive so you can try that. Please. The Laws of Death and Life haven’t been damaged yet. You’ll shatter the world. But if you don’t, you’re still going to change everything.

“There’s more, of course, but I won’t bother you with it. Here’s the point. Frankly, Dr. Avery, ever since we got you away from your present, there haven’t been any possible outcomes that don’t give us exactly what we want. Plus, of course, we get to watch you cower. We get to watch you suffer for your poor kid. That alone makes all this trouble worthwhile.” Linden should have quailed. His certainty was as bitter as the touch of a Raver: it should have defeated her. But it did not. How often had she heard Lord Foul or his servants prophesy destruction, attempting to impose despair? And how often had Thomas Covenant shown her that it was possible to stand upright under the weight of utter hopelessness?

Still kneeling, feigning weakness, she protested. “You aren’t making sense.” Deliberately she let the pain in her hand leak into her voice. “You want to rouse the Worm. You want to break the Arch. But then you’ll be destroyed. Lord Foul can escape. You can’t. Why are you so eager to die?” “Well, it’s true,” Roger drawled happily. “Kastenessen hasn’t thought it through. All he cares about is wreaking havoc on the Elohim. If he’s killed in the carnage, at least he won’t hurt anymore.

“The croyel and I have other plans. Foul has promised to take us with him. And he’ll keep that promise. He needs your kid. Hell, he owns him. How else do you suppose the croyel got access to everything your kid knows, everything he can do? He’s belonged to Foul for years.

“But even if Foul tries to cheat us, we’ll still get what we want. The croyel can use your kid’s talent. You’ve seen that. He’ll make us a door. A portal to eternity.” He glanced around at the tunnel. “All the materials he needs are right here. While the Worm tears this world apart, we’ll open our door and go through it.

“Face it, Dr. Avery.” Passion and brimstone condemned Roger’s gaze. “You’ve done everything conceivable to help us become gods.” Inadvertently Roger aided her. He hurt her more severely than any mere physical wound. The thought that the Despiser had claimed her son long ago-that Jeremiah may have participated in his own subservience to the croyel- was worse than any threat of absolute ruin, any image of apocalypse. Roger may have been lying in an attempt to break her. Instead he transfigured her.

They have done this to my son.

While Roger talked, she anchored herself on the muddy void of Jeremiah’s gaze, the slackness of Jeremiah’s cheeks and jaw, the useless dexterity of his dangling hands. Her pain and blood and repudiation she focused on the cruel parasite feeding from his neck.

“I’m sure that’s fascinating,” she said through her teeth. “You’ll enjoy it. But there are a few things you don’t understand.” His eyes widened in amusement; false surprise. “Like what’?” Linden bowed her head as though she intended to prostrate herself. Past the concealment of her hair, she muttered. “Like who I am.” Then she drew lightning as pure as charged sunlight from the upraised iron heel of the Staff and hurled it simultaneously at both Roger and the croyel.

While her blast flared and echoed in the constriction of the tunnel, she surged to her feet. Unable still to uncramp her pierced hand from the Staff, she used her left to shift the shaft so that she could brace its length under her left arm, hold it like a lance.

Her attack was abrupt and brief; yet it should have damaged her foes. But it did not. It failed to reach them. Reeling backward, Roger flung out an eruption of magma to intercept the Staffs blaze.

Swift as prescience, the croyel emitted a vehement wall which blocked and dispersed Linden’s blow.

Roger caught himself; roared with fury. Aiming his fist at her, he unleashed a scend of fire and lava. At the same time, the creature sent waves of force toward her like crashing breakers in a storm. Together he and the croyel strove to drive her back against the lode-face of the EarthBlood.

If she fell there, the Blood itself would incinerate her.

She responded with untarnished Earthpower and Law; threw pure flame against the corrupted theurgy of Kastenessen’s hand and the savage unnatural coercion of the croyel. Shouting her son’s name as though it were a war cry, she met the ferocity of her enemies with power that filled the depths of the mountain like daylight.

Yet Roger and his companion were not damaged or daunted: they hardly seemed to feel her assault. Grinning as if he could taste triumph and delight, Roger poured out magic to cast down her fire; tried to melt her flesh. And the creature raised Jeremiah’s arms to invoke invisible forces. Pressures grated in the air like grinding teeth as they mounted against her; against the lash of flame which was her only defence.

The Staff bucked in Linden’s grasp. It seemed to burn. Its limitations were hers: it could not channel more force than her human blood and bone could summon or contain. She stumbled half a step toward the trough. Her flame no longer flooded the cave. The croyel’s barricade held it back. Crimson and sulphur tainted her sunfire as Roger’s eagerness probed into it; reached through it.

Abruptly the deadwood piercing her hand caught fire and burned away, searing the inside of her wound; sealing it. She was scourged backward again.

For an instant, she seemed to see herself falter and fail, see her flesh scorched like charcoal, see the Staff turn black as Roger’s heat devoured it. Then she rallied.

They have done this to my son.

With a wordless shout, she thrust the Staff behind her so that its end plunged into the trough of EarthBlood.

At once, fresh strength galvanised her. A torrent of Earthpower rushed through the Staff and became incandescence. Her conflagration spurned the stain of brimstone: it pounded heavily against the repulsion of the croyel. Light that should have blinded her and could not washed through the cave and along the tunnel as the brilliance of Law scaled higher; expanded until it appeared to transcend Melenkurion Skyweir’s constricting rock.

The wall emanating from Jeremiah’s enslaver receded. Eldritch dazzling effaced the croyel’s eyes: she could no longer see them, or they had been liquefied in the creature’s skull. Briefly Roger’s flail of scoria lost a portion of its virulence. Kastenessen’s might and pain contracted around Roger’s quivering fist.

But he seemed able to draw on limitless power as though he siphoned it from the magma of the Earth’s core. Even as Linden’s fire grew and grew, claiming more and more puissance from the mountain’s ichor, his ruddy heat swelled again. A furnace spilled from his hand. Heat like liquid granite drove back her bright flame.

Again the creature pressed its strength against hers. Its eyes emerged from the flood of sunfire. The Staff thrummed and twisted in her hands, against her ribs. Concussions ran unsteadily along its shaft: she felt the wood’s desperation pulse like a stricken heart. Every iota of force that she could summon spouted and flared from the iron which bound her Staff-and it was not enough.

Yet even then she was not defeated. They have done this to my son! Instead of recognising that she was lost, she remembered.

I do not desire the destruction of the Earth.

She did not believe that the Theomach had aided her entirely for his own ends. He had given her as many hints has he could without violating the integrity of the Land’s history.

In this circumstanceAnd he had risked revealing secrets to Berek Halfhand in her presence; secrets which she would never have known otherwise.

— her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time.

She accepted the danger. She was Linden Avery, and did not choose to be defeated.

Bracing her Staff in the trough of EarthBlood, she shouted in her son’s name. “Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minas mill! Harad khabaal!” Instantly her fire was multiplied. It seemed to increase a hundredfold; a thousand-She herself became stronger, as if she had received a transfusion of vitality. The fear-even the possibility-that she might fall and perish dropped from her. The Staff steadied itself in her clasp. The whole mountain sang in her veins.

They have done this to my son!

She shouted and shouted, and did not stop. “Melenkurion abatha!” And as she pronounced the Seven Words, both Roger’s pyrotic fury and the croyel’s invisible repulsion were driven back. “Duroc minas mill!” Roger gaped in sudden fright. The abominable gaze of the creature wavered, considering retreat. “Harad khabaal!” Flames like a volcanic convulsion staggered her foes.

And the Skyweir’s deepest roots answered her.

From Rivenrock, she had felt the imminence of an earthquake. Roger had confirmed it. It’ll be massive. Irrefusable pressures were accumulating in the gutrock; natural forces so cataclysmic that they would split the tremendous peak. But it won’t happen for years and years.

He had not expected her to fight so fiercely. Their battle must have triggered a premature tectonic shift; loosed a rupture before its time.

She did not care. The granite’s visceral groan meant nothing to her. She fought for her son, and went on shouting; invoking Earthpower on a scale that staggered her foes. When the floor of the cave lurched as though the whole of Melenkurion Skyweir had shrugged, she gave no heed.

But Roger and the croyel cared. Consternation twisted his blunt features: he feared the mountain’s violence. And the creature turned away from her, apparently seeking escape. They assailed her for a moment longer. Then the stone lurched again, and abruptly they fled.

“Melenkurion abatha!”

Pausing only to retrieve Jeremiah’s crumpled racecar, Linden followed them; harried them with fire. As she pursued them along the tunnel, she continued to shout with all of her strength. And she trailed the end of her Staff in the rivulet so that she would not lose the Earth Blood’s imponderable might.

“Duroc minas mill!”

Roger and the croyel did not strike at her now: they fought to preserve themselves. He sent gouts and gobbets of laval ire to hinder the impact of her sunflame. His companion filled the tunnel with a yammer of force, striving to slow her onslaught.

“Harad khabaal!”

Her power was constrained by the tunnel; concentrated by it. But theirs was also. Although she strode after them wreathed in fury, unleashing a continuous barrage of magic and Law, she could not break through their brimstone and repulsion swiftly enough to outpace their retreat. In spite of the EarthBlood and the Seven Words and the Staff of Law-in spite of the extravagance of her betrayed heart-they reached the subterranean waterfall unscathed.

The falls erupted in steam as Roger passed through it; but the croyel’s barrier warded off the scalding detonation. For a moment, no more than a heartbeat or two, Linden lost sight of them as they rushed down the piled rocks. Then the stone shuddered again, harder this time. She lost her footing, fell against the wall of the tunnel. At once, she sprang up again, borne by fire. With Earthpower, she parted the crushing waters and began to hasten perilously over the slick stones. But her foes were already halfway down the length of the cavern, limned in rocklight.

The mountain’s tremors repeated themselves more frequently. Their ferocity mounted. Soon they became an almost constant seizure. As Linden skidded to the cavern floor and tried to race after Roger and her helpless son, slabs of granite and schist the size of houses sheared off from the ceiling and collapsed on all sides.

Thunder filled the air with catastrophe. It seemed as loud as the ruin of worlds.

Now she had to fight for Jeremiah’s life as well as her own. She knew what Roger and the croyel would do. Given any respite from her assault, any relief at all, they would combine their lore to transport themselves out of the mountain. They might fail in the presence of so much Earthpower, but they would certainly make the attempt. She had to do more than compel them to defend themselves. She had to drive them apart, fill the space between them with a ravage of flame. Otherwise her son would be snatched away. She was ten millennia from her proper time, and would never find him again.

But the ceiling was falling. Even the sides of the cavern were falling. Massive stone columns and monoliths toppled as the roots of Melenkurion Skyweir shook. The river danced in its course; overran its rims amid the hail of shattered menhirs and rubble. Orogenic thunder detonated through the cavern.

The croyel repelled the rock. Despite the magnitude of the quake, the creature protected Jeremiah and Roger. But Linden had no defence except Earthpower; no lore except the Seven Words.

The rocklight grew pale and faltered as the damage to the cavern increased.

Screaming, “Melenkurion abatha!” she tuned her fire to the pitch of granite and made powder of every crashing stone that came near her. “Duroc minas mill!” Hardly conscious of what she did, she shaped the mountain’s collapse to her needs; formed pillars to support the Skyweir’s inconceivable mass; dashed debris from her path so that she could strike at Roger and the croyel. “Harad khabaal!” Striding through havoc, she pursued her son’s doom amid the earthquake.

But the titanic convulsion took too much of her strength. More and more, she was forced to ward off her own ruin. And she had lost the direct use of the EarthBlood. She could not reach Roger and Jeremiah; could not strike hard enough, swiftly enough, to penetrate her betrayers’ defences.

In the Staffs flame and the last of the rocklight, she saw lightning arch between Roger’s arms and Jeremiah’s. She saw them vanish.

Then the earthquake took her; the river took her; and she was swept from the cavern.