5.
Preparations
012
Linden hardly knew how to feel. She was awash in so many conflicting emotions that she could not steer her way through them. Dismay still filled the bottom of her heart like shoals. But over those unanswerable rocks, strong currents and eddies seemed to run in every direction.
She had resurrected Covenant at a terrible cost. She had purchased the means to reach her son by making herself powerless to aid him. Yet Covenant had reaffirmed his belief in her, his unmerited support. Indeed, he had backed her with such certainty that even the Humbled—the Humbled—had been moved.
She was desperately grateful for everything that he had said and done; for anything that hinted that his love might be great enough to cover even her vast crime. Nevertheless his attitude weakened her. Like Liand??s overt compassion in Revelstone days ago, Covenant’s reasoning eroded her grip on herself. According to the contradictory logic of her emotions, he diminished her by denying that her every deed was wrong. If everything that she had done deserved repudiation, at least she knew where she stood. Blame told her who she was. It gave her meaning. Without it, she was less than powerless: she was insignificant.
In that way, her gratitude implied both hope and despair.
Perhaps this was what it meant to have friends and the possibility of love: to become smaller, too inadequate and fallible for words—and thereby to find herself no longer alone. No longer either solely culpable or solely necessary.
If so, her position now was the opposite of Stave’s. Being cast out had given him the strength to stand alone, entirely isolated from his people. And that in turn had made it possible for him to be her friend in ways that no other Haruchai could comprehend, by solitary choice rather than by communal necessity.
Long ago, Covenant’s circumstances had resembled Stave’s. Being a pariah on Haven Farm had taught him the courage and fortitude to care for Joan unaided.
Linden, too, had once been alone. Alone and strong. Now the poles of her dilemma had been reversed. She had been weakened by acceptance and affirmation and trust. Together the Giants and the Ramen, Liand and Stave, Covenant and even the Humbled: they had brought her to the end of her choices.
She was not sure that she could bear it.
She was sitting on the grass again with her knees gripped to her chest; hiding her face. She needed time to recover from the joy and terror of Covenant’s declarations.
Have you never bothered to wonder why Lord Foul and Kastenessen and the damn Harrow and even my lost son want Jeremiah so badly?
Roger and the croyel dreamed of becoming gods.
Apparently Covenant believed that Jeremiah’s plight and the Land’s could not be distinguished from each other.
Around her, Linden’s friends also seemed to need time. Stave and the Masters regarded each other impassively; but Pahni and Bhapa stared openly at Clyme, Galt, and Branl as though they had never seen such men before. Through his bandage, Mahrtiir appeared to study the Humbled with a comparable surprise. He may have been wondering to what extent this unforeseen alteration in the posture of the Masters could be trusted.
Liand’s features displayed mingled awe and vindication. He had known the intransigence of the Masters all his life: clearly he considered Covenant’s accomplishment a great feat. And Covenant had validated Liand’s instinctive commitments. The Stonedownor held up the light of his orcrest as if he were proud to offer illumination to the Unbeliever.
The Swordmainnir conferred cautiously with each other. The tension of their impulse to defend Linden was slow to dissipate. Cirrus Kindwind and Cabledarm muttered together, sharing their uncertainty about the Humbled. Bluntfist, Latebirth, and Onyx Stonemage reminded each other—no doubt unnecessarily—of various Giantish tales concerning Thomas Covenant. With Frostheart Grueburn and Stormpast Galesend, Rime Coldspray discussed the innominate contingencies of a journey with the Harrow and the Ardent. They did not know where they were going, or what they would encounter when they arrived. Nevertheless they envisioned potential dangers as best they could, and considered possible responses. At the same time, the Ironhand apportioned simpler tasks. As before, she asked Grueburn to watch over Linden and Galesend to care for Anele. Stonemage and Latebirth would guard Liand and the Manethrall respectively: Cabledarm and Halewhole Bluntfist, Pahni and Bhapa. Covenant she left to the Humbled.
Meanwhile Anele fretted inchoately, as if he alone felt any need for haste.
But Covenant had slipped again. In a weary murmur, as if his tenuous clarity had drained him, he talked about the birth of Sandgorgons in the Great Desert, describing to himself the mindless confluence of Earthpower and storms and barren sand which had manifested itself in those feral monsters. His knotted frown and the hunch of his shoulders gave the impression that he feared his memories—or feared his inability to identify their importance. His wrapped hands made gestures that went nowhere.
Standing on the slope behind Linden, the Harrow ground his teeth in palpable frustration while the Ardent played restlessly with his ribbands.
Liand—of course—was the first to step aside from his own concerns. Still holding his Sunstone so that everyone could see, he crossed the greensward to kneel in front of Linden. With her face covered, she did not look at him. Nonetheless her health-sense was as precise as vision. His concern added itself to the emotional tides and eddies that swirled through her as if she had been reduced to flotsam.
“Linden,” he breathed, addressing himself only to her. “Linden Avery. I see the distress which feeds upon your heart. None here do not. Even Anele is disturbed by it, and I do not doubt that the Unbeliever would seek to console you, were he able to escape his wounded mind.
“Will you not take comfort from the desire of your friends to accompany you in all things?
“I do not speak of the Haruchai. They do as they must. Even Stave does so. Nor do I speak of the Giants, who delight in extremity and hazard. No, Linden. I speak of your lesser companions, we who have stood at your side from the first.
“Manethrall Mahrtiir, Bhapa, Pahni, and I lack the heritage of Earthpower which exalts of the Haruchai and the Giants. Even Anele is a being of power where we are not. Yet we have confronted monsters and mysteries in your name. We have dared Demondim and skurj, kresh and Cavewights. And we have twice endured caesures. Within the second, I have participated in your thoughts, sharing the pain and force and darkness and yearning of your spirit.
“Will you not consider that we choose to remain at your side, knowing that you have dared the Earth’s doom? Will you not permit our trust to ease you?”
Linden could not face him. Nor could she explain herself: her emotions ran in too many directions to be named. Instead, muffled against her knees, she said, “I had a chance to take pity on Elena,” Covenant’s endlessly suffering daughter, “and I couldn’t do it.” She had not merely Desecrated Law to resurrect Covenant: she had failed to resurrect him whole. “I’m glad you’re coming with me. I’m glad you’re all coming. But I’m as broken as Covenant is. I’ve fallen—somewhere—and I don’t know how to climb out.”
She felt Liand stiffen as she replied. At first, she thought that she had hurt him. But then she read him more clearly. He did not feel rejected. Instead he was drawing on the dignity with which he had often answered her efforts to spare him.
“Then,” he told her sternly, “there is no other path for you. You must walk it or perish. Arise now and allow the Harrow to fulfill the terms of your exchange. Every delay heightens your own peril as much as your son’s.”
Lost in her confusion, Linden was surprised to find that Liand of Mithil Stonedown the authority to command her. He diminished her: truly he did. At the same time, however, he bestowed new reasons for gratitude.
“All right,” she answered indistinctly, although she did not move. “I understand. Just give me a minute. Tell everyone to get ready. We’ll leave soon.”
When Liand rose to his feet and turned away, he seemed to take some of her tossed and eddying emotional currents with him.
“Cords,” she heard Mahrtiir say, “this company requires water and sustenance. We have endured much without rest or aliment. Aliantha we must have, and also a stream to quench our thirst.”
At once, Bhapa moved to obey his Manethrall. Pahni lingered long enough to turn a glance of yearning and veiled alarm on Liand. Then she, too, obeyed Mahrtiir.
“Aye, Manethrall,” assented the Ironhand. “The Ramen are provident as well as courteous. For many reasons, we grieve those Giants whom the Land names the Unhomed. Among our sorrows is this, that their fate precluded us from hearing their tales of both the Ranyhyn and the Ramen.”
As the Cords jogged away in opposite directions, Mahrtiir replied to Coldspray, “Already the benisons of your presence have been many and inestimable. I do not doubt that they will continue. But the Ramen are a short-spoken people. And even among my kind, I am considered curt. I lack the gifts of speech to offer sufficient honor. Know, however, that where my mouth is empty my heart is full.”
The Ironhand and several of her comrades laughed in response. Chuckling, Kindwind replied, “You measure yourself unjustly, Manethrall. Were we uncertain that our path lies with Linden Giantfriend—which we are not—still would we gladly follow where a man who speaks as you do leads.”
All right, Linden told herself. You can do this. It’s the last thing you have to do. You might as well face it.
Sighing under the weight of her remaining burden, she raised her head and climbed slowly to her feet.
Covenant had closed his eyes. He gave the impression that he was asleep on his feet. However, Linden could still sense the turmoil in his mind. Tucked into the waist of his jeans, the krill throbbed intermittently with new heat. Guided by turiya, Joan may have been testing his vulnerability. Doubtless she and the Raver had become stronger when Linden had torn Covenant out of the Arch of Time. They would hurt or kill him if they were given the opportunity. For the present, however, they were content to probe and wait.
Linden wanted to ask Covenant what would happen to Andelain and the Wraiths when the mystic force of Loric’s krill was taken elsewhere. But she could guess well enough. Roger and his Cavewights had neither the desire nor the sheer numbers to expend their energies against Andelain. And she still believed that Kastenessen’s pain-driven fury was too single-minded to encompass the Hills. His rage was directed primarily at his fellow Elohim: he did not care about mere grass and trees and health and loveliness. The skurj, on the other hand—Their voracity might be drawn to the wealth of Earthpower here. And even if Kastenessen sent his monsters elsewhere for some purpose which Linden could not imagine, the Sandgorgons might come. Through Stave, she had offered them distractions enough to occupy them until they were overtaken by the world’s end. But among them they retained remnants, scraps, of samadhi Sheol’s malign spirit; and the Raver’s loathing of trees was as enduring and insatiable as the Ravers themselves. Like Salva Gildenbourne, Andelain might present a feast which the Sandgorgons could not ignore.
Linden agreed with the Humbled: she had given up too much when she had accepted the Harrow’s terms. The fact that she could not have made any other choice did not console her.
Waiting for the Cords, she confirmed that Jeremiah’s crumpled racecar remained deep in one of her pockets. The ruined toy was all that she retained of her son. If her friends and Covenant could not rid Jeremiah of the croyel, the one thing that he had taken from his former life might be all that she would ever have.
After a moment, Liand said carefully, “Linden.” He stood to the side so that his orcrest lit both Linden and Covenant. “One question remains. What must be done to preserve Anele? We know nothing of where we will be conveyed, and we have lost all that we bore from Revelstone. Only the armor of the Giants remains to ward him, and I fear that they will have need of it.”
Anele, Linden thought. Ah, God. When your deeds have come to doom, as they must, remember that he is the hope of the Land. To her, the old man appeared to be both the most and the least helpless of her companions. He may also have been the most or the least necessary.
But on the day of Jeremiah’s abduction by Roger, her son had devised two astonishing constructs in her living room. Out of bright plastic bits like tiny bricks, he had formed large structures which she could not fail to recognize: one of Revelstone; the other of Mount Thunder, ancient Gravin Threndor. Among the Wightwarrens deep in the chest of the mountain ten years and several millennia ago, she and Covenant had gone to the chamber of Kiril Threndor to confront Lord Foul.
Since her translation to the Land in Jeremiah’s wake, she had learned to think of his last voluntary creations as guides or instructions—or as warnings. Certainly she would not have traveled to Andelain to resurrect Covenant if she had not first found the Staff of Law and been taken to Revelstone, where she had fallen victim to Roger’s insidious glamour.
She believed now that she knew where the Harrow would take her, for good or ill.
Unfortunately she could not close her mind to an alternative interpretation of her son’s constructs. If Lord Foul had indeed claimed Jeremiah years ago, those images of Revelstone and Mount Thunder may not have been voluntary. They may have been manipulations; ploys designed to make her serve the Despiser.
Yet in the Hall of Gifts, Stave had spoken of children among his people.—it is their birthright to remain who they are. And he had asked, Are you certain that the same may not be said of your son?
Linden wanted to say the same of Jeremiah so badly that she feared to do so. I refuse to believe he made choices then that can’t be undone. Nevertheless the nature of the intent which had inspired his constructs in her living room did not affect her answer to Liand’s question.
“I don’t think that we need to worry about Anele. If I’m right, we’re going underground. It’ll all be stone. Old stone. The kind that he understands.
“You were there,” she said, remembering. “In Salva Gildenbourne. Before that first skurj attacked us, and we met the Giants. He read or heard something in the sand,” the residue of rocks which must have been old long before Covenant’s first appearance in the Land.
There Anele had spoken of the necessary forbidding of evils—a forbidding like the repulsion which the Colossus of the Fall had once wielded. But that strength was long gone. It had failed with the passing of the One Forest and the Forestals.
Without forbidding, there is too little time.
“Aye,” Liand acknowledged. “At that time, he instructed you to ‘Seek deep rock. The oldest stone. Only there the memory remains.’ But how do you conclude that your son is imprisoned beneath the earth?”
Anele had also said, Forget understanding. Forget purpose. Forget the Elohim. They, too, are imperiled.
Like so many of the old man’s utterances, that one had been as urgent as prophecy, and as cryptic. Now, too late, Linden knew what it meant.
And she knew something else as well. When he stood on rock—or on the remnants of rocks—Anele’s pronouncements held truth. Whether or not she grasped their significance, she needed to hear and heed them.
Become as trees, the roots of trees. Seek deep rock.
She shrugged. “I can’t be sure. But Lord Foul likes to hide his secrets in stone. Nothing else is strong enough to hold them.”
“That I must believe,” admitted the young man. “Nonetheless I fear for Anele. The purpose which lies in wait beneath his madness—” Liand shook himself to loosen the trepidation that tightened his shoulders. “Linden, I do not merely fear for him. For causes which I cannot name, I fear Anele himself, though unpossessed he offers harm to none.”
Briefly Linden met the Stonedownor’s troubled gaze. Then she looked away. “You should probably trust your instincts. But I don’t feel what you do. To me, he looks more dangerous to himself than to anyone else.” After a moment, she added, “I just wish that I knew what Sunder and Hollian said to him. Or what they did for him. I wish I knew what they know about him.”
But she had nowhere to turn for answers. Unless Covenant chanced upon a relevant memory, and was able to explain it, she could only wait for events to reveal the exigencies that ruled Anele. She was responsible for most of the delays which had prevented her departure with the Harrow; yet now she felt helpless to do anything except wait.
013
Eventually the Cords returned to the vale. Both Bhapa and Pahni bore handfuls of treasure-berries; and Bhapa announced that he had found a brook perhaps a hundred paces beyond the eastern rim of the hollow.
Trusting the Haruchai and the Ramen to stand guard, Rime Coldspray and her Swordmainnir strode away in various directions, some to forage for more aliantha, others heading toward water. While Bhapa and Pahni offered the viridian fruit to Linden and Liand, Anele and Stave, Branl tried to get the Unbeliever’s attention. But Covenant did not emerge from his recollections. Perhaps he had already eaten enough to satisfy his new mortality.
Linden accepted a few of the berries after Anele had taken as much as his hands could hold. She would need more: she knew that. And she, too, would have to visit the brook. For the moment, however, she was content to send Liand off with Pahni to search and drink. Bhapa also she encouraged to fend for himself. She wanted a chance to talk to the Ardent.
Accompanied only by Stave and Mahrtiir, she ascended the shallow slope toward the garish Insequent. The Harrow studied her suspiciously as she approached, but said nothing. Covenant’s ring he clenched in one fist as if he sought to squeeze wild magic from it by sheer force. The Staff of Law he hugged to his chest like a shield.
“Lady.” The Ardent bowed in a fanfare of ribbands. “Doubtless the moment draws nigh when we will depart this vale of rue. And doubtless we are one and all devout in our hope that occasions more pleasurable lie before us. It is apparent, however, that uncertainties remain to disturb you. I will endeavor to ease you, if I may do so without interference in the Harrow’s designs.”
“Without more interference,” muttered the Harrow darkly. Then he clamped his jaws shut.
Linden hardly knew how much to trust the Ardent, but she answered his bow with a nod. “I appreciate what you’ve already done.” Her gratitude seemed to float on a vast sea of dread, but she did not mean to speak of her fears. “Unfortunately I can’t think of any questions about the Harrow that you might be free to answer. I wanted to ask you something else.
“The Harrow seems to believe that all you care about is gluttony. But I’m not convinced. What you want isn’t that simple. If it’s fair to say that all of the Insequent are ruled by greed,” for knowledge, or for personal glory, or for service, “what are you greedy for? Why did your people pick you? What are you trying to get for yourself?”
Decorating himself with flutters, the Ardent beamed at her. “You are insightful, lady—and mayhap wise as well—in spite of your manifold follies. Doubtless others have observed these qualities in you.”
The Theomach had called her clever as well as wise. Surely she had made enough mistakes to prove him wrong?
“It is not without cause,” continued the Ardent without pausing, “that the Harrow regards me with disdain.” Every sentence emphasized his lisp. “Yet his scorn misleads him. Gluttony I affirm. However, feasting and the adoration of viands are but one manifestation of my distinctive hunger, the unsated quest which you have named greed. My appetites are not limited to the delights of the flesh.
“Lady, my true hunger is for that which is utterly singular, entirely unique. I crave the experience of that which lacks all precedent and cannot be repeated. I have not attained my happy bulk by repetition, or indeed by quantity, but rather by seeking out and enjoying every form of sustenance which the wide Earth proffers. And I desire other uniquenesses as well. I wish to taste and see and hear and feel and do all things that are new to me, or to the world, or that are too fleeting to recur. And I wish to savor sensations in which no other being ever can or ever will participate. For this quality, and because I am an acolyte of the Mahdoubt, I was chosen. The Insequent perceive that I cannot fail their trust without betraying my own greed.
“I have witnessed the mating of Nicor merely because no other Insequent, or any self-aware creature, has done so. For the same reason, I have stood upon the mightiest peaks of the Earth, not excluding great Melenkurion Skyweir. Yet those are lesser joys because the day may come when others also experience them.
“This”—he expanded his ribbands until they seemed to include the whole hollow and all that had occurred within it—“is truly unprecedented. Nor will it ever recur. And my presence within it is unprecedented, unrepeatable, ecstatically unique. I speak for the Insequent as a people. Those powers which they are able to invest in me, I possess. Ere now, such a confluence has never transpired. Come what may, it will never transpire again. And no other living being will ever know its fraught joys.
“Behold me, lady, at the crown and culmination of my greed.” Bright bands of color wove around him as if he and they formed a tapestry of exaltation. “Never will I be deemed the greatest of the Insequent. Nor will my deeds determine the outcome of the Earth. Yet I do not scruple to proclaim that no Insequent has achieved the fruition which I attain here. No other Insequent will attain it. Even the Harrow in his vainglory will not.”
Linden stared at him, trying to grasp the implications of his peroration. Although his human aura remained partially concealed by his raiment, she discerned that he was telling the truth. But how would such a man react in a crisis? A crisis was certain: she knew the Despiser too well to believe otherwise. What would a man who prized unique sensations above all else do when he faced butchery and was threatened with death?
He had threatened to reveal the Harrow’s true name—the most fatal act an Insequent could commit—but he may have been bluffing.
While she pondered that question, looking for ways to examine the Ardent further, the Harrow said to him in a black voice, “Yet you know naught of the deep places of the Earth.”
The plump Insequent raised his eyebrows as though the Harrow’s statement touched a sore place in him. “That is sooth,” he conceded in a more subdued manner. “I fear them. They are hazardous beyond estimation. Indeed, some few among the Insequent have perished in their search for knowledge of those depths. I need only name the Auriference.
“In a distant age,” he explained to Linden, “a time that far preceded that of the Theomach, she delved deeply, seeking a knowledge both ancient and immeasurable. Desiring as did the Theomach to be named the greatest of the Insequent, she found only the loss of use and mind and life. Yet her end was by no act of the Insequent. Rather she was unmade by evils too vicious to be contemplated. For that reason, our kind has largely eschewed the Land, deeming that its perils exceed its grandeur and mystery. The exceptions are infrequent and secret—though it is surely plain to all that the Harrow stands among them.
“By my own deeds,” he concluded, “my doom is bound to yours, and to the Harrow’s. I do not aspire to end my days in terror.”
Linden expected some mordant retort from the Harrow. But he only grinned fiercely through his beard and said nothing.
After a moment, Stave announced quietly, “Chosen, the Swordmainnir return. The Cords and the Stonedownor are refreshed, and Anele’s hunger has been satisfied. You and the Manethrall must now seek out the brook. To preserve your strength, you must have water.”
He was right: Linden knew that. But she was reluctant to stop probing the Insequent. Indirectly the Harrow had confirmed that Jeremiah had been hidden underground. And the Ardent’s fulsome account of himself did not reassure her. If he already feared what might happen to him—
However, she suspected that more questions would not bring more answers. And Jeremiah had been left too long at the croyel’s mercy.
Please, she wanted to say to the Ardent. Don’t abandon us. Not while that monster has my son. But she lacked the eloquence to move him.
Surely he understood the danger—?
Nodding once more to the Ardent, if in supplication rather than in gratitude, she let Stave and Mahrtiir lead her away.
014
When she and the Manethrall had quenched their thirst, eaten aliantha, and rejoined the rest of her companions, Linden saw that they were ready; as ready as they would ever be. Liand’s mastery of his orcrest seemed steady enough. But Covenant’s ability to make use of Loric’s krill was unpredictable at best. It might do him more harm than good, if Joan and turiya chose some crucial moment to assail him. The company would have to rely upon the weight and weapons and skill of the Giants, and the resolute prowess of the Haruchai. In the deep places of the Earth, the abilities of the Ramen might be of little use.
Linden herself had nothing to contribute.
Yet Mahrtiir emanated a grim eagerness in spite of his blindness and his Ramen fear of enclosure. In darkness, the loss of his eyes might have the effect of an advantage. And his fierce desire to participate in a tale worth remembering had not waned.
Bhapa doubted himself too much to share his Manethrall’s anticipation. Clearly, however, he found reassurance in Mahrtiir’s attitude. But Pahni’s fears for Liand were growing. She stood at his shoulder as though she ached to cast off her reserve and cling to him openly. Because she was Ramen and followed her Manethrall, she would face any hazard and fight to the end of her life. Still her concern for Liand outweighed any other apprehension.
I wish I could spare you. Hell, I wish any of us could spare you. But I can’t see any way around it.
For himself, Liand did not share Pahni’s alarm. When Linden had allowed him to accompany her away from his life in Mithil Stonedown, she had opened the way for a discovery of both the Land and himself: a discovery that still thrilled him. Inadvertently she had cast a glamour over him which she distrusted and he did not. It had made him the first true Stonedownor since before the time of the Sunbane.
And he had new strengths now; strengths that might sustain him if or when Linden failed to justify his faith in her.
Beyond her more human friends, the Giants shared a measure of Mahrtiir’s grimness and excitement. Knowing the Earth as they did, they could probably imagine the dangers better than any Raman. Yet they treasured the tales that resulted from hazard and daring. And they loved stone: they did not fear to seek Jeremiah, or any fate, underground. Linden saw possibilities for joy in them that the Manethrall lacked.
Like the Humbled, Stave remained entirely himself: unreadable in his dedication to the absolute in any situation; his apparent rejection of all sorrow. But Anele grew increasingly impatient. Linden could not guess what prompted his restiveness, but it was evident in his tense shoulders and twitching fingers; in the way he jerked his head from side to side as if he were hearing a multitude of voices. His gaze, milky and sightless, darted from place to place as though he expected horrors to emerge from the sumptuous grass.
And Covenant, the man whom Linden had loved and lost, as she had loved and lost her son: he remained as alone as Jeremiah in spite of his physical presence. Indeed, he seemed immured under a mountain of mental or spiritual rubble. His efforts to extricate himself were palpable, so plain that Linden could almost follow their progress.
Huddling into himself, he talked inexplicably of a time when he and Lord Mhoram had stood looking down into Treacher’s Gorge while an army of Cavewights marched forth.
“So many of them,” he muttered. “Too many to count. Lord Foul used them whenever he wanted fodder for one of his wars. He spent thousands of them fighting Hile Troy. And thousands more against Revelstone. They’re intelligent enough to be used. They’re just not smart enough to recognize lies. They’re so good at killing, it’s easy to forget how badly they’ve been misled.
“Hell, they don’t need wars. The Wightwarrens have everything they want. They didn’t ask to be shock troops. Even poor Drool—His only real mistake was listening to Lord Foul. Everything after that was the Despiser’s doing.”
Covenant’s eyebrows were an arch of strain across his forehead. From time to time, he punched his bound fists against each other if he hoped that the pain would jolt him back into coherence. Dampness in his eyes suggested that he might weep. To Linden, he seemed altogether pitiable.
That was her doing. Hers.
And yet, somehow, he remained Thomas Covenant, the man who had twice defeated Lord Foul. The cut lines of his visage and the gauntness of his frame, even the potential tears in his eyes, did not imply frailty. Rather they conveyed an austere authority. He resembled a sovereign brought low, accustomed to command in spite of his ragged state. In the light of Liand’s Sunstone, his silver hair shone like an oriflamme, and the pale scar on his forehead gleamed like an anointment.
The bandages on his hands—cerise and incarnadine, opalescent and viridian—were grotesqueries that only emphasized his stature.
Linden’s eyes burned at the sight of him; at his suffering and his unextinguished spirit. Oh, he diminished her. That was his nature—or hers. Nonetheless his effect on her had shifted. His support against the Humbled made her ache to prove worthy of him. To win back whatever love she had lost during his immeasurable absence with the Arch of Time.
She trusted that he would respond when she needed him.
She was less confident of the Humbled. They had changed their minds once. They might do so again. But when she finally said to Stave, “Let’s go. I’ve kept us all waiting too long,” the three Masters began urging Covenant toward the Harrow.
Stoically Galt, Branl, and Clyme clung to their right to believe in themselves. How otherwise will the Humbled redeem themselves in my sight? Beyond question, they feared grief more than any peril. The Vizard had taught them too well. Being Haruchai, they did not know how to distinguish between sorrow and humiliation.
Summoning her resolve, Linden led her companions to dare the outcome of her last gamble.
“Are you done with hesitation, lady?” asked the Harrow acidly. “Even now, the Worm feeds. Ere long, its hunger will become a convulsion in the fundament of the Earth. Will you at last permit me to uphold our bargain?”
Linden stared into the black emptiness of his eyes as if she had become fearless. “Let’s be clear.” Her voice felt stiff in her throat, brittle and unwieldy. But it did not tremble. “You’ve already got what you wanted from me. Now you’re going to take us to my son. All of us. And you’re going to bring us all back when we’ve rescued him. You’re going to bring him with us.”
“I have said so,” the Harrow retorted. “I have vowed it. I will fulfill my oath.”
The Ardent nodded. “Allay your doubts, lady.” His anxiety had reclaimed him, quashing his complacent lisp. “The word of any Insequent is as necessary as breath. Knowledge is a strict treasure. It does not suffer falsehood. Should the Harrow fail to perform all that you have asked, all that he has gained will be reft from him. And”—the Ardent’s ribbands twisted like flinching—“I am present to aid the completion of his bargain.”
“All right.” Thoughts of Jeremiah compelled Linden. “Tell us what you need us to do.”
Immediately, vehement with eagerness, the Harrow commanded, “Stand near together. It will ease our passage if the Giants bear those who consent. The Ardent and I will combine our theurgies to preclude any misstep arising from your excess of companions.”
Linden glanced around at the Ramen and Liand. When she saw that they agreed, she looked to the Ironhand.
Mutely Coldspray gestured at her comrades. At once, Latebirth, Cabledarm, and Bluntfist lifted the Ramen into their arms. Stonemage picked up Liand and seated him on one of her massive forearms. While Galesend did the same for Anele, Frostheart Grueburn took Linden. Only Cirrus Kindwind, who had lost an arm against the skurj, and Coldspray herself were unencumbered as the Swordmainnir crowded into a cluster.
Stave stood beside Grueburn. The Humbled formed a knot around Covenant close to the Ironhand.
Linden felt wariness on all sides. In this formation, the Giants could not draw their weapons. Only the Haruchai would be able to react swiftly to a sudden threat. Nevertheless no one resisted the Harrow’s instructions.
He and the Ardent positioned themselves on opposite sides of the company. While the Harrow began to rub his beads in an elaborate pattern, muttering as his fingers skittered from place to place, the Ardent sent out bright streamers to enclose Linden and her companions. His ribbands spread far enough to touch the Harrow’s shoulders; but the Harrow ignored them.
Still muttering, he demanded, “Douse your magic, youth. It intrudes.”
Linden understood. The Sunstone was an instrument of Earthpower: it expressed Liand’s strength according to the strictures of Law. Clearly the Harrow intended to step outside such boundaries, as he did whenever he translated himself from one location to another.
For a moment, Liand considered the Harrow’s order. Then he shrugged and eased his grip on the orcrest, allowing its illumination to fade until the stone lay inert in his hand. But he did not return it to its pouch at his waist.
Lit only by the pinprick glittering of the stars, Linden and her companions waited, dark as shadows, for the Harrow to complete his preparations.
Linden held her breath. She was going to Jeremiah: she repeated that to herself again and again. Going to Jeremiah. After all this time: after so much struggle and inadequacy, so much bitter victory and expensive failure. Soon she would need to find the courage for what she would see, the croyel clinging to her son’s helpless back, chewing viciously on the side of his neck; filling her vacant boy with feral hate.
And she had to pray that at least one of her companions possessed the force necessary to make the monster let go—
Of its own will, the croyel would never allow her to hold Jeremiah in her arms. Never.
Leaning against Grueburn’s stone cataphract, Linden waited; tried to hope. She felt no power gather around her. Nothing more eldritch than Andelain itself seemed to inhabit the night. But she had never been able to sense the peculiar magicks of the Insequent. Like the Theomach’s and the Mahdoubt’s, the Harrow’s form of wizardry articulated itself in a dimension of reality or time which lay outside the reach of her perceptions.
She did not know that anything had happened until the stars, and the deeper night beneath the surrounding trees, and the Hills themselves vanished into utter darkness. Then heavy stone and cold closed over her—over all of her company—like the sealing of a tomb.