“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 defense. Their Würd 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.
3.
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 h
ad 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 recognize 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 defenses 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 Illearth 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.
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