Linden heard him. She meant to answer. But her thoughts slipped again, seeking links and meaning which she could not have named. Distracted, she veered away toward the pillars near one end of the Hall, where the Gifts had not suffered from Gibbon Raver’s struggles. Bearing her light with her, she walked between the columns until an odd statue caught her eye. It stood alone, thickly layered with dust, on an open stretch of the floor.
At first glance, it appeared to be a random assortment of rough rocks balanced on top of each other to form a distorted shape nearly as tall as she was. Because it was riddled with gaps, it resembled the framework for a sculpture more than a finished piece. Puzzled, she looked at it from all sides, but could not make sense of it. But then she took several steps backward, and saw that the stones outlined a large head. After a moment, she realized that the statue was the bust of a Giant.
The stones had been cunningly set so that the gaps between them suggested an expression. There was the mouth in a wide grin: there, the heavy bulge of the nose. And there, the holes of the eyes seemed to have crinkles of laughter at their corners.
Linden could almost have believed that the rocks had been selected and placed to convey an impression of Pitchwife’s visage. But clearly the bust had been fashioned long before Pitchwife’s sojourn in the Land.
“Who do you suppose this is?” she asked.
Stave appeared to consider his memories. “The Haruchai do not recall the Stonedownor who crafted this countenance, or the name of the Giant here revealed, or indeed the name given to this Gift. The craft itself, however, is suru-pa-maerl. In the ages of the Lords, artisans among the Stonedowns sought long and patiently to discover unwrought stones which might be combined and balanced to form such depictions.”
“When you stand back,” Linden murmured. “it’s pretty impressive.” If Jeremiah had been free, he might have constructed works like this one. Distantly she added. “I’m trying to put the pieces together myself. There’s one thing that I’m sure of now.
“I know why Roger didn’t want me to go to Andelain. Or Esmer either, for that matter.” After she had spoken of her intentions, Cail’s son had left the cave of the Waynhim in apparent vexation or distress. “It’s not just that they don’t want me to meet the Dead. They don’t want me to find the krill. They’re afraid of what I might be able to do with it.”
She had seen how its gem answered to the presence of white gold. According to Thomas Covenant, High Lord Loric had formed the krill so that it would be strong enough to bear any might.
Stave considered her flatly. “Then what is it that you seek to comprehend? You have not yet named your true query.”
Linden turned from the suru-pa-maerl Giant as if she were shying away. Aimlessly she carried the flame of her Staff among the columns, describing in fire slippages and connections which she did not want to put into words. She should have obtained an answer from the Mahdoubt—and had missed her only opportunity.
After a few steps, she asked, still indirectly, “How many times was Covenant summoned to the Land? I mean, before he and I came here together?”
“Four of which the Bloodguard had knowledge,” answered Stave.
“Who summoned him?”
Her companion had apparently accepted her fragmented state. He replied without hesitation, “The first summoning was performed by the Cavewight Drool Rockworm at Corruption’s bidding. The second, by High Lord Elena. The third, by High Lord Mhoram. In each such call, the necessary power was drawn from the Staff of Law. But the fourth was accomplished by the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower and the Stonedownor Triock, enabled only by their own desperation, and by a rod of lomillialor, of High Wood, gifted to Triock by High Lord Mhoram.”
Momentarily distracted, Linden asked, “‘Lomillialor’?” Stave had mentioned that name once before.
He shrugged. “These are matters of lore, beyond the devoir of the Haruchai. I know only that lomillialor was to the wood-lore of the lillianrill as orcrest was to the stone-lore of the rhadhamaerl. With it, Hirebrands and Lords invoked the test of truth, spoke across great distances, and wrought other acts of theurgy.”
She nodded as though she understood. Wandering, she recovered the thread of what she had been saying.
“But when Covenant and I came here together, we were summoned by Lord Foul. Back then, I didn’t wonder about that. But now I think he made a mistake. It may have been his biggest mistake.” Like Covenant before her, Linden had been freed when her summoner was defeated. “He tied our lives to his.
“That’s why he used Joan this time. Roger’s mother.”
Roger had made that possible. And he had kidnapped Jeremiah. Directly or indirectly, he had delivered Jeremiah to Lord Foul—and to the croyel.
“Was it not Corruption who summoned the ur-Lord’s former wife?” Stave may have been trying to help Linden think.
“Oh, sure.” She shook her head to dismiss the implications. “But she was already lost. What I’m trying to understand is ‘the necessity of freedom.’ I don’t know what that means.”
“Chosen?”
She turned at a column, headed in a different direction. But she clung to her musing. It protected her from a deeper fear.
“Before I came here the first time,” she said. “Lord Foul went after Covenant by attacking Joan. He pushed Covenant to sacrifice himself by threatening her. And Covenant did it. He traded his life for hers.
“The part that I don’t understand—” Linden searched for words. What she sought was only related by inference to what she asked. “When he saved her, did he give up his freedom? Was that why he could only defeat Lord Foul by surrendering? Because in effect he had already surrendered? Did saving Joan cost him his ability to fight?”
Would Linden doom the Land if she sold herself for Jeremiah?
Stave appeared to study the question. “This also is a matter of lore, beyond my ken. Yet I deem that it is not so. The Unbeliever’s surrender was his own, coerced by love and his own nature, not by Corruption’s might. Sacrificing himself, he did not sacrifice his freedom. Rather his submission was an expression of strength freely wielded. Had he been fettered by his surrender in your world, Corruption’s many efforts to mislead and compel him would have been needless.”
Honninscrave also had spent himself to win a precious victory.
Linden sighed as if she were baffled, although she was not. The Mahdoubt’s giggling had receded into the background of her thoughts, but she had not forgotten what she had lost. She understood the importance of choice.
Veering again, she found her attention fixed on a statuette poised on a ledge in one of the columns. It caught her notice because it represented a horse, clearly a Ranyhyn—and because it reared like the beasts ramping across Jeremiah’s pajamas. It was perhaps as tall as her arm, and charged with an air of majesty, mane and tail flowing, muscles bunched. When she blew away its coat of dust, she saw that it was fashioned of bone. Over the millennia, it had aged to the hue of ivory.
Like all of the Land’s knowledge and secrets, the statuette had become an emblem of antiquity and neglect.
Unlike the suru-pa-maerl bust, however, the Ranyhyn did not appear to be something that Jeremiah could have made. Although it had been formed from many pieces, its components had been fused in some way, melded to create an integral whole.
“Can you tell me anything about this, Stave?” she asked in a tone of reverie. “Who worked with bone?”
Who among all of the people that had perished from the Land?
Watching her, he said. “It is perhaps the most ancient of the Gifts in the Hall. It exemplifies a Ramen art, called by them marrowmeld, bone-sculpting, and anundivian yajña. I know naught of its history, for the Ramen do not speak of it. In the ages of the Lords, they said only that the art had been lost. Mayhap the loss occurred during their flight with the Ranyhyn to escape the Ritual of Desecration, for much that was treasured did not survive the Landwaster’s despair. Or mayhap the truth lies hidden in
some other tale.
“The Manethrall may give answer, if you inquire. He may refuse. Yet still you have not named your true query.”
Linden could not face him. The image of the Ranyhyn, in old and dusty bone before her, and in dyed threads on Jeremiah’s ruined pajamas, seemed to demand more of her than Stave did. But the sculpted horse could not look into her eyes and see her fear.
God, she needed Covenant! His unflinching acceptance might have enabled her to envision a path which was not laid out by wrath and bitterness. Honninscrave’s cairn counseled sacrifice—but it was not enough. Gallows Howe made more sense to her.
By degrees, she reduced the flame of the Staff to a small flicker that scarcely illuminated Stave’s visage. Isolated by darkness, Linden tried to name the search which had brought her to this place of bloodshed and remembrance.
“She said—” she began, faltering. “The Mahdoubt. She reminded me—” For a moment, pain closed her throat. The Harrow had shown her that she could still be made helpless, in spite of everything which she had learned and endured. Because of her paralysis ten years ago, Covenant had been slain—and Jeremiah had been compelled to maim himself in the Despiser’s bonfire. “Roger said that Lord Foul has owned my son for a long time. Ever since Covenant and I first came to the Land. That Jeremiah belongs to the Despiser,” and all of Linden’s love and devotion meant nothing. “The Mahdoubt seemed to think that might be true.”
Every word hurt, but she articulated them without weeping. In her eyes burned fires which she withheld from the Staff.
Stave appeared to examine her for a moment. Then he said as if he could not be moved, “I know naught of these matters. I do not know your son. Nor do I know all that he has suffered. But it is not so among the children of the Haruchai. They are born to strength, and it is their birthright to remain who they are.
“Are you certain that the same may not be said of your son?”
Linden took a deep breath; released it, shuddering. No, she was not certain. She had always believed Jeremiah’s dissociation to be a defense as much as a prison, a barricade against hurt. That it walled him off from her was almost incidental. And the Mahdoubt had not averred that Jeremiah belonged to the Despiser. She had only observed that a-Jeroth’s mark was placed upon the boy when he was yet a small child—
Lord Foul had marked Jeremiah: that was true enough. In their separate ways, both Linden and Covenant had been marked. And perhaps the Despiser conceived that his mark constituted ownership. He had acted on similar convictions in the past—and had been proven wrong.
If her son had not willingly joined himself to the croyel—
Slowly she turned to meet Stave’s gaze; and as she did so, she restored the brightness of the Staff. She could not read his spirit: no doubt she would never be able to see past his physical presence. Nonetheless she suspected that his passions ran to depths which she could hardly fathom. Like Jeremiah’s dissociation, his stoicism might be a defense—and a prison.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “That helps. He isn’t my son because I gave him birth. He’s my son because I chose him. I don’t know what the truth is. I may never know. But I can still choose. I’m going to believe that he has the right,” every child’s right. “to be himself.”
To her surprise, Stave responded with a deep Haruchai bow. “Chosen,” he replied, unexpectedly formal. “thus would I speak of my own sons, though they remain among the Masters, and with the Masters have spurned me.”
Linden stared at him in chagrin. His sons—? She had known in the abstract that his people had wives and children. How could they not? But she had never considered the possibility that he might have sons who had turned their backs on him.
His determination to stand with her had cost him more than she had ever imagined.
You didn’t—She wanted to say, You didn’t tell me. You never even hinted—According to the Mahdoubt, He has named his pain. But he had not truly done so until now.
Before she could find her voice, however, he went on more sternly. “Now I comprehend your query. And you have answered it. Here the Giant Grimmand Honninscrave accepted possession by samadhi Sheol and remained himself. You will not think less of your son than of any Giant whom you have known.”
His manner forbade questions. He would not think less of his own sons—
Trust yourself.
At last, the Mahdoubt’s voice fell to silence in Linden’s mind.
With an effort, she swallowed her protests. When she felt ready to respect his privacy—and his loneliness—she said. “All right. I don’t know how long we’ve been here, but it must be time to go. Mahrtiir will wonder where we are. And if he doesn’t, Liand will.” For Stave’s sake, she attempted a smile. “In any case, they’re probably as ready as they’ll ever be.” Glancing around to locate the doors, she added uncomfortably, “There’s just one more thing.”
The rejected Master faced her as though nothing had passed between them. “Chosen?”
“I don’t know how much of your story you want to tell. It’s your story. I won’t say anything. But the others,” Liand and the Ramen, “should at least know that the Mahdoubt and the Harrow are Insequent,” linked to the Theomach. “It might help them understand what we’re up against.”
Stave shrugged slightly. “As you say.”
With that she had to be content.
Sighing, she started toward the doors. Walking together in spite of his acute separation, she and Stave left the Hall of Gifts.
There may have been thousands of stairs. It was conceivable. The Hall lay a considerable distance below the level of Revelstone’s gates, and her rooms were high in the Keep’s south-facing wall. By the time she and Stave gained the corridor outside her quarters, her legs were trembling with strain, and she had to pant for breath. Only the coolness of the air spared her from sweating through her shirt.
Outside her door, Liand, the Ramen, and Anele awaited her. With the exception of Anele, they radiated varying degrees of anxiety and frustration. On the floor around their feet lay a number of bedrolls, bundles, and sacks: supplies for an unpredictable journey. Whatever the Masters may have decided, the servants of Revelstone had been generous.
In spite of his scrapes and bruises, Galt guarded her door. Clearly he had refused admittance to Linden’s companions. His stance may have been intended as courtesy toward her. Or it may have been a foretaste of the Masters’ attitude.
Liand greeted her with a gust of relief. “Linden!”
“Ringthane.” Mahrtiir was less easily reassured. “This Master,” he snorted, slapping a gesture at Galt, “grants nothing. He has refused to reveal your whereabouts. He will say only that in your absence we may not enter your chambers. Yet it is manifest that he has seen combat. Events of import have transpired while we are kept in ignorance, confined by stone.
“Does some new threat confront this harsh Keep?”
Bhapa shared the Manethrall’s ire. Pahni stood beside Liand, holding his arm as if she were determined not to let him go. Under his breath, Anele mumbled his distrust of the Masters and imprisonment.
Linden held up her hands to quiet Mahrtiir’s vexation. Still panting, she said, “I’m sorry. We’re all right. You can see that. There were a couple of things that I needed to do while you were getting ready. Stave will tell you about them when he gets a chance. Right now”—she tasted the air and found that daybreak was near—“we should head down to the gates. We have a long way to go, and I don’t think that any of it will be easy.”
She had left nothing of hers in her rooms.
“Linden Avery,” Galt began firmly. “the Masters—”
She cut him off. “Don’t say it. I already know.” And she was not yet sure what form her response might take. “If I’m wrong, Handir won’t hesitate to set me straight.”
The Humbled raised an eyebrow in apparent disapproval. But he did not insist on speaking.
Mahrtiir flashed a fierce grin at Galt; at Linden. Linden di
d not know what the Manethrall saw in her—or in the Humbled—but he was eager for its outcome.
Bhapa and Pahni said nothing: they would not when their Manethrall was silent. But Linden expected a flood of questions from Liand. She braced herself to fend them off.
He surprised her, however. With unfamiliar ease, he dammed his baffled concerns. Studying him, she guessed that Pahni had relieved much of his ignorance. But the change in him had another source as well: she could see it. On a visceral and perhaps unconscious level, the focus of his attention had shifted. It was now concentrated on Pahni. He was Linden’s friend: he would always be her friend. He would stand by her with the same steadfastness that she had known in Sunder. But she no longer consumed his thoughts, or his heart.
His alteration gave her a touch of relief, which she attempted to conceal for his sake. It freed her to focus more closely on her own intentions.
Even when her thoughts were elsewhere, everything that she felt and did revolved around Jeremiah.
Stave faced her with inquiry in his eye. He may have wanted to know how she would reply to the Masters. When she said nothing, however, he gave another small shrug and went to help the Ramen and Liand carry their burdens.
As soon as her companions had shouldered their bedrolls and supplies, Mahrtiir nodded sharply. With Stave beside her to lead the way, Linden headed back down the many stairs and passages toward the forehall. Her companions came after her; and Galt followed behind them as if to ensure that they did not change their minds.
After a short distance, Linden asked Liand to walk with her. In spite of her relief, she needed to talk to him. Through Anele, Covenant had promised the Stonedownor an obscure and difficult burden. And Liand had given her more generosity and consideration than she could measure. She wanted to contribute to his sense of discovered purpose. She owed him that much.
He left Pahni and Anele to join her. For a moment, she studied him sidelong, observing the ease with which his sturdy frame bore two bedrolls and a bulging sack; measuring the extent of his new anticipation. Then, trying to sound casual, she said. “I promised you some answers. Pahni has told you what she can. Stave will fill in a few of the gaps. But you and I—” She paused briefly to consider what she could offer him. Not for the first time, she regretted that he was not safe in Mithil Stonedown. I wish I could spare you. But there was no safety anywhere: not now. “We should talk about orcrest.”
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