Two Cords tended the fire, apparently preparing a meal, while others came forward with their Manethrall to join the Ramen around Linden.
And beyond this dwelling stood others, she could not see how many, all with open sides and sod roofs. Now she knew why she had not been able to spot any structures from the vantage of the ridge: their design camouflaged them.
Yet the vale was treeless. The Ramen must have dragged their poles and latias from somewhere beyond the surrounding mountains. Presumably, then, the camp was not a temporary one, but rather a habitation either permanently or regularly occupied.
Still Linden saw no children; no aged Ramen.
Moving between the shelters, Hami and the Ramen escorted Linden, Liand, Stave, and Anele into a broad open circle where the grass had been worn to stubble and dirt by the passage of many feet. This clearing might have been visible from the ridge: it was certainly wide enough to stand out from the surrounding grass. The height of the shelters around it must have concealed it.
At the edge of the circle, Cords led Somo aside, promising to tend the pinto well; and Linden and her companions were invited into the center of the clearing.
“This, Ringthane,” Hami announced quietly, “is the Ramen place of gathering. Here we will share food so that you may rest and regain your strength. In this way, we hope to encourage ease between us. Then we will take counsel after the fashion of the Ramen. We will speak of ourselves, and you will tell us your tales, that there may be friendship between us.”
Linden began to acquiesce automatically; but the Manethrall forestalled her. The crowd around her had shifted. All of the Cords had withdrawn to the rim of the clearing, taking Anele with them. Only Manethralls surrounded Linden and her companions.
“But above all there must be understanding,” Hami said more sternly, as if she spoke for all her people. “You will also be challenged. Thus we will distinguish honor from treachery.”
Oh, God. An involuntary wince twisted Linden’s mouth.
Liand turned to her in alarm: obviously he had not expected this of the Ramen.
Stave opened his mouth to protest; but Hami stopped him with a harsh gesture. Still addressing Linden, she said, “We desire friendship with you, Ringthane. You have been hunted by kresh, and have eaten aliantha. Of your own spirit and lore, you have brought Cord Sahah back from death when we could not. Also you bear that which commands respect, a ring of white fire such as Thomas Covenant wielded against the Render. If friendship is ours to give, we will offer it gladly.”
Linden did not react. Challenged? Treachery? Had she been stalked to this? Exposed to it by Anele’s compelled silence?
Who here had tried to prevent Anele from speaking?
“To Liand of Mithil Stonedown as well,” the Manethrall continued, “we mean no harm. We see that he is honest, though he has little skill. It would please us to welcome him without mistrust.”
Liand watched Hami anxiously, his eyes full of conflicted reactions.
The Manethralls glanced at him as Hami said his name, then returned their attention to Linden. They studied her in silence, somberly, as if they were prepared to pass judgment.
Finally Hami indicated the Haruchai with a nod.
“In your name, Ringthane, we would welcome Stave of the Bloodguard also. Our grievance against his kind is ancient and enduring. Yet the Bloodguard were long Fangthane’s foes, until they were twisted from fealty. For that reason, we do not wish to spurn him, though the sleepless ones have become Masters now, diminishing the people of the Land.”
Stave faced the Manethralls without expression. Linden could not read his emotions, but his aura felt as blunt and uncompromising as knuckles.
Still she did not speak. For no clear reason, she found herself wondering if any ur-viles occupied the valley. Had those dark creatures played some role in the attitude of the Ramen? What was the connection between them?—the connection that Hami sought to conceal.
The woman met Linden’s apprehension steadily.
“Yet I must say plainly that if you do not answer our challenges, all of the Ramen will stand against you.” Her voice carried the sound of implied nickering. “If you attempt no harm, you will be offered none. We will care for you as kindly as we may. But you will not be permitted to depart from us. Whether you wish it or no, we will retain you with us, that there may be no hazard of betrayal to the Land.”
There the Manethrall paused, apparently awaiting a response.
Stave allowed himself a disdainful snort. “You are false with us, Manethrall. When you persuaded us to this place, you said nothing of challenges.”
“Master,” retorted Hami, “the past of the Bloodguard flows in your veins. How did you imagine that we would take counsel together, except by challenge?”
Unexpectedly the Haruchai nodded. He seemed to accept her answer. He may have understood it.
“Linden?” Liand asked, nearly whispering. “Do you know of this? They cannot mean to measure us in combat? I may strike a blow as well as any Stonedownor, but I have no skill to match theirs. In this they have described me truly.”
Linden shook her head, trying to face too many questions at once. But Manethrall Hami did not give her a chance to reply.
“Ringthane,” she pronounced formally, “Linden Avery the Chosen, do you consent to all that I have said?”
Linden felt that she had no choice; that she had done nothing to determine her own course, or to help Jeremiah, since she had appeared on Kevin’s Watch. But the concern of all the Manethralls, and their essential goodwill, were clear to her; plain and palpable. She had no idea why they chose to behave as they did. Nevertheless she had nothing to fear from them, no matter how much they might seem to threaten her.
“Manethrall,” she answered with a formality of her own, “I do. I don’t know what you’re worried about. I hope you’ll explain it. But I respect your caution. I’ll consent to whatever you want.”
Then she added, “You’ve already accepted Anele. And I think Liand will agree with me.” She did not wait for his nod: she trusted him to follow her example. “As for Stave—” She shrugged. “I get the impression that he knows more about what’s going on here than I do. He’ll probably welcome a challenge.”
In fact, however, the Haruchai appeared to have lost interest in the situation. He stood with his arms relaxed at his sides and his gaze fixed on the mountains as if he had decided to await the arrival of someone or something more worthy of his attention.
Then Hami bowed in the Ramen fashion. When Linden did the same, the gathered Manethralls relaxed somewhat.
At a word from Hami, the Manethralls turned toward the crowded ring of Cords; and at once the ring broke apart as the Cords hurried purposefully away. In moments, some of them returned carrying wooden blocks, apparently intended as seats, which they arranged in smaller circles within the clearing. Linden soon realized that they were preparing for a communal meal.
In the frugal lives of the Ramen, the occasion may have been considered a feast.
She did not need a feast: she needed rest. Liand wanted to talk to her, she could see that. No doubt he hoped that she might relieve some of his confusion. And Stave might have been willing to explain his unexpected air of indifference. But she had had enough of them for the moment.
Ignoring her companions as well as the activity of the Cords, she sat down on one of the wooden blocks, propped her elbows on her knees, and dropped her face into her hands.
She needed to think. God, she needed—
Lord Foul had guided her to hurtloam—and then had sent kresh to hunt her down. He disavowed responsibility for both Kevin’s Dirt and the Falls.
An Elohim had passed through Mithil Stonedown, warning Liand’s people against the halfhand even though Thomas Covenant was long dead, and Jeremiah threatened no one.
Anele spoke repeatedly of skurj and the Durance. Some being who might or might not have been Kastenessen had commanded him not to reveal what he had learned from
the stones of the arête. Kastenessen himself should have passed out of name and choice and time tens of thousands of years ago.
The Ramen planned challenges for Linden and her companions. They had apparently lost or abandoned the Ranyhyn somewhere, although they had once been the inseparable servants of the great horses. Occasionally Hami had hinted at other secrets.
Somehow the ur-viles had avoided Lord Foul’s attempts to destroy them. Linden believed that they had enabled her escape from Mithil Stonedown.
The Despiser held Jeremiah. The Staff of Law had been lost.
Anele claimed to be the son of Sunder and Hollian, who had died three and a half millennia ago.
And somewhere Roger Covenant and his mind-crippled mother walked the Land, seeking ruin as avidly as Lord Foul himself.
It was too much; too much. Linden could not absorb it all, or find her way through it. Because she understood nothing, she could do nothing. Covenant was dead: her dreams, illusions. Anele spoke only when his madness permitted it; and then his revelations gave her no guidance. And Stave, she suspected, knew little more than she did. Denying the Land’s past, the Masters also denied themselves.
Liand may have been right about them. Perhaps they feared to grieve.
She did not need a feast, or more stories. She had no use for unspecified challenges. Hell, she hardly needed life. She already had a bullet hole in her shirt.
She needed help.
When at last she lifted her head from her hands, she saw Anele standing on the grass beyond the edge of the clearing. A kind of fever shone from his blind face, and his whole body seemed to concentrate toward her.
He was beckoning as though he had heard her prayers and wished to answer them.
Briefly Linden considered ignoring him. Surely he would only confuse her further? Even from this distance, however, she could see that his madness had entered a new phase, one unfamiliar to her. He was in the grip of an intention so acute that it made him frantic.
Dusk had entered the vale while she counted her dilemmas. Behind the mountains, the sun declined from the Land, and their shadows filled the air with omens. Cold drifted furtively down from the heights. Soon the Ramen would be ready to share their meal, and the challenges would begin.
Sighing, Linden forced her stiff body upright and walked across the open ground to meet Anele among the grass.
As soon as she drew near, he reached for her with both hands; took hold of her shoulders and pulled her closer as if he meant to fling his arms around her. “Linden,” he breathed in a voice suffused with weeping. “Oh, Linden. I’m so glad to see you.”
A voice she knew.
Tears streamed from his moonstone eyes, shocking her as sharply as the sound of that voice in his mouth. She had seen him weep often; but this was different. Until this moment, she had never seen him shed tears of sympathy.
Sympathy and pleasure.
“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.” He spoke quickly, almost babbling, as if he had too much to say, and too little time. “I wouldn’t have believed it. But it fits. It’s right. You’re the only one who can do this.”
Thomas Covenant’s voice.
She knew it as well as she knew her own, and loved it more. Through his madness, Anele spoke Covenant’s words to her in Covenant’s voice.
Her lungs heaved for air and found none. Covenant, she panted, nearly fainting. Oh, my love. The sound of him struck the whole vale to stillness. In an instant, the Ramen and all their doings had ceased to exist; lapsed to dreaming. Stave and Liand occupied the clearing in some other world, a dimension of reality which no longer impinged on hers. Her beloved did not speak to them.
Anele embraced her, a hard clasp with all the strength of Covenant’s heart. Then he held her at arm’s length so that he could gaze at her blindly. His eyes were awash in yearning.
“Linden,” he said, “listen to me,” still hurrying. “I don’t have time. There’s so little I can tell you.”
Covenant was dead, here and in the world they had once shared. She had spent ten years grieving for him. But this was the Land, and the Laws governing Life and Death had been broken.
She faced him mutely through her own tears, helpless to find words for her sorrow and rue. If she had opened her mouth, she would have sobbed like a child.
“The Law binds me in so many ways.” Anele was Covenant’s surrogate, his only voice. “If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be worth fighting for.
“And he opposes me. Here, like this, he’s stronger than I am. Poor Anele can’t hold me. I’m already fading.”
As he said so, she saw that it was true. The old man remained palpable before her. His fingers gripped her shoulders urgently: in some other life, they might have hurt her. But within him another form of lunacy struggled against Covenant’s presence. In spite of Covenant’s desire, and Anele’s rapt submission, a rabid force gathered loathing to expel her love.
He opposes me. The same he who had commanded Anele not to speak earlier? Or some other foe?
Anele’s madness now did not resemble his near-sanity on the ridge.
“You’re in trouble here.” Already her beloved’s voice sounded like tatters, scraps of presence. “Serious trouble.” She was losing him again. “You need the ring. But be careful with it.” His death had nearly undone her. “It feeds the caesures.”
Covenant!
She could not bear to lose him a second time.
“Linden,” he urged at the limit of himself, “find me. I can’t help you unless you find me.”
The next instant, Anele shoved her aside with such vehemence that she nearly fell. Before she could grasp at him, cry Covenant’s name, try to pierce Anele’s turmoil with her health-sense, the old man rushed past her onto the bare dirt and stubble of the clearing.
She pursued him at a run. She was too late: she saw that clearly, although his face was turned away. The transformation of his aura could not be mistaken. Nevertheless she raced to catch up with him; hold him.
He opposes me. The being who now possessed Anele had made a mistake. He had manifested himself within her reach.
She had forgotten fear, caution, peril. She intended to know her enemy, this one if no other. If she could, she meant to wrest his presence from Anele’s tortured soul.
Anele halted a few strides into the clearing. She caught up with him almost at once. Without hesitation, she grabbed at his shoulder so that he would turn to face her; so that she could see his possessor in his blinded eyes.
Even through his filthy raiment, that touch scorched her fingers.
Cries of surprise and warning went up from the Cords. Manethralls snatched for their garrotes. Instinctively Linden flinched back. Anele’s old flesh had become fire; reified flame. Without transition, he roared with heat like scoria. His skin should have been charred from his bones by the burning ferocity of the being within him.
Earthpower wrapped the old man like a cocoon, however, and his fiery possessor could not harm him.
Wildly Linden clutched at Covenant’s ring as Anele’s head swung in her direction. But then she froze, shocked helpless by his appearance.
Anele took a single, predatory step toward her. His jaws stretched open, impossibly wide: his few teeth strained at the air: his throat glowed like a glimpse into a furnace.
From the pit of his power, he exhaled straight into Linden’s face.
His breath struck her like a blast off a lake of magma; like the fume of a volcano. Instantly her eyebrows and lashes were burned away. The hair around her face crisped and stank, and her sunburn became agony. Around the clearing, the air itself ignited in flames and dazzles.
She had already begun to fall when Stave leaped to the old man’s side and struck him down.
Anele’s heat vanished so suddenly that she feared Stave had broken his neck.
12.
The Verge of Wandering
For a while, Linden went a little insane herself, demented by an excess of confusion and pain. Th
ere were no words in all the world to contain her dismay.
At a command from Manethrall Hami, several Cords shouldered Stave away from Anele’s outstretched form. The Manethrall examined Anele swiftly, confirmed that he was no longer filled with fire, then assured Linden that he was merely unconscious, not slain. Cords lifted him from the dirt and bore him away. But Linden regarded none of it. She hardly understood it.
From beyond death, Covenant had tried to reach her. His spirit still endured somewhere within the spanning possibilities of the Arch of Time. Under other circumstances, her heart might have been lifted by the knowledge that he sought to communicate with her; that he strove to answer her prayers—
But he had been so viciously thrust aside. Some flagrant power had dismissed him as though he had no significance. He seemed to be at the mercy of some malignant being. Like her son in Lord Foul’s hands—
Her gaze streamed with grief. She could not shut it out. Even when she closed her eyes, her heart blurred and ran. She could not bear it that her lost love had tried to help her, and had been silenced.
Find me.
Liand knelt at her side: he spoke to her softly, trying to ease her in some way. Stave stood nearby, unrepentant. No doubt he believed that he had saved her and the Ramen from a futile grave. Perhaps he had. Linden neither knew nor cared.
It fits. It’s right. You’re the only one who can do this.
Covenant’s assurance could not comfort her now: not after what had happened to Anele.
But then one of the Cords handed Liand a small clay bowl. When he began to stroke the poultice of the Ramen lightly onto her scorched features, the whetted aroma of amanibhavam stung her nostrils. In Covenant’s name, she allowed herself one harsh sob as if she were gasping for air; for life. Then she struggled to sit up.
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