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.
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