He should have known that she was lying. He and Jeremiah both should have known.
Then the tunnel expanded into a widening like a cul-de-sac; and at once, every nerve in her body recognised that she had reached the source of the EarthBlood. Covenant and Jeremiah might not attempt to rush her through the flame of the Staff, but she could not be sure. She trusted nothing. Facing the rill, she turned sideways so that she could glance into the end of the passage without losing sight of her companions.
At the back of the cave, a rude plane of stone as black as obsidian or ebony protruded like the exposed face of a lode from the surrounding granite. Peering at it, Linden blinked furiously, strove to clear her sight. The dark wet rock appeared to shimmer: its sharpness and stark purity overwhelmed her eyes. Through the blur, she seemed to see a facet of weakness in the substance of reality, a place of distortion where the tangible rock and the possibilities of Earthpower merged.
From the whole surface of the plane seeped the gravid liquid of the EarthBlood. Trickling down the face of the lode, it gathered in a shallow trough before it flowed thickly away down the length of the tunnel.
There, Linden thought in wonder and terror: there was the source of the Power of Command. In that trough, the concentration of Earthpower was so extreme that it seemed to fray the fabric of her existence, pulling her apart strand by strand.
She would have to drink-
“Mom!” Jeremiah cried, pleading with her. “I don’t want that. I don’t want you to rescue me if the Land is still at Foul’s mercy! My life isn’t worth it.”
“Hell and blood, Linden!” Covenant shouted. “You don’t have to do this! Weren’t you listening to the Viles? The Power of Command can’t touch wild magic, and whoever holds my ring doesn’t need the Power!
“For God’s sake! If you can’t do anything else, at least give me back my ring! Give me a chance to save the Land!”
For a moment, Linden hesitated; questioned herself. Could she carry out her intent without the EarthBlood, using only the Staff? Both Covenant and Jeremiah feared the fire of Law, that was obvious. But she did not believe that she possessed enough sheer power. No flame of hers would be more potent than the air of the tunnel-and her companions breathed it without wavering. She could not gain what she needed with the Staff alone. And she could not wield the Staff and Covenant’s ring together. She had done so once, when she had unmade the Sunbane. But then she had been insubstantial, already half translated away from the Land. She had occupied a transitional dimension, a place of pure spirit; supernal rather than human. And Lord Foul’s frantic exertion of wild magic had opened the way for her; attuned her to a power which was not hers by right. Here the contradictory theurgies of white gold and the Staff would destroy her.
Either alone will transcend your strength, as they would that of any mortal. Together they will wreak only madness, for wild magic defies all Law.
She had made her decision. The time had come act on it.
Trust yourself.
I want to repay some of this pain.
In the end, she placed more faith in her dreams than in Covenant or her son.
Be cautious of love. It misleads. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction.
“Jeremiah, honey,” she said through her determination and woe. “I love you. Try to forgive me.”
Before her companions-or her own fears-could intervene, Linden Avery the Chosen stooped to the trough and drank the Blood of the Earth.
Then she jerked erect, stood rigid as stone, while utter Earthpower reified in liquid transformed her mouth and throat and heart-her entire body-to exquisite unendurable fire.
Now it was not only the Staff of Law that shed flame: her whole being had become a conflagration. She burned like an auto da fe, as if she had been ignited by the sun’s inferno. Yet her flesh was not consumed, and her only pain was the agony of an intolerable exaltation. The EarthBlood raised her so far above her limitations and alarms that the discrepancy threatened to incinerate her, not because it was wrong or hurtful, but because she was inadequate to bear it.
If she did not express her incandescence at once, utter her Command, the puissance she had swallowed would sear her to the marrow of her bones.
All you have to do is want it-
Enfolded from head to foot in unanswerable fire, she turned to her companions.
She could see them clearly now. Flames had burned away her tears; her weakness. Covenant stared at her with his mouth open as if he were enraptured by eagerness and dread; and the red embers which filled his eyes shone so hotly that they fumed in the viscid air. Jeremiah had thrown his head back as if he were howling. In his halfhand, he clutched his racecar; held it out toward her as though it might ward off an attack.
When Linden spoke, her words were a shout of fire. With the full force of the Power of Command, she demanded of her companions. “Show me the truth!”
Then she watched in horror as her loves flew apart like leaves in a high wind.
Chapter Twelve: Transformations
While her Command compelled obedience to her will, Linden remained clad in fire. Briefly she had become Earthpower, and could not be refused. She saw every detail with lucent precision while her desires were imposed on her companions.
Covenant’s jeans and T-shirt slumped away as the truth was revealed. They became an indeterminate grey shirt and khaki slacks. Three bullet holes formed an arc across the centre of his shirt. They had been healed; but their edges were still crusted with blood.
His features blurred as though she had begun to weep again, although she had not; could not. His face became rounder, softer. Lines of severity melted from around his mouth, leaving his cheeks unmarked. The corners of his eyes no longer expressed any intimacy with pain. And he shrank slightly, grew shorter. At the same time, his torso swelled with self-indulgence. Even his posture changed. He stood with a familiar combination of looseness and tension: the looseness of weak muscles; the tension of poor balance.
A glamour upon itIt was not Thomas Covenant who stood before her, exposed by fire and Command. It was Covenant’s son, Roger, seeking such havoc that the bones of mountains tremble to contemplate it. Linden could not fail to recognise him now.
Do you not fear that I will reveal you? The Theomach must have knownThe embers were gone from Roger’s eyes: his gaze had regained the exact hue of his father’s, the troubled colour of suffering and ruin and unalloyed love. Nevertheless he had been altered; terribly transformed. His right hand was whole, but it had lost its humanity. Instead it was composed of magma and theurgy, living lava and anguish. Its fiery brutality reminded her of the devouring serpents she had seen during her translation to the Land, the malefic creatures of lava and hunger that Anele had called the skurj.
Roger Covenant’s right hand had been cut off. It had been replaced by thatAnd when that doesn’t work, he maimsSomewhere in the background of Linden’s mind, a voice gibbered, Oh God. OhGodohGodohGod. But she hardly recognised her own fear.
Kastenessen had merged part of himself with the skurj. Roger himself in his father’s guise had told her that. The deranged and doomed Elohim’s escape from his Durance had been more painful than you can imagine.
Kastenessen is all pain. It’s made him completely insane.
She had been given hints. And she blazed with Earthpower: her perceptions were preternaturally acute. She jumped to conclusions instinctively, instantaneously-and trusted them completely.
Being part skurj isn’t excruciating enough, so he surrounds himself with them, he makes them carry out his rage. And when that doesn’t workSweet Jesus. Kastenessen had severed his own right hand and given it to Roger Covenant. He had granted Roger the magic to conceal himself from her percipience; had turned Roger into an entirely new kind of halfhandThe truth of the man who had brought her here appalled her; shocked her to the core. Roger’s presence in his father’s place exceeded her sharpest fears. Nevertheless the sight of her son was worse.
Linden saw at a glance that he had relapsed to his former unreactive dissociation.
But there was moreDespite his overt passivity, his arms did not dangle at his sides. Instead his fists were raised in front of him. In his right, his halfhand, he clutched his racecar; gripped it so hard that he had crumpled the metal. In his left, he held a piece of wood as slim and pointed as a stiletto, a splinter of the deadwood which he had gathered from Garroting Deep.
From his shoulders, his blue pyjama shirt hung in tatters. Horses reared from scrap to scrap, torn apart by blows and falling. Bruises covered his arms and chest. Yet the unassoiled discoloration of his contusions did not mask the violence of the bullets which had pierced his flesh. His rank wounds, one in his stomach, the other directly over his heart, oozed dark blood that formed a web of crust and fluid on his torso, trickling at last into the waistband of his pyjama bottoms.
He had died in his natural world. Like Linden: like Joan. He would never be freed from the Land.
Yet even that was not the worst.
A small hairless creature like a deformed child clung to his back. Its clawed fingers dug into his shoulders: its sharp toes gouged his ribs. Its malign yellow eyes regarded Linden while its teeth chewed ceaselessly at the side of Jeremiah’s neck and its mouth drank his life.
And from the creature came waves of eldritch force so cruel and bitter that they turned the air in Linden’s lungs to ash. In its own way, the creature was as mighty as Roger. Its power matched the potential for savagery and devastation of Kastenessen’s severed hand. But the creature’s strength had more in common with the black lore of the Viles than with the laval hunger of the skurj- or with the covert transformations of the Elohim. It was an altogether different threat; a danger comparable to the Illearth Stone in its violation of Law.
Nonetheless Linden recognised it instantly. Twice before, she had met a similar magic, a comparable ferocity.
The creature was one of the croyel: a parasite or demon which throve by giving power and time to more natural men or women or beasts as it mastered them. Long ago, Findail the Appointed had described the croyel as beings of hunger and sustenance which demnify the dark places of the Earth. Those who bargain thus for life or might with the croyel are damned beyond redemption.
But Jeremiah was not damned, she insisted to herself. He was not. He was not like Kasreyn of the Gyre: he had made no bargain. He could not have made one. Lost within himself, he more closely resembled the arghuleh of the Northron Climbs, mindless ice-beasts which had simply been enslaved by the croyel. The bargain here was Lord Foul’s, not Jeremiah’s.
Still her son was effectively possessed. The Ranyhyn had done what they could to forewarn her. But her fears had tended toward Ravers-or toward the Despiser himself. She had not come close to imagining Jeremiah’s true peril.
Empowered by the Blood of the Earth, Linden screamed raw fire down the stone throat of the tunnel.
Her flame was met by a blast of heat like the opening of a furnace. Roger’s given hand flung its own brimstone conflagration against her, vicious as scoria. If she had not been enclosed in Earthpower, and warded by the Staff of Law, she would have died before her heart could beat again. Instead, however, she was only quenched. The flame which the EarthBlood had given her was snuffed out: the illuminating fire of the Staff vanished as though it had been doused.
The sudden vehemence of the attack staggered her. For a brief moment, a small sliver of time, she tottered on the brink of the trough. Then, reflexively, she dropped to her knees, snatching herself back from a second contact with the Blood.
Reclaimed by mortality, her vision blurred again. Only Roger’s crimson virulence remained to light his malice and Jeremiah’s emptiness and the insatiable eyes of the croyel. But she saw them as nothing more than shapes and points of light; instances of bereavement.
“Actually, Dr. Avery,” Roger drawled, “I like this better. If you weren’t so damn determined to interfere, Foul and Kastenessen and I would already have everything we ever wanted. I suppose that ought to piss me off. But it doesn’t. Ever since I first met you, I’ve wanted to crush you. Now I can.” If he had struck at her then, he might have slain her. She was lost and aghast, overwhelmed with rue: she could not have defended herself. White gold was a mystery to her, too complex and hidden to be approached in the EarthBlood’s presence. The resources of the Staff seemed to have passed beyond her reach.
But Roger held back. His desire to crush her entailed something more than mere death.
For her son’s sake, and the Land’s, Linden used that moment of life and breath to regain as much of herself as she could.
Vestiges of utter Earthpower lingered in her yet. They left incandescent suggestions in her veins. Her heart throbbed with remembered might. She could still think, and had already begun to tremble with fury.
Leaning her weight on the Staff, gripping it with both hands while she knelt, she panted as though she were nearly prostrate. “That’s why you didn’t want me to touch you. You weren’t afraid of my power. You knew that if I touched you, I would feel the truth.” Roger and the croyel had feared her health-sense. “Your disguise wouldn’t hold.” Roger glanced at Jeremiah’s master; gave a harsh burst of laughter. Then he faced Linden again with flame frothing from his fist. “Of course,” he jeered. “I’m just astonished it took you so long to figure it out.” She ignored his scorn: it could not hurt her now. “And it’s why you didn’t want me to summon the Ranyhyn. They would have recognised you right away.” “Of course,” he repeated, mocking her. “Go on. You can’t stop there.” Jeremiah did not speak. He did not react in any way. He could not. The croyel ruled him, and the creature no longer needed either words or gestures. It had stolen into her son’s mind in order to find the memories and knowledge which would give substance to its charade, and to Roger Covenant’s. Now it was done with pretence.
Linden trembled, scrambling inwardly, and grew stronger. “It’s also why you didn’t want me to go Andelain. You couldn’t fool the Dead. They would have exposed you.” “Well, sure.” Roger shrugged. “If that’s the best you can do. But I have to admit, I’m disappointed. You’re supposed to be a doctor. Keen mind. Trained intellect. I expected more.” Think, Linden commanded herself. If she could understand her straits, she might find her way through them.
Clearly Esmer had advised her well. And then he had counterbalanced his aid by opposing the ur-viles when they had tried to prevent Roger and the croyel from snatching her out of her natural present.
“Tell me,” she demanded hoarsely. “You like to gloat.” He coveted her dismay. “What am I missing?” Roger snorted another laugh. “For one thing, you brought this on yourself. All of it. If you hadn’t gone to get that damn Staff-and if you hadn’t told Esmer you wanted to visit Andelain-nothing that’s happened since would have been necessary. You forced us to intervene. Once you had the Staff, we had to keep you out of Andelain.” Linden sensed as much as thought that he was attempting to mislead her again. He was not closed to her now. Her senses discerned subtleties of truth and falsehood. He-or Lord Foul-had wished to preclude her from Andelain: she believed that. But her Staff was not his real concern. If he and Jeremiah had not ridden into Revelstone, they would have been in no danger from her.
Roger and his masters or guides-the Despiser and Kastenessen-had a deeper reason for seeking to ensure that she did not approach the Andelainian Hills.
Trying to probe further, Linden asked, “You said “for one thing”. What else have I missed?” Again Roger appeared to consult his companion. Then he replied in a voice full of scorn. “Why not? You obviously think I’m stupid. You want to keep me talking so you’ll have time to recover. But you really don�
�t understand. You don’t understand anything. I can’t lose here.
“I’m going to answer your questions for a while because I want you to know what despair feels like.” Long ago, Thomas Covenant had said to her, There’s only one way to hurt a man who’s lost everything. Give him back something broken. Roger and Lord Foul had done that to her now. But Roger’s father had not allowed his pain to rule him.
“Go on,” she said more firmly. “I’m listening.” Roger flicked his lurid hand; sent an arc of fire like a streak of molten stone across the ceiling of the cave. But he did not direct his force at her. A grin of grim delight showed his teeth as he replied. “For another, there was always the chance you might actually give me my ring. That would have saved all of us no end of trouble.
“I tried to talk you into it. The croyel thinks I should have tried harder. But I knew you wouldn’t do it. You love power too much.” Linden heard him clearly. He meant that in her place he would not have surrendered his father’s ring. He did not comprehend her at all.
“That’s not an answer,” she retorted. As the transcendence of her Command faded, she recovered more and more of herself. “Why did you care if I went to Andelain? Tell the truth for once. You’re part Elohim. And the croyel-” The creature had raped her son’s trapped mind in order to manipulate her. “They seem like they’re capable of anything. If the two of you aren’t strong enough to destroy the Arch of Time on your own, why didn’t you just come here? What did you need me for? What was so important about keeping me away from Andelain?” Jeremiah himself, the ensnared boy whom Linden had adopted and loved, did not react. He could not. He wandered a chartless wilderness of loneliness and abandonment while the croyel clung like a tumour to his back. His disfocused gaze and his damp mouth promised only sorrow.
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