“Nor could the lady be merely forsaken in this time,” continued the Mahdoubt, “while her treachers sought the Power of Command. She might contrive means or acquire companions to assail them ere their ends were accomplished. Nor could they be assured that any use of that Power would accomplish their ends, for the Blood of the Earth is perilous. Any Command may return against its wielder, bringing calamity to those who fear no death except their own.”
By degrees, Linden began to detect strands of melody among the woman’s words; or she thought that she did. But they had the same quality of hallucination or dream that she had felt earlier. She could not be sure of anything except the Mahdoubt’s voice.
Without realising it, she had emptied the bowl. The Mahdoubt glanced at her, then retrieved the bowl, filled it again, and returned it to her. But the older woman continued to speak as she did so.
“The Mahdoubt merely speculates. Of that she assures herself. Therefore she does not fear to suggest that the chief desire of the lady’s betrayers was the lady’s pain.”
Facing the trees and the blind night, she reached once more into her cloak and withdrew a narrow-necked flask closed with a wooden plug. Its glassy sides shed reflections of viridian and tourmaline as she removed the plug and passed the vessel to Linden.
When Linden drank, she tasted springwine; and her senses lost some of their dullness. Now she was almost sure that she heard notes and words, fragments of song, behind the Mahdoubt’s voice. They may have been dusty waste and hate of hands; or perhaps rain and heat and snow.
Nevertheless the Mahdoubt went on speaking as though the forest’s anger held nothing to alarm her.
By that hurt, they sought to gain the surrender of white gold. And if they could not obtain its surrender, they desired the lady to exert the ring’s force in the name of her suffering under Melenkurion Skyweir, either for their aid or against their purpose. In such an outcome, the Staff of Law and the EarthBlood and wild magic would exceed the lady’s flesh, and Time would be truly endangered. Her foes could not have believed that she would find within herself force and lore sufficient to oppose them without recourse to white gold.”
At last, Linden raised her head. She had become certain that she heard pieces of music, the scattered notes of an unresolved threnody. They came skirling among the trees, taking shape as they approached, implying words which they did not utter. I know the hate of hands grown bold. She flung a look at the Mahdoubt and saw that both of the woman’s eyes were alight, vivid blue and stark orange. The Mahdoubt had fallen silent; or the song had stilled her voice. Yet she appeared to face the Forestal’s advance with comfortable unconcern.
Since days before the Earth was old
And Time began its walk to doom,
The Forests world’s bare rock anneal,
Forbidding dusty waste and death.
As if in response, the Mahdoubt murmured,
“Though wide world’s winds untimely blow,
And earthquakes rock and cliff unseal,
My leaves grow green and seedlings bloom.”
A wind rose through the woods, adding the dry harmony of barren boughs and brittle evergreen needles to the mournful ire of the music. Stern snatches of melody seemed to gather around the campfire like stars, underscored by the almost subterranean mutter of trunks and roots. Linden had seen and felt and tasted that song before, but in an angrier and less laden key. Now the woodland dirge held notes like questions, brief arcs and broad spans tuned to the pitch of uncertainty. Caerroil Wildwood may have intended to quash those who had raised flames here, but he had other desires as well, purposes which were not those of an out-and-out butcher.
A shimmer of melody rippled the surface of the night like a breeze passing over a still pool. The presence and power of the song was palpable, although Linden beheld it only with her health-sense. Nevertheless each note and chime and lift of music swirling from the branches like autumn leaves implied an imminent light which gradually coalesced into the form of a man.
Instinctively she reached for the Staff. But the Mahdoubt halted her by grasping her arm.
“Withhold, lady.” The older woman did not glance at Linden. Instead she studied the Forestal’s coming with her lit gaze. “The Great One’s knowledge of such power suffices. He has no wish to witness it now.”
Linden understood in spite of her bottomless fatigue. The Mahdoubt did not want her to do anything which might be interpreted as a threat.
Linden obeyed. Resting her hands on her thighs, she simply watched the stately figure, lambent as a monarch, walking among the dark trees.
The Forestal was tall, and his long hair and beard flowed whitely about him like water. From his eyes shone a piercing and severe silver which showed neither iris nor pupil; light so acute that she wanted to duck her head when his gaze touched her. In the bend of one arm, he carried a short, twisted branch as though it were a sceptre. Flowers she could not identify ornamented his neck in a garland of rich purple and purest white; and his samite robe was white as well, austere and free of taint from collar to hem. As he passed among the trees gravely, they appeared to do him homage, lowering their boughs in obeisance. His steps were wreathed in song as if he were melody incarnate.
The Mahdoubt’s eyes gleamed in appreciation. Their weird colours conveyed a placid warmth untrammelled by fear or doubt. When the Forestal stopped, regal and ominous, at the edge of the cookfire’s glow, she inclined her head in a grave bow.
“The Mahdoubt greets you, Great One,” she said with no trace of apprehension. “Be welcome at our fireside. Will you sup with us? Our fare is homely-oh, assuredly-but it is proffered with gladness, and the offer is kindly meant.”
“Presumptuous woman.” Caerroil Wildwood’s voice was the music of a rippling stream, delicate and clear. It seemed to chuckle to itself, although the silver flash of his eyes under his thick white brows denied mirth. Rather his glances demanded awe at his withheld wrath. “I do not require such sustenance.”
Linden bit her lip anxiously; but the older woman’s smile was unconcerned. “Then why have you come? The Mahdoubt asks with respect. Has this revered forest no need of your might elsewhere?”
“I am throughout the trees,” sang the Forestal, “elsewhere as well as here. Seek not to mislead me. You have intruded fire into Garroting Deep, where flames are met with loathing and fear. I have come to determine your purpose.”
“Ah.” Linden’s companion nodded. “This the Mahdoubt questions, Great One.” She raised both hands in deprecation. “With respect, with respect.” Then she rested her arms on her plump belly. “Do you not crave our extermination? Is it not your intent to slay all who encroach upon the ancient Deep’?”
The guardian of the trees appeared to assent. “From border to border, my demesne thirsts for the recompense of blood.”
The Mahdoubt nodded again. “Assuredly. And that thirst is justified, the Mahdoubt avers. Millennia of inconsolable loss provide its vindication.”
“Yet I refrain,” Caerroil Wildwood replied.
“Assuredly,” repeated the Mahdoubt. “Therefore the Mahdoubt’s heart is rich with gratitude. Nonetheless the purpose which the Great One desires to determine is his, not ours.
“Gazing upon us, he has observed that he has no cause for ire. And he has discerned as well that he must not harm the lady. He has heard all that the Mahdoubt has said of her. He perceives her service to that which is held dear. He has come seeking the name of his own intent, not that of the Mahdoubt, or of the lady.”
When the Forestal fixed his burning stare on Linden, she felt an almost physical impact. Fighting herself, she met his eyes; let him search her with silver. She heard a kind of recognition in his music, a wrath more personal than his appetite for the blood of those who slaughtered trees. Slowly his gaze sank to consider her apparel, study Covenant’s ring through her shirt, acknowledge the bullet hole over her heart, regard the Staff of Law. He noted her grass-stained jeans-and did not sing of her death.
>
Instead he returned his attention to the Mahdoubt.
“I am the Land’s Creator’s hold,” he pronounced in melody. “She wears the mark of fecundity and long grass. Also she has paid the price of woe. And the sigil of the Land’s need has been placed upon her.” He may have been referring to her stabbed hand. “Therefore she will not perish within this maimed remnant of the One Forest. Nor will any Forestal sing against her while she keeps faith with grass and tree.
“Come,” he commanded in a brusque fall of notes. “My path is chosen. She must stand upon Gallows Howe.”
Turning his back, he strode away.
At once, but without haste, the Mahdoubt rose to her feet. “Come, lady,” she echoed when Linden hesitated. “And now the lady must bring the Staff. Assuredly so.” She nodded. “The Great One will grant a boon which she has not asked of him, and he will require that in return which she does not expect. Yet his aid must not be refused. His desired recompense will not exceed her.”
Linden blinked at the woman. She understood nothing, and her heart was granite: beneath her fear of the Forestal, she held only Jeremiah and anger-and Thomas Covenant. For food and drink and warmth, she might have been thankful; but she had lost her son. Caerroil Wildwood had already promised that he would not slay her. What need did she have for an ambiguous gift which she would not know how to repay?
Caerroil Wildwood could not return her to her proper time. No Forestal had that power.
Carefully she set the Mahdoubt’s flask against a stone; but she did not stand. Instead she looked into the strange discrepancy of the Mahdoubt’s eyes.
You told me to “Be cautious of love”.” There is a glamour upon it- “You knew who they were.” Roger and the croyel. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
If the Mahdoubt had spoken plainly-
For the first time, the older woman’s mien hinted at disquiet; perhaps even at unhappiness. “It is not permitted-” she began, then stopped herself. When she had closed her eyes for a moment, she opened them again and faced Linden with chagrin in her gaze.
“Nay, the Mahdoubt will speak sooth. She does not permit it of herself, though her heart is wrung in her old breast by what has ensued, as it is by what may yet transpire. Her intent is kind, lady. Be assured that it is. But she has acquired neither wisdom nor knowledge adequate to contest that which appears needful. Others do so, to their cost. The Mahdoubt does not. If she craves to be kind in deed as well as intent, she has learned that she must betimes forbear. Yet she has won gratitude from other people in other times, if not from the lady.
“The Great One bids us,” she finished softly. “We must follow.”
Linden wanted to refuse. She wanted to demand, Needful? Needful? The Forestal and even the Mahdoubt surpassed her. But what choice did she have? Ever since she had returned to the Land, she had been guided by other people’s desires and demands, other people’s manipulations, and all of her actions had been fraught with peril. She could not afford to reject aid in any form.
Sighing, she clasped the Staff of Law and pushed herself to her feet.
As she did so, she found that the Mahdoubt’s providence had done her more good than she had realised. Her muscles protested, but they did not fail. Indeed, they hardly trembled. Food and springwine and soothing warmth had eased her weakness, although they could not relieve her exhaustion, or soften her heart.
When the Mahdoubt gestured toward the trees, Linden accompanied her into the forest, led by the majesty and restraint of Caerroil Wildwood’s music.
The way was not far-or it did not seem far in the thrall of the Forestal’s singing. Briefly Linden and the Mahdoubt walked among trees and darkness; and on all sides sycamores and oaks, birches and Gilden, cedars and firs proclaimed their unappeased recriminations. But then they found themselves on barren ground that rose up to form a high hill like a burial-mound. Even through her boots, Linden felt death in the soil. Here centuries or millennia of bloodshed had soaked into the dirt until it would never again support life. This, then, was Gallows Howe: the place where Caerroil Wildwood slew the butchers of his trees.
At first, she winced in recognition at every step. Until her betrayal under Melenkurion Skyweir, she had not understood people or beings or powers that feasted on death. She had been a physician, opposed to such hungers. Evil she knew, in herself as well as in her foes: she was intimately acquainted with the desire to inflict pain on those who had not caused it. But this unalloyed and unforgiving compulsion toward revenge; this righteous rage-She had not known that she contained such possibilities until she had beheld her son’s suffering.
Here, however, she found that she welcomed the taste of retribution. It made her stronger.
She knew what it meant.
Bringing her to this place sanctified by slaughter, Caerroil Wildwood had already given her a gift.
In starlight and the lucent allusions of the Forestal’s music, she saw two dead black trees standing beyond the lifeless hillcrest. They were ten or more paces apart, as strait and unanswerable as denunciations. All of their branches had been stripped away except for one heavy bough in each trunk above the ground. Long ages ago, these limbs had grown together to form a crossbar between the trees: Caerroil Wildwood’s gibbet. Here he had hanged the most fatal of those adversaries that came within his reach.
Linden’s reluctance beside the Mahdoubt’s gentle cookfire was gone. Gaining strength with every step, she ascended the Howe. She could think now, and begin to strive. On this denuded hill, beneath those pitiless trees, she might accept any boon-and pay any price.
At the crest, she and her companion stopped. For a moment, they appeared to be alone: then Caerroil Wildwood stood before them with song streaming from his robe and bright silver in his eyes. The Mahdoubt lowered her gaze as though she felt a measure of diffidence. But Linden held up her head, gripped her Staff, and waited for the Forestal to reveal his intentions.
For a time, he did not regard either woman. Instead he sang to himself. His song conveyed impressions of Ravers and loss; of a fading Interdict as the Colossus of the Fall waned; of Viles and rapacious kings and disdain. And it implied the era of the One Forest, when the Land had flourished as its Creator had intended, and there was no need of Forestals to defend the ravaged paean of the world. He may have been probing his own intentions, testing his decision to withhold Linden’s death, and the Mahdoubt’s.
Linden suspected that if she listened long enough she might hear extraordinary revelations about the Land’s ancient past. She might be told how the Ravers had been born and nurtured, or how they had come under Lord Foul’s dominion. She might learn how even the great puissance of the Forestals had failed to sustain the forests. But she had lost her patience for long tales which would not aid her. Without conscious forethought, she interrupted the sumptuous reverie of Caerroil Wildwood’s music.
“You can’t stop the Ravers,” she said as though she had forgotten that the Forestal could sing the flesh from her bones. “You know that. When you kill their bodies, their spirits just move on.”
He turned the piercing silver of his gaze on her as if she had offended him. But apparently she had not. In spite of his old anger, he did not strike out.
“Nevertheless,” he countered. “I have a particular hunger-”
Again Linden interrupted him. “But there’s going to come a time when one of them does die.” Samadhi Sheol would be rent by Grimmand Honninscrave and the Sandgorgon Nom. “It can happen. You can hope for that.”
She hazarded Time, and knew it. Speaking of the Land’s future might alter Caerroil Wildwood’s actions at some point during his long existence. But the Mahdoubt did nothing to forestall or caution her. And Linden had already taken greater risks. She was done with hesitation. If she could do or say anything that might encourage the Forestal to side with her, she would not hold back.
However, his response was sorrow rather than grim anticipation. His music became a fugue of mourning, interminable bereave
ment sung to a counterpoint of forlorn self-knowledge.
“While humans and monsters remain to murder trees, there can be no hope for any Forestal. Each death lessens me. The ages of the Earth are brief, and already I am not as I began.”
Then his melody sharpened. But you have said that the death of a Raver will come to pass. How do you know of this?”
Linden held his gaze. “I was there.”
Her past was the Land’s future. She hardly dared to imagine that Caerroil Wildwood would understand her, or believe. But her statement did not appear to confound him. Her displacement in time may have been as obvious to him as the stains on her jeans.
“And you played a part?” he asked while the wide forest echoed his words avidly.
“I saw it happen,” she replied steadily. “That’s all.” To explain herself, she added, “I wasn’t what I am now.”
When Thomas Covenant and his companions had faced the na-Mhoram in the Hall of Gifts, Linden had contributed nothing except her fears and her health-sense. But she had borne witness.
The Forestal withdrew his scrutiny. For a long moment, he appeared to muse to himself, harmonising with the trees. Now the Mahdoubt regarded him complacently. Under her breath, she made a humming sound as if she wished to contribute in some small way to the myriad-throated contemplations of Garroting Deep. When he sang in words again, he seemed to address the farthest reaches of his woods, or the black gibbet towering above him, rather than either Linden or her companion.
“I have granted boons, and may do so again. For each, I demand such payment as I deem meet. But you have not requested that which you most require. Therefore I will exact no recompense. Rather I ask only that you accept the burden of a question for which you have no answer.”
The Mahdoubt smiled with satisfaction; and Linden said. “Just tell me what it is. If I can find an answer, I will.”
Caerroil Wildwood continued singing to the trees rather than to her. “It is this. How may life endure in the Land, if the Forestals fail and perish, as they must, and naught remains to ward its most vulnerable treasures? We were formed to stand as guardians in the Creator’s stead. Must it transpire that beauty and truth shall pass utterly when we are gone?”
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