to Ross Donaldson - my son, in whom I am well pleased
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WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
As a young man-a novelist, happily married, with an infant son, Roger-Thomas Covenant is inexplicably stricken with leprosy. In a leprosarium, where the last two fingers of his right hand are amputated, he learns that leprosy is incurable. As it progresses, it produces numbness, often killing its victims by leaving them unaware of injuries which have become infected. Medications arrest the progress of Covenant"s affliction; but he is taught that his only real hope of survival lies in protecting himself obsessively from any form of damage.
Horrified by his illness, he returns to his home on Haven Farm, where his wife, Joan, has abandoned and divorced him in order to protect their son from exposure.
Other blows to his emotional stability follow. Fearing the mysterious nature of his illness, the people around him cast him in the traditional role of the leper: a pariah, outcast and unclean. In addition, he discovers that he has become impotent-and unable to write. Grimly he struggles to go on living; but as the pressure of his loneliness mounts, he begins to experience prolonged episodes of unconsciousness, during which he appears to have adventures in a magical realm known only as the Land."
In the Land, physical and emotional health are tangible forces, made palpable by an eldritch energy called Earthpower. Because vitality and beauty are concrete qualities, as plain to the senses as size and colour, the well-being of the physical world has become the guiding precept of the Land"s people. When Covenant first encounters them, in Lord Foul"s Bane, they greet him as the reincarnation of an ancient hero, Berek Halfhand, because he has lost half of his hand. Also he possesses a white gold ring-his wedding band-which they know to be a talisman of great power, able to wield "the wild magic that destroys peace."
Shortly after he first appears in the Land, Covenant"s leprosy and impotence disappear, cured by Earthpower; and this, he knows, is impossible. And the mere idea that he possesses some form of magical power threatens his ability to sustain the stubborn disciplines on which his survival depends. Therefore he chooses to interpret his translation to the Land as a dream or hallucination. He responds to his welcome and health with Unbelief: the harsh, dogged assertion that the Land is not real.
Because of his Unbelief, his initial reactions to the people and wonders of the Land are at best dismissive, at worst despicable (at one point, overwhelmed by his reborn sexuality, he rapes Lena, a young girl who has befriended him). However, the people of the Land decline to punish or reject him for his actions: as Berek Halfhand reborn, he is beyond judgment. And there is an ancient prophecy concerning the white gold wielder: With the one word of truth or treachery, he will save or damn the Earth." Covenant"s new companions in the Land know that they cannot make his choices for him. They can only hope that he will eventually follow Berek"s example by saving the Land.
At first, such forbearance conveys little to Covenant, although he cannot deny that he is moved by the ineffable beauties of this world, as well as by the kindness of its people. During his travels, however, first with Lena"s mother, Atiaran, then with the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower, and finally with the Lords of Revelstone, he learns enough of the history of the Land to understand what is at stake.
The Land has an ancient enemy, Lord Foul the Despiser, who dreams of destroying the Arch of Time-thereby destroying not only the Land but the entire Earth-in order to escape what he perceives to be a prison. Against this evil stands the Council of Lords, men and women who have dedicated their lives to nurturing the health of the Land, to studying the lost lore and wisdom of Berek and his long-dead descendants, and to opposing Despite.
Unfortunately these Lords possess only a small fraction of the power of their predecessors. The Staff of Law, Berek"s primary instrument of Earthpower, has been hidden from them. And the lore of Law and Earthpower seems inherently inadequate to defeat Lord Foul. Wild magic rather than Law is the crux of Time. Without it, the Arch cannot be destroyed; but neither can it be defended.
Hence both the Lords and the Despiser seek Thomas Covenant"s allegiance. The Lords attempt to win his aid with courage and compassion: the Despiser, through manipulation. And in this contest Covenant"s Unbelief appears to place him on the side of the Despiser.
Nevertheless Covenant cannot deny his response to the Land"s apparent transcendence. And as he is granted more and more friendship by the Lords and denizens of the Land, he finds that he is now dismayed by his earlier violence toward Lena. He faces an insoluble conundrum: the Land cannot be real, yet it feels entirely real. His heart responds to its loveliness-and that response has the potential to kill him because it undermines his necessary habits of wariness and hopelessness.
Trapped within this contradiction, he attempts to escape through a series of unspoken bargains. In Lord Foul"s Bane, he grants the Lords his passive support, hoping that this will enable him to avoid accepting the possibilities-the responsibilities-of his white gold ring. And at first his hopes are realised. The Lords find the lost Staff of Law; their immediate enemy, one of Lord Foul"s servants, is defeated; and Covenant himself is released from the Land.
Back in his real world, however, he discovers that he has in fact gained nothing. Indeed, his plight has worsened: he remains a leper, and his experience of friendship and magic in the Land has weakened his ability to endure his outcast loneliness on Haven Farm. When he is translated to the Land a second time, in The Illearth War, he knows that he must devise a new bargain.
During his absence, the Land"s plight has worsened as well. Decades have passed in the Land; and in that time Lord Foul has gained and mastered the Illearth Stone, an ancient bane of staggering power. With it, the Despiser has created an army which now marches to overwhelm the Lords of Revelstone. Although the Lords hold the Staff of Law, they lack sufficient might to withstand the evil horde. They need the strength of wild magic.
Other developments also tighten the grip of Covenant"s dilemma. The Council is now led by High Lord Elena, his daughter by his rape of Lena. With her, he begins to experience the real consequences of his violence: it is clear to him-if to no one else-that she is not completely sane. In addition, the army of the Lords is led by a man named Hile Troy, who appears to have come to the Land from Covenant"s own world. Troy"s presence radically erodes Covenant"s self-protective Unbelief.
Now more than ever Covenant feels that he must resolve his conundrum. Again he posits a bargain. He will give the defenders of the Land his active support. Specifically, he will join Elena on a quest to discover the source of Earth Blood, the most concentrated form of Earthpower. But in return he will continue to deny that his ring holds any power. He will accept no responsibility for the ultimate fate of the Land.
This time, however, the results of his bargain are disastrous. Using the IIIearth Stone, Lord Foul slaughters the Giants of Seareach. Hile Troy is only able to defeat the Despiser"s army by giving his soul to Caerroil Wildwood, the Forestal of Garroting Deep. And Covenant"s help enables Elena to find the EarthBlood, which she uses to sever one of the necessary boundaries between life and death. Her instability leads her to think that the dead will have more power against Lord Foul than the living. But she is terribly wrong; and in the resulting catastrophe both she and the Staff of Law are lost.
Covenant returns to his real world knowing that his attempts to resolve his dilemma have served the Despiser.
Nearly broken by his failures, he visits the Land once more in The Power That Preserves, where he discovers the full cost of his actions. Dead, his daughter now serves Lord Foul, using the Staff of Law to wreak havoc. Her mother, Lena, has lost her mind. And the defenders of the Land are besieged by an army too vast and powerful to be defeated.
Covenant still has no solution to his conundrum: only wild magic can save the Land and he cannot afford to accept its reality. However, sickened at heart by Lena"s madness, and by the imminent ruin of the Land, he resolves to confront the Despiser himself. He has no hope of defeating Lord Foul, but he would rather sacrifice himself for the sake of a magical, but unreal, place than preserve his outcast life in his real world.
Before he can reach the Despiser, however, he must first face dead Elena and the Staff of Law. He cannot oppose her; yet she defeats herself when her attack on him draws an overwhelming response from his ring a response which also destroys the Staff.
Accompanied only by his old friend, the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower, Covenant finally gains his confrontation with Lord Foul and the IIIearth Stone. Facing the full force of the Despiser"s savagery and malice, he at last finds the solution to his conundrum, "the eye of the paradox": the point of balance between accepting that the Land is real and insisting that it is not. On that basis, he is able to combat Lord Foul by using the dire might of the IIIearth Stone to trigger the wild magic of his ring. With that power, he shatters both the Stone and Lord Foul"s home, thereby ending the threat of the Despiser"s evil.
When he returns to his own world for the last time, he learns that his newfound balance benefits him there as well. He knows now that the reality or unreality of the Land is less important than his love for it; and that knowledge gives him the strength to face his life as a pariah without fear or bitterness.
THE SECOND CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT
For ten years after the events of The Power That Preserves, Covenant lives alone on Haven Farm, writing novels.
He is still an outcast, but he has one friend, Dr. Julius Berenford. Then, however, two damaged women enter his life.
His ex-wife, Joan, returns to him, violently insane. Leaving Roger with her parents, she has spent some time in a commune which has dedicated itself to the service of Despite, and which has chosen Covenant to be the victim of its evil. Hoping to spare anyone else the hazards of involvement, Covenant attempts to care for Joan alone.
When Covenant refuses aid, Dr. Berenford enlists Dr. Linden Avery, a young physician whom he has recently hired. Like Joan, she has been badly hurt, although in entirely different ways. As a young girl, she was locked in a room with her father while he committed suicide. And as a teenager, she killed her mother, an act of euthanasia to which she felt compelled by her mother"s illness and pain. Loathing death, Linden has become a doctor in a haunted attempt to erase her past.
At Dr. Berenford"s urging, she intrudes on Covenant"s treatment of his ex-wife. When members of Joan"s commune attack Haven Farm, seeking Covenant"s death, Linden attempts to intervene, but she is struck down before she can save him. As a result, she accompanies him when he is returned to the Land.
During Covenant"s absence, several thousand years have passed, and the Despiser has regained his power. As before, he seeks to use Covenant"s wild magic in order to break the Arch of Time and escape his prison. In The Wounded Land, however, Covenant and Linden soon learn that Lord Foul has fundamentally altered his methods. Instead of relying on armies and warfare to goad Covenant, the Despiser has devised an attack on the natural Law which gives the Land its beauty and health.
The overt form of this attack is the Sunbane, a malefic corona around the sun which produces extravagant surges of fertility, rain, drought, and pestilence in mad succession. So great is the Sunbane"s power and destructiveness that it has come to dominate all life in the Land. Yet the Sunbane is not what it appears to be.
And its organic virulence serves primarily to mask Lord Foul"s deeper manipulations.
He has spent centuries corrupting the Council of Lords. That group now rules over the Land as the Clave; and it is led by a Raver, one of the Despiser"s most ancient and potent servants. The Clave extracts blood from the people of the Land to feed the Banefire, an enormous blaze which purportedly hinders the Sunbane, but which actually increases it.
However, the hidden purpose of the Clave and the Banefire is to inspire from Covenant an excessive exertion of wild magic. And toward that end, another Raver afflicts Covenant with a venom intended to cripple his control over his power. When the venom has done its work, Covenant will be unable to defend the Land without unleashing so much force that he destroys the Arch.
As for Linden Avery, Lord Foul intends to use her loathing of death against her. She alone is gifted or cursed with the health-sense which once informed and guided all the people of the Land by enabling them to perceive physical and emotional health directly. For that reason, she is uniquely vulnerable to the malevolence of the Sunbane, as well as to the insatiable malice of the Ravers. The manifest evil into which she has been plunged threatens the core of her identity. Linden"s health-sense accentuates her potential as a healer. However, it also gives her the capacity to possess other people; to reach so deeply into them that she can control their actions. By this means, Lord Foul intends to cripple her morally: he seeks to transform her into a woman who will possess Covenant in order to misuse his power. Thus she will give the Despiser what he wants even if Covenant does not. And if those ploys fail, Lord Foul has other stratagems in place to achieve his ends.
Horrified in their separate ways by what has been done to the Land, Covenant and Linden wish to confront the Clave in Revelstone; but on their own, they cannot survive the complex perils of the Sunbane. Fortunately they gain the help of two villagers, Sunder and Hollian. Sunder and Hollian have lived with the Sunbane all their lives, and their experience enables Covenant and Linden to avoid ruin as they travel.
But Linden, Sunder, and Hollian are separated from Covenant near a region known as Andelain, captured by the Clave while he enters Andelain alone. It was once the most beautiful and Earthpowerful place in the Land; and he now discovers that it alone remains intact, defended from the Sunbane by the last Forestal, Caer-Caveral, who was formerly Hile Troy. There Covenant encounters his Dead, the spectres of his long-gone friends. They offer him advice and guidance for the struggle ahead. And they give him a gift: a strange ebony creature named Vain, an artificial being created for a hidden purpose by ur-viles, former servants of the Despiser.
Aided by Waynhim, benign relatives-and ancient enemies-of the ur-viles, Covenant hastens toward Revelstone to rescue his friends. When he encounters the Clave, he learns the cruellest secret of the Sunbane: it was made possible by his destruction of the Staff of Law thousands of years ago. Desperate to undo the harm which he has unwittingly caused, he risks wild magic in order to free Linden, Sunder, and Hollian, as well as a number of Haruchai, powerful warriors who at one time served the Council of Lords.
With his friends, Vain, and a small group of Haruchai, Covenant sets out to locate the One Tree, the wood from which Berek originally fashioned the Staff of Law. Covenant hopes to devise a new Staff with which to oppose the Clave and the Sunbane.
Travelling eastward, toward the Sunbirth Sea, Covenant and his companions encounter a party of Giants, seafaring beings from the homeland of the lost Giants of Seareach. One of them, Cable Seadreamer, has had a vision of a terrible threat to the Earth, and the Giants have sent out a Search to discover the danger.
Convinced that this threat is the Sunbane, Covenant persuades the Search to help him find the One Tree; and in The One Tree, Covenant, Linden, Vain, and several Haruchai set sail aboard the Giantship Starfare"s Gem, leaving Sunder and Hollian to rally the people of the Land against the Clave.
The quest for the One Tree takes Covenant and Linden first to the land of the Elohim, cryptic beings of pure Earthpower who appear to understand and perhaps control the destiny of the Earth. The Elohim agree to reveal the location of the One Tree, but they exact a price: they cripple Covenant"s mind, enclosing his consciousness in a kind of stasis, purportedly to protect the Earth from his growing power, but in fact to prevent him from carrying out Vain"s unnamed purpose. Guided now by Linden"s determination rather than Covenant"s, the Search sets sail for the Isle of the One Tree.
Unexpectedly, however, they are joined by one of the Elohim, Findail, who has been Appointed to bear the consequences if Vain"s purpose does not fail.
Linden soon finds that she is unable to free Covenant"s mind without possessing him, which she fears to do, knowing that she may unleash his power. When events force her to a decision, however, she succeeds at restoring his consciousness-much to Findail"s dismay.
At last, Starfare"s Gem reaches the Isle of the One Tree, where one of the Haruchai, Brinn, succeeds at replacing the Tree"s Guardian. But when Covenant, Linden, and their companions approach their goal, they learn that they have been misled by the Despiser-and by the Elohim.
Covenant"s attempt to obtain wood for a new Staff of Law begins to rouse the Worm of the World"s End. Once awakened, the Worm will accomplish Lord Foul"s release from Time.
At the cost of his own life, Seadreamer succeeds at making Linden aware of the true danger. She in turn is able to forestall Covenant. Nevertheless the Worm has been disturbed, and its restlessness forces the Search to flee as the Isle sinks into the sea, taking the One Tree beyond reach.
Defeated, the Search sets course for the Land in White Gold Wielder. Covenant now believes that he has no alternative except to confront the Clave directly, to quench the Banefire, and then to battle the Despiser; and Linden is determined to aid him, in part because she has come to love him, and in part because she fears his unchecked wild magic.
With great difficulty, they eventually reach Revelstone, where they are rejoined by Sunder, Hollian, and several Haruchai. Together the Land"s few defenders give battle to the Clave. After a fierce struggle, the companions corner the Raver which commands the Clave. There Seadreamer"s brother, Grimmand Honninscrave, sacrifices his life in order to make possible the "rending" of the Raver. Then Covenant flings himself into the Banefire, using its dark theurgy to transform the venom in his veins so that he can quench the Banefire without threatening the Arch. The Sunbane remains, but its evil no longer grows.
When the Clave has been dispersed, and Revelstone has been cleansed, Covenant and Linden turn toward Mount Thunder, where they believe that they will find the Despiser. As they travel, still followed by Vain and Findail, Linden"s fears mount. She realises that Covenant does not mean to fight Lord
Foul. That contest, Covenant believes, will unleash enough force to destroy Time. Afraid that he will surrender to the Despiser, Linden prepares herself to possess him again, although she now understands that possession is a greater evil than death.
Yet when she and Covenant finally face Lord Foul, deep within the Wightwarrens of Mount Thunder, she is possessed herself by a Raver; and her efforts to win free of that dark spirit"s control leave her unwilling to interfere with Covenant"s choices. As she has feared, he does surrender, giving Lord Foul his ring. But when the Despiser turns wild magic against Covenant, slaying his body, the altered venom is burned out of Covenant"s spirit, and he becomes a being of pure wild magic, able to sustain the Arch despite the fury of Lord Foul"s attacks. Eventually the Despiser expends so much of his own essence that he effectively defeats himself; and
Covenant"s ring falls to Linden.
Meanwhile, she has gleaned an understanding of Vain"s purpose-and of Findail"s Appointed role. Vain is pure structure: Findail, pure fluidity. Using Covenant"s ring, Linden melds the two beings into a new Staff of Law. Then, guided by her health-sense and her physician"s instincts, she reaches out with the restored power of Law to erase the Sunbane and begin the healing of the Land.
When she is done, Linden fades from the Land and returns to her own world, where she finds that Covenant is indeed dead. Yet she now holds his wedding ring. And when Dr. Berenford comes looking for her, she discovers that her time with Covenant and her own victories have transformed her. She is now truly Linden Avery the Chosen, as she was called in the Land: she can choose to live her old life in an entirely new way.
THE LAST CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT
In Book One, The Runes of the Earth, ten years have passed for Linden Avery; and in that time, her life has changed. She has adopted a son, Jeremiah, now fifteen, who was horribly damaged during her first translation to the Land, losing half of his right hand and-apparently- all ordinary use of his mind. He displays a peculiar genius: he is able to build astonishing structures out of such toys as Tinker toys and Lego. But in every other way, he is entirely unreactive. Nonetheless Linden is devoted to him, giving him all of her frustrated love for Thomas Covenant and the Land.
In addition, she has become the Chief Medical Officer of a local psychiatric hospital, where Covenant"s ex-wife, Joan, is now a patient. For a time, Joan"s condition resembles a vegetative catatonia. But then she starts to punish herself, punching her temple incessantly in an apparent effort to bring about her own death. Only the restoration of her white gold wedding band calms her, although it does not altogether prevent her violence.
As the story begins, Roger Covenant has reached twenty-one, and has come to claim custody of his mother: custody which Linden refuses, in part because she has no legal authority to release Joan, and in part because she does not trust Roger. To this setback, Roger responds by kidnapping his mother at gunpoint. And when Linden goes to the hospital to deal with the aftermath of Roger"s attack, Roger takes Jeremiah as well.
Separately Linden and the police locate Roger, Joan, and Jeremiah. But while Linden confronts Roger, Joan is struck by lightning, and Roger opens fire on the police. In the ensuing fusillade, Linden, Roger, and-perhaps Jeremiah are cut down; and Linden finds herself once again translated to the Land, where Lord Foul"s disembodied voice informs her that he has gained possession of her son.
As before, several thousand years have passed in the Land, and everything that Linden knew has changed. The Land has been healed, restored to its former loveliness and potency. Now, however, it is ruled by Masters, Haruchai who have dedicated themselves to the suppression of all magical knowledge and power. And their task is simplified by an eerie smog called Kevin"s Dirt, which blinds the people of the Land-as well as Linden-to the wealth of Earthpower all around them.
Yet the Land is threatened by perils which the Masters cannot defeat. Caesures- disruptions of time-wreak havoc, appearing and disappearing randomly as Joan releases insane blasts of wild magic. In addition, one of the Elohim has visited the Land, warning of dangers which include various monsters-and an unnamed halfhand. And the new Staff of Law that Linden created at the end of White Gold Wielder has been lost.
Desperate to locate and rescue Jeremiah, Linden soon acquires companions, both willing and reluctant: Anele, an ancient, Earthpowerful, and blind madman who claims that he is "the hope of the Land," and whose insanity varies with the surfaces-stone, dirt, grass-on which he stands; Liand, a naïve young man from Mithil Stonedown; Stave, a Master who distrusts Linden and wishes to imprison Anele; a small group of ur-viles, artificial creatures that were at one time among Lord Foul"s most dire minions; and a band of Ramen, the human servants of the Ranyhyn, Earthpowerful horses that once inhabited the Land. Among the Ramen,
Linden discovers that the Ranyhyn intend to aid her in her search for her son. And she meets Esmer, the tormented and powerful descendant of the lost Haruchai Cail and the corrupted Elohim Kastenessen.
From Esmer, Linden learns the nature of the caesures. She is told that the ur-viles intend to protect her from betrayal by Esmer. And she finds that Anele knows where the Staff of Law was lost thousands of years ago.
Because she has no power except Covenant"s ring, which she is only able to use with great difficulty-because she has no idea where Lord Foul has taken Jeremiah-and because she fears that she will not be able to travel the Land against the opposition of the Masters-Linden decides to risk entering a caesure. She hopes that it will take her into the past, to the time when her Staff of Law was lost, and that Anele will then be able to guide her to the Staff. Accompanied by Anele, Liand, Stave, the ur-viles, and three Ramen-the Manethrall Mahrtiir and his two Cords, Bhapa and Pahni-Linden rides into the temporal chaos of Joan"s power.
Thanks to the theurgy of the ur-viles, and to the guidance of the Ranyhyn, she and her companions emerge from the caesure more than three thousand years in their past, where they find that the Staff has been hidden and protected by a group of Waynhim.
When she reclaims the Staff, however, she is betrayed by Esmer: using powers inherited from Kastenessen, he brings a horde of Demondim out of the Land"s deep past to assail her. The Demondim are monstrous beings, the makers of the ur-viles and Waynhim, and they attack with both their own fierce lore and the baleful energy of the IIIearth Stone, which they siphon through a caesure from an era before Thomas Covenant"s first visit to the Land. Fearing that the attack of the Demondim will damage the integrity of the Land"s history, Linden uses Covenant"s ring to create a caesure of her own. That disruption of time carries her, all of her companions, and the Demondim to her natural present. To her surprise, however, her caesure deposits her and everyone with her before the gates of Revelstone, the seat of the Masters. While the Masters fight a hopeless battle against the Demondim, she and her companions enter the ambiguous sanctuary of Lord"s Keep.
In Revelstone, Linden meets Handir, called the Voice of the Masters: their leader. And she encounters the Humbled, Galt, Branl, and Clyme: three Haruchai who have been maimed to resemble Thomas Covenant, and whose purpose is to embody the moral authority of the Masters. Cared for by a mysterious-and oddly comforting-woman named the Mahdoubt, Linden tries to imagine how she can persuade the Masters to aid her search for Jeremiah, and for the salvation of the Land. However, when she confronts Handir, the Humbled, and other Masters, all of her arguments are turned aside. Although the Masters are virtually helpless against the Demondim, they refuse to countenance Linden"s desires. Only Stave elects to stand with her: an act of defiance for which he is punished and spurned by his kinsmen.
The confrontation ends abruptly when news comes that riders are approaching Revelstone. From the battlements, Linden sees four Masters racing to reach Lord"s Keep ahead of the Demondim. With the Masters are Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah. And Jeremiah has emerged enthusiastically from his unreactive passivity.
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PART I. "lest you prove unable to serve me"
Chapter One: Reunion
In sunshine as vivid as revelation, Linden Avery knelt on the stone of a low-walled coign like a balcony high in the outward face of Revelstone"s watchtower.
Implacable as the Masters, Stave of the Haruchai stood beside her: he had led her here in spite of the violence with which his kinsmen had spurned him. And at the wall, the young Stonedownor, Liand, stared his surprised concern and incomprehension down at the riders fleeing before the onrush of the Demondim. Like Stave, if by design rather than by blows, he had abandoned his entire life for Linden"s sake; but unlike the former Master, he could not guess who rode with the Haruchai far below him. He could only gaze urgently at the struggling horses, and at the leashed seethe of theurgy among the monsters, and gape questions for which he seemed to have no words or no voice.
At that moment, however, neither Liand nor Stave impinged on Linden"s awareness. They were not real to her.
Near Liand, Manethrall Mahrtiir studied the exhausted mounts with Ramen concentration while his devoted Cords, Bhapa and Pahni, protected mad, blind Anele from the danger of a fall that he could not see.
With Linden, they had crossed hundreds of leagues-and many hundreds of years-to come to this place at this time. In her name, they had defied the repudiation of the Masters who ruled over the Land.
But none of her companions existed for her.
To the north lay the new fields which would feed Revelstone"s inhabitants. To the south, the foothills of the Keep"s promontory tumbled toward the White River. And from the southeast came clamouring the mass of the Demondim, vicious as a host of doom. The monsters appeared to melt and solidify from place to place as they pursued their prey: four horses at the limits of their strength, bearing six riders.
Six riders. But four of them were Masters; and for Linden, they also did not exist. She saw only the others.
In the instant that she recognised Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah, the meaning of her entire life changed. Everything that she had known and understood and assumed was altered, rendering empty or unnecessary or foolish her original flight from the Masters, her time among the Ramen, her participation in the horserite of the Ranyhyn. Even her precipitous venture into the Land"s past in order to retrieve her Staff of Law no longer held any significance.
Thomas Covenant was alive: the only man whom she had ever loved.
Her son was free. Somehow he had eluded Lord Foul"s cruel grasp.
And Jeremiah"s mind had been restored. His eager encouragement of the Masters and their mounts as they struggled to outrun the horde showed clearly that he had found his way out of his mental prison; or had been rescued-
Transfixed, she stared at them past the wall of her vantage point, leaping toward them with her gaze and her health-sense and her starved soul. Moments ago, she had seen only the ruinous advance of the Demondim. But now she was on her knees, struck down by the miraculous sight of her adopted son and her dead lover rushing toward Revelstone for their lives.
Already her arms ached to hold them.
For two or three heartbeats, surely no more than that, she remained kneeling while Liand tried to find his voice, and Stave said nothing, and Mahrtiir murmured tensely to his Cords. Then she snatched up the Staff and surged to her feet. Mute and compelled, she flung herself back into the watchtower, intending to make her way down to the open gates; to greet Jeremiah and Covenant with her embrace and her straining heart.
But the chambers within the tower were crowded with tall mounds of firewood and tubs of oil. At first, she could not locate a stairway. And when she discovered the descent, the Masters refused to let her pass. One of them stood on the stair to forbid her.
"We prepare for battle," he informed her curtly. His people had already refused her claims on them. "You will be endangered here."
He did not add, And you will impede our efforts. Nor did she pause to heed him, or to contest the stair. Linden, find me. Her need for haste was too great. In all of her years with her son, she had never seen him react to people and events around him; had never seen an expression of any kind on his slack features. Riding toward Revelstone, however, his face shone with excitement as he waved his arms, urging his companions forward.
She wheeled away from the stair; ran for the suspended wooden bridge which linked the tower to the battlements of Revelstone.
Stave came to guide her. He had not wiped the blood from his mouth and chin. Dark stains marked his tunic. But his hurts did not slow him. And Mahrtiir accompanied him, with Bhapa, Pahni, and Liand grouped around Anele at his back.
They were her friends, but she hardly noticed them.
Fearless with urgency, she followed Stave and Mahrtiir across the unsteady span above the courtyard between the watchtower and Revelstone"s inner gates. Gripping the Staff hard in one hand, she pursued her guides into the sudden gloom of the Keep"s lightless passages.
She did not know the way. She had spent too little time here to learn even a few of Revelstone"s complex intersections and halls. And she required illumination. If she had been willing to move more slowly, using only her enhanced senses, she could have trailed Stave"s hard shape and Mahrtiir"s more legible tension through the wrought gutrock. But she had to hurry. Instinctively, irrationally, she felt that her own rush to meet them might enable Jeremiah and Covenant to reach the comparative safety of the massive interlocking gates, the friable sanctuary of the Masters. As the reflected sunshine behind her faded, and the darkness ahead deepened, she called up a gush of flame from one iron heel of the Staff. That warm light, as soft and clean as cornflowers, allowed her to press Stave and the Manethrall to quicken their pace.
Nearly running, they descended stairways apparently at random, some broad and straight enough to accommodate throngs, others narrow spirals delving downward. Her need for haste was a fever. Surely she could reach the cavernous hall within the gates ahead of Jeremiah and Covenant and their small band of Masters?
Her friends followed close behind her. Anele was old; but his intimacy with stone, and his decades among the mountains, made him sure-footed: he did not slow Liand and the Cords. And after them came the three Humbled, Galt, Clyme, and Branl, maimed icons of the Masters" commitments. They were as stubborn and unreadable as Stave; but Linden did not doubt that they intended to protect her-or to protect against her. The Masters had rejected Stave because he had declared himself her ally; her friend. Naturally they would not now trust him to fill any of their self-assigned roles.
Fervidly she tried to cast her health-sense farther, striving to penetrate Revelstone"s ancient rock so that she might catch some impression of the Vile-spawn. How near had they come? Had they overtaken Covenant and Jeremiah? But she could not concentrate while she dashed and twisted down the passages. She could only chase after Stave and Mahrtiir, and fear that her loved ones had already fallen beneath the breaking tsunami of the Demondim.
But they had not, she insisted to herself. They had not. The Demondim had withdrawn their siege the previous day for a reason. Possessed by some fierce and fiery being, Anele had confronted the Vile-spawn; and they had responded by allowing Linden and those with her to escape-and then by appearing to abandon their purpose against Lord"s Keep. Why had they acted thus, if not so that Jeremiah and Covenant might reach her? If they desired Jeremiah"s death, and Covenant"s, they could have simply awaited their prey in front of Revelstone"s gates.
Jeremiah and Covenant were not being hunted: they were being herded.
Why the Demondim-and Anele"s possessor-might wish her loved ones to reach her alive, she could not imagine. But she strove to believe that Covenant and Jeremiah would not fall. The alternatives were too terrible to be endured.
Then Linden saw a different light ahead of her: it spilled from the courtyard into the Keep. A moment later, Stave and Mahrtiir led her down the last stairs to the huge forehall. Now she did not need the Staff"s flame; but she kept it burning nonetheless. She might require its power in other ways.
The time-burnished stone echoed her boot heels as she ran into the broad hall and cast her gaze past the gates toward the courtyard and the passage under the watchtower.
Beyond the sunshine in the courtyard, the shrouded gloom and angle of the wide tunnel obscured her line of sight. She felt rather than saw the open outer gates, the slope beyond them. With her health-sense, she descried as if they were framed in stone the four Masters astride their labouring horses. Covenant clung to the back of one of the Haruchai. Jeremiah balanced precariously behind another.
The mustang that bore her son was limping badly: it could not keep pace with the other beasts. And Covenant"s mount staggered on the verge of foundering. All of the horses were exhausted. Even at this distance, Linden sensed that only their terror kept them up and running. Yet somehow they remained ahead of the swarming Demondim. If the monsters did not strike out with the might of the IIIearth Stone, the riders would reach the outer gates well before their pursuers.
The fact that the Vile-spawn had not already made use of the Stone seemed to confirm Linden"s clenched belief that Jeremiah and Covenant were being herded rather than hunted.
She wanted to cry out her own encouragement and desperation; wanted to demand why the Masters had not organised a sally to defend her loved ones; wanted to oppose the horde with Law and Earthpower in spite of the distance. But she bit down on her lip to silence her panic. Jeremiah and Covenant would not hear her. The Haruchai could not combat the Demondim effectively. And she did not trust herself to wield power when the people whom she yearned to save were between her and the horde.
Grimly she forced herself to wait, holding her fire over her head like a beacon, nearly a stone"s throw from the courtyard so that the Keep"s defenders would have room in which to fight if the monsters could not be prevented from passing the gates.
Abruptly the Masters and their horses surged between the outer gates into the dark tunnel. Hooves clanged on the worn stone as first Covenant and then Jeremiah fell into shadow.
A heartbeat later, ponderous as leviathans, the outer gates began to close.
The heavy stone seemed to move slowly, far too slowly to close out the rapacity of the monsters. Through her fear, however, Linden realised that the Demondim had once again slackened their pace, allowing their foes to escape. She felt the impact as the gates thudded together, shutting out the Vile-spawn, plunging the tunnel into stark blackness.
Then the riders reached daylight in the courtyard, and she saw that all six of them were safe. She did not know how far they had fled the Demondim; but she recognised at once that none of them had suffered any harm.
The mounts had not fared so well. Like their riders, the horses were uninjured. But their terror had driven them to extremes which might yet kill them: they had galloped hard and long enough to break their hearts. Yet they did not stop until they had crossed the courtyard and passed between the inner gates. Then, as those gates also began to close, shutting out the last daylight, Jeremiah"s mount stumbled to its knees; fell gasping on its side with froth and blood on its muzzle. Jeremiah would have plunged to the stone, but the Master with him caught him and lifted him aside. The horse bearing Covenant endured only a moment longer before it, too, collapsed. But Covenant and his fellow rider were able to leap clear.
When the inner gates met and sealed like the doors of a tomb, the flame of the Staff was the only light that remained in the forehall.
The Ramen protested at the condition of the horses; but Linden ignored them. She had already begun to rush forward, avid to clasp her loved ones, when Covenant yelled as if in rage, "Hellfire, Linden! Put that damn thing out!"
She stopped, gasping as though his vehemence had snatched the air from her lungs. Her power fell from her, and instant darkness burst over her head like a thunderclap.
Oh, God-
Just be wary of me. Remember that I"m dead.
If she could have found her voice, or drawn sufficient breath, she might have cried out at the Despiser, You bastard! What have you done?
A hand closed on her arm. She hardly heard Stave as he urged her softly, "A moment, Chosen. Handir and others approach, bearing torches among them. You need only constrain yourself for a moment."
He could still hear the mental speech of the Masters, although they now refused to address or answer him in that fashion.
At once, she rounded on Stave. Behind him, Liand and the Ramen were whispering, perhaps asking her questions, but she had no attention to spare for them. Gripping Stave as he gripped her, she demanded, "Your senses are better than mine." Like their preternatural strength, the vision of the Haruchai had always exceeded hers. "Can you see them?" See into them? "Are they all right?"
In the absence of the Staffs flame, she knew only blackness and consternation.
"They appear whole," the former Master answered quietly. "The ur-Lord has ever been closed to the Haruchai. Even the Bloodguard could not discern his heart. And his companion"- Stave paused as if to confirm his perceptions- "is likewise hidden."
"You can"t see anything?" insisted Linden. Even Kevin"s Dirt could not blind the Masters-
Stave may have shrugged. "I perceive his presence, and that of his companion. Nothing more.
"Chosen," he asked almost immediately, is the ur-Lord"s companion known to you?"
Linden could not answer. She had no room for any questions but her own. Instead she started to say, Take me to them. She needed to be led. Covenant"s shout had shattered her concentration: she might as well have been blind.
But then the torches that Stave had promised appeared. Their unsteady light wavered toward her from the same passage which had admitted her and her companions to the forehall.
A few heartbeats later, the Voice of the Masters, Handir, entered the hall. A coterie of Haruchai accompanied him, some bearing fiery brands. As they moved out into the dark, the ruddy light of the flames spread along the stone toward the gates. It seemed to congeal like blood in the vast gloom.
Now Linden could see the faces of her companions, confused by erratic shadows. None of them had the knowledge or experience to recognise Covenant and Jeremiah. Perhaps as a reproach to Linden, Handir had called the newcomers "strangers." Nevertheless Mahrtiir and his Cords may have been able to guess at Covenant"s identity. The Ramen had preserved ancient tales of the first Ringthane. But Liand had only his open bafflement to offer Linden"s quick glance.
Apparently none of the Masters had done her friends the courtesy of mentioning Covenant"s name aloud. And of course even the Masters could only speculate about Jeremiah.
Then the light reached the cluster of horses and their riders within the gates; and Linden forgot everything except the faces that she loved more dearly than any others she had ever known.
Unconscious that she was moving again, she hurried toward them, chasing the limits of the ambiguous illumination.
The inadequacy of the torches blurred their features. Nevertheless she could not be mistaken about them. Every flensed line of Covenant"s form was familiar to her. Even his clothes-his old jeans and boots, and the T-shirt that had seen too much wear and pain-were as she remembered them. When he held up his hands, she could see that the right lacked its last two fingers. His strict gaze caught and held the light redly, as if he were afire with purpose and desire.
And Jeremiah was imprinted on her heart. She knew his gangling teenaged body as intimately as her own. His tousled hair and slightly scruffy cheeks, smudged here and there with dirt or shadows, could belong to no one else. He still wore the sky-blue pajamas with the mustangs rampant across the chest in which she had dressed him for bed days or worlds earlier, although they were torn now, and stained with grime or blood. And, like Covenant"s, his right hand had been marred by the amputation of two fingers, in his case the first two.
Only the eagerness which enlivened the muddy colour of his eyes violated Linden"s knowledge of him.
The light expanded as more torches were lit. Holding brands high, the Humbled followed her, joined by her friends; followed as if she pulled them along behind her, drawing their fires with her. Now she could see clearly the cut in Covenant"s shirt where he had been stabbed, and the old scar on his forehead. Flames lit his eyes like threats; demands. His appearance was only slightly changed. After ten years and more than three millennia, the grey was gone from his hair: he looked younger despite his gauntness. And the marks of the wounds that he had received while Linden had known him were gone as well, burned away by his consummation in wild magic. Yet every compelling implication of his visage was precious to her.
Nevertheless she did not approach him. Deeper needs sent her hastening toward Jeremiah.
She was still ten paces from her son, however, when Covenant snapped harshly, "Don"t touch him! Don"t touch either of us!"
Linden did not stop. She could not. Long days of loss and alarm impelled her. And she had never before seen anything that resembled consciousness in Jeremiah"s eyes. Had never seen him react and move as he did now. She could not stop until she flung her arms around him and felt his heart beating against hers.
At once, his expression became one of dismay; almost of panic. Then he raised his halfhand-and a wave of force like a wall halted her.
It was as warm as steam: except to her health-sense, it was as invisible as vapour. And it was gone in an instant.
Yet she remained motionless as if he had frozen her in place. The shock of his power to repulse her deprived her of will and purpose. Even her reflexive desire to embrace him had been stunned.
At a word from Mahrtiir, Bhapa and Pahni moved away to help the Masters tend the horses. The Manethrall remained behind Linden with Liand, Anele, and Stave.
"He"s right," said Jeremiah: the first words that Linden had ever heard him utter. His voice sounded as unsteady as the torchlight, wavering between childhood and maturity, a boy"s treble and a man"s baritone. "You can"t touch either of us. And you can"t use that Staff." He grinned hugely. "You"ll make us disappear."
Among the shadows cast by the flames, she saw a small muscle beating like a pulse at the corner of his left eye.
Linden might have wept then, overwhelmed by shock and need. Suddenly, however, she had no tears. The Mahdoubt had told her, Be cautious of love. It misleads. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction. And days ago Covenant had tried to warn her through Anele-
Between one heartbeat and the next, she seemed to find herself in the presence, not of her loved ones, but of her nightmares.
In the emptiness and silence of the high forehall, the old man asked plaintively, "What transpires? Anele sees no one. Only Masters, who have promised his freedom. Is aught amiss?"
No one answered him. Instead Handir stepped forward and bowed to Covenant. "Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant," he said firmly, "Unbeliever and Earthfriend, you are well come. Be welcome in Revelstone, fist and faith-and your companion with you. Our need is sore, and your coming an unlooked-for benison. We are the Masters of the Land. I am Handir, by right of years and attainment the Voice of the Masters. How may we serve you, with the Demondim massed at our gates, and their malice plain in the exhaustion of your mounts?"
"No," Linden said before Covenant-or Jeremiah-could respond. "Handir, stop. Think about this."
She spoke convulsively, goaded by inexplicable fears. The Demondim allowed us to escape yesterday. Then they pulled back so that"- she could not say Covenant"s name, or Jeremiah"s, not now; not when she had been forbidden to touch them- "so that these people could get through. Those monsters want this." Her throat closed for a moment. She had to swallow grief like a mouthful of ashes before she could go on. "Otherwise they would have used the IIIearth Stone."
The Demondim had not planned this. They could not have planned it. They had not known that she would try to protect the Land by snatching them with her out of the past. If Anele had not been possessed by a being of magma and rage, and had not encountered the Vile-spawn
Surely Covenant and Jeremiah would not be standing in front of her, refusing her, if some powerful enemy had not willed it?
Turning from the Voice of the Masters to Covenant, she demanded, "Are you even real"?"
The Dead in Andelain were ghosts; insubstantial. They could not be touched
Covenant faced her with something like mirth or scorn in his harsh gaze. "Hell and blood, Linden," he drawled. "It"s good to see you haven"t changed. I knew you wouldn"t take all this at face value. I"m glad I can still trust you."
With his left hand, he beckoned for one of the Humbled. When Branl stepped forward holding a torch, Covenant took the brand from him. Waving the flame from side to side as if to demonstrate his material existence, Covenant remarked, "Oh, were real enough." Aside to Jeremiah, he added, "Show her."
Still grinning, Jeremiah reached into the waistband of his pajamas and drew out a bright red toy racing car-the same car that Linden had seen him holding before Sheriff Lytton"s deputies had opened fire. He tossed it lightly back and forth between his hands for a moment, then tucked it away again. His manner said as clearly as words, See, Mom? See?
Linden studied his pajamas urgently for bullet holes. But the fabric was too badly torn and stained to give any indication of what had happened to him before he had been drawn to the Land.
None of the Masters spoke. Apparently they understood that her questions required answers.
Abruptly Covenant handed his torch back to Branl. As Branl withdrew to stand with Galt and Clyme, Covenant returned his attention to Linden.
"This isn"t easy for you. I know that." Now his voice sounded hoarse with disuse. He seemed to pick his words as though he had difficulty remembering the ones he wanted. "Trust me, it isn"t easy for us either.
"We"re here. But we aren"t just here." Then he sighed. "There"s no good way to explain it. You don"t have the experience to understand it." His brief smile reminded her that she had rarely seen such an expression on his face. Roger had smiled at her more often. "Jeremiah is here, but Foul still has him. I"m here, but I"m still part of the Arch of Time.
"You could say I"ve folded time so we can be in two places at once. Or two realities." Another smile flickered across his mouth, contradicted by the flames reflecting in his eyes. "Being part of Time has some advantages. Not many. There are too many limitations, and the strain is fierce. But I can still do a few tricks."
For a moment, his hands reached out as if he wanted something from her; but he pulled them back almost at once.
"The problem with what I"m doing," he said trenchantly, "is that you"ve got too much power, and it"s the wrong kind for me. Being in two places at once breaks a lot of rules." This time, his smile resembled a grimace. "If you touch either one of us-or if you use that Staff-you"ll undo the fold. Time will snap back into shape.
"It"s like your son says," he finished. "We"ll disappear. I"m not strong enough to keep us here."
"Your son?" Liand breathed. "Linden, is this your son?"
"Liand, no," Mahrtiir instructed at once. "Do not speak. This lies beyond us. The Ringthane will meet our questions when greater matters have been resolved."
Linden did not so much as glance at them. But she could no longer look at Covenant. The torchlight in his eyes, and his unwonted smiles, daunted her. She understood nothing. She wanted to scoff at the idea of folding time. Or perhaps she merely yearned to reject the thought that she might undo such theurgy. How could she bear to be in his presence, and in Jeremiah"s, without touching them?
As if she were turning her back, she shifted so that she faced only her son.
"Jeremiah, honey-" she began. Oh, Jeremiah! Her eyes burned, although she had no tears. "None of this makes sense. Is he telling the truth?"
Had her son been restored to her for this? And was he truly still in Lord Foul"s grasp, suffering the Despiser"s wealth of torments in some other dimension or manifestation of time?
She was unable to see the truth for herself. Covenant and her son were closed to her, as they were to Stave and the Masters.
An Elohim had warned the Ramen as well as Liand"s people to Beware the halfhand.
Jeremiah gazed at her with a frown. He seemed to require a visible effort to set aside his excitement. You know he is, Mom." His tone held an unexpected edge of reproach; of impatience with her confusion and yearning. "He"s Thomas Covenant. You can see that. He"s already saved the Land twice. He can"t be anybody else."
But then he appeared to take pity on her. Ducking his head, he added softly, "What you can"t see is how much it hurts that I"m not just here."
For years, she had hungered for the sound of her son"s voice; starved for it as though it were the nurturance that would give her life meaning. Yet now every word from his mouth only multiplied her chagrin.
Why could she not weep? She had always shed tears too easily. Surely her sorrow and bafflement were great enough for sobbing? Still her eyes remained dry; arid as a wilderland.
"All you have to do is trust me," Covenant put in. "Or if you can"t do that, trust him." He nodded toward Jeremiah. "We can do this. We can make it come out right. That"s another advantage I have. We have. We know what needs to be done."
Angry because she had no other outlet, Linden wheeled back to confront the Unbeliever. "Is that a fact?" Her tone was acid. She had come to this: her beloved and her son were restored to her, and she treated them like foes. "Then tell me something. Why did the Demondim let you live? Hell, why have they left any of us alive? It was just yesterday that they wanted to kill us."
Jeremiah laughed as if he were remembering one of the many jokes that she had told him over the years; jokes with which she had attempted to provoke a reaction when he was incapable of any response. The muscle at the corner of his left eye continued its tiny beat. But Covenant glared at her, and the fires in his gaze seemed hotter than any of the torches.
"Another trick," he told her sourly. "An illusion." He made a dismissive gesture with his halfhand. "Oh, I didn"t have anything to do with what happened yesterday." Despite its size, the forehall seemed full of halfhands, the Humbled as well as Covenant and Jeremiah. "That"s a different issue. But they let Jeremiah and me get through because"- Covenant shrugged stiffly- "well, I suppose you could say I put a crimp in their reality. Just a little one. I"m already stretched pretty thin. I can"t do too many things at once. So I made us look like bait. Like we were leading them into an ambush. Like there"s a kind of power here they don"t understand. That"s why they just chased us instead of attacking. They want to contain us until they figure out what"s going on. And maybe they like the idea of trapping all their enemies in one place."
Again he smiled at Linden, although his eyes continued to glare. "Are you satisfied? At least for now? Can I talk to Handir for a minute? Jeremiah and I need rest. You have no idea of the strain-"
He sighed heavily. And we have to get ready before those Demondim realise I made fools out of them. Once that happens, they"re going to unleash the IIIearth Stone. Then hellfire and bloody damnation won"t be something we just talk about. They"ll be real, and they"ll be here."
Apparently he wanted Linden to believe that he was tired. Yet to her ordinary eyes he looked potent enough to defeat the horde unaided.
And her son seemed to belong with him.
She could not identify them with her health-sense. Jeremiah and Covenant were as blank, as isolated from her, as they would have been in her natural world. Yet there she would have been able to at least touch them. Here, in the unrevealing light of the torches, and fraught with shadows, Jeremiah seemed as distant and irreparable as the Unbeliever, in spite of his obvious alert sentience.
If Covenant could do all of this, why had he told her to find him?
Bowing her head, Linden forced herself to take a step backward, and another, into the cluster of her friends. She ached for the comfort of their support. She could discern them clearly enough: Liand"s open amazement, his concern on her behalf; Mahrtiir"s rapt eagerness and wonder and suspicion;
Anele"s distracted mental wandering. Even Stave"s impassivity and his ruined eye and his new hurts felt more familiar to her than Covenant and Jeremiah, her loved ones. Yet the complex devotion of those who stood with her gave no anodyne for what she had gained and lost.
Linden, find me.
Be cautious of love.
She needed the balm of touching Covenant; of hugging and hugging Jeremiah, running her fingers through his hair, stroking his cheeks-But she had been refused. Even the warm clean fire of the Staff of Law had been forbidden to her.
Covenant nodded with an air of satisfaction. Then both he and Jeremiah turned to the Voice of the Masters.
"Sorry about that. I didn"t mean to keep you waiting." For a moment, Covenant"s voice held an unwonted note of unction, although he suppressed it quickly. "You know Linden. When she has questions, she insists on answers." He grinned as if he were sharing a joke with Handir. "You have to respect that."
Then he swallowed his smile. "You said we"re well come. You have no idea how well come we are.
"You speak for the Masters?"
Abruptly Linden swung away from them. She could no longer bear the sight of her son"s eagerness and denial. She wished that she could close her ears to the sound of Covenant"s voice.
In the light of the torches, her friends studied her. Liand"s curiosity and puzzlement had become alarm, and Mahrtiir glowered. Stave"s single eye regarded her with characteristic stoicism. Anele"s moonstone blindness shifted uncertainly around the great hall as though he were trying to recapture an elusive glimpse of significance.
Because her nerves burned for human contact-for any touch which might reassure her-she hooked her arms around Liand"s and Mahrtiir"s shoulders. At once, Liand gave her a hug like a promise that she could rely on him, whatever happened. And after an instant of hesitation, Mahrtiir did the same. Through his dislike of impending rock and the lack of open skies, she tasted his readiness to fight any foe in her name.
With senses other than sight, she felt Handir bowing to Covenant a second time, although the Voice of the Masters had never bowed to her.
"I am Handir," he began again, "by right of-"
"Of years and attainment," interrupted Covenant brusquely. "The Voice of the Masters." Now his manner seemed to betray the exertion he had claimed; the difficulty of folding time. "I heard you the first time.
"Handir, I know you"re worried about the Demondim. You should be. You and your people can"t hold out against them. Not if they use the Stone. But they"re unsure of themselves right now. By hell, Foul himself is probably having fits." Grim pleasure glinted through the impatience in Covenant"s tone. "They"ll realise the truth eventually. But I"ve been pretty clever, if I do say so myself." With her peripheral vision, Linden saw Jeremiah"s nod, his happy grin. "I think we might have a day, or even two, before the real shit hits the fan."
To her friends, Linden murmured, "Don"t say anything. Just listen." She could not bear to be questioned. Not now. She was in too much pain. "That"s Thomas Covenant and my son. My Jeremiah. I know them.
"But there"s something wrong here. Something dangerous. Maybe it"s just the strain of what they"re doing." Being in two places at once? "Maybe that"s making them both a little crazy." Or maybe the Despiser had indeed done something. Maybe the Elohim had sought to warn the Land against the halfhand for good reason. "Whatever it is, I need your help.
"Mahrtiir, I want Bhapa and Pahni to stay with Liand and Anele." Liand opened his mouth to protest, but Linden"s grip on his shoulder silenced him. "The Masters won"t threaten you," she told him. "I trust them that far," in spite of what the Humbled and Handir had done to Stave. They were Haruchai. "But I have to be alone, and I"ll feel better if Bhapa and Pahni are with you." She had seen Ramen Cords fight: she knew what Bhapa and Pahni could do. "Whatever is going on here, it might have consequences that we can"t imagine." Don"t touch him! Don"t touch either of us! To Mahrtiir, she added, "They should be safe enough in Liand"s room."
In response, the Manethrall nodded his assent.
"Anele is confused," the old man informed the air of the forehall. "He feels Masters and urgency, but the cause is hidden. The stone tells him nothing."
Linden ignored him Covenant was still speaking to Handir.
"What Jeremiah and I want right now is a place where we can rest without being disturbed. Some food, and maybe some springwine, if you"ve got it. We have to gather our strength."
Linden tried to ignore him as well. "As for you," she continued to Mahrtiir, "I need you to guide me out of here. To the plateau." He and his Cords had spent the night there. He would know the way. "I can"t think like this. I need daylight."
She might find what she sought in the potent waters of Glimmermere. The lake could not give her answers, but it might help her to remember who she was.
The Manethrall nodded again. When he left her so that he could speak to Pahni and Bhapa, she turned to Stave. The tasks that she had in mind for him would be harder-
Meeting his gaze with her dry, burning eyes, she said, "I want you to find the Mahdoubt for me. Please." Be cautious of love. "I need to talk to her." That strange, kindly woman had given Linden a hint of what was in store. If Linden probed her directly, she might say more. And keep the Humbled away from me. If you can. I can"t face their distrust right now."
Her memories of Glimmermere-of Thomas Covenant as he had once been-were private and precious. She could not expose them, or herself, to anyone: certainly not to the demeaning suspicions of Branl, Galt, or Clyme.
Stave did not hesitate. "Chosen, I will," he said as if obstructing the actions of the Masters were a trivial challenge.
At least he was still able to hear his people"s thoughts-
Behind Linden, Covenant appeared to be nearing the end of his exchange with Handir. His voice had become a hoarse rasp, thick with effort. Yet when she glanced at him at last, Linden saw that he was smiling again.
At Covenant"s side, Jeremiah seemed hardly able to contain his anticipation. The only sign that he might still be in Lord Foul"s power was the rapid beating at the corner of his eye.
"I know what to do," Covenant assured the Voice of the Masters. "That"s why we"re here. When we"re done, your problems will be over. But first I"ll have to convince Linden, and that won"t be easy. I"m too tired to face it right now.
"Just give us a place to rest. And keep her away from us until I"m ready. We"ll take care of everything else." Darkly he avowed, "I know a trick or two to make the Demondim and even the almighty Despiser wish they had never come out of hiding."
In spite of her clenched dismay, Linden found herself wondering where he had learned such things. How much of his humanity had he lost by his participation in Time? What had the perspective of eons done to him? How much had he changed?
And how much pain had her son suffered in the Despiser"s grasp? How much was he suffering at this moment? If even the tainted respite of being in two places at once filled him with such glee-
In many ways, she had never truly known him. Yet he, too, may have become someone she could no longer recognise.
She needed to do something. She needed to do it now. If she waited for Covenant to explain himself, she would crumble.
While Handir replied to the ur-Lord, the Unbeliever, the Land"s ancient savoir-while the Voice of the Masters promised Covenant everything that he had requested-Linden strode away into the shadows of the forehall, trusting Mahrtiir to claim a torch and catch up with her before she lost herself in darkness.