The Fatal Revenant Part 46

In addition, they appeared to eat little, although they did not refuse treasure berries. It was instinctive with them, Linden supposed, to keep private anything that resembled ordinary mortal needs and vulnerabilities. Thousands of years after the Vow of the Bloodguard had been broken, Stave and the Masters continued to emulate the Haruchai who had once served the Lords.

She could rely on their stringent inflexibility. But it was also their gravest weakness.

Fortunately Liand had spent a considerable time during the days ride, and in the evening, poring over his orcrest. The next morning, he demonstrated that Sunstone could indeed counteract Kevin's Dirt. With quiet exultation, he restored health-sense to the Ramen, Linden, and himself, sparing her the exertion of her Staff. After that, she felt less alone; rea.s.sured to know that hers were no longer the company's only instruments of power.

During the day, she was soothed by Hyn's steady gait, as secure as a throne. And the hills opened into a billowing gra.s.sland that seemed to expand the possibilities of the world. Like the relief provided by Liand's orcrest, being able to see farther eased some of her trepidation.

Near sunset, the company stopped for the night in an arroyo with a brisk stream rushing down its center and a bed composed primarily of broken shingle and slate: enough stone to protect Anele from possession, but free of the deep rock which would expose him to his worst memories. The water was runoff from seasonal showers and mountain snows. Among its liquid secrets, it carried the faint flavors of rainfall and blizzards, new warmth and older ice. In summer, the watercourse would be turbulent to its rims, a small river hastening generally southward. Now, however, the littered bottom of the arroyo was the safest place that the scouting Ramen had found for Anele to spend the night.

For herself, Linden planned to lay out her bedroll on the softer ground above the stream. Her companions could watch over her wherever she made her bed. And she did not doubt that the Ranyhyn also would guard the company. After the discomforts of the previous night, she wanted a chance for better rest.

But first she sat with her back against the dry wall of the gully while twilight deepened into evening overhead, and Liand and Pahni readied a meal over a cheery cookfire. There she was able to relax and think.

When the company had eaten-when the Ramen had returned from tending the Ranyhyn, and the Humbled had taken places above Linden and her friends along the edges of the watercourse-Stave finally broached the subject of the Harrow and the Mandoubt. He described their eerie contest and its outcome. And he repeated what Linden had already heard about the Vizard and the Theomach, although he did not explain how the Haruchai knew of the Insequent. The ancient defeat of his people he kept to himself, perhaps to protect his own hidden emotions, or perhaps to appease the Humbled.

Watching Liand and the Cords, Linden saw that they had questions which they would have liked to ask. But Stave's uninflected severity forbade inquiry. However, the sharpness of Mahrtiir's concentration suggested that he would ask his questions in spite of Stave's reticence. For the former Master's sake, Linden forestalled the Manethrall.

"Stave," she asked quietly, "what can you tell us about where we are and where were going? You and the Humbled know this area. We don't."

When she and Covenant had begun their search for the One Tree long ago, she had been in no condition to attend to her surroundings. She remembered only that they had left Revelstone eastward against the lethal permutations of the Sunbane. "I want some idea of what we have ahead of us."

Once again, she encouraged him to violate the prohibitions of the Masters-and to do so in their presence. However, she doubted that the Humbled would object. Having committed themselves to this endeavor, they could not very well claim that she and her friends had no need of their knowledge.

Stave's manner remained stiff, but he did not hesitate. "The distance from Revelstone to the northwestmost verge of the Andelainian Hills is ninety leagues. Riding as we have, without urging the Ranyhyn excessively, thirty now lie behind us."

"So four more days," murmured Linden.

The Haruchai shook his head. "Chosen, your count presupposes that we will encounter neither delay nor opposition. Opposition I am unable to foretell, though we have been warned of the skurj, and the chance of Falls must not be forgotten. But some delays may be desirable, while others cannot be avoided.

On the morrow, we will pa.s.s nigh unto First Woodhelven, so named because it was the first, and indeed the most viable, of the attempts by Sunder Graveler and Hollian eh-Brand to create anew the tree-dwellings which were among the Land's wonders during the ages of the Lords. You may wish to pause there, for the Haruchai remember that you have never beheld a true Woodhelven. Also it would perhaps be wise to refresh our supplies, if the Humbled will permit it."

Linden felt sure that the Humbled would reject any meeting with the villagers. But if they reacted to Stave's suggestions, they did so in silence, and he did not share what he heard.

She tightened her grip on herself. Roger Covenant in his father's guise had told her that Kastenessen now occupied Andelain, that he commanded the skurj, and that he could send those devouring monsters to meet her because he was able to locate her through Anele. But Roger had lied about so many things-She was not convinced that Kastenessen could detect the old man unless Anele touched bare dirt.

Also she considered the idea that the enraged Elohim occupied Andelain implausible. Surely such a being would shun the quintessential health and beauty of the Land? He might well loathe the austere strictures of the Dead. And an attack on Andelain would only waste his strength: it would not threaten his people, and so it would not relieve his fury.

No, on this subject she believed none of Roger's a.s.sertions except that Kastenessen ruled the skurj-and that the Land's enemies would try to thwart her purpose. If Kastenessen sought to acquire Loric's krill for himself-if the krill were not inherently inimical to him-she suspected that he would do so indirectly.

"Go on," she urged Stave softly. "What else can you tell us?"

His expression remained stubbornly neutral. But if the Humbled urged him to say no more, he did not heed them.

"Of the many wounds inflicted by the Clave and the Sunbane, the most grievous was the loss of the great forests. On the Upper Land, they were three. Dark Grimmerdh.o.r.e lay to the east of Revelstone, but it extended southward toward Andelain. Our path lies across a portion of the region where Grimmerdh.o.r.e once flourished, and where it perished.

"Southeast of Andelain between the Black River and the Roamsedge stood brooding Morinmoss. There the Unbeliever was once retrieved from death by an Unfettered healer. And southwest of the Center Plains and the Last Hills rose Garroting Deep, mighty and bitter.

"But there was also a fourth forest, Giant Woods, which survived the Sunbane, and which still remains, lying as it does on the Lower Land north of the fouled waters of Sarangrave Flat."

The Sarangrave Linden remembered. There she and Covenant, with Sunder, Hollian, and a small band of Haruchai, had nearly fallen to the lurker, and to the lurker's corrosive minions, the skest. And there they had encountered the Giants of the Search, who had made possible the Despiser's defeat and the Land's healing. But she did not let memories of friends whom she had loved and lost interrupt Stave.

"Some measure," he said. "of what transpired after Corruption's overthrow and the Sunbane's unmaking was first told to the Haruchai by the Giants of the Search, though the tale was later repeated by Sunder Graveler and Hollian eh-Brand.

"For a time, Sunder and Hollian were confined to Andelain. She was newly reborn, he had expended much of himself to restore her, and the Sunbane's ill lingered in the Land. The First of the Search and Pitchwife had given the Staff of Law into their care, but they had not yet learned its uses.

They required Andelain's wealth of Earthpower. Therefore they remained among the Hills, and studied the Staff, and grew stronger."

Linden leaned forward, listening closely as Stave's flat voice defined the darkness around the small campfire. Like Anele's tale of the One Forest, her encounter with Caerroil Wildwood had left her hungry to know more about forests. And she treasured the Haruchats recollections of her friends.

Her last deed before she was dismissed from the Land had been to reach out to Sunder and Hollian. She had wished them to know that they were loved-and had reason for hope.

Liand and the Ramen also listened, rapt, to Stave's explanation. Millennia ago, the Ramen had led the Ranyhyn away from the Plains of Ra to escape the Sunbane. And none of them had returned, except to scout along the Land's borders at long intervals, until Hyn and Hynyn had declared their devotion to Linden. As a result, Mahrtiir and his Cords knew little of events in the Land during their people's self-imposed exile.

"However," Stave continued, "Sunder and Hollian remembered well the majesty of Giant Woods. And she was an eh-Brand, born to the love of wood. Among the great and vital tasks which they had accepted with their acceptance of the Staff, they desired first to begin the restoration of forests to the Land.

"Yet they had no knowledge of Grimmerdh.o.r.e, or of Morinmoss, or of Garroting Deep. Nor did the Giants of the Search. And no Haruchai sought for Sunder and Hollian. Until the Giants returned to Revelstone, the Haruchai did not know that Sunder and Hollian remained living. Thus the Graveler and the eh-Brand were not guided by the history of forests in the Land.

"Rather they devised their own purpose. When their comprehension of the Staff had grown sufficiently to heal the last of the Sunbane's ravages within Andelain, they turned their attention outward. Around all of the boundaries of Andelain, from Landsdrop north of Mount Thunder westward, then into the southeast toward the Mithil River, thence across the Mithil east to the region where Morinmoss once endured, and finally northward along the Mithil to the southmost slopes of Gravin Threndor, Sunder and Hollian inspired and nurtured one encompa.s.sing forest which they named Salva Gildenbourne to honor the Gilden trees of Andelain."

Again Stave considered the Humbled, perhaps offering them an opportunity to advise him. But he did not query them aloud, and so they did not answer. After a moment, he gave a small shrug and went on.

Had they been able to do so, the Graveler and the eh-Brand would have extended the largesse of woodlands over all the war-ravaged earth between Andelain and Landsdrop. There, however, they were baffled. Their comprehension of the Staff-or perhaps the Staff itself, being incomplete-could not entirely overcome the harm wrought by Corruption's ancient armies and battles."

Facing Linden directly, Stave concluded, "Salva Gildenbourne stands across our approach to Andelain. After its fashion, it is a wondrous region, precious to the Land. But it was formed without the benefit of lore, and has grown both vast and unruly. If we are not opposed or delayed, we will gain its marge in three days. However, Salva Gildenbourne itself hinders pa.s.sage. And there the Ranyhyn cannot quicken our way. For that reason, I gauge that the forest must add two days and more to our journey."

Linden nodded to herself. Six days, then-and only if the Land's foes did not strike. She wanted to travel with more haste; to ride harder and longer. She could not truly begin to search for Jeremiah until she accomplished her purpose in Andelain. But when she thought back, she could still hear the rabid howling of the kresh. An Elohim had warned the Land of Sandgorgons as well as croyel and skurj. She did not know what had become of moksha Jehannum, the Raver who had once possessed her. Doubtless he was at work somewhere, serving Lord Foul. And she had not forgotten tunya Herem's possession of Joan. It was conceivable that tunya might be able to impose a degree of focus on Joan's madness. If he did so, her blasts of wild magic might achieve a measure of direction and intent-Haste would almost certainly increase the danger to Linden and all of her companions. The Ramen and even the Ranyhyn would be more easily ambushed.

Musing, Liand said, "I have never beheld a forest. Pahni urges me to imagine the trees of the upland plateau multiplied a thousand fold, or a thousand thousand. But it lies beyond my conception."

The Manethrall nodded sharply. "The Ramen love openness and long hills. Nevertheless our ancestors held the forests of the Land in reverence. Their many-splendored grandeur surpa.s.sed description. I am eager now to cast my gaze upon Salva Gildenbourne, and to pa.s.s among its uncounted majesties.

You are a Stonedownor," he added to Liand, "born to rock and permanence. Yet I do not doubt that you also will be moved to worship by the glories of wood. And we have not yet spoken of Andelain, where the Land's loveliness thrives in abundance."

The Ramen and Liand continued to talk while Anele snored fitfully beside the fire and the Humbled stood guard; but Linden hardly heard them. Isolated by her apprehensions, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the spring night, and tried to think.

According to Covenant's son, Kastenessen had only summoned a few skurj to the Land. On that point, Roger may have been telling the truth. Surely a throng of those creatures could not have evaded the notice of the Masters? Nevertheless the monsters which Linden had seen during her translation to the Land were capable of tremendous devastation. Already she had succeeded twice at extinguishing Falls-and she was stronger now. The Staff itself was stronger. But she could not guess whether Law and Earthpower would be enough to hold back the skurj. The Elohim might not have Appointed Kastenessen to his Durance if any other theurgy could contain those horrific creatures.

Yet when she slept at last, her dreams were not haunted by the jaws of kraken, or by cruel yellow fangs, or by the excruciation of caesures. Instead she seemed to fall endlessly into the numb black abysm of the Harrow's eyes, where there was no sound except her son's anguished weeping.

She awoke in a mood of fretful urgency. Over and over again, the pressures and dilemmas of her immediate circ.u.mstances pushed thoughts of Jeremiah into the background; but whenever the extremity of his plight reclaimed her, it did so with redoubled force. She still had a long way to go to reach Andelain, Loric's krill, and the Dead. But those were only the first stages of her quest to find her son. Ultimately such things were necessary simply because she did not know how else to begin looking for Jeremiah.

While she ate a tense breakfast with her friends, Liand observed gently. "You did not rest well, Linden."

She nodded; but she was not listening.

Instead she harkened to the sound of whistling and formal salutations. At her request, Stave and Mahrtiir had joined the Humbled beyond the eastern rim of the arroyo to summon the Ranyhyn: she was waiting for Stave's return. As soon as he dropped back down into the watercourse, she handed the remains of her meal to Bhapa and rose to her feet.

"First Woodhelven?" she asked. "How far is it?"

Stave c.o.c.ked his eyebrow at her abrupt manner. If our way is not contested, we will near the Woodhelven before midday."

Linden bit her lip. Are you sure that we should stop there? Don't we have enough supplies?"

If the Woodhelvennin needed to be warned of impending hazards, one of the Humbled could perform that task without violating their commitment to preserve the villagers' ignorance.

Stave shrugged, studying her. "The future is uncertain, Chosen. Soon we may be driven far from our direct road. It would be improvident to neglect an opportunity to replenish our viands."

"All right," she muttered unhappily. "But let's be as quick as we can. Jeremiah needs me."

"Also you do not forgive," Stave remarked. This all Haruchai comprehend. The Ranyhyn await you. And among themselves the Humbled acknowledge that your desire for haste is justified. We will journey as swiftly as we may without sacrificing caution."

As if his words were a command, Liand and Pahni hurried to wash their pots, bowls, and utensils while Bhapa repacked the company's bedrolls. At the same time, Branl and Galt surprised Linden by leaping down into the gully. Without a word, they searched the shale and shingle of the riverbed until they found a large pane of slate perhaps two fingers thick on which one or two people could have stood. Lifting it together, Branl and Galt tossed it up to Clyme at the rim of the watercourse. When Clyme had secured his grip on the slate, he carried it out of sight.

To Linden's perplexed stare, Stave explained. "Though a fertile lowland girdles First Woodhelven, the surrounding hills are barren, as is much of the region which we must traverse this day. While he can, Clyme will bear his stone upon Mh.o.r.n.ym's back. At need, it may ward the old man from Kastenessen's touch."

Linden made a whistling sound through her teeth. "That's good." She was familiar with the preternatural strength of the Haruchai, but she often forgot just how strong they were. "I'm glad one of you thought of it."

Repeatedly she had promised Anele her protection-and repeatedly she concentrated on other concerns instead.

Grinning, Liand clapped Stave appreciatively on the back. Then he offered to help Linden clamber out of the arroyo.

When she gained the rim, she found Mahrtiir there with the gathered Ranyhyn. Hyn approached Linden with a look of affection in her soft eyes: Hynyn stamped his hooves imperiously. Clyme had already made a harness of thongs for the slate, set it on his back, and mounted Mh.o.r.n.ym. Linden saw now that Mh.o.r.n.ym was nearly a hand taller than the other horses, with heavily muscled thighs and a deep chest. Clearly the stallion would be able to bear the added weight of Clyme's burden.

The chief purpose of the Humbled may have been to guard against Linden, but they also took the task of aiding her and her friends seriously. In this, they resembled the Haruchai whom she had known with Thomas Covenant. For a long time, Brinn, Cail, Ceer, and Hergrom had distrusted her profoundly, but their doubts had not prevented them from warding her with their lives.

When they had become the Masters of the Land, the Haruchai had not ceased to be themselves.

Rea.s.sured by that recognition, and comforted by Hyn's steady acceptance, Linden grew calmer for a while. But when she and her companions were mounted at last, and the Ranyhyn had turned toward the southeast across the sunrise, she had to resist an impulse to urge Hyn into a gallop.

As long as Lord Foul and the croyel held Jeremiah, he might never see the sun again. The Despiser preferred the dark places of the world. And under Melenkurion Skyweir, he had nearly lost Jeremiah. She felt sure that Lord Foul would not take that risk a second time.

Whatever happened, Andelain and Loric's krill would be the beginning of her search rather than the end.

With the sun like a barrier in her eyes, she felt time drag, leaden with worry.

For her sake, however, the Ranyhyn quickened their fluid canter. Mahrtiir sent Bhapa scouting far ahead of the company: Galt and Branl traveled as outriders nearly out of sight on both sides. And gradually the flow of Hyn's gait settled Linden's nerves. The mare's undisturbed rhythm seemed to impose a subliminal equipoise, soothing Linden as though she were being rocked in protective arms. She stopped watching the sun, and so her perception of progress was altered.

Stave and Mahrtiir rode with her. Behind them came Liand and Pahni flanking Anele. And Clyme kept Mh.o.r.n.ym close to the heels of the old man's mount. Pausing only for occasional sips of water, or for a few treasure-berries, the riders made their way around the slopes of low hills, over incremental ridges, and through swales and small valleys punctuated by copses and lone trees like eyots in the slow surge of a gra.s.s-foamed sea.

As the sun pa.s.sed the middle of the morning sky, Linden's tuned senses caught the first whiff of wrongness.

At first, it was too evanescent to be defined: as elusive as will-o'-the-wisps; scarcely distinguishable from the overarching fug of Kevin's Dirt. She had no idea what it might represent. But when she glanced around her, she saw Mahrtiir scenting the air. Anele had become restive on Hrama's back, jerking his head awkwardly from side to side. And both Branl and Galt had drawn closer to the company as if they were tightening a cordon.

Liand turned a puzzled look toward Pahni. But he did not call out to her over the constant rumble of hooves, and she did not answer his gaze.

There: Linden felt the sensation again. It was less an odor than a form of stridulation, as if something cruel had sc.r.a.ped briefly against her percipience, making her nerves vibrate. She was about to shout a question at the Manethrall or Stave when she saw Bhapa ahead of her, racing to rejoin the company as though kresh harried him.

But it was not the musky fetor of wolves that Linden had sensed. It was something darker; something without hunger or intention-and far more fatal.

By touch, or perhaps merely by thought, Stave and Mahrtiir slowed Hynyn and Narunal; and the rest of the Ranyhyn followed their example. The horses were barely trotting when Bhapa rode near enough to report without yelling.

"Manethrall, Ringthane, it is a caesure." Ramen rigor vied with urgency in his tone. "I have not beheld it, for it lay at the limit of my discernment. Yet I am certain of it.

Such evils cannot be mistaken."

Turning Whrany to pace at Mahrtiir's side, the Cord continued. "At first, it stood directly before us. But it moves, as do all caesures. For the present, it drifts southward as if borne by the wind, though the wind is from the west. If some caprice does not alter its course, it will not endanger us. Indeed, it may pa.s.s a league or more beyond our path."

"How close did it get to First Woodhelven?" Linden asked. Can you tell'?"

She had stood on Kevin's Watch when it fell; she and Anele. She groaned as she imagined what a caesure might do to any substance less stubborn than granite.

Bhapa looked helplessly at Mahrtiir. "Alas, I know not. The auras of human habitations are little things on the scale of Falls. I was able to descry the caesure, and to be certain of it, because it is an immense ill. I felt nothing of the Woodhelven."

"In that case," said Linden grimly, "I think it's time to ride hard. The Woodhelvennin might need us. And if they don't, I want to get past that thing before it can change directions."

Automatically she dismissed the idea of pursuing the caesure in order to quench it. Doing so would delay her. Each of Joan's temporal violations was short-lived: she knew that. Otherwise the Arch would already have fallen. If no one-no other force-sustained the Fall, it would soon expend itself and vanish.

The Manethrall and Stave shared a nod. Then all of the Ranyhyn stretched their strides in unison, accelerating smoothly until they raced like coursers into the southeast.

Under other circ.u.mstances, Hyn's vitality and swiftness might have exhilarated Linden. But now her attention was focused ahead. With the Staff, she sharpened her senses and cast her percipience farther, seeking the caesure.

Initially she felt it in small suggestions, innominate flickers of distortion. But soon she was sure of it. She had learned to distinguish between the queasiness that afflicted her in Esmer's presence and the more visceral sick squirming caused by the proximity of Falls. Esmer made her ill by disturbing her connection with aspects of herself: the impact of caesures ran deeper. On an almost cellular level, they threatened her dependence upon tangible reality.

And a caesure was there, where Bhapa had indicated: ahead of her and to the right, slipping erratically southward. If its heading did not shift, it would not endanger her company. Rather it would carry Joan's unreasoning violence into the distance until it dissipated itself. And while it lasted, its destructiveness would depend less on the amount of wild magic that Joan had unleashed than on what lay along its mindless road.

With an effort, Linden swallowed her fear of what the Fall might do. The silent acquiescence of Stave and the Humbled a.s.sured her that there were no villages or habitations near the caesure's present course. The Haruchai would certainly have warned her if lives were at stake.

Only one concern remained: First Woodhelven.

Gripping the Staff of Law until her knuckles ached, Linden leaned along Hyn's neck, silently urging the mare and all of the Ranyhyn to run faster.

A long rising slope blocked the view ahead. It fell away to lower ground on the south: to the north, it mounted toward a rocky tor, rugged with old stone. But along the company's path the ascent was too gradual to slow the pounding horses. They sped upward over earth that lost its scruff of gra.s.s to become an ungiving admixture of flint, crumbled shale, and bare dirt. The hooves of the Ranyhyn pelted debris behind them with every stride. The horses following Linden were forced to s.p.a.ce themselves so that they did not run in the spray of jagged pebbles and grit kicked up by Hyn and Hynyn, Whrany and Narunal.

Along the lower terrain, she saw evidence of the caesure's pa.s.sage. The ground there was as barren as the slope, but it had a churned look, as though it had been raked by thousands of claws. A stretch of disturbed soil nearly a stone's throw across led like a crooked road into the south.

G.o.d, the Fall was big*

Now Linden spotted what appeared to be a storm around the caesure's seething column. The sky was free of clouds, uncluttered from horizon to horizon. Nevertheless lightning flared in the distance, crackling around the caesure like a nimbus. The air thickened as if it were crowded with thunderheads; full of theurgy rather than moisture and wind.

She stifled a gasp of chagrin. The Fall was not the only peril. Some power as lorewise and puissant as the Demondim was striving urgently to interrupt or influence the caesure.

Biting her lip, she turned her head away. Stave had said that First Woodhelven occupied a fertile lowland surrounded by bare hills. If it lay beyond this rise, it may have been directly in the path of the Fall.

The crest was near. Already she could see past it to more hills perhaps half a league distant; slopes as barren as the dirt over which the Ranyhyn galloped.

Oh, G.o.d, she groaned as Hyn bore her to the top of the rise. Please. No.

Then the Ranyhyn swept over the crest, poured like a torrent down the far side; and Linden saw that First Woodhelven had not been spared.