Part 8 (1/2)

”Then tell me.” Tell me that you want your ring. Tell me what I can do to rescue my son. ”Tell me how you're going to save the Land.”

She wanted to speak more strongly; ached for the simple self-a.s.surance to jar him out of his lethargy. But he baffled her. And the eroded look in Jeremiah's eyes seemed to leach away her determination. She had no firm ground under her: yearning weakened her wherever she tried to place her feet.

Covenant squinted, apparently trying to bring his glazed vision into focus. That depends on you.”

”How?' She gripped the Staff with both hands so that they would not quaver. ”All I have is questions. I don't have any answers.”

”But you have this one,” he said like a sigh. His gaze drifted to the hearth; filled itself with reflected flames. ”That ring under your s.h.i.+rt belongs to me. Are you going to give it to me or not'?”

Linden lowered her head to hide her sudden chagrin. She had expected his request; had practically demanded it. But now she realized that she did not know how to respond. How could she make such a choice? His ring was all that she had left of the man whom she had loved: it meant too much to her. And she wanted it; wanted every sc.r.a.p of power or effectiveness that she could obtain. Through Anele, Covenant himself had told her that she would need it.

But if Covenant had indeed been perfected in death, so that he could wield wild magic without fear, she had no right to refuse him. He might be capable of recreating the entire Earth in any image that he desired. If she kept his wedding band, she would bear the blame for all of the Land's peril and Jeremiah's suffering and her own plight.

”Just hand it over,” Covenant continued as reasonably as his sleepy voice allowed. ”Then you can stop worrying about everything. Even Jeremiah. I'm already part of the Arch. With my ring, there won't be anything I can't do. Send the Demondim back where they belong? No problem. Finish off Kastenessen so he and the skurj and Kevin's Dirt can't bother us anymore? Consider it done. Create a cyst in time around Foul to make him helpless forever? I won't even break a sweat.

All you have to do,” he insisted with more force, ”is stop dithering and give me the d.a.m.n ring. You'll get your son back, and your troubles will be over.”

He held out his halfhand, urging her to place his ring in his palm.

The Thomas Covenant who had spoken to her in her dreams would not have asked for his ring in that way. He would have explained more and demanded less; would have been more gentle- Almost involuntarily, she looked to Jeremiah for help, guidance. But his attention was focused on Covenant: he did not so much as glance at her.

And in the background of Covenant's voice, she heard Roger saying outside Joan's room in Berenford Memorial, It belongs to me. I need it.

Once before, Linden had restored a white gold ring. Directly or indirectly, that mistake had led her to her present straits. It had made possible her son's imprisonment in agony.

”Covenant, this is hard for me.” A tremor of supplication and dread marred her voice: she could not control it. ”I need to know more about what it means.

”You swore to me. After the Banefire. You swore that you were never going to use power again.”

”That was then.” His brief intensity faded as the springwine seemed to renew its numbness. ”This is now. In case you haven't noticed, everything's changed. Just being here uses staggering amounts of power. And how do you suppose I stopped Foul after I surrendered my ring? For something like forever, I've done nothing but use power.”

Linden could not argue with him. But his response was not enough. ”Then tell me this,” she said, groping for knowledge that might shed light on her dilemma. ”Where did Jeremiah get the force to push me away'?” As far as she knew, her son had no lore-and no instrument of theurgy. His only inherent magic was his need for her; his ability to inspire her love. When did he become powerful'?”

”Oh, that.” Covenant flapped his halfhand dismissively. ”He has talents you can't imagine. All he needs is the right stuff to work with. In this case, folding time-being in two places at once-I'm bending a lot of Laws. There's bound to be a certain amount of leakage. Think of it like blood from a wound. Your kid is using it. As long as I can keep him here-as long as you don't erase us”-for an instant, his eyes flickered redly-”he's pretty strong.”

Again his voice conveyed the impression that it was out of tune; that he could not find the right notes for what he said.

Without looking away from Covenant, Jeremiah put in, ”I've been visiting the Land for a long time, Mom. I learned a lot about magic. But it didn't do me any good until Covenant brought me here.” His smile was not for Linden. ”I mean to Revelstone. Until he gave me my mind back.

”I can't make something out of nothing. But when I have the right materials, I can build all kinds of doors. And walls.”

Both of them were trying to rea.s.sure her, but her alarm increased nonetheless. She could not doubt them, and did not know how to believe them. Her son had become a kind of mage, incomprehensible to her. And Covenant sounded- Doom seemed to ride on all of her choices, and she had not been convinced.

”So what happens,” she asked, still trembling, if I don't give up your ring? What will you do if I refuse? Take it?”

Had he changed that much?

If she spurned Covenant's aid, she might spend days or weeks or months hunting for Jeremiah's prison. She would almost certainly fail to reach him in time to save his tortured mind.

Covenant dropped his hand; looked down to drink from his flagon, then turned his head to meet Jeremiah's silted gaze. ”I told you that, too, didn't 17' His voice was full of dreary bitterness. ”I told you she wouldn't trust me.”

Jeremiah nodded. ”Yes, you did.”

Still facing the boy, Covenant informed Linden sourly, ”Of course I'm not going to take it. I can't get that close to you. But I know you, so I came prepared. I still know what to do.”

Slowly he swung back toward her; but he did not meet her gaze. His head hung at a defeated angle, and the firelight cast shadows across his eyes. A faint red heat like embers glowed in the depths of his darkened eyes.

If you won't let me have my ring, what will you do? What do you think you can accomplish? You've got Esmer and a hundred or so ur-viles on one side, and the Demondim with the II!earth Stone on the other. Kevin's Dirt is going to blind you over and over again. You don't know where to look for Jeremiah.

Joan will keep making caesures. Kastenessen and the skurj are out there, not to mention the Elohim and who knows how many other powers. The Masters don't like you, and your only friends are three Ramen, a crazy old man, a kid who's as ignorant as a stone, and one outcast Haruchai.

”What exactly do you propose to do about all that?”

Linden hardly knew how to face him; yet she did not fall or falter. Instead she held up her head, drew back her shoulders. If Covenant thought to daunt her with his recitation of dangers, he had forgotten their time together, forgotten who she had become. And he could not weaken her by disdaining her friends. She knew them better than he did.

He was asking her about decisions which she had already made.

Searching his hidden eyes for embers, she announced as though she were certain, ”I'll put a stop to the Demondim. Then I'm going to take my friends and ride like h.e.l.l to Andelain. I want to talk to the Dead. They helped you once when you had no idea how to save the Land. Maybe they'll do the same for me.”

And it was conceivable that the krill of Loric still remained where Sunder had left it, stabbed deep into the blasted tree stump of Caer-Caveral's body. Such a weapon might enable her to channel the combined force of Covenant's ring and the Staff of Law safely.

Groaning, Jeremiah buried his face in his hands as if he were ashamed of his mother.

”h.e.l.lfire!” Abruptly Covenant slammed the front legs of his stool down onto the floor. With his halfhand, he covered his eyes as if to mask a burst of flame. Then he dragged his touch down his features; and as he did so, every vestige of his drunkenness was pulled away. Almost without transition, he became the man who had ridden a failing horse into the forehall of Revelstone: commanding and severe, beyond compromise.

Through his teeth, he rasped, ”Linden Avery, you d.a.m.n idiot, that is a truly terrible idea.”

”Is it?' She held his glare without flinching; did not let her son's reaction diminish her. ”Tell me why.”

Vehemently Covenant flung his flagon against the wall. The wood cracked: chips and splinters fell to the floor: springwine splashed across the rug. ”Oh, I'll tell you,” he growled. ”b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.nation, Linden! And I won't even mention the fact that you have no idea how powerful the Demondim really are, or what you'll have to go through just to slow them down. And I won't talk about the Dead because they don't really exist anymore. Not the way you remember them. Too many Laws have been broken. The definitions are blurred. Spirits as vague as the Dead can't hold themselves together. They certainly can't give you advice.

”No, ignore all that.” With both hands, he seemed to ward off wasted explanations. ”Going to Andelain is a terrible idea because that's where Kastenessen is. And he commands the skurj.”

Linden stared at him, stricken mute by the force of his revelations. Every solution that she had imagined for her dilemma-and for Jeremiah's ”You'll recognize them when you see them,” continued Covenant trenchantly. ”Foul showed you what they're like.” Dire serpents of magma with the crus.h.i.+ng jaws of krakens and the destructive hunger of kresh: monsters which emerged from chancres to devour the earth. ”But he didn't tell you they serve Kastenessen now because that sonofab.i.t.c.h set them free.

”He hasn't brought very many of them down from the north yet. But he can get more whenever he wants them. And he always knows where you are. He can feel you through that loony old man. So no matter what you try to do, the skurj will be in your way. He'll send them wherever you are, and they'll eat you alive. You may think you're powerful enough to take care of yourself, but you've never fought those monsters before. And your friends don't have any magic. They don't have any lore. You'll lose them all.”

Harshly Covenant finished, ”Going to Andelain right now is just about the only purely suicidal thing you could do.”

Without lifting his face from his hands, Jeremiah muttered in a m.u.f.fled voice, ”He's telling the truth, Mom. I swear to G.o.d, I don't know why you have so much trouble believing him. He's the only real friend I've ever had. Can't you understand that?”

He had called Covenant the best-For that alone, Linden owed Covenant a debt too vast to be repaid.

Now it seemed that all of her choices and desires had been wrong from the beginning. Misguided and fatal.

And yet- Her heart could not be torn in so many directions and remain whole.

-her impression of disharmony persisted. Covenant was like a man who knew the words but could not remember the song. Her nerves were unable to discern truth or falsehood.