Part 17 (1/2)
Hardly able to control her breathing, she asked. ”How far do we have to go'?”
”Three leagues,” Covenant answered brusquely. ”Maybe more. At this rate, we won't get there until after dark.”
Until even the insufficient warmth of the sun had vanished from the Last Hills.
If she did not think about something other than her own weakness, she would lose heart altogether. ”I have no idea what were getting into,” she admitted. ”I know that there are things the Theomach doesn't want you to say. But what can you tell me'?”
Covenant scowled at her. ”You want me to describe the battle? What does it matter? People are hacking at each other, but they're too tired to be much good at it. From one minute to the next, most of them don't know if they're winning or losing. There's yelling and screaming, but mostly it's just hacking.”
Linden shook her head. She had already been in too many battles. ”I meant Berek. You said that he doesn't realize what he can do. Or how he can do it. But he summoned the FireLions. He must have some kind of lore.”
”Oh, well.” Covenant seemed to lose interest. ”It wasn't like that. He didn't exactly summon the FireLions. He didn't even know they existed. But he got their attention, and for that he only had to be desperate and bleeding. And he had to have a little power. The real question is, where did he get power?
”According to the legends, when Berek was desperate and bleeding and beaten on Mount Thunder, the rocks spoke to him. They offered him help against the King if he pledged to serve the Land. So he swore he would, and the rocks sent the FireLions to decimate the King's forces.
But that doesn't actually make sense. Sure, the stone of the Land is aware. That's especially true in Mount Thunder, where so many forces have been at work for so long. But it doesn't talk. I mean, it doesn't talk fast enough for most people to hear it.
”So how did Berek do it?” Covenant asked rhetorically. ”How did he tap into the little bit of Earthpower he needed to call down the FireLions?”
Concentrating so that she would not think about her weariness, Linden waited for him to go on.
”This is the Land, remember,”
Covenant said after a moment. She could not read him with her health-sense; but his manner betrayed that he was losing patience again. His tone gave off glints of scorn. ”Earthpower runs near the surface. And Berek has what you might call a natural affinity. He just didn't know it. The d.a.m.n stones were more aware than he was.”
”Then how-?” Linden began.
Without transition, Covenant seemed to digress. ”It's easy to criticize Elena,” he drawled. ”Silly woman. Didn't she know despair is a weakness, not a strength?” He was talking about his own daughter. ”Didn't she know Kevin dead was bound to be weaker than he was alive?
”But she had precedent. She understood that better than anybody. Which is probably why they made her High Lord. No matter what you've heard, the Old Lords were all about despair. It gave them some of their greatest victories. And it's what saved Berek.
”It opened him up. Tapped into his natural affinity. Being half insane with pain and blood loss and despair made him raw enough to feel what's really going on here. What the life of the Land is really like. That's all it took. When he finally felt the Earthpower in Mount Thunder, he felt it in himself as well. And the FireLions felt that. They responded to it because that's what they do.”
As Covenant's restiveness mounted, he began to pull ahead, taking Jeremiah with him. Without turning his head, he finished, ”The rest of it, all the legends people told about him*That stuff was just a way to make what happened sound heroic.”
Because of Berek, everything in the Land had changed. It had been made new. He had given its inhabitants their heritage of Earthpower. Yet Covenant disdained Berek's achievement.
She did not ask him to wait for her: she hardly wanted his company now. But in one sense, he had not answered her question. Breathing painfully, she increased her pace for a moment.
”Just tell me one more thing,” she panted at his back. ”What's Berek like? What kind of man is he?”
If she wanted the first Halfhand's help while he fought a fierce battle that would leave many of his supporters dead, she needed to know enough about him to gain his sympathy.
Covenant quickened his strides.
Keeping his face to the east, he replied harshly, ”He's charismatic as all h.e.l.l. Basically a good man, or his despair wouldn't have left him so raw. And half the time he has no earthly idea what he's doing.”
Then, for no apparent reason, he added. ”When Elena summoned Kevin, he didn't fail her. She failed him.”
After that, he and Jeremiah left Linden to struggle along as well as she could.
Gradually the uneven shadows of the hills spread into the valley. As much as possible, trying to conserve her strength, Linden followed the trail that Covenant and Jeremiah broke in the crust ahead of her. But more and more often, their way took her into the shade; and then she understood that the coming night would be far more cruel than the day. The temperature of the air seemed to plummet whenever she crossed out of the light.
She did not know how much longer she could go on.
When Covenant and Jeremiah were forty or fifty paces ahead of her-far enough to fade in the shadows, so that she could only be sure of them when they returned to sunlight-she began to draw cautiously on the sustenance of the Staff, evoking a slow current of heat and fort.i.tude from the untroubled wood. Doubtless her son and her former lover would warn her if she endangered them. They had too much to lose. And she needed the nourishment of Law and Earthpower. Without it, she would have to ask for more of Covenant's inexplicable fire; and that prospect increased her sense of helplessness.
The more time she spent with him, the less she trusted him.
She was prepared to support his purpose. But she would do so for Jeremiah's sake, and to oppose the Despiser, and so that she would not find herself stranded ten thousand years before her proper time. Covenant had been too profoundly altered: Linden no longer knew how to believe in him.
In that fas.h.i.+on, she continued her burdened trudge through the snow and the cold while the shadows deepened and the valley grew dim. Long after she should have fallen on her face, she kept walking because the Staff of Law nurtured her.
But then, in one of the last swaths of suns.h.i.+ne, she saw Jeremiah dropping back. He let Covenant forge ahead alone so that she would be able to catch up with him.
Of its own accord, Linden's heart lifted. Involuntarily she pushed herself to move faster; and as she did so, she quenched the Staff's subtle warmth. She did not intend to threaten her son.
He started talking as soon as she drew near enough to hear him. He sounded tense; uncomfortable with her. Or perhaps he had been afflicted with Covenant's frustration, Covenant's impatience. He almost babbled as he said. ”This isn't normal. We're too far south. The winters aren't usually this bad.”
Nevertheless he had elected to accompany her, at least for a while. He must have felt some concern for her, despite his devotion to Covenant. That was enough to encourage her.
”It's an aftereffect of the war,” Jeremiah went on as if he could not stop. ”when Berek was losing. n.o.body in this time knows Foul. They won't meet him until after Kevin becomes High Lord. But he's in the Land. He has a home where n.o.body can stumble on him by accident. He's waiting. Until the Lords become powerful enough, they won't have a realistic chance of breaking the Arch.”
As Linden drew level with him, Jeremiah matched his pace to hers. He kept a distance of four or five steps between them, and he stayed on her left: she could not see his tic. But he did not pull ahead again, or fall behind. And he did not stop talking.
”But earlier Foul wasn't just waiting. Once samadhi started this war, Foul did what he could to help Berek's King win it.
”Of course, if that happened, there wouldn't be any Lords. But Foul didn't want Lords then. He wanted the King to win. That whole kingdom had the right att.i.tude. I mean the right att.i.tude for Foul. He could manipulate them easily. If they won, he could teach them how to set him free. They could use the Earthpower in the Land to provoke the Creator until the Creator had to intervene. That would break the Arch. Or Foul could get them to rouse the Worm.
”So Foul tried to help Berek's King by sending darkness out of Ridjeck Thome. Malice so thick it blotted out the sun. It practically broke the hearts of Berek's people And it weakened Berek himself. Almost got him killed. He's a great warrior, but when he fought the King, he'd lost a lot of his strength. That's why the King was able to beat him.
”This winter is sort of left over from losing the sun for a season or two.”
Jeremiah was watching Linden sidelong, apparently studying her, although he looked away whenever she turned toward him. But the air's getting warmer,” he said. ”Can you tell?” His voice had taken on a faintly pleading tone. ”This valley goes down into the Center Plains. It's still going to be cold when the sun sets. But Covenant can help you. All you have to do is ask.”
He seemed to want her to accept her dependence on Covenant.
She wanted to hear her son justify his loyalty to Covenant. He had called Covenant the best. How had Covenant won Jeremiah's heart? But she did not wish to risk alienating him. Instead of rejecting his implicit appeal directly, she said, ”I'm hanging in there, Jeremiah, honey. I'll make it somehow.
”But it really helps when you talk to me. Can I ask you something?”
The boy frowned at Covenant's dark shape as if he were unsure of himself.
”I guess, Mom. If it'll do any good. Depending on what it is.”
They were deep in shadow; still far from the nearest dwindling patch of suns.h.i.+ne. Without light, Linden could not insist on an answer to the question that mattered most to her. For the moment, she concentrated on other concerns.
”I understand that there are things you can't tell me,” she began, keeping her tone as neutral as possible. ”They'll interfere with the-I'm not sure what to call it-the continuity of what we're doing.” In this circ.u.mstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time. ”But I'm curious. How do you know the Theomach? You said that you've never met him, but you obviously recognized him.”
”Oh, that.” Jeremiah's relief was plain in his voice. Clearly her question did not trouble him. ”I heard about him, that's all. He's one of the Insequent.