Part 23 (1/2)

”Yet,” he said more sternly. ”there are queries which demand utterance. My oaths of service, to my Queen as to the Land, require this of me. Understand that I intend neither affront nor disregard. However, I must be answered.”

Wincing inwardly, Linden started to say, Don't, please. You don't understand the danger. But Berek's deep gaze held her. His will seemed greater than hers. She did not know how to refuse anyone who had suffered so much loss.

Berek's mien tightened. ”My lady Linden, it is plain that you bear powers-or instruments of power-greater than yourself. I know naught of such matters. Nonetheless I am able to discern contradiction. Though your powers exceed you, you have it within you to transcend them.”

Her mouth and throat suddenly felt too dry for speech. She should not have been surprised that he was able to perceive Covenant's ring under her s.h.i.+rt. Still she was not prepared. And neither the Theomach nor Covenant was here to advise her.

”My lord,” she said weakly, trying to fend him off. ”I can't talk about this. It doesn't have anything to do with you. It won't affect your war, or your Queen-or your oath,” not without destroying Time. Bitter with memories, she added, ”And you haven't earned the knowledge. You aren't ready for it. It can only hurt you.”

She could not gauge what anything that she might say-or refuse to say-would cost Berek. Similar knowledge had damaged her immeasurably. But it had also redeemed her.

He did not relent. ”Yet I wish to hear them named.”

His eyes and his tone and his vital aura compelled her. Guided only by intuition, she held the Staff in one hand. ”My Staff is about Law and Earthpower. It exerts the same force as the Seven Words, but in a different form.” With the other, she indicated Covenant's hidden ring. ”This is white gold.” She felt that she was accepting responsibility for all of the Earth's millennia as she said. ”It wields the wild magic that destroys peace. But it isn't natural here.

”If you want to know more, you'll have to ask the Theomach.”

She saw that she had baffled him; and she braced herself, fearing that he would demand more. Yet he did not. Instead he rubbed at his bald scalp as though he sought to ma.s.sage coherence into his scattering thoughts.

”This is bootless, my lady,” he grumbled. ”It conveys naught.” Then he dropped his hand, and his uncertainty with it. ”However, I will not press you, for your discomfiture is evident. Instead I will pose a query of another kind.

”It has been averred that your powers and your purpose do not pertain to me. How may I be a.s.sured of this? My force is greatly outnumbered. And as I drive my foes before me, I strengthen them, for they draw ever closer to Doriendor Corishev and reinforcement. I can not ignore the prospect of a threat from another quarter.”

”The Theomach-” Linden tried to offer.

”My lady,” Berek interrupted more harshly, ”I do not ask for aid. That the Theomach may well provide, as he has avowed. Rather I ask how I may fear nothing from the needs which compel you. There is no wish for harm in your heart, of that I am certain. Your companions, however, are closed to me. I know naught of them but that they wield strange theurgies, and that their manner is ungentle.

”Answer this, my lady, and I will not disturb you further.”

Linden sighed. ”My Lord, there are only two things that I can tell you.” To describe Covenant's intentions in this time would be ruinous. ”First, were going northwest-and we have a long way to go. Something like two hundred leagues. Everything that Covenant and Jeremiah and I are trying to do, everything that brought us here in the first place-It'll all be wasted if we don't cover those two hundred leagues as quickly as possible.

”Second,” she continued so that Berek would not interrupt her, ”the last thing that the Theomach wants is trouble from us. And I do mean the last. You have no idea how powerful he is. I don't understand it myself. But you can be sure of this. If we try anything that might threaten you, he'll stop us. We can't fight him. Not here. No matter how strong you think we are.”

The Insequent had demonstrated his ability to override Covenant's intentions. She was sure that he meant her no harm; but she did not doubt that he would banish Covenant, Jeremiah, and her in an instant if they endangered his relations.h.i.+p with Berek-or the security of the Arch of Time.

Berek regarded her somberly. In his gaze, she could almost trace the contention between his visceral impulse to trust her and his necessary concerns for his people, his Queen, his oath. Then she saw his expression soften, felt the tension in his shoulders relax; and she knew before he spoke that she had gained what she needed most from him.

”My lady Linden,” he said with wry regret. ”these matters surpa.s.s me. I lack the lore to comprehend them. But a trek of two hundred leagues in this winter-That I am able to grasp. It will be cruel to you, bereft as you are of food, or horses, or adequate raiment.

”To the extent that my own impoverishment permits, I will supply all that you require”-he held up his hand to forestall any response-”and count myself humbled because I cannot equal your largesse. The knowledge of hurtloam alone is incomparable bounty, yet you have given more, far more. If you are thus generous in all of your dealings, you will need no songs or tales of mine to honor you, for you will be fabled wherever you are known.”

Linden wanted to protest, No, my lord. You're the legend here. I'm not like that. But his unantic.i.p.ated gentleness left her mute. She was too close to tears to find her voice.

If she could have believed in Covenant's honesty, her grat.i.tude would have been more than she knew how to contain.

Along the Last Hills For three days, Linden, Covenant, and Jeremiah rode into the northwest, hugging the Last Hills as closely as they could without venturing onto terrain that would hamper their gaunt and weary horses. Over her cloak and her old clothes, Linden wore a heavy robe lined with fur which-according to Hand Damelon-had been scavenged from one of Vettalor's abandoned camps. Her hands she kept swaddled in strips cut from the edge of a blanket: a wider strip she wrapped like a scarf around her mouth and neck. Still the cold was a galling misery, day and night. And during the day, hard sunlight glanced like blades off the crusted snow and ice, forcing her to squint. Her head throbbed mercilessly.

With Covenant and Jeremiah riding nearby, she could not draw on the Staff of Law, even to sustain her abject mount. Instead she carried it quiescent across her lap; clung to the reins and the saddle with her abused hands. Somehow Covenant had endured Berek's touch. Still she feared that he and Jeremiah would not be able to withstand close proximity to the Staffs power.

They had their own difficulties. Their mounts were restive, hard to control. The beasts s.h.i.+ed at every shadow despite their weariness. At times, they made frail attempts to buck. Linden suspected that the horses sensed something in her companions which she could not. On a purely animal level, they were disturbed by the secretive theurgy of their riders.

But Covenant and her son scorned their mounts' uneasiness. They stayed near Linden at all times, as though they meant to ensure that she did not use her Staff. And they appeared oblivious to the cold; preternaturally immune to the ordinary requirements of flesh and blood. They had refused cloaks and robes, did not wear blankets over their shoulders. Yet they revealed no discomfort. Only Covenant's seething impatience and Jeremiah's glum unresponsiveness betrayed their underlying discontent.

They ate the stale bread, tough meat, and dried fruit that Berek had provided: they drank the water and the raw wine. Those simple human needs they retained. And at night, they built campfires which generated enough heat to encourage slumber. As far as Linden knew, however, neither of them slept. Whenever she was roused by cold or nightmares, she saw them still seated, wakeful and silent, beside the fading coals. At daybreak, they were on their feet ahead of her.

They hardly spoke to each other: they seldom addressed her. Nor did she question them, although the throng of her doubts and concerns clouded her horizons in every direction. She and her companions were constrained because they were not alone.

At Berek's command, Yellinin rode with them, leading a string of six more horses laden with supplies: food, drink, blankets, and firewood, as well as provender for the mounts; as much of Berek's generosity as the horses' meager strength could carry.

The outrider herself said little. Berek had ordered her to ask no questions; and she obeyed with hard-bitten determination, stifling her curiosity and loneliness. She could not have been sure that she would ever see her lord or her comrades again. Yet even when Linden tried practical queries-How far have we ridden today? Do you think that this weather will hold?-Yellinin answered so curtly that Linden's more personal questions seemed to freeze in her mouth.

At all times, Covenant kept his right hand hidden in his pocket. Linden supposed that he did so in order to conceal his one resemblance to Berek Halfhand. But she felt sure that his caution was wasted. With his awakened senses, Berek must have discerned the truth for himself.

Jeremiah also was a halfhand, although he had lost different fingers. Legends might grow from such small details By the end of the third day, Linden reached the limit of her endurance. Yellinin's emotional plight nagged at her like a bad tooth: she was acutely aware of the slow erosion which wore the outrider's determination down to bereavement. Nor could she ignore the leaden distress of the horses. And the questions that she needed to ask her companions were becoming a form of torment: as bitter as the cold, and as relentless.

In addition, she felt a grinding anxiety for Jeremiah. According to Yellinin, the riders had covered no more than twenty-five leagues when the sun set on the third day. Measured by the necessity of ascending among the Westron Mountains in order to avoid Garroting Deep, their progress was paltry. At this rate, Covenant and Jeremiah would never attain their goal. The horses would not survive: Linden was sure of that. If she could not sustain herself with Earthpower, she herself would fail long before she caught sight of Melenkurion Skyweir.

Her son would be Lord Foul's prisoner forever.

That night, as she faded s.h.i.+vering toward sleep, she realized that most of her decisions in this time had been inspired by cold; predicated on the brutality of winter. She had chosen to trek toward Berek's camp because she was freezing and could not think of an alternative. But when she had achieved her aim-horses, blankets, food-she had accomplished nothing. The journey ahead of her was still impossible, just as it had been four days ago. Yellinin and her mounts were giving as much help as their worn flesh allowed, and it was not enough.

Linden had already watched too many innocents suffer and die for her sake.

Now the cold required another decision of her. She had to accept that her choices had been proven inadequate; that the obstacles in her road were not ones which she could surmount. The time had come to admit that she was too weak to carry the burden of Jeremiah's need, and the Land's. This winter demanded more strength than she possessed.

Therefore she would have to find a way to trust Covenant.

The next morning, when she struggled out of the scant warmth of her blankets, she learned that two of the horses had died during the night: Covenant's mount, and Jeremiah's. Then she could no longer deny the truth. The cold had beaten her. If bearing her companions killed just two horses every three days-and if there were no storms-and if the terrain did not become more demandingYellinin's dogged aid would nonetheless cease to serve any purpose long before the Last Hills merged with the mountains.

Coughing at the bite of ice in her lungs, Linden gathered what warmth she could from the campfire while Berek's warrior cooked a breakfast of gruel laced with fruit. She took as much time as she needed to eat what she believed would be her last hot meal. For a while, she held her robe open to the flames, hoping that the fur would absorb enough heat to preserve her. Then, when Yellinin had prepared mounts for the riders, and had withdrawn to ready the remaining horses, Linden quietly asked Covenant and Jeremiah to ride ahead without her.

To answer Covenant's vexation and Jeremiah's alarm, she explained, ”I need a little distance so that I can use my Staff. Don't worry, I'll catch up with you.” She could hardly miss their trail through the hard snow. ”I want Yellinin to turn back. But convincing her probably won't be easy. I'll have to show her that we don't need her, and for that-”

Linden indicated the Staff with a shrug.

”It's about time,” muttered Covenant as if he had expected her to make up her mind days ago. ”Just don't trust her. Berek didn't send her out here to help us. He wants her to warn him if we double back. h.e.l.l, he probably has scouts on our trail right now, just in case we kill her and try to take him by surprise.”

Staring at him, Linden felt a slash of yearning for the Thomas Covenant of her memories. Surely he could see that Yellinin was dying to return to her people? But she did not argue. Her suspicions ran too deep. If she challenged him, she would make him wary; and then she would lose any possibility that he might reveal the truth about himself.

”Just go,” she urged him stiffly. ”And brace yourself. I'll take care of Yellinin.”

Jeremiah attempted an unconvincing smile. ”Thanks, Mom. You're doing the right thing.” To Covenant, he added. ”The Theomach won't object. He trusts her now.”

”I know,” Covenant sighed as he and Jeremiah mounted their new horses. ”I'm just too b.l.o.o.d.y frustrated to be gracious about it. This is our fifth day, and were still nowhere near Melenkurion Skyweir. These d.a.m.n delays are killing me.”

Rolling its eyes, Jeremiah's mount flinched. Covenant's emaciated mustang stumbled awkwardly. But they kept their seats. In moments, they rode out of sight around the curve of a hill.

Linden remained where she was, clinging to the last of the campfire while she waited for Yellinin.