Part 24 (1/2)

Jeremiah nodded. ”He's done with us.”

Apparently he saw no danger in discussing the Insequent. ”He's where he has to be. Where he's supposed to be. He would have gotten there anyway, but you made it easier for him. He should be grateful.

”But he still wants to protect the Arch. Or he says he does, anyway. He put us here. That makes him responsible for us. If you can believe him, I mean.

”He isn't worried about you.”

Jeremiah's tone hinted at anger. ”You he trusts. And he knows how to cover for you. But he thinks Covenant and I are capable of*ire emphasized the muddy hue of his eyes-”practically anything. He doesn't understand-”

Swallowing convulsively, Jeremiah fell silent. Covenant rode gazing into the distance as if he had no interest in the conversation.

Cover for you? ”Understand what?”

Linden asked.

Jeremiah curled his hands into fists on his mount's reins. Fiercely he retorted, He doesn't understand how hard were trying to do exactly the right thing. Mom, if we deserved what he thinks of us, Covenant wouldn't have brought me to you in the first place. It isn't just insulting, it's so frustrating-”

Again Jeremiah stopped. This time, he made an obvious effort to master himself. When he continued, he sounded sad; pained.

”And it's a lot worse for Covenant than it is for me. We've had to endure too much Earthpower. He's holding us together. But that's not all. He's keeping what's really happening to me-what Foul is doing to my actual body-” Jeremiah shuddered. ”He's my friend. He's keeping me from going crazy.”

Then he shrugged unhappily. ”I told you I didn't like the Insequent.”

One called the Vizard had urged him to construct a snare for the Elohim- His manner made Linden regret her question. ”I'm sorry, honey,” she murmured. ”I didn't mean to upset you. In a way, I can understand the Theomach's att.i.tude. I'm your mother, and forget what you're going through. You're so brave about it, you don't let itp> forget what you're going through. You're so brave about it, you don't let itp> show. The truth is”-she searched their shared distress for words-”worse than I can imagine.”

Jeremiah shrugged again. ”That's okay.” Like Covenant, he did not look at her. ”Covenant protects me pretty well.” For a moment, his tic conveyed the incongruous impression that he was winking.

Shaken by images of what the Despiser might be doing to her son, she let the hard silence of winter reclaim her. Apart from the occasional faint whisper of the breeze, the only sounds were the erratic thud and crunch of the horses' hooves, muted when they struck hard snow, sharper when they broke through crusts of ice. The plains and the hills were locked in unrelieved cold: cloudless, brilliant, and punis.h.i.+ng. Studying the sky, she found no sign of a change in the weather. Nevertheless the chill grew deeper as the terrain climbed higher. The air sc.r.a.ped at her throat and lungs, and the warmth that she had garnered from Yellinin's last campfire had been leeched away.

Eventually she would be forced to ask Covenant for heat. Or she would need to separate herself from her companions so that she could draw on the Staff.

Seeking distraction, she sifted her throng of questions for one to which the Theomach could not object. Finally she said, ”I was surprised that Berek found so much hurtloam.” And so close to his camp. ”I don't have much experience with it, but I've never seen that much hurtloam in one place. Is that normal?” She meant, In this time? ”It seemed too good to be true.”

Jeremiah glanced at Covenant. But Covenant rode as though he had not heard her; and after a moment, Jeremiah said. ”You don't know much about the geography of the Land,” as if he were explaining her situation to himself. ”You've never seen a map. And the Sunbane confused everything.”

Then he seemed to gather his thoughts. ”Some of it's about time. Where we are-I mean, when-there's more of practically everything. More trees, more Forestals, more griffins, quellvisks, and other monsters, more Cavewights, more powers. Between now and the time where we belong, things get used up. Or killed in Foul's wars. Or ruined by the Sunbane. Or just lost. But that's not the main reason.

”Berek found so much hurtloam, and he's going to keep finding it, because he's moving toward the Black River. The Black River comes out of Melenkurion Skyweir.”

Linden listened intently. Long ago, she had ridden a raft through the confluence of the Black and Mithil Rivers with Covenant and Sunder. But Covenant had told her only that the Black separated the Center Plains from the South.

”There are a lot of springs under that mountain,” Jeremiah continued. ”They come out together at the base of the cliff. Most of them are just water, but one of them is EarthBlood. It's only a trickle, but it's intense*When the Black River pours out into Garroting Deep, it's full of Earthpower. That's part of why the Deep is so deadly. Caerroil Wildwood draws some of his strength from the river.

”Of course, it gets diluted. The Black joins the Mithil, and after that you can hardly tell it comes from Melenkurion Skyweir. But the Last Hills are right on the edge of Garroting Deep. From there, the power of the EarthBlood spreads into the plains.

All that hurtloam is sort of a side effect,” he concluded. ”Earthpower has been seeping out of the mountain practically forever. Maybe that's why the One Forest used to cover the whole Land. Back in those days-ages ago-you could have mined hurtloam along every stream and river in the Center and South Plains.”

His explanation saddened Linden. While she grieved quietly for what the Land had lost, or would lose, over the millennia, Jeremiah turned to Covenant. ”She's getting cold again,” he observed with more cert.i.tude than he usually displayed when he spoke to Covenant. ”You have to keep her warm.”

”Oh, h.e.l.l,” Covenant muttered distantly, as if his thoughts were lost in Time. ”You're right. I should pay more attention.”

As before, Linden felt no invocation; discerned no rush of power. She saw only the abrupt arc of Covenant's right hand as he gestured absentmindedly, leaving a brief streak of incandescence across her vision. At once, however, heat flushed through her, banis.h.i.+ng the cold in an instant, filling her clothes and cloak and robe with more warmth than any campfire. Her toes inside her meager socks and boots seemed to burn as their numbness was swept away. When Covenant's strange theurgy faded, it left her blissfully warmed-and unaccountably frightened, as if he had given her a minuscule taste of poison; a sample of something dangerous enough to destroy her.

Presumably he protected himself-and Jeremiah-from the elements in the same fas.h.i.+on; but she could not see it.

For the rest of the day, she rode in silence, huddling into herself for courage as she huddled into her robe for protection. Covenant had suggested that he might answer her at the end of the day's ride: she needed to be ready. The nature of his power eluded her percipience. And he had already indirectly refused to explain it. Therefore his peculiar force aggravated her sense of vulnerability. She was utterly dependent upon him. If he abandoned her-or turned against her-she could keep herself warm with the Staff. She might conceivably be able to stay alive. But she would be helpless to return to her proper time.

For that reason, she contained herself while the horses trudged abjectly northwestward along the ridge of hills. At intervals, she and her companions paused to feed and water their mounts at the occasional ice-clad rill or brook, or to unwrap a little food and watered wine from one of Yellinin's bundles. But the halts were brief. Covenant seemed eager to cover as much ground as possible; and Jeremiah reflected his friend's growing antic.i.p.ation or tension. Neither of them appeared to care that they were killing their animals, despite their insurmountable distance from Melenkurion Skyweir.

Jeremiah had implied that he and Covenant intended to use their innominate magicks for some form of translocation. And Covenant had admitted that to do so would be perilous.

Gritting her resolve, she kept her mouth shut throughout the prolonged misery of the day. Explicitly she did not ask Covenant for more heat, although Jeremiah prodded him to ease her whenever her s.h.i.+vering became uncontrollable. Nor did she mention that their small supply of grain and hay for the horses would not last for more than another day. Instead she fed the beasts as liberally as they needed. She could not bear to deprive them-and she had too many other worries. If necessary, she would demand more compa.s.sion from her companions later.

At last, they rode into a premature dusk as the sun sank behind the hills; and Covenant surprised her by announcing that they would soon stop for the night.

She had expected him to continue onward as long as possible, but instead he muttered, ”It's around here somewhere. We'll spot it in a few minutes.”

A short time later, Jeremiah pointed ahead. Squinting into the shadow of the hills, Covenant nodded. When Linden looked there, she saw what appeared to be a narrow ravine as sheer as a barranca between two high ice-draped shoulders of stone. Why Covenant and Jeremiah had focused their attention on this particular ravine, she could not guess. They had pa.s.sed any number of similar formations since they had left Berek's camp. Nevertheless Covenant aimed his staggering mount in that direction. With Jeremiah and Linden, he rode up the ragged slope and into the deep cut of the ravine.

When the three of them had entered the defile and pa.s.sed a short way along its crooked length, he halted. His voice held a note of satisfaction as he said, ”Shelter.” Then he dismounted.

Shelter? Linden wondered numbly. Here? Untouched by the sun for more than a brief time every day, the ground was frozen iron. Against one wall of the barranca lay a streambed. She could detect a faint gurgling of water under its ice. But shelter? The shape of the ravine concentrated and channeled the slight breeze of the open plains until it became a fanged wind so sharp that it seemed to draw blood. If Covenant intended to spend the night here, he would find Linden and the horses as cold and dead as the ground in the morning.

But she did not protest. Instead she slid awkwardly from her mount's back and stood s.h.i.+vering beside the exhausted beast, waiting for an explanation.

”Rocks,” Covenant told Jeremiah when the boy joined him. ”A big pile. Put them right by the stream. We can get water at the same time.”

Obediently Jeremiah began to gather stones, prying them out of the hard dirt as if his fingers were as strong as crowbars, and stacking them in a mound where Covenant had indicated.

Covenant looked at Linden. She could not make out his expression in the thick gloom, but he may have been grinning. ”It's these walls,” he informed her. ”All this old granite. It'll be d.a.m.n near impossible for the Theomach to eavesdrop. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

Shelter, Linden thought. From being overheard. She would be able to ask as many questions as she wished-as long as Covenant kept her alive.

Apparently he did not expect a response. While she struggled to unburden and feed the horses, he went to help Jeremiah gather rocks.

When they had raised a mound the size of an infant's cairn, Covenant began to gesture at the stones, weaving a lattice of phosphenes across Linden's retinas. Almost at once, the rocks started to radiate comfort. As he sent his power deeper and deeper among them, the surface of the mound took on a dull ruddy glow. Soon the pile poured out enough heat to scald her flesh if she touched it, and some of the rocks looked like they might melt. Warmth acc.u.mulated as it reflected back and forth between the walls of the barranca until even the wind was affected: a kind of artificial thermocline deflected the frigid current upward, away from Linden and her companions.

Gradually the ice in the streambed began to crack and evaporate. Before long, a rivulet of fresh water was exposed beside the cairn. When a wide swath of the ice had melted, the horses were able to drink their fill without standing uncomfortably near the fiery stones.

Covenant's theurgy disturbed Linden, despite her relief. Its effects lingered in her vision, but his magic itself remained hidden; closed to her senses. He could have been Anele in one of the old man's self-absorbed phases, gesturing at nothing.

When she was satisfied with the condition of the horses, she knelt beside the brook to quench her own thirst. There she noticed that the water flowed into the ravine instead of out toward the plains. She and her companions had not encountered a stream as they entered the barranca. Apparently the water was snowmelt, and the ravine's floor sloped downward as it twisted deeper among the Last Hills.

Careful to keep his distance from Linden, Jeremiah unpacked food while she set out blankets on the softening ground. Covenant continued to gesture until he had infused the mound with so much heat that it seemed to have magma at its core. Then he lowered his halfhand. Shaking his fingers as though they had cramped, he took the last of the wine and retreated to sit against the wall of the ravine opposite the brook. There he began to drink with an air of determination, as if he wanted to insulate himself from Linden's questions. The glow of the stones seemed to light echoes in his eyes, filling them with implied flames.

She did not hurry. At a comfortable distance from the cairn, she was able to remove both her robe and her cloak, and set them near the stones to dry, without s.h.i.+vering. When she drew breath, her lungs did not hurt. There was no pain in her throat as she ate dried meat, stale bread, and old fruit; drank more water. Under other circ.u.mstances, she might have felt soothed rather than threatened.

But she had too many questions. She needed to ask them.

Jeremiah had settled himself near Covenant against the ravine wall. Protected by blankets from the dampness of the thawing dirt, Linden sat on the floor of the barranca so that she could watch her companions' faces.