Part 33 (2/2)

At last, Linden raised her head. She had become certain that she heard pieces of music, the scattered notes of an unresolved threnody. They came skirling among the trees, taking shape as they approached, implying words which they did not utter. know the hate of hands grown bold. She flung a look at the Mandoubt and saw that both of the woman's eyes were alight, vivid blue and stark orange. The Mandoubtp> know the hate of hands grown bold. She flung a look at the Mandoubt and saw that both of the woman's eyes were alight, vivid blue and stark orange. The Mandoubtp> had fallen silent; or the song had stilled her voice. Yet she appeared to face the Forestal's advance with comfortable unconcern.

Since days before the Earth was old And Time began its walk to doom, The Forests world's bare rock anneal, Forbidding dusty waste and death.

As if in response, the Mandoubt murmured, ”Though wide world's winds untimely blow, And earthquakes rock and cliff unseal, My leaves grow green and seedlings bloom.”

A wind rose through the woods, adding the dry harmony of barren boughs and brittle evergreen needles to the mournful ire of the music. Stern s.n.a.t.c.hes of melody seemed to gather around the campfire like stars, underscored by the almost subterranean mutter of trunks and roots. Linden had seen and felt and tasted that song before, but in an angrier and less laden key. Now the woodland dirge held notes like questions, brief arcs and broad spans tuned to the pitch of uncertainty. Caerroil Wildwood may have intended to quash those who had raised flames here, but he had other desires as well, purposes which were not those of an out-and-out butcher.

A s.h.i.+mmer of melody rippled the surface of the night like a breeze pa.s.sing over a still pool. The presence and power of the song was palpable, although Linden beheld it only with her health-sense. Nevertheless each note and chime and lift of music swirling from the branches like autumn leaves implied an imminent light which gradually coalesced into the form of a man.

Instinctively she reached for the Staff. But the Mandoubt halted her by grasping her arm.

”Withhold, lady.” The older woman did not glance at Linden. Instead she studied the Forestal's coming with her lit gaze. ”The Great One's knowledge of such power suffices. He has no wish to witness it now.”

Linden understood in spite of her bottomless fatigue. The Mandoubt did not want her to do anything which might be interpreted as a threat.

Linden obeyed. Resting her hands on her thighs, she simply watched the stately figure, lambent as a monarch, walking among the dark trees.

The Forestal was tall, and his long hair and beard flowed whitely about him like water. From his eyes shone a piercing and severe silver which showed neither iris nor pupil; light so acute that she wanted to duck her head when his gaze touched her. In the bend of one arm, he carried a short, twisted branch as though it were a scepter. Flowers she could not identify ornamented his neck in a garland of rich purple and purest white; and his samite robe was white as well, austere and free of taint from collar to hem. As he pa.s.sed among the trees gravely, they appeared to do him homage, lowering their boughs in obeisance. His steps were wreathed in song as if he were melody incarnate.

The Mandoubt's eyes gleamed in appreciation. Their weird colors conveyed a placid warmth untrammeled by fear or doubt. When the Forestal stopped, regal and ominous, at the edge of the cookfire's glow, she inclined her head in a grave bow.

”The Mandoubt greets you, Great One,” she said with no trace of apprehension. ”Be welcome at our fireside. Will you sup with us? Our fare is homely-oh, a.s.suredly-but it is proffered with gladness, and the offer is kindly meant.”

”Presumptuous woman.” Caerroil Wildwood's voice was the music of a rippling stream, delicate and clear. It seemed to chuckle to itself, although the silver flash of his eyes under his thick white brows denied mirth. Rather his glances demanded awe at his withheld wrath. ”I do not require such sustenance.”

Linden bit her lip anxiously; but the older woman's smile was unconcerned. ”Then why have you come? The Mandoubt asks with respect. Has this revered forest no need of your might elsewhere?”

”I am throughout the trees,” sang the Forestal, ”elsewhere as well as here. Seek not to mislead me. You have intruded fire into Garroting Deep, where flames are met with loathing and fear. I have come to determine your purpose.”

”Ah.” Linden's companion nodded. ”This the Mandoubt questions, Great One.” She raised both hands in deprecation. ”With respect, with respect.” Then she rested her arms on her plump belly. ”Do you not crave our extermination? Is it not your intent to slay all who encroach upon the ancient Deep'?”

The guardian of the trees appeared to a.s.sent. ”From border to border, my demesne thirsts for the recompense of blood.”

The Mandoubt nodded again.

”a.s.suredly. And that thirst is justified, the Mandoubt avers. Millennia of inconsolable loss provide its vindication.”

”Yet I refrain,” Caerroil Wildwood replied.

”a.s.suredly,” repeated the Mandoubt. ”Therefore the Mandoubt's heart is rich with grat.i.tude. Nonetheless the purpose which the Great One desires to determine is his, not ours.

”Gazing upon us, he has observed that he has no cause for ire. And he has discerned as well that he must not harm the lady. He has heard all that the Mandoubt has said of her. He perceives her service to that which is held dear. He has come seeking the name of his own intent, not that of the Mandoubt, or of the lady.”

When the Forestal fixed his burning stare on Linden, she felt an almost physical impact. Fighting herself, she met his eyes; let him search her with silver. She heard a kind of recognition in his music, a wrath more personal than his appet.i.te for the blood of those who slaughtered trees. Slowly his gaze sank to consider her apparel, study Covenant's ring through her s.h.i.+rt, acknowledge the bullet hole over her heart, regard the Staff of Law. He noted her gra.s.s-stained jeans-and did not sing of her death.

Instead he returned his attention to the Mandoubt.

”I am the Land's Creator's hold,” he p.r.o.nounced in melody. ”She wears the mark of fecundity and long gra.s.s. Also she has paid the price of woe. And the sigil of the Land's need has been placed upon her.” He may have been referring to her stabbed hand. ”Therefore she will not perish within this maimed remnant of the One Forest. Nor will any Forestal sing against her while she keeps faith with gra.s.s and tree.

”Come,” he commanded in a brusque fall of notes. ”My path is chosen. She must stand upon Gallows Howe.”

Turning his back, he strode away.

At once, but without haste, the Mandoubt rose to her feet. ”Come, lady,” she echoed when Linden hesitated. ”And now the lady must bring the Staff. a.s.suredly so.” She nodded. ”The Great One will grant a boon which she has not asked of him, and he will require that in return which she does not expect. Yet his aid must not be refused. His desired recompense will not exceed her.”

Linden blinked at the woman. She understood nothing, and her heart was granite: beneath her fear of the Forestal, she held only Jeremiah and anger-and Thomas Covenant. For food and drink and warmth, she might have been thankful; but she had lost her son. Caerroil Wildwood had already promised that he would not slay her. What need did she have for an ambiguous gift which she would not know how to repay?

Caerroil Wildwood could not return her to her proper time. No Forestal had that power.

Carefully she set the Mandoubt's flask against a stone; but she did not stand. Instead she looked into the strange discrepancy of the Mandoubt's eyes.

You told me to 'Be cautious of love.”' There is a glamour upon it-”You knew who they were.” Roger and the croyel. ”Why didn't you just say so?”

If the Mandoubt had spoken plainly- For the first time, the older woman's mien hinted at disquiet; perhaps even at unhappiness. ”It is not permitted-” she began, then stopped herself. When she had closed her eyes for a moment, she opened them again and faced Linden with chagrin in her gaze.

”Nay, the Mandoubt will speak sooth. She does not permit it of herself, though her heart is wrung in her old breast by what has ensued, as it is by what may yet transpire. Her intent is kind, lady. Be a.s.sured that it is. But she has acquired neither wisdom nor knowledge adequate to contest that which appears needful. Others do so, to their cost. The Mandoubt does not. If she craves to be kind in deed as well as intent, she has learned that she must betimes forbear. Yet she has won grat.i.tude from other people in other times, if not from the lady.

”The Great One bids us,” she finished softly. ”We must follow.”

Linden wanted to refuse. She wanted to demand, Needful? Needful? The Forestal and even the Mandoubt surpa.s.sed her. But what choice did she have? Ever since she had returned to the Land, she had been guided by other people's desires and demands, other people's manipulations, and all of her actions had been fraught with peril. She could not afford to reject aid in any form.

Sighing, she clasped the Staff of Law and pushed herself to her feet.

As she did so, she found that the Mandoubt's providence had done her more good than she had realized. Her muscles protested, but they did not fail. Indeed, they hardly trembled. Food and springwine and soothing warmth had eased her weakness, although they could not relieve her exhaustion, or soften her heart.

When the Mandoubt gestured toward the trees, Linden accompanied her into the forest, led by the majesty and restraint of Caerroil Wildwood's music.

The way was not far-or it did not seem far in the thrall of the Forestal's singing. Briefly Linden and the Mandoubt walked among trees and darkness; and on all sides sycamores and oaks, birches and Gilden, cedars and firs proclaimed their unappeased recriminations. But then they found themselves on barren ground that rose up to form a high hill like a burial-mound. Even through her boots, Linden felt death in the soil. Here centuries or millennia of bloodshed had soaked into the dirt until it would never again support life. This, then, was Gallows Howe: the place where Caerroil Wildwood slew the butchers of his trees.

At first, she winced in recognition at every step. Until her betrayal under Melenkurion Skyweir, she had not understood people or beings or powers that feasted on death. She had been a physician, opposed to such hungers. Evil she knew, in herself as well as in her foes: she was intimately acquainted with the desire to inflict pain on those who had not caused it. But this unalloyed and unforgiving compulsion toward revenge; this righteous rage-She had not known that she contained such possibilities until she had beheld her son's suffering.

Here, however, she found that she welcomed the taste of retribution. It made her stronger.

She knew what it meant.

Bringing her to this place sanctified by slaughter, Caerroil Wildwood had already given her a gift.

In starlight and the lucent allusions of the Forestal's music, she saw two dead black trees standing beyond the lifeless hillcrest. They were ten or more paces apart, as strait and unanswerable as denunciations. All of their branches had been stripped away except for one heavy bough in each trunk above the ground. Long ages ago, these limbs had grown together to form a crossbar between the trees: Caerroil Wildwood's gibbet. Here he had hanged the most fatal of those adversaries that came within his reach.

Linden's reluctance beside the Mandoubt's gentle cookfire was gone. Gaining strength with every step, she ascended the Howe. She could think now, and begin to strive. On this denuded hill, beneath those pitiless trees, she might accept any boon-and pay any price.

At the crest, she and her companion stopped. For a moment, they appeared to be alone: then Caerroil Wildwood stood before them with song streaming from his robe and bright silver in his eyes. The Mandoubt lowered her gaze as though she felt a measure of diffidence. But Linden held up her head, gripped her Staff, and waited for the Forestal to reveal his intentions.

For a time, he did not regard either woman. Instead he sang to himself. His song conveyed impressions of Ravers and loss; of a fading Interdict as the Colossus of the Fall waned; of Viles and rapacious kings and disdain. And it implied the era of the One Forest, when the Land had flourished as its Creator had intended, and there was no need of Forestals to defend the ravaged paean of the world. He may have been probing his own intentions, testing his decision to withhold Linden's death, and the Mandoubt's.

Linden suspected that if she listened long enough she might hear extraordinary revelations about the Land's ancient past. She might be told how the Ravers had been born and nurtured, or how they had come under Lord Foul's dominion. She might learn how even the great puissance of the Forestals had failed to sustain the forests. But she had lost her patience for long tales which would not aid her. Without conscious forethought, she interrupted the sumptuous reverie of Caerroil Wildwood's music.

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