Part 41 (1/2)
Opposite the Harrow-directly between him and Linden-the Mandoubt squatted as she had beside her gentle flames in Garroting Deep. She faced her fellow Insequent steadily. The curve of her back suggested poised stillness rather than relaxation. s.h.i.+ning through the unkempt tangle of her hair, the firelight seemed to crown her head with an oblique glory, subtle and ineffable. Stark against the campfire, she wore a nimbus of determination.
Stave stood at Linden's side a little ahead of her. Perhaps he thought that if the Harrow snared her again he would be able to save her by stepping in front of her; blocking the Harrow's gaze.
The Humbled also had emerged from the night. They had positioned themselves behind the Harrow, waiting to see what would transpire. They had fought longer than Stave: their bruises and abrasions were worse. Nevertheless Linden did not doubt that they would attack again without hesitation if they saw a need to do so.
The random flare and gutter of the flames effaced the stars overhead. But around the horizons of the plain, and along the rims of Revelstone, faint gleams still defined the dark like sprinkled flecks of ice. And behind her, Linden felt the moon arc placidly across the heavens, undismayed by earthbound conflicts.
On other matters,” the woman was saying as if the Harrow had not spoken, ”the Mandoubt does not intrude. a.s.suredly she does not. You will act according to your desires. But she will see your threat to the lady's mind and spirit and flesh abandoned. If you accede, no evil has occurred. And if she fails, there is again no evil. But if you seek to measure yourself against her, and are outmatched, she will require your bound oath.
”Then will your paths be altered in all sooth, and there will be no gainsaying the Mandoubt's culpability. She herself will not question it.”
The campfire dwindled, and night crowded closer, as the Mandoubt said distinctly, ”Choose, then, proud one. Accede or give battle. The Mandoubt has grown weary in the service of that which she deems precious. She does not fear to fail.”
The Harrow's voice was full of amus.e.m.e.nt as he replied, ”Do you dare this challenge?” Yet behind his mirth, Linden thought that she heard the gnas.h.i.+ng of boulders. ”Have you fallen prematurely into madness?”
”Pssht,” retorted the woman dismissively. ”Words. The Mandoubt will have deeds or naught.”
Linden wanted to protest, No, don't do this! I can fight for myself! The Mandoubt had nothing to gain here: she could only lose. And she was Linden's friend. But Linden's voice was locked in her throat.
Urgent fire curled around her fingers and ran along the Staff as she prepared to defend the older woman.
”Then ready yourself, relic of foolishness,” the Harrow p.r.o.nounced with plush confidence. ”You cannot rule me.”
Stave s.h.i.+fted closer to the direct line between Linden and the Harrow's eyes.
Linden saw nothing to indicate that a contest had commenced. Her health-sense discerned nothing. To all appearances, the Harrow simply stood with his arms folded over his chest, a figure of irrefragable self-possession and surety. Opposite him, the Mandoubt squatted motionless, seemingly devoid of power or purpose; as mundane as the gradual slope of the plain.
But the campfire continued to shrink as though moisture from some cryptic source were soaking imperceptibly into the wood. Around the battle, darkness thickened like a wall.
If she could have spoken, Linden would have asked Stave, What are they doing? She might have asked, Have they started yet? But she had no voice. As the flames died, they seemed draw sound as well as light with them. Nothing punctuated the night except her own taut breathing and the m.u.f.fled thud of her heart.
But then, subtly, by increments too small to be defined, the Harrow began to fade as if his physical substance were being diluted or stretched thin. Some undetectable magic siphoned away his tangible existence.
For long moments, Linden watched the change, transfixed, until she was able to catch glimpses of the Humbled through the Harrow's form.
With a palpable jolt, the Mandoubt's opponent snapped back into solidity. The flames of his fire flared higher, driving back the encroachment of the night.
Without risking the hunger of his eyes, Linden could not see his expression. But his chest heaved, and his strained breathing was louder than hers.
A heartbeat later, he started to fade again, leaking out of himself into some other dimension of reality. Or of time.
This change was more rapid. He seemed to dissolve in front of her as the fire died toward embers. Clyme, Branl, and Galt were clearly visible through the veil of the Harrow's substance.
The impact when he forced himself back into definition was as visceral as a blow. Linden felt the intensity of his exertion. It touched her percipience on a pitch that sc.r.a.ped along her nerves, vibrated in the marrow of her bones. His flames guttered higher as he gasped hoa.r.s.ely. Hazarding a glance upward, she saw that his cheeks were slick with sweat. Fine droplets caught a skein of ruddy reflections in his beard.
The Mandoubt was beating him- His arms remained clasped across his chest. Yet Linden could see that they trembled. All of his muscles were trembling.
The Mandoubt still had not moved. But now her plump form and rounded shoulders no longer suggested quiet readiness. Instead they were implacable; vivid with innominate strength. She had made herself as unyielding as the bedrock of mountains.
Earthpower and protests itched for expression in Linden's hands as the Mandoubt renewed the Harrow's failure.
Now he did not fade slowly toward evanescence; dissolution. Instead he appeared to flicker. For an instant, he was nearly solid: then he came so close to transparency that only his outlines remained: then he struggled back into substance. Linden felt every throb and falter of his efforts to find some finger hold or flaw in the Mandoubt's obdurate expulsion.
If Stave and the Humbled had struck at him, they might have broken his bones; or they might have pa.s.sed through him as if he were no more than mist. But they merely witnessed the eerie conflict, as unmoving as the Mandoubt, and as unmoved.
Linden did not realize that she was holding her breath until a soundless implosion s.n.a.t.c.hed the air from her lungs. The sudden inrush of force swallowed the Harrow's power, and the Mandoubt's. As Linden panted in surprise, the Harrow's campfire burned normally again. He stood across the flames from the Mandoubt as if nothing had occurred. Only the heaviness of his respiration, and the sweat on his face, and the wincing hunch of his shoulders betrayed the truth.
”That is difficult knowledge,” he remarked when he was able to speak evenly. ”It emulates the Theomach's. Yet I am not displaced.”
”a.s.suredly.” The Mandoubt shook her head as if she were casting sparks from her hair. ”The Mandoubt acknowledges that choices remain to you, flight among them. But you will not flee. Greed will not permit you to surrender your intent. Nor are you able to withstand the Mandoubt's resolve.”
”You know me, then,” he admitted. ”Yet you are thereby doomed. While I endure, your long service comes to naught.”
Again the woman shook her head. ”Perchance it is so. Perchance it is not.” Her tone was as implacable as her strength. ”No conclusion is reached until you have given your bound oath.”
Grimly Linden hoped that the Harrow would refuse. If he continued to fight, or chose to retreat, she could argue that the Mandoubt had not prevented his designs. And if she cast her own force into the fray, surely the Mandoubt could not be held accountable for the outcome? d.a.m.n it, the woman was her friend.
But the Harrow accepted defeat. ”It is given.” Resentment pulsed in his voice. ”If it must be spoken, I will speak it.
”My purpose against your lady's person I forswear.” As he uttered them, the words took on resonance. They expanded outward as if they were addressed to the night and the uncaring stars. ”From this moment, I will accept from her only that which she chooses to grant. No other aspect of my desires will I relinquish. But my efforts against her mind and spirit and flesh I hereby abandon. In herself, she will have no cause to fear me. And I adjure all of the Insequent to heed me. If I do not abide by this oath, I pray that their vengeance upon me will be both cruel and prolonged.”
When he was finished, his voice relapsed to its normal depth and richness. ”Does this content you, old woman'?”
”It does.” The Mandoubt's reply was soft and faintly forlorn, as if she rather than the Harrow had been humbled. She slumped beside the fire as though her bones had begun to crack. ”a.s.suredly. The Mandoubt acknowledges your oath, and is content.”
”Then,” responded the Harrow with fertile malice, ”I bid you joy in your coming madness. It will be brief, for it brings death swiftly in its wake.”
Offering his opponent an elaborate and mocking bow, he turned away.
At last, Linden found her voice. ”Just a minute!” she snapped. ”I'm not done with you.”
c.o.c.king an eyebrow in a show of surprise, the Harrow faced her. ”Lady?”
As he had sworn, his eyes exerted no compulsion. Nevertheless Linden avoided them. Instead she moved to crouch beside the Mandoubt. Resting a hand on the older woman's shoulder, she murmured. ”Are you all right?”
She meant, Why did you do that? I needed you at first. But then I could have fought for myself.
With an effort that made her old muscles quake, the woman straightened her back and raised her head to look at Linden. ”My lady,” she said in a voice that quavered, ”there is no need for haste. The Mandoubt's doom is a.s.sured, yet it will not overtake her instantly. You and she will speak together, friend to friend.” Her mismatched eyes searched Linden's face. ”The Mandoubt prays that you will not prolong the Harrow's departure on her behalf.”
”Are you sure?” Linden insisted. ”There must be something that I can do for you.”
”a.s.suredly,” replied the old woman: a dying fall of sound. ”Permit the Mandoubt a moment's respite.” Her chin sagged back down to her breast. ”Then she will speak.”
Her words were sparks in the ready tinder of Linden's outrage.
”In that case-”
Abruptly Linden surged upright to confront the Harrow.
He had recovered his air of undisturbed cert.i.tude. The night had cooled his cheeks and brow, and his strong arms rested casually on his chest as if his struggles had already lost their meaning. His eyes probed Linden, daring her to look directly into them; but she refused. If she could, she intended to scald the danger out of them. For the moment, however, she fixed her gaze on the hollow at the base of his throat.