Part 41 (2/2)
”I think that I understand this,” she said between her teeth. ”But I don't have much experience with you Insequent, and I want to be sure that I've got it straight.
”I'm safe from you now? Is that right?'
Stave had joined her beside the Mandoubt. He looked at her intently.
He may have wished to warn her; to explain something. But what he saw in her silenced him.
The Humbled remained poised, apparently pa.s.sionless, behind the Harrow. They paid no attention to their hurts.
”Indeed.” The Harrow's defeat left a caustic edge in his voice. ”Until you are minded to grant my desires, I will not attempt to wrest them from you.”
”And your desires are-?” Linden demanded. ”I want to hear you say it again.”
”What I seek, lady,” he answered without hesitation. ”is to possess your instruments of power.” Then he shrugged. ”What I will have, however, is your companions.h.i.+p.”
Linden glared at his throat as though she meant to rip it open. ”What in G.o.d's name makes you think that I'm going to let you follow me around?'
The Harrow laughed mordantly. ”Apart from the mere detail that you cannot prevent me? There is a service which I am able to perform for you, and which you will not obtain from any other living being.”
Oh really? ”In that case,” she repeated, ”there's something that you should know about me.”
Again he laughed. ”Elucidate, lady. If there can be aught that I do not know of you, I will-”
Softly, almost whispering, Linden p.r.o.nounced. ”The Mandoubt is my friend.”
As swift as anger, she summoned a howl of power from her Staff and hurled it straight into the Harrow's eyes.
Her vehemence was hot enough to resemble the fire which had fused her heart. It should have burned its way deep into his brain. If it had left him blind and useless, as doomed as the Mandoubt, she would not have permitted herself one small stumble of regret. This was what she had become, and she did not mean to step back from herself.
But she was not as quick as the Harrow. Before her blast struck him, he slapped a hand over his eyes. Her fire splashed away like water.
For a long moment, she poured Earthpower at him, dispersing the dark; trying to overwhelm his defenses. However, he was proof against her: he appeared to withstand her a.s.sault easily, almost negligently. When she had tested him until she was sure that she could not daunt or damage him with the Staff alone, she released her flame and let night wash back around the campfire.
As the Harrow lowered his hand to gaze at her, unconcerned, she said harshly, ”You're tough,” loathing the tremor in her voice. ”I'll give you that. But don't think for a second that I can't hurt you. If you know as much about me as you claim, you know that I can do a h.e.l.l of a lot more than this.”
Masked by his beard, the Harrow's mouth twisted. ”As your 'friend' has said, perchance it is so. Perchance it is not. For your part, know that my oath does not preclude me from causing you such pain that you will regret your unseemly defiance.”
Before she could retort, he added, ”I bid you farewell. Rail against me at your pleasure. I will claim your companions.h.i.+p when you attempt aught which interests me.”
Brusquely he bowed. Then he turned and strode away in the direction of Revelstone. The Humbled did not step aside for him. Nevertheless he pa.s.sed through them, leaving them untouched-and visibly startled in spite of their stoicism. Then he seemed to evaporate into the darkness. In an instant, he was gone.
The Humbled stared after him. Their stances suggested that they expected to be a.s.sailed. After a moment, however, they appeared to accept his disappearance. Shrugging, they dismissed him and approached the campfire.
The Mandoubt made a vague plucking gesture. When Linden saw it, she moved at once to the woman's side and extended her arm. The Mandoubt grasped it feebly, tried to heave herself to her feet. At first, she failed: her strength had left her. But then Stave added his support, and she was able to rise.
Clinging to both Linden and the former Master, the Mandoubt panted thinly, ”My lady. In one matter. You have erred.” She took a moment to calm her breathing, then said, ”Your challenge was unseemly. He has given his oath. a.s.suredly so. And the choice to demand it of him was freely made. It is through no act of his that the Mandoubt must now pa.s.s away.”
”I don't care.” Linden hunched close to the woman, trying vainly to transmit some her own health into the Mandoubt's sudden frailty. ”I care about you.”
And you do not forgive,” Stave put in sternly. His tone held a hint of reproach. ”This you have demonstrated. You are altered, Chosen and Sun-Sage. The woman who accompanied the ur-Lord Thomas Covenant to the redemption of the Land would not have struck thus.”
”What do you want from me'?” Linden countered. She could not bear sorrow or shame: they would unmake her. Under Melenkurion Skyweir, such emotions had been clad in granite. ”Am I supposed to call him back and apologize? G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Stave, she's going to die, and she did it for me.” More softly, she repeated. ”She did it for me.”
Stave held Linden's glare without blinking; but the Mandoubt intervened.
”Oh, a.s.suredly,” she said with more firmness. ”Of a certainty, the Mandoubt will perish. But first she will fall into madness.”
Swallowing anger, Linden asked, ”Does that have to happen? Isn't there something we can do about it?”
The woman sighed. ”It is the way of the Insequent, inherent in us. It is required of the Mandoubt by birth rather than by choice or scruple. The Insequent exert no demands upon each other, for the cost of such conflict would be extinction. Some centuries past, the Vizard sought to thwart the Harrow's desires, for he deemed them contrary to his own purpose. Thus was the Vizard lost to use and name and life. The outcome of what the Mandoubt has done will not be otherwise.”
The eyes of the Humbled widened momentarily, and Stave c.o.c.ked an eyebrow; but Linden paid no attention to them.
”Ere that end, however,” the Mandoubt continued, ”there is much that must be said.” She glanced at Stave. ”You also must speak, Haruchai. The Mandoubt falters, for her years come upon her swiftly. She is too weary to relate the tale of your people. Yet that tale must be told.”
”It must not,” countered Clyme promptly. ”There is no need. And the will of the Masters has not been consulted.”
The Mandoubt squinted at Clyme with her orange eye. In spite of her weakness, she retained enough force to silence him. ”Were you efficacious against the Harrow, Master? Did he not dismiss your efforts, as did the Vizard in a distant age and place? Then do not speak to the Mandoubt of 'need.' While she retains any portion of herself, she will determine what is needful.”
To Linden's surprise, all three of the Humbled bowed, and said nothing more.
While she scrambled to grasp why any Master would show the Mandoubt such respect when earlier the Humbled had attacked the Harrow without provocation, Stave said. ”If there is much that must be said, perhaps it would be well to speak first of this 'service' which the Harrow may elect to perform for the Chosen.”
The Mandoubt shook her head. ”Nay. Doing so will alter my lady's path-and the Mandoubt has given her life in the belief that my lady must be trusted, though her deeds engender horrors. The Mandoubt will not disturb a future which eludes her sight.”
”Then tell me why you did it,” Linden asked; pleaded. ”I needed you at first. You saved me. But then I could have defended myself,” while the Harrow's intentions had only been delayed. ”You didn't have to sacrifice yourself.”
The woman sighed. Has the Mandoubt not said-a.s.suredly, and often-that she is weary?” Linden could feel the Mandoubt's vitality slowly seeping from her limbs. ”She prefers her own pa.s.sing to a life in which she may behold the end of days.”
Then she turned her blue eye on Linden. ”Yet if she is craven, persuaded to madness and death by apprehension, she is not merely so.
”My lady, you have become the Mandoubt's friend, as she is yours. You are sorely transformed. That is sooth. You have become fearsome. Yet in Garroting Deep, you found within yourself the means to warm the Mandoubt's heart. There she learned that the mystery of your needs and desires is unfathomable. It resembles the mystery of life, rich in malice and wonder. That good may be accomplished by evil means defies explication. Yet the Mandoubt has a.s.sured herself that you are equal to such contradictions. Therefore she believes that you must not be turned aside.”
Slowly the Mandoubt lowered her head to rest her tired neck. At the same time, however, her tone became sharper, whetted by indignation.
”My lady, the Harrow's purpose lies athwart your path. His blandishments you may withstand. But if he failed here to consume your choices and your love, he would attempt the same wrong at another time. Oh, a.s.suredly. Again and again he would attempt it, relentlessly, until your strength faltered. Then would you be altogether lost.
”This the Mandoubt could not suffer, trusting you as she does. Therefore has she spent her mind and life to obtain the Harrow's oath of forbearance.”
Aching at the scale of the Mandoubt's sacrifice, Linden said in a small voice. ”Then tell me how. How did you beat him'?”
”My lady,” the Mandoubt sighed, ”knowledge precludes knowledge. Our mortality cannot master one thing, and then another, and then yet another. The Harrow unmade the Demondim. The Mandoubt could not have done so.
But she has given centuries to the contemplation of Time. He has not. He pa.s.ses from place to place as he wills-oh, a.s.suredly-but he cannot journey among the years.
”The Mandoubt gained his oath by revealing that her knowledge might displace him to another age of the Earth, a time in which the objects of his greed would not exist. There he would remain, abandoned, useless to himself, until his spirit was broken.
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