Part 67 (2/2)

Now, however, Linden felt no reaction from her companions. Apart from the Harrow, they walked or rode in stillness. As far as she could tell, they were ensorcelled by the Wraiths and heard nothing. Infelice was certainly capable of making her voice, and Linden's, inaudible to others. By his own means, the Theomach had performed a similar feat in Berek's camp.

Speaking of Linden's capacity for darkness, Liand had also said, I am not afraid.

When she had steadied herself, she realized that lnfelice's p.r.o.nouncements made her stronger. Opposition confirmed her choices. The fact that she inspired fear in beings like Roger and Kastenessen, Esmer and Infelice, demonstrated that she was on the right path.

”You Elohim amaze me,” she remarked almost casually. ”You always have. After all of this time, you still don't realize that you're wrong.

”I'm not like Covenant. I never was. If he hadn't beaten Lord Foul, I would have broken.” She lacked his capacity for miracles. ”Lord Foul would have won, and none of us would be here to discuss whether Covenant and I did the right thing.”

”No, Wildwielder,” insisted Infelice with a flush of heat and pleading. ”We are not in error. Your thoughts are inadequate to comprehend ours. It was not for the Despiser's defeat that we sought to impose the burden of wild magic upon you. Had you indeed 'broken,' as you believe, both the Land and the Earth would have suffered great harm. That is sooth. But Time would have endured. Deprived of its rightful wielder, white gold is not puissant to destroy the Arch.

”Also there would now exist no Staff of Law. Its benisons are many.

Nonetheless it constrains the Timewarden. By wild magic, he came into being-and by your deeds, he was made weak.”

If you hadn't taken my ring and made that Staff, l would have been able to fix everything*

”And we are the Elohim,” Infelice continued, ”equal to all things. Across the centuries, we would have healed much. Perhaps the Despiser's blight upon the Land would have remained, but the Earth we would have preserved and restored.”

With a strange calm exasperation as unexpected and luminous as her pa.s.sage through Andelain, Linden asked. ”Then what was it all for? If you didn't care about the outcome-or the Land-why did you try so hard to force me to take Covenant's place?'

To himself, the Harrow chuckled scornfully.

Guided by Wraiths like candle flames, Linden rode under a broad Gilden and crossed the lip of a shallow vale-and saw her goal. It had always been there.

Esmer had told her so: Stave and the Masters knew its location. Nevertheless it seemed to come into existence suddenly, as if it had manifested itself in response to her need. Between instants, the night was cast back, and silver fire shone from the bottom of the vale.

Dancing, the Wraiths moved ahead of her down the gentle slope and spread out to encircle the krill of High Lord Loric, son of Damelon, father of Kevin.

There they bobbed and grew brighter, apparently bowing-and feeding, drawing sustenance from the blade's incandescence.

Here was the source of their power to preserve Andelain. The krill was powerful in itself, able to cut stone without being dulled, and to sever the lives of eldritch creatures like the Viles and the Demondim. But its greatest strength-the chief accomplishment of Loric's lore-was as a channel for other magicks. Made active by the mere presence, quiescent and extravagant, of white gold, the blade protected the Hills. Yet Linden had seen it accomplish more. With the krill, Sunder had slain Caer-Caveral, although Sunder was no more than a grieved Stonedownor, and CaerCaveral was the last Forestal, powerful enough to preserve Andelain against the Sunbane. And in the release of Caer-Caveral's music, the krill had enabled Sunder's yearning to tear apart the fabric of Law so that Hollian lived again.

Loric's weapon was a two-edged dagger almost as long as a short sword. At the intersection of its blade, its straight guards, and its ribbed hilt, it had been forged around a clear gem, mystic and immaculate: the focal point of its power. There the gem blazed with condensed argent like contained wild magic, at once potent and controlled; ready for any use.

It remained exactly as Linden remembered it: a cynosure of vindication and loss deeply embedded in the black, blasted stump of a ruined tree which had once been CaerCaveral and Hile Troy.

Goaded by memories and exigency, a purpose as desperate as the last Forestal's, she urged Hyn into a swift canter. Graceful as water, Hyn carried Linden through the acknowledgment of the Wraiths toward the bottom of the vale; toward dead wood and s.h.i.+ning and culmination.

Behind her, Infelice called urgently, ”It was for this! To avert this present moment.” Dread and supplication squirmed through her voice. ”Broken or triumphant in the past, you would not have returned to the Land. You would not now hold white gold and the Staff of Law. Nor would you approach Loric's krill in Andelain accompanied by Wraiths. You would not be driven by mistaken love to bring about the end of all things!”

Linden wanted to laugh like the Harrow. As she swept closer to her destination, she answered in derision. ”Does it bother you at all that you're completely insane?”

Then Hyn led Linden's companions into the expanding circle of the Wraiths. There Linden dismounted. With the opulent gra.s.s of the Hills beneath her sodden boots and stained pants, she hugged the Staff of Law to her chest. It was here: Loric's krill was here. -that which will enable her to bear her strengths-And Covenant's ring hung under her s.h.i.+rt. Jeremiah's racecar rested in her pocket. She had gained everything that she required-except the Dead.

The krill had been driven deeply into the wood: she was not sure that she could remove it. And she remembered its heat. She was not Covenant, the rightful white gold wielder, numb with leprosy: if she touched the dagger with her bare skin, it might burn her. Instead she stood before it as though it were the altar of Caer-Caveral's sacrifice.

Liand and the rest of her friends arrived after her. Only Stave and the Humbled dropped to the ground: the other riders remained aback their Ranyhyn as if they were caught in dreams, bespelled by the Wraiths. Even the Giants appeared to wander entranced, lost in mysteries. Coldspray and perhaps Grueburn seemed to struggle against their amazement, but their comrades gazed upon the circling of the Wraiths and did not awaken.

Like Liand, Anele, and the Ramen, the Harrow remained mounted at a distance from Linden and the krill. The bottomless holes of his eyes considered the fiery gem hungrily.

Floating, Infelice drifted to the ground near Linden. The intensity of the krill dimmed her raiment, robbed her of l.u.s.ter. She sounded almost human-almost petulant-as she said, ”I have heard you, Wildwielder. Have you heard me? We stand now at the last crisis of the Earth. If you do not turn aside, you will be broken indeed. Your remorse will surpa.s.s your strength to bear it.”

Linden did not answer. Instead she spoke softly to the waiting night.

”I'm here. It's time. You know why I've come. You know what I have to do.” When Covenant had entered Andelain without her, his Dead had given him gifts to aid his efforts to redeem the Land. Linden, find me. I can't help you unless you find me. ”The Harrow says that this is Banas Nimoram, and you called me here. I can't save anything”-not Jeremiah, not the Land, not even herself-”without you.”

Around her and the Wraiths, the darkness seemed to hold its breath. The Harrow murmured quiet invocations which meant nothing to her. Infelice fretted as if she were inconsolable. The Swordmainnir s.h.i.+fted restlessly in their trance, and Anele jerked his head from side to side, watchful and frightened, like a man being hunted. The stars grew still in their stately allemande.

Linden could not know that she would be heeded. Yet she felt no doubt. In dreams and through Anele, Covenant had reached out to her across the boundaries of life and death. She no longer considered it possible that she might be mistaken.

Then the night gave a low sigh; and beyond the Wraiths two figures came forward from the rim of the vale. They were portrayed in silver as though they were made of moonlight: they shone with phosph.o.r.escence like a gentler manifestation of the krill's argent blaze. But they were at once more definite than moons.h.i.+ne and less acute than the blade's echo of wild magic. Although they walked with formal steps, they appeared to drift like wisps over the gra.s.s, as evanescent as dreaming, and as allusive.

Linden knew them. They were Sunder Graveler and Hollian eh-Brand, Anele's parents.

When they had pa.s.sed between the reverent flames, they stopped partway down the slope. They seemed strangely commanding and penitent, and their moonstone eyes gleamed with austere compa.s.sion. Linden's heart surged at the sight of them; but they did not glance in her direction or speak. Instead they gazed at Anele as if they were full of suppressed weeping.

He must have been aware of them.

With his hands, he covered his face. But then he seemed to find that his fingers and palms were too thin, too frail, to protect him. Flinging his arms around his head, he ducked low over Hrama's neck like a child who hoped to hide from chastis.e.m.e.nt.

Now Linden saw tears in Hollian's eyes and sorrow in Sunder's. Yet they beckoned to their son, summoning him toward them with the certainty of monarchs. In life, their courage and love and Earthpower had earned them the stature of Lords.

Anele did not react to their mute call. But Hrama responded. As if both he and his rider belonged in such company, the Ranyhyn carried Anele toward his Dead.

Sunder and then Hollian bowed to Hrama, silent and grave. Gesturing, they invited the Ranyhyn to walk between them. Solemn as a cortege, they turned to escort Hrama and Anele away from Loric's krill; out of the vale. Linden felt her heart try to break-try and fail-while Sunder and Hollian departed with their son. But they said nothing; and so she could not. A cry of abandonment sounded within her for a moment. Then it relapsed to stone.

As Sunder, Hollian, and their son pa.s.sed away among the flames, Linden lost sight of them. In their place, another ghost strode down the slope.

She knew him as well, grieved for him as much.

He was Grimmand Honninscrave, the Master of Starfare's Gem. In measureless agony, he had contained samadhi Sheol so that the Sandgorgon Nom could kill him in order to rend the Raver. Thirty-five centuries later, anguish still gripped his face. As he moved, he seemed to shed droplets of moonlight like blood.

He also stopped midway between the Wraiths and the dead stump of CaerCaveral's sacrifice. He also did not speak. And he did not spare a glance for Linden, in spite of their friends.h.i.+p. His ancient pain conveyed the impression that he feared her as he summoned the Swordmainnir.

They obeyed without hesitation, sheathing their weapons as they strode toward the Dead Giant. Around Honninscrave's moonstruck figure, they stood for a moment in silence and awe. Then they accompanied him away from Linden, leaving her to face her choices without their encouragement, their strength, their laughter. Together they followed Honninscrave past the Wraiths until he and they had faded into the night.

Of Linden's friends, only Stave, Liand, and the Ramen remained.

”Do you behold this, Wildwielder?” Infelice hissed with the urgency of a serpent. ”Do you see? These are your Dead. Their love for you is not forgotten. Yet they shun you. They seek to spare their descendants the peril of your intent. If you will not heed me, heed them.”

The Harrow countered lnfelice's appeal with a jeer, although he kept his distance. ”She is Infelice,” he told Linden scornfully, ”suzerain among the Elohim, and blind with self-wors.h.i.+p. Yet there is insight in her disregard. You also have been made blind, lady.” His disdain became veiled supplication. ”There is a Kevin's Dirt of the soul as there is of the flesh. The Earth would have been better served if you had not cast away the Mandoubt's name and use and life.”

Linden might have wavered then. But she had not come here for Honninscrave, or for Sunder and Hollian. Covenant's ring hung, untouched, under her s.h.i.+rt, and Jeremiah's racecar was in her pocket: she was still waiting. If all of her friends were taken from her, she would stand where she was until Covenant appeared.

Through her teeth, she repeated. ”I'm here. It's time.”

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