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  Jeremiah laughed as if he were remembering one of the many jokes that she had told him over the years; jokes with which she had attempted to provoke a reaction when he was incapable of any response. The muscle at the corner of his left eye continued its tiny beat. But Covenant glared at her, and the fires in his gaze seemed hotter than any of the torches.

  “Another trick,” he told her sourly. “An illusion.” He made a dismissive gesture with his halfhand. “Oh, I didn’t have anything to do with what happened yesterday.” Despite its size, the forehall seemed full of halfhands, the Humbled as well as Covenant and Jeremiah. “That’s a different issue. But they let Jeremiah and me get through because”- Covenant shrugged stiffly- “well, I suppose you could say I put a crimp in their reality. Just a little one. I’m already stretched pretty thin. I can’t do too many things at once. So I made us look like bait. Like we were leading them into an ambush. Like there’s a kind of power here they don’t understand. That’s why they just chased us instead of attacking. They want to contain us until they figure out what’s going on. And maybe they like the idea of trapping all their enemies in one place.”

  Again he smiled at Linden, although his eyes continued to glare. “Are you satisfied? At least for now? Can I talk to Handir for a minute? Jeremiah and I need rest. You have no idea of the strain-”

  He sighed heavily. And we have to get ready before those Demondim realise I made fools out of them. Once that happens, they’re going to unleash the IIIearth Stone. Then hellfire and bloody damnation won’t be something we just talk about. They’ll be real, and they’ll be here.”

  Apparently he wanted Linden to believe that he was tired. Yet to her ordinary eyes he looked potent enough to defeat the horde unaided.

  And her son seemed to belong with him.

  She could not identify them with her health-sense. Jeremiah and Covenant were as blank, as isolated from her, as they would have been in her natural world. Yet there she would have been able to at least touch them. Here, in the unrevealing light of the torches, and fraught with shadows, Jeremiah seemed as distant and irreparable as the Unbeliever, in spite of his obvious alert sentience.

  If Covenant could do all of this, why had he told her to find him?

  Bowing her head, Linden forced herself to take a step backward, and another, into the cluster of her friends. She ached for the comfort of their support. She could discern them clearly enough: Liand’s open amazement, his concern on her behalf; Mahrtiir’s rapt eagerness and wonder and suspicion;

  Anele’s distracted mental wandering. Even Stave’s impassivity and his ruined eye and his new hurts felt more familiar to her than Covenant and Jeremiah, her loved ones. Yet the complex devotion of those who stood with her gave no anodyne for what she had gained and lost.

  Linden, find me.

  Be cautious of love.

  She needed the balm of touching Covenant; of hugging and hugging Jeremiah, running her fingers through his hair, stroking his cheeks-But she had been refused. Even the warm clean fire of the Staff of Law had been forbidden to her.

  Covenant nodded with an air of satisfaction. Then both he and Jeremiah turned to the Voice of the Masters.

  “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” For a moment, Covenant’s voice held an unwonted note of unction, although he suppressed it quickly. “You know Linden. When she has questions, she insists on answers.” He grinned as if he were sharing a joke with Handir. “You have to respect that.”

  Then he swallowed his smile. “You said we’re well come. You have no idea how well come we are.

  “You speak for the Masters?”

  Abruptly Linden swung away from them. She could no longer bear the sight of her son’s eagerness and denial. She wished that she could close her ears to the sound of Covenant’s voice.

  In the light of the torches, her friends studied her. Liand’s curiosity and puzzlement had become alarm, and Mahrtiir glowered. Stave’s single eye regarded her with characteristic stoicism. Anele’s moonstone blindness shifted uncertainly around the great hall as though he were trying to recapture an elusive glimpse of significance.

  Because her nerves burned for human contact-for any touch which might reassure her-she hooked her arms around Liand’s and Mahrtiir’s shoulders. At once, Liand gave her a hug like a promise that she could rely on him, whatever happened. And after an instant of hesitation, Mahrtiir did the same. Through his dislike of impending rock and the lack of open skies, she tasted his readiness to fight any foe in her name.

  With senses other than sight, she felt Handir bowing to Covenant a second time, although the Voice of the Masters had never bowed to her.

  “I am Handir,” he began again, “by right of-”

  “Of years and attainment,” interrupted Covenant brusquely. “The Voice of the Masters.” Now his manner seemed to betray the exertion he had claimed; the difficulty of folding time. “I heard you the first time.

  “Handir, I know you’re worried about the Demondim. You should be. You and your people can’t hold out against them. Not if they use the Stone. But they’re unsure of themselves right now. By hell, Foul himself is probably having fits.” Grim pleasure glinted through the impatience in Covenant’s tone. “They’ll realise the truth eventually. But I’ve been pretty clever, if I do say so myself.” With her peripheral vision, Linden saw Jeremiah’s nod, his happy grin. “I think we might have a day, or even two, before the real shit hits the fan.”

  To her friends, Linden murmured, “Don’t say anything. Just listen.” She could not bear to be questioned. Not now. She was in too much pain. “That’s Thomas Covenant and my son. My Jeremiah. I know them.

  “But there’s something wrong here. Something dangerous. Maybe it’s just the strain of what they’re doing.” Being in two places at once? “Maybe that’s making them both a little crazy.” Or maybe the Despiser had indeed done something. Maybe the Elohim had sought to warn the Land against the halfhand for good reason. “Whatever it is, I need your help.

  “Mahrtiir, I want Bhapa and Pahni to stay with Liand and Anele.” Liand opened his mouth to protest, but Linden’s grip on his shoulder silenced him. “The Masters won’t threaten you,” she told him. “I trust them that far,” in spite of what the Humbled and Handir had done to Stave. They were Haruchai. “But I have to be alone, and I’ll feel better if Bhapa and Pahni are with you.” She had seen Ramen Cords fight: she knew what Bhapa and Pahni could do. “Whatever is going on here, it might have consequences that we can’t imagine.” Don’t touch him! Don’t touch either of us! To Mahrtiir, she added, “They should be safe enough in Liand’s room.”

  In response, the Manethrall nodded his assent.

  “Anele is confused,” the old man informed the air of the forehall. “He feels Masters and urgency, but the cause is hidden. The stone tells him nothing.”

  Linden ignored him Covenant was still speaking to Handir.

  “What Jeremiah and I want right now is a place where we can rest without being disturbed. Some food, and maybe some springwine, if you’ve got it. We have to gather our strength.”

  Linden tried to ignore him as well. “As for you,” she continued to Mahrtiir, “I need you to guide me out of here. To the plateau.” He and his Cords had spent the night there. He would know the way. “I can’t think like this. I need daylight.”

  She might find what she sought in the potent waters of Glimmermere. The lake could not give her answers, but it might help her to remember who she was.

  The Manethrall nodded again. When he left her so that he could speak to Pahni and Bhapa, she turned to Stave. The tasks that she had in mind for him would be harder—

  Meeting his gaze with her dry, burning eyes, she said, “I want you to find the Mahdoubt for me. Please.” Be cautious of love. “I need to talk to her.” That strange, kindly woman had given Linden a hint of what was in store. If Linden probed her directly, she might say more. And keep the Humbled away from me. If you can. I can’t face their distru
st right now.”

  Her memories of Glimmermere-of Thomas Covenant as he had once been-were private and precious. She could not expose them, or herself, to anyone: certainly not to the demeaning suspicions of Branl, Galt, or Clyme.

  Stave did not hesitate. “Chosen, I will,” he said as if obstructing the actions of the Masters were a trivial challenge.

  At least he was still able to hear his people’s thoughts—

  Behind Linden, Covenant appeared to be nearing the end of his exchange with Handir. His voice had become a hoarse rasp, thick with effort. Yet when she glanced at him at last, Linden saw that he was smiling again.

  At Covenant’s side, Jeremiah seemed hardly able to contain his anticipation. The only sign that he might still be in Lord Foul’s power was the rapid beating at the corner of his eye.

  “I know what to do,” Covenant assured the Voice of the Masters. “That’s why we’re here. When we’re done, your problems will be over. But first I’ll have to convince Linden, and that won’t be easy. I’m too tired to face it right now.

  “Just give us a place to rest. And keep her away from us until I’m ready. We’ll take care of everything else.” Darkly he avowed, “I know a trick or two to make the Demondim and even the almighty Despiser wish they had never come out of hiding.”

  In spite of her clenched dismay, Linden found herself wondering where he had learned such things. How much of his humanity had he lost by his participation in Time? What had the perspective of eons done to him? How much had he changed?

  And how much pain had her son suffered in the Despiser’s grasp? How much was he suffering at this moment? If even the tainted respite of being in two places at once filled him with such glee—

  In many ways, she had never truly known him. Yet he, too, may have become someone she could no longer recognise.

  She needed to do something. She needed to do it now. If she waited for Covenant to explain himself, she would crumble.

  While Handir replied to the ur-Lord, the Unbeliever, the Land’s ancient savoir-while the Voice of the Masters promised Covenant everything that he had requested-Linden strode away into the shadows of the forehall, trusting Mahrtiir to claim a torch and catch up with her before she lost herself in darkness.

  Chapter Two: Difficult Answers

  How Stave accomplished what she had asked of him, Linden could not imagine. Yet when Mahrtiir led her at last past the switchbacks up through the long tunnel which opened onto the plateau above and behind Revelstone-when they finally left gloom and old emptiness behind, and crossed into sunshine under a deep sky stained only by Kevin’s Dirt-she and the Manethrall were alone. The Humbled had not followed them. In spite of Stave’s severance from his people, he had found some argument which had persuaded the Masters to leave her alone.

  Here she could be free of their distrust; of denials that appalled her. Here she might be able to think.

  Covenant and Jeremiah had been restored to her. And they would not allow her to touch them. They had been changed in some quintessential fashion which excluded her.

  And Kevin’s Dirt still exerted its baleful influence, slowly leeching away her health-sense and her courage-and she had been ordered not to use the Staff of Law. Both Covenant and her son had assured her that its power would undo the theurgy which enabled their presence. In dreams, Covenant’s voice had told her, You need the Staff of Law. Through Anele, he had said, You’re the only one who can do this. Yet now she was asked to believe that if she drew any hint of Earthpower from the warm wood, she would effectively erase Covenant and Jeremiah. The two people in all of life whom she had most yearned to see-to have and hold-would vanish.

  She believed them, both of them. She did not know whether or not they had told the truth: she believed them nonetheless. They were Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah, her son. She could not do otherwise.

  She had repeatedly insisted that she could not be compared to the Land’s true heroes; and now the greatest of them had come.

  And he had asked the Masters to keep her away from him until he was ready to talk. I’m too tired- But she did not protest. While she could still think and choose-while she could still determine her own actions-she meant to make use of the time.

  As Mahrtiir had guided her up through the Keep, she had resolved to find some answers.

  She was on her way to Glimmermere because she had once been there with Thomas Covenant: a brief time of unconstrained love after the defeat of the na-Mhoram and the quenching of the Banefire. She hoped to recapture at the eldritch lake some sense of what she and Covenant had meant to each other; of who she was. But now she had another purpose as well. The strange potency of Glimmermere’s waters might give her the power to be heardWith Mahrtiir beside her and the Staff hugged in her arms, she walked steadily-grim and dry-eyed, as though she were not weeping inside-out of Revelstone onto the low upland hills which rumpled the plateau between Lord’s Keep and the jagged pinnacles of the Westron Mountains.

  Here she could see the handiwork of Sunder and Hollian, who had accepted the stewardship of the Land thirty-five centuries ago. When she had walked into these hills with Thomas Covenant, the Sunbane had still ruled the Upper Land; and a desert sun had destroyed every vestige of vegetation. She and Covenant had crossed hard dirt and bare stone baked by the arid unnatural heat of the sun’s corona. But nowAh, now there was thick grass underfoot, abundant forage for herds of cattle and sheep. With her health-sense, she could see that the gentler slopes ahead of her were arable. Revelstone was nearly empty, and its comparatively few inhabitants were easily fed by the fields to the north of the watchtower. At need, however, crops could be planted here to support a much larger population. And there were trees-God, there were trees. Rich stands of pine and cedar accumulated off to her right until they grew so thickly that they obscured her view of the mountains in that direction. And ahead of her, clumps of delicate mimosa and arching jacaranda punctuated the hillsides until the slow rise and fall of the slopes seemed as articulate as language. Everywhere spring gave the air a tang which made all of the colours more vibrant and filled each scent with burgeoning.

  Under the Sunbane’s bitter curse, she had seen nothing here that was not rife with pain-until she and Covenant had reached the mystic lake which formed the headwater of the White River. Now everywhere she looked, both westward and around the curve of the sheer cliffs toward the north, the plateau had been restored to health and fertility. Somehow Linden’s long-dead friends had taught themselves how to wield both Earthpower and Law. While they lived, Sunder and Hollian had made luxuriant and condign use of the Staff. The beauty which greeted Linden’s sore heart above and behind Lord’s Keep was one result of their labours.

  Poor Anele, she thought as she walked toward the first trees. It was no wonder that his parents had filled him with astonishment; or that he had been daunted. Throughout their long lives, he had known the harsh aftereffects of the Sunbane-and had seen those enduring blights transformed to health. In his place, Linden, too, might have felt overwhelmed by their example.

  Yet neither Anele nor the restoration of these hills dominated her thoughts. At her side, the Manethrall lost some of his severity as he regained the wide sky and the kindly hills; but if he had spoken to her, she might not have heard him. While she walked, the prospect of Glimmermere filled her with memories of Thomas Covenant.

  When the threat of the Banefire had been extinguished, she had joined him in the private chambers which had once been High Lord Mhoram’s home. At that time, she had feared that he would reject her; scorn her love. Earlier his intention to enter alone and undefended into the inferno of the Clave’s evil had appalled her, and she tried to stop him by violating his mind, possessing him. That expression of her own capacity for evil might have destroyed the bond between them. Yet when they were alone at last, she had learned that he held nothing against her; that he forgave her effortlessly. And then he had taken her to Glimmermere, where the lake had helped her to forgive herself.

&nb
sp; She wanted to hold onto that memory until she reached the upland tarn and could endeavour once again to wash away her dismay.

  Don’t touch him! Don’t touch either of us!

  She had risked the destruction of the world in order to retrieve the Staff of Law so that she might have some chance to redeem her son; yet both Jeremiah and Covenant had appeared through no act or decision or hazard of hers. For years and years she had striven to free Jeremiah from the chains of his peculiar dissociative disorder; yet he had reclaimed his mind in her absence, while Lord Foul tormented him. She had used all of her will and insight in an attempt to sway the Masters, and had won only Anele’s freedom and Stave’s friendship-at the cost of Stave’s violent expulsion from the communion of his people. And she had brought the Demondim to this time, recklessly, when Revelstone had no defence.

  Like Kevin’s Dirt, shame threatened to drain her until she was too weak to bear the cost of her life. Without the Staff’s fire to sustain her, she clung to her best memories of Covenant’s love-and to the possibilities of Glimmermere-so that she would not be driven to her knees by the weight of her mistakes and failures.

  But those memories brought others. Alone with her, Covenant had spoken of the time when he had been the helpless prisoner of Kasreyn of the Gyre in Bhrathairealm. There the thaumaturge had described the value and power of white gold; of the same ring which now hung uselessly on its chain around her neck. In a flawed world, Kasreyn had informed Covenant, purity cannot endure. Thus within each of my works I must perforce place one small flaw, else there would be no work at all. But white gold was an alloy; inherently impure. Its imperfection is the very paradox of which the Earth is made, and with it a master may form perfect works and fear nothing.