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. Shining 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 gnashing 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 shifted 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.
"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 companionship."
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 companionship 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.