When Thomas Covenant and his companions had faced the na-Mhoram in the Hall of Gifts, Linden had contributed nothing except her fears and her health-sense. But she had borne witness.
The Forestal withdrew his scrutiny. For a long moment, he appeared to muse to himself, harmonising with the trees. Now the Mahdoubt regarded him complacently. Under her breath, she made a humming sound as if she wished to contribute in some small way to the myriad-throated contemplations of Garroting Deep. When he sang in words again, he seemed to address the farthest reaches of his woods, or the black gibbet towering above him, rather than either Linden or her companion.
“I have granted boons, and may do so again. For each, I demand such payment as I deem meet. But you have not requested that which you most require. Therefore I will exact no recompense. Rather I ask only that you accept the burden of a question for which you have no answer.”
The Mahdoubt smiled with satisfaction; and Linden said. “Just tell me what it is. If I can find an answer, I will.”
Caerroil Wildwood continued singing to the trees rather than to her. “It is this. How may life endure in the Land, if the Forestals fail and perish, as they must, and naught remains to ward its most vulnerable treasures? We were formed to stand as guardians in the Creator’s stead. Must it transpire that beauty and truth shall pass utterly when we are gone?”
Surprised, Linden murmured, “I don’t know.” She had seen Caer-Caveral sacrifice himself, and he was the last. The Sunbane had destroyed every remnant of the ancient forests west of Landsdrop.
Still smiling, the Mahdoubt said. “The Great One is aware of this. Assuredly so. He does not require that which the lady cannot possess. He asks only that she seek out knowledge, for its lack torments him. The fear that no answer exists multiplies his long sorrow.”
“I will,” repeated Linden, although she could not guess what her promise might cost her, and had no idea how she would keep it. Caerroil Wildwood was too extreme to be refused.
“Then I will grant that which you require.” The Forestal sang as though he spoke for every living thing throughout the Deep.
At once, music gathered around Linden’s grasp on the Staff. Involuntarily she flinched. Unbidden, her fingers opened. But the Staff did not fall to the ground. Instead it floated away from her, wafted by song toward the Forestal. When it was near, he reached out to claim it with his free hand; and his clasp shone with the same silver that illumined his eyes.
“This blackness is lamentable”- his tone itself was elegiac- “but I will not alter it. Its import lies beyond my ken. However, other flaws may be amended. The theurgy of the wood’s fashioning is unfinished. It was formed in ignorance, and could not be otherwise than it is. Yet its wholeness is needful. Willingly I complete the task of its creation.”
Then he sang a command that would have been Behold! if it had been expressed in words rather than melody. At the same time, he lifted his gnarled sceptre. It, too, radiated silver, telic and irrefusable, as he directed its singing at the Staff.
Slowly a nacre fire began to burn along the dark surface of the shaft from heel to heel; and as it did so, it incised shapes like a jagged script into the wood. Radiance lingered in them after the Forestal’s magic had passed: then it faded, line by line in dying streaks of argent, until the Staff had once again lapsed to ebony.
Runes, Linden thought in wonder. Caerroil Wildwood had carved runes-
A moment later, he released the Staff. Midnight between its bands of iron, it drifted through the air to Linden. When she closed her fingers around it, the shapes flared briefly once more, and she saw that they were indeed runes: inexplicable to her, but sequacious and acute. Their implications seemed to glow for an instant through the wound in her right hand. And as they fell away, she felt a renewed severity in the wood, a greater and more exacting commitment, as though the necessary commandments of Law had been fortified.
When the last of the luminance was gone from the symbols, she found that her hand had been healed. Pale against the black shaft, her human flesh too had become whole.
She had entered Garroting Deep bereft of every resource; exhausted beyond bearing; upheld by nothing except clenched intransigence-and thoughts of Thomas Covenant. But the Mahdoubt had fed and warmed her. Comforted her. And now Caerroil Wildwood had given her new power. Gallows Howe itself had made her stronger. All of her burdens except the pressing weight of millennia and incomprehension had been eased.
Finally she roused herself from her astonishment so that she could thank the Forestal. But he had already turned to walk away with his threnody and his silver eyes. And as he passed between the stark uprights of his gibbet, he seemed to shimmer into music and disappear, leaving her alone with the Mahdoubt and the starlight and the ceaseless sorrowing wrath of the trees.
For a long moment, Linden and the older woman listened to Caerroil Wildwood’s departure, hearing it fade like the future of Garroting Deep. Then the Mahdoubt spoke softly, in cadences that echoed the Forestal’s lorn song.
“The words of the Great One are sooth. His passing cannot be averted, though he will cling to his purpose for many centuries. These trees have forgotten the knowledge which enables him, and which also binds the Colossus of the Fall. The dark delight of the Ravers will have its freedom. Alas for the Earth, lady. The tale of the days to come will be one of rue and woe.”
With an effort, Linden shook off the Forestal’s ensorcellment. She had been given a gift which seemed to hold more meaning than she knew how to contain. Yet it changed nothing. The task of returning to her proper time still transcended her.
Standing on wrath and death, she confronted her companion.
“I just made a promise.” Her voice was hoarse with the memory of her promises. She had made so many of them- “But I can’t keep it. Not here. I have to go back where I belong.”
Darkness concealed the strange discrepancy of the Mahdoubt’s eyes, giving her a secretive air in spite of her comfortable demeanour. “Lady,” she replied, “your need for nourishment and rest is not yet sated. Return with the Mahdoubt to warmth and stew and springwine. She urges you, seeing you unsolaced.”
Linden shook her head. In this time, the Mahdoubt had not referred to her as you until now. “You can help me. That’s obvious. You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t move through time.” Her urgency increased as she persisted. “You can take me back.”
The Mahdoubt seemed tranquil, but her tone hinted at sadness as she said, “Lady, the Mahdoubt may answer none of your queries. Nor may she lightly set aside the strictures of your plight. Nor may she transgress the constraints of her own knowledge. Assuredly not.” She touched the bare skin of Linden’s wrist near the Staff, allowing Linden’s nerves to feel her sincerity. “Will you not accompany her? The Great One cannot grant your desire, and this place”- she inclined her head to indicate Gallows Howe- “augurs only death.
“Will sustenance and companionship harm the lady? The Mahdoubt inquires respectfully, intending only kindness.”
Linden could not think of a reason to refuse. She felt a disquieting kinship with the Howe. And its blood-soaked earth held lessons which she had not yet understood. She was loath to leave it. But the Mahdoubt’s touch evoked a need that she had tried to suppress; a hunger for simple human contact. Jeremiah had refused her for so long-She could plead for her companion’s help beside the cookfire as well as here.
With a stiff shrug, she allowed the Mahdoubt to lead her back down the dead slope in the direction of food and the Black River.
The distance seemed greater than it had earlier. But once Linden and her guide had left Gallows Howe behind, and had spent a while moving like starlight through the bitter woodland, she began to catch glimpses of a soft yellow glow past the trees. Soon they reached the riverbank and the Mahdoubt’s cookfire.