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 passed 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 assailed. After a moment, however, they appeared to accept his disappearance. Shrugging, they dismissed him and approached the campfire.
The Mahdoubt made a vague plucking gesture. When Linden saw it, she moved at once to the woman’s side and extended her arm. The Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt 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. Assuredly so. And the choice to demand it of him was freely made. It is through no act of his that the Mahdoubt must now pass away.”
“I don’t care.” Linden hunched close to the woman, trying vainly to transmit some her own health into the Mahdoubt’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 apologise? God damn 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 Mahdoubt intervened. “Oh, assuredly,” she said with more firmness. “Of a certainty, the Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt has done will not be otherwise.”
The eyes of the Humbled widened momentarily, and Stave cocked an eyebrow; but Linden paid no attention to them.
“Ere that end, however,” the Mahdoubt continued, “there is much that must be said.” She glanced at Stave. “You also must speak, Haruchai. The Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt shook her head. “Nay. Doing so will alter my lady’s path-and the Mahdoubt has given her life in the belief that my lady must be trusted, though her deeds engender horrors. The Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt not said-assuredly, and often-that she is weary?” Linden could feel the Mahdoubt’s vitality slowly seeping from her limbs. “She prefers her own passing 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 Mahdoubt’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 Mahdoubt’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 Mahdoubt has assured herself that you are equal to such contradictions. Therefore she believes that you must not be turned aside.”
Slowly the Mahdoubt 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, assuredly. Again and again he would attempt it, relentlessly, until your strength faltered. Then would you be altogether lost.
“This the Mahdoubt 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 Mahdoubt’s sacrifice, Linden said in a small voice. “Then tell me how. How did you beat him?”
“My lady,” the Mahdoubt sighed, “knowledge precludes knowledge. Our mortality cannot master one thing, and then another, and then yet another. The Harrow unmade the Demondim. The Mahdoubt could not have done so. But she has given centuries to the contemplation of Time. He has not. He passes from place to place as he wills-oh, assuredly-but he cannot journey among the years.
“The Mahdoubt 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.
“For that reason, he acknowledged defeat.”
Her muscles trembled as she shifted her attention to Stave.
“Now, Haruchai,” she commanded softly, “you must speak. You have ascertained that the Mahdoubt is of the Insequent. You have been informed of the Vizard’s passing. And you have heard my lady’s mention of the Theomach. Share with her the tale of your people. It is the last boon which the Mahdoubt may grant.”
In the Harrow’s absence, his campfire died slowly, and with it the yellow elucidation of the flames. Shadows passed like small gusts of night over the older woman’s sagging frame and Stave’s unread countenance. More stars became visible overhead, throngs poised to hear or ignore what was unveiled in the dark.