“Should be simple enough,” he growled in disgust. “All we have to do is reach Melenkurion Skyweir. Without going through Garroting Deep.
“I’m ready when you are.”
Linden stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
In response, Covenant wheeled away from her. Brandishing his fists, he shouted into the air over the valley. “Do you hear that? She thinks you aren’t serious!” He must have believed-or known-that the Theomach was still nearby.
“We don’t really have much choice, Mom,” Jeremiah said tentatively. “We weren’t expecting to end up here. What we wanted to do was pretty easy. This is much more complicated. Right now, we’re as lost as you are.”
Reflexively Linden wanted to reassure him. “That’s all right, honey. I’ll think of something.” In fact, she did not need to think. Her choices were already plain to her. The shaped snow had whispered them to her; or she had seen them in the winter’s irrefusable beauty. “There’s just one more thing that I want to understand.”
She had many other questions, a long list of them. But first she needed to leave this hilltop; needed an answer to the cold. And the potential for redemption in Covenant’s intentions urged movement. For the first time since Roger had taken her son, she seemed to see a road which might lead to Jeremiah’s rescue, and the Land’s.
Covenant spun back toward her as if he meant to yell in her face. But his tone was unexpectedly mild as he said. “Just one? Linden, you astonish me.”
“Just one for now,” she acknowledged. “But it’s important. In spite of the Theomach, you make it sound like there’s hope. If I choose the right path. If we can get to Melenkurion Skyweir. So why did the ur-viles try to stop you?”
The implications of their attack undermined Covenant’s explanations. What did they see that she did not?
“Is that all?” Covenant scowled sourly. “Hell and blood! They’re Demondim-spawn, Linden. Their makers are besieging Revelstone. Don’t tell me you still imagine they want to help you?
“Think, for God’s sake. They made Vain so you could create that Staff, which has effectively prevented me from stopping Foul. Then they guided you to it so you would have the power to erase me anytime you don’t happen to like what I’m doing. Sure, they gave you what you needed to weaken the Demondim. Hell, why not? If I don’t succeed, Revelstone is going to fall eventually, and in the meantime they want to stay on your good side. Every bit of trust they can squeeze out of you serves the Despiser. They’re trying to turn you against me.”
Linden did not believe him: she could not. The ur-viles had done too much-And whenever he reproached her for forming and using the Staff of Law, her instinctive resistance to him stiffened. The man whom she had accompanied to his death would not have said such things.
His scorn and ire made her ache for the Thomas Covenant who had once loved and accepted her.
But she had nothing to gain by arguing. If the ur-viles had intended their manacles for Covenant, they had failed. She would have to live with the consequences of their failure.
All right,” she said as if Covenant’s vehemence had persuaded her. He had enabled her to withstand the cold-temporarily, at least. To that extent, he resembled his former self. “I’m just trying to understand. If I have to decide what we’re going to do, I need to understand as much as I can.”
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we call the Ranyhyn?”
Hyn would not be born for thousands of years. Even the herd that had reared to Covenant lived millennia in the future of this present. But Linden did not know how to gauge the mysterious relationship between the Ranyhyn and Time. Her constrained linear conceptions had been proven inadequate repeatedly. Hyn’s far distant ancestors might already be aware of her need for them.
But Jeremiah covered his face as if she had embarrassed him. And Covenant exploded. “Hellfire and bloody damnation! That’s another terrible idea. In fact, it’s even worse than wanting to go to Andelain.”
Holding his glare, Linden made no effort to interrupt him.
“Maybe they can hear you,” he told her hotly. “Maybe they can’t. If they can, they’ll probably answer. They’re loyal enough for anything. That’s not the point. You’ll be asking them to violate the Land’s history. To risk the Arch.”
“How?” she countered.
Covenant made a visible effort to recover his composure. “Because right now there aren’t any Ranyhyn in the Land. After Foul killed Kelenbhrabanal, he drove them away. If they hadn’t left, he would have exterminated them. They won’t come back for another three or four hundred years. Until they find the Ramen-or the Ramen find them. Without Kelenbhrabanal, they need the Ramen to lead them.
“If you summon them now-and they answer-the consequences will ripple for millennia. And they’ll only get worse. One thing will lead to another. They’ll cause more and more changes.”
Linden waited coldly until Covenant was done. Then she said without inflection. “I didn’t know any of that. There are too many things that you haven’t told me. I don’t have any way to tell the difference between good ideas and bad ones.”
“She’s right,” Jeremiah put in hesitantly. “We’re asking an awful lot of her. It isn’t her fault if she gets some of it wrong.”
His apparent reluctance to defend her-or to disagree with Covenant in any way-made her bite her lip. She needed that small hurt to conceal her deeper pain. She had spent much of his life caring for him with her whole heart; and during that time, Covenant had become more essential to him than she had ever been.
She remembered a Covenant who would not have blamed her-
She did not fault her son for his loyalties. She loved him enough to be grateful that he had grown capable of the kind of attachment which he felt for Covenant. But her helpless rage at what the Despiser had done mounted with every fresh sign that Jeremiah did not love her.
Covenant avoided her gaze. “I get mad too easily,” he admitted as if he were speaking to the empty air. “I know that. It’s the frustration-What I’m trying to do is hard as hell. And it hurts. But it’s nothing compared to what Jeremiah is going through. I want to help him so bad-” After a moment, he added, “And you. And the Land. You didn’t cause any of these delays and obstacles. But they’re making me crazy.”
He seemed to be attempting an apology.
Linden did not care. He could have asked for her sufferance on his knees without swaying her. For Jeremiah’s sake, however, she replied quietly, “Don’t worry about it. Eventually we’ll learn how to talk to each other.
“We’re all tired of frustration. We should go before it gets any worse.”
The relief on Jeremiah’s face was so plain that she could not bear to look at it.
Covenant jerked his eyes to hers. A sudden intensity exaggerated the strictures of his face. “Go where? You still haven’t-”
Linden cut him off. “Where else? Berek’s camp. You said that he’s in the middle of a battle. But he has food. He has warm clothes.” Even true believers could not fight on faith alone. And I’m willing to bet that he has horses. If we can reach him”- if she could endure the cold long enough- “he might be persuaded to help us.”
She was serious: she did not know how else she could hope to reach Covenant’s goal. But she also wanted to hear what he would say about ripples now. If her choices and actions were somehow consonant with the Arch-The Theomach had asserted that her deeds will do no harm. That I will ensure.