A few steps more: only a dozen or so. Jeremiah could not conceal his disquiet. He had retrieved his racecar and was playing with it tensely, flipping it back and forth between his hands. Ahead, Covenant had vanished back into shadow. As the sun fell closer to setting, the shadows grew darker: Linden could hardly be sure that he still existed. And Jeremiah gave her the impression that he might bolt at any moment, overcome by the stress of talking to her.
“Just a little longer, honey,” she urged quietly. “I can see that it’s hard for you to be around me. But there’s one thing I have to know. I’m not sure that I can keep going without it.”
“What is it?” His manner was suddenly thick with distrust.
Linden hazarded a moment or two of silence. Then through the crunching of her boots and the crisp stamp of the Staff, she said, “You won’t have to talk at all. You can just show me.”
Half a stride ahead of her, Jeremiah crossed into the light of the sun.
It was pale with constriction and approaching twilight, but it seemed bright as morning after the gloom of the shadows. As soon as she reached the sunshine herself, and her son was fully illumined, she halted. Bracing her fears on the Staff, she said. “Jeremiah,” as if she had the right to command him, “take off your shirt. Let me look at you. I have to know if you were shot.”
Harsh as a blow, he wheeled to face her. The mud of his gaze roiled with darkness and anger. At the corner of his left eye, the muscles beat as steadily as a war-drum; a summons to battle.
Startled and afraid, Linden flinched as if her son had threatened her.
But he complied. Vehemently, almost viciously, he undid the remaining buttons of his pajama top; tore it from his shoulders; flung it to the snow at his feet. If he felt the cold, he did not show it.
As if she had demanded a violation he resented fiercely but could not refuse, he turned in a circle, letting her scrutinise his naked back as well as his chest. But there were too many stains on his skin, too much grime. If he had been wounded and healed, she could not find the scars.
He must have recognised her uncertainty. Abruptly he stooped, punched his fists through the icy crust, and scooped up handfuls of snow. Then he slapped the snow onto his chest and stomach, rubbing furiously until he had cleaned away the marks of struggle and torment.
In the sun’s failing light, his skin looked as healthy and whole as if she had bathed him herself; as if he were the son whom she had loved and tended for so many years.
Are you satisfied?” he hissed venomously. “Mom?”
Oh, God. Instinctively Linden hugged the Staff to her chest, covered her face with her icy hands. Sweet Jesus. The previous day-or ten thousand years in the future-she had asked Jeremiah if he had been shot. At first, he had tried to avoid an answer. Then he had replied, I’m not sure. Something knocked me down pretty hard, I remember that. But there wasn’t any pain.
But he had not been shot. Somehow Barton Lytton’s deputies had missed him. Instead he had merely been struck, perhaps by Roger’s falling body. Therefore he remained alive in the world to which he had been born; the world where he belonged. His life, his natural birthright, could still be saved. In fact, if she understood what she had once experienced herself, and what Covenant had explained about his own visits to the Land-
She heard Jeremiah retrieve his shirt and shove his arms into the sleeves; heard him stride angrily away. But she could not uncover her eyes to watch him leave her. If she understood the rules, the Law, governing translations to the Land, Jeremiah could not be slain here while he remained alive in his proper reality. Lord Foul might torture him until his mind tore itself, but the Despiser could not kill him. Instead Jeremiah would only remain in Lord Foul’s power until his summoner passed away. Then he would be released to his former life. And his body would bear no sign of what he had endured. Only his sane or shredded mind would suffer the consequences of his time in the Land.
My son-Unregarded tears froze on Linden’s cheeks and fingers. Covenant had indeed offered her hope. But he had also misled her. Worse than that, he had lied to her.
If he succeeded against the Despiser, Jeremiah’s summoner would die. Linden knew Joan too well to believe otherwise. Joan was too frail, too brittle, to preserve herself. Wild magic and her own agony were too destructive to be endured. Without the imposed goad and sustenance of Lord Foul’s servants, she would perish quickly.
Then Jeremiah’s torment would end. He would vanish from the Land. Linden would remain because she was already dead. Even Roger might remain, seeking such havoc that the bones of mountains tremble to contemplate it. But Jeremiah-
If he returned to his natural world a mental cripple, she would not be there to care for him. He would be lost to her forever.
That was the lie. Covenant had said that he’ll still be trapped wherever Foul has him, but Jeremiah would not be, he would not. He’ll still need rescuing. Yet surely Covenant knew that Joan’s death would release the boy?
Nonetheless Linden had been given a reason to hope. The Despiser’s defeat would spare her son’s life.
And she had another reason as well; an entirely different kind of reason. The Blood of the Earth. You can Command any damn thing you want. All you have to do is want it, and you and your kid will be reunited. Anywhere you choose. She could block Jeremiah’s return to the world of her death: she could keep him in the Land. Then she would not need to fear for the condition of his mind. Here he could be truly restored, healed.
But she would still lose him. If it’ll make you happy, you two can live in Andelain- There Covenant had misled her. Jeremiah’s vehemence toward her moments ago, like his devotion to Covenant, proclaimed the truth. If she enabled him to remain in the Land, he would not choose to live with her. He did not love her. He had never loved her. For years while she had lavished her heart on him, he had been absent from himself. Dissociated and unreactive, he had been more conscious of Covenant’s friendship than of anything that she had done or felt.
From his damaged perspective, he had no cause to love her-
An uncertain future in his natural world or a life of wholeness in the Land. The Power of Command would enable her to provide one or the other for her son. But that choice was not hers to make: it belonged to him. Either way, he would be lost her to her; but her bereavement was beside the point. She had already lost him. And he was not responsible for her dedication-or her sorrow.
Covenant was another matter entirely. He had lied to her. Deliberately he had tried to obscure the true crux of Jeremiah’s straits-and of her own.
She needed to talk to him. She needed to talk to him now.
But when she snatched down her hands and opened her eyes to the dying light, she found the Theomach standing in front of her.
Instinctively she clasped her numb fingers around the Staff. But she did not call upon its power. She felt no threat from the Insequent. To her health-sense, he still appeared to be an ordinary man beneath his strange habiliments; devoid of any inherent theurgy. If she had not fallen so far down into her grief and anger, she would have discerned him as soon as he approached her.
Instead of fire, she drew a little heat from the ready wood, a little comfort, so that she would not collapse into shivering.
She meant to demand, Tell me. I have to know. Why did Covenant lie to me? But before she could form the words, the Theomach held up his hand to forestall her. His wrapped and hidden face regarded her with an attitude of grave attention.