Time dragged. Weakness crept through his muscles again. When the company finally rode into the relief of sunset, his neck and shoulders throbbed from the strain of looking backward for some sign of the Grim. Shivers ran through the marrow of his bones. As soon as Memla picked a camping place under the shelter of a megalithic stand of eucalyptus, he dropped to the ground, hoping to steady himself on the Earth's underlying granite. But his hands and feet were too numb to feel anything.
Around him, his companions dismounted. Almost at once, Linden went over to Hollian. The flesh of Linden's face was pale and taut, stretched tight over her skull. She accosted the eh-Brand purposefully, but then had to fumble for words. “The insects,” she murmured. “The smell. It's worse. Worse than any other sun. I can't shut it all out.” Her eyes watched the way her hands clung together, as if only that knot held her in one piece. “I can't-What's it going to be tomorrow?”
Sunder had moved to stand near Hollian. As Linden fell silent, he nodded grimly. “Never in all my life have I faced a sun of pestilence and encountered so little harm.” His tone was hard. “I had not known the Clave could journey so untouched by that which is fear and abhorrence to the people of the Land. And now ur-Lord Covenant teaches us that the Clave's immunity has been purchased by the increase rather than the decline of the Sunbane.” His voice darkened as if he were remembering all the people he had shed. “I do not misdoubt him. But I, too, desire tidings of the morrow's sun.”
Memla indicated with a shrug that such tidings could not alter her anxiety. But Covenant joined Linden and Sunder. He felt suddenly sickened by the idea that perhaps the soothtell had been a lie designed by Gibbon-Raver to mislead him. If two days of rain were followed by only two days of pestilence-Gripping himself, he waited for Hollian's response.
She acceded easily. Her light smile reminded him that she was not like Sunder. With her Iianar and her skill, she had always been able to touch the Sunbane for the benefit of others; she had never had to kill people to obtain blood. Therefore she did not loathe her own capabilities as Sunder did his.
She stepped a short distance away to give herself space, then took out her dirk and wand. Seating herself on the leaves which littered the ground, she summoned her concentration. Covenant, Linden, and Sunder watched intently as she placed the Iianar on her lap, gripped her dirk in her left hand and directed the point against her right palm. The words of invocation soughed past her lips. They clasped the company like a liturgy of worship for something fatal. Even the Haruchai left their tasks to stand ready. The thought that she was about to cut herself made Covenant scowl; but he had long ago left behind the days when he could have protested what she was doing.
Slowly, she drew a small cut on her palm. As blood welled from the incision, she closed her fingers on the Iianar. Dusk had deepened into night around the quest, concealing her from the watchers. Yet even Covenant's impercipient senses could feel her power thickening like motes of fire concatenating towards flame. For a bated moment, the air was still. Then she sharpened her chant, and the wand took light.
Red flames bloomed like Sunbane orchids. They spread up into the air and down her forearm to the ground. Crimson tendrils curled about her as if she were being overgrown. They seemed bright; but they cast no illumination; the night remained dark.
Intuitively, Covenant understood her fire. With chanting and blood and Iianar, she reached out toward the morrow's sun; and the flames took their colour from what that sun would be. Her fire was the precise hue of the sun's pestilential aura.
A third sun of pestilence. He sighed his relief softly. Here, at least, he had no reason to believe that the soothtell had been false.
But before the eh-Brand could relax her concentration, release her foretelling, the fire abruptly changed.
A streak of blackness as absolute as Vain's skin shot from the wood, scarred the flames with ebony. At first, it was only a lash across the crimson. But it grew, expanded among the flames until it dominated them, obscured them.
Quenched them.
Instantly, night covered the companions, isolating them from each other. Covenant could perceive nothing except a fault tang of smoke in the air, as if Hollian's wand had been in danger of being consumed.
He swore hoarsely under his breath and swung out his arms until he touched Brian on one side, Linden on the other. Then he heard feet spring through the leaves and heard Sunder cry, “Hollian!”
The next moment, Memla also cried out in horror. “Sending!” Fire raged from her rukh, cracked like a flail among the trees, making the night lurid. “It comes!” Covenant saw Ceer standing behind the Rider as if to protect her from attack. The other Haruchai formed a defensive ring around the company.
“Gibbon!” Memla howled. “Abomination!” Her fire savaged the air as ft she were trying to strike at Revelstone from a distance of nearly two score leagues. “By all the Seven Hells-!”
Covenant reacted instinctively. He surged into the range of Memla's fire and gripped her forearms to prevent her from striking at him. “Memla!” he yelled into her face. “Memla! How much time have we got?”
His grip or his demand reached her. Her gaze came into focus on him. With a convulsive shudder, she dropped her fire, let darkness close over the quest. When she spoke, her voice came out of the night like the whispering of condor wings.
"There is time. The Grim cannot instantly cross so many leagues. Perhaps as much as a day remains to us.
“But it is the na-Mhoram's Grim, and has been two days in the raising. Such a sending might break Revelstone itself.”
She took a breath which trembled. “Ur-Lord, we cannot evade this Grim. It will follow my rukh and rend us utterly.” Her voice winced in her throat. “I had believed that the wild magic would give us hope. But if it is beyond your control-”
At Covenant's back, a small flame jumped into life and caught wood. Sunder had lit a faggot. He held it up like a torch, lifting the company out of the dark.
Hollian was gasping through her teeth, fighting not to cry out. The violation of her foretelling had hurt her intimately.
“That's right,” Covenant gritted. “I can't control it.” His hands manacled Memla's wrists, striving to keep her from hysteria, “Hang on. Think. We've got to do something about this.” His eyes locked hers. “Can you leave your rukh behind?”
“Covenant!” she wailed in immediate anguish. “It is who I am! I am nothing to you without it.” He tightened his grasp. She flinched away from his gaze. Her voice became a dry moan. “Without my rukh, I cannot part the trees. And I cannot command the Coursers. It is the power to which they have been bred. Losing it, my hold upon them will be lost. They will scatter from us. Perhaps they will turn against us.” Her mien appeared to be crumbling in the unsteady torchlight. “This doom is upon my head,” she breathed. “In ignorance and folly, I lured you to Revelstone.”
“Damnation!” Covenant rasped, cursing half to himself. He felt trapped; and yet he did not want Memla to blame herself. He had asked for her help. He wrestled down his dismay. “All right,” he panted. “Call the Coursers. Let's try to outrun it.”