Covenant heard the sound of hooves. A moment later, Memla's Courser came trotting out of the dusk.
She treated it with the confidence of long familiarity. Obeying her brusque gesture, Din lowered itself to its belly. At once, she began to load the beast, heaving her burdens across the middle of its back so that they hung balanced in pairs. Then, knotting her fingers in its long hair, she pulled herself up to perch near its shoulders.
Covenant hesitated to follow. He had always been uncomfortable around horses, in part because of their strength, in part because of their distance from the ground; and the Courser was larger and more dangerous than any horse. But he had no choice. When Memla snapped at him irritably, he took his courage in both hands, and heaved himself up behind her.
Din pitched to its feet. Covenant grabbed at the hair urgently to keep himself from falling. A spasm of vertigo made everything reel as Memla turned Din to face the sunrise.
The sun broke the horizon in brown heat. Almost at once, haze began to ripple the distance, distorting all the terrain. His memories of the aid the Waynhim had given him conflicted with his vertigo and with his surprise at Memla's immunity.
Answering his unspoken question, she said, “Din is a creature of the Sunbane. His body wards us as stone does.” Then she swung her beast in the direction of Revelstone.
Din's canter was unexpectedly smooth; and its hair gave Covenant a secure hold. He began to recover his poise. The ground still seemed fatally far away; but it no longer appeared to bristle with falling. Ahead of him, Memla sat cross-legged near the Courser's shoulders, trusting her hands to catch her whenever she was jostled off balance. After a while, he followed her example. Keeping both fists constantly clutched in Din's coat, he made himself as secure as he could.
Memla had not offered Vain a seat. She had apparently decided to treat him exactly as he treated her. But Vain did not need to be carried by any beast. He loped behind Dm effortlessly and gave no sign that he was in any way aware of what he was doing.
Covenant rode through the morning in silence, clinging to the Courser's back and sipping vitrim whenever the heat made him dizzy. But when Memla resumed their journey after a brief rest at noon, he felt a desire to make her talk. He wanted information; the wilderness of his ignorance threatened him. Stiffly, he asked her to explain the Rede of the Clave.
“The Rede!” she ejaculated over her shoulder. “Halfhand, the time before us is reckoned in days, not turnings of the moon.”
“Summarize,” he retorted. “If you don't want me dead, then you want my help. I need to know what I'm dealing with.”
She was silent.
Deliberately, he rasped, “In other words, you have been lying to me.”
Memla leaned abruptly forward, hawked and spat past Din's shoulder. But when she spoke, her tone was subdued, almost chastened. “The Rede is of great length and complexity, comprising all the accumulated knowledge of the Clave in reference to life in the Land, and to survival under the Sunbane. It is the task of the Riders to share this knowledge throughout the Land, so that Stonedown and Woodhelven may endure.”
Right, Covenant muttered. And to kidnap people for their blood.
“But little of this knowledge would have worth to you,” she went on. "You have sojourned scatheless under the Sunbane. What skills it to tell you of the Rede?
“Yet you desire comprehension. Halfhand, there is only one matter which the bearer of the white ring need understand. It is the triangle.” She took the rukh from her robe, showed it to him over her shoulder. “The Three Corners of Truth. The foundation of all our service.”
To the rhythm of Din's strides, she began to sing:
“Three the days of Sunbane's bale:
Three the Rede and sooth:
Three the words na-Mhoram spake:
Three the Corners of Truth.”
When she paused, he said, “What do you mean-'three the days'? Isn't the Sunbane accelerating? Didn't each sun formerly last for four or five days, or even more?”
“Yes,” she replied impatiently, "beyond doubt. But the soothreaders have ever foretold that the Clave would hold at three-that the generations-long increase of our power and the constant mounting of the Sunbane would meet and match at three days, producing balance. Thus we hope now that in some way we may contrive to tilt the balance to our side, sending the Sunbane toward decline. Therefore the na-Mhoram desires your aid.
“But I was speaking of the Three Corners of Truth,” she continued with asperity before Covenant could interrupt again. "This knowledge at least you do require. On these three facts the Clave stands, and every village lives.
"First, there is no power in Land or life comparable to the Sunbane. In might and efficacy, the Sunbane surpasses all other puissance utterly.
"Second, there is no mortal who can endure the Sunbane. Without great knowledge and cunning, none can hope to endure from one sun to the next. And without opposition to the Sunbane, all life is doomed. Swift or slow, the Sunbane will wreak entire ruin.
"Third, there is no power sufficient to oppose the Land's doom, except power which is drawn from the Sunbane itself. Its might must be reflected against it-No other hope exists. Therefore does the Clave shed the blood of the Land, for blood is the key to the Sunbane. If we do not unlock that power, there will be no end to our perishing.
“Hear you, Halfhand?” Memla demanded. “I doubt not that in your sojourn you have met much reviling of the Clave. Despite all our labour, Stonedown and Woodhelven must believe that we exact their blood for pleasure or self.” To Covenant's ears, her acidity was the gall of a woman who instinctively abhorred her conscious convictions. “Be not misled! The cost is sore to us. But we do not flinch from it because it is our sole means to preserve the Land. If you must cast blame, cast it upon a-Jeroth, who incurred the just wrath of the Master-and upon the ancient betrayers, Berek and his ilk, who leagued with a-Jeroth.”
Covenant wanted to protest. As soon as she mentioned Berek as a betrayer, her speech lost its persuasiveness. He had never known Berek Halfhand; the Lord-Fatherer was already a legend when Covenant had entered the Land. But his knowledge of the effects of Berek's life was nearly two score centuries more recent than Memla's. Any set of beliefs which counted Berek a betrayer was founded on a lie; and so any conclusions drawn from that foundation were false. But he kept his protest silent because he could conceive of no way to demonstrate its accuracy. No way short of victory over the Sunbane.
To spare himself a pointless argument, he said, “I'll reserve judgment on that for a while. In the meantime, satisfy my curiosity. I've got at least a dim notion of who a-Jeroth is. But what are the Seven Hells?”
Memla was muttering sourly to herself. He suspected that she resented his distrust precisely because it was echoed by a distrust within herself. But she answered brusquely, “They are rain, desert, pestilence, fertility, war, savagery, and darkness. But I believe that there is also an eighth. Blind hostility.”
After that, she rebuffed his efforts to engage her in any more talk.
When they halted for the night, he discarded his empty pouch and accepted food from her. And the next morning, he did what he could to help her prepare for the day's journey.
Sitting on Din, she faced the sunrise. It crested the horizon like a cynosure in green; and she shook her head. “A fertile sun,” she murmured. “A desert sun wreaks much ruin, and a sun of rain may be a thing of great difficulty. A sun of pestilence carries peril and abhorrence. But for those who must journey, no other sun is as arduous as the sun of fertility. Speak not to me under this sun, I adjure you. If my thoughts wander, our path will also wander.”