“Then don’t blame Linden,” Covenant retorted. “Your grievance is with me, not her. And I didn’t deny you anything. I just told you what I was going to do if you refused. You could have accepted that cost.
“If Joan doesn’t kill us,” he promised, “you’ll get your chance to repay Linden. Or me, if you judge me the way you judge her.”
When he squinted ahead, he saw the terrain changing. Beyond the flint, sandstone and shale gathered into mounds like barrows or glacial moraines. He had the impression that huge creatures had been buried there: buried, or plowed under by warfare. But he did not try to remember the forces which had shaped that landscape. He did not want to fall into the past again.
As the horses pounded toward the mounds, the Humbled regarded him steadily. “Still you do not comprehend us, ur-Lord,” Branl observed. “It is not without cause that you have been named the Unbeliever.”
Apparently unwilling to let the matter drop, he took a different approach. “The Ardent has assured us that the Cords Bhapa and Pahni have been conveyed toward Revelstone, where they will strive to sway the Masters. But the Masters will not heed them. Cord Pahni’s desire for the Stonedownor’s resurrection is abhorrent to us. She has beseeched Linden Avery to demean his death by unmaking the outcome of his life. Thus her every word will be tainted by her craving for the Stonedownor’s humiliation, which she misnames love. No Master would hold him in such low esteem. He was courage in life. Why, then, should he be denied the courage of his death? Is that not false honor?”
Covenant rubbed his forehead again. Damnation! Branl’s pronouncements seemed to aggravate the itching of the old wound. The Humbled had misjudged Pahni: that was obvious. Was it possible that Branl and Clyme and all of the Masters were unforgiving of loss and failure because they refused to grieve? Because they equated grief with humiliation? If so, then of course their only response to bereavement would be repudiation.
But Covenant had no intention of debating Pahni with Branl and Clyme. Instead he admitted sourly, “That’s the Law.” The Law of Death. The Law of Life. By that standard, Covenant himself was inherently false. A disease upon the body of the world. “Life depends on death. But there are other things to consider.”
The severity of the Humbled ignored the wonders of the Land; the possibility of miracles.
Again Branl asked, “Ur-Lord?”
Covenant did not respond. At the boundary between flint and sandstone, the Ranyhyn veered unexpectedly to the west, guiding the destrier between them. While Covenant tried to relax in the saddle, the horses trotted to a halt at a clear spring hidden by a fold in the ground. The spring’s pool was little more than an arm span across. From there, the water flowed away along a minor gully like a scratch in the dirt. But at the sides of the slow rill, grasses grew, punctuated by a few clumps of aliantha.
By damn, Covenant breathed to himself. Speaking of wonders—
At once, he flung his aching body down from his mount, staggered when his boots hit the ground, caught his balance. Beside the destrier’s avid muzzle, he knelt at the edge of the pool and pushed his whole face into the water to drink.
Branl and Clyme also dismounted. While Naybahn and Mhornym drank, the Humbled scooped a little water into their mouths, then picked and ate a few treasure-berries. But the Ranyhyn appeared to disdain the grass. Moving aside, they left the Harrow’s charger to crop as much provender as it needed.
When Covenant was satisfied, he scrubbed his face in the pool, splashed water onto the back of his neck. Then he gathered and ate enough fruit to sustain him, cursing at the awkwardness of his truncated fingers. Still he said nothing. When Clyme and Branl were mounted again, he hauled his trembling muscles up into the destrier’s saddle.
Concentrate, he instructed himself. Don’t fight it. Long ago, he had ridden across the Land with Lord Mhoram, Saltheart Foamfollower, and the quest for Berek’s Staff of Law. He needed to remember how to relax in his seat. If he did not, his mount’s galloping would batter him until he felt dismembered.
As the horses began to clatter among the barrows or moraines, heading generally southeastward, he returned to the challenge of arguing with his companions.
Unable to think of a graceful way to begin, he said brusquely, “You’re both maimed. You fought long and hard to become halfhands. If I remember, you did it because you wanted to be like me.” Why else had the Humbled swallowed their judgments of Linden and Jeremiah? Why else had they accepted healing so that they could accompany him? “What does that mean to you? Why do the Masters need halfhands?”
Now it was Clyme who answered. “Unbeliever, in you we have found the highest exemplar of ourselves. More, we have found our counter to humiliation. Twice you have confronted Corruption, and twice prevailed. These are deeds which no Haruchai has equaled. Others who made the attempt were self-betrayed to their dooms.
“Of necessity, therefore, we have considered how it transpires that you who are weak succeed where we who are strong fail. And we have concluded that your victories rest upon a degree or quality of acceptance which once surpassed the Haruchai. You do not merely accept your own weakness, defying common conceptions of strength and power. You accept also the most extreme consequences of your frailty, daring even the utter ruin of the Earth in your resolve to oppose Corruption. You cling to your intent when your defeat is certain.
“In you, ur-Lord,” Clyme stated, “we have seen that such absolute acceptance of both your purpose and your weakness is mighty against all evil. We have seen the Land twice redeemed. And we aspire to the same willingness, the same triumph. Knowing that they cannot prevail, the Haruchai have become the Masters of the Land. For the same reason, we have won the role of the Humbled, to embody the high mission of our people. Thus we give answer to Corruption, and to all who demean us.”
Comfortable on Mhornym’s back, Branl echoed Clyme with a nod.
Inwardly Covenant winced. He saw more than one fallacy in Clyme’s argument. Obviously Clyme gave him more credit than he deserved; but there was another.
The Masters and the Humbled were still trying to prove themselves—and that was never going to work. Not against Lord Foul. It was the same mistake that Korik, Sill, and Doar had made: the same mistake disguised in different language. The same mistake that had caused the Haruchai to become the Bloodguard. Their fixation on humiliation revealed the truth.
So the whole world is going to die. Let it. Knowing that we’ve accepted the consequences of our actions is good enough for us. Nothing matters except how we feel about ourselves.
Lord Foul probably ate that kind of thinking for breakfast, and laughed his head off. No wonder he had told Linden that the Masters already served him.
But Covenant could not say such things to Clyme and Branl. Stave might understand him: the Humbled would not.
He let that one fallacy pass. For a few moments, he concentrated on trying to loosen his muscles so that his body would flex with the destrier’s movements. As he did so, however, the wrapped krill dug into his abdomen. With an exasperated wrench, he moved the dagger to the side of his waist. Then he set about contradicting the Humbled.
“You’re forgetting something. I’ve always had help. I never would have reached Foul’s Creche on my own. Foamfollower had to carry me.” If the jheherrin had not rescued him—if Foamfollower and Bannor had not distracted Elena—if a nameless woman in Morinmoss had not healed him—“And I still would have failed if Foamfollower hadn’t given me exactly what I needed,” if the last of the Unhomed had not revealed the courage, the sheer greatness of spirit, to laugh in the face of despair.
“Without Linden and the First and Pitchwife, I would never have made it to Kiril Threndor. Without Linden, I couldn’t have forced myself to hand over my ring. Without Vain and Findail, she couldn’t have created a new Staff. Without the First and Pitchwife, her Staff would have been lost.
“Sure,” Covenant rasped, “Lord Foul was defeated. Twice. But I didn’t do it. We did it. Foamfollower a
nd I. Linden and I. The First and Pitchwife and Sunder and Hollian.
“So tell me again,” he demanded. “What’s so wrong about accepting gifts you haven’t earned?”
But he did not wait for an answer. “In any case,” he muttered, “dying is easy. Anybody can do it. Living is hard.”
And living was untenable without forgiveness.
In silence, Clyme and Branl conveyed the impression that they were consulting with each other. For a little while, Covenant allowed himself to hope that they had heard him; that for his sake they had lowered their defenses. But then Branl turned to him with an unmistakable glint of disapprobation in his gaze.
“Is it your belief, ur-Lord, that we must countenance humiliation? That we must subjugate ourselves to powers beyond our ken, and to choices which we have not affirmed?”
Hellfire, Covenant thought. Hellfire and bloody damnation.
“Never mind.” Swallowing his vexation, he shrugged. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Think about it another way.
“Down at the bottom, your accusation against Linden is, ‘Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.�� Breaking Laws is an evil means. Concealing her intentions is an evil means. So of course she has to be stopped. You couldn’t block the Fall she used to get to Revelstone. You couldn’t make her tell the truth about what she wanted in Andelain. You couldn’t get past Stave and Mahrtiir and the Ranyhyn when you realized what she had in mind. But I should have let you stop her when she first resurrected me.
“Well, sure,” he went on before the Humbled could respond. “That makes sense. There’s only one problem. There are always evil means. Nobody is ever as pure as you want them to be. You aren’t. I’m not. We all have some kind of darkness in us. So the only way to avoid evil means is to do nothing. And the only way to do nothing—to be innocent—is to be powerless,” which in effect was what the Masters had chosen for the Land. “If you have power, any kind of power at all, it always finds a way to express itself. Somehow.
“But you aren’t powerless.” Passion mounted in his tone. He did not try to restrain it. “Practically everything you’ve done proves it. You don’t trust how people use Earthpower—and you have good reason. So you’ve been trying to keep the Land innocent by making everybody else impotent. And you’ve succeeded. Liand was a perfect example.
“For all I know, you thought you were giving him a gift.
“That much, at least, I understand.” Covenant kept his gaze on the horizon, surveying reminders of devastation. “The first time I came to the Land, I almost turned myself inside out trying to be innocent.” After what he had done to Lena—The memory still made him cringe. “What I finally accepted wasn’t being weak, and it sure as hell wasn’t the consequences of my actions. What I accepted was evil means. Guilt. The crime of power.
“But there’s one part of all this you don’t seem to understand.” He was on the verge of shouting. “The thing that makes Earthpower terrible is the same thing that makes it wonderful. Even if innocence is a good thing, which I doubt, you’ve confused it with ignorance.
“That’s what’s wrong with being the Masters of the Land. You wanted to stop something terrible, so you stopped everything. Including everything that might have been wonderful. You’ve even stopped yourselves from being the kind of force that could have changed the world. And you’ve ensured nobody else changes it. Hell, you’ve subjugated everybody to choices they didn’t make.
“If you want to be innocent, that’s your right. But you’ve been so determined to prevent another Kevin Landwaster, you’ve closed the door on another Berek Halfhand, or another Damelon Giantfriend, or another Loric Vilesilencer.
“Hellfire.” Gradually Covenant’s vehemence subsided. The impassivity of the Humbled seemed to imply that words were useless. “Sunder and Hollian could have started a new Council of Lords. The Land could have had more Mhorams, more Prothalls, more Callindrills, more Hyrims. All you had to do was tell people what you know instead of keeping everything secret.”
Now Clyme and Branl were staring straight at Covenant; and he did not need health-sense to recognize their ire. The hearts of the Haruchai were tinder. Beneath their studied dispassion, anger burned like a bonfire.
“You denounce us,” Branl asserted as if he were certain of Covenant’s meaning. “Do you seek to spurn our companionship? Do you desire our enmity?”
“Hell, no!” Covenant wanted to rage at the sky in simple frustration. “I need you. And I respect you.” With an effort that made him ache, he restrained himself. The intransigence of the Humbled filled him with loneliness. “I know I don’t sound like it, but I respect the hell out of you. If I were in your place, I might have made different decisions a long time ago, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing I could be more like you.
“If I were, I wouldn’t be so damn terrified of my ex-wife.”
And perhaps he would have been brave enough to assure Linden that he loved her.
To his surprise, his reply appeared to content his companions. Their wrath faded as they looked away. For several moments, they rode mutely at his sides. Then Clyme asked as if he were not changing the subject, “Have you considered, ur-Lord, how you will contest your former mate? Ruled by turiya Herem, she wields wild magic and Falls. And we have cause to believe that she is warded by skest. Also we are concerned that Corruption may summon other forces to her defense.
“With the aid of the Ranyhyn—if the terrain permits—we may perhaps suffice against the skest. But against Falls, we cannot shield you. And we have no lore to gauge the uses of the krill.
“You have surrendered your rightful ring. How, then, will you oppose her?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Covenant did not want to dwell on Joan. He was not ready. To prevent the Humbled from insisting, he added, “You have one thing I don’t. You remember everything—and you can hold on to it all at once. In fact, you make it look easy. Maybe that’ll save us.”
The Masters seemed to discuss Covenant’s remark privately before Branl answered, “Ur-lord, we are able to contain our memories because we do not do so alone. Across the generations of the Haruchai, we have learned together to accommodate an ever-expanding recall. But we cannot gift our communion to others. We lack that power or craft. That we hear and answer the silent speech of Sandgorgons results from the remnants of samadhi Sheol within them, not from any outreach of our own minds.
“We are cognizant of your straits. The vastness of Time exceeds you. But we know not how to aid you.”
Grinding his teeth, Covenant reminded himself again to relax. “Don’t worry about it,” he repeated more severely. “One of us will think of something. And if we don’t—” He sighed. “The Ranyhyn still know what they’re doing.”
He had to believe that. He thought that he knew where to find Joan; but he had no notion what he would do when he reached her. He was only sure that she was his responsibility—and that he would never return to claim Linden if he did not first find an answer to Joan’s excruciation.
Barrows and shale seemed to stretch indefinitely into Covenant’s future and the Land’s past: a wracked wasteland like a battlefield where armies beyond counting had slaughtered each other for centuries. Yet eventually that region gave way to a wide sheet of old lava. Beyond it, the riders found a beaten plain webbed with gullies. Nonetheless Naybahn and Mhornym continued to discover water and forage; occasional aliantha. Between them, they kept Covenant fed and his mount running.
Later they came to a protracted series of ridges that lay athwart the south like fortifications, obstructing the course of the Ranyhyn. However, Naybahn and Mhornym surmounted each line of hills by angling away from Landsdrop to more gradual slopes in the east.
By Covenant’s reckoning, each ridge nudged his company closer to the boundaries of the Sarangrave.
By degrees, the Ranyhyn turned more directly toward the Sunbirth Sea. According to Clyme, they were passing south of the Sarangrave’s verge. If Mhornym and Naybahn held to t
his heading, their path would skim the northern edge of the Shattered Hills.
With every league, Covenant became more confident that he knew where the Ranyhyn were taking him. Somewhere among the broken stone and ravaged cliffs of Foul’s Creche, he would find Joan. Why else had the Ardent striven to convey everyone as far as he could in this direction? And if Ridjeck Thome were indeed their goal, the horses had chosen the safest route; probably the quickest. Any other approach would force them into the jumbled maze of the Shattered Hills: an area fraught with hazards, apt for ambush.
How much farther? Covenant wondered. At this pace? Assuming that the cliffs of the coast were even passable? But he did not ask Clyme or Branl. He had more immediate concerns. His mount’s gait had become labored, a ragged jarring. And as the sun sank toward distant Landsdrop, caesures began to sprout across the Spoiled Plains.
Too many of them: more than he had believed Joan could unleash without causing her own heart to burst. Instinctively he assumed that she—or turiya Raver—was trying to hunt him down.
Yet the Falls were comparatively brief. They flared into chiaroscuro, a swirling stutter of day and night, writhed avidly across the landscape, and then extinguished themselves. Indeed, they seemed somehow indecisive, as if they had lost the scent of their prey. And none of them came close enough to endanger Covenant’s small company. Instead they searched the region which the Ranyhyn would have crossed if they had run straight toward Foul’s Creche.
As late afternoon became evening, Covenant began to breathe more easily. He was able to persuade himself that Joan did not know where he was. She and turiya were only guessing. As long as his skin did not touch Loric’s krill—
Of course, it was possible that he was not Joan’s target. This display of violation may have been aimed at Linden and Jeremiah. The Despiser—and therefore his Ravers—surely understood that Linden and her son were at least as dangerous to him as Thomas Covenant. But Covenant trusted the Ranyhyn to protect them. And Linden had her Staff: she could ward herself and her companions.