However, their knees and hides were not their strangest features. Their arms did not include hands. Instead their forearms grew into flexible stumps like elastic truncheons, able to plow through sand or batter down stone. And they had no faces; no features of any kind apart from the subtle ridges of their skulls and two almost hidden slits that resembled gills where humankind and even Cavewights had ears. Like their forearms, their heads were made to crash against obstacles.
Linden remembered Nom well. But she had forgotten how much raw force a Sandgorgon contained. Alone, each of the creatures looked as irrefusable as a tornado. Together they seemed to reify the worst storms of the world. They were cyclones distilled to unmitigated havoc.
Long ago, Thomas Covenant had mastered Nom with wild magic and delirant resolve. At his command, Nom had crossed lands and oceans to aid him against Revelstone and the Clave. With Honninscrave’s help, Nom had torn apart samadhi Sheol. Then, somehow, the Sandgorgon had consumed the scraps of the Raver’s existence—and had thereby gained a form of sentience unknown to Sandgorgons: the ability to communicate as the Haruchai did, mind to mind. Millennia ago, Nom had exchanged understandings with the Haruchai who had fought at Covenant’s side. Now, apparently, these creatures had been speaking to Stave.
“Much has transpired during the millennia of your absence, Chosen,” he said. “I am informed that Nom returned to the Great Desert and Sandgorgons Doom bearing the rent fragments of samadhi Sheol’s spirit. These had been forever torn from coherence, but they were not deprived of intention and malice. Nom distributed them among the Sandgorgons, giving to his kind faint remnants of the Raver’s memories and lore and cruelty. Thus in small tatters the brutish minds of the Sandgorgons acquired knowledge.
“Across a great span of years, they learned to unmake the Doom in which Kasreyn of the Gyre had imprisoned them. And across a far greater span, they discovered purpose. A host of them, all those who share samadhi Sheol’s spirit, have now come to the Land. For that reason, they were able to answer your call without delay.
“Of their host, these are but a few. The rest await the outcome of your summons.”
Linden frowned in confusion. “I’m needed, Stave.” Bhapa had marked her with Whrany’s blood, and his own. “Get to the point.”
The former Master studied the Sandgorgons for a moment. Then he told Linden, “They seek your acknowledgment that they have fulfilled your desire.”
As if so many deaths were not acknowledgment enough.
“Oh, hell.” Bitterly she looked around at the battlefield, the crushed and splattered bodies of the Cavewights. “Sure. Of course.” This, too, was her doing. “There’s nothing left for them here. We can always get more corpses.”
They had threatened to attack the Woodhelvennin—
Her spirit also had been torn. But she resembled Esmer more than samadhi Sheol: she was appalled by what she had become.
She needed Thomas Covenant to make her whole.
In response, Stave’s manner became more formal. “Then they are done with you. You are not the ur-Lord. You did not defeat or compel Nom. But you are the last of his companions. In gratitude for the quality of mind which they now possess, they answered your summons. They will not do so again.”
Linden nodded, too weary and aghast to find words. She hardly understood what Stave was saying.
He lowered his voice. “There is darkness in them, Chosen. Rent, samadhi Sheol’s spirit yet clings to Corruption. They have beheld majesty in the Raver’s visions of Doriendor Corishev, of kings and queens and rule. They have learned a hunger for suzerainty. In the Land, samadhi’s thoughts assure them, they will know what it means to hold sway.
“They avow that if you oppose them, they will crush you as ferociously as they slew these Cavewights, and with the same joy.”
“I don’t care.” Linden started to turn away. “I just want them to do their crushing somewhere else.”
But then she stopped. Impulsively she suggested, “Try telling them where Doriendor Corishev is.” Let them follow Doom’s Retreat to the Southron Waste; away from the Land. She trembled to imagine what would happen if a host of Sandgorgons struck at Revelstone. “If they want to ‘hold sway,’ they can start there. No one has held that region for thousands of years.”
Doriendor Corishev’s rulers had made a wilderland of their kingdom. But the Sandgorgons were born to deserts, formed for harsh landscapes. They might like the Southron Waste.
Perhaps the fragmentation of samadhi Sheol’s memories would prevent the Raver from directing the Sandgorgons elsewhere.
“Or if that doesn’t work,” she added. “tell them about the skurj. Tell them that those monsters are more powerful than they can imagine.” Perhaps the Sandgorgons could be taunted into defending the Land. “If they want to rule here, they’ll have to deal with Kastenessen’s creatures.”
For a moment, Stave regarded her as if her advice surprised him. Then he turned back to the Sandgorgons.
Leaving him to be as persuasive as he could, Linden headed toward the tree-dwellers again.
While she stumbled among the bodies, however, the Ramen caught her attention. Unfortunately Mahrtiir was conscious. Linden wished him a respite from the enormity of his hurts. With the Staff, she might have imposed a little sleep on his wracked body and mind. But his life was in no immediate danger. Bhapa tended him diligently while Pahni did what she could for the Ranyhyn. And some of the Woodhelvennin had worse injuries. Simple triage required her to conserve her scant resources.
Liand, the Humbled, and a few villagers had emerged from the wreckage of the banyan-grove bearing bundles of garments for bandages. Three or four of them carried cook pots which could be used to heat water. In a moment, Liand rejoined the Ramen.
Although she ached for Mahrtiir, Linden pushed herself back into motion.
The Manethrall stopped her with a ragged croak. “Ringthane.”
In spite of his agony, his health-sense enabled him to discern her presence.
“I’m here.” Linden’s voice resembled his. “You shouldn’t try to talk. You’ve lost a lot of blood. And there isn’t much that I can do about your pain right now.”
He shook his head as if he were wincing. “My hurts are naught.” The shattered mess of his eye sockets wept slow drops of blood. “I rue only that I am made useless to you.”
She tried to say, Mahrtiir, stop. But she could not force her mouth and throat to form words.
“Many needs press upon you,” he continued, wrenching speech past his wounds. “I ask but one boon. There is no other Manethrall here, and a witness is required. I ask you to stand in the stead of those who lead the Ramen.”
A moment passed before Linden realized that Bhapa was whispering as if he were horrified. “No. No. No.”
With an effort that felt like anguish, she managed to repeat, “I’m here.” She may have been making another promise that she would be unable to keep.
Hoarsely Mahrtiir said, “I am no longer able to bear the burdens of a Manethrall. Among the Ramen, those who have been blinded do not command the deeds of those who see. Cord Bhapa must assume my place. We cannot now perform the full ceremony of Maneing, but your witness will suffice.
“I ask Liand of Mithil Stonedown to remove the garland from my neck and set it upon Bhapa’s.” His woven necklace of yellow flowers, amanibhavam in faded bloom, was splashed with blood. It hung in tatters, but had not been severed. “Then he will take his long delayed place among the Manethralls, and I will serve him and you as I do the Ranyhyn, until my last breath.”
In dismay, Liand flung a look of appeal at Linden. He did not move to touch Mahrtiir’s garland.
Mahrtiir, no. Linden could not find her voice. Please. I can’t do this right now. I can’t let you do it. If she had been able to speak, she might have said, This can wait. Then she might have turned away.
But Bhapa rushed to his feet. Softly, as if he were in tears, he cried. “No, Manethrall. No. I will not. I am not
fit for Maneing. And I cannot abide—”
Abruptly he wheeled toward Linden. His eyes were dry, but every line of his face resembled sobbing.
“Ringthane,” he said, pleading with her, “do not permit this. It was not my tarnished sight—the sight which you have healed—that caused me to remain a Cord when others of my years had become Manethralls. It was my hesitancy. I bear uncertainties and doubts which consort ill with decision and command. I follow willingly. I am not suited to lead.”
Linden stared at him. She herself had uncertainties and doubts enough to cripple a legion. But she did not mean to let Jeremiah’s suffering continue unopposed—or unpunished.
However, Bhapa seemed to need no answer from her. At once, he turned back to Mahrtiir.
“And you cannot so lightly set aside your tasks,” he told the Manethrall, “or your yearning to be worthy of tales. You are merely hurt and blinded. You are not unmade. You are a Manethrall blood and bone. It determines you.
“Nor may you set aside the geas that was placed upon you.” The Cord’s passion mounted. “You were informed that you must go far, seeking ‘your heart’s desire.’ And you were urged to return when you had found it, for the Land has need of you. Those words were not granted to me. They were for you alone.”
Anele had spoken to Mahrtiir on the rich grass of Revelstone’s plateau. Linden believed that her friends had heard Thomas Covenant’s voice through the old man.
Bhapa and Pahni had been given a different message. In some way, you two have the hardest job. You’ll have to survive. And you’ll have to make them listen to you.
“Manethrall Mahrtiir,” Bhapa concluded, “I have obeyed you in all things. In this I will not.”
Mahrtiir bared his bloodied teeth. For a moment, he appeared to struggle with imprecations. An involuntary groan wrenched his chest. When he spoke, his voice was taut and raw.
“Then be Ramen, if you will not be Manethrall. Aid Pahni among the Ranyhyn. The needs of the great horses come foremost.”
Briefly he coughed, splashing his chest with arterial droplets. But Liand called up light from the orcrest and touched it to Mahrtiir’s sternum. By degrees, Mahrtiir relaxed.
“And Liand tends me well,” he said: a brittle rustling like the sound of dried leaves in a breeze. “I will not impose my garland upon you by perishing.”
Shamed in spite of her exhaustion, Linden found somewhere enough gentle fire to stop the Manethrall’s bleeding and grant him sleep. For years, she had wept too easily. She wanted to weep now. But she could not. Her stone heart held no tears.
The Sandgorgons departed a short time later; pelted avidly into the east as if they were eager for more destruction. Presumably they were returning to their host. And when they were gone, Esmer reappeared.
He still wore his wounds and his shredded raiment. Perhaps his many powers did not include the ability to heal himself.
He did not approach Linden. He spoke to no one. Indeed, he seemed unaware that anyone watched him as he sent waves of force through the ground to gather up corpses: Cavewights and kresh; slain villagers. Intimidated by powers beyond their comprehension, the Woodhelvennin did not object.
Whrany’s body he took as well: he made no distinctions among the fallen. Linden expected protests from the Ramen, but they said nothing. Even the Ranyhyn did not interfere. Instead the great horses called a kind of farewell, at once haunting and brazen, to their lost herd-mate; and Bhapa and Pahni bowed their foreheads to the ground.
When Esmer had pulled all of the dead together into a bitter mound, he called down lightning to set the pile ablaze. Then he wrapped the acrid reek of burning flesh and blood around him and vanished again. However, he left enough of his eerie force behind to keep the flames of the pyre roaring. Linden guessed that the fire would not burn down until it had consumed every scrap of slaughtered flesh.
Black smoke, viscid as oil, and sour as the fumes of a midden, rolled skyward. Fortunately the breeze tugged it away from the survivors. That, too, may have been Esmer’s doing.
As soon as Cail’s son removed himself, Stave returned to Linden. He said nothing about Esmer or the Sandgorgons. And she asked him nothing. Perhaps Esmer was grieved by the cost of the battle. Perhaps the Sandgorgons had gone to lead their host to Doriendor Corishev. It made no difference.
Taking Stave with her, she let him care for her with water, springwine, and a little food while she exerted frail flames of Earthpower and Law among the Woodhelvennin.
She still had done nothing for the Ranyhyn. But Liand had added his efforts to Pahni’s and Bhapa’s. And the horses absorbed the white brilliance of his Sunstone gratefully. Earthpower in that form did not heal them; but they appeared to draw a different sustenance from it, as they did from amanibhavam, so that they became stronger in spite of their hurts.
Somewhere in the distance, Linden heard insistent whinnying. But she ignored it, and after a while it stopped. She did not grasp what it signified until Vernigil and a few villagers approached her bearing fired clay bowls redolent with the salvific savor of hurtloam. Apparently Hyn, Rhohm, and Naharahn had galloped away to search along the brook for the healing sand. They had found a small vein in the washed streambed.
Vernigil’s condition had improved visibly. Already some of the damage to his mangled leg had begun to repair itself. Yet Linden did not imagine that the Master had availed himself of the hurtloam’s benison. Rather he had benefited from the humble act of carrying it.
The Woodhelvennin accompanying him were full of astonishment. They must have used their hands to scoop up the spangled sand; and Earthpower had come to life within them, banishing the pall of Kevin’s Dirt. Now for the first time in their lives—the first time in unnumbered generations—they were able to see. They could not yet understand what had happened to them. Nevertheless they had been transformed.
Finally Linden allowed herself to rest. She touched the tip of one finger to the hurtloam, let its sovereign potency spread through her. Then she sank to the dirt and covered her face, leaving Stave and Vernigil to instruct the tree-dwellers in the use of the Land’s largesse.
Later, she recovered enough to wonder why the Masters had permitted the Woodhelvennin to experience Earthpower; to discover health-sense and know what they had been denied.
In addition to the unremitting stench of the pyre, she smelled cooking. When she sat up and looked around, she saw that many of the villagers were busy at fires, using boughs and branches from their homes for fuel. Inspired, perhaps, by the miraculous recovery of their maimed and dying friends and families, they had emerged from their dismay to perform the necessary tasks of staying alive.
When she had observed them for a while, Linden saw that they were being organized by an old couple, the same man and woman whom she had aided at Hyn’s insistence. She had not truly healed them: she had merely postponed their deaths. But they must have shared in the unequivocal efficacy of hurtloam. Although they were fragile and hurt, they walked among their neighbors, still holding hands as they sorted the Woodhelvennin into cooperating teams.
Hyn stood near Linden, watching over her rider. And soon after Linden sat up, Liand came to join her. Squatting comfortably on the shale and grit, he studied her for a moment to assure himself that she was physically unharmed. Then he, too, turned his attention to the villagers.
“I am told,” he remarked quietly, “that the elders who lead them are named Heers. The customs of Woodhelvennin are strange to me.” He gave Linden a wry smile. “I had not known that such folk inhabited the Land. But ‘by right of years and attainment’”—he quoted Handir good-naturedly—“Karnis and his mate, Quilla, are the Heers of First Woodhelven. You did well to redeem their lives, Linden. They command respect among their people which the Masters do not. Vernigil nearly perished in their defense. His companion was slain. Nonetheless here the Masters appear to lack some increment of their stature in Mithil Stonedown. It was Karnis and Quilla rather than Vernigil who truly roused these folk fr
om their bereavement.”
Linden sighed. “The tree must have been wonderful. I wish I could have seen it. Maybe it affected them. Maybe they knew in their bones that the Land isn’t as”—she grimaced reflexively—“as superficial as the Masters wanted them to believe.”
The Masters had spent many centuries teaching the villagers to be unprepared for the peril and loss which had befallen them.
Yet now Stave’s kinsmen had recanted? She did not believe it. Decades of caesures had not swayed the Masters: the terrible magicks of the Demondim and the Illearth Stone had not moved them. So why had Vernigil and the Humbled allowed the Woodhelvennin to touch hurtloam?
To some extent, she understood the Harrow. I am able to convey you to your son. The actions of Esmer, Roger, and moksha Jehannum seemed explicable. But the Masters baffled her.
As the villagers prepared food, or searched through the grove’s debris for the supplies that they would need in order to reach Revelstone, the sun sank toward late afternoon, drawing stark shadows across the stained ground. With Liand’s help, Linden climbed wearily to her feet and went to check on the condition of her friends.
She was relieved to see that the Ranyhyn also had been given the benefit of hurtloam. The worst of their injuries were mending with remarkable celerity. Soon they would be able to bear their riders again.
And Mahrtiir and Bhapa had been treated with the gold-flecked sand as well. Although the Cord moved stiffly, and would no doubt feel the ache of his saft ribs for days, he was free of infection; no longer bleeding. Since the Ranyhyn no longer needed care, he and Pahni watched over their Manethrall.
Blessed by hurtloam, Mahrtiir slept deeply, and all of his wounds showed signs of swift healing. With strips of clean wool, the Cords had bandaged his gouged forehead and nose, as well as several deep slashes in his limbs and along his ribs. But first they had washed his eye sockets and cuts, removing dirt and chipped bone. Linden’s health-sense assured her that he would live.