Instinctively Linden dismissed the refusal of the Waynhim. It was too much: she could not afford to believe that she would fail now. Her head still reeled with the aftereffects of the Waynhim’s defenses, and Esmer’s. She had no choice but to act as though she could not be thwarted.
They were Waynhim, and they had the Staff: that was all that mattered. She had nowhere else to turn. If they did not trust her, she would simply have to persuade them.
Quietly, almost calmly, she asked Esmer, “Why not? They know I made it. Don’t they think it belongs to me?”
His ferocity faded at once. Now he appeared to squirm.
“They fear you,” he admitted. “Your presence in this time is a profound violation of the very Law which the Staff supports. How can they believe that your purpose is benign, when you have chosen to pursue that purpose by such hazardous means?
“Also,” he added in a smaller voice, “they fear me. They perceive the peril of my nature. That I act on your behalf tells against you.”
Linden shook her head. The reasoning of the Waynhim did not surprise her. They were not her enemies.
Esmer, on the other hand—
“They have a point,” she said more sharply. “What in hell are you doing here, Esmer?” Then she stopped herself. “No, don’t answer that yet. First tell me how you got here.”
Earlier, he had refused to enter the caesure with her. In my presence, you will surely fail. What had he meant, if not that his nature would not permit passage through a Fall?
“You are acquainted with Elohim,” he answered, still squirming. “You know that they stand apart from all Law. I have not inherited their untrammeled separateness, but I have been granted a measure of their freedom.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “Time seldom hinders me.”
“Then why didn’t you just come get the Staff for me? You keep saying you want to help. Why did we have to go through all that pain?”
Esmer looked away. “The Elohim respect the Law of Time. It preserves the Earth. They have no wish to rouse the Worm of the World’s End. To that extent, I am bound by their Würd.”
Linden swore to herself. As usual, his response was too conflicted and ambiguous to help her. Instead of pursuing the subject, she changed directions.
“You said the Waynhim were blind to my ring. Why is that?”
Esmer’s mien reflected a rolling wave of emotions: anxiety, defensiveness, shame. “It is an effect of my nearness.”
She heard hints in his words, suggestions of insight, but their meaning eluded her. There were conclusions which she should have been able to draw—Too many truths had already slipped through her fingers, leaving her less and less prepared for each succeeding crisis. But she could not think beyond the exigencies of her immediate situation.
Esmer had mentioned betrayal. As if treachery were essential to his identity. And he had avowed that his presence would ensure her failure.
“So if you hadn’t showed up here and broken down their defenses,” she said grimly, “we wouldn’t be in this mess. The Waynhim would have sensed the ur-viles, sure, but they would have felt my ring at the same time.
“And the ur-viles wouldn’t have attacked them.” She would not have permitted that. “As far as I can see, the Waynhim are refusing me now because you came all this way to threaten them.”
Stave nodded again.
“So explain it to me, Esmer,” she insisted. “What in hell are you doing here?”
“Wildwielder,” he retorted, “you understand nothing.” His words were scornful, but his tone and his manner ached with regret, apology; self-recrimination. “I feared what might transpire if the ur-viles accosted the Waynhim.
“The breaking of their wards is nothing. If you chose, you might have torn the barrier asunder. Or the ur-viles, given time, could have accomplished as much in your name. But such efforts would have been prolonged, allowing the Waynhim to withdraw. Nor would your actions have relieved their mistrust.
“My intervention has not harmed them. It was necessary only to prevent them from flight, so that you might be granted an opportunity to beseech them.
“Also the enmity among these Demondim-spawn is deep and ancient. That the ur-viles have seen their Würd in a new way does not comfort the Waynhim. In my absence, how would you mediate between them? And how would you counter their doubt of you? You do not know their speech. You cannot answer their concerns if you do not comprehend them.
“You must not spurn my aid.” Yearning ached in his gaze. “How otherwise may I be redeemed?”
But Linden had no tolerance left for his self-justifications. “That’s not my problem,” she told him trenchantly. “You like to talk about betrayals. I don’t think I can afford your help.”
Turning her back on his puissance, she took a few steps toward the Waynhim.
“You know me,” she told the waiting creature. “I don’t care what Esmer says about me—or about you either. He’s making this all sound complicated when it’s actually simple.
“I’m the woman who made the Staff. Covenant sacrificed himself to protect the Arch of Time, and I used his ring to transform Vain and Findail so that I could stop the Sunbane.
“I came here through a caesure. That’s true. And caesures are evil. That’s true, too. But it doesn’t change who I am.” She believed that. “I just didn’t have any other way to get here.”
She could not read the creature’s reactions. It might have regarded her with empathy or terror, and she would not have known the difference. Yet somehow the Waynhim conveyed the impression that it was not well; that some old sorrow or wound sapped its vitality, leaving it more frail than it should have been. Grief over the near-extermination of its kind? Some other loss or burden? Linden could not tell. Like the ur-viles, the Waynhim baffled her health-sense.
Nevertheless its condition moved her. When she went on, she spoke more gently.
“If I’m going to fight Lord Foul, I need the Staff. I’m no ‘Wildwielder.’ That was Covenant, and he’s dead. And white gold can’t stop caesures. You know that better than I do. Only Law can undo that kind of rupture.
“But that’s not all.” She glanced back at Cail’s son, then told the Waynhim urgently, “Esmer may not have mentioned that Lord Foul has my son, my Jeremiah. Maybe I can rescue him with wild magic, maybe I can’t. But I can’t do it without risking the Arch, and that’s too dangerous. I need the Staff. Otherwise I might do enough harm to end the Earth.”
Even Jeremiah would be destroyed.
“And the Staff belongs to me,” she asserted. “Not just because I made it, but because I’m a healer. That’s what I do.” She chose her words with care. “I’m the right person to use it.”
You’re the only one who can do this.
The creature responded with a spate of harsh barking, bitter as a denial. When the Waynhim finished, Esmer said as if he had lost interest, “They were unaware that you have a son. They sorrow on his behalf. But all else that you have said they knew, and they are not swayed. Your presence is a violation of Law. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.”
At any other time, that argument would have stopped Linden. She recognized its validity. But she could not heed it now. She had already taken risks which she could not undo. She could only hope to justify them with her actions.
“Wait here,” she told the Waynhim abruptly. “I’ll show you why you should give me the Staff.”
The creature inclined its head: a motion which could have meant anything, but which she chose to interpret as consent.
At once, she swung away to stride down the ravine toward her companions.
Deliberately she ignored Esmer. Accompanied by Stave and Mahrtiir, she hastened along the streambed, rushing to find her way through her ramified dilemmas before her instincts faltered or failed.
Although Esmer had withdrawn his barrier, the rest of her company still stood in midafternoon sunlight at the end of the ravine. The ur-viles remained undecipherable to her; but Liand’s cha
rged confusion and the alarm of the Cords reached her across the intervening sand and stone.
They were as human as she was; their needs as great. Any explanation might have eased their hearts. But she could not pause for them. Holding up her hand to silence their questions, she spoke first to the ur-viles.
“You can’t go any farther,” she said brusquely. “You know that. The Waynhim won’t have it. And I suspect you don’t want to.” Unless they craved the Staff for themselves. But if they did, they were too weak to act on their desire. “You’ve already done your part. You’ll have to wait here.”
Then she turned to Liand and the Cords. “Bhapa, Pahni, I want you to take care of the Ranyhyn. Keep them nearby. I don’t know when we’re going to need them again, but it might be sudden.
“As for you—” She faced Liand’s open concern squarely. “Get Anele for me. Bring him into the ravine. If he can’t convince the Waynhim—”
She left the thought unfinished: if the old man could not move the Waynhim, they had no hearts; and she was powerless.
Liand’s gaze still pleaded with her, but he did not protest. When Pahni and Bhapa bowed in acquiescence, he smiled crookedly and did the same.
Touched by his generosity, Linden might have taken a moment to thank him; but her fears did not let her go.
As if she had released them, the ur-viles surrendered to their weariness again. Abandoning their wedge, they sank down to rest in the bottom of the watercourse. At the same time, the Cords and Liand started up the hillside toward the Ranyhyn and Anele.
With Mahrtiir and Stave beside her still, Linden returned to Esmer and the lone Waynhim, walking among the shadows as if she meant to challenge the dark.
Esmer and the creature were talking quietly, but they broke off their exchange as she approached. She could not be sure, but she thought that she saw tears in Esmer’s indefinite gaze.
Too tense to remain silent, she asked, “Now what?”
Esmer lifted his shoulders: a shrug, perhaps, or a clench of self-restraint. “The Waynhim are valiant,” he answered in a low voice, “and too many of them will perish if you do not contrive their salvation. They know their plight, yet they do not flinch from it. I grieve for them, as I do for myself.”
Oh, great, Linden thought to herself. Just what I need. More riddles.
Aloud, she muttered, “So this is what your help is like. You summoned a caesure for me, and the Ramen were driven out of their homes. Now you’re here to ‘mediate’ for me, and something terrible is going to happen to the Waynhim.”
He nodded stiffly.
A new concern occurred to her. “What about all the help you gave the Ramen before they came to the Verge of Wandering? How are you going to betray them for that?”
Esmer withheld his damp gaze. “I have already done so. I have brought them near to the Land when you had need of them. No more terrible doom has been required of me.”
Linden wanted to snarl at him; but she kept her ire to herself. While she remained in this time, she could do nothing for the Ramen.
“Then,” Stave remarked to Esmer, “the Chosen and all the Land would be better served without your aid.”
Remembering Esmer’s earlier violence, Linden braced herself to jump between him and the Haruchai. But Cail’s son did not answer Stave’s accusation.
“Ringthane,” Mahrtiir offered slowly, “I cannot account for him.” The Manethrall sounded troubled. “He has been a friend to the Ramen as to the Ranyhyn, giving us no cause for mistrust. Of one thing I am certain, however. No urging of his has caused us to act against the will of the Ranyhyn. For that reason, we regret nothing that we have done, though we have indeed returned to the Verge of Wandering in a time of peril.”
Before Linden could respond, she heard movement behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Liand enter the streambed with Anele. The Stonedownor supported Anele with his arm around the old man’s waist. Anele appeared to have lost all volition and strength: he accompanied Liand only because the young man half carried him along.
Nonetheless Linden was sure of him. He was an argument that would persuade the Waynhim to aid her. If they were deaf to him, they would hear no other appeal.
“Thank you,” she murmured as Liand and the old man drew near. Then she said, “Let him go. Let’s see what he does.”
Liand complied with a nod. When he had released Anele, he stepped back.
Shadows made pools of darkness in the sockets of Anele’s blind eyes. He appeared entirely lost; too far gone in dismay to be aware of his surroundings or situation. In some preterite way, however, he may have understood what was needed of him. Or perhaps his inborn Earthpower reacted to the lore of the Waynhim. As soon as Liand removed his support, the old man took a few tottering steps toward the creature and dropped to his knees.
Clasping his hands before his face as if he were praying, he bowed his face to the sand. Then he spread out his arms and prostrated himself like an act of supplication.
The Waynhim considered him carefully. It came to stand over him; sniffed all around him as though tasting the tale of his life in his aggrieved scent. And as it did so, the creature increasingly gave the impression that it had been wounded; galled by sorrow or suffering.
If Linden could have seen its cause, the creature’s care and pain would have explained the Waynhim to her. One more hint, a final glimpse or insight, might enable her to comprehend their dilemma.
Trying to elicit that hint, she told the Waynhim softly, “This is Anele, son of Sunder and Hollian. They were chosen to hold the Staff of Law when I passed from the Land, and Covenant was lost. He inherited it from them. You found it in the cave where he lived while he studied the Land, trying to determine the form of service that was right for him.”
She did not add, He only made one mistake. Look at what it cost him. The creature could discern the truth for itself.
When the Waynhim had finished its examination, it barked a few guttural syllables into the gloom and retreated to stand once more near the mouth of the cave. There it stayed, apparently forbidding Linden to enter; refusing her—
After a moment, Mahrtiir demanded tensely, “Esmer, what was said? Has the Waynhim given its answer?”
Esmer hid his surging gaze in the crook of his arm and did not reply.
Stave waited with his arms folded across his chest. His flat features betrayed no reaction.
Linden kept her attention fixed on the creature and the cave.
As the sun declined past midafternoon, the shadows thickened, obscuring the face of the Waynhim, filling the mouth of the cave with potential night. Within herself, Linden fretted; but outwardly she remained calm. The Waynhim could argue that the end did not justify the means, but they could not deny that Anele was the rightful wielder of the Staff—or that he was in no condition to bear that responsibility. Nor could they believe that the Staff was not desperately needed. Anele’s plight demonstrated the Land’s more eloquently than any words.
And the delay was not prolonged. Soon the darkness within the cave appeared to condense, concentrating gradually into the form of a second Waynhim.
This creature moved with an arduous limp, as if every movement tormented its sore and swollen joints. As it emerged from the cave, Linden saw that its flesh was afflicted with oozing galls and eruptions like the stigmata of a plague. From half of its face the skin had peeled away, leaving raw tissues which throbbed and bled with each beat of its heart. Boils and blisters distorted its mouth as if it had swallowed acid, and a rank green fluid dripped like pus from both of its nostrils.
Its pain cried out to her, as articulate as weeping, although the Waynhim made no sound.
It came forward a few steps, then stopped, wavering on its feet as if it had reached the end of its strength.
“Heaven and Earth!” Liand breathed. “What has befallen it? Is this an ailment? Has some cruel force wrought such harm?”
“Esmer?” demanded Mahrtiir harshly.
Linden
understood now: the poor creature’s suffering gave her the hint she needed. How else might the Waynhim have responded to Anele’s plight, except by revealing their own?
Nevertheless the truth appalled her. And she had no power. Some force or confusion had sealed shut the door to wild magic within her.
Like Anele, still prostrate in the sand beside her, she sank to her knees before the damaged creature and bowed her head.
Gruffly Esmer responded, “The Demondim-spawn are not creatures of Law. They were not born as natural creatures, nor do they wither and perish as the Law of Life requires. Rather they were conceived by lore, created to redeem the loathing of the Demondim for their own forms.”
Ah, God. Linden feared that this crisis would be too much for her; that the dilemma of the Waynhim exceeded her scant strength. But these creatures were not her enemies. And they had shown her what they required in order to trust her.
“Those offspring,” Esmer continued, “which the Demondim deemed worthy, they nurtured. Those which failed their intent, they cast aside. Yet the ur-viles and the Waynhim differ primarily in their interpretations of the Weird or Wyrd or Word which gives them purpose. In their physical substance, they are alike, and the Law which gives form to mortal life has no place in them.”
On her knees with her eyes closed and her chest full of yearning, Linden considered her straits. She could not use Covenant’s ring. But the Waynhim held the Staff of Law; her Staff. How distant was it? How deeply had the Waynhim sequestered it?
Could her health-sense extend so far?
The damaged creature had taken some time to reach the ravine. But its pain was terrible, and all its steps were slow. It could not have come a long way.
With her eyes closed, she listened to Esmer’s voice. It moved her like a lament.
“For that reason,” he explained, “the Staff of Law is inimical to them. Though the Waynhim serve the Land, and have always done so, their service stands outside the bounds of Law. Their lore is in itself a violation of Law. The fact of their service does not alter their nature.