Jeremiah shrugged again. “That’s okay.” Like Covenant, he did not look at her. “Covenant protects me pretty well.” For a moment, his tic conveyed the incongruous impression that he was winking.
Shaken by images of what the Despiser might be doing to her son, she let the hard silence of winter reclaim her. Apart from the occasional faint whisper of the breeze, the only sounds were the erratic thud and crunch of the horses’ hooves, muted when they struck hard snow, sharper when they broke through crusts of ice. The plains and the hills were locked in unrelieved cold: cloudless, brilliant, and punishing. Studying the sky, she found no sign of a change in the weather. Nevertheless the chill grew deeper as the terrain climbed higher. The air scraped at her throat and lungs, and the warmth that she had garnered from Yellinin’s last campfire had been leeched away.
Eventually she would be forced to ask Covenant for heat. Or she would need to separate herself from her companions so that she could draw on the Staff.
Seeking distraction, she sifted her throng of questions for one to which the Theomach could not object. Finally she said, “I was surprised that Berek found so much hurtloam.” And so close to his camp. “I don’t have much experience with it, but I’ve never seen that much hurtloam in one place. Is that normal?” She meant, In this time? “It seemed too good to be true.”
Jeremiah glanced at Covenant. But Covenant rode as though he had not heard her; and after a moment, Jeremiah said. “You don’t know much about the geography of the Land,” as if he were explaining her situation to himself. “You’ve never seen a map. And the Sunbane confused everything.”
Then he seemed to gather his thoughts. “Some of it’s about time. Where we are—I mean, when—there’s more of practically everything. More trees, more Forestals, more griffins, quellvisks, and other monsters, more Cavewights, more powers. Between now and the time where we belong, things get used up. Or killed in Foul’s wars. Or ruined by the Sunbane. Or just lost. But that’s not the main reason.
“Berek found so much hurtloam, and he’s going to keep finding it, because he’s moving toward the Black River. The Black River comes out of Melenkurion Skyweir.”
Linden listened intently. Long ago, she had ridden a raft through the confluence of the Black and Mithil Rivers with Covenant and Sunder. But Covenant had told her only that the Black separated the Center Plains from the South.
“There are a lot of springs under that mountain,” Jeremiah continued. “They come out together at the base of the cliff. Most of them are just water, but one of them is EarthBlood. It’s only a trickle, but it’s intense—When the Black River pours out into Garroting Deep, it’s full of Earthpower. That’s part of why the Deep is so deadly. Caerroil Wildwood draws some of his strength from the river.
“Of course, it gets diluted. The Black joins the Mithil, and after that you can hardly tell it comes from Melenkurion Skyweir. But the Last Hills are right on the edge of Garroting Deep. From there, the power of the EarthBlood spreads into the plains.
“All that hurtloam is sort of a side effect,” he concluded. “Earthpower has been seeping out of the mountain practically forever. Maybe that’s why the One Forest used to cover the whole Land. Back in those days—ages ago—you could have mined hurtloam along every stream and river in the Center and South Plains.”
His explanation saddened Linden. While she grieved quietly for what the Land had lost, or would lose, over the millennia, Jeremiah turned to Covenant. “She’s getting cold again,” he observed with more certitude than he usually displayed when he spoke to Covenant. “You have to keep her warm.”
“Oh, hell,” Covenant muttered distantly, as if his thoughts were lost in Time. “You’re right. I should pay more attention.”
As before, Linden felt no invocation; discerned no rush of power. She saw only the abrupt arc of Covenant’s right hand as he gestured absentmindedly, leaving a brief streak of incandescence across her vision. At once, however, heat flushed through her, banishing the cold in an instant, filling her clothes and cloak and robe with more warmth than any campfire. Her toes inside her meager socks and boots seemed to burn as their numbness was swept away. When Covenant’s strange theurgy faded, it left her blissfully warmed—and unaccountably frightened, as if he had given her a minuscule taste of poison; a sample of something dangerous enough to destroy her.
Presumably he protected himself—and Jeremiah—from the elements in the same fashion; but she could not see it.
For the rest of the day, she rode in silence, huddling into herself for courage as she huddled into her robe for protection. Covenant had suggested that he might answer her at the end of the day’s ride: she needed to be ready. The nature of his power eluded her percipience. And he had already indirectly refused to explain it. Therefore his peculiar force aggravated her sense of vulnerability. She was utterly dependent upon him. If he abandoned her—or turned against her—she could keep herself warm with the Staff. She might conceivably be able to stay alive. But she would be helpless to return to her proper time.
For that reason, she contained herself while the horses trudged abjectly northwestward along the ridge of hills. At intervals, she and her companions paused to feed and water their mounts at the occasional ice-clad rill or brook, or to unwrap a little food and watered wine from one of Yellinin’s bundles. But the halts were brief. Covenant seemed eager to cover as much ground as possible; and Jeremiah reflected his friend’s growing anticipation or tension. Neither of them appeared to care that they were killing their animals, despite their insurmountable distance from Melenkurion Skyweir.
Jeremiah had implied that he and Covenant intended to use their innominate magicks for some form of translocation. And Covenant had admitted that to do so would be perilous.
Gritting her resolve, she kept her mouth shut throughout the prolonged misery of the day. Explicitly she did not ask Covenant for more heat, although Jeremiah prodded him to ease her whenever her shivering became uncontrollable. Nor did she mention that their small supply of grain and hay for the horses would not last for more than another day. Instead she fed the beasts as liberally as they needed. She could not bear to deprive them—and she had too many other worries. If necessary, she would demand more compassion from her companions later.
At last, they rode into a premature dusk as the sun sank behind the hills; and Covenant surprised her by announcing that they would soon stop for the night. She had expected him to continue onward as long as possible, but instead he muttered, “It’s around here somewhere. We’ll spot it in a few minutes.”
A short time later, Jeremiah pointed ahead. Squinting into the shadow of the hills, Covenant nodded. When Linden looked there, she saw what appeared to be a narrow ravine as sheer as a barranca between two high ice-draped shoulders of stone. Why Covenant and Jeremiah had focused their attention on this particular ravine, she could not guess. They had passed any number of similar formations since they had left Berek’s camp. Nevertheless Covenant aimed his staggering mount in that direction. With Jeremiah and Linden, he rode up the ragged slope and into the deep cut of the ravine.
When the three of them had entered the defile and passed a short way along its crooked length, he halted. His voice held a note of satisfaction as he said, “Shelter.” Then he dismounted.
Shelter? Linden wondered numbly. Here? Untouched by the sun for more than a brief time every day, the ground was frozen iron. Against one wall of the barranca lay a streambed. She could detect a faint gurgling of water under its ice. But shelter? The shape of the ravine concentrated and channeled the slight breeze of the open plains until it became a fanged wind so sharp that it seemed to draw blood. If Covenant intended to spend the night here, he would find Linden and the horses as cold and dead as the ground in the morning.
But she did not protest. Instead she slid awkwardly from her mount’s back and stood shivering beside the exhausted beast, waiting for an explanation.
“Rocks,” Covenant told Jeremiah when the boy joined him. “
A big pile. Put them right by the stream. We can get water at the same time.”
Obediently Jeremiah began to gather stones, prying them out of the hard dirt as if his fingers were as strong as crowbars, and stacking them in a mound where Covenant had indicated.
Covenant looked at Linden. She could not make out his expression in the thick gloom, but he may have been grinning. “It’s these walls,” he informed her. “All this old granite. It’ll be damn near impossible for the Theomach to eavesdrop. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
Shelter, Linden thought. From being overheard. She would be able to ask as many questions as she wished—as long as Covenant kept her alive.
Apparently he did not expect a response. While she struggled to unburden and feed the horses, he went to help Jeremiah gather rocks.
When they had raised a mound the size of an infant’s cairn, Covenant began to gesture at the stones, weaving a lattice of phosphenes across Linden’s retinas. Almost at once, the rocks started to radiate comfort. As he sent his power deeper and deeper among them, the surface of the mound took on a dull ruddy glow. Soon the pile poured out enough heat to scald her flesh if she touched it, and some of the rocks looked like they might melt. Warmth accumulated as it reflected back and forth between the walls of the barranca until even the wind was affected: a kind of artificial thermocline deflected the frigid current upward, away from Linden and her companions.
Gradually the ice in the streambed began to crack and evaporate. Before long, a rivulet of fresh water was exposed beside the cairn. When a wide swath of the ice had melted, the horses were able to drink their fill without standing uncomfortably near the fiery stones.
Covenant’s theurgy disturbed Linden, despite her relief. Its effects lingered in her vision, but his magic itself remained hidden; closed to her senses. He could have been Anele in one of the old man’s self-absorbed phases, gesturing at nothing.
When she was satisfied with the condition of the horses, she knelt beside the brook to quench her own thirst. There she noticed that the water flowed into the ravine instead of out toward the plains. She and her companions had not encountered a stream as they entered the barranca. Apparently the water was snowmelt, and the ravine’s floor sloped downward as it twisted deeper among the Last Hills.
Careful to keep his distance from Linden, Jeremiah unpacked food while she set out blankets on the softening ground. Covenant continued to gesture until he had infused the mound with so much heat that it seemed to have magma at its core. Then he lowered his halfhand. Shaking his fingers as though they had cramped, he took the last of the wine and retreated to sit against the wall of the ravine opposite the brook. There he began to drink with an air of determination, as if he wanted to insulate himself from Linden’s questions. The glow of the stones seemed to light echoes in his eyes, filling them with implied flames.
She did not hurry. At a comfortable distance from the cairn, she was able to remove both her robe and her cloak, and set them near the stones to dry, without shivering. When she drew breath, her lungs did not hurt. There was no pain in her throat as she ate dried meat, stale bread, and old fruit; drank more water. Under other circumstances, she might have felt soothed rather than threatened.
But she had too many questions. She needed to ask them.
Jeremiah had settled himself near Covenant against the ravine wall. Protected by blankets from the dampness of the thawing dirt, Linden sat on the floor of the barranca so that she could watch her companions’ faces.
She had spent the day attempting to organize her thoughts. And she had already decided to avoid challenging Covenant directly. If she made him angry—or cautious—she might lose more than she could hope to gain. Instead of voicing her deeper concerns, she broke the silence by saying with feigned nonchalance, “I’m just curious. What did you two do to Inbull?”
I want to repay some of this pain.
Covenant’s attitude then, like his misdirections and falsehoods, violated her memories of the man he had once been.
He emptied the wineskin, tossed it aside; wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing much.” Obliquely Linden noticed that he was not growing a beard. His physical presence was solid, demonstrable; but it was also incomplete. “Jeremiah held him down while I kicked him a few times. I wanted to break some of his ribs. But he’s too tough. I just bruised him a bit.”
The Unbeliever snorted a laugh. “Damelon didn’t like it. For a warrior, he’s still pretty squeamish. He’ll have to grow out of that if he wants to make a good High Lord. But he didn’t let anyone interfere.”
Linden studied him sharply, watching the alternation of embers and darkness in his gaze. Beyond question, he was not the man whom she had known. He had blamed the change on millennia of participation in the Arch of Time; but she was less and less inclined to believe him. The difference in him was too great.
She could not conceal her underlying seriousness as she changed the subject.
“I keep thinking about what happened in Berek’s camp. It worries me. Is it really true that we didn’t change the Land’s history? How is that possible? I healed too many people,” affected too many lives. “And too many people know about it. How can that not—?”
“Hellfire, Linden,” Covenant interrupted with apparent good humor. “Don’t waste your time on that. If you have to worry, pick something worth worrying about. It’s the Theomach’s problem. He brought us here. He has to clean up after us.
“I don’t know how he’ll do it. I could figure it out, but why should I bother? He’s right where he’s supposed to be. Where he would be if he hadn’t interfered with me. Now it’s up to him to make sure there’s no damage.
“At any rate, he’s serious about preserving the integrity of Time. More than anything, he doesn’t want to make the Elohim notice him. They will if he lets history twist out of shape.”
Covenant’s eyes reflected the pale crimson-orange of the cairn. “Keeping everything on track shouldn’t be hard,” he mused. “being as how he’s Berek’s teacher and all. You changed some things, sure, but that can be a ripple or a thread. If he finds a way to weave what you did back into the tapestry of what’s supposed to happen, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“How can he do that?” Linden asked reflexively. Covenant’s unconcern troubled her. He was too glib—
“Hell, Linden,” he drawled, “you saw how effective a story can be. Mount Thunder didn’t really talk to Berek. Or not in a way he recognized. All he did was bleed, and feel desperate, and mumble some nonsense he didn’t understand. But he says the rock spoke to him, and people believe him because the Fire-Lions came to his rescue. It’s how he tells the story that makes him the kind of hero his whole army is willing to die for.”
Nonsense—? She bit her lip. She was determined not to confront him; not to protest in any way. But she knew that the Seven Words were not nonsense—
“If the Theomach is clever enough when he talks about you,” Covenant continued, “he can make it fit right in with all the old legends.
“And I won’t even mention how stone ignorant Berek is.” He snorted contemptuously. “Eventually the Theomach is going to make him High Lord. On his own, Berek sure as hell couldn’t acquire all that lore and power. He’s got too far to go to be the kind of man who can find the One Tree and make a Staff of Law. He’ll believe anything that damn Insequent tells him.”
As an afterthought, Covenant added. “And I’m still part of the Arch. Did you forget that? You can’t see it, but I’ve never stopped defending Time.”
Now Linden had to grit her teeth to stifle her protests. Covenant’s scorn repulsed her. Berek did not merit his disdain.
But this was the approach which she had chosen—and this was why she had chosen it. So that Covenant would speak more openly; expose more of himself. The first words which she had heard the Theomach say were, And do you not fear that I will reveal you? She wanted to provoke the revelations which the Theomach had withheld.
&
nbsp; And she did not intend to risk alienating Jeremiah any further. She had already lost too much of him, and would lose more. For his sake as well as her own, she swallowed her indignation.
Controlling herself grimly, she asked, “What do you think, Jeremiah? Can the Theomach really protect the Land from what I’ve done?”
The boy shrugged without looking at her. “Sure. It’s what he’s good at. He must have spent a long time learning enough about time and history to interfere with us. For him, stopping a few ripples is probably trivial.”
His reply reminded her that it was not the Theomach who had objected to the idea of summoning the Ranyhyn: it was Covenant.
“All right,” she said slowly. “If you say so, I believe you. It’s just that the Theomach confuses me.” She hesitated for a moment, then turned back to Covenant. “You may not have heard him, but he told me that I already know his ‘true name.’ Is that even possible?”
“Of course it’s possible,” retorted Covenant sardonically. “It has to be. He wanted you to do things his way. If he said something like that, and you could be sure it wasn’t true, he would be cutting his own throat.”
“But it can’t be true,” Linden countered. “How could it? I never even heard of the Insequent until Jeremiah mentioned them. How could I—?”
Covenant held up both hands to silence her. “It’s no good, Linden. You can’t ask us that. The Theomach was right about one thing. While we’re here, we can’t distinguish between what you know and the Arch of Time. You’ve seen and heard and experienced too much about things that haven’t happened yet. In fact, most of them aren’t going to happen for thousands of years. If we even try to answer a question like that, the Elohim will erase us. They could make us disappear before we got to the second syllable.