It was out of reach behind her and to the left. Even if she dove toward it while the Harrow was distracted, he might be too quick for her. She was still too dazed to summon Earthpower and Law without touching the black wood.
“Rage as you wish,” answered the Mahdoubt, unperturbed. “Assuredly the Mahdoubt seeks to defy the commandments of our kind. This she acknowledges. And in so doing, she hazards her life. Yet even your arrogance cannot proclaim that she has prevented your designs. Her intrusion has merely delayed them. She cannot be named inexculpate until she has coerced you to forswear your purpose against the lady’s person.”
Linden braced herself to lunge for the Staff. As she did so, however, Stave came to stand between her and the campfire. Blood dripped from his hands: it trickled down his shins, oozed from his feet. But he disdained his hurts.
Stooping, he retrieved the Staff and passed it to Linden. “Rise, Chosen,” he said quietly. “It appears that the Mahdoubt will have need of you.”
At once, she surged to her feet. For a moment longer, she kept her back to the flames and the Insequent while she assured herself of Earthpower. Then, abruptly, she turned to see what the Mahdoubt and the Harrow were doing.
The Harrow laughed with renewed confidence. “Forswear my purpose?” he countered in a tone of abundant mirth. “I? As the years pass, you have become an object of ridicule. At one time, you were remembered respectfully among the Insequent, but now you are viewed with scorn.
“This, however, I will grant,” he added more dangerously. “I have merely been delayed, and will yet triumph. If you depart now, you may perchance retain some portion of your mind.”
Keeping her eyes lowered, Linden scanned the vicinity of the campfire. The Harrow stood on the far side of the flames with his arms folded across his chest, defiant and dire. Although he had staggered into the blaze, his boots and leggings were undamaged. Like their wearer, they seemed impervious to ordinary harm. The bottomless holes of his gaze tugged at Linden. But she did not allow herself to glance above the level of his waist.
While she looked around, she readied her own fire.
Opposite the Harrow—directly between him and Linden—the Mahdoubt squatted as she had beside her gentle flames in Garroting Deep. She faced her fellow Insequent steadily. The curve of her back suggested poised stillness rather than relaxation. Shining through the unkempt tangle of her hair, the firelight seemed to crown her head with an oblique glory, subtle and ineffable. Stark against the campfire, she wore a nimbus of determination.
Stave stood at Linden’s side a little ahead of her. Perhaps he thought that if the Harrow snared her again he would be able to save her by stepping in front of her; blocking the Harrow’s gaze.
The Humbled also had emerged from the night. They had positioned themselves behind the Harrow, waiting to see what would transpire. They had fought longer than Stave: their bruises and abrasions were worse. Nevertheless Linden did not doubt that they would attack again without hesitation if they saw a need to do so.
The random flare and gutter of the flames effaced the stars overhead. But around the horizons of the plain, and along the rims of Revelstone, faint gleams still defined the dark like sprinkled flecks of ice. And behind her, Linden felt the moon arc placidly across the heavens, undismayed by earthbound conflicts.
“On other matters,” the woman was saying as if the Harrow had not spoken, “the Mahdoubt does not intrude. Assuredly she does not. You will act according to your desires. But she will see your threat to the lady’s mind and spirit and flesh abandoned. If you accede, no evil has occurred. And if she fails, there is again no evil. But if you seek to measure yourself against her, and are outmatched, she will require your bound oath.
“Then will your paths be altered in all sooth, and there will be no gainsaying the Mahdoubt’s culpability. She herself will not question it.”
The campfire dwindled, and night crowded closer, as the Mahdoubt said distinctly, “Choose, then, proud one. Accede or give battle. The Mahdoubt has grown weary in the service of that which she deems precious. She does not fear to fail.”
The Harrow’s voice was full of amusement as he replied, “Do you dare this challenge?” Yet behind his mirth, Linden thought that she heard the gnashing of boulders. “Have you fallen prematurely into madness?”
“Pssht,” retorted the woman dismissively. “Words. The Mahdoubt will have deeds or naught.”
Linden wanted to protest, No, don’t do this! I can fight for myself! The Mahdoubt had nothing to gain here: she could only lose. And she was Linden’s friend. But Linden’s voice was locked in her throat.
Urgent fire curled around her fingers and ran along the Staff as she prepared to defend the older woman.
“Then ready yourself, relic of foolishness,” the Harrow pronounced with plush confidence. “You cannot rule me.”
Stave shifted closer to the direct line between Linden and the Harrow’s eyes.
Linden saw nothing to indicate that a contest had commenced. Her health-sense discerned nothing. To all appearances, the Harrow simply stood with his arms folded over his chest, a figure of irrefragable self-possession and surety. Opposite him, the Mahdoubt squatted motionless, seemingly devoid of power or purpose; as mundane as the gradual slope of the plain.
But the campfire continued to shrink as though moisture from some cryptic source were soaking imperceptibly into the wood. Around the battle, darkness thickened like a wall.
If she could have spoken, Linden would have asked Stave, What are they doing? She might have asked, Have they started yet? But she had no voice. As the flames died, they seemed draw sound as well as light with them. Nothing punctuated the night except her own taut breathing and the muffled thud of her heart.
But then, subtly, by increments too small to be defined, the Harrow began to fade as if his physical substance were being diluted or stretched thin. Some undetectable magic siphoned away his tangible existence.
For long moments, Linden watched the change, transfixed, until she was able to catch glimpses of the Humbled through the Harrow’s form.
With a palpable jolt, the Mahdoubt’s opponent snapped back into solidity. The flames of his fire flared higher, driving back the encroachment of the night.
Without risking the hunger of his eyes, Linden could not see his expression. But his chest heaved, and his strained breathing was louder than hers.
A heartbeat later, he started to fade again, leaking out of himself into some other dimension of reality. Or of time.
This change was more rapid. He seemed to dissolve in front of her as the fire died toward embers. Clyme, Branl, and Galt were clearly visible through the veil of the Harrow’s substance.
The impact when he forced himself back into definition was as visceral as a blow. Linden felt the intensity of his exertion. It touched her percipience on a pitch that scraped along her nerves, vibrated in the marrow of her bones. His flames guttered higher as he gasped hoarsely. Hazarding a glance upward, she saw that his cheeks were slick with sweat. Fine droplets caught a skein of ruddy reflections in his beard.
The Mahdoubt was beating him—
His arms remained clasped across his chest. Yet Linden could see that they trembled. All of his muscles were trembling.
The Mahdoubt still had not moved. But now her plump form and rounded shoulders no longer suggested quiet readiness. Instead they were implacable; vivid with innominate strength. She had made herself as unyielding as the bedrock of mountains.
Earthpower and protests itched for expression in Linden’s hands as the Mahdoubt renewed the Harrow’s failure.
Now he did not fade slowly toward evanescence; dissolution. Instead he appeared to flicker. For an instant, he was nearly solid: then he came so close to transparency that only his outlines remained: then he struggled back into substance. Linden felt every throb and falter of his efforts to find some finger hold or flaw in the Mahdoubt’s obdurate expulsion.
If Stave and the Humbled had struck at h
im, they might have broken his bones; or they might have passed through him as if he were no more than mist. But they merely witnessed the eerie conflict, as unmoving as the Mahdoubt, and as unmoved.
Linden did not realize that she was holding her breath until a soundless implosion snatched the air from her lungs. The sudden inrush of force swallowed the Harrow’s power, and the Mahdoubt’s. As Linden panted in surprise, the Harrow’s campfire burned normally again. He stood across the flames from the Mahdoubt as if nothing had occurred. Only the heaviness of his respiration, and the sweat on his face, and the wincing hunch of his shoulders betrayed the truth.
“That is difficult knowledge,” he remarked when he was able to speak evenly. “It emulates the Theomach’s. Yet I am not displaced.”
“Assuredly.” The Mahdoubt shook her head as if she were casting sparks from her hair. “The Mahdoubt acknowledges that choices remain to you, flight among them. But you will not flee. Greed will not permit you to surrender your intent. Nor are you able to withstand the Mahdoubt’s resolve.”
“You know me, then,” he admitted. “Yet you are thereby doomed. While I endure, your long service comes to naught.”
Again the woman shook her head. “Perchance it is so. Perchance it is not.” Her tone was as implacable as her strength. “No conclusion is reached until you have given your bound oath.”
Grimly Linden hoped that the Harrow would refuse. If he continued to fight, or chose to retreat, she could argue that the Mahdoubt had not prevented his designs. And if she cast her own force into the fray, surely the Mahdoubt could not be held accountable for the outcome? Damn it, the woman was her friend.
But the Harrow accepted defeat. “It is given.” Resentment pulsed in his voice. “If it must be spoken, I will speak it.
“My purpose against your lady’s person I forswear.” As he uttered them, the words took on resonance. They expanded outward as if they were addressed to the night and the uncaring stars. “From this moment, I will accept from her only that which she chooses to grant. No other aspect of my desires will I relinquish. But my efforts against her mind and spirit and flesh I hereby abandon. In herself, she will have no cause to fear me. And I adjure all of the Insequent to heed me. If I do not abide by this oath, I pray that their vengeance upon me will be both cruel and prolonged.”
When he was finished, his voice relapsed to its normal depth and richness. “Does this content you, old woman?”
“It does.” The Mahdoubt’s reply was soft and faintly forlorn, as if she rather than the Harrow had been humbled. She slumped beside the fire as though her bones had begun to crack. “Assuredly. The Mahdoubt acknowledges your oath, and is content.”
“Then,” responded the Harrow with fertile malice, “I bid you joy in your coming madness. It will be brief, for it brings death swiftly in its wake.”
Offering his opponent an elaborate and mocking bow, he turned away.
At last, Linden found her voice. “Just a minute!” she snapped. “I’m not done with you.”
Cocking an eyebrow in a show of surprise, the Harrow faced her. “Lady?”
As he had sworn, his eyes exerted no compulsion. Nevertheless Linden avoided them. Instead she moved to crouch beside the Mahdoubt. Resting a hand on the older woman’s shoulder, she murmured. “Are you all right?”
She meant, Why did you do that? I needed you at first. But then I could have fought for myself.
With an effort that made her old muscles quake, the woman straightened her back and raised her head to look at Linden. “My lady,” she said in a voice that quavered, “there is no need for haste. The Mahdoubt’s doom is assured, yet it will not overtake her instantly. You and she will speak together, friend to friend.” Her mismatched eyes searched Linden’s face. “The Mahdoubt prays that you will not prolong the Harrow’s departure on her behalf.”
“Are you sure?” Linden insisted. “There must be something that I can do for you.”
“Assuredly,” replied the old woman: a dying fall of sound. “Permit the Mahdoubt a moment’s respite.” Her chin sagged back down to her breast. “Then she will speak.”
Her words were sparks in the ready tinder of Linden’s outrage.
“In that case—”
Abruptly Linden surged upright to confront the Harrow.
He had recovered his air of undisturbed certitude. The night had cooled his cheeks and brow, and his strong arms rested casually on his chest as if his struggles had already lost their meaning. His eyes probed Linden, daring her to look directly into them; but she refused. If she could, she intended to scald the danger out of them. For the moment, however, she fixed her gaze on the hollow at the base of his throat.
“I think that I understand this,” she said between her teeth. “But I don’t have much experience with you Insequent, and I want to be sure that I’ve got it straight.
“I’m safe from you now? Is that right?”
Stave had joined her beside the Mahdoubt. He looked at her intently. He may have wished to warn her; to explain something. But what he saw in her silenced him.
The Humbled remained poised, apparently passionless, behind the Harrow. They paid no attention to their hurts.
“Indeed.” The Harrow’s defeat left a caustic edge in his voice. “Until you are minded to grant my desires, I will not attempt to wrest them from you.”
“And your desires are—?” Linden demanded. “I want to hear you say it again.”
“What I seek, lady,” he answered without hesitation. “is to possess your instruments of power.” Then he shrugged. “What I will have, however, is your companionship.”
Linden glared at his throat as though she meant to rip it open. “What in God’s name makes you think that I’m going to let you follow me around?”
The Harrow laughed mordantly. “Apart from the mere detail that you cannot prevent me? There is a service which I am able to perform for you, and which you will not obtain from any other living being.”
Oh really? “In that case,” she repeated, “there’s something that you should know about me.”
Again he laughed. “Elucidate, lady. If there can be aught that I do not know of you, I will—”
Softly, almost whispering, Linden pronounced. “The Mahdoubt is my friend.”
As swift as anger, she summoned a howl of power from her Staff and hurled it straight into the Harrow’s eyes.
Her vehemence was hot enough to resemble the fire which had fused her heart. It should have burned its way deep into his brain. If it had left him blind and useless, as doomed as the Mahdoubt, she would not have permitted herself one small stumble of regret. This was what she had become, and she did not mean to step back from herself.
But she was not as quick as the Harrow. Before her blast struck him, he slapped a hand over his eyes. Her fire splashed away like water.
For a long moment, she poured Earthpower at him, dispersing the dark; trying to overwhelm his defenses. However, he was proof against her: he appeared to withstand her assault easily, almost negligently. When she had tested him until she was sure that she could not daunt or damage him with the Staff alone, she released her flame and let night wash back around the campfire.
As the Harrow lowered his hand to gaze at her, unconcerned, she said harshly, “You’re tough,” loathing the tremor in her voice. “I’ll give you that. But don’t think for a second that I can’t hurt you. If you know as much about me as you claim, you know that I can do a hell of a lot more than this.”
Masked by his beard, the Harrow’s mouth twisted. “As your ‘friend’ has said, perchance it is so. Perchance it is not. For your part, know that my oath does not preclude me from causing you such pain that you will regret your unseemly defiance.”
Before she could retort, he added, “I bid you farewell. Rail against me at your pleasure. I will claim your companionship when you attempt aught which interests me.”
Brusquely he bowed. Then he turned and strode away in the direction of Revelstone. The H
umbled did not step aside for him. Nevertheless he passed through them, leaving them untouched—and visibly startled in spite of their stoicism. Then he seemed to evaporate into the darkness. In an instant, he was gone.
The Humbled stared after him. Their stances suggested that they expected to be assailed. After a moment, however, they appeared to accept his disappearance. Shrugging, they dismissed him and approached the campfire.
The Mahdoubt made a vague plucking gesture. When Linden saw it, she moved at once to the woman’s side and extended her arm. The Mahdoubt grasped it feebly, tried to heave herself to her feet. At first, she failed: her strength had left her. But then Stave added his support, and she was able to rise.
Clinging to both Linden and the former Master, the Mahdoubt panted thinly, “My lady. In one matter. You have erred.” She took a moment to calm her breathing, then said, “Your challenge was unseemly. He has given his oath. Assuredly so. And the choice to demand it of him was freely made. It is through no act of his that the Mahdoubt must now pass away.”
“I don’t care.” Linden hunched close to the woman, trying vainly to transmit some her own health into the Mahdoubt’s sudden frailty. “I care about you.”
“And you do not forgive,” Stave put in sternly. His tone held a hint of reproach. “This you have demonstrated. You are altered, Chosen and Sun-Sage. The woman who accompanied the ur-Lord Thomas Covenant to the redemption of the Land would not have struck thus.”
“What do you want from me?” Linden countered. She could not bear sorrow or shame: they would unmake her. Under Melenkurion Skyweir, such emotions had been clad in granite. “Am I supposed to call him back and apologize? God damn it, Stave, she’s going to die, and she did it for me.” More softly, she repeated. “She did it for me.”
Stave held Linden’s glare without blinking; but the Mahdoubt intervened. “Oh, assuredly,” she said with more firmness. “Of a certainty, the Mahdoubt will perish. But first she will fall into madness.”