Without Covenant’s support, the Arch of Time itself might be undone.
Then we’ll have to do it. Get ready.
She could not reach them; could do nothing to protect them.
She had scarcely finished one stride and begun the next, however, when Covenant and Jeremiah turned away from their peril. Running headlong, they sprinted down the slope toward her. Again Covenant yelled. “Now, Linden!”
Behind them, a tremendous explosion shook the hills as focused serpentine vitriol struck lucent melody. The impact seemed to jolt the sky, jarring the sun, spilling winter brightness back into the hollow: it made the ground under Linden’s boots pitch and heave. At once, time began to race like Covenant and Jeremiah, like Linden herself, as if opposing forces had knocked the interrupted moments loose to bleed and blur. The Viles released an unremitting gush of black unnatural puissance. Caerroil Wildwood sang in response, using the given lore of the Elohim and the sentient Earthpower of trees by the millions. Suddenly Linden and her companions were able to close the gap between them.
“Now!” Covenant panted yet again. “While they’re fighting each other!”
She stopped as if he had commanded her; as if she understood him.
Scrambling to a halt, he and Jeremiah positioned themselves on either side of her, front and back. They flung up their arms. Against a background of incompatible magicks as flagrant as an avalanche, she felt their powers rise. She had time to think, They did this, they tricked—
There are times when it’s useful to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Then thunder or lightning arched over her head, and everything vanished as though her existence had been severed with an axe. During the immeasurable interval between instants, she and her companions fled.
Without transition, the acrid midnight of the Viles and the angry music of the
Forestal sprang into the distance. Unbalanced by the shifting ground, Linden stumbled; flung out her arms to catch herself. Then, still reeling, she looked wildly around her.
Covenant and Jeremiah had brought her to the ridge of another twisted rib among the Last Hills. On one side, the slopes rose into intransigent bluffs and crags: with each translocation, their resemblance to nascent mountains increased. On the other, Garroting Deep lapped against the hills as though the trees had been caught by winter and cold in the act of encroaching on their boundaries. With her first unsteady glance, Linden saw no significant change in the forest. Slight variations in the textures of the woodland: trees differently arranged. Nothing more. Yet she sensed that the intentions of the Deep had been altered at their roots.
The forest no longer hungered for human flesh. Instead Garroting Deep’s mood had become outrage, and its appetite was focused elsewhere.
In the southeast, at least two or three leagues away, the Viles and Caerroil Wildwood made war on each other. Their might was so intense that Linden could descry each scourging strike of scorn and blackness—and each extravagant note, each instance of pure fury, in the Forestal’s vast song. Rampant obsidian and glory were plainly visible, hectic and unappeased, against the horizon of the hills. Even here, the ground trembled at the forces which the combatants hurled at each other.
Both Covenant and Jeremiah had dropped to their knees to avoid Linden’s floundering. But Jeremiah still held his arms high. From them, energies poured upward as if he sought to ward away or channel the collapse of the sky. The muscles at the corner of his eye sent out messages which she could not interpret.
A heartbeat later, wood began to rain from the empty air. Deadwood, twisted and knaggy: leafless twigs and branches of every size and shape, all broken by weather or theurgy from what must once have been a majestic oak. Linden and her companions could have been beaten bloody or killed by the sudden downpour. But Jeremiah’s power covered them. Twigs as slender as her fingers and boughs as thick as a Giant’s leg rebounded in mid-plunge and toppled to the dirt in a crude circle around the rim of Jeremiah’s protection.
Unbalanced by shock and surprise, Linden braced herself on the Staff. Too much had happened too quickly: her nerves could not accommodate it. She still seemed to see the speech of the Viles blooming darkly in her vision, clawing at her skin. All of that wood had fallen from the featureless sky, and she had done her utmost to sway the makers of the Demondim from their doom.
But she had failed.—a rock and a hard place. The Viles would never forgive the forests of the Land now. They had learned the loathing of trees—
Almost at once, Covenant jumped to his feet. “Get to it,” he snapped at Jeremiah. “We don’t have much time.” Then he faced Linden. “Do what I tell you,” he demanded harshly. “Don’t ask questions. Don’t even think. We’re still in danger. We need you.”
She did not think. When she said, “You tricked them,” she was surprised to hear herself speak aloud. “The Viles and the Forestal.” Like Covenant, Jeremiah had leapt upright. In a rush, he gathered the deadwood, tossing or tugging the heavier branches into a pile, throwing twigs by the handful among them. “You made them think that they were attacking each other.”
And she had helped him. Her attempts to reason with the Viles had distracted them—
“Damnation, Linden!” yelled Covenant. “I told you—!” But then he made an obvious effort to control himself. Lowering his voice, he rasped, “We don’t have time for this. I know you feel overwhelmed. But we can’t afford a discussion right now.
“The Viles aren’t stupid. They’re going to figure out what happened. They’ll know who to blame. If that damn Forestal stops singing at them, they’ll come after us. And even he can’t hold them. Any minute now, they’ll find a way to evade him.
“Linden, we need you.”
Tense with purpose, Jeremiah hurried around the circle of wood, collecting branches of all sizes.
Linden was not sure that she could move. If she tried to take a step, she might collapse. Covenant had told her not to think. She seemed to have no thoughts at all.
“Can’t you outrun them?”
“Hellfire!” Blood or embers flared in his eyes. “Of course we can outrun them. If we have time. But they can move pretty damn fast. We need time.”
As soon as they broke off their engagement with Caerroil Wildwood—
“You planned all of this,” she responded dully. “Or you planned for it.”
“Snap out of it!” Covenant retorted, yelling again. “Do what I tell you!”
Already Jeremiah had gathered half of the torn and splintered wood. In the distance, combat blazed and volleyed, wreckage against song, burgeoning disdain against ancient wrath.
“Where did all this wood come from?” she asked. “What’s it for?”
“Linden!” Covenant protested: a howl of frustration.
But Jeremiah paused, sweating despite the cold. “There was a dead oak at the edge of the trees,” he said without looking at her. “Or almost dead. Anyway, it had a lot of dead branches. I hit it. We picked up the wood when we escaped. We’re going to need it when we get to Melenkurion Skyweir.”
Abruptly he resumed his task.
Trying to think, Linden wondered, Torches? Campfires?
But Jeremiah had broken enough boughs for a full bonfire—and most of them were too large to be carried as torches.
She gave it up: it was beyond her comprehension. The aftereffects of synesthesia left her in disarray. Her synapses seemed to misfire randomly, afflicting her with instants of distortion and bafflement. Sighing, she made an effort to stand without the support of the Staff.
“All right,” she murmured to Covenant. “We don’t have time. This makes me sick. What do you want me to do?”
She could not imagine how she might impede the pursuit of the Viles.
“Finally!” Covenant growled.
“Go down there,” he told her at once, indicating the southeastward slope of the ridge. “Twenty or thirty paces. That should give us enough room. Use the Staff. Make a Forbidding. As big as you can.
That won’t stop them, but it’ll slow them down. They’ll want to understand it.”
Linden peered at him, blinking vaguely. “What’s a Forbidding?”
“Hell and blood!” Now his anger was not directed at her. “I keep forgetting how ignorant—” Grimly he stopped himself. For a moment, he appeared to study the air: he may have been searching through his memories of time. Then his gaze returned, smoldering, to hers. “Don’t worry about that. What we need is a wall of power. Any kind of power. It just has to be dangerous. And it has to cover that whole hillside.
“Go,” he insisted, gesturing her away. “Do it now.”
Linden watched her son piling wood. In some sense, Covenant was telling her the truth. She felt the garish battle in the distance shift as the Viles adjusted their tactics to counter Caerroil Wildwood’s clinquant melodious onslaught. The creatures might soon break free. She took a step or two, still gazing at Jeremiah with supplication in her eyes. Please, she had tried to urge him earlier. Don’t betray me.
She did not understand why he needed so much wood.
And she could not conceive of any barrier except fire.
Fire on the verge of Garroting Deep.
Hardly aware of what she did, she trudged downward. Her mind was full of flames. Flames at the edge of the forest. Flames which might leap in an instant to dried twigs and boughs. If she did not tend them constantly, keep them under control, any small gust of wind might—
Lover of trees.
Still she descended the hillside, trying to find her way through memories of twisted blackness, solid irruptions of sound, music that should have been as bright and beautiful as dew. What choice did she have? They’re going to figure out what happened. They’ll know who to blame. She had baited a trap by trying to reason with the Viles. They would attempt to kill Covenant. They would certainly kill her son. Moment by moment, Caerroil Wildwood was teaching them to share his taste for slaughter.
But fire—? So close to Garroting Deep? The Forestal would turn his enmity against her. If any hint of flame touched the trees, she would deserve his wrath.
As she moved, however, she grew stronger. That simple exertion reaffirmed the interconnections of muscles and nerves and choice: with each pace, she sloughed away her confusion. And when she had taken a dozen steps, she began to sip sustenance from the Staff, risking the effect of Law on Covenant and Jeremiah. That strengthened her as well.
By degrees, she became herself again. She began to think.
What would happen if she raised a wall of fire here?
Caerroil Wildwood would see it. Of course he would. And he would respond—For the sake of his trees, he would forego his struggle with the Viles in an instant.
Then the Viles would be released to pursue the people who had tricked them. Linden and her companions would be assailed by both forces. It was even conceivable that the Forestal and the Viles would form an alliance—
If that happened, what she knew and understood of the Land’s history would be shattered. The ramifications would expand until they became too fundamental to be contained.
Covenant was urging her to hazard the Arch of Time.
You serve a purpose not your own, and have no purpose.
He and Jeremiah had decided to set Caerroil Wildwood and the Viles against each other before they had entered Bargas Slit. They may have decided it days ago. And they had kept it from her.
In the distance, the battle raged on. The Viles may have been trying to disengage, but they had not succeeded.
“No.” Linden did not shout. She did not care whether or not Covenant heard her. “I won’t do it. I won’t. It’s too dangerous.” Turning sharply, she began to stride back up the slope. “You’ll have to think of something else.”
Quenching the Staff so that it would not imperil her companions, she approached them with her refusal plainly written on her face.
“Linden, God damn it!” Covenant raged down at her. Wailing like a child, Jeremiah protested. “Mom!”
She ignored them until she was near enough to meet Jeremiah’s stricken stare, Covenant’s hot ire. Then she stopped.
“It’s too dangerous,” she repeated as if she were as resolute as Stave, as certain as Mahrtiir. “Fire is the only barrier that I know how to make. I won’t risk the trees.
“If you can’t outrun the Viles, you’ll have to come up with another plan,” another trick.
God, she missed Thomas Covenant: the man he had once been. Her disappointment in her companions was too profound for indignation.
They froze, poised on the brink of eruptions. Briefly their disparate faces mirrored each other. In them, Linden saw, not alarm or dismay, but naked anger and frustration. Jeremiah’s eyes were as dark as blood. Ruddy heat shone from Covenant’s gaze. She had time to think, They don’t care about the Deep. Or Caerroil Wildwood. Or me. Maybe they don’t even care about the Arch. They just want to do what they’ve been planning all along.
Then together Covenant and Jeremiah wheeled and ran, rushing to collect the last twigs and branches.
A moment later, they were done: their pile of deadwood was complete. In the distance, music and vitriol vied for harm. Quickly Covenant and Jeremiah moved to stand facing each other, leaving space between them for Linden and the Staff.
Grieving, she entered the ready arch of their arms.
According to Jeremiah, their next dislocation took them four leagues farther along the Last Hills. Another burst of power crossed five. Then three. Then five again. Indirectly they violated time rather than space: they excised the hours and effort necessary to travel such distances.
Their mound of broken wood accompanied them through every imponderable leap. Somehow they drew it with them without enclosing it in their arc of power.
Eventually they stopped. While Linden stumbled to her knees, utterly disoriented by the shifting ground and the veering horizons, the unsteady stagger of the world, Covenant and Jeremiah retreated from her. “This should be far enough.” Covenant seemed to struggle for breath. “We can rest here. At least for a few minutes.”
The anger in his voice was as raw as his respiration.
Linden’s head reeled: her entire sensorium foundered. She could not discern any sign of the distant battle.
“Covenant,” Jeremiah gasped. He sounded more tired than irate. “This isn’t a surprise.” He may have been warning his only friend. “She is who she is. She’s never going to trust us. Not until we prove ourselves.”
Breathing deeply, Linden lifted her head; focused her eyes on the Staff of Law and refused to blink until it no longer yawed from side to side. Through her teeth, she insisted. “It was too dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?” asked Covenant. His tone had become level despite his hard breathing. Apparently he had decided to curb his anger. “All you had to do was give me my ring.”
When she was sure of the ground under her, she climbed to her feet. “Not that,” she said, trembling. “Fire. The only barrier that I know how to make. I might have broken the Arch.”
Jeremiah did not look at her. His face was slick with sweat, flushed with intense exertion. His tic signaled feverishly. But Covenant faced her. Apart from his ragged respiration, he now seemed completely blank, sealed off; as severe as one of the Masters. The sporadic embers in his eyes were gone, extinguished or shrouded. In spite of her resolve to avoid challenging him, she had made him wary.
“I don’t see how.”
She forced herself to hold his gaze. “Flames would have spread to the trees. I couldn’t prevent that unless I stayed behind.” Surely she was still Covenant’s and Jeremiah’s only protection against the Elohim? “But even if they didn’t,” even if she had remained to control her conflagration. “the Forestal would have forgotten about the Viles as soon as I raised fire that close to the Deep. Or he would have joined them. They had a common enemy.” That was Covenant’s doing, and Jeremiah’s. “They might have come after us together.” Cold seeped through her cloak, her r
obe. It oozed into her clothes. “Then—”
Covenant cut her off. “Oh, that. That was never going to happen.”
In a tone of enforced patience, he said. “I know I haven’t given you all the explanations you want. And you obviously don’t like it. But we didn’t have time. I couldn’t afford to spend a few hours teaching you other ways to use the Staff. And I didn’t know I needed to tell you why the Arch wasn’t in danger.
“The Viles aren’t stupid. They’re capable of alliances. But Wildwood isn’t. I don’t mean he’s stupid. He just doesn’t think that way.
“He’s a Forestal. He doesn’t think like people—or even Viles. He thinks like trees. And for them, life is pretty simple. Soil and roots. Wind and sun and leaves. Birds and seeds. Sap. Growth. Decay.” Just for an instant, Covenant’s deliberate restraint cracked. “Vengeance.” Then he flattened the emotion in his voice. “As far as they’re concerned, there’s no distinction between sentience and fire or axes. Anything that’s mobile and has a mind can kill them. The Viles are just like us. We’re already Wildwood’s enemies. By definition.
“Trust me,” he concluded heavily. “There was never any chance he would join the Viles.”
Never any chance that the logic of the Land’s past might be severed—
“He’s right, Mom,” Jeremiah offered. His gaze had paled to the hue of sand. “We couldn’t make Wildwood team up with the Viles even if we wanted to. Which of course we don’t. All we want is to get to Melenkurion Skyweir. So Covenant can save the Land—and you can save me.”
Linden could not argue; not with her boy. But she was not appeased. She had been used.—a rock and a hard place. Covenant and Jeremiah had deliberately exposed her to the Viles—and for what? So that she would surrender Covenant’s ring? And when she ignored him in order to argue with the Viles, he and Jeremiah had created a conflict between them and Caerroil Wildwood.
What would he have done if she had complied? Would he have abandoned her to the debate of the Demondim-makers?
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