“But you have spoken of matters which are too high for us. We are Ramen, and proud-but we are only Ramen, powerless against Fangthane as against Elohim or any other fell being. Our purpose is all that we are, and its ambit is too small to contain such wonders and powers. Hearing your tale, we know that we cannot measure your claim upon us, for good or ill.”
Then Hami waved her hand; and one of the Cords at the edge of the clearing hurried away into the night. Watching the young Raman go, Linden felt a new twist of apprehension.
“Linden Avery,” Hami repeated more loudly, “Ringthane and Chosen, the time has come. You have given your consent to be challenged. This is well, for such testing is necessary to us.
“The time has come to speak of Esmer.”
At once, all of the Ramen rose to their feet. In one sense or another, they had been waiting for this moment. Hami’s Cords hedged Linden within their circle. The younger Ramen seemed to form a wall around the clearing.
Esmer? Linden thought mutely. Who-?
“I have said that two events brought us timely to the Verge of Wandering, and to your aid,” the Manethrall explained with a cadence of nickering in her voice. “This is the second. Three seasons past, we were yet far to the south, and though our way tended northward we did not hasten, for the Elohim had not persuaded us to urgency. But then a new stranger came among us.
“He named himself Esmer, and he approached us courteously from afar, asking that he might be welcomed among us. To our eyes, he appeared to be a man both like and unlike any other, ruled by love and loss, as others are, and yet as puissant as a Lord in his own fashion-a figure of both power and pain. His pain we did not comprehend, however, and his power disturbed us. Therefore we were unsure of him.
“Yet he met our challenge without demur or difficulty, but rather with a seemly reverence. And when it was made plain to us that we must cede our friendship, he became a worthy member of our journey, forewarning us of pitfalls and snares, and relieving our wants, so that our sojourn has been one of safety and ease.” e were
Linden waited with a mounting pressure in her ears and chest, as though she were holding her breath. A figure of both power and pain-
– who did not greet new arrivals among the Ramen, or join them while they ate.
Hidden by shadows, Hami’s eyes might have held eagerness or fear, empathy or suspicion.
“Because you will now be challenged in your turn” the Manethrall continued, I will tell you that it was Esmer who persuaded us to hasten toward the Verge of Wandering. It was he who informed us of the Ringthane’s return in peril. And it was he who summoned the ur-viles so that they might answer your need as we did, for he alone among us speaks their tongue.
“Indeed,” she added, “because of his presence, or his summoning, we have encountered them frequently since we neared the Land.”
Then she concluded, “It is our hope that his lore may enable us to determine our place in matters which surpass us.”
Suddenly Stave thrust himself between Hami’s Cords into the circle around Linden. Resolve poured from his hard form as if he were ready for battle.
As the Haruchai moved, Liand called out sharply: a tight cry, unexpectedly alarmed. In the same moment, Linden felt an acrid presence touch the back of her neck. Instinctively she wheeled toward the Stonedownor.
At the edge of the clearing near him, a wedge of Demondim-spawn appeared among the Cords as if Hami had invoked them.
The black creatures barked to each other softly as they advanced. They did not sound threatening, however, and the Ramen showed only tension, not fear. None of the ur-viles held weapons.
Were they here because Hami had summoned Esmer? Or because Linden herself was in danger?
Frightened and confused, Liand pushed his way through the Ramen to join Stave beside her. Both of them seemed to think that the ur-viles posed some threat.
Linden turned back to the Manethrall. “Hami-?”
Hami held up her hands to forestall questions. “I know not why they have come. We did not expect them. But they have given us no cause for enmity. Since we learned of their presence among these mountains, they have offered us no harm. Rather they have aided us upon occasion, at Esmer’s behest.”
Linden frowned to conceal her thoughts. If Esmer could talk to the ur-viles, he might be able to answer many of her questions.
“Ringthane,” the Manethrall hurried on, “our challenges need not alarm you. They require naught of you, except that you abide them.
Thus!”
Spreading her arms, she stepped back from the campfire; withdrew to the edge of the circle.
Off to her right, the crowd of Cords parted again, and a man came tensely through the firelight into the centre of the clearing.
The first sight of him made Linden’s stomach churn with nausea. She was instantly certain that she was looking at the being who had driven Covenant’s spirit from Anele’s mind; the power who had commanded Anele to keep silent at the crest of the arete.
He resembled the Haruchai.
He could have been young or old: his features seemed to refuse the definition, the constriction, of time. Like Stave’s people, he was flat-faced and brown-skinned, strongly built. Like them, he was not especially tall; no taller than Linden herself. And his cropped hair curled on his head. Seen from a distance, he could have been taken for Stave’s brother, unscarred and untried.
However, he wore a gilded cymar formed of a strange fabric which looked like it had been woven from the froth of waves: a garment entirely unlike the raiment of the Masters-or any raiment that Linden had seen in the Land. And his eyes were the deep and running green of dangerous seas.
Now she knew why his nearness nauseated her. Her health-sense saw him as a queasy squirm of power; a knot of conflicts and capabilities like a clenched nest of worms. Poisonous. Breeding.
And yet-
If he had not been so tense, he would have seemed oddly vulnerable, even frightened. The occasion threatened him in some way. Or he was a danger to himself. In spite of her own discomfort, she felt drawn to him, as if he had appealed to her for pity; inspired her to empathy.
And yet-
Her nerves were sure of him: she perceived clearly that he was the figure of power who had twice intervened to frustrate Anele’s insights, Anele’s madness. He had reft her of Covenant’s voice-
But he was distinctly not the being of fire that had possessed the old man. She could be confident of that as well. Rather he had merely blocked Covenant’s spirit, impelling Anele out onto open ground. There an altogether different being had taken hold of the old man; a power that blazed with malice and hunger, as Esmer did not.
In some sense, Esmer served that other, more vicious foe-and appeared to despise himself for doing so.
“Linden,” Liand panted in astonishment or dismay, “he is not human. Not mortal.”
Linden swallowed a rasp of sand. She wanted to ask Stave what he saw. His senses surpassed hers. And he might have knowledge which she lacked. But her throat was too dry for speech.
Stave confronted the newcomer mutely, without moving. Every line of his form had become an imminent blow.
“Esmer,” Hami announced, apparently intending to introduce him to Linden and her companions. But he stopped her with a gesture so fraught with force that it left a streak of incandescence across Linden’s sight. Then he turned to Liand.
“Liand of Mithil Stonedown.” His words seemed to writhe in Linden’s ears. “You have no part in this. You will withdraw.”
Like Stave, Liand stood motionless. “No.” His voice shook. “I will not.
Esmer shrugged as if with that lift of his shoulders he dismissed Liand’s existence.
“Linden Avery,” he said next, “Chosen and Sun-Sage. You have become the Wildwielder, as the Elohim knew that you must. Because you spurned their guidance long ago, much will now be lost which might have been preserved. You also have no part in this, and will withdraw.”
But she, too, did not comply. She could not. Instead she stood still, rooted in place by surprise and anger. He had silenced Covenant’s voice; had caused Anele terrible distress. And-
And many centuries ago, the Elohim had expressed surprise that she did not already wield Covenant’s ring. Because she did not, they had reduced Covenant’s mind to blankness, striving-among other things-to persuade or compel her to claim his wedding band for herself.
How had Esmer known-?
Observing her refusal, his manner softened momentarily. “If the Ramen heed my word, they will trust their hearts concerning you. And if they do not-” Again he shrugged; but this time the motion suggested diffidence, even timidity. “They will be persuaded otherwise.”
Then, however, all hint of softness vanished from him. Like Liand, she might have ceased to exist. Between one instant and the next, he began to seethe with fury as he shifted his dark emerald gaze to the Master.
“You,” he said; and his voice gathered potency as if he could bring down the night and the stars to hear him. “I know you, to my enduring cost. You are Stave, Bloodguard and Master, Haruchai.” With each word, his voice grew, acquired resonance, until it became the shout of great sackbuts, steerhorns, so loud that it seemed to echo off the mountainsides. “Because of you, I am made to be what I am!
“Defend yourself, heartless one, lest I destroy you!”
At once, he launched himself at Stave like a scend, the surge of a tumbling wave.
“Esmer!” Hami cried instantly. “No! They must not be harmed! I promised them safety!”
Together, she and several other Manethralls rushed to intervene.
Instinctively Linden reached for Covenant’s ring. But she had no power. She was blocked by nausea; trapped within herself by the confusion of her senses.
The ur-viles barked savagely in unison. At the tip of their wedge, an iron rod or Sceptre appeared in the loremaster’s hands. The creature raised the rod high, preparing conflagration.
Esmer s response shook the encampment. Around the clearing, the ground erupted like water in spouts, geysers, hurling dirt and stubble into the air. Linden was flung backwards: the Manethralls were picked up, tossed aside. Bursts of force and soil drove the Ramen back.
But the ur-viles were not affected. Linden realised as she sprawled to the ground that Esmer spared them; or they were able to withstand him. While he made the dirt hurl and dance, they remained upright in their wedge, poised for black might which they had not unleashed.
Liand fell on his back near her. The spouts continued erratically, leaping upward as if they had been squeezed from the guts of the Earth, first to one side, then another, back and forth at vehement intervals. But now they touched no one. Instead they kept the Ramen away; enforced a vacant place like a killing field in the middle of the clearing.
And in the midst of the geysers, Stave and Esmer fought.
Linden could not so much as whisper Stave’s name. Esmer’s power closed her throat.
The Master met Esmer’s first attack easily: blocked a punch, then used the impact of a kick to lift him away so that he gained a little distance. “You are a treacher, or misguided,” he informed his assailant calmly. “The Haruchai also have no part in this. We do not know you.
“If you have truly been made to be who you are, and do not choose your own way”- his tone carried a sting of scorn- “lay blame elsewhere. I know not how you have tricked or betrayed the Ramen to friendship, but I deny you. If you do not desist, I will teach you better wisdom.”
Esmer answered with a flurry of blows like a sudden squall: fists and feet so swift that Linden could not follow them. For a moment, Stave seemed to block and counter amid the storm and the bursting geysers as if he were Esmer’s equal. Strikes and gasps punctuated the air in staccato, at once sodden and sharp, flesh and bone. Then, abruptly, the Haruchai staggered backward; nearly fell to his knees.
His face bled from cuts and pulped skin on his cheeks and forehead. From where she lay, Linden could feel pain grinding in his chest like splinters of bone twisting against each other.
Esmer’s green eyes seethed with ferocity. “You are mistaken, Haruchai!” His voice thundered across the valley. A tidal wave might have broken over the clearing: Linden seemed to hear Stave’s accuser through a wall of water and chaos. “Your folk sired me. I am your descendant, conceived by Cail among merewives, and given birth by the Dancers of the Sea!
“Because of the Haruchai, there will be endless havoc!”
Tears caught the light and glowed like embers on his cheeks. In spite of his rage, he might have been sobbing.
Swift as lightning, he attacked again.
Several of the Manethralls and Cords tried to force their way into the battle. Liand joined them, ignoring his distrust of the Masters. But spouting dirt and stones repulsed them.
The Haruchai could be killed: Linden knew that. She had seen them slain by spears and Sandgorgons. Panting, No, no! she struggled to her feet against the overflow of Esmer’s power, the shock and virulence of his geysers.
Cail’s son?
As though he had not been bloodied, and felt no hurt, Stave sprang to meet the assault. He struck and struck, a whirlwind of blows and blocks: spinning; leaping; allowing Esmer to hit him so that he could hit back. Once he rocked Esmer’s head: several times, he drove his fists and feet into Esmer’s body.
Yet the punishment he received in return was worse. Linden saw his blood splash the ground; felt more of his ribs give way. A lashing elbow snapped one of his clavicles. Within herself, she scrambled frantically to find the hidden door of the ring’s fire, but it eluded her. Stave’s pain and Esmer’s churning power and her own fear paralysed her.
And still the ur-viles did not enter the conflict. They appeared to have no interest in Stave’s plight. They had come for some other purpose and ignored everything else.
Then the fight seemed to freeze for an instant, catching Stave in an attempt to fling a kick at Esmer’s head. He was off-balance and slow, however, already battered almost senseless. While his kick rose, Esmer dove at him with a blow to the pelvis that wrenched his leg from its socket.
Stave fell on his face, fingers clawing at the dirt, unable to rise.
Esmer stood over the Haruchai. With one hand, he knotted a grip in Stave’s hair, pulled Stave’s head back. With the other, he punched Stave’s head downward.
Stave’s head bounced once; settled to the ground like a sigh. He did not move again.
An instant later, the spouting ceased.
Fierce pressure evaporated from the air as if a squall had frayed and drifted apart. Linden stumbled at the abrupt release: her arms flailed. The ground under her boots held a residual tremor like the aftermath of a distant earthquake. Around her, the Ramen blinked dazedly, shocked by relief and the sudden end of violence. Liand stood among them with wildness in his eyes. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this.
Because of the Haruchai, there will be endless havoc.
Oh, Stave.
Linden felt rather than saw the ur-viles withdraw into the night; but she no longer cared what they did. Had they come to protect her? To protect Esmer from her? It made no difference now.
If they had wished Stave dead, they could easily have slain him themselves.
Shaking his head, Esmer stepped away from the beaten Master. He looked vaguely crestfallen, almost ashamed, as if he had been caught in an unjustified act of vengeance-or forbearance.
“Esmer,” Hami breathed, “what have you done?”
He did not answer.
Stave was still alive.
Freed from her paralysis, Linden ran to his side. Ignoring Cail’s son, she dropped to her knees to examine the Haruchai.
On the Sandwall of Bhrathairain, Ceer had taken a spear meant for her. With one leg shattered, he had not been able to defend her effectively, and so he had simply let himself be impaled.
Without Brinn’s self-sacrifice, she and Covenant would never have
been able to approach the One Tree.
Trembling with her own fury, Linden reached into Stave with her health-sense. Somehow he still lived. If he could be saved, she did not mean to let him die.
As she studied his wounds, a hush fell over the gathering. The clenched attention of the Ramen turned away from her and the Master. But she did not raise her head. In moments, she was sure that Stave needed saving.
His body was a mass of bruises and bleeding, but that damage was superficial: his native vitality would heal it. In addition to his shattered clavicle, however, and his dislocated hip, she found a collapsed sinus in one cheek, stress fractures in both femurs, a variety of badly battered internal organs, and at least eight broken ribs.
One of them had splintered completely, puncturing a lung in several places. She could hear moisture rattle in his troubled breathing. The ground under him seemed to tremble with the difficulty of his respiration.
She looked up to find only Esmer gazing at her. Liand and the Ramen stared past her toward the far side of the clearing. Wonder and deference filled their faces.
Linden did not so much as glance at what they saw. The thunder in the dirt left her untouched.
“You bastard,” she spat at Esmer. “Why didn’t you just kill him? You’ve done everything else.”
“I have seen what you do not,” he answered ambiguously. The look in his eyes might have been gladness or remorse. “Behold.”
With one hand, he pointed beyond her to the sound of hooves.
When she turned her head, she saw two proud horses trot into the clearing though they had been incarnated from darkness and firelight.
She had encountered horses aplenty during her life; but she had never seen hot like these.
They were craggy and extreme, full of the essential substance of the Land, with deep chests and mighty shoulders, and a hot smoulder of intelligence in their eyes. Their coats gleamed as if they had been brushed and curried ceaselessly for generations, one a roan stallion, the other a dappled grey mare; and their long manes and tails flew like pennons.
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