In the wall opposite her, Linden saw a pair of gaps which may once have been smaller doors. But they had suffered the same damage which had marred the lower half of the Close, and did not appear to be usable.
Among the wracked shapes at the bottom of the Close waited Handir, Stave, and perhaps a score of other Masters. Among them, Linden saw Anele as well as Manethrall Mahrtiir and his two Cords. The old man stood at the back of the gathering, guarded or restrained by two of the Masters. Linden knew at a glance that he had not been harmed; but his physical well-being failed to reassure her.
As soon as she entered the hall, the Ramen ascended the rumpled stone toward her. All three of them were pale with loss and oppression. Bhapa concentrated on protecting his newly healed arm and shoulder as he moved; but Pahni mustered a thin smile for Linden and Liand. Mahrtiir betrayed more discomfort, however. He had difficulty holding up his head, and his fierce features looked uncharacteristically daunted. He climbed the stone with a slight hitch in his strides, a subtle flinch.
The Manethrall stopped a step below Linden, Liand, and Galt, with his Cords behind him in deference. Avoiding Linden’s eyes, he bowed in the Ramen fashion, then asked uncertainly, “Ringthane, are you well? Have you been treated courteously?”
He may have expected her to say that she had not.
Because his distress was vivid to her, Linden held up the Staff of Law like an emblem of authority and bowed formally. “I’m glad you’re here, Manethrall. Liand and I are fine.” The Stonedownor nodded in confirmation, grinning at Pahni. “Mostly the Masters ignored us. But a woman called the Mahdoubt took good care of us.
“How about you? Are you all right?”
Mahrtiir made a transparent effort to gather his resolve. “We are not. At our word, the Ranyhyn were released to the grasses of the upland plateau, and to the eldritch waters of Glimmermere. We accompanied them, preferring service and the open sky to the veiled disdain of these Bloodguard. The Ranyhyn remain there, although we have answered the summons of the sleepless ones in your name. So much is well.”
Linden nodded, waiting for him to go on.
“But, Ringthane-” He faltered; had to force himself to lift his head so that she could see the shame in his eyes. “I fear that I will fail you here. This dire place bears down upon me. The Ramen are born to open skies. Such enclosure darkens our hearts. Yet there is a deeper pain which hampers me.”
He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “Ringthane, we are blinded. We were aware of the nature of Kevin’s Dirt, but we had not experienced it in our own flesh. We-” He scowled in dismay. “I had not known that its bereavement would be so extreme. I am more than half crippled, unfit for your service.”
Still holding up the Staff, Linden shook her head. “Manethrall, you’re wrong. You and Bhapa and Pahni are who you’ve always been,” as worthy as loyalty and valour could make them. “With your permission, I’ll show you what I mean.”
He stared at her, perplexed and uncertain. He could not see her health, or the potency of the Staff. Yet he assented without hesitation.
Law and Earthpower came easily now. They were natural to her: as long as she held the Staff, they could not be taken away. If she had not felt diminished by Kevin’s Dirt earlier, she would not have panicked. With the warm wood in her hands, she had only to desire the cleansing of the Ramen’s senses, and her desire was accomplished.
The joy that lit their faces when they could see again was wonderful to behold. And it was especially acute in Bhapa. Until this moment, apparently, he had not fully appreciated the fact that his ordinary sight had been restored. For years, his vision had been impaired: now he could see in every sense of the word.
As one, the Ramen prostrated themselves at Linden’s feet as though she were as majestic as the Ranyhyn.
Embarrassed, she lowered the Staff, muttering, “Oh, get up. Please. I don’t want to be treated this way.” Again she explained, “It’s temporary. Kevin’s Dirt is still there. But I can renew it as often as we need. And eventually we’ll figure out how to get rid of the cause.”
Obediently the Ramen rose to their feet. Now a palpable current of pleasure flowed between Pahni and Liand; and Bhapa gazed at Linden with gratitude in his clear eyes. But Mahrtiir turned away to glare fiercely down at the waiting Masters.
“Sleepless ones,” he called out in a voice that rang with scorn, “your purpose here has no meaning. Doubtless you will require the Ringthane to defend her actions and intentions. Stave has promised a reckoning, has he not? And you will attempt to account for your mistreatment of sad Anele, who harms no one. But your words and your choices are empty.
“The Ranyhyn have accepted the Ringthane. More, they have honoured her, bowing their heads when they have never bowed to any living being. And in her name they have likewise accepted all of her companions, not excluding Anele. Indeed, at their will they have been ridden by Ramen, a thing which no Raman has ever done before.
“Sleepless ones, Bloodguard, you who have ridden so many Ranyhyn to their deaths, there is no more to be said. No more! All of your doubts and arrogance have been answered. If you will not serve the Ringthane, then you must set aside your Mastery, for you have declared your infidelity to the Land!”
From the floor of the Close, the Masters regarded Mahrtiir in silence. Linden could not read their reactions. Nevertheless their flat stoicism conveyed the impression that they did not consider Mahrtiir’s indignation worthy of a response.
Their lack of affect vexed Linden. It was no wonder, she thought grimly, that the Haruchai spoke to each other mind to mind. They were too enclosed, too deeply immured within themselves, for any other form of communication.
Snarling, Mahrtiir turned back to Linden. “Ringthane, do you choose to submit to this false council?”
“Submit?” Her tone resembled his. “No. But I’ll hear what they have to say, and I’ll answer it. I need them, Manethrall. The Land needs them. I can’t turn my back on that.”
He held her gaze, apparently searching for some flaw in her determination. Then he nodded once, brusquely. “Very well. The Ramen will stand beside you, whatever befalls.
“But heed my warning. These Masters”- he spat the word- “will not treat honestly with you.”
Summoning her professional detachment, she replied, “I’ll take that chance.”
The Haruchai would not deign to lie; not under any compulsion. Not unless they had first lied to themselves.
When she started down into the Close, Liand and Mahrtiir walked at her sides, and the Cords arrayed themselves behind her. Followed by Galt, and deliberate as a cortege, they descended the hurt stone. At the bottom of the pit, however, she paused to see how the gathered Masters would greet her arrival.
For a moment, Stave regarded her with his remaining eye as if he wished to measure her against his shame. Then he bowed as he had often done before, impassive in his respect. But Handir merely inclined his head. He might have done more to acknowledge one of the servants of Revelstone.
The rest of the Masters only gazed at her and waited.
Now Linden was near enough to see that both of Anele’s guards had lost the last two fingers of their right hands. Like Galt, they were the Humbled.
She swallowed a curse; refused to allow herself that show of emotion. As Mahrtiir had just demonstrated, the Masters would not be swayed by outrage.
If they could be swayed at all.
Standing passively between the Humbled, Anele did not react to Linden’s presence. He may have been lost in the labyrinth of his dismay; unaware of her.
“Chosen,” Handir began when she looked toward him again, “you have been made welcome in Revelstone. Yet the Manethrall your companion conceives that he has cause to denounce us. Do you also fault our purpose here? If so, speak plainly, and you will be plainly answered.”
Mahrtiir stiffened at Linden’s side, but did not retort. He had committed himself to her service, and remained silent.
Linden faced the
Voice of the Masters squarely. “You know why I’m here. Anele is under my protection. I want you to let him go. And I hope I can convince you to help me. The Land needs you. What you’ve done so far isn’t enough anymore-if it ever was.
“As for your welcome, the Mahdoubt took good care of me. And she did the same for Liand.” The Stonedownor nodded. “We have no complaints.”
Handir held her gaze. “Then I bid you a further welcome to the Close of Revelstone, where in ages long past the Council of Lords gathered to consider the perils of their times. We have selected this to be our meeting place because it has been harmed by despair and Earthpower.
“When the first Staff of Law had been destroyed, the former Bloodguard Bannor sojourned to Revelstone to discover what had befallen the Lords. From his tales of that time, the Haruchai learned that here Trell Atiaran-mate performed a Ritual of Desecration which nearly brought about the ruin of Lord’s Keep. The outcome of his mad grief is written in this wounded stone.
“Here you may behold clearly the reasons which have led us to assume the Mastery of the Land. You stand upon the consequences of mortal power and passion. Here you may see explained the purposes of the Masters, if your eyes are open, and your heart is not inured to pain.
“It is here,” Handir concluded inflexibly, “that you will be accused. Here you will make answer as you are able. And here the judgment of the Masters will be rendered.”
“Accused”? Liand objected in surprise. “Do you jest?”
“It is as I have said, Ringthane,” snarled Mahrtiir. “The sleepless ones have grown too haughty to be endured. Do they welcome us? Then let us depart, that they may no longer be constrained. We have no need of their judgment.”
But Linden gestured both of them to silence. Behind her chosen detachment, she seethed with indignation; yet she exposed none of it. She had expected something like this. Stave had promised her a reckoning. And in some sense she was ready for it.
“All right,” she told Handir quietly. “Accuse away. I’m eager to hear what you think I should have done differently.” Then she let a flick of anger into her voice. “But make no mistake about it. I am going to answer you. And when I’m done, you will by God answer me.
She had earned that right.
The Voice of the Masters studied her for a moment. Then he pronounced, “Let it be so.”
At his word, most of his people left the bottom of the pit to position themselves like sentinels or judges around the lower slopes. Only Handir, Stave, and the Humbled, with Anele among them, remained facing Linden.
Firmly she turned her back on the Masters and stepped aside to sit on a bulge of stone at the edge of the bottom. Placing the Staff across her knees, she beckoned for her companions to join her.
Reluctantly Mahrtiir and Liand sat on either side of her, while the Cords placed themselves behind her. “Linden,” Liand whispered at once, “I mislike this. The Masters do not relent. Permitting them to accuse you, you grant them a credence which they do not merit.”
“The Stonedownor speaks truly,” Mahrtiir put in more loudly. “You are beyond these Bloodguard. Your heed does them too much honour.”
“And there is no fault in what you have done,” added Liand. “Why then should they be suffered to speak against you?”
Linden did not glance at either of them. Nor did she meet Handir’s gaze. Instead she focused her attention on Stave.
“Trust me,” she answered softly. “This has to be done.” Anele’s plight required it-as did Jeremiah’s. “They may call themselves Masters, but they’re still Haruchai,” men so moved by the grandeur of the Old Lords that they had surrendered love and sleep and death to their Vow of service. “They can be persuaded.”
Somehow High Lord Kevin had persuaded them-
The Manethrall glared about him, but did not protest further. After a squirming moment, Liand subsided as well.
Linden went on watching Stave and waited for the accusations to begin. Handir was the Voice of the Masters; yet she did not expect him to recite her crimes. Every question that mattered lay between her and Stave. He had travelled with her, aided her; had been badly injured in her name. And she had shamed him-She was intuitively sure that he would be her accuser.
“In courtesy,” Handir announced, “we will speak as do the folk of the Land, though it is not natural to us. The Chosen should hear all that is said of her.”
With a grave nod, Stave stepped into the centre of the contorted floor. Ignoring Linden’s gaze, he addressed the Close as though his entire race were in attendance.
“She is Linden Avery the Chosen,” he said stolidly, “the companion of ur-Lord Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever during the time of the Sunbane. So much is certain. I have ascertained it beyond doubt. She accompanied the Unbeliever on his quest for the One Tree. She shared his return to Revelstone, putting an end to the evils of the Clave and the Banefire. At his side in Kiril Threndor, she formed the new Staff of Law-the Staff which was then lost, and has now been regained.
“From him she received the white gold ring which is at once the Land’s greatest boon and its most fatal bane.”
At least, Linden thought as she listened to him, he plays fair. He was willing to acknowledge who she was and what she had done, if Handir and the Humbled were not.
“When I had learned that she is indeed the Chosen,” Stave continued without pausing, “I sought to do her honour by explaining the convictions and purposes of the Masters. I described the harm which attends inevitably upon any use of Earthpower. And I offered the support and aid of the Masters in any condign quest which might oppose Corruption.
“She has responded with unfailing defiance. At every turn, she has acted against my counsel. At every turn, she has striven to deny Anele from us, though his madness only accentuates the peril of his Earthpower.”
Feigning calm, Linden helped herself to some of Liand’s bread and cheese; ate as if her own heart and Jeremiah’s life were not at stake. Yet inwardly she squirmed with frustration and yearning, and she could barely swallow.
“I grant,” Stave declared, “that her defiance has yielded unforeseen boons. Because she fled from me, we now know that the Ranyhyn and their Ramen yet live. That is a benison which all who serve the Land must acknowledge.
“And the Staff of Law has been reclaimed. That is of inestimable worth. In itself, it is not a use of power. Yet it is a bastion of Law, and its nature sustains the life of the Land. Unused, its presence among us may hamper the proliferation of Falls, or diminish the pall of Kevin’s Dirt.”
The Master was still trying to be fair.
But then he resumed his accusations. “By the same defiance, however, she has admitted new perils. I have spoken of Esmer, who professes to be the son of Cail and the Dancers of the Sea, and whose dark puissance concerns and dismays even the ur-viles, despite their ancient loathing for the Land. And there are the Demondim, of which I will say more.
“However, the greatest accusation is this. She has a son who has been captured by Corruption. Her desire to redeem him is both proper and seemly. Yet her actions in his name have threatened the destruction of the Arch of Time.”
Mahrtiir muttered imprecations under his breath. Softly Liand asked Linden, “Why do you suffer this? What manner of men advocate the sacrifice of threatened children?”
Placing her hand on the young man’s arm, she gripped him hard to quiet him. She already knew what Stave would say.
The Master ignored her companions. “For the sake of her son,” he proclaimed, “she entered a Fall of Esmer’s summoning, daring the past to seek for the Staff of Law. There she forged an alliance between the Waynhim and the ur-viles, which have ever opposed each other. And when we were beset by the Demondim, as well as by the power of the Illearth Stone, she herself caused the Fall which has delivered both them and us to Revelstone. Doing so, she has inflicted yet another dire bane upon the Land.
“I am Haruchai and fear nothing. Yet I fear to inquire what else she may
attempt in her son’s name.”
Mahrtiir breathed an obscenity, but did not interrupt.
“Now she has entered Revelstone holding both white gold and the Staff of Law.” At last, Stave turned to gaze at Linden. His face held no expression, but shadows which she could not interpret haunted his single eye like ghosts. “I do not doubt that she is a woman of honour, and that all of her purposes are benign. Indeed, she has spoken eloquently of her love for the Land. Nevertheless she is mortal, and her powers surpass the strictures of mortal flesh and desire. If ever she knows a moment of despair-which is surely Corruption’s intent-she will wreak such ruin as the Earth has never known.”
Then he looked away. “Thus she re-enacts the error which destroyed the fidelity of the Bloodguard. As did Korik, Sill, and Doar, she commands powers which exceed her. Yet none will question that those Bloodguard were men of honour.
“The first principle of our Mastery,” he told his people, “is that the uses of such power must ultimately serve Corruption. Is it not therefore certain that Linden Avery the Chosen will in the end become a servant of the Despiser?
“She will perhaps reply that she is warded from doom by the purity of her purpose. Her desire, she may assert, is merely to redeem her son rather than to defeat Corruption. Yet her own deeds gainsay her. Twice she has imposed healing upon me against my desires. Thus she has demonstrated that she cares nothing for the honour of those who do not share her purpose.
“Beyond question she has already begun to tread the path of Corruption’s service.”
There he stopped, leaving Linden daunted in spite of herself. His recitation eroded her detachment; her certainty. In his own way, he had told the truth about her. if she accepted his assumptions, she could not contest his conclusion. It was as ineluctable as loss.
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