Beside the cookfire, she rubbed her twig on the stones until it was as smooth as possible. Then she held one end in the small blaze, hoping to harden it. Before it could catch fire, she pulled it out to rub it again.
When she had repeated the process several times, her rubbing began to produce a point at the end of the twig.
“The lady is resourceful,” remarked the Mahdoubt in a voice rich with pride. “Must the Mahdoubt dismiss her fears? Assuredly she must. The lady has foiled her foes under great
Briefly Linden stopped to massage her tired face, stroke her parched eyes. All right, she told herself. Cloth. A needle. Now thread.
As far as she knew, the forest offered nothing suitable. Its thinnest vines and most supple fibres would eventually rot away, invalidating her gratitude.
Sighing, she spread out her scrap of flannel and began trying to pick threads from its torn edge with the point of her twig.
This was difficult work, close and meticulous. It brought back her weariness in waves until she could hardly keep her eyes open. Her world seemed to contract until it contained nothing except her hands and needle and a stubborn scrap of red. The weave of the flannel resisted her efforts. She had to be as careful and precise as her son when he worked on one of his constructs. She had watched him on occasions too numerous to count. His raceway in his bedroom may have enabled him to reach the Land, for good or ill. And she had seen him build a cage of deadwood to enter the depths of
In her exhaustion, she believed that if she put her task down to rest or sleep, she might give her enemies the time they needed to achieve the Earth’s end.
Finally she had obtained five red threads nearly as long as her hand. That, she decided, would have to suffice. Cloth. A needle. Thread. Now she lacked only a method of attaching thread to her twig.
While she groped for possibilities, she picked up the flask of springwine and drank. For a moment, she blinked rapidly, trying to moisten eyes that felt as barren as Gallows Howe. Then she took her sharpened twig and broke it in half.
The wood snapped unevenly, leaving small splits in the blunt end of her needle.
On her knees, she approached the Mahdoubt.
“Be at peace, lady,” the Insequent said softly. “There is no need for haste.”
Linden hardly heard her. The world had become cloth and thread, a wooden needle and the hanging edge of the Mahdoubt’s robe. When she was near enough to work, Linden laid her few threads out on a stone and examined the woman’s gown until she located a place where her patch could be made to fit. Still kneeling, and guided only by her memories of Jeremiah, she took one fragile thread, wedged it gently into a split at the end of her needle, and began sewing.
As she worked, she held her breath in an effort to steady her weariness.
Her needle did not pierce the fabric easily. And when it passed through her scrap of flannel and the edge of the gown, it made a hole much too large for her thread. But she knotted the thread as well as she could with her sore fingers, then forced her twig through the material a second time.
While she laboured, she felt the Mahdoubt touch her head. The older woman stroked Linden’s hair, comforting her with caresses. Then, softly, the Mahdoubt began to chant.
Her voice was low, as if she were reciting a litany to herself. Nevertheless her tone-or the words of her chant-or Linden’s flagrant fatigue-cast a trance like an enchantment, causing the world to shrink further. Garroting Deep ceased to impinge on Linden’s senses: the raw teeth of winter and the kindly flames of the cookfire lost their significance: darkness and stars were reduced to a vague brume that condensed and swirled, empty of meaning. Only Linden’s hands and the Mahdoubt’s gown held any light, any purpose. And only the Mahdoubt’s chant enabled Linden to continue sewing.
“A simple charm will master time,
A cantrip clean and cold as snow.
It melts upon the brow of thought,
As plain as death, and so as fraught,
Leaving its implications’ rime,
For understanding makes it so.
“The secret of its spell is trust.
It does not change or undergo
The transformations which it wreaks-
The end in silence which it seeks
But stands forever as it must,
For cause and sequence make it so.
“Such knowing is the sap of life
And death, the rich, ripe joy and woe
Ascending in vitality
To feed the wealth of life’s wide tree
Regardless of its own long strife,
For plain acceptance makes it so.
This simple truth must order time:
It simply is, and all minds know
The way of it, the how, the why:
They must forever live and die
In rhythm, for the metered rhyme
Of growth and passing makes it so.
“The silent mind does not protest
The ending of its days, or go
To loss in grief and futile pain,
But rather knows the healing gain
Of time’s eternity at rest.
The cause of sequence makes it so.”
Linden did not understand-and neither knew nor cared that she did not. While she worked, she set all other considerations aside. With her abused fingers and her blurring vision, she concentrated solely and entirely on completing her gratitude; her homage.
But when she came to the end of her thread, and the scrap of her shirt was loosely stitched to the Mahdoubt’s robe-when the older woman removed her hand, ceasing her chant-Linden thought that she heard a familiar voice shout with relief and gladness. “Ringthane! The Ringthane has returned!”
At the same time, she seemed to feel sunrise on her back and smell spring in the air. She appeared to kneel on dewy grass at the Mahdoubt’s feet with the sound of rushing water in her ears and the Staff of Law as black as a raven’s wing beside her.
And she heard other voices as well. They, too, were known to her, and dear. They may have been nickering.
As she toppled to the grass, she fell out of her ensorcelled trance. She had a chance to think, Revelstone. The plateau.
The Mahdoubt had restored her to her proper time and place.
Then exhaustion claimed her, and she was gone.
Chapter Two: In the Care of the Mahdoubt
