Fatal Revenant

the future of this present. But Linden did not know how to gauge the mysterious relationship between the Ranyhyn and Time. Her constrained linear conceptions had been proven inadequate repeatedly. Hyn’s far distant ancestors might already be aware of her need for them.

But Jeremiah covered his face as if she had embarrassed him. And Covenant exploded. “Hellfire and bloody damnation! That’s another terrible idea. In fact, it’s even worse than wanting to go to Andelain.”

Holding his glare, Linden made no effort to interrupt him.

“Maybe they can hear you,” he told her hotly. “Maybe they can’t. If they can, they’ll probably answer. They’re loyal enough for anything. That’s not the point. You’ll be asking them to violate the Land’s history. To risk the Arch.”

“How?” she countered.

Covenant made a visible effort to recover his composure. “Because right now there aren’t any Ranyhyn in the Land. After Foul killed Kelenbhrabanal, he drove them away. If they hadn’t left, he would have exterminated them. They won’t come back for another three or four hundred years. Until they find the Ramen-or the Ramen find them. Without Kelenbhrabanal, they need the Ramen to lead them.

“If you summon them now-and they answer-the consequences will ripple for millennia. And they’ll only get worse. One thing will lead to another. They’ll cause more and more changes.”

Linden waited coldly until Covenant was done. Then she said without inflection. “I didn’t know any of that. There are too many things that you haven’t told me. I don’t have any way to tell the difference between good ideas and bad ones.”

“She’s right,” Jeremiah put in hesitantly. “We’re asking an awful lot of her. It isn’t her fault if she gets some of it wrong.”

His apparent reluctance to defend her-or to disagree with Covenant in any way-made her bite her lip. She needed that small hurt to conceal her deeper pain. She had spent much of his life caring for him with her whole heart; and during that time, Covenant had become more essential to him than she had ever been.

She remembered a Covenant who would not have blamed her-

She did not fault her son for his loyalties. She loved him enough to be grateful that he had grown capable of the kind of attachment which he felt for Covenant. But her helpless rage at what the Despiser had done mounted with every fresh sign that Jeremiah did not love her.

Covenant avoided her gaze. “I get mad too easily,” he admitted as if he were speaking to the empty air. “I know that. It’s the frustration-What I’m trying to do is hard as hell. And it hurts. But it’s nothing compared to what Jeremiah is going through. I want to help him so bad-” After a moment, he added, “And you. And the Land. You didn’t cause any of these delays and obstacles. But they’re making me crazy.”

He seemed to be attempting an apology.

Linden did not care. He could have asked for her sufferance on his knees without swaying her. For Jeremiah’s sake, however, she replied quietly, “Don’t worry about it. Eventually we’ll learn how to talk to each other.

“We’re all tired of frustration. We should go before it gets any worse.”

The relief on Jeremiah’s face was so plain that she could not bear to look at it.

Covenant jerked his eyes to hers. A sudden intensity exaggerated the strictures of his face. “Go where? You still haven’t-”

Linden cut him off. “Where else? Berek’s camp. You said that he’s in the middle of a battle. But he has food. He has warm clothes.” Even true believers could not fight on faith alone. And I’m willing to bet that he has horses. If we can reach him”- if she could endure the cold long enough- “he might be persuaded to help us.”

She was serious: she did not know how else she could hope to reach Covenant’s goal. But she also wanted to hear what he would say about ripples now. If her choices and actions were somehow consonant with the Arch- The Theomach had asserted that her deeds will do no harm. That I will ensure.

Surely entering Berek’s camp would be less dangerous than redirecting the entire past of the Ranyhyn?

“I told you,” Jeremiah crowed. “Sometimes she does exactly the right thing. This is going to work. She’ll make it work.”

For a long moment, Covenant studied her sceptically, as if he suspected a trick of some kind. Then he seemed to throw up his hands. “It’s worth a try. Berek is still in the dark about almost everything. He hardly knows what he can do, or how he can do it. He isn’t likely to recognise the truth about any of us. And he definitely has horses.

“I should warn you, though,” he added grimly. “You’ll have to make this work because I sure as hell can’t. He doesn’t realise it yet, but he’s full of Earthpower. He can erase us. If he so much as touches us, this whole ordeal will be wasted.”

Linden nodded to herself. She was not surprised: she was only sure. If she stepped aside from the Theomach’s “path,” he would correct her.

At first, she led the way, not because she knew the location of Berek’s battle, but because she was in a hurry to leave the hilltop. She did not want to exhaust herself by following the difficult crests: she needed the less arduous passage of the valley bottom, in spite of its death-laden atmosphere. So she headed downward across the slopes at the best pace that she could manage, keeping her back to the west.

Her haste caused her to slip often as her boots skidded over buried stones or bones. Sometimes she fell. But her cloak gave her a measure of protection from the snow. She did not slow her steps until she reached the floor of the valley.

There the implications of the fallen were stronger. The mere thought that she trod over abandoned corpses daunted her. But the sun was westering; and with its light behind her, she did not suffer from its flagrant glare. Now she moved more slowly for the same reason that she had hurried to reach the valley: she feared exhaustion. The laborious hesitation-and-plunge of every step drained her strength. And the cold grew sharper as the sun lost its force. If she tried to walk too quickly, she would soon defeat herself.

Before long, Covenant and Jeremiah caught up with her. For a time, they matched her burdened plod, keeping a safe distance from her. But they both seemed proof against exertion as well as cold; and gradually they began to draw ahead as if they were reluctant for her company.

“Covenant, wait,” Linden panted. “I have another question.” She did not want to be left behind.

Covenant and Jeremiah exchanged comments too low for her to hear. Then they slowed their strides.

Hardly able to control her breathing, she asked. “How far do we have to go’?”

“Three leagues,” Covenant answered brusquely. “Maybe more. At this rate, we won’t get there until after dark.”

Until even the insufficient warmth of the sun had vanished from the Last Hills.

If she did not think about something other than her own weakness, she would lose heart altogether. “I have no idea what were getting into,” she admitted. “I know that there are things the Theomach doesn’t want you to say. But what can you tell me?”

Covenant scowled at her. “You want me to describe the battle? What does it matter? People are hacking at each other, but they’re too tired to be much good at it. From one minute to the next, most of them don’t know if they’re winning or losing. There’s yelling and screaming, but mostly it’s just hacking.”

Linden shook her head. She had already been in too many battles. “I meant Berek. You said that he doesn’t realise what he can do. Or how he can do it. But he summoned the FireLions. He must have some kind of lore.”

“Oh, well.” Covenant seemed to lose interest. “It wasn’t like that. He didn’t exactly summon the FireLions. He didn’t even know they existed. But he got their attention, and for that he only had to be desperate and bleeding. And he had to have a little power. The real question is, where did he get power?

“According to the legends, when Berek was desperate and bleeding and beaten on Mount Thunder, the rocks spoke to him. They offered him help against the King if he pledged to serve the Land. So he swore he would, and the rocks sent the FireLions to decimate the King’s forces.

“But that doesn’t actually make sense. Sure, the stone of the Land is aware. That’s especially true in Mount Thunder, where so many forces have been at work for so long. But it doesn’t talk. I mean, it doesn’t talk fast enough for most people to hear it.