into an entirely new kind of halfhandThe truth of the man who had brought her here appalled her; shocked her to the core. Roger’s presence in his father’s place exceeded her sharpest fears. Nevertheless the sight of her son was worse.
Jeremiah also had been concealed. Now his plight was unmasked. He stood gazing vacantly at her or through her; unaware of her. The stain in his eyes seemed to blind him. His mouth hung open, the lower lip slack. Drool ran down his chin. His twitch was gone, erased from his empty features.
Linden saw at a glance that he had relapsed to his former unreactive dissociation.
But there was moreDespite his overt passivity, his arms did not dangle at his sides. Instead his fists were raised in front of him. In his right, his halfhand, he clutched his racecar; gripped it so hard that he had crumpled the metal. In his left, he held a piece of wood as slim and pointed as a stiletto, a splinter of the deadwood which he had gathered from Garroting Deep.
From his shoulders, his blue pyjama shirt hung in tatters. Horses reared from scrap to scrap, torn apart by blows and falling. Bruises covered his arms and chest. Yet the unassoiled discoloration of his contusions did not mask the violence of the bullets which had pierced his flesh. His rank wounds, one in his stomach, the other directly over his heart, oozed dark blood that formed a web of crust and fluid on his torso, trickling at last into the waistband of his pyjama bottoms.
He had died in his natural world. Like Linden: like Joan. He would never be freed from the Land.
Yet even that was not the worst.
A small hairless creature like a deformed child clung to his back. Its clawed fingers dug into his shoulders: its sharp toes gouged his ribs. Its malign yellow eyes regarded Linden while its teeth chewed ceaselessly at the side of Jeremiah’s neck and its mouth drank his life.
And from the creature came waves of eldritch force so cruel and bitter that they turned the air in Linden’s lungs to ash. In its own way, the creature was as mighty as Roger. Its power matched the potential for savagery and devastation of Kastenessen’s severed hand. But the creature’s strength had more in common with the black lore of the Viles than with the laval hunger of the skurj- or with the covert transformations of the Elohim. It was an altogether different threat; a danger comparable to the Illearth Stone in its violation of Law.
Nonetheless Linden recognised it instantly. Twice before, she had met a similar magic, a comparable ferocity.
The creature was one of the croyel: a parasite or demon which throve by giving power and time to more natural men or women or beasts as it mastered them. Long ago, Findail the Appointed had described the croyel as beings of hunger and sustenance which demnify the dark places of the Earth. Those who bargain thus for life or might with the croyel are damned beyond redemption.
But Jeremiah was not damned, she insisted to herself. He was not. He was not like Kasreyn of the Gyre: he had made no bargain. He could not have made one. Lost within himself, he more closely resembled the arghuleh of the Northron Climbs, mindless ice-beasts which had simply been enslaved by the croyel. The bargain here was Lord Foul’s, not Jeremiah’s.
Still her son was effectively possessed. The Ranyhyn had done what they could to forewarn her. But her fears had tended toward Ravers-or toward the Despiser himself. She had not come close to imagining Jeremiah’s true peril.
Empowered by the Blood of the Earth, Linden screamed raw fire down the stone throat of the tunnel.
Her flame was met by a blast of heat like the opening of a furnace. Roger’s given hand flung its own brimstone conflagration against her, vicious as scoria. If she had not been enclosed in Earthpower, and warded by the Staff of Law, she would have died before her heart could beat again. Instead, however, she was only quenched. The flame which the EarthBlood had given her was snuffed out: the illuminating fire of the Staff vanished as though it had been doused.
The sudden vehemence of the attack staggered her. For a brief moment, a small sliver of time, she tottered on the brink of the trough. Then, reflexively, she dropped to her knees, snatching herself back from a second contact with the Blood.
Reclaimed by mortality, her vision blurred again. Only Roger’s crimson virulence remained to light his malice and Jeremiah’s emptiness and the insatiable eyes of the croyel. But she saw them as nothing more than shapes and points of light; instances of bereavement.
“Actually, Dr. Avery,” Roger drawled, “I like this better. If you weren’t so damn determined to interfere, Foul and Kastenessen and I would already have everything we ever wanted. I suppose that ought to piss me off. But it doesn’t. Ever since I first met you, I’ve wanted to crush you. Now I can.” If he had struck at her then, he might have slain her. She was lost and aghast, overwhelmed with rue: she could not have defended herself. White gold was a mystery to her, too complex and hidden to be approached in the EarthBlood’s presence. The resources of the Staff seemed to have passed beyond her reach.
But Roger held back. His desire to crush her entailed something more than mere death.
For her son’s sake, and the Land’s, Linden used that moment of life and breath to regain as much of herself as she could.
Vestiges of utter Earthpower lingered in her yet. They left incandescent suggestions in her veins. Her heart throbbed with remembered might. She could still think, and had already begun to tremble with fury.
Leaning her weight on the Staff, gripping it with both hands while she knelt, she panted as though she were nearly prostrate. “That’s why you didn’t want me to touch you. You weren’t afraid of my power. You knew that if I touched you, I would feel the truth.” Roger and the croyel had feared her health-sense. “Your disguise wouldn’t hold.” Roger glanced at Jeremiah’s master; gave a harsh burst of laughter. Then he faced Linden again with flame frothing from his fist. “Of course,” he jeered. “I’m just astonished it took you so long to figure it out.” She ignored his scorn: it could not hurt her now. “And it’s why you didn’t want me to summon the Ranyhyn. They would have recognised you right away.” “Of course,” he repeated, mocking her. “Go on. You can’t stop there.” Jeremiah did not speak. He did not react in any way. He could not. The croyel ruled him, and the creature no longer needed either words or gestures. It had stolen into her son’s mind in order to find the memories and knowledge which would give substance to its charade, and to Roger Covenant’s. Now it was done with pretence.
Linden trembled, scrambling inwardly, and grew stronger. “It’s also why you didn’t want me to go Andelain. You couldn’t fool the Dead. They would have exposed you.” “Well, sure.” Roger shrugged. “If that’s the best you can do. But I have to admit, I’m disappointed. You’re supposed to be a doctor. Keen mind. Trained intellect. I expected more.” Think, Linden commanded herself. If she could understand her straits, she might find her way through them.
Clearly Esmer had advised her well. And then he had counterbalanced his aid by opposing the ur-viles when they had tried to prevent Roger and the croyel from snatching her out of her natural present.
“Tell me,” she demanded hoarsely. “You like to gloat.” He coveted her dismay. “What am I missing?” Roger snorted another laugh. “For one thing, you brought this on yourself. All of it. If you hadn’t gone to get that damn Staff-and if you hadn’t told Esmer you wanted to visit Andelain-nothing that’s happened since would have been necessary. You forced us to intervene. Once you had the Staff, we had to keep you out of Andelain.” Linden sensed as much as thought that he was attempting to mislead her again. He was not closed to her now. Her senses discerned subtleties of truth and falsehood. He-or Lord Foul-had wished to preclude her from Andelain: she believed that. But her Staff was not his real concern. If he and Jeremiah had not ridden into Revelstone, they would have been in no danger from her.
Roger and his masters or guides-the Despiser and Kastenessen-had a deeper reason for seeking to ensure that she did not approach the Andelainian Hills.
Trying to probe further, Linden asked, “You said “for one thing”. What else have I missed?” Again Roger appeared to consult his companion. Then he replied in a voice full of scorn. “Why not? You obviously
