“The breaking of their wards is nothing. If you chose, you might have torn the barrier asunder. Or the ur- viles, given time, could have accomplished as much in your name. But such efforts would have been prolonged, allowing the Waynhim to withdraw. Nor would your actions have relieved their mistrust.
“My intervention has not harmed them. It was necessary only to prevent them from flight, so that you might be granted an opportunity to beseech them.
“Also the enmity among these Demondim-spawn is deep and ancient. That the ur-viles have seen their Wurd in a new way does not comfort the Waynhim. In my absence, how would you mediate between them? And how would you counter their doubt of you? You do not know their speech. You cannot answer their concerns if you do not comprehend them.
“You must not spurn my aid.” Yearning ached in his gaze. “How otherwise may I be redeemed?”
But Linden had no tolerance left for his self-justifications. “That’s not my problem,” she told him trenchantly. “You like to talk about betrayals. I don’t think I can afford your help.”
Turning her back on his puissance, she took a few steps toward the Waynhim.
“You know me,” she told the waiting creature. “I don’t care what Esmer says about me-or about you either. He’s making this all sound complicated when it’s actually simple.
“I’m the woman who made the Staff. Covenant sacrificed himself to protect the Arch of Time, and I used his ring to transform Vain and Findail so that I could stop the Sunbane.
“I came here through a
She could not read the creature’s reactions. It might have regarded her with empathy or terror, and she would not have known the difference. Yet somehow the Waynhim conveyed the impression that it was not well; that some old sorrow or wound sapped its vitality, leaving it more frail than it should have been. Grief over the near-extermination of its kind? Some other loss or burden? Linden could not tell. Like the ur-viles, the Waynhim baffled her health-sense.
Nevertheless its condition moved her. When she went on, she spoke more gently.
“If I’m going to fight Lord Foul, I need the Staff. I’m no ‘Wildwielder.’ That was Covenant, and he’s dead. And white gold can’t stop caesures. You know that better than I do. Only Law can undo that kind of rupture.
“But that’s not all.” She glanced back at Cail’s son, then told the Waynhim urgently, “Esmer may not have mentioned that Lord Foul has my son, my Jeremiah. Maybe I can rescue him with wild magic, maybe I can’t. But I can’t do it without risking the Arch, and that’s too dangerous. I need the Staff. Otherwise I might do enough harm to end the Earth.”
Even Jeremiah would be destroyed.
“And the Staff belongs to me,” she asserted. “Not just because I made it, but because I’m a healer. That’s what I do.” She chose her words with care. “I’m the right person to use it.”
The creature responded with a spate of harsh barking, bitter as a denial. When the Waynhim finished, Esmer said as if he had lost interest, “They were unaware that you have a son. They sorrow on his behalf. But all else that you have said they knew, and they are not swayed. Your presence is a violation of Law. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.”
At any other time, that argument would have stopped Linden. She recognised its validity. But she could not heed it now. She had already taken risks which she could not undo. She could only hope to justify them with her actions.
“Wait here,” she told the Waynhim abruptly. “I’ll show you why you should give me the Staff.”
The creature inclined its head: a motion which could have meant anything, but which she chose to interpret as consent.
At once, she swung away to stride down the ravine toward her companions.
Deliberately she ignored Esmer. Accompanied by Stave and Mahrtiir, she hastened along the streambed, rushing to find her way through her ramified dilemmas before her instincts faltered or failed.
Although Esmer had withdrawn his barrier, the rest of her company still stood in midafternoon sunlight at the end of the ravine. The ur-viles remained undecipherable to her; but Liand’s charged confusion and the alarm of the Cords reached her across the intervening sand and stone.
They were as human as she was; their needs as great. Any explanation might have eased their hearts. But she could not pause for them. Holding up her hand to silence their questions, she spoke first to the ur-viles.
“You can’t go any farther,” she said brusquely. “You know that. The Waynhim won’t have it. And I suspect you don’t want to.” Unless they craved the Staff for themselves. But if they did, they were too weak to act on their desire. “You’ve already done your part. You’ll have to wait here.”
Then she turned to Liand and the Cords. “Bhapa, Pahni, I want you to take care of the Ranyhyn. Keep them nearby. I don’t know when we’re going to need them again, but it might be sudden.
“As for you-” She faced Liand’s open concern squarely. “Get Anele for me. Bring him into the ravine. If he can’t convince the Waynhim-”
She left the thought unfinished: if the old man could not move the Waynhim, they had no hearts; and she was powerless.
Liand’s gaze still pleaded with her, but he did not protest. When Pahni and Bhapa bowed in acquiescence, he smiled crookedly and did the same.
Touched by his generosity, Linden might have taken a moment to thank him, but her fears did not let her go.
As if she had released them, the ur-viles surrendered to their weariness again. Abandoning their wedge, they sank down to rest in the bottom of the watercourse. At the same time, the Cords and Liand started up the hillside toward the Ranyhyn and Anele.
With Mahrtiir and Stave beside her still, Linden returned to Esmer and the lone Waynhim, walking among the shadows as if she meant to challenge the dark.
Esmer and the creature were talking quietly, but they broke off their exchange as she approached. She could not be sure, but she thought that she saw tears in Esmer’s indefinite gaze.
Too tense to remain silent, she asked, “Now what?”
Esmer lifted his shoulders: a shrug, perhaps, or a clench of self-restraint. “The Waynhim are valiant,” he answered in a low voice, “and too many of them will perish if you do not contrive their salvation. They know their plight, yet they do not flinch from it. I grieve for them, as I do for myself.”
Oh, great, Linden thought to herself. Just what I need. More riddles.
Aloud, she muttered, “So this is what your help is like. You summoned a
A new concern occurred to her. “What about all the help you gave the Ramen before they came to the Verge of Wandering? How are you going to betray them for that?”
Esmer withheld his damp gaze. “I have already done so. I have brought them near to the Land when you had need of them. No more terrible doom has been required of me.”
Linden wanted to snarl at him; but she kept her ire to herself. While she remained in this time, she could do nothing for the Ramen.
“Then,” Stave remarked to Esmer, “the Chosen and all the Land would be better served without your aid.”
Remembering Esmer’s earlier violence, Linden braced herself to jump between him and the
“Ringthane,” Mahrtiir offered slowly, “I cannot account for him.” The Manethrall sounded troubled. “He has been a friend to the Ramen as to the Ranyhyn, giving us no cause for mistrust. Of one thing I am certain, however. No urging of his has caused us to act against the will of the Ranyhyn. For that reason, we regret nothing that we have done, though we have indeed returned to the Verge of Wandering in a time of peril.”
Before Linden could respond, she heard movement behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Liand enter the streambed with Anele. The Stonedownor supported Anele with his arm around the old man’s waist. Anele appeared to have lost all volition and strength: he accompanied Liand only because the young man half-
