these rocks? She seemed to enjoy their cool touch, but could not understand it.
There was something missing, she knew that, but it eluded her until Liand grasped her arms and urged her upright. “Linden, come,” he panted softly, “the rift is nigh, you will be able to rest soon,” and she realised that she had stopped moving. Her legs must have failed without her knowledge or consent.
Stunned by exertion, she let Liand help her to her feet.
Anele had apparently disappeared, perhaps translated upward and out of reach by a rush of Earthpower; but Somo stood nearby. The pinto had flecks of froth on its nostrils: its chest heaved for breath. Still it had more strength than she did.
She had lost her son. She would have wept, but she had no tears.
Feigning a confidence which he palpably did not feel, Liand told her, “Here,” and placed her hand on one of the bindings which secured his mount’s packs. “Hold here. Somo will support you. The way is not far. In the shade of the cliffs, we will rest.”
Obediently she closed her fingers on the leather. She may have nodded: she could not be sure. Like her legs, her neck seemed to twitch for reasons of its own; but she had gone numb, and its motions lay beyond her awareness.
After that, the instances of effort which had defined her became a blur, and she climbed without recognising what she did, drawn upward by Somo’s strength and
Liand’s courage; and by the knowledge-the only thing she knew-that she needed to grow stronger.
When she returned to herself, she lay among boulders in the shadow of high cliffs, one near her head, the other a stone’s cast from her feet. Far above her, he sky still held the sun, and would for some time yet. But where she lay, a deep gloaming covered her, and all her courage had fallen away.
Liand stood nearby, watching her; making no attempt to hide his anxiety. When she met his gaze at last, he knelt beside her. Gently he put her hand on the throat of a waterskin. Then he reached under her arms to help her sit up.
“First water,” he said as if he knew what she needed. “Then bread. Later I Will give you meat and fruit.”
Sitting, she felt cold air tug through the bullet hole in her shirt, noticed its dry touch on her forehead. Her skin was no longer damp. She did not particularly need water. Or she had stopped sweating some time ago-
Perhaps that explained her weakness.
With Liand’s help, she guided the waterskin to her mouth, drank a few swallows. Almost instantly, sweat seemed to spring from all her pores at once.
Dehydration, she told herself weakly. Stupid, stupid. She was a doctor, for God’s sake; familiar with the effects of exertion. She ought to know better.
“My fault,” she murmured when Liand had helped her drink again. “I forgot about water.” Until she dropped it, the blanket must have heated her; increased her fluid loss. “I’ll be all right.”
The Stonedownor looked sceptical. “I am unsure. Our sojourn has only begun. If we are not taken by the Masters, we will face many days more harsh than this one. I fear that you will be unable to endure.”
She wanted to say, You and me both, but refrained for his sake. Instead she indicated the waterskin and asked, “Can we refill this?”
He frowned. “Linden Av-Linden. I have never ascended so far above Mithil Stonedown. I know nothing of what lies before us.” Then, as if he were taking pity on her, he said, “Yet I believe that we will discover streams and springs among the mountains. And snow remains upon the heights. Drink all that you require. Doubtless we will need to ration aliment, but it will be false caution to stint on water.”
“In that case,” she replied, “don’t worry about me. I’ll get tougher.” She would have to. “And I’ll take better care of myself.”
Liand nodded, clearly unconvinced, and turned away to unpack the food he had promised her.
While he did so, Linden looked around for Anele.
To her right, in the direction of the Mithil valley and the South Plains, she found her view blocked by a hill of rocks like a fold in the detritus spilling down the rift. Somehow Liand had urged her high enough up the scree to reach the shelter of a hollow in the scree. Past the rise, she could see only mountains and sky: she and her companions were hidden from the valley. If they had not been spotted before they reach the rift, the Masters would catch no sight of them now.
Of course, she also could not see if they were pursued-
To her left, the broken slope climbed southward into the narrowing cleft; and there she located the old man. He sat on shards of granite and obsidian several paces above her, his head cocked to one side, blindly studying the cliff opposite her and mumbling to himself.
Linden drank more water and tried to focus her fading health-sense on him.
Physically he looked no worse than when she had first met him: tired, certainly, and ill-fed; but sustained by old stubbornness and Earthpower. He conveyed the conflicting impressions that he had already suffered more privation than ordinary flesh could bear, and that he had reached none of his limits. As for his mental state, she could discern little through the shaded dusk. However, the phases of his madness had apparently stabilised, leaving him in a condition which resembled his partial sanity when she had talked to him among the rubble of Kevin’s Watch.
There he had spoken of reading the wreckage of the Watch. In his fractured way, he had tried to tell her what he saw.
She had no one else who could so much as hint at what had happened to the Land.
Unsteadily she rose to her feet. When she had reached a fragile poise, unsure of her centre as she was of her muscles, she picked up the waterskin and carried it to Anele’s side, wallowing like a derelict in the troughs of the rocks as she moved.
He did not turn his head at her approach: he might have been unaware of her. As soon as she placed the waterskin in his lap, however, he raised it to his mouth and drank, automatically, without shifting his sightless scrutiny of the cliff.
Stifling a groan, she eased herself to the rocks beside him. A low wind tumbled down the slope, cooling the sweat from her skin. Its faint susurrus covered his voice: she only knew that he spoke because his lips moved. For a moment, she rested, gathering herself. Then she asked softly, “Anele, what do you see?”
At first, he did not respond. She thought that perhaps he could not. His concentration resembled a trance: he might have been bespelled, caught by granite incantations audible only to him. His head hung to one side as if that might improve his hearing. But then he seemed to shudder, and a sad anger reached out to her senses.
“These stones are old.” A flick of his hand indicated the detritus in the rift as well as the cliffs themselves. “Old even by the ancient measure of mountains. They know nothing of
Linden leaned close to him; breathed, “Tell me.”
“Their sorrow is no fault of mine,” he replied as if he were answering an accusation so old that its meaning had perished long ago. “That at least I am spared. It is aged beyond antiquity, and they neither forget nor cease to keen.
“Here is written the glory and slaughter of the One Forest.”
The One-? She had heard the name before; but she could not imagine why the stones of the world would remember the transient lives of wood. Nevertheless she yearned for anything he could reveal which might place the Land’s plight into some kind of context.
“Tell me,” she repeated softly.
Liand approached over the rocks to offer his companions a little bread, but Anele ignored him. When Linden had accepted it, however, the old man answered her, impelled to words by a threnody in granite.
“It is a tale of humankind and destruction, of defenceless beauty unheeded, ripped from life. A tale of Ravers and
