The kindly woman had dared to ignite flames in Caerroil Wildwood’s demesne.
Staring, Linden meant to say, You’ve got to put that out. The fire. This is Garroting Deep. She thought that she would speak aloud. She ought to speak urgently. But those words failed her. Her mouth and tongue seemed incapable of them. Instead she asked, faint as a whisper. “Why didn’t they just kill me?”
At any other time in her life, under any other circumstances, there would have been tears in her eyes and weeping in her voice. But all of her emotions had been melted down, fused into a lump of obsidian. She possessed only anger for which she had no strength.
“Across the years,” the woman replied, “the Mahdoubt has awaited the lady.” She sounded complacent, untroubled. “Oh, assuredly. And once again she offers naught but meager fare. The lady will think her improvident. Yet here are shallots in a goodly broth”—she waved her ladle at the pot—“with winter greens and some few aliantha. And she has provided as well a flask of springwine. Will the lady not sup with her, and take comfort?”
Linden smelled the savor of the stew. She had eaten nothing, drunk nothing, for a long time. But she did not care. Wanly she tried again.
That fire—The Forestal—
“Why didn’t they just kill me?”
Useless screaming had left her hoarse. She hardly heard her own voice.
The Mahdoubt sighed. For a moment, her orange eye searched Linden while her right regarded the flames. Then she turned her head away. With a hint of sadness, she said. “The Mahdoubt may answer none of the lady’s sorrows. Time has been made fragile. It must not be challenged further. Of that she gives assurance. Yet she is grieved to behold the lady thus, weary, unfed, and full of woe. Will she not accept these small comforts?” Again she indicated her pot; her fire. “Here are aliment, and warmth to nurture sleep, and the solace of the Mahdoubt’s goodwill. Refusal will augment her grief.”
Sleep? A dim anger at herself made Linden frown. At one time, she had ached to speak with the Mahdoubt. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction. That, at least, had been the truth.
She made another effort to say what the woman’s kindness required of her. “Please—” she began weakly, still swaying; still unsure that she had stopped moving. “Your fire. The Forestal. He’ll see it.” Surely he had already done so? “We’ll both die.
“Why didn’t they kill me?”
Roger and the croyel could have slain her whenever she slept.
“Pssht, lady,” responded the Mahdoubt. “Is the Mahdoubt disquieted? She is not. In her youth, such concerns may perchance have vexed her, but her old bones have felt their full measure of years, and naught troubles her now.”
Calmly she added, “Hear her, lady. The Mahdoubt implores this. Be seated within her warmth. Accept the sustenance which she has prepared. Her courtesy merits that recompense.”
Again the Mahdoubt lifted her strange gaze to Linden’s face. “There is much in all sooth of which she must not speak. Yet the Mahdoubt may speculate without hazard—yes, assuredly—if she speaks only of that which the lady has properly heard, or which she might comprehend unaided, were she whole in spirit.”
Linden blinked vacantly. She had heard or tasted Caerroil Wildwood’s song: she knew its power. Surely she should have protested? She would have owed that much to a total stranger. The Mahdoubt deserved more—
But the balm of the Mahdoubt’s voice overcame her. She could not refuse that blue eye, or the orange one. As if she were helpless, she took one step toward the fire, then sank to the ground.
It was thickly matted with fallen leaves. They must once have been frozen to the dirt, but they had thawed to a soggy carpet in the heat of the cookfire. Gripping the Staff with her scabbed and seared fist, Linden struggled to sit cross-legged near the ring of stones.
Abruptly the Mahdoubt’s orange eye appeared to flare. “The lady must release the Staff. How otherwise will she sup?”
Linden could not let go. Her cramped grasp would not unclose. And she would need the Staff. She had no other defense.
Nevertheless it slipped from her fingers and dropped soundlessly to the damp leaves.
Nodding with apparent satisfaction, the Mahdoubt produced a wooden bowl from a pocket or satchel under her cloak. As she ladled stew from the pot, she spoke to the cookfire and the louring night as though she had forgotten Linden’s presence.
“Assuredly the lady’s treachers required her absence from her condign time, lest she be succored by such powers as they could not lightly oppose—by ur-viles and Waynhim, and perchance by others as well. Also they feared—and rightly—that which lies hidden within the old man whom the lady has befriended.”
Without glancing at Linden, she reached into her cloak for a spoon. When she had placed the spoon in the stew, she handed the bowl to Linden.
Like a bidden child, Linden began to eat. On some inchoate level, she must have understood that the older woman was saving her life—at least temporarily—but she was not conscious of it. Her attention was fixed on the Mahdoubt’s voice. Nothing existed for her while she ate except the woman’s words, and the looming threat of melody.
“Yet when she had been removed from all aid,” the Mahdoubt informed the trees placidly. “the lady’s death would serve no purpose. Indeed, her foes have never desired her death. They wish her to bear the burden of the Land’s doom. And the virtue of white gold is lessened when it is not freely ceded.
“Nor could she be engaged willingly in such combat as would endanger Time. With the Staff of Law, she might perchance have healed any harm. And she might have slain her betrayers with wild magic. That they assuredly did not desire. Nor could they assail the Arch directly, for the lady would then have surely destroyed them. Such errant evil craves its own preservation more than it desires the ruin of Life and Time.”
Linden nodded to herself as she slowly lifted stew into her mouth. She did not truly grasp what the woman was saying: her fatigue ran too deep. But she understood that Roger’s and the croyel’s actions could be explained. The Mahdoubt’s unthreatened tranquility gave her that anodyne.
“Nor could the lady be merely forsaken in this time,” continued the Mahdoubt, “while her treachers sought the Power of Command. She might contrive means or acquire companions to assail them ere their ends were accomplished. Nor could they be assured that any use of that Power would accomplish their ends, for the Blood of the Earth is perilous. Any Command may return against its wielder, bringing calamity to those who fear no death except their own.”
By degrees, Linden began to detect strands of melody among the woman’s words; or she thought that she did. But they had the same quality of hallucination or dream that she had felt earlier. She could not be sure of anything except the Mahdoubt’s voice.
Without realizing it, she had emptied the bowl. The Mahdoubt glanced at her, then retrieved the bowl, filled it again, and returned it to her. But the older woman continued to speak as she did so.
“The Mahdoubt merely speculates. Of that she assures herself. Therefore she does not fear to suggest that the chief desire of the lady’s betrayers was the lady’s pain.”
Facing the trees and the blind night, she reached once more into her cloak and withdrew a narrow-necked flask closed with a wooden plug. Its glassy sides shed reflections of viridian and tourmaline as she removed the plug and passed the vessel to Linden.
When Linden drank, she tasted springwine; and her senses lost some of their dullness. Now she was almost sure that she heard notes and words, fragments of song, behind the Mahdoubt’s voice. They may have been dusty waste and hate of hands; or perhaps rain and heat and snow.
Nevertheless the Mahdoubt went on speaking as though the forest’s anger held nothing to alarm her.
“By that hurt, they sought to gain the surrender of white gold. And if they could not obtain its surrender, they desired the lady to exert the ring’s force in the name of her suffering under Melenkurion Skyweir, eit
her for their aid or against their purpose. In such an outcome, the Staff of Law and the EarthBlood and wild magic would exceed the lady’s flesh, and Time would be truly endangered. Her foes could not have believed that she would find within herself force and lore sufficient to oppose them without recourse to white gold.”
At last, Linden raised her head. She had become certain that she heard pieces of music, the scattered notes of an unresolved threnody. They came skirling among the trees, taking shape as they approached, implying words which they did not utter. I know the hate of hands grown bold. She flung a look at the Mahdoubt and saw that both of the woman’s eyes were alight, vivid blue and stark orange. The Mahdoubt had fallen silent; or the song had stilled her voice. Yet she appeared to face the Forestal’s advance with comfortable unconcern.
Since days before the Earth was old
And Time began its walk to doom,
The Forests world’s bare rock anneal,
Forbidding dusty waste and death.
As if in response, the Mahdoubt murmured,
“Though wide world’s winds untimely blow,
And earthquakes rock and cliff unseal,
My leaves grow green and seedlings bloom.”
A wind rose through the woods, adding the dry harmony of barren boughs and brittle evergreen needles to the mournful ire of the music. Stern snatches of melody seemed to gather around the campfire like stars, underscored by the almost subterranean mutter of trunks and roots. Linden had seen and felt and tasted that song before, but in an angrier and less laden key. Now the woodland dirge held notes like questions, brief arcs and broad spans tuned to the pitch of uncertainty. Caerroil Wildwood may have intended to quash those who had raised flames here, but he had other desires as well, purposes which were not those of an out-and-out butcher.
A shimmer of melody rippled the surface of the night like a breeze passing over a still pool. The presence and power of the song was palpable, although Linden beheld it only with her health-sense. Nevertheless each note and chime and lift of music swirling from the branches like autumn leaves implied an imminent light which gradually coalesced into the form of a man.
Instinctively she reached for the Staff. But the Mahdoubt halted her by grasping her arm.
“Withhold, lady.” The older woman did not glance at Linden. Instead she studied the Forestal’s coming with her lit gaze. “The Great One’s knowledge of such power suffices. He has no wish to witness it now.”
Linden understood in spite of her bottomless fatigue. The Mahdoubt did not want her to do anything which might be interpreted as a threat.
Linden obeyed. Resting her hands on her thighs, she simply watched the stately figure, lambent as a monarch, walking among the dark trees.
The Forestal was tall, and his long hair and beard flowed whitely about him like water. From his eyes shone a piercing and severe silver which showed neither iris nor pupil; light so acute that she wanted to duck her head when his gaze touched her. In the bend of one arm, he carried a short, twisted branch as though it were a scepter. Flowers she could not identify ornamented his neck in a garland of rich purple and purest white; and his samite robe was white as well, austere and free of taint from collar to hem. As he passed among the trees gravely, they appeared to do him homage, lowering their boughs in obeisance. His steps were wreathed in song as if he were melody incarnate.
The Mahdoubt’s eyes gleamed in appreciation. Their weird colors conveyed a placid warmth untrammeled by fear or doubt. When the Forestal stopped, regal and ominous, at the edge of the cookfire’s glow, she inclined her head in a grave bow.
“The Mahdoubt greets you, Great One,” she said with no trace of apprehension. “Be welcome at our fireside. Will you sup with us? Our fare is homely—oh, assuredly—but it is proffered with gladness, and the offer is kindly meant.”
“Presumptuous woman.” Caerroil Wildwood’s voice was the music of a rippling stream, delicate and clear. It seemed to chuckle to itself, although the silver flash of his eyes under his thick white brows denied mirth. Rather his glances demanded awe at his withheld wrath. “I do not require such sustenance.”
Linden bit her lip anxiously; but the older woman’s smile was unconcerned. “Then why have you come? The Mahdoubt asks with respect. Has this revered forest no need of your might elsewhere?”
“I am throughout the trees,” sang the Forestal, “elsewhere as well as here. Seek not to mislead me. You have intruded fire into Garroting Deep, where flames are met with loathing and fear. I have come to determine your purpose.”
“Ah.” Linden’s companion nodded. “This the Mahdoubt questions, Great One.” She raised both hands in deprecation. “With respect, with respect.” Then she rested her arms on her plump belly. “Do you not crave our extermination? Is it not your intent to slay all who encroach upon the ancient Deep?”
The guardian of the trees appeared to assent. “From border to border, my demesne thirsts for the recompense of blood.”
The Mahdoubt nodded again. “Assuredly. And that thirst is justified, the Mahdoubt avers. Millennia of inconsolable loss provide its vindication.”
“Yet I refrain,” Caerroil Wildwood replied.
“Assuredly,” repeated the Mahdoubt. “Therefore the Mahdoubt’s heart is rich with gratitude. Nonetheless the purpose which the Great One desires to determine is his, not ours.
“Gazing upon us, he has observed that he has no cause for ire. And he has discerned as well that he must not harm the lady. He has heard all that the Mahdoubt has said of her. He perceives her service to that which is held dear. He has come seeking the name of his own intent, not that of the Mahdoubt, or of the lady.”
When the Forestal fixed his burning stare on Linden, she felt an almost physical impact. Fighting herself, she met his eyes; let him search her with silver. She heard a kind of recognition in his music, a wrath more personal than his appetite for the blood of those who slaughtered trees. Slowly his gaze sank to consider her apparel, study Covenant’s ring through her shirt, acknowledge the bullet hole over her heart, regard the Staff of Law. He noted her grass-stained jeans—and did not sing of her death.
Instead he returned his attention to the Mahdoubt.
“I am the Land’s Creator’s hold,” he pronounced in melody. “She wears the mark of fecundity and long grass. Also she has paid the price of woe. And the sigil of the Land’s need has been placed upon her.” He may have been referring to her stabbed hand. “Therefore she will not perish within this maimed remnant of the One Forest. Nor will any Forestal sing against her while she keeps faith with grass and tree.
“Come,” he commanded in a brusque fall of notes. “My path is chosen. She must stand upon Gallows Howe.”
Turning his back, he strode away.
At once, but without haste, the Mahdoubt rose to her feet. “Come, lady,” she echoed when Linden hesitated. “And now the lady must bring the Staff. Assuredly so.” She nodded. “The Great One will grant a boon which she has not asked of him, and he will require that in return which she does not expect. Yet his aid must not be refused. His desired recompense will not exceed her.”
Linden blinked at the woman. She understood nothing, and her heart was granite: beneath her fear of the Forestal, she held only Jeremiah and anger—and Thomas Covenant. For food and drink and warmth, she might have been thankful; but she had lost her son. Caerroil Wildwood had already promised that he would not slay her. What need did she have for an ambiguous gift which she would not know how to repay?
Caerroil Wildwood could not return her to her proper time. No Forestal had that power.
Carefully she set the Mahdoubt’s flask against a stone; but she did not stand. Instead she looked into the strange discrepancy of the Mahdoubt’s eyes.
“You told me to ‘Be cautious of love.’” There is a glamour upon it—“You knew who they were.” Roger and the croyel. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
If the Mahdoubt had spoken plainly—
For the first time, t
he older woman’s mien hinted at disquiet; perhaps even at unhappiness. “It is not permitted—” she began, then stopped herself. When she had closed her eyes for a moment, she opened them again and faced Linden with chagrin in her gaze.
“Nay, the Mahdoubt will speak sooth. She does not permit it of herself, though her heart is wrung in her old breast by what has ensued, as it is by what may yet transpire. Her intent is kind, lady. Be assured that it is. But she has acquired neither wisdom nor knowledge adequate to contest that which appears needful. Others do so, to their cost. The Mahdoubt does not. If she craves to be kind in deed as well as intent, she has learned that she must betimes forbear. Yet she has won gratitude from other people in other times, if not from the lady.
“The Great One bids us,” she finished softly. “We must follow.”
Linden wanted to refuse. She wanted to demand, Needful? Needful? The Forestal and even the Mahdoubt surpassed her. But what choice did she have? Ever since she had returned to the Land, she had been guided by other people’s desires and demands, other people’s manipulations, and all of her actions had been fraught with peril. She could not afford to reject aid in any form.
Sighing, she clasped the Staff of Law and pushed herself to her feet.
As she did so, she found that the Mahdoubt’s providence had done her more good than she had realized. Her muscles protested, but they did not fail. Indeed, they hardly trembled. Food and springwine and soothing warmth had eased her weakness, although they could not relieve her exhaustion, or soften her heart.
When the Mahdoubt gestured toward the trees, Linden accompanied her into the forest, led by the majesty and restraint of Caerroil Wildwood’s music.
The way was not far—or it did not seem far in the thrall of the Forestal’s singing. Briefly Linden and the Mahdoubt walked among trees and darkness; and on all sides sycamores and oaks, birches and Gilden, cedars and firs proclaimed their unappeased recriminations. But then they found themselves on barren ground that rose up to form a high hill like a burial-mound. Even through her boots, Linden felt death in the soil. Here centuries or millennia of bloodshed had soaked into the dirt until it would never again support life. This, then, was Gallows Howe: the place where Caerroil Wildwood slew the butchers of his trees.