Her beloved had told her in dreams, You need the Staff of Law. That she understood.
She was sick to death of helplessness.
Liand supported her; propped her so that she could lean against him while she gathered herself. “Do not be in haste,” he advised, whispering. “You are burned and utterly weary. I see no deep hurt in you, but I am no healer and may be mistaken.”
Softly he murmured, “Surely now the Ramen will forego their challenges. They must grasp that you can bear no more.”
The Stonedownor had first met Linden less than two days ago. Clearly he did not yet know her very well.
She swallowed to clear her throat; pushed away the poultice in his hand. Once again, she was struck by the blackness of his eyebrows. Frowning, they shrouded his eyes with foreboding; omens of loss.
Through her teeth, she breathed, “Help me up. I can’t do this without you.”
You’re in trouble here.
The young man braced her to her feet easily: he felt as sturdy and reliable as stone. When she tried to stand on her own, she wavered for a moment, undermined by the heat like guilt on her burned face. But Liand upheld her; and she did not hesitate. As soon as she found her balance, she said, “Take me to Anele.”
Manethrall Hami had come toward her as she rose: the woman tried to intervene. But Linden insisted, “Now, Liand. Before it’s too late.”
Before all trace of the being who had possessed Anele vanished.
Before she remembered to be afraid.
At once, Hami stepped back. She gave instructions to one of the nearby Cords, a young woman with flowing hair the same hue as Liand’s eyebrows. The Cord moved like her hair as she led him and Linden out of the clearing.
Linden clung to him. She was not done with him; not at all.
The Cord walked quickly past two or three shelters, then entered one near the edge of the encampment. Following her, Linden and Liand found Anele sprawled on a bed of piled grass and bracken.
Linden saw at once that Hami had described the old man accurately: he was unconscious, stunned, not broken. Yet his breathing had an obstructed sound, fraught with pain. His eyes were closed; mercifully, so that their blindness did not accuse her of failing him. His neck and the side of his head ached in response to Stave’s blow. But the Haruchai had measured out his strength precisely. He had cracked no bones, done no lasting harm. Anele would heal cleanly.
Because of the Earthpower in him, his hurts would probably heal more swiftly than Linden’s sore muscles and burned skin.
But she was not concerned with his bodily recovery. Other exigencies drove her. And still she did not hesitate. If she paused for thought or doubt, she would remember that what she meant to do was perilous. It might destroy her.
“Here.” Hurrying now, she released Liand and lifted the chain from around her neck; thrust the chain and Covenant’s ring into Liand’s hands. “Take this. Hold it for me.” Without its weight, her neck felt instantly naked, exposed to attack. “Guard it.”
He stared at her in shock. His hands cupped the chain and the ring as though he feared to close his fingers.
“If anything happens to me,” she ordered, “anything at all—anything that scares you—get the hell out of here. Do not try to help me. Take that,” the ring, “and run. Don’t come back until one of the Ramen tells you I’m all right.”
Otherwise—
He could not have known the reason for her command. Nevertheless he nodded dumbly, unable to speak.
Trusting the Stonedownor, she spared no consideration for what might happen if any of the powers that wracked Anele succeeded at entering her. Instead she dropped immediately to her knees beside the old man’s bed, pressed her palms to the sides of his head, and plunged her percipience into him as if she were falling.
At that moment, her attempt to possess him seemed a lesser evil than abandoning him to more torment.
Later she climbed unsteadily to her feet and reclaimed Covenant’s ring from Liand’s anxious hands.
She understood her failure well enough. And God knew that she should have expected it. She simply did not know how many more defeats she could bear.
“Linden?” Liand murmured, still fearful that she had been harmed, although he must have been able to see that she had not. “Linden—” His voice trailed away.
Weak with regret, she answered, “He’s protecting himself.” Of course. “I can’t reach him.” How else had he survived his vulnerability for so long? “There’s a wall of Earthpower in his mind.” It was wrapped like cerements around the core of his identity. “I can see how badly he’s been hurt. But I can’t get in to where the damage is.”
The flaw in his defenses which permitted him to be possessed was sealed away; beyond her reach. She knew now that she would never be able to help him without power. She needed some force potent enough to cut through the barriers which he had erected.
Covenant’s ring would do it. Anele’s inborn Earthpower preserved him, but it could not withstand wild magic. Even at its most delicate, however, that fire was too blunt and fierce to be used on anyone’s mind. She might blast every particle of his psyche long before she discovered how to make him whole.
Her beloved was right. Even if she had imagined him in dreams. She needed the Staff of Law. Without it, there was nothing she could do for Anele.
“I grieve for him,” Liand offered helplessly. “He has been made a plaything for powers which surpass him. It is wrong, Linden.” Then the young man’s tone sharpened. “It is evil. More so than kresh. As evil as Falls and Kevin’s Dirt.”
Linden nodded. If she spoke, she would not be able to contain her bitterness.
She had forgotten the presence of the woman who had guided her to Anele until the Cord touched Liand’s arm, asking for his attention. When he glanced at her, the young woman—like Sahah, she was hardly more than a girl—said bashfully, “If the Ringthane is willing, and Anele requires no other care, the gathering of the Ramen awaits her. Her need for sustenance is plain.”
Liand snorted. Taking a step forward as if to defend Linden, he demanded, “And do the Ramen intend still to affront the Ringthane with challenges which they do not name?”
In response, the Cord lifted her chin, and her Ramen pride flared in her eyes. “You are discourteous, Stonedownor. I do not doubt that the Ringthane is equal to any challenge.”
Tiredly Linden interposed herself between them. “Please tell Manethrall Hami that we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
To her own ears, her voice sounded too thin to be heeded; too badly beaten. However, the Cord quickly ducked her head, gave a deep Ramen bow, and hastened away, as graceful as water.
Sighing, Linden turned to meet Liand’s protests.
“Linden—” he began. “I fear you are unwise. You cannot behold yourself as I do. The weariness in you—”
She lifted her hands. Instead of contradicting him, she said as clearly as she could, “Thank you.”
He shook his head. “I have done naught deserving of thanks. And I would be an ill companion if I did not—”
Again she interrupted him. “For being here. For being my friend. I’d almost forgotten what that feels like.
“Don’t worry about me. The Ramen won’t hurt me. Even if they decide they don’t trust me, they won’t hurt any of us. They aren’t like that.”
Frowning, he studied her for a moment. Then he acceded. “Your sight is more discerning than mine. And the Cord spoke truly. Your need for aliment is great.”
She smiled wanly. “Then let me hold on to you. I don’t want to fall on my face in front of all those Manethralls.”
Liand replied with a sympathetic grimace; offered her his arm. Together they walked back to the clearing in the center of the encampment.
As soon as they stepped from the grass onto the beaten dirt, Manethrall Hami approached them with concern in her eyes.
“Ringthane,” she said sternly, “it shames me that you were harmed in our care.
Such fire is an aspect of the old man’s plight which we have not witnessed before. Believing you to be safe among so many Ramen, we relaxed our vigilance. Plainly we should not have done so.”
Linden shook her head. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. And I’m not badly hurt.” No doubt Hami could see as much. “But I’m very tired. Can we get this over with?” She meant the challenges. “I want us to start trusting each other.”
Hami bowed an acknowledgment. “As do we.
“Come.” Respectfully the Manethrall touched Linden’s arm. “The Cords have completed their preparations. Let us eat together, that we may be sustained for the telling of tales.”
When Linden nodded, Hami guided her to a circle of seats in the center of the clearing. There the Manethrall gathered eight or ten of her older Cords, and they all sat down with Linden. At the same time, Liand was taken to another circle nearby, and Stave to a third. As with Linden, one Manethrall and several Cords joined them. Soon each ring was occupied by a Manethrall and his or her Cords.
Within each circle, a fire had been set to illumine the meal. The younger Ramen stood around the rim of the clearing, holding small trenchers of food and bulging waterskins, waiting for some signal to serve the food.
Once everyone in the circles had seated themselves, the Manethralls stood together. In unison, they turned to the northeast, holding their heads high. From a circle near Linden, an older man with grey-streaked hair and a fretwork of scars on his arms raised a voice like an old whinny.
“We are the Ramen,” he called softly to the deepening twilight, “long-exiled from our ancient home in the Land. For a hundred generations and more have we sojourned without place or welcome, carrying our dispossession upon our backs as nomads, wanderers, and telling to no one but ourselves the long tale of who we are.
“Yet have we kept faith with the past. Still we tell the tale of ourselves, and tell it again, precisely as it was told to us generation after generation, so that we will forget nothing, fail nothing, and our great purpose will never waver.”
The Cords bowed their heads as the older man spoke. But his fellow Manethralls stood tall in the clearing, and reflections of firelight glistened in their eyes.
“We are the Ramen, bereft and redeemed by service, and we will see our home again. This time we have not been promised an end to exile, as we were when High Lord Kevin Landwaster warned us from the Land. Yet we keep faith. Though the Earth may crack, and the Heavens fall, and all the peoples of the world be betrayed, we will hold fast to the tale of who we are. In the end, when our exile has run its course, we will return to the Plains of Ra.
“So our tale was told to our sires and dams, and to theirs, and to theirs again, for a hundred generations and more to the Ramen who first began our wandering. So it will be told to our children, and to theirs, and to theirs again, until the Ramen have been restored to the Land which is theirs.”
Then the gathered Manethralls sang together, raising their voices as one against the dark.
“We roam the world, lost, and learn
We have no place but home.
While time wears out its ceaseless grind
We wander still, the rind
And pulp and juice of our return
Forever unconsumed.
“For hope we have not rock but loam
Eroded by our sons
And daughters. Generations pass
And leave us as the grass,
Or as the froth on waves, the foam,
The rede of years unlearned.
“To eastward we have sought the sun’s
Acceptance. But the seas
We find too restive to give rest.
To southward lie the best
Of lands and hills. Yet endless runs
Still leave us unfulfilled.
“And in the west lie bitter leas
And forage that will burn
The throat of each last roaming heart.
Their folk despise our part
In wandering. Nor can we seize
A dwelling undenied.
“Thus we return, and still return
While years and ages end.
We cannot let our yearning sleep,
And so we roam, and keep
Our hearts alive, for we must earn
Our dream of home fulfilled.”
In response, the Cords raised their palms before their faces, still holding their heads bowed.
When they looked up again, the Manethralls had seated themselves once more. Then some of the younger Cords hurried forward with their trenchers, carrying food and drink to the circles, while others brought waterskins so that the sitting Ramen and their guests could wash their hands.
Linden rubbed the grime of hard traveling from her hands gratefully, and splashed a bit of water on her face to cool her burned skin; but she did not drop her guard. You’re in trouble—Here food and even stories were a prelude to threats.
If you do not answer our challenges, all of the Ramen will stand against you.
She did not doubt that she was in serious trouble, in spite of the sincerity of her hosts.
A boy younger than Jeremiah knelt beside her to place a trencher on the ground in front of her. “I am Sahah’s brother,” he murmured softly so that only she would hear. “My name is Char.” Then he was gone before Linden could look at his face.
Frowning uncertainly, disturbed without knowing why, she considered her platter.
It held stew, steaming and savory, cupped in a bowl of glutinous white mush which might have been cereal or potatoes, but which smelled like neither. Instead it had a loamy scent that suggested it had been made by boiling and pounding some form of tuber. Glancing at the nearby Cords, she saw that they ate by taking a bit of the mush, shaping it with their fingers, and then using it to scoop stew into their mouths.
She may have been hungrier than she realized.
When she leaned toward one of her neighbors, thinking to ask him what the mush was called, what the stew was made of, she found another Ramen kneeling beside her: the young woman who had guided her to Anele.
The woman’s black hair hung past the edges of her face, hiding her features. Apparently she still felt shy in Linden’s presence. As Linden looked at her, she whispered, “My sire is brother to Sahah’s dam. My name is Pahni.”
Surprised, Linden glared at her involuntarily.
Hurrying in apparent embarrassment, Pahni breathed, “The stew is hare and wild eland and shallots spiced with rosemary and the leaves of aliantha dried and ground fine. The rhee”—she indicated the mush—“is boiled from the roots of the grass of this valley. It has little virtue alone, but eaten with meat and shallots it is a sustaining food.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she withdrew.
First Sahah’s brother: then her cousin. What was going on?
Linden turned her head and found three Cords standing directly behind her: Pahni, Char, and a man who looked old enough to be a Manethrall. When Linden met his gaze, he also knelt to introduce himself.
“Like Char,” he said, smiling awkwardly, “I am Sahah’s brother. We are children of the same dam, though we do not share sires. My name is Bhapa.”
Linden stared at them dumbly. She could not think of any polite way to ask, What the hell is going on? What are the three of you doing?
Did they consider themselves responsible for her because she had tried to help Sahah? Or was it the other way around? Had she somehow become responsible for them?
However, they seemed to expect nothing from her. When he had given her his name, Bhapa rose to his feet. With Char and Pahni, he simply stood behind Linden as though the three of them had been asked to guard her back, and had no other interest in her.
Troubled for reasons which she could not name, Linden turned back to her food.
As an experiment, she tasted a bit of the rhee by itself. In spite of its smell, it had virtually no flavor. But when she combined it with the stew, she found that
it added a taste like spelt bread to the spiced meat and shallots.
She was definitely hungrier than she had realized.
At intervals while she ate, Char or Bhapa or Pahni offered her a drink from a waterskin. She thanked them impersonally, trying not to think about the possible implications of their service. Whatever else may have been true about them, the Ramen clearly valued kinship.
Finally the meal was over. When the younger Cords had passed around more water for the washing of hands, they cleared away the trenchers and waterskins. The other Ramen remained seated, however, now obviously waiting.
Hami gave Linden a long, probing look. Then the Manethrall rose lightly to her feet and moved into the center of the circle so that she stood near the small fire.
As she did so, the Ramen in the clearing turned their seats so that the whole gathering faced her together.
To Linden, Hami announced, “It is not the way of the Ramen to give trust where trust has not first been offered. At another time, we would not speak of ourselves until you had described to us your past and purposes.”
Then she raised her voice and her eyes so that she addressed her assembled people. “But she is Linden Avery, called the Chosen by the sleepless ones. And she is the Ringthane. The presence of her white ring is plain to all who behold her. And with my Cords, I have witnessed her argent flame.
“The name of the Ringthane we remember with reverence. Seeing that the Ranyhyn both honored and feared him, Covenant Ringthane refused their service. He rode no Ranyhyn into peril and death. Instead he hazarded only himself against the Render. Therefore he is honored among us. Though our lives are as brief as grass upon the Earth, our memories are long, for we have told the tale until it cannot be forgotten.”
Manethrall Hami held her head up to the valley and the dark mountains. “And there is more. With her companions, Linden Avery Ringthane came among us hunted by kresh. She has befriended the mad old man whose plight has long touched our hearts. She consumes aliantha with respect and gladness. And she retrieved Sahah of my Cords from death when Sahah’s wounds had surpassed our skills.