The Last Dark (82 page)

“Rather, Ringthane,” the older Cord continued to Linden, “I encouraged them in their belief that the blame for the world’s doom is yours.” His tone was a strangle-hold. “Speaking as I had instructed her, Pahni gave them cause to imagine that your sole purpose from first to last has been the restoration of your son, that you have given no heed to the havoc which you have unleashed. Therefore the Masters have come seeking retribution for the final crime of the Earth.”

Covenant listened with his mouth open, wordless and appalled. Linden stared as if Bhapa had betrayed her: a man who had sworn himself to her. The Giants cursed softly, gripping their weapons. Only Jeremiah did not react. Apparently images of the Worm had reclaimed him.

Then Handir barked, “Enough! Am I a child, that a Raman must assume my place?”

Swift as threats, Samil and Vortin approached Bhapa. They grasped him roughly, dragged him aside.

Linden looked like she might wail. To restrain her, distract her, Covenant said reflexively, “This is my fault.” Her distress was worse than his. She already blamed herself—“I should have told Bhapa and Pahni what to say. I didn’t because I thought the Masters deserved a chance to make their own decisions. It never occurred to me—”

What had possessed the Cords?

Linden did not look at him. Her whole face seemed to plead with Bhapa.

Ignoring Handir’s indignation, Bhapa told her, “Faithful to his word, the Ardent delivered us to the vicinity of Revelstone. There we were able to speak privately ere the Masters greeted us. The burden of my wishes I gave to Cord Pahni because her need was plain. I prayed that her passion would prevail where my own ire might undermine me.”

He tried to say more; but Samil silenced him with a hand on his throat: a choke which nearly lifted him from his feet.

Without transition, Covenant’s wedding band burned. Sudden fire crowded his mind, straining for release.

The threat to the Cord was too much for the Swordmainnir. In an instant, Rime Coldspray reached Samil and Bhapa, her glaive in her hands. Frostheart Grueburn followed a step behind her.

Around them, the cordon of Masters closed like a noose. Giants brandished their weapons: swords and spears. Pahni’s garrote appeared in her fists.

“Handir!” Covenant snapped. “
Handir!
”

Handir’s jaws bunched. He nodded once.

Samil released Bhapa. Samil and Vortin stepped back.

Covenant took a deep breath, made an effort to quench his heart’s fire.

In a small voice like a cry, Linden asked, “Why, Bhapa? Why did you do that?”

Handir spoke over her. To the Ironhand, he said, “Withhold your blows. You cannot stand against us. For that reason, we will not strike. We scorn unequal combat. Samil sought only to impose silence upon the Cord.”

Reluctantly Coldspray sheathed her sword. Grueburn and the other Giants lowered their weapons. As they did so, the Masters relaxed their ring around the company.

Their Voice faced Linden. “We share your query, Linden Avery. We will hear it answered. But first we must have some confirmation of what has occurred.”

Before she—or Bhapa—could protest, Handir turned, not to Covenant, but to Branl.

“Are your thoughts sooth?” he demanded in the full light of High Lord Loric’s
krill
. “Stave has learned concealment. Therefore he is suspect. Concealment enables falsehood. Are you now likewise capable of falsehood?

“Is
turiya
Herem truly slain? Has Linden Avery indeed restored a Forestal to the Land? Has her fated boy provided for the preservation of the
Elohim
, and for an end to Kevin’s Dirt? Have you defeated Sandgorgons and
skurj
? Does the ur-Lord now seek to challenge Corruption in Kiril Threndor?”

Branl lifted an eyebrow. Then he shrugged like a man who did not deign to take offense. “I am
Haruchai
,” he said. “More, I am Humbled. I do not sully my mind with lies.

“Nor,” he added more sharply, “will I condone aspersion to the Ramen. As do you, Handir, Voice of the Masters, I require an account of their deeds. Yet they have been at all times steadfast and valiant companions. They have given of themselves utterly while the Masters remained effectless in Revelstone. I will endure no denunciation of them.”

Handir studied Branl. He appeared to search Branl’s mind.

“We are not effectless now,” the older man retorted. “Two hundred Masters have entered the Wightwarrens, seeking Linden Avery and Kastenessen as we were urged. Two hundred more strive toward
Melenkurion
Skyweir, where they, too, will give of themselves utterly against the Worm, if their arrival is not belated.”

At once, Pahni countered, fierce and proud, “Did the Ranyhyn consent to bear you?”

Handir glanced at her. “You know the truth of this, Cord Pahni. Do not aggravate your fault with insolence. You will be judged when you have justified your deeds.”

Then he said to Covenant as much as to Branl, “Ranyhyn bore us hither. Without their aid, we could not have come so swiftly. But the Masters who ride to
Melenkurion
Skyweir do so on lesser beasts. The great horses declined to be ridden there.”

The shining of Pahni’s eyes resembled exultation. “Thus the Ranyhyn approve Manethrall Bhapa’s purpose.”

The Voice of the Masters permitted himself a vexed frown. “I do not hear you,” he told the Cord. “It becomes evident, however, that I must heed the last of the Humbled. By him, as by the ur-Lord’s presence, the lies of the Ramen are exposed. Now Linden Avery’s query must be answered.

“Bhapa of the Ramen, it is not in the nature of your people to scheme and mislead. Why have you betrayed their legacy? Why have you concealed necessary truths?”

Covenant was holding his breath. He forced himself to let it out. The idea that two hundred Masters intended to oppose the Worm directly appalled him. He shook his head to dispel images of pointless slaughter.

Wary and unrelieved, Rime Coldspray and her Swordmainnir studied Bhapa, measuring the man in front of them against their memories of him. The Giants of Dire’s Vessel did not know the Cords, but they remained poised to support the Ironhand. Only Baf Scatterwit did not seem tense. She was chuckling to herself as if everyone in the cave amused her.

Jeremiah muttered something that Covenant could not hear. The boy scowled darkly, as if he were contemplating murder. The absence in his eyes suggested that he was watching the Worm burrow into
Melenkurion
Skyweir.

Bhapa rolled his head to loosen his bruised throat. He came closer to Linden and Covenant. In the open center of the gathering, he stopped: a man who needed room for the fire of his emotions. His eyes were white flames in the surrounding gloom.

“
It was for this
,” he told Handir in a tone of throttled fury. “That you might here encounter the truth of the Ringthane, the Chosen, Linden Avery—encounter it and
know shame
.”

Then he turned his back on the clenched repudiation of the Masters.

“Ringthane”—he addressed his appeal directly to Linden—“you are dear to me. My esteem you won by your care of Sahah, who is both Pahni’s cousin and half my sister. No succor known to the Ramen could have brought her back from death, yet you contrived to do so.

“My heart you won in the aftermath of First Woodhelven, when you redeemed Manethrall Mahrtiir’s life—aye, and preserved also his place as my Manethrall. At that time, I could not have met the peril of these times without his guidance. Sparing him, you spared me also.”

Linden listened with tears spilling from her eyes, but she made no sound.

The older Cord’s voice rose as he continued. Anger grated like thunder in the background of every word.

“And since those great deeds, I have been stunned to the soul by your devotion to your son, by your valor in the greatest extremity, and by your enduring love for the Timewarden. I know nothing of
turiya
Herem, or of Forestals, or of
Elohim
. Yet I know with a certainty which surpasses utterance that the awakening of the Worm was the outcome of Fangthane’s cunning, not of any desire for Desecration in you. You acted only upon your love for the Timewarden, and upon your love for your son.

“Linden Avery, Chosen, Ringthane, I am
offended to the marrow of my bones
that these sleepless ones have dared to think ill of you. They have named themselves the Masters of the Land, but they do not
serve
. True service submits itself to the cause which it serves, deeming that cause holy. This the Ramen comprehend. True service does not judge the deeds which are asked of it. It does not consent to
this
and refuse
that
, according to the dictates of its own pride. It gives of itself because the cause which it serves is worthy.

“The self-will of these Masters
offends
me. It is an offense to every good which they have sworn to preserve.”

As if he were unaware of the lifting of Covenant’s heart, unaware of the bright approval in the eyes of the Swordmainnir, unaware even of Linden’s weeping, Bhapa said more softly, “That is my justification. I did not mislead the Masters for the Land’s hurt, or for their own. I merely”—he spat the word—“
encouraged
them in their judgments and pride, praying that they would ride forth in wrath to confront Desecration. Thereby I hoped to impose upon them a confrontation with their own folly.

“If I must say more, I will add only that I did not invoke the Timewarden’s name because I feared that the Masters would not heed it. When have they ever stood with him in his last need? I feared that their notions of service would compel inaction.”

Then the Cord was finished. Briefly he slumped as if his passion had drained from him. But after a moment, he squared his shoulders and lifted his head, bracing himself to accept the consequences of what he had done.

Linden’s only answer was to say his name like a sob as she went to him. To his look of surprise, she replied by putting her arms around him and holding him tight.

Covenant wanted to weep himself. He wanted to laugh, and to shout out his joy in the Cords, and to rail at the Masters. But he contained his turmoil, set his own emotions aside in order to concentrate on Handir.

Fates of every description stood on the lip of a precipice. One misstep now might be fatal. Covenant should have felt dizzy; but he found that his faith was equal to this moment. Bhapa had brought the Masters to a crisis of rectitude, a challenge which would search their definition of themselves to its core. And here they had the power to save or damn Covenant’s intentions. Nevertheless he was content to await the outcome. He called himself the Unbeliever, but he believed in Bhapa, whose name meant “father.” In Pahni, whose name was “water.”

And he had always trusted the
Haruchai
.

The Voice of the Masters did not speak. His mien revealed nothing. No doubt he was engaged in a vehement discussion with his kinsmen; but they masked their thoughts.

When Linden had satisfied her gratitude, she released Bhapa. Blinking to clear her eyes, she gave him a crooked smile. Then she turned to Pahni.

Clearly she was unsure of herself with the young woman. Pahni had not spoken a word to her since Linden had refused to attempt Liand’s resurrection. Instead of offering to hug the Cord, Linden asked with an ache of yearning in her voice, “My God, Pahni. How did you do it?”

How had a woman who had been little more than a girl when she found her first love in Liand discovered the strength to face down the assembled Masters in Revelstone?

In spite of her slight stature, Pahni met Linden’s question with an imperious air. She looked whetted, as if she had spent days applying her heart to a grindstone. Without hesitation, she replied, “I made of my grief a form of rage. I spoke to excoriate, goading the Masters to bestir themselves. We are the life which remains. They could not stand idle while a mere Cord faulted them for permitting the world’s Desecration. They had no answer for the charge which I brought against them.”

They did not grieve. Therefore their bereavements ruled them.

Harsh as the call of a hawk, Pahni added, “
I
do not cry your pardon, Ringthane. I am a Cord of the Ramen. I will not regret that I have abided by the command of my Manethrall.” But then her manner softened somewhat. “And I also am offended in your name. I, too, crave the shaming of the Masters.”

At that, Linden covered her face with her hands.

Relieved and grateful, Covenant went to Bhapa. When the older Cord met his gaze, he said without rancor, “You took a hell of a risk. What were you going to do if it didn’t work?”

Bhapa’s mouth twisted. He almost smiled. With a hint of his former diffidence, he said, “Timewarden, I would have spoken of you. Your need outweighs my wrath. Had the Ringthane’s name failed, yours might have prevailed—though,” he admitted ruefully, “in that event the burden of shame would have become mine to bear.”

Covenant nodded. Under his breath, he murmured, “You’re a brave man. I’m glad you’re here. But maybe you should have trusted them with the truth. This”—a twitch of his head indicated the Masters—“isn’t settled.”

Still Handir and his people said nothing, revealed nothing. They guarded the cave and the company, motionless as graven images while they carried on their mental debate.

Impatient for a decision, the Giants fretted among themselves. While Grueburn and Stonemage spoke in low voices to Bluff Stoutgirth’s sailors, telling them more about Bhapa and Pahni, Rime Coldspray approached the Cords. She greeted them kindly in spite of her obvious exasperation, praised their courage, thanked them for their fidelity to Linden. Then, however, she reached the end of her endurance. Striding past the Ramen, she confronted Handir and Canrik, Samil and Vortin.

“Enough of this!” she called so that every Master could hear her. “While you query yourselves, our foes rally against us. Such uncertainty ill becomes you. If you will not stand with us, stand aside. We must attain Kiril Threndor.”

“Must we then countenance shame?” snapped Canrik. “Is that your counsel, Giant? You who know nothing of the strictures which form and inform the
Haruchai
?”