Linden’s gaze burned. If she could have lowered her defences-if she could have borne the cost of her emotions, any of them-she would have wept. Jeremiah conveyed impressions which made her want to tear at her own flesh for simple distraction, so that she would feel some other suffering than his.
Her voice threatened to choke her as she asked, “Do you know where you are? In that other reality?”
That Queen there,” Covenant explained, “turned against her King when she found out he was human enough to actually like power. And Berek was loyal to her. He fought on her side until the King beat him. Cut his hand in half. After which Berek tried to escape. He ran for Mount Thunder. That scene shows his despair. Or maybe it was just self-pity. And in that one, the FireLions come to his rescue.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “It’s dark.” Like Linden, he seemed to ignore Covenant. “Sometimes there’s fire, and I’m in the middle of it. But there isn’t really anything to see. It could be anywhere.”
“So you don’t know where Lord Foul is?” she insisted. “You can’t tell me where to look for you?’
Until she found him, she could do nothing to end his torture.
“It all started there,” Covenant went on, the whole history of the Lords with their grand ideals and their hopeless mistakes. Even Foul’s plotting started there-in the Land, anyway. Not directly, of course. Oh, he sent out a shadow to help the King against Berek. But he didn’t show himself then. For centuries, the Lords were too pure to feel Berek’s despair. Just remembering Berek’s victories was enough to protect Damelon-and Loric too, at least for a while. Foul couldn’t risk anything overt until Kevin inherited a real talent for doubt from his father. But even that was Foul’s doing. He used the Viles and the Demondim to undermine Loric’s confidence, plant the seeds of failure. By the time Kevin became High Lord, he was already doomed.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” Jeremiah’s tone was like his eyes: it suggested solid earth eroded by the irresistible rush of his plight. “I want to help you. I really do. I want you to make it stop. But as far as I know, I just fell into a pit, and I’ve been there ever since. It could be anywhere. Even Covenant doesn’t know where I am.”
Linden clenched herself against the distraction of Covenant’s obscure commentary. She needed all of her strength to withstand the force and sharpness of her empathy for her son.
“Poor Kevin,” Covenant sighed unkindly. “He didn’t recognise Foul because no one in the Land knew who the Despiser was. No one told Berek, and his descendants didn’t figure it out for themselves. While Foul was hard at work in Ridjeck Thome and Kurash Qwellinir, the Lords didn’t even know he existed. Kevin actually let him join the Council, and still no one saw the truth.
“I suppose it’s understandable,” the older man added. “Foul confused the hell out of them. Of course, he didn’t use his real name. That would have been too obvious. He called himself a-Jeroth until it was too late for anyone to stop him. And he’s pretty damn good at getting what he wants by misdirection. He always acts like he’s after something completely different.”
Gritting her teeth, Linden continued her questions. “That’s all right, honey,” she assured Jeremiah. “Maybe you can tell me something else that might help me.
“I don’t understand why”- she swallowed convulsively- “why that other reality doesn’t show. You said that you’re fine here. How is that possible, if Foul is still torturing you?”
Despite the damage to his pajamas, he seemed entirely intact.
“It’s sort of funny,” remarked Covenant. “Do you know the real reason Kevin let Foul talk him into the Ritual of Desecration? It wasn’t because Foul defeated him. Kevin hated that, but he could have lived with it. He still had enough of Berek’s blood in him. But Foul beat him before the war even started. What really broke him is that he let his best friends, his most loyal supporters, get killed in his place.”
“He’s doing it,” Jeremiah answered. Again he nodded toward Covenant. “He’s doing something with time to protect me while I’m here.” The boy’s gaze slipped out of focus as if he were concentrating on his other self in its prison. “He’s keeping me whole. That’s another reason you can’t touch me. He’s using more power for me than he is for himself. A lot more.”
Covenant’s voice held a hint of relish as he explained, “The Demondim invited him to a parley in Mount Thunder. Naturally he suspected it was a trap. He didn’t go. But then he felt ashamed of himself for thinking that way, so he sent his friends instead. And of course it was a trap. His friends were slaughtered.
“That,” Covenant finished in a tone of sodden triumph, “is what made Kevin crazy enough to think he had something to gain by desecrating the Land. Losing the war just confirmed his opinion of himself. The legends all say he thought the Ritual would destroy Foul, but that’s a rationalisation. The truth is, he wanted to be punished, and he couldn’t think of anything else bad enough to give him what he deserved.”
Linden wished that she did not believe Jeremiah. Everything that he said-everything that happened in this room-was inconceivable to her. She had not forgotten his unaccountable theurgy. And the Ranyhyn had shown her horrific images of her son possessed- But of course she did believe him. How could she not? He was her son, speaking to her for the first time in his life. His presence, and his healed mind, were all that enabled her to retain some semblance of self-control.
And because she believed Jeremiah, she could not doubt Covenant. He knew too much.
At last she brought herself to her most urgent question.
“Jeremiah, honey, I don’t understand any of this. It’s incredible-and wonderful.” It was also terrible. Yet how could she regret anything that allowed him to acknowledge her? “But I don’t understand it.
“How did you get your mind back? And when? How long have you been-?”
“You mean,” he interrupted, “how long have I been able to talk?’ Now he did not meet her gaze. Instead he looked at Covenant as if he needed help. “Since we came to the Land.”
“Linden,” Covenant suggested, his voice sloppy with springwine, “you should ask him where his mind has been all this time. He made it pretty obvious that he always had a mind. Where do you suppose it was?”
Linden kept her eyes and her heart fixed on her son. “Jeremiah? Can you tell me?”
So far, he had revealed nothing that might aid her.
He twitched his shoulders awkwardly. The tic of his eye increased its thetic signalling. “It’s hard to explain. For a while”- he sighed- “I don’t know how long, I was sort of hiding. It was like a different version of being in two places at once. Except the other place wasn’t anywhere in particular. It was just away.” Flames empty of daylight gave his face a ruddy flush, made him look feverish. “It was safe.
“But then you gave me that racecar set with all the tracks and pylons. When it was done-when you gave me enough pieces, and they were all connected in the right shapes-I had a”- he clung to Covenant with his eyes- “a loop. Like a worm that eats its own tail. I guess you could call it a door in my mind. I went through it. And when I did that, I came here.
“I don’t mean “here” the way I am now.” He seemed to grope for words. “I wasn’t a prisoner. I wasn’t even physical. And I didn’t come here- I mean to Revelstone-very often. There wasn’t anybody I could talk to. But I was in the Land. I’m not sure when. I mean when in relation to now. Mostly I think it was a long time ago. But I was here pretty much whenever you put me to bed.