“The old Lords- ” Covenant murmured, more to himself than to her. “Some of them could've healed this.”
So could I, Linden nearly replied aloud. If I had your ring. I could save it all. But she bit down the thought, hoped it did not show in her face. She did not trust her intense desire for power. The power to put a stop to evil.
However, he lacked the sight to read her emotions. His own grief and outrage blinded him. When he touched her arm and gestured onward, she leaped the brook with him; and together they continued among the Hills.
Unmarred except by the dead wood of his right forearm, Vain followed them. His midnight countenance held no expression other than the habitual ambiguity of his slight grin.
The day would have been one of untrammelled loveliness for Linden if she could have forgotten Findail and the Demondim-spawn. As she and Covenant left the vicinity of the shattered oak, Andelain reasserted all its beneficent mansuetude, the gay opulence of its verdure, the tuneful sweep and soar and flash of its birds, the endearing caution and abundance of its wildlife. Nourished by treasure-berries and rill-water, and blandished from stride to stride by the springy surf, she felt crowded with life, as piquant as the scents of the flowers, and keen for each new vista of the Andelainian Hills. After a time, the First and Pitchwife rejoined Linden and Covenant, appearing from the covert of an antique willow with leaves in their hair and secrets in their eyes. For greeting, Pitchwife gave a roistering laugh that sounded like his old humour; and it was seconded by one of his wife's rare, beautiful smiles.
“Look at you,” Linden replied in mock censure, leasing the Giants. “For shame. If you keep that up, you're going to become parents whether you're ready for it or not.”
A shade like a blush touched the First's mien; but Pitchwife responded with a crow. Then he assumed an air of dismay. “Stone and Sea forfend! The child of this woman would surely emerge bladed and bucklered from the very womb. Such a prodigy must not be blithely conceived,”
The First frowned to conceal her mirth. “Hush, husband,” she murmured. “Provoke me not. Does it not suffice you that one of us is entirely mad?”
“Suffice me?” he riposted. “How should it suffice me? I have no wish for loneliness.”
“Aye, and none for wisdom or decorum,” she growled in feigned vexation. “You are indeed shameful.”
When Covenant grinned at the jesting of the Giants, Linden nearly laughed aloud for pleasure.
Yet she did not know where Findail had gone or what he would do next. And the death of the oak remained aching in the back of her mind. Ballasted by such things, her mood did not altogether lose itself in the analystic atmosphere. There was a price yet to be paid for the passing of the Forestal, and the destination of the company had not changed. In addition, she had no clear sense of what Covenant hoped to achieve by confronting the Despiser. Caer-Caveral had once said of her. The woman of your world would raise grim shades here. She relished Pitchwife's return to glee, enjoyed the new lightness which the badinage of the Giants produced in Covenant. But she did not forget.
As evening settled around Andelain, she experienced a faint shiver of trepidation. At night the Dead walked the Hills. All of Covenant's olden friends, lambent with meanings and memories she could not share. The woman he had raped. And the daughter of that rape, who had loved him-and had broken the Law of Death in his name, trying as madly as hate to spare him from his harsh doom. She was loath to meet those potent revenants. They were the men and women who had shaped the past, and she had no place among them.
Under a stately Gilden, the company halted. A nearby stream with a bed of fine sand provided water for washing. Aliantha were plentiful. The deep grass cushioned the ground comfortably. And Pitchwife was a wellspring of good cheer, of diamondraught and tales. While the satin gloaming slowly folded itself away, leaving Linden and her companions uncovered to the darkness and the hushed stars, he described the long Giantclave and testing by which the Giants of Home had determined to send out the Search and had selected his wife to lead it. He related her feats as if they were stupendous, teasing her with her prowess. But now his voice held a hidden touch of fever, a suggestion of effort which hinted at his more fundamental distress. Andelain restored his heart; but it could not heal his recollection of Revelstone and gratuitous bloodshed, could not cure his need for a better outcome. After a time, he lapsed into silence; and Linden felt the air of the camp growing tense with anticipation.
Across the turf, fireflies winked and wandered uncertainly, as if they were searching for the Forestal's music. But eventually they went away. The company settled into a vigil. The mood Covenant emitted was raw with fatigue and hunger. He, too, appeared to fear his Dead as much as he desired them.
Then the First broke the silence. “These Dead,” she began thoughtfully. “I comprehend that they are held apart from their deserved rest by the breaking of the Law of Death. But why do they gather here, where all other Law endures? And what impels them to accost the living?”
“Companionship,” murmured Covenant, his thoughts elsewhere. “Or maybe the health of Andelain gives them something as good as rest.” His voice carried a distant pang; he also had been left forlorn by the loss of Caer-Caveral's song. “Maybe they just haven't been able to stop loving.”
Linden roused herself to ask, "Then why are they so cryptic? They haven't given you anything except hints and mystification. Why don't they come right out and tell you what you need to know?”
“Ah, that is plain to me,” Pitchwife replied on Covenant's behalf. “Unearned knowledge is perilous. Only by the seeking and gaining of it may its uses be understood, its true worth measured. Had Gossamer Glowlimn my wife been mystically granted the skill and power of her blade without training or test or experience, by what means could she then choose where to strike her blows, how extremely to put forth her strength? Unearned knowledge rules its wielder, to the cost of both.”
But Covenant had his own answer. When Pitchwife finished. the Unbeliever said quietly, “They can't tell us what they know. We'd be terrified.” He was sitting with his back to the Gilden; and his fused resolve gave him no peace. “That's the worst part. They know how much we're going to be hurt. But if they tell us, where will we ever get the courage to face it? Sometimes ignorance is the only kind of bravery or at least willingness that does any good.”
He spoke as if he believed what he was saying. But the hardness of his tone seemed to imply that he had no ignorance left to relieve the prospect of his intent.
The Giants fell still, unable to deny his assertion or respond to it. The stars shone bleak rue around the scant sliver of the moon. The night grew intense among the Hills. Behind the comforting glow of its health and wholeness, Andelain grieved for the Forestal.
Terrified? Linden asked herself. Was Covenant's purpose as bad as that?
Yet she found it impossible to question him. Not here, with the Giants listening. His need for privacy was palpable to her.
And she was too restless to concentrate. She remained charged with the energy and abundance of the Hills; and the night seemed to breathe her name, urging her to walk off her nervous anticipation Covenant's Dead were nowhere in evidence. Within the range of her percipience lay only the fine slumber and beauty of the region.
A strange glee rose in her: she wanted to run and caracole under the slight moon, tumble and roll and tumble again down the lush hillsides, immerse herself in Andelain's immaculate dark. Perhaps a solitary gambol would act as an anodyne for the other blackness which the Sunbane had nourished in her veins.