“If you suffer him to succeed, the term of our grief will be slight, for all Earth and Time will be lost.
“You must halt him.”
Repeating until all the Hills replied, Must. Must.
After a moment, he left her. The door of his power closed behind him. But she did not notice his departure. For a long time, she went on staring blindly into the grass.
Sixteen: “Andelain! forgive!”
LATER, it started to rain.
Drizzling lightly, clouds covered the stars and the moon. The rain was as gentle as the touch of springtime, as clean and kind and sad as the spirit of the Hills. It fed the grass, blessed the flowers, garlanded the trees with droplets. In no way did it resemble the hysterical fury of the sun of rain.
Yet it closed the last light out of the world, leaving Linden in darkness.
She lay outstretched on the turf. All will and movement were gone from her. She had no wish to lift her head, to stir from her prostration. The crushing weight of what she had learned deprived her of the bare desire to breathe. Her eyes accepted the rain without blinking.
The drizzle made a quiet stippling noise on the leaves and grass, a delicate elegy. She thought that it would carry her away, that she would never be asked to move again. But bound like the chime of a small, perfect crystal. Its fine note conveyed mourning and pity.
When she looked up, she saw that Andelain was not altogether dark. A yellow light shed streaks of rain to the grass. It came like the chiming from a flame the size of her palm which bobbed in the air as if it burned from an invisible wick.
And the dancing fire sang to her, offering her the gift of its sorrow.
One of the Wraiths of Andelain.
At the sight, pain seized her heart, brought her to her feet. That such things would be destroyed! That Covenant meant to sacrifice even Wraiths and Andelain on the altar of his despair, let so much lorn and fragile beauty be ripped out of life! Instinctively, she knew why the flame had come to her.
“I'm lost in this rain,” she said. Outrage rose behind her clenched teeth. “Take me back to my people.”
The Wraith bobbed like a bow; perhaps it understood her. Dancing and guttering, it moved away through the drizzle. Droplets crossed its light like falling stars.
She followed it without hesitation. Darkness crowded around her and through her; but the flame remained clear.
It did not mislead her. In a short time, it guided her to the place where she had left her companions.
Under the Gilden, the Wraith played for a moment above the huge, sleeping forms of the First and Pitchwife. They were not natives of the Land; unappalled by personal revenants, they slumbered in the peace of the Hills.
The flitting flame limned Vain briefly, sparked the rain beading on his black perfection so that he seemed to wear an intaglio of glisters. His ebon orbs watched nothing, admitted nothing. His slight smile appeared to have no meaning.
But Covenant was not there.
The Wraith left her then as if it feared to go farther with her. It chimed away into the dark like a fading hope. Yet when her sight adjusted to the cloud-closed night, she caught a glimpse of what she sought. In a low hollow to the east lay a soft glow of pearl.
She moved in that direction, and the light became brighter.
It revealed Thomas Covenant standing among his Dead.
His wet shirt clung to his torso. Rain-dark hair straggled across his forehead. But he was oblivious to such things. And he did not see Linden coming. All of him was concentrated on the spectres of his past.
She knew them by the stories and descriptions she had heard of them. The Bloodguard Banner resembled Brinn too closely to be mistaken. The man in the grave and simple robe had dangerous eyes balanced by a crooked, humane mouth: High Lord Mhoram. The woman was similarly attired because she also was a former High Lord; and her lucid beauty was marred-or accentuated-by a prophetic wildness that echoed Covenant's: she was Elena, daughter of Lena. And the Giant with laughter and certainty and grief shining from his gaze was surely Saltheart Foamfollower.
The power they emanated should have abashed Covenant, though it was not on the same scale as Kevin's. But he had no percipience with which to taste their peril. Or perhaps his ruinous intent called that danger by another name. His whole body seemed to yearn toward them as if they had come to comfort him.
To shore up his resolve, so that he would not falter from the destruction of the Earth.
And why not? In that way they would be granted rest from the weary millennia of their vigil.
Must, Linden thought. The alternative was altogether terrible. Yes. Her clothes soaked, her hair damp and heavy against her neck, she strode down into the gathering; and her rage shaped the night Covenant's Dead were potent and determined. At one time, she would have been at their mercy. But now her passion dominated them all. They turned toward her and fell silent in mingled surprise, pain, refusal. Banner's face closed against her. Elena's was sharp with consternation. Mhoram and Foamfollower looked at her as if she cast their dreams into confusion.
But only Covenant spoke. “Linden!” he breathed thickly, like a man who had just been weeping. “You look awful. What's happened to you?”
She ignored him. Stalking through the drizzle, she went to confront his friends.
They shone a ghostly silver that transcended moonlight. The rain fell through their incorporeal forms. Yet their eyes were keen with the life which Andelain's Earthpower and the breaking of the Law of Death made possible for them. They stood in a loose arc before her. None of them quailed.
Behind her, Covenant's loss and love and incomprehension poured into the night But they did not touch her. Kevin had finally opened her eyes, enabled her to see what the man she loved had become.
She met the eyes of the Dead one by one. The flat blade of Mhoram's nose steered him between the extremes of his vulnerability and strength. Elena's eyes were wide with speculation, as if she were wondering what Covenant saw in Linden. Banner's visage wore the same dispassion with which Brinn had denounced her after the company's escape from Bhrathairealm. The soft smile that showed through Foamfollower's jutting beard underscored his concern and regret.
For a fraction of a moment. Linden nearly faltered. Foamfollower was the Pure One who had redeemed the jheherrin. He had once walked into lava to aid Covenant Elena had been driven into folly at least in part by her love for the man who had raped her mother. Banner had served the Unbeliever as faithfully as Brinn or Cail. And Mhoram-Linden and Covenant had embraced in his bed as if it were a haven.
But it had not been a haven. She had been wrong about that, and the truth appalled her. In her arms in Mhoram's bed Covenant had already decided on desecration-had already become certain of it. It is his intent to place the white ring into Lord Foul’s hand. After he had sworn that he would not, Anguish surged up in her. Her cry ripped fiercely across the rain.
“Why aren't you ashamed”
Then her passion began to blow like a high wind. She fanned it willingly, wanted to snuff out, punish, eradicate if she could the faces silver-lit and aghast in front of her.
“Have you been dead so long that you don't know what you're doing anymore? Can't you remember from one minute to me next what matters here? This is Andelain He's saved your souls at least once. And you want him to destroy it!
“You.” She jabbed accusations at Elena's mixed disdain and compassion. “Do you still think you love him? Are you that arrogant? What good have you ever done him? None of this would've happened if you hadn't been so eager to rule the dead as well as the living.”