Linden held her breath, hoping he would eat.
He did not. Squatting beside Hollian, he tried to feed the berries between her rigid lips.
“Eat, love.” His voice was hoarse, veined and cracked like crumbling marble. “You have not eaten. You must eat.”
But the fruit only broke on her teeth.
Slowly, he hunched over the pain of his fractured heart and began to cry.
Pain twisted Covenant's face like a snarl as he moved to the Graveler's side. But when he said, “Come on,” his voice was gentle. “We're still too close to the Sunbane. We need to go farther in.”
For a long moment. Sunder shook with silent grief as if at last his mad will had failed. But then he scooped his arms under Hollian and lurched, trembling, to his feet Tears streamed down his grey cheeks, but he paid them no heed.
Covenant gestured to the Giants and Linden. They joined him promptly. Together, they turned to the southeast and started away from the River across the first hillsides.
Sunder followed them, walking like a mute wail of woe.
His need conflicted Linden's reactions to the rich atmosphere of Andelain. As she and her friends moved among the Hills, sunshine lay like immanence on the slopes; balm filled the shade of the trees. With Covenant and the Giants, she ate aliantha from the bushes along their way; and the savour of the berries seemed to add a rare spice to her blood. The grass gave a blessing back to the pressure of her shoes, lifting her from stride to stride as if the very ground sought to encourage her forward. And beneath the turf, the soil and skeleton of Andelain were resonant with well-being, the good slumber of peace.
And birds, soaring like melody above the treetops, squabbling amicably among the branches. And small woodland animals, cautious of the company's intrusion, but not afraid. And flowers everywhere, flowers without number-poppy, amaryllis, and larkspur-snapdragon, honeysuckle, and violet-as precise and numinous as poetry. Seeing them. Linden thought that surely her heart would burst with pleasure.
Yet behind her Sunder bore his lost love inward, as if he meant to lay her at the feet of Andelain itself and demand restitution. Carrying death into the arduously defended region, he violated its ambience as starkly as an act of murder.
Though Linden's companions had no health-sense, they shared her feelings Covenant's visage worked unselfconsciously back and forth between leaping eagerness and clenched distress. Pitchwife's eyes devoured each new vista, every added benison-and flicked repeatedly toward Sunder as if he were flinching. The First held an expression of stem acceptance and approval on her countenance; but her hand closed and unclosed around the handle of her sword. Only Vain and the Appointed cared nothing for Sunder.
Nevertheless the afternoon passed swiftly. Sustained by treasure-berries and gladness, and by rills that sparkled like liquid gem-fire across their path, Linden and her companions moved at Sunder's pace among the copses and hillcrests. And then evening drew near. Beyond the western sky-line, the sun set in grandeur, painting orange and gold across the heavens.
Still the travellers kept on walking. None of them wanted to stop.
When the last emblazonry of sunset had faded, and stars began to wink and smile through the deepening velvet of the sky, and the twittering communal clamour of the birds subsided, Linden heard music.
At first it was music for her alone, melody sung on a pitch of significance which only her hearing could reach. It sharpened the star-limned profiles of the trees, gave the light of the low, waning moon on the slopes and trunks a quality of etched and lovely evanescence. Both plaintive and lustrous, it wafted over the Hills as if it were singing them to beauty. Rapt with eagerness, Linden held her breath to listen.
Then the music became as bright as phosphorescence; and the company heard it Covenant drew a soft gasp of recognition between his teeth.
Swelling and aching, the melody advanced. It was the song of the Hills, the incarnate essence of Andelain's health. Every leaf, every petal, every blade of grass was a note in the harmony; every bough and branch, a strand of singing. Power ran through it-the strength which held back the Sunbane. But at the same time it was mournful, as stem as a dirge; and it caught in Linden's throat like a sob.
“Oh, Andelain! Forgive! For I am doomed to fail this war.
I cannot bear to see you die — and live,
Foredoomed to bitterness and all the grey Despiser's lore.
But while I can I heed the call
Of green and tree; and for their worth,
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.”
While the words measured out their sorrow and determination, the singer appeared on a rise ahead of the company-became visible like a translation of song.
He was tall and strong, wrapped in a robe as fine and white as the music which streamed from the lines of his form. In his right hand, he gripped a long, gnarled tree limb as though it were the staff of his might. For he was mighty-oh, he was mighty! The sheer potency of him shouted to Linden's senses as he approached, shinning her not with fear but with awe. A long moment passed before she was able to see him clearly.
“Caer-CaveraI,” whispered Covenant. “Hile Troy.” Linden felt his legs tremble as if he ached to kneel, wanted to stretch himself prostrate in front of the eldritch puissance of the Forestal. “Dear God, I'm glad to see you.” Memories poured from him, pain and rescue and bittersweet meeting.
Then at last Linden discerned through the phosphorescence and the music that the tall man had no eyes. The skin of his face spread straight and smooth from forehead to cheek over the sockets in which orbs should have been.
Yet he did not, appear to need sight. His music was the only sense he required. It lit the Giants, entrancing them where they stood, leaving them with a glamour in their faces and a cessation of all hurt in their hearts. It trilled and swirled through Linden, carrying her care away, humbling her to silence. And it met Covenant as squarely as any gaze.
“You have come,” the man sang, drawing glimmers of melody from the greensward, spangled wreaths of accompaniment from the trees. “And the woman of your world with you. That is well.” Then his singing concentrated more personally on Covenant; and Covenant's eyes burned with grief. Hile Troy had once commanded the armies of the Land against Lord Foul. But he had sold himself to the Forestal of Garroting Deep to purchase a vital victory-and the price had been more than three millennia of service.
“Thomas Covenant, you have become that which I may no longer command. But I ask this of you, that you must grant it.” Melody flowed from him down the hillside, curling about Covenant's feet and passing on. The music tuned itself to a pitch of authority. “Ur-Lord and Illender, Unbeliever and Earthfriend. You have earned the valour of those names. Stand aside.”
Covenant stared at the Forestal, his whole stance pleading for comprehension.
“You must not intervene. The Land's need is harsh, and its rigor falls upon other heads as well as yours. No taking of life is gentle, but in this there is a necessity upon me, which you are craved to honour. This Law also must be broken.” The moon was poised above the Hills, as acute as a sickle; but its light was only a pale echo of the music that gleamed like droplets of bright dew up and down the slope. Within the trunks of the trees rose the same song which glittered on their leaves. “Thomas Covenant,” the Forestal repeated, “stand aside.”
Now the rue of the melody could not be mistaken. And behind it shimmered a note of fear.
“Covenant, please,” Caer-CaveraI concluded in a completely different voice the voice of the man he had once been. “Do this for me. No matter what happens. Don't interfere.”