Chapter Two: 

In the Care of the Mahdoubt

Linden awoke slowly, climbing with effort and reluctance through the exhaustion of millennia. The years that she had bypassed or slipped between seemed to multiply her natural age; and her attempts to open her eyes, confirm the substance of her surroundings, felt hampered by caducity. She did not know where she was. She had told herself that she had reached the plateau above Revelstone in her proper time. She had believed that, trusted it; and slept. But the surface on which she lay was not fresh grass in springtime. Linen rather than soiled garments covered her nakedness, and her feet were bare. The light beyond her eyelids was too dim to be morning.

And she was diminished, truncated, in some fashion that she could not identify.

Yet she was warm, comfortably nestled. The unremitting clench of winter had released her. Her bed supported her softly. Like her eyes, her mouth and throat were too dry for ease, but those small discomforts were the normal consequences of unconsciousness. They did not hamper her.

For a moment like an instant of panic in a dream, quickly forgotten, she imagined that she had been taken to a hospital; that paramedics had rushed her, sirens wailing, to a place of urgent care. Had the bullet missed her heart? But the deeper levels of her mind knew the truth.

Gradually she recognised how she had been reduced.

Her skin felt nothing except the tactile solace of linen and softness and warm weight. She smelled nothing except the faint tang of wood smoke and the precious scent of cleanliness; heard nothing except the subtle effort of her own breathing. None of her senses extended beyond the confines of her body.

She did not know where she was, or how, or why—she hardly knew who—because her health-sense was gone. She had grown accustomed to its insights. Its absence diminished her.

Nonetheless she was paradoxically comforted by the realisation that Kevin’s Dirt had regained its hold. Now she could be certain that the Mahdoubt had brought her near to her rightful time.

In any case, her benevolent rescuer would not have stranded her earlier than she belonged. Then she would still have posed a threat to the integrity of the Arch. Nor had the Mahdoubt greatly overshot the day of Linden’s disappearance in rain from the upland plateau. She seemed to recall that she had heard Bhapa’s voice announcing her presence. If that were true, then she had also heard Manethrall Mahrtiir and Cord Pahni answer Bhapa’s call.

Surely they would not have awaited her return indefinitely? Not while their choices were constrained by the Masters—and the Demondim. At some point, they would have left Revelstone to rejoin their people, or to seek out a defense against the Land’s foes.

Linden had not been absent long enough to exhaust her friends’ hopes. And she had felt spring in the air—

When she was sure that the Mahdoubt had delivered her to the proper season in the proper year, a few of her numberless fears faded. At last, she allowed herself to remember why she was here.

Jeremiah. The croyel. Roger Covenant. Purpose and urgency.

Heavy with sleep, she raised her hands to confirm that Covenant’s ring still hung from its chain around her neck. Then she lifted them higher to rub her face. But she was not yet ready to sit up. She needed a moment to acknowledge that she had done Thomas Covenant the shameful injustice of permitting herself to be misled by his son.

She should have known better. Her dead love had earned more than her loyalty: he had earned her faith. Recalling the long tally of her mistakes, she was grieved that she let Roger tarnish her memories of the man who had twice defeated Lord Foul for the Land’s sake.

Grieved and angered.

Jeremiah’s presence had accomplished Roger’s intentions perfectly: it had distorted her judgment, leaving her vulnerable.

No more, she vowed. Not again. She had fallen in with the Despiser’s machinations once. She would not repeat that mistake.

Instead she meant to exact a price for Jeremiah’s torment.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Her night with the Mahdoubt in Garroting Deep had taught her—or retaught her—an important lesson. One step at a time. Just one. First she needed to absorb the details of her present situation. And she had to retrieve her Staff so that she could cast off the pall of Kevin’s Dirt. She would determine other actions later, after her true strength was restored.

Blinking against the smear of nightmares and regret, she looked around.

Strange, she thought. She was in a small room which she knew well enough, although it seemed vaguely unreal, dislocated by the passage of too much time; too much cold and desperation, battle and loss. She lay under blankets in a narrow bed. A pillow cradled her head. A shuttered window in the smooth stone wall above her admitted a dull grey light that could have been dawn or dusk. A doorway in the opposite wall past the foot of the bed held a soft illumination, yellow and flickering, which suggested lamps or a fire. Near her head, a second doorway led to a bathroom.

The chamber appeared to be the same one in which she had spent two nights before Roger and the croyel had translated her out of her time. She remembered it as though she had visited it in dreams rather than in life.

Yet she was here. As if to demonstrate the continuity of her existence, the Staff of Law leaned like a shaft of midnight against the wall at the head of the bed. And in a chair at its foot sat the Mahdoubt, watching Linden with a smile on her lips and gloaming in her mismatched eyes.

When Linden raised her head, the Mahdoubt left her chair, moved into the next room, and returned with an oil lamp and a clay goblet. The little flame, soothing in spite of its unsteadiness, accentuated her orange eye while it dimmed her blue one. The lurid patchwork of her robe blurred into a more harmonious mélange.

“Forbear speech, lady,” she murmured as she approached the bed. “Your slumber has been long and long, and you awaken to confusion and diminishment. Here is water fresh from the eldritch wealth of Glimmermere.” She offered the goblet to Linden. “Has its virtue declined somewhat? Assuredly. Yet much of its healing lingers.

“Drink, lady,” the Mahdoubt urged. “Then you may speak, and be restored.”

But Linden needed no encouragement. As soon as she caught sight of the goblet, she became conscious of an acute thirst. Propping herself up on one elbow, she accepted the goblet and drained it eagerly.

In the absence of any health-sense, she could not gauge how much of the water’s potency had been lost. Nevertheless it was bliss to her mouth and throat, balm to her thirst. And it awakened her more fully. A numinous tingling sharpened her senses, reminding her of a more fundamental discernment.

At once, she dropped the goblet on the bed, sat up, and reached for the Staff.

As soon as she closed her hands on the necessary warmth of the wood, and read with her fingers the deft precision of the Forestal’s runes, she felt the return of a more complete life. In the space between her heartbeats, the stone of the chamber ceased to be blind granite, inert and unresponsive: it became a vital and breathing aspect of Lord’s Keep. She recognised warmth and fire in the hearth of the larger room beyond her bedroom; smelled water poised to flow in the bathroom. Every inch of her skin and scalp became aware of its cleanliness. And the comfortable ease of the Mahdoubt’s aura washed over her like a baptism.

Hugging the Staff to her bare breasts, Linden retrieved the goblet and handed it back to the older woman, mutely asking for more of Glimmermere’s benison.

With a nod of approval, the Mahdoubt complied. When she returned from the sitting room this time, however, she brought a large wooden pitcher as well as the replenished goblet. The goblet she gave to Linden: the pitcher she placed on the floor beside the bed, where Linden could reach it easily. Then she retreated to her chair.

Until Linden had emptied the goblet again, she did not remember that she was naked.

Instinctively self-conscious, although she knew that she had no reason to be, she pulled up the sheet to cover herself. With a grimace of embarrassment, she found her voice at last.

“Who bathed me?”

Now the Mahdoubt grinned broadly. “The lady’s questions are endless. And some may be answered. Aye, assuredly, for there can be no peril in them.

“Lady, you and the Mahdoubt were chanced upon by Ramen beside the falls of Glimmermere. Their Manethrall himself bore you hither, and here—with pleasure the Mahdoubt proclaims it—you have slumbered for two days and a night. Was such rest needful? Beyond all doubt it was. But when she discerned the depth of your slumbers, she saw that other care was needful as well.

“It was the wish of all who have claimed your friendship, the flattering

Stonedownor youth among them, and also he who was once a Master, to stand in vigil at your side. Assuredly. Are you not worthy of their attendance? Yet the Mahdoubt dismissed them, permitting only the Ramen girl to remain. Together she and the girl bathed you. Your raiment as well they cleansed and in part mended, though the marks of fecundity and long grass remain—as they must. Oh, assuredly.

“When these small services had been accomplished, the Mahdoubt dismissed the girl also. The Mahdoubt is aged,” she explained lugubriously, in apparent playfulness, “and finds only brief ease in the accompaniment of the young. They remind her of much that she has left behind.” She sighed, but her tone held no regret. “Therefore the Mahdoubt has watched over you alone, taking satisfaction in your rest.”

The older woman’s gentle voice filled the room with a more ordinary and humane solace than the relief of urgent thirst, the Earthpower in Glimmermere’s waters, the recovery of percipience, the stubborn protectiveness of Revelstone, or the confirmed strictures of the Staff. Listening, Linden found that she could accept the sound and relax somewhat, despite the hard clench of her heart.

She wanted to see her friends. But the Mahdoubt’s reply implied that Liand, Stave, Anele, and the three Ramen were well. Indeed, it seemed to indicate that they had not been harmed by the violence surrounding Linden’s disappearance, or threatened by the siege of the Demondim. And if Linden’s resolve remained as unmistakable as a fist, her utter extremity had passed, sloughed off by sleep and the Mahdoubt’s astonishing succour. She could afford to take her steps one at a time—and to take them slowly.

“When you washed my clothes,” she asked, holding images of Jeremiah’s plight at bay, “did you find a piece of red metal?” She could not recall what she had done with her son’s ruined racecar; his only reminder of her love. “It would have looked unfamiliar, but you could tell that it was twisted out of shape.”

The older woman nodded. “Aye, lady.” Her expression became unexpectedly grave, as though she grasped the significance of the racecar. “It lies beneath your pillow.”

Reaching under her pillow, Linden drew out the crumpled toy. Her fingers recognised it before she looked at it. It had been warmed while she slept, yet the croyel’s touch lingered in it, palpable and malign; and for an instant, she could not understand why she did not weep. But of course she knew why: all of her tears had been fused into the igneous rock of her purpose.

Closing the car in her fingers, she met the Mahdoubt’s sympathetic gaze. “My friend,” she said, trying to soften her voice so that she would not sound angry. “I don’t know how to thank you. I can’t even imagine how to begin. I don’t understand how you helped me, or how you even knew that I needed help. And I certainly don’t understand why you went to all of that trouble. But you saved me when everything that I could have hoped for was gone.” Ever since we got you away from your present, there haven’t been any possible outcomes that don’t give us exactly what we want. “Now I hope that someday I’ll be worthy of you.”

She was not one of the Land’s great heroes. Her many inadequacies had almost given Lord Foul his ultimate victory. But the Mahdoubt had done more than restore her to her proper time: the Insequent had given her a new opportunity to fight for her son.

Linden did not mean to waste it.

“Pssht, lady,” replied the Mahdoubt. “Are your thanks pleasing to the Mahdoubt? Assuredly. Yet they are sufficient—nay, more than sufficient. Already you have surpassed her own hopes. And you have enabled her to gaze more deeply into the peril of these times. That which she has seen teaches her that she is not yet done with service.

“Lady,” she went on briskly. “one of those who is named the Humbled has discerned your awakening. Summons have been sent to your companions. Assuredly they will gather in haste, clamouring to attend upon you.” The woman smiled with evident affection. “Ere their coming, the Mahdoubt must depart, for she will not submit to their queries. Yet she is cognisant of your need for knowledge which none here possess. Perchance some few of your questions may now be sated. If there is aught that the Mahdoubt may reveal to you, she urges you to speak of it without qualm.”

Linden sat up straighter. She had not expected the Mahdoubt’s offer. And her mind was still clogged by long sleep as well as by the croyel’s cruel spoor on Jeremiah’s toy. Half reflexively, she called up a small tongue of flame from the Staff to lick away the disturbing residue in the metal. Then she scrambled to catch up with her circumstances.

She wanted details about the condition of her friends and the state of the siege. But Liand and the others would soon arrive to answer such questions in person. And the Mahdoubt was one of the Insequent. She had rescued Linden—but she had also permitted Roger’s and the croyel’s treachery.

While Linden tried to assemble her thoughts into some kind of order, she asked the first question that occurred to her.

“Before I left—” At first, words came awkwardly to her, as though she had to drag them across a vast gulf of years. “When the ur-viles tried to stop Roger and the croyel from taking me. There weren’t any Waynhim.” According to Esmer, he had imposed peace between the ur-viles and the Waynhim. Together they had helped her weaken the Demondim so that Revelstone might survive. “Why didn’t they join the ur-viles? Did they want me to get lost in the past?”

Her companion looked away. Apparently speaking to the rock of the Keep, she mused, “Does the Mahdoubt comprehend the lady’s concern in this? Oh, assuredly. The lady cannot grasp the speech of the Waynhim. Therefore she cannot inquire of them directly. And the sole interpreter known to her is betimes unworthy of credence. Do these reasons suffice to prompt a reply? They do.”

Then the woman faced Linden again. “Lady, the Waynhim absented themselves because they foresaw peril to those who now deem themselves Masters. The esteem between the Waynhim and the mountain race of the Haruchai is both old and earned. The Waynhim do not desire your loss. They would do much to preserve you. Yet they declined to share in deeds which hazarded their olden allies.”

Not for the first time, Linden felt that she had wasted a question. Nevertheless she was glad to have an answer. It relieved a nagging doubt. And it gave her time to decide what she most needed to know.

“All right,” she murmured. “That makes sense.”

Clenching Jeremiah’s racecar, she asked. Can you tell me how to save my son? Is he already lost?”

A-Jeroth’s mark was placed upon the boy when he was yet a small child—

The Insequent regarded Linden with one eye and then the other. “Sadly,” she said, “the Mahdoubt has no knowledge of this. It transcends her. In some measure, she has made of herself an adept of Time—as did the Theomach as well, assuredly, though in another form. But she beholds only the time in which she manifests herself, neither its past nor its future. Thus she is unable to witness her own future. Her present is here. Beyond this moment, she may estimate intentions and perils, but she cannot observe deeds and outcomes which lie ahead.

“The Theomach’s powers were greater than the Mahdoubt’s.”

Linden winced involuntarily; but she did not protest. She trusted the Mahdoubt. And Lord Foul had promised her through Anele, In time you will behold the fruit of my endeavours. If your son serves me, he will do so in your presence. If I slaughter him, I will do so before you. If you discover him, you will only hasten his doom. Roger had assured her that he and the Despiser still had plans for Jeremiah.

I do not reveal my aims to such as you.

For that reason, she chose to believe that her son was not beyond redemption. While Lord Foul still had a use for him, he would not be irreparably damaged—and she could hope to reach him.

Steadying herself on the stone of her heart, Linden said, “In that case, tell me why you didn’t expose Roger and the croyel when they first arrived. In Garroting Deep, you said that you aren’t wise enough to interfere with what you considered “needful”. But that was ten thousand years ago. You had to be careful. This is now. How could what Roger and that monster did to me be needful?”

The Mahdoubt could have spared her—

In response, chagrin and sorrow closed the woman’s features. She lowered the contradiction of her eyes: for a moment, she seemed to fumble within herself. When she replied, her voice was thick with sadness.

“Lady, the Mahdoubt comprehends your pain. Assuredly she herself must appear to be your treacher, for she stood aside while betrayal was wrought against you. If you choose condemnation, she cannot gainsay you.”

The Insequent knotted her fingers together. Her hands twisted at each other. “But if in aught the Mahdoubt has won your regard, then she observes—with respect, aye, and mourning also—that you have gained knowledge which you did not formerly possess. And had you not suffered and striven as you did, you would not have become who you are. The Mahdoubt could not foresee such an outcome when you were taken by your foes. She was able only to perceive that you were not then equal to the Land’s plight.

“Lady, you have become greater. That the Mahdoubt deemed needful.”

Linden scowled at her companion; but her anger was for herself, not the Mahdoubt. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean that to sound like an accusation.” It was certainly true that she knew more now. “I’m proud to call you my friend. I’m just trying to understand as much as I can.”

She had not become greater. She had simply been made harder and more certain.

Slowly the Mahdoubt raised her head. Her blue eye was damp with relief or gratitude, but the orange one glared like a promise of ferocity. “Pssht, my lady,” she said again. “You have no need of the Mahdoubt’s forgiveness. It is given before it is asked. Assuredly so. Your gratitude”—she indicated her robe—“has claimed her old heart.

“Inquire what you will. The Mahdoubt will attempt better answers.”

Now it was Linden who looked away. While she prepared herself, she muttered. “My real problem with what you did is that I feel so damn stupid. I should have seen the truth for myself. About Roger, anyway.” Jeremiah’s presence had confounded her utterly. “But he did things—

“How could he drink springwine?” she blurted. “How could either of them? It has aliantha in it.”

That was only one of the many means by which Covenant’s son had confused her. The Ramen believed that No servant of Fangthane craves or will consume aliantha.

“Ah.” The Mahdoubt nodded in recognition. “Assuredly. That chicane arose from the halfhand’s portion of the nature of the Elohim. The Elohim are not hampered by mortal distastes. With the cursed gift of such a hand, your betrayer received both the power of glamour, of seeming, and the capacity to set aside his revulsion for the goodly health of the Land. These given strengths he also employed to veil and ward the cruel beast which rules your son. Thus his loathing, and your son’s, for aliantha in springwine was hidden.

“Your wits did not fail you, my lady,” she added kindly. “Think no ill of yourself. Your foes’ deeds and appearances were prepared one and all for your consternation. You were hastened from event to event to assure that you found no occasion to imagine their concealment.” The woman nodded again. “There was no fault in you.”

“Then—” With an effort, Linden dragged her attention away from Roger’s and the croyel’s manipulations. If she considered them too closely, she might founder in outrage. They have done this to my son. For a moment, she closed her eyes, gathered herself. When she opened them again, she faced her companion squarely.

“The Theomach told me that he would protect history from what I did, but I don’t know whether I can trust him. I don’t know how that’s even possible.”

How had she not set in motion ripples which would change everything?

The Mahdoubt shook her head, turning it from side to side so that first her orange eye and then her blue one regarded Linden brightly. “My lady,” she said with an air of intention, urging Linden to believe her, “you may be assured that the Theomach did not neglect such matters. Does your heart not beat? Do your words not convey their meaning? And do these simple truths not proclaim that the Law of Time endures? It is manifest that you have not broken faith with the past.

“Yet the Mahdoubt may observe,” she added as if Linden had expressed doubt, “that Law seeks its own path. Diverted, it strives to return. Your exertion of Earthpower among Berek Heartthew’s warriors was easily transmuted to serve the Theomach’s purpose. You have not forgotten—assuredly not—that the Theomach found a place as the Lord-Fatherer’s tutor. Thus he was able to account for your presence and deeds in any manner which conformed to his own intentions—and to his knowledge of Time.

“My lady, he made of you the first of the Unfettered, those who in the time of the Lords sought lore and wisdom solitarily, as do the Insequent, according to their private natures. At the Theomach’s word, a tradition and a legend began from the wonderment of your aid, and all that has since transpired in the Land has confirmed it.

Linden listened in surprise and gradual comprehension. She had heard of the Unfettered—Covenant had told her a little about them after Sunder’s half-mad father had called himself a descendant of the Unfettered One.

“Understand, my lady,” the Mahdoubt continued, “that the Theomach did not require your presence or your aid. He merely made use of you. Had you not appeared, he would have contrived to win the Heartthew’s trust by other means. And he would have proposed the legend of the Unfettered to justify his own knowledge and power. Such ploys were needful to preserve the Arch.

“Nor did the visitation of your betrayers challenge the Theomach’s cleverness.” The older woman sighed heavily. “Among the Lords of later ages, there endured a belief that the Halfhand, the Lord-Fatherer, would one day return to meet the Land’s need. As events befell, the Theomach was not greatly troubled to bring forth such a tale from the form of those who accompanied you.”

For a moment, her voice held an edge of disapproval. “His purposes were his own, and selfish. All that he did conduced to his own aggrandisement. Therefore he did not scruple upon occasion to offer the Lord-Fatherer instruction which was either flawed or incomplete. Assuredly, however, he would have drawn upon the full depth of his knowledge to preserve the wholeness of that which ensued from his desires.

“The Insequent and the Elohim share only this, my lady, that we do not desire the destruction of the Earth.”

The Theomach had said virtually the same thing. Even Roger had said it.

And Linden had seen for herself how little Berek had known or understood in the aftermath of his encounter with the Fire-Lions. The Theomach could have told him anything, and he would have had no choice except to credit it.

As she drank more of Glimmermere’s waters, her mind grew sharper. There were so many things that she wanted to know. Because the Mahdoubt had said that she would depart soon, Linden began to hurry.

“All right,” she said. “I don’t really understand how the Theomach knew what his own future required. But if you explained it, I probably still wouldn’t understand.

“What can you tell me about that box? The way the croyel transported us into the mountain?” She winced at the memory. “Or used my son to do it. Is Jeremiah really capable of making portals? Doors through time and distance? And if he is, what does that have to do with the Elohim?”

Had Roger told her the truth about Jeremiah’s deadwood construct?

The Mahdoubt spread her hands to suggest a warning. “Is the lady’s query condign?” she asked herself. “The Mahdoubt deems it so. Yet there is peril here. She must display great care.

“My lady,” she said to Linden. “your son’s gifts are certain. The Mahdoubt can estimate neither their extent nor their uses. However, their worth is beyond question. Both the Vizard’s interest and a-Jeroth’s machinations proclaim that there is power concealed within your chosen child.”

According to Jeremiah—or the croyel—the Vizard had coveted a gaol for the Elohim.

“The Mahdoubt,” she continued, “has averred that neither Insequent nor Elohim desire the destruction of the Earth. Assuredly such havoc was the intent of your treachers. But they outdistanced the Theomach’s perception, as he selfishly permitted them to do, relying upon your strength to oppose them. Therefore your companions saw no further threat in him. And they conceived that your defeat was certain. For that reason, they feared only the Elohim.

“The purpose of the ‘box,’ as you name it, was to blind the eyes of the Elohim. They are”—she searched visibly for a cautious description—“susceptible to such structures. Its nature interacted with their fluidity, enabling your companions to elude detection. Thus were you compelled to meet the crisis of the EarthBlood alone.”

Susceptible to such structures? Linden wondered. Roger had said essentially the same thing. And she had seen how the Elohim had reacted to Vain, who had been a construct of the ur-viles.

If Jeremiah’s talent could “blind” the Elohim, what else might it accomplish?

But there again Linden hit a barrier of comprehension. Her thoughts were too sequential: she could not gauge the implications of ideas or abilities which appeared to defy linear cause and effect. And she sensed that she was running out of time. Her other friends were coming—

Swallowing bafflement, she said carefully, “That’s something else I may never understand. Can you answer one more question?”

The older woman appeared to consult the evening air through the shutters of the window. Then she gave Linden a comfortable smile. “Assuredly. If the Mahdoubt may reply briefly.”

“We keep coming back to the Theomach and the Elohim,” Linden said at once. An Elohim had given warning of the croyel as well as the halfhand. Is it true that your people are the shadow on the heart of the Elohim?” The Elohim had called themselves the heart of the Earth. And they had admitted that within the Earth’s heart, or their own, lay darkness. To account for her query, she added. “I’ve heard other explanations.”

Esmer had told her, The Elohim believe that they are equal to all things. This is false. Were it true, the Earth entire would exist in their image, and they would have no need to fear the rousing of the Worm of the World’s End. That is shadow enough to darken the heart of any being.

The Mahdoubt’s smile sagged, and she sighed. “My lady, the Theomach has given the Elohim cause to doubt their surquedry. Oh, assuredly. For that reason, many among the Mahdoubt’s race name him the greatest of all Insequent. Yet she deems that her kind are not a shadow cast by the unspoken Wurd of the Elohim. Nor do the Insequent themselves cast such shadows. They are merely men and women who crave knowledge as diligently as the Elohim desire the sopor of self-contentment.

“In its fashion, my lady, your comprehension of these matters is as great as the Mahdoubt’s—or the Theomach’s. Assuredly so. Have you not grown familiar with shadows?” Her mismatched eyes searched Linden deeply. And is your heart not filled with darkness still? You require no guidance to interpret the evils of the Earth, for you have encountered them within you.”

Involuntarily Linden squirmed. She had known Ravers: she recognised the nature of the passions which had driven her ever since she had coerced Roger Covenant and the croyel to reveal themselves. Her own shadow had responded to Gallows Howe. But she had gone beyond doubt, and did not question herself. Instead she chose to ignore the warning implicit in her companion’s reply.

“That’s probably true,” she said, dismissing the subject. She had confronted Lord Foul’s snares now. She would not fall into them again. “But I’m still confused about the details.

“How do I know the Theomach’s true name? Where did I hear it’?”

The Insequent had made themselves important to her. She wanted to know their weaknesses.

But the Mahdoubt did not react as Linden expected—or hoped. Leaning forward intently, the woman braced her plump arms on her knees. In a voice that seemed to resonate strangely, although it was as soft as a whisper, she answered, “My lady, you have not inquired of the Mahdoubt’s true name.”

Instinctively Linden pressed her back against the stone at the head of the bed. The Staff of Law lay across her lap: white gold hung against her sternum: one hand gripped her son’s toy while the other held a sheet over her breasts. Yet she felt unexpectedly exposed and vulnerable, as if all of her inadequacies had been laid bare.

Whispering herself, she said, “I’m not convinced that I deserve to know. And I’m sure that I don’t have the right to ask. Your people don’t use titles instead of names by accident. When the Theomach does it, he’s hiding something. That makes me suspicious. But you’re my friend. You didn’t just save my life. You saved my reasons for living. Obviously you know all kinds of things that you’ve decided not to tell me. And I don’t care. I respect whatever you do. Or don’t do.”

The Mahdoubt’s orange eye burned at Linden; but her blue one seemed to plead, asking for sufferance—or for discretion. “Then the Mahdoubt will reveal that her true name is Quern Ehstrel. Thus she grants the power to compel her. And in return she requests both wisdom and restraint.”

No, Linden wanted to protest. Please. Don’t you understand that I’ll use you? I need every weapon I can get. But she had already missed her chance to forestall the older woman’s gift.

Suddenly hoarse with chagrin, she asked. Is that why the Insequent hide their true names? Because they can be compelled?”

If so, she understood their loyalty to each other. The Insequent had too much power over their own people. Without loyalty, none of them would survive.

But the Mahdoubt did not respond directly. Instead she rose to her feet, pushing herself upward with her hands on her knees. Her gaze she turned away, although she was smiling fondly.

“My lady, those who have claimed your friendship draw nigh. The Mahdoubt must now depart. Her time of service to Revelstone is ended, for she awaited only the lady.

“Your raiment has been prepared.” She nodded toward the bathroom. And she has placed a tray before the hearth, for she does not doubt that you are hungry.

If you will permit the Mahdoubt a last word of counsel”—she gave Linden a teasing sidelong glance—“you will clothe yourself ere your companions attend upon you. Oh, assuredly. If you do not, you will disturb their wits.”

Without thinking, Linden surged up from her bed; dropped the Staff as well as her sheet so that she could fling her arms around the Mahdoubt. Her heart was not too hard to be touched. She had spent years starving for some embrace—She did not want power over her friend; yet it had been given to her freely. She knew no other language for her gratitude.

The Mahdoubt returned Linden’s hug briefly. Then she stepped back. “Pssht, my lady.” Her voice was redolent with affection. “The Mahdoubt merely departs. She does not pass away. Will you encounter her again? Be assured of it. It is as certain—”

“—as the rising and setting of the sun,” finished Linden. She wanted to smile, but could not. Even when her other friends arrived, she would be effectively alone without the Mahdoubt. Liand, Stave, Anele, and the Ramen: none of them would understand what had happened to her as the Mahdoubt did. “And by then I’ll probably have even more reasons to be grateful.”

The Mahdoubt bowed over her girth. “Then all is well,” she murmured, “while the sun continues in its course.”

With her head still lowered, she left the bedroom.

Dry-eyed and aching, Linden turned away so that she would not witness the Insequent’s departure. She did not hear the outer door of her rooms open or close. Nevertheless she felt the older woman’s sudden absence as if the Mahdoubt had stepped into a gap between instants and slipped out of time.

Shaken, Linden went into the bathroom. While she washed and dried her face, donned her well-scrubbed clothes, and tucked Jeremiah’s toy deep into one pocket, she willed herself to shed at least a few tears of thanks and sadness. But she could not. Under Melenkurion Skyweir, her capacity for weeping had been burned away.