At last, the urviles ceased harrying the kresh. Still in formation, they turned to climb back up the jumbled slope.

"In some fashion it resembled the Sunbane's touch upon the Land. And in some fashion it echoed the seeping vileness which mars the waters flowing from Mount Thunder's depths into the embrace of the Great Swamp. Yet it was neither of those. Rather it was fresh-new-born to harm, and virulent beyond my comprehension. This stone could not have described such abomination to me. It would have rent itself asunder in the telling."

The wedge ascended steadily; but the Manethrall gave it no heed, although Stave re garded it askance.

"For a time," Anele moaned, "my fear held me, and I faltered. Yet gradually I remembered courage, and determined that I would go forth to gaze upon this thing of evil.

"A simple choice, I assured myself, to go forth and gaze only. I would decide upon a better response when I had perceived its nature. Or perhaps when I had learned to understand it-"

Abruptly Stave insisted on the Raman woman's attention. "Do not miscomprehend, Manethrall." He may have wished to interrupt Anele's tale. "Your presence among these mountains is a great boon to the Land, unexpected among the perils of these times. If you will consent to accompany us, or to return to your ancient homes upon the Plains of Ra, all the Haruchai will rejoice in your presence."

He did not sound joyful, however. Instead his tone conveyed an adamantine resolve as he added, "I intend no disrespect when I say that we must depart now.

"I do not speak for the Chosen. As you have discerned, she is the Ringwielder, and will do as she must. But the old man is in our care, and we do not permit his freedom. He must return at once to Mithil Stonedown."

Gasping, Anele stumbled to a halt as if in dread; as if the Master had laid cruel hands on him. His thin form sagged against Linden's support.

The thought that he might not be able to continue-or that Stave might prevent him from saying more-sent a flush of anger through her. Before she could react, however, the Manethrall interposed herself between Stave and Anele; and Liand stepped closer to offer his aid.

Quietly, harshly, the woman said to Stave, "Then it is you he fears. You who have become Masters."

Stave nodded, untouched by her accusation.

"Have a care, sleepless one." The Manethrall lifted her garrote, stiff with the drying blood of wolves. "The Ramen do not forget. We remember that you have ridden Ranyhyn to their deaths." Bitterness gave her voice a flaying edge. "In those years, we withheld our enmity only because the Bloodguard had sworn fealty to the Lords. But we remember also that you turned from fealty to the service of Fangthane the Render."

The Manethrall's assertion startled Linden. She had heard the tale from Stave: the defeat and maiming of Korik, Sill, and Doar had led the Bloodguard to turn their backs on their Vow. But that had been, what, seven thousand years ago? And the Ramen remembered it?

"We suffer your presence," the Raman woman continued, "because we loathe the kresh, which you oppose, and because you do not bear the scent of evil.

Also we seek to comprehend that which impels these urviles. But this old man has found a place in our hearts, and we will not withdraw our aid."

"Your hearts mislead you." Stave neither raised his voice nor spoke sharply; but his judgment was absolute. "This Anele has claimed kinship with a man and a woman who perished three millennia and more ago. He is mad, and speaks only madness."

"Be quiet, both of you, please," Linden pleaded. "I need to hear Anele."

Stave did not relent. "Chosen, you profess concern for the Land." He studied Linden past the Manethrall's shoulder. "If you truly wish to serve it, you must not harken to him."

"Then tell me something," she retorted. "You people remember everything. Your ancestors must have known Sunder and Hollian's son. What was his name?"

Stave's eyes widened slightly, but he did not hesitate.

"The inheritor of the Staff of Law was named Anele."

At once, he added, "It signifies nothing that this old man claims that name for himself."

"Nothing?" countered Linden. "What else do you call 'nothing'? Do you think it's an accident that he can read stone?"

Before Stave could reply, the Manethrall put in, "If you truly wish to serve the Land, sleepless one, you will have patience. The Ramen do not desire to thwart you.

We will do so only if we must.

"Grant us this tale. Grant us two days in which to take counsel, and to seek comprehension. Then if you have persuaded us to trust you, we will accompany you to Mithil Stonedown, to ensure your safe passage. And if you have not persuaded us, we will attempt to persuade you."

"Finally," Linden muttered between her teeth. "A suggestion we can use."

She had no idea what two days among the Ramen might entail-and did not care.

Stave gazed inflexibly at the Manethrall. After a moment, still stiffly, he repeated his earlier bow.

"Your distant ancestors held our respect. At the last, their devotion exceeded ours. In their name, and in that of the great Ranyhyn, which we adored, I will abide by your word."

Thank God-!

Below Linden, the urviles had regained bare gutrock.

They were so near that even her faint percipience felt the leashed savagery of their lore and their blades. But they could not frighten her now. Everything that remained to her, she focused on Anele.

He had not stirred in her grasp. Gently she shook him, tried to bring up his head. "Anele, Please. I'm ready now. Can you go on?"

No one would ever be able to help him if he could not speak of his distress; complete his tale.

Guided by instinctive empathy, she gently kissed the top of his head.

With an effort, one bone and joint at a time, he roused himself. By small increments, he dragged his eyes up to the level of Covenant's ring hanging inside her shirt.

There he fixed his gaze, staring blindly. When he finally found his voice, he spoke as if he were addressing that small metal band -appealing to it as though it represented the life of the Land, and might forgive hint. His own recollections had broken him once before. Now they threatened to tread the shards of his mind underfoot.

"A simple choice I made. Ah, simple. Such simplicity gives birth to woe, and its outcome is lamentation. In my place, a wiser man might have deemed so much harm sufficient. Yet I was not content, for with one choice I made another, again a simple one. I left the Staff of Law in the covert of my cave.

"I wished to preserve it from harm until I had gazed upon this thing of wrong, and determined my best course. So I assured myself. Was I not in my own flesh a being of Earthpower, capable of much? Surely I would be safe enough until I had learned to name the evil.

"Yet the truth-"

There remorse seemed to close his throat, and he could not continue. Linden murmured soothingly to his bowed head; tried to project her support into him so that he would be able to go on. And gradually he felt her encouragement; or his need to finish his story grew stronger. When he had mastered himself, his quavering voice resumed.

"Ah, the truth was that I left behind the Staff because with power comes duty. I feared that if I bore with me the implement of Law, I would be compelled to measure my littleness against the thing of wrong. And I knew that I would fail.

"Thus I went out to my doom, leaving behind the Staff."

Liand and the Manethrall moved closer to hear him: the plaintive ache of his tale had become almost inaudible. Even the urviles drew near. Only Stave listened with his arms folded as though his heart were a fortress.

"Alas, the evil which I there beheld was one you also have witnessed." Briefly the old man found a bit of strength, and his voice rose. "Among the Masters they are known as Falls. Others name them caesures. They are a spinning of vile power, an illimitable bane, and when I had beheld it I was appalled." Then his energy faded, and he lapsed to whispering. "No, more than appalled. I was stricken immobile. My littleness unmade me."

Weak and sorrowing, he gave his pain into Linden's embrace; let her hold him so that he could reach an end.

"There the caesure took me. Its evil swept over me, and when it had passed my life and all that I had known had been swept away. Only the shape of the Land remained to me. These mountains. The valley of the Mithil. The reach of the South Plains. All else had ceased to exist.

"Oh, Mithil Stonedown endured, but it was no longer my home. Its folk knew nothing of the Land that I had known. All of my loves and lore had been effaced. The very stone on which I stood was not as I remembered it.

"And the Staff of Law "Ah, the Staff also had ceased to exist. It had vanished, lost by my folly. This Land knew nothing of it, and Law itself had given way to Falls and Kevin's Dirt."

Oh, Anele. Hugging him, Linden found that she could still weep, although he did not. Her tears dropped to his old head and dripped away, unregarded.

"That is the harm from which I flee, though I bear it with me always. I have lost the Staff of Law. It was my given birthright, entrusted to my care, and I failed it. I was too fearful for my task. The blame for the Land's plight is mine.

"I am marked for damnation, and yet I cannot so much as die. If Sunder my father had known what the outcome of his love would be, he would have buried Hollian my mother beside the Soulsease, and the Land would have been spared the ill which I have wrought."

When he was done, Linden simply stood and held him for a long time. She did not know how to comfort him.

She could only bear witness to his bereavement.

Yet she had heard him: she knew that he needed more.

For that reason, she told him softly, "I understand. I believe you, Anele." The stone on which he stood would not have permitted falsehood. "Now I know the truth. You said it yourself. You're the Land's last hope."

There was no one else who could even attempt to locate the Staff again.Aided by UrViles When Linden said it, she knew it to be true, although she could not have explained plained how she knew-or how it could be true. She was in no condition to question herself. Anele's need for forgiveness had nearly exhausted her.

He knew where the Staff had been lost.

She could not continue to support him. Fortunately something in her voice roused him a little. He lifted his head from her chest, made an attempt to straighten his legs. "Did I? It maybe so.

Why otherwise am I precluded from death?"

He was the son of Sunder and Hollian-which made him three and a half thousand years old.

Unless Intuitive perceptions hunted for clarity within her, but she was too tired to concentrate on them.

"Old man," Stave put in without warning, "hear me.

Linden Avery has granted you credence. The Haruchai do not."

In response, all of the urviles began to bark at once, apparently reacting to what they had heard. Their voices meant nothing to Linden, however: their speech resembled no language she knew. She turned a questioning look toward the Manethrall; but the woman shook her head.

"They comprehend us, but cannot form words in our tongue, and we know not how to grasp theirs."

Stave ignored the exchange. "Have you made search?"

he asked Anele. "Have you returned to your cave?"

Linden wanted to sigh, Oh, leave him alone. Don't you think he's been through enough? But the old man rallied before she could reply.

"What else have I ever done," he answered like a spatter of gall, "since the accursed day of my failure?"

He had grown sane enough to feel affronted. "The cave remains. I have searched it over upon occasions without number. I wander from it in despair, and in despair I return. Every span of its stone and dirt I have probed with my eyes and touched with my hands, even tasted with my tongue. The Staff is not there. No hint or memory of it is there. It passed out of knowledge when the Land I knew was erased by the evil of the Fall."

Then he turned to face up the rift. "You will betray me," he muttered. "I must not abide your presence."

A moment later, he shuddered. "And these creatures"- he indicated the urviles-"are harsh to my distress."

In Mithil Stonedown, he had spoken of Lost things, long dead, creatures that had forced him to remember Gathering strength by the moment, as though he had left his frailty in Linden's hands and was no longer hampered by it, he strode up the bare rock and began once again to climb the rubble.

Stave started upward as well, clearly intending to reclaim the old man. But the Manethrall stopped him with a frown. "Two days you have granted us, Bloodguard. We will ensure that your prey is not lost to you."

At her word, the Haruchai nodded and let Anele go.

Linden's healthsense was gone: she could no longer read her companions. Even the power of the urviles had faded from her nerves. Their blades had become mere lambent iron, eldritch and undefined. The Ramen might have been honest or treacherous, and she would not have known the difference.

Gazing after the old man, she asked the Manethrall, "You've met him before. How much do you know about him?"

"Little or naught," replied the woman. Her tone remained stern, but her severity seemed to be directed at Stave rather than Linden. "We only pity him.

Therefore when by chance our paths have crossed, we have given him what succor we may. However, he accepts little, and trusts less. He flees when he has been fed or healed. For that reason, we have not comforted him as we wish."

"Will he be all right," Linden continued, "climbing by himself? I don't want to lose him. He's too important-"

She had only begun to grasp how important.

"Do not fear for him," the Manethrall responded. "He is accustomed to this place. And we will watch over him. Since you wish it, and because I have given my word to the sleepless one, he will be returned to you at need."

Her kindness brought another moment of tears and blurring to Linden's eyes. If these Ramen had treated Anele so, she would trust them for a while. Apparently their convictions and purposes were more humane than Stave's.

"I'm sorry," she told the Manethrall. "You and your people saved our lives, and I haven't even thanked you.

I'm Linden Avery. Stave calls me 'the Chosen' because that's what I was called the last time I came to the Land."

The woman used her rope to tie back her hair, then bowed as she had not bowed to Stave, with her hands before her head and her palms turned outward, empty of danger. "Linden Avery," she said in the nickering voice she had used earlier, "Ringthane, be welcome among us. I am Manethrall Hami of the Ramen, and they"-she indicated her companions where they tended their injured-"are my Cords.

"Your words suggest a tale which we will hear eagerly.

However, we will not burden You with the telling of it until we have gathered at the Verge of Wandering, according to the word that I have given the Bloodguard. For the present, you are weary and in need. Before we ascend, we would offer you what aid or comfort we may."

Linden hardly knew how to ask for what she needed.

Help me find Jeremiah. Lead Me to the Staff. Tell me why you distrust Stave. None of that would enable her to do More climbing. Instead she answered indirectly, "You know Anele and Stave." Well enough, anyway.

"This is Liand son of Fostil, from Mithil Stonedown."

She nodded toward the young man. "Anele was a prisoner there. He helped us escape."

As if for the first time, she noticed the streaks of blood on his left arm. They leaked from under his slashed sleeve: she could not see how badly he was hurt. But the tearing of his sleeve suggested claws.

Infection, she thought dully. Sepsis. If his wounds were not treated-Without percipience, she could not guess how grave the harm might be.

The Manethrall granted Liand a gracious bow, which he returned, emulating her movements awkwardly. He had already shared dangers and seen wonders far outside his experience, and his eyes sparkled with excitement.

"You honor me, Manethrall Hami. The Ramen are unknown in Mithil Stonedown, but you are doughty and generous, and would be made welcome"-he glanced pointedly at Stave-"if the Masters permitted it."

She frowned at this reference to Masters. "Thank you, Liand of Mithil Stonedown. We will trust your welcome, if not that of the Bloodguard."