"Yet have we kept faith with the past. Still we tell the tale of ourselves, and tell it again, precisely as it was told to us generation after generation, so that we will forget nothing, fail nothing, and our great purpose will never waver."

The Cords bowed their heads as the older man spoke.

But his fellow Manethralls stood tall in the clearing, and reflections of firelight glistened in their eyes.

"We are the Ramen, bereft and redeemed by service, and we will see our home again. This time we have not been promised an end to exile, as we were when High Lord Kevin Landwaster warned us from the Land. Yet we keep faith. Though the Earth may crack, and the Heavens fall, and all the peoples of the world be betrayed, we will hold fast to the tale of who we are. In the end, when our exile has run its course, we will return to the Plains of Ra.

"So our tale was told to our sires and dams, and to theirs, and to theirs again, for a hundred generations and more to the Ramen who first began our wandering. So it will be told to our children, and to theirs, and to theirs again, until the Ramen have been restored to the Land which is theirs."

Then the gathered Manethralls sang together, raising their voices as one against the dark.

"We roam the world, lost, and learn We have no place but home.

While time wears out its ceaseless grind We wander still, the rind And pulp and juice of our return Forever unconsumed.

"For hope we have not rock but loam Eroded by our sons And daughters. Generations pass And leave us as the grass, Or as the froth on waves, the foam, The rede of years unlearned.

"To eastward we have sought the sun's Acceptance.

But the seas We find too restive to give rest. To Southward lie the best A.

s soon as they stepped from the grass onto the beaten dirt, Manethrall Hami approached them with concern in her eyes.

Of lands and hills. Yet endless runs Still leave us unfulfilled.

"And in the west lie bitter leas And forage that will burn The throat of each last roaming heart. Their folk despise our part In wandering. Nor can we seize A dwelling undenied.

"Thus we return, and still return While years and ages end.

We cannot let our yearning sleep, And so we roam, and keep Our hearts alive, for we must earn Our dream of home fulfilled."

In response, the Cords raised their palms before their faces, still holding their heads bowed.

When they looked up again, the Manethralls had seated themselves once more. Then some of the younger Cords hurried forward with their trenchers, carrying food and drink to the circles, while others brought waterskins so that the sitting Ramen and their guests could wash their hands.

Linden rubbed the grime of hard traveling from her hands gratefully, and splashed a bit of water on her face to cool her burned skin; but she did not drop her guard. You're in trouble-Here food and even stories were a prelude to threats.

If you do not answer our challenges, all of the Ramen will stand against you.

She did not doubt that she was in serious trouble, in spite of the sincerity of her hosts.

A boy younger than Jeremiah knelt beside her to place a trencher on the ground in front of her. "I am Sahah's brother," he murmured softly so that only she would hear. "My name is Char." Then he was gone before Linden could look at his face Frowning Frowning uncertainly, disturbed without knowing why, she considered her patter.

It held stew, steaming and savory, cupped in a bowl of glutinous white mush had a might have been cereal or potatoes, but which smelled like neither. instead form of loamy scent that suggested it had been made by boiling and pounding 'Push, tuber. Glancing at the nearby Cords, she saw that they ate by taking a bit of the shaping it with their fingers, and then using it to scoop stew into their mouths She may have been hungrier than she realized.

Surprised, Linden glared at her involunt ily.

ar Hurrying in apparent embarrassment, Pahni breathed, "The stew is hare and wild eland and shallots spiced with rosemary and the leaves of aliantha dried and ground fine. The rhee"-she indicated the mush-"is boiled from the roots of the grass of this valley. It has little virtue alone, but eaten with meat and shallots it is a sustaining food."

As soon as she finished speaking, she withdrew.

First Sahah's brother: then her cousin. What was going on?

Linden turned her head and found three Cords standing directly behind her: Pahni, Char, and a man who looked old enough to be a Manethrall. When Linden met his gaze, he also knelt to introduce himself.

"Like Char," he said, smiling awkwardly, "I am Sahah's brother. We are children of the same dam, though we do not share sires. My name is Bhapa."

Linden stared at them dumbly. She could not think of any polite way to ask, What the hell is going on? What are the three of you doing?

Did they consider themselves responsible for her because she had tried to help Sahah? Or was it the other way around? Had she somehow become responsible for them?

However, they seemed to expect nothing from her.

When he had given her his name, Bhapa rose to his feet. With Char and Pahni, he simply stood behind Linden as though the three of them had been asked to guard her back, and had no other interest in her.

Troubled for reasons which she could not name, Linden turned back to her food.

As an experiment, she tasted a bit of the rhee by itself.

In spite of its smell, it had virtually no flavor. But when she combined it with the stew, she found that it added a taste like spelt bread to the spiced meat and shallots.

She was definitely hungrier than she had realized.

At intervals while she ate, Char or Bhapa or Pahni offered her a drink from a waterskin She thanked them impersonally, trying not to think about the possible impliCations of their service. Whatever else may have been true about them, the Ramen dearly valued kinship.

Finally the meal was over. When the younger Cords had passed around more water forth' washing of hands, they cleared away the trenchers and waterskins. The other n remained seated, however, now obviously waiting, and rni gave Linden a long, probing look. Then the Manethrall rose lightly to her feet Moved into the center of the circle so that she stood near the small fire.

when she leaned toward one of her neighbors, thinking to ask him what the mush was called, what the stew was made of, she found another Ramen kneeling beside her: the young woman who had guided her to Anele.

The woman's black hair hung past the edges of her face, hiding her features. Apparently she still felt shy in Linden's presence. As Linden looked at her, she whispered, "My sire is brother to Sahah's dam. My name is Pahni."

As she did so, the Ramen in the clearing turned their seats so that the whole gathering faced her together.

To Linden, Hami announced, "It is not the way of the Ramen to give trust where trust has not first been offered. At another time, we would not speak of ourselves until you had described to us your past and purposes."

Then she raised her voice and her eyes so that she addressed her assembled people. "But she is Linden Avery, called the Chosen by the sleepless ones. And she is the Ringthane. The presence of her white ring is plain to all who behold her. And with my Cords, I have witnessed her argent flame.

"The name of the Ringthane we remember with reverence. Seeing that the Ranyhyn both honored and feared him, Covenant Ringthane refused their service.

He rode no Ranyhyn into peril and death. Instead he hazarded only himself against the Render. Therefore he is honored among us. Though our lives are as brief as grass upon the Earth, our memories are long, for we have told the tale until it cannot be forgotten."

Manethrall Hami held her head up to the valley and the dark mountains. "And there is more. With her companions, Linden Avery Ringthane came among us hunted by kresh. She has befriended the mad old man whose plight has long touched our hearts. She consumes aliantha with respect and gladness. And she retrieved Sahah of my Cords from death when Sahah's wounds had surpassed our skills.

"For these reasons, I will speak first, in gratitude and acknowledgment."

Around the clearing, Manethralls and Cords nodded their acquiescence. And Linden nodded as well, although she had not been asked for her assent. She was simply glad that she would not be required to account for herself before she knew what was at stake.

"I will speak briefly, however," Hami promised, "as our lives are brief, for the matters which must be resolved here are urgent and compelling.

"This place we name the Verge of Wandering." Her words may have been meant for Linden, but she gave them to the whole assembly. "It is here that the Ramen first gathered when the Sunbane had driven us from the Plains of Ra. Here we considered how we might fulfill the meaning of our lives in exile." se Hami paused to drop a faggot or two onto the campfire so that its flames - higher. As she continued, her voice became bleak, almost desolate, devoid of the ering inflections which occasionally enlivened it. n "Twice before, we had fled the Land, but now there were no Lords to promise us a ending. As we withdrew to this place, we prayed that one day the Sunban t 'ould he quenched-that the Ringthane or another like him would arise to again cast da n the to the Sbane bane Render-but our hopes did not console us. We could see no Outcome except extinction." Now her desolation was unmistakable. Recalled loss ached in her words.

,,Our memories were long then, as they are now. Here we told the tale of ourselves, and found that the toll of bloodshed had become greater than we could countenance. The Render had exacted too much death.

His slaying of the Ranyhyn must cease.

"Therefore we determined that we would never again subject the meaning of our lives to Fangthane's ravage."

The Manethrall sighed. "Yet we had no power against him, no means by which we might end his malice. We could not impose the relief we craved." The muscles at the corners of her jaw bunched with remembered resolve. "For that reason, we swore then, as each generation has sworn anew, that we would not return to the Plains of Ra until the Land's foe had met his last doom, and would nevermore arise to shed the blood of Ranyhyn."

Linden listened with growing discomfort. The Ramen were as draconian as the Haruchai, as absolute in their judgments. Both people rejected the reality of Lord Foul's malevolence and the Land's vulnerability.

Where the Masters sought to alter that reality, however, the Ramen had simply turned their backs on it.

Compared to the stance which the Haruchai had chosen, that of the Ramen was more human; certainly less ambitious. Nevertheless it disturbed Linden profoundly. The Land would never be saved by people who believed and judged as the Ramen did.

She feared suddenly that her need for help had misled her; that the Ramen were not the allies she required.

Even the intransigence of the Masters might be of more use to her.

Still Hami continued her tale. However, her tone had eased. The memories she described now did not hold as much hurt.

"Thus this place became the Verge of Wandering, the northernmost limit of our exile. From this valley, we found our way southward among the mountains, sojourning by decades and centuries among strange and distant lands, living as nomads among peoples who knew nothing of the Land and Fangthane.

Perhaps at another time we will speak of such things.

For the present, I will say merely that we found no home there. But neither have we returned to the Land.

"Once in each generation, however, we visit the Verge of Wandering. Here we remain for a season, or a year, or for several years, scouting the Land until we have discovered that Fangthane yet lives-that the Land has not yet been healed of evil. Then we depart to wander again.

For a hundred generations and more, no Ramen has set foot beyond these mountains, except to obser th liffh veee o te Land, and to carry word."

You like wh at? Lidih hkd '0me b you seenen mgtave ase. Has the life of the Land be ersince you abandoned it? Have you made it btt?

Bthidhi eeru se sa notng.

ut of her depth, and knew it.

And d She was o The things that Hami had not said were as loud in the darkened gathering as those she had. Where were the children of the Ramen? The old people? Where were the Ranyhyn?

Then the Manethrall's voice took on a new edge, a sound of keen wrath. For the first time, her tale implied challenges.

"Once in each generation, therefore, we have witnessed the rise of the Masters in the Land, the men who were formerly the sleepless ones, the Bloodguard.

We have discerned no sign of Lords, or of other powers, that might bring about Fangthane's end.

Instead we have watched with growing anger, generation after generation, as those who once served the Lords now name themselves Masters and do nothing.

"The Land is in their care, and in their care it has been made helpless. Now the Render flourishes once again, and there are only Masters to oppose him.

"We have known the Bloodguard. We have seen them turned to Fangthane's service. We know that they do not suffice."

Threats seemed to mount around the clearing as Hami spoke. The ancient animosity of the Ramen toward the Bloodguard had been vindicated by the attitude of the Masters.

"At last, however, a new Ringthane stands among us.

Because she is here, we might feel hope. But because the Masters are also here, we fear that she will be thwarted."

In that, at least, Linden understood Hami perfectly.

"The Ramen have kept faith," the Manethrall concluded severely. "What have the Masters done?

How will Linden Avery bear the burden of wild magic against the Render, when the Masters have quelled any strength which might have aided her?

"These questions, and more, we will have answered."

For a moment, silence greeted her demand. Ramen nodded to themselves, and to her, grimly. They seemed to feel their exile as if they had experienced the loss themselves, although they had known no other life but wandering. Their tales had the force of commandments, compulsory beyond the limits of flesh and time.

Concentrating on Hami, Linden sensed rather than saw Stave surge erect in the circle where he had been sitting.

"Do you claim the right to challenge us?" he replied flatly. He may have been full of ire and repudiation, but he did not show it. His hard form revealed only that he could not be swayed. "I also claim that right.

My questions also require answers." touch t His tone was calm. Nonetheless it drew tension from the Ramen like the a flail. little of "Manethrall," he continued, "you speak harshly of the Masters, but you say of our the Ranyhyn. Did you not guide them into exile? And are they not the meaning lives? Why then are they absent from this place?

4ti hat has become of them? How are you able to avow that you have kept faith with the past, if you have not been true to the great horses of Ra?"

,.4o. Linden reached her feet without realizing that she had moved. She was fed up with people who never forgave, the Ramen as much as the Haruchai. They shared a combustible pride, as sensitive as tinder, primed for conflagration. If she did not intervene, they might strike blows which they would never be able to take back.

And she was suddenly furious. Lord Foul held Jeremiah. Like the Land, he would never be saved by people who gave ancient grievances precedence over their immedi ate peril and responsibility.

"Sleepless one," Hami countered, "I am done speaking." She held her garrote taut between her fists: it seemed to have appeared there without transition.

"It is you who will answer here."

"No. Wait a minute." Fighting to quiet her heart, Linden confronted Stave across the circles. "Don't say a word. Please. Whether your people are right or wrong-it doesn't matter. It makes no difference. Not here. The Ramen don't know why you became Masters. They can't evaluate your reasons. And you're only here because of me." Because she had fled from Mithil Stonedown. "If they have questions, I'll answer them."

Facing her without expression, Stave opened and closed his fingers deliberately, cocked one eyebrow- and said nothing. Instead he shrugged as though he recognized that she had told him the simple truth.

Gratitude for his restraint helped Linden manage her anger as she turned to Manethrall Hami. "If you want to challenge someone," she told Hami, "challenge me.

'siy companions are under my protection. All of them."

Leaving her place in the circle, she approached the campfire until she stood near enough to see every spark and shadow in the Manethrall's face; near enough to let Hami gauge her honesty as accurately as the woman's senses allowed.

"When Covenant came back to the Land to fight the Sunbane, I was with him. We would have failed if the Haruchai hadn't helped us. I owe them a debt I'll never be able to repay.

I know you have grievances. Old ones. I understand that. And I understand your distrust. I'll answer your questions, anything you want to ask me. But tell me one thing first. Please."

Hami frowned sternly across the flames. She seemed reluctant to set aside her belhgerenCe toward Stave.