Nodding sharply, the Manethrall turned away and strode into the night. For a moment, he slipped down the crease of the dry watercourse. Then he seemed to fade from sight as if, like the urviles, he had cloaked himself in darkness.

Beyond question the Ramen understood stealth.

"Stave," Linden breathed to the Master, "tell the Waynhim. I need to know they'll come to me when I call."

He did not ask why she did not speak to the creatures herself. Nevertheless she told him, "I have to think."

Noiselessly the Haruchai withdrew into the ravine; and Liand came to take his place at her side, bringing Anele with him.

The old man stood as though he were alone, wrapped in madness. Holding his head up, he studied the dark with senses other than vision; alert to the nuances of the night. As if to himself, he murmured, "It is wrong.

Wrong and terrible. Beings of nightmare walk the hills. They must not be permitted."

At that moment, he appeared as sane as Linden had ever seen him. She had to think.

Summon a Fall: that was the obvious solution. Recover her grasp on wild magic and rip open time. Commit her companions, all of them, urviles and Waynhim as well, to the known horrors of a caesure so that they would not fall prey to Esmer's betrayal. But she had pointed out the flaw in that reasoning to Stave.

Something fatal had been unleashed on the South Plains; and it would not simply disappear, unmake itself, if she escaped. Deprived of its intended victims, it might seek to vent its destructiveness elsewhere.

It might turn toward Mithil Stonedown. Liand's ancestors would have no defense. And such an attack would violate the known history of the Land. It would weaken the essential integrity of time.

Therefore Linden could not flee. First she had to meet the danger. She had brought it here: it was her responsibility.

And still she could see nothing. Even her healthsense gave her no hints. The Ranyhyn scented peril on the air, or felt it through the earth. The Waynhim and the urviles knew their danger. In some fashion, Anele tasted the approach of nightmares. Yet Linden herself remained effectively blind.

She held her breath for Bhapa's return, hoping that the Cord would tell her what she needed to know. But when the imprecise night condensed at last into the form of a man, it was Mahrtiir rather than Bhapa who whispered her name.

"I have done as you required. Now I urge you to heed me. We must mount. The swiftness of the Ranyhyn will ward us more surely than any garrote or fist."

"The Manethrall counsels well," Stave observed.

Linden had not seen him return: like Mahrtiir, he appeared to join her from among the secrets of the dark. "It is said that there is no glory to compare with riding a Ranyhyn in battle."

Now Linden did not delay. The Ranyhyn were under her protection as much as the Waynhim and the ur- viles. As much as Liand and Anele and the Ramen With Mahrtiir in the lead, she and her companions climbed the hillside toward the great horses. Pahni took charge of Anele so that Liand could stay with Linden. And behind them came the Waynhim in formation, chanting rhythmically the rituals of their lore.

However, the creatures did not ascend the slope.

Instead they positioned themselves below the Ranyhyn, with the tip of their wedge pointing downward and somewhat to the east. There they awaited the attack.

A warm breeze drifted into Linden's face. The air had cooled little since sunset, and baked shale, loose dirt, and sparse grass held the heat. The minor exertion of climbing toward the Ranyhyn drew sweat from her temples, made her shirt cling to her back.

Two or three of the horses whinnied softly in greeting.

Others tossed their manes or stamped their hooves as if they were eager to run. Linden could not see clearly enough to tell them apart; but Hyn came to her and nuzzled her shoulder, urging her to mount.

With the Staff in her hands, Linden relied on Stave to boost her onto the mare's back. As he did so, the strained muscles in her legs protested. And she felt Hyn's disquiet at once. It spoke to her nerves, flesh to flesh: a visceral quiver like a harbinger of panic. The great horses were not easily frightened, but Hyn was afraid now, champing for movement.

When Linden touched the mare's flank with the Staff, however, Hyn calmed herself, and her quivering subsided.

Around them, the other riders went to their Ranyhyn.

Pahni needed Liand's help to seat Anele on Hrama: the old man had not relaxed his concentration northward, and made no effort to assist them. But the Master mounted Hynyn unaided, and Mahrtiir appeared to glide up onto his horse's back. When Pahni had given Liand a subtle lift, she sprang lightly onto Naharahn. In moments, Whrany alone remained unridden.

Still Bhapa had not returned.

A silence spread around them, punctuated only by the restless movements of the horses and the low, focused barking of the Waynhim. No night birds called: no insects chirred or whined. The darkness seemed to be holding its breath, and the moon's yellow light illumined little, as though it winced away from what it might witness. Linden felt an old malice gather among the slopes below her as if it welled up from within the ground. She did not know how to reply to it.

"Chosen," Stave pronounced suddenly, "be warned. It is dire. We did not know that this evil still endured.

The old tellers have said that the ur-Lord destroyed it utterly."

As he spoke, Linden felt pressure rise against her percipience. At the limit of its reach, her healthsense decried malevolence swelling into the night.

A moment later, she saw a distant flash of emerald like a flaring instance of sickness, an ignition of pure desecration. It was swallowed almost immediately by a black concussion which shook the night, a thunderclap of vitriol flung by one or several of the urviles. Before the vicious green vanished, however, she recognized it.

It had been etched into her memory by horror.

"God!" she panted. "Oh, God. It can't be."

Beyond mistake that flash of rank emerald was the power of the Illearth Stone.

Which should have been impossible. Stave was right: with wild magic, Covenant had extirpated that ancient bane from the Land. And he had won his expensive victory thousands of years before Linden had first been translated to the Land.

Yet she knew from cruel experience that at least one small corrupt flake of the original Stone had survived Covenant's victory. In the years before that final contest, Lord Foul had given fragments of the Illearth Stone to each of his Giant-Ravers so that they could command his armies. One such fragment had been wielded against the defenders of the Land somewhat to the south and west of Andelain; and during the conflict, a shard had broken off from that piece of the Stone: had broken off and been lost.

The air seemed to grow warmer. It felt like a touch of steam. Nevertheless a chill slid along Linden's spine as if her sweat had turned to ice.

Lost, the green flake had remained so for centuries, leaking slow ruin into the hills, until it was discovered by a village of Woodhelvennin. By then, the Clave had come to rule the Land, and the lore of the Lords, which might have warned or protected the Woodhelven, had been corrupted. So the village was itself corrupted, generation after generation, until at last the evil shard was used against Linden, Sunder, and Hollian while Covenant rambled in Andelain alone.

Later Covenant had destroyed that virulent flake as he had once shattered the 11learth Stone itself. But Linden remembered it still. She had felt its evil at a time when she did not know how to bear such knowledge.

Now, staring appalled at the lurid emerald after-flash on her retinas, she wondered: if one little piece of that terrible bane had survived, why not more than one?

The Giant-Ravers had fought a number of battles against the Land's defenders. They had channeled immense forces through their fragments of the Stone. Other pieces could have broken off and been lost.

She could imagine no other explanation. Somehow an enemy of the Land had found such a piece. Or Esmer had It was possible. Time seldom hinders me. His access to the past made almost any act of treachery conceivable.

The thought that she would have to confront the old bane which had nearly undone both the Council of Lords and Thomas Covenant shrilled along her nerves, making her guts squirm with dread.

Another quick flare of green stained the night.

Detonations of acid volleyed around it. The breeze falling from the mountainsides carried intimations of slaughter out into the moonlight.

Among the Ranyhyn, shadows seemed to melt and solidify. Then Bhapa stood at Mahrtiir's knee, gazing urgently up at the Manethrall. Even in the dark, his left arm and shoulder blazed with damage: Linden's dismayed nerves discerned a wound like a deep burn.

Lingering emerald flickered among fine droplets of black fluid in the hurt. He had been caught at the fringe of a blast; lashed with power.

"Manethrall-" His throat clenched in pain. Forcing himself, he gasped softly, "I know not what they are.

But they are many. And they hold-"

He could not find words for what he had beheld.

"We have seen it," Mahrtiir replied through his teeth.

"Mount at once. I cannot now tend to your wound."

The Cord nodded. For a moment, he appeared to crouch, huddling over his injury; and his hurt burned at Linden as if she, too, had been splashed with acid.

Then he flung himself onto Whrany's back.

"Describe them, Cord." Stave spoke quietly, but his tone cut through the restiveness of the horses. "What is their appearance? What did you discern of them?"

Green malignance slashed the night, momentarily limning the exposed shape of the foothills. It looked more savage now, and reached farther: its wielders were advancing up the slope, or the urviles opposing it had been decimated. Frantic barking rose against the breeze. Scattered blooms and geysers of obsidian tattered the flash of emerald, but could not tear it apart.

Linden clung to the warm wood of the Staff and the broad strength of Hyn's back, and tried to believe that she was capable of combating a piece of the Illearth Stone.

Without wild magic "They are bitter," Bhapa answered in a congested voice, "and ancient beyond estimation. So I have felt.

They appear to rise from the ground as if they have been freed from graves. Some have the size and semblance of trees, though they walk like men.

JW.

Others resemble Cavewights and similar creatures.

Still others wear monstrous shapes-I have never beheld the like, or heard them named."

Through his teeth, he groaned, "They are too many.

Far too many. The urviles cannot hold them."

Linden's heart quailed to hear him. Freed from graves-Oh, God. She seemed to hear Stave's response before he spoke. Animate dead "It should not be so," said the Master. "Yet it is. In this the recall of the Haruchai is sure." Earlier, days ago, he had spoken of the lore and bitterness of the Viles made manifest in slain flesh, corpses with the puissance of Lords.

Again emerald beat in the air like the throbbing of a diseased heart. It had come a long way up the hillside.

A spatter of blackness answered it, and fell still. The Ranyhyn stamped and whickered anxiously.

"We have shared it mind to mind across the millennia," Stave continued, "undiminished and unconfused."

The vitriol which the urviles wield for destruction pulsed in their hearts.

"At first I was reluctant to name what I perceive. It offends Time and all Law. Yet now I am certain."

Abruptly he stopped.

Clad in cerements and rot, their touch was fire.

Sitting Rhohm at Linden's side, Liand was a dark ache in the moonlight, an outpouring of innominate alarm.

Behind them, Pahni leaned from her mount to succor Bhapa as best she could, while Anele muttered execrations into his beard.

"Speak the name, Bloodguard," Mahrtiir put in harshly. "Your knowledge is needed."

Bursts of green evil echoed through the night, accumulating like summer lightning. Linden thought she heard the sound of running; desperate haste. Small swirls of blackness coalesced along the slope below her, still some distance from the Waynhim.

The urviles had been routed.

As did the Viles, they persisted outside or beyond life and death. As do the urviles, they had forms which could be touched and harmed.

"They are Demondim," Stave answered. If he felt either fear or uncertainty, he did not show it. "Esmer has brought them to this time."

Apparently Cail's son had betrayed Linden and her companions with a vengeance.

If the legends of the Demondim were accurate, and their lore as vast and insidious as Stave had reported, the creatures might be able to destroy the Staff of Law.

Given a little time, they could easily exterminate the last of the urviles and Waynhim. Even wild magic might not surpass their powers.

"Ringthane," Mahrtiir asked avidly, "will we not give battle? The urviles cannot hold. In moments they will be swept aside, and the Waynhim with them. We must ride to their defense."

"No!" Linden protested. "We can't. Not here. Don't you remember what Stave said? There haven't been any battles," any extravagant exertions of power, "in this part of the Land." Not since she had unmade the Sunbane. "If we fight now," or if she did, "we'll violate history. We'll damage the Arch of Time."

The mere presence of the Demondim and a flake of the Illearth Stone might suffice to undermine the foundations of reality.

Yet the plight of the urviles cried out to her. Their desperate barking had become ragged, frenetic: they were being overwhelmed. And the Waynhim would be next. Already the grey creatures stood at the verge of the Stone's reach. With each mounting flash of emerald, each multiplied burst of virulence, their doom advanced on them. She could hear them chanting, and knew that they were too weak, too few Shapes that she could not define crowded up the slope, dark forms like a stormlashed wave breaking impossibly upward. They seemed to devour the moonlight so that they were illumined only by green evil. But now other forces were visible as well, quick eruptions of a killing opalescence which appeared to flash from indistinct hands.

"Then what must we do?" snarled Mahrtiir. "It is intolerable that all who aid us must be slain while we stand aside."

"Protect me," she answered, acrid with self-restraint.

The Waynhim had preserved the Staff for her. The urviles had exhausted themselves to help her find it. She wanted to rush to their defense, regardless of the consequences. But she had recognized her true peril.

"I need time-"

It is an effect of my nearness.

You will not be blocked from wild magic.

She needed time to rediscover the truth about herself.

At last, the Waynhim released the results of their steady invocation. From their wedge, a shock wave poured down the hillside; a blast which dwarfed the one that had warded their cave. Perceptible only because it was so potent, it crashed against the rising tsunami of the attackers.

A staggering emerald jolt answered the collision.

Murderous nacre blazed soundlessly from the hands of the Demondim. Instantly an electric discharge as cruel as fangs and as lurid as the Despiser's lightning lit the night; and for that brief moment Linden saw the Demondim clearly.

Eyeless like the creatures they had spawned, they resembled their creations in no other way except darkness. Bhapa was right. They looked like huge trees ripped somehow intact from centuries of mold and rot; like Cavewights corroded by time to skeletons and ferocity; like kresh and other rapt beasts resurrected to repay their deaths. Among them marched human corpses, men and women who knew only the animating lust of their possessors. And there were other figures as well, monsters in the shape of nightmares. The Demondim appeared to number in the hundreds, all surging up I.

ward against the assault of the Waynhim-and all so long abandoned to the hungry embrace of worms that they had forgotten whatever they had once known of their mortality.