Her particular intensity seemed to seal Liand’s throat. His mouth opened and closed on stillborn arguments. She saw in his eyes that her assertion had shocked him more profoundly, or more intimately, than Covenant’s resurrection.

The impassivity of the Masters may have expressed approval: Stave’s did not. Like Liand, Mahrtiir was silent. Behind his bandage, he appeared to weigh Linden’s needs against the Land’s; her desires against his own. Pahni made no attempt to conceal her visceral eagerness, her hope that Liand would be spared. Anxious and torn, Bhapa studied Linden for signs that she might waver.

But the Giants—

Rime Coldspray was the first to burst out laughing. Almost immediately, however, her comrades joined her. Stentorian and unconstrained, their loud humor filled the night: it seemed to cast back every darkness. Together they laughed until tears streamed down their faces; laughed as if laughter were another form of caamora, able to purge and cleanse until only wholeness remained. Under the stars, the vale rang with Giantish peals.

Earlier Linden had ached to hear the Swordmainnir laugh. Now their mirth daunted her: it seemed to defeat her. Once she had been stone. Now she had become as breakable as unfired clay. How could she hold up her head, or insist on protecting her friends, when the Giants found such glee in her arguments; her pleading?

“Ah, Linden Giantfriend,” the Ironhand chuckled as she subsided. “You are a wonderment in all sooth. Your words resemble a tale of woe, but they are not. They are a flight of fancy. Do you conceive that any Giant would turn aside from such a quest as yours? Ha! The lure of extravagant hazards is too great. And we can do naught to preserve the Elohim. We have no virtue to discover their many coverts—and no wish to do so. Both the World’s End and the Land’s many other perils will await our return from your son’s imprisonment. If they do not, they are too immense to be opposed by any force within our compass.

“We will accompany you, Linden Giantfriend, with your consent or without it. We cannot do otherwise, lest we lose the gift of joy entirely.”

The other women chortled their assent as if it were delight.

Hearing them, Liand’s face cleared. Their laughter banished his dismay. And for Mahrtiir also, the tension of an inner conflict eased. He was palpably relieved to turn away from responsibilities which exceeded his image of himself; and his devotion to Linden was strong. Bhapa’s reaction resembled Mahrtiir’s. As for Pahni, she was a Ramen Cord: she would follow where her Manethrall led, in spite of her fear for Liand.