That was her doing. Hers.

And yet, somehow, he remained Thomas Covenant, the man who had twice defeated Lord Foul. The cut lines of his visage and the gauntness of his frame, even the potential tears in his eyes, did not imply frailty. Rather they conveyed an austere authority. He resembled a sovereign brought low, accustomed to command in spite of his ragged state. In the light of Liand’s Sunstone, his silver hair shone like an oriflamme, and the pale scar on his forehead gleamed like an anointment.

The bandages on his hands—cerise and incarnadine, opalescent and viridian—were grotesqueries that only emphasized his stature.

Linden’s eyes burned at the sight of him; at his suffering and his unextinguished spirit. Oh, he diminished her. That was his nature—or hers. Nonetheless his effect on her had shifted. His support against the Humbled made her ache to prove worthy of him. To win back whatever love she had lost during his immeasurable absence with the Arch of Time.

She trusted that he would respond when she needed him.

She was less confident of the Humbled. They had changed their minds once. They might do so again. But when she finally said to Stave, “Let’s go. I’ve kept us all waiting too long,” the three Masters began urging Covenant toward the Harrow.

Stoically Galt, Branl, and Clyme clung to their right to believe in themselves. How otherwise will the Humbled redeem themselves in my sight? Beyond question, they feared grief more than any peril. The Vizard had taught them too well. Being Haruchai, they did not know how to distinguish between sorrow and humiliation.

Summoning her resolve, Linden led her companions to dare the outcome of her last gamble.

“Are you done with hesitation, lady?” asked the Harrow acidly. “Even now, the Worm feeds. Ere long, its hunger will become a convulsion in the fundament of the Earth. Will you at last permit me to uphold our bargain?”

Linden stared into the black emptiness of his eyes as if she had become fearless. “Let’s be clear.” Her voice felt stiff in her throat, brittle and unwieldy. But it did not tremble. “You’ve already got what you wanted from me. Now you’re going to take us to my son. All of us. And you’re going to bring us all back when we’ve rescued him. You’re going to bring him with us.”

“I have said so,” the Harrow retorted. “I have vowed it. I will fulfill my oath.”

The Ardent nodded. “Allay your doubts, lady.” His anxiety had reclaimed him, quashing his complacent lisp. “The word of any Insequent is as necessary as breath. Knowledge is a strict treasure. It does not suffer falsehood. Should the Harrow fail to perform all that you have asked, all that he has gained will be reft from him. And”—the Ardent’s ribbands twisted like flinching—“I am present to aid the completion of his bargain.”