“The Insequent who have charged me to constrain and aid him foretell one thing and also another. Some scry wisdom and vindication where others find only auguries of failure. It is conceivable that both are equally prescient, alike inspired and fallible. Therefore they conclude that the fate of the Earth is too conflicted to be known with any assurance. For that reason, I am sent to arbitrate uncertain outcomes.

“Perhaps a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells believes that his sight is sure. If he does so, the Insequent trust that he errs.”

“You’re probably right,” Covenant said abruptly; harshly. “But what’s the point?”

His voice snatched Linden out of her immobility. She found herself on her feet without realizing that she had arisen.

From a safe distance, and secured by the Humbled, he stood peering into the abyss. Linden retained enough health-sense to recognize that he had not returned to the present. He was a prophet of the past, and he spoke to ghosts. Wandering among his memories, he replied to questions that had not been asked by anyone living.

“You can’t kill her,” he snorted as if his answer disgusted him. “If she isn’t as old as Lord Foul, she might as well be. And she’s become just as dangerous. The only difference is, she doesn’t think. She feels. He has ambitions she can’t imagine—and he’s way more patient. Most of the time, she sleeps because she doesn’t know any other way to endure her frustration.”

Then Covenant apparently slipped into another fissure. He fell silent. His bandaged hands twitched as if they were groping for something tangible; some bedrock fact or perception to which he could cling. But he did not find one.

Liand cleared his throat. “Linden.” He made a palpable effort to sound less intimidated than Mahrtiir. “The Harrow does not act. If he attempts some incantation, he does so in silence, motionless. Should his knowledge prove insufficient—”

The Stonedownor’s voice faded into a sigh of doubt.

“The Insequent,” Clyme pronounced severely, “esteem their prowess too highly. Their arts demean the unwary, but they cannot redeem themselves.”

The Ardent appeared to consider a retort, then swallow it.

For a moment, Linden stood like Covenant, as if she, too, had fallen into a memory from which she could not escape. But she was not trapped there. She was choosing necessary recollections.

First, the Harrow had once said to her, I desire this curious stick to which you cling as though it possessed the virtue to ward you.

The Staff of Law, her Staff. With wild magic and bereavement and love, she had fused the living powers of Vain and Findail into an instrument of Law. Under Melenkurion Skyweir, her Staff had been transformed to blackness in battle. Ten thousand years ago, Caerroil Wildwood had defined it with runes. His lore had contributed to Covenant’s resurrection.