Indirectly, indirectly, the Despiser had urged her to awaken the Worm of the World’s End by resurrecting Covenant. Lord Foul had provided the circumstances and the impetus that goaded her damaged heart. By dismay and desperation, he had encouraged her to surrender her powers so that she would be brought here; so that she would be forced to bear witness and do nothing. So that her futility in the face of Jeremiah’s need would break her at last.

The Despiser had underestimated her. Again. He had failed to grasp the scale of her willingness to suffer for her son’s sake, or the acuity of her flayed perceptions. He did not know that she could hear vast pain masked by Lord Foul’s exaltation.

“Linden?” Liand panted. “Is this your son’s plight? You have described it, but words—” He strained for language. “Linden, that creature—that monster—! What it does to your son is an abomination.”

As if she were clenching her own fist, Linden felt his hand tighten on the orcrest. Fierce with ire, he began to draw forth more Earthpower, and still more. If the white purity of the Sunstone could be used as a weapon, he intended to assail the croyel. His desire to strike was as vivid as a shout.

His spirit was too clean to countenance atrocities: a handicap which she did not share.

She meant to stop him. She needed only the health-sense that his efforts supplied. She did not intend to let him sacrifice himself.

Before she could forestall the Stonedownor, however, the croyel raised Jeremiah’s maimed hand. Undisturbed by the avid depths of the Harrow’s eyes, the creature caused Jeremiah to gesture negligently in Liand’s direction.

Warm as breath, a sudden wave of magic crashed into the young man.

It swatted him away; flung him hard against one of the dark ridges of travertine. The impact nearly shattered Linden’s concentration: it may have shattered his bones. Blood red as an arterial hemorrhage burst from his mouth, splashed incrimination onto the luminous floor. Flopping like a doll stuffed with cloth and cotton, he sprawled face-first to the stone.

Apparently the croyel perceived a greater threat in Liand—or in orcrest—than in the Harrow. Or in Linden.

Instantly inert, the Sunstone fell from Liand’s grasp; rolled away. A stride or two beyond his fingers, it came to rest.

At once, Linden’s health-sense evaporated, denatured by her proximity to the source of Kevin’s Dirt. Without transition, she was blinded to the truth of Jeremiah’s anguish and Liand’s injuries and the croyel’s evil.

At the same time, Anele wrenched free of her. His mouth stretched in a soundless wail as he turned; fled back into the corridor toward the palace.

Linden let him go. He could not aid her now. Perhaps his reappearance among the rest of her companions would serve to disenchant them.

They would take too long—