“Hit me,” he panted thinly. His voice was so frayed and raw that he hardly heard it. “Hit me again.”

A fire that might have been shock or shame or rage burned away Linden’s tears; but she did not hesitate. Flinging her whole hurt into the blow, she struck his cheek as hard as she could.

Physical pain. The shock and sting of abused skin. The harsh jerk of his neck as his head snapped back. Air which should have healed him in his lungs.

He saw her clearly again, as if she had slapped away his confusion.

“I’m sorry,” he said: the best answer he had. “I’m too full of time. I can’t hold on to it. But pieces—”

Her open anguish stopped him. He was not saying what she needed to hear. The Stonedownor—Liand, his name was Liand—tried to comfort her, but his words and his gentle hands did not touch her distress. The Haruchai was called Stave. His single eye considered Covenant with ungiving severity.

Linden had been brought to this place—to the Dead, and to Loric’s krill, and to the devastation of the world—by forces as great in their own way as the pressures which fractured Covenant.

“I couldn’t tell you then,” he said; groaned. “I couldn’t say anything. None of us could.” He meant the Dead around him. “The necessity of freedom—It’s absolute. You have to make your own choices. Everything hinges on that. If I told you where to find your son—or warned you what might happen if you used the krill the way you did—I would have changed your decisions. I would have changed the nature of what you had to choose.”

The nature of the risks that she had to take.

“That’s what Lord Foul does. He changes your choices. He wasn’t trying to stop you when you were attacked on your way here. His allies fought you because he wanted to make you more determined. So you would think you were doing the right thing.”

“His servants have their own desires,” Infelice told Linden. Her tone was acid, gemmed in gall. “Some among them do not believe that they serve him. In folly, they imagine that their aspirations exceed his, or that they act in their own names. But they cannot conceive the height and breadth of his intent. Like yours, all of their deeds conduce to his ends.

“Did we not caution you to beware the halfhand? Did we not speak to the peoples of the Land, seeking to ensure that you were forewarned?”

“Enough, Elohim,” Berek’s shade demanded. “Your plight is not forgotten. Permit the Timewarden to speak while he remains able to do so.”

Covenant ignored Infelice; ignored Berek. “I couldn’t treat you that way,” he went on, imploring Linden to understand him. “No matter what happened. I couldn’t tamper with anything you decided to do. I’ve already taken too many chances. If you need to blame someone, blame me.

“But if the Earth has any hope—any hope at all—it depends on you. It has ever since Joan brought you here. And it still does. Freedom isn’t just a condition for using wild magic. It’s a condition for life. Without it, everything eventually turns into Despite.”