Covenant’s eyes felt as untrustworthy as his hands. Cold or numbness blurred his sight in spite of Andelain’s clarity. Nevertheless he saw that the emotions and pressures of the beings around Linden did not console her. They could not. She hardly seemed to hear Kevin’s acid recrimination, or Infelice’s. Berek’s oblique defense did not touch her.

“Self-doubt?” asked the Harrow, mocking the Haruchai. “You also have become less than you were. The truth must surely be plain to all who have witnessed the lady’s theurgy. Naught but the Timewarden’s absolute resurrection could so pierce the self-absorption of the Elohim.”

The Humbled ignored the Insequent. As one, Galt and Branl and—Covenant clutched at the name—and Clyme turned to face the result of Linden’s terrifying gamble.

Galt seemed to speak for every Haruchai except Stave as he said, “Then command us, Unbeliever, Timewarden. Reveal what must be done. We know the treachery of your false son, and the madness of the Chosen. We will serve you with our last strength.”

Covenant tried to focus on Galt. But the krill plucked at his attention, luring him with images which had once been as familiar as Time. In shards and slivers, flaws, he caught glimpses of Loric’s prolonged, arduous search for a stone which could be shaped into the gem that formed the nexus of the dagger: a search which had taken him deep under Melenkurion Skyweir, following the Black River inward from Garroting Deep until he found a fragment of crystal made perfect by eons of contact with the Blood of the Earth. Like peering through cracked glass, Covenant saw Loric forge the metal of the krill, striving to emulate white gold. He lacked the raw materials to fashion white gold itself. But from his inherited and acquired lore, he had gleaned a comprehension of alloys: he worked with ores that could be transmuted and commingled until they became strong enough to sustain the pristine possibilities of the gem. If Covenant allowed himself to drift, he would be able to watch as though he stood at Loric’s side while the dour High Lord sweated over his incantations and fires—

But Linden needed something from Covenant, something that his lost memories could not supply. And he had already failed her too often. If he slipped away now, he might break the promise implied by speaking to her when he should have remained silent. Trust yourself. Do something they don’t expect. Broken as he was, he could still see that she hung on the brink, the outermost edge, of Kevin’s despair. Her sense of abandonment, of betrayal, might topple her. Any nudge—Infelice’s flagrant terror and scorn, the Harrow’s machinations, Kevin’s condemnation, the repudiation of the Humbled—might send her plunging into an abyss from which she could not be retrieved.

Desperately Covenant clung to the present. Wavering on his feet, he struggled to meet the demand of the Humbled. He could not distinguish it from Linden’s need.

“What will you do?” he countered. “If I don’t command you? If I refuse to respect what you’ve done to yourselves?”