He knew that Coldspray and Mahrtiir were right. He was not strong enough. But the struggle to carry Linden over the rocks would be of use to him. It would prepare him—

Flatly Clyme averred, “The Humbled stand with the Unbeliever, as we have declared. If you oppose him, Stave, we will counter you. We will bear Linden Avery in your stead, enforcing the ur-Lord’s seclusion with her.”

“No, you won’t,” Covenant snapped immediately. Wheeling away from Stave, he raised his maimed fists at the Humbled. “Bloody damnation! We’re not going to fight about this. There’s too much at stake, and we’re all needed.”

Clyme’s straight stare gave nothing; surrendered nothing. But he did not contradict the Unbeliever.

Trembling, Covenant turned back to Stave. “You trust me,” he said as steadily as he could, “or you don’t. I respect that. I don’t like it, but I respect it. If you can’t leave me alone with her, we’ll just have to wait for her to wake up on her own.”

Liand had approached until he reached the Manethrall’s side. There he clasped Pahni’s hand. “Stave,” he said like a plea. “I comprehend nothing here. I grasp only that you are Linden’s friend, entirely true to her. For her sake, will you not relent?

“Both she and Thomas Covenant are closed to me. Yet I believe that there is love between them. She did not draw him back from death merely because he was silent before her, or because she feared for her son, or because she considered herself inadequate to the Land’s doom. She restored him to life and the living for this reason also, that she loves him. Can you not conceive that his wish to restore her in turn is no less loving—and no less needful?”

Stave held Covenant’s gaze like a challenge. “And if he has other motives as well, as she did? What then, Stonedownor?”

“Stone and Sea!” muttered the Ironhand. “You judge too severely, Haruchai.” Her tone was heavy with impatience. “All who live have other motives as well. Of a certainty, my comrades and I do. We do not serve Linden Giantfriend alone—or Covenant Timewarden with her. In addition, we seek the meaning of our own lives. We wish to measure ourselves against the perils of these times. For the survival of our kind, also, we must strive against ruin with our whole hearts. And we have not forgotten Lostson Longwrath. We crave some reply to his pain.

“I do not doubt that something similar may be said of the Ramen. The Stonedownor’s heart is conflicted within him, though his loves are as pure as any. And the old man, whom we have learned to cherish, is a snake’s nest of disturbed motives.