At last, Covenant remembered that he was no longer holding Linden’s Staff. Awkwardly he reclaimed it from the sand. “In case she needs it,” he explained to no one in particular. Then he told Stave and Pahni, “Let’s go. I’m not getting any stronger.”

He would need a certain kind of weakness: the kind that inspired desperation.

Turning downstream, he started toward the hillside bulging with rocks which blocked the eastward watercourse from view.

As both Pahni and Stave joined him, the Giants parted to let them pass. Stave bore Linden with familiar ease. Some dark emotion cast a shadow across Pahni’s features, but she did not allow it to interfere with her attentiveness.

As Covenant neared the first rise, he heard Anele’s voice. Instinctively he turned his head; saw Anele sitting in the basin of Stormpast Galesend’s breastplate. With one hand, the old man stroked the inner surface of the armor. The other he brushed back and forth through the sand, making trails like glyphs or sigils.

Pronouncing each word distinctly, Anele said, “This stone does not recall Linden Avery, Chosen Earthfriend. Yet Anele does. The world will not see her like again.”

The old man’s words followed Covenant like a prediction of failure as he began clambering along the hillside.—not see her like again. If he failed to rouse Linden, he would make a prophet of Anele.

Distracted, he stumbled; might have fallen. But Pahni caught his arm. After a moment like imminent panic, he remembered the importance of paying attention to where he was and what he did; of watching where he set his feet, being ready to use his hands. As he worked his way among the rocks, he reverted to the neglected disciplines of his disease, the care required by leprosy.

His eyes told him that some of the stones had been weathered smooth while others remained rough and jagged; hazardous. His hands did not. He could not be confident of his grip when he tried to secure his balance on a rock, or on Linden’s Staff. Among the obstacles of the slope, he saw patches of dirt parched to the hue of straw; slides of shale so old that they had forgotten their original colors. Gradually his life contracted until it contained little except places to put his feet and hands. He hardly noticed Stave’s progress above him on the hillside, Pahni’s watchfulness, the gentle twisting of the breeze, or the vexed mutter of the stream.

For a time, he did not think about Linden or fear.

Laboring, he crested the first rise. As he started down the far side, the rest of the company fell out of sight behind him. Beyond this slope, the next hill looked easier. Already he felt weak enough for any amount of desperation. Nonetheless he was not ready.