Trembling with strain, Covenant watched Stave and Pahni mount the slope. Ignoring his frailty, he stood where he was until the Cord reached the boulder he had indicated; until Stave disappeared behind it. Then, one small wrenched step at a time, Covenant started toward the stream.

His feet were numb: he could not feel his way. Instead he simply assumed that the sand shelved down gradually. Relying on blind luck or the Land’s providence, he lurched into the current.

As directly as he could, he headed toward the pool of deeper water. The well—

Fortune blessed him. His boots did not begin to strike unseen rocks until the stream had accepted a portion of Linden’s weight. With that assistance, he was able to keep his balance when he stumbled.

He did not look at her face. If he allowed himself to gaze upon her helplessness now, to regard the loved lines of her nose and mouth, the fraught tension of her brow, he feared that his resolve would crumble. The taut dance of her eyes behind their lids would unman him. He would lock his knees, stop moving, call for help, and weep.

Clenching his teeth until his jaws ached, he kept his eyes straight ahead and walked deeper.

As soon as the water reached his biceps, and he guessed that the streambed was about to drop away, he released Linden’s legs. Clamped his hand over her mouth. Pinched her nose with his truncated fingers.

Took a deep breath and dropped with her into the darkness.

When she finally began to struggle for air, he did not let her go.

Chapter 2. - Trying to Start Again

2.

Trying to Start Again

Linden Avery was drowning in She Who Must Not Be Named. She knew the truth, and her terror was absolute. She had released a flood among the roots of Mount Thunder. Because of her, ancient poisons and the accumulated weight of millennia had thundered into the cavern. They had swept her companions out of existence, carried Jeremiah and Covenant like flotsam to the bottom of the world. Everything that she had ever loved was gone.

But mere water could not harm her now. She had not accompanied her son and her only true lover to their deaths. Instead she had been swallowed by shrieking and hunger. She Who Must Not Be Named had claimed her. Simultaneously preserved and excruciated by betrayed desire and rage, Emereau Vrai and Diassomer Mininderain and the Auriference and Elena and a host of lost women had taken Linden. She had been consumed by the reified outcome of her actions in Jeremiah’s name, and in Covenant’s. Her own name had become agony.

She did not understand Elena’s presence. Nor did she question it.