There may have been a head pressed to hers, a cheek tight against the side of her face. She tried to reach eyes and gouge them out so that she would be given a chance to breathe—

Then hands lifted her. They were stronger than She Who Must Not Be Named. Strong enough to be the foundation-stones of reality: strong enough to draw her out of despair. Through a fading chorus of screams, they released her from the killing embrace, the smothering clasp.

While she tried to gulp water into her lungs, the hands raised her into air and light.

The air and light of the living.

Frantically she gasped to fill her chest with survival.

Now she was upheld by a single hand that gripped the back of her shirt. Amid the receding cacophony of torrents, she seemed to hear an urgent voice pant, “Ringthane! Linden Avery!”

A voice that she may have known restored her name.

Was that possible? It was not. She Who Must Not Be Named would never tolerate it.

Nevertheless the voice was Pahni’s. The light on Linden’s face was sunshine: she was breathing air. The fluid in which she floated was water instead of anguish.

Clean water. Fresh water.

“Ringthane, hear me!”

Beyond question, that voice belonged to Pahni.

Streaming hair covered Linden’s eyes. Water splashed inadvertently into her mouth. While she coughed, nightmares endeavored to pierce the daylight, breach the presence of her saviors. They tried to drag her back into the depths. But their grasp on her had frayed. It grew weaker with every won breath.

She was in water somewhere, saved and sustained.

“Ringthane! Here is the Staff!”

The bane could not reach her.

At her side, Stave said, “When Linden accepts the Staff, Cord, will you be able to preserve the ur-Lord? Does your strength suffice? He has fallen within himself once more, and cannot swim. Your aid will ease my task.

“We must escape this current. It hastens, and we may tumble upon rapids beyond those stones.”

Linden felt no current. It was gentle—or she had not entirely returned to her body. But she recognized Covenant’s ring on its chain around her neck.

“Aye.” Pahni’s voice was clear over the complex plaints of running water. “The Staff is indeed wondrous. I have held it for moments only, yet already I have become more than I was.”

“Then assist me,” Stave instructed, “while she regains her senses. We must swim in their stead.”

Linden heard them plainly enough. Now she began to understand what they were saying. The Staff. Her Staff. The current. Swim.

And Covenant.

They were alive. God, they were alive!

Quivering at the exertion, she forced her chin upward, took a long breath free of spattered water. Then she managed to lift her hands long enough to push the hair out of her eyes.