Frowning, she tossed her jeans to Pahni as though she meant to spurn their implications. Inadequacy and loss: needs that she would never be able to satisfy: loads too heavy for her to bear. The Staff she wedged between rocks so that it would not float away. If it drifted, Pahni would retrieve it.

Regret could be refused. Despair was a different issue.

As if in abnegation, Linden sank into the stream, scooped up sand, and began rubbing handfuls of grit into her hair, onto her scalp. Scouring herself—

The abrasion hurt, but she welcomed it.

Later Linden sat on a flat stone near the sand, wearing her wet clothes but not her socks and boots; resting with her feet in the cool caress of the current. Her skin felt scraped raw, and there were patches on her scalp where she had drawn blood. But she did not mind. Those pains were trivial by comparison.

Her socks lay drying beside her. For the time being, she left her boots where Pahni had thrown them. The Staff of Law she held across her lap. With her fingertips, she stroked the incused runes. They could have signified anything; but she wanted to believe that they were a prophecy of hope.

Unhindered by Kevin’s Dirt, she ought to be able to accomplish almost anything with her Staff and Covenant’s ring. Surely she could do more for Jeremiah here than in the Lost Deep?

Cross-legged and straight-backed, Pahni sat on another stone nearby. She, too, had bathed thoroughly. Now she gazed into the stream with tension in her shoulders and shadows in her eyes.

Linden was not ready to resume thinking and caring; not really. But the conflicted purity of Pahni’s spirit pleaded for her attention. Sighing to herself, she said quietly, “Talk to me, Pahni. Something is troubling you. I could try to guess, but it’s better if you just tell me.”

“Ah, Ringthane,” the girl replied with a sigh of her own. “I am a small creature among the great beings and terrors of the world. My concerns do not merit your heed.”

Don’t touch me.

Then the Cord turned. Gazing nakedly into Linden’s eyes, Pahni said, “Yet Liand is not a small creature. He is not. He is the first true Stonedownor in uncounted centuries, wielder of the Sunstone’s wonder”—she faltered for a moment—“and my beloved. His valor and daring are worthy of Giantish tales. Indeed, they are worthy of the Ranyhyn. For his sake, I will speak.”

Linden knew what was coming. Nevertheless she required herself to wait in silence.

Carefully Pahni said, “It becomes ever plainer that when Anele addressed us on the plateau of Glimmermere, he spoke at the Timewarden’s behest. His pronouncements were given to him by the Timewarden’s spanning consciousness.”

Linden nodded. “I remember.”