She could do this, she told herself. As long as she refused to panic. And here she was not alone. Several of her friends accompanied her, of course—but she was not thinking of them. No, where Jeremiah’s possession was concerned, she was not alone because the Land itself stood with her. Its gifts were her aides, her surgical team: health-sense, the Staff of Law, Loric’s krill, even wild magic. In spite of a landscape left arid and stricken by ancient warfare and bloodshed, she and Jeremiah ascended a hillside in a place where health and self-determination and even sanity were his birthright.

In addition, she had other help, aid for which she had not asked. Roused by Pahni’s skilled instincts, or by his own empathy, Liand trailed behind Covenant and Mahrtiir. In one hand, the Stonedownor held his piece of orcrest shining in the dark like a sustained moment of sunlight; a small display of wonder, human and ineffable. Already his light blurred the crisp precision of the stars.

Linden wanted to send him away. She intended to spare him. For Jeremiah’s sake, she did not.

More friends. More support. More Earthpower.

Here, if nowhere else in the Land, she could do this.

As long as she was careful.

Her pulse was strong in her veins, hard but unappalled, as she and Stave topped the rise a few paces behind Galt and Jeremiah, and reached the crest of a ridge like a contorted spine twisting east and south away from the distant loom of Landsdrop.

Here the whole ridgecrest was an exposed seam of gypsum, sickly white against the darker terrain: a pale road into the east. Around Linden, the wan glitter of starlight lay like immanence on the friable crust. On one side, the hills piled higher against the south. On the other, they canted slowly lower, apparently slumping toward the fens and marshes of Sarangrave Flat. From her vantage, she seemed able to see for leagues in spite of the darkness; yet she descried no sign of the Sarangrave itself. Its ominous sprawl was still occluded by hills, or it was simply too far away for her senses. The breeze blowing over the baked slopes was cool, almost chill, and slightly moist; but it suggested none of the Sarangrave’s verdure and rot, or of the lurker’s bitter appetites.

Black against the softer hues of minerals and sandstone, Clyme stood atop a hill a long stone’s throw to the north. From the far side of the canyon, Branl watched the south.

Galt had stopped Jeremiah at the highest point of the ridge. Now he turned the boy to face Linden. As Linden and Stave halted as well, the Ironhand and Frostheart Grueburn arrived behind them. Outlined by the glow of Liand’s Sunstone, Covenant plodded upward in stark contrast to blind Mahrtiir’s lighter, more confident strides. Soon Liand and Pahni would reach the foot of the ascent.