“Stave’s discernment is certain,” growled the Ironhand. “A great evil advances against us. Its path is erratic, aye, yet it hastens in its own fashion. If we do not scatter before it, we must have some other defense.

“Is this a caesure? A Fall? You have spoken of such wrongs, but ere now we have not beheld their like.”

No one answered her. “Whatever you’re going to do,” Covenant snapped at Liand, “do it soon. Joan won’t stop with just one. Turiya won’t let her. She’ll keep trying until she finds the range.”

Linden jerked a look at the croyel—and nearly wailed. The creature’s whole face radiated triumph like a cynosure.

For the space of a heartbeat, she froze while her entire reality split into fragments. A dismembered part of her recalled inhabiting Joan’s mind in the core of a Fall: a lorn figure who should have perished long ago; a madwoman so weak and wounded that only turiya Raver’s compulsion and the ministrations of the skest kept her alive. Standing between thrashing seas and a wilderland of rubble, she used blasts of wild magic to destroy small pieces of stone and Time, creating caesures from the riven remains of granite; of sequence and causality. Nothing except her broken humanity and her inability to make her own choices prevented her from tearing the whole Arch from its foundations.

At the same time, another part of Linden gaped mutely at the croyel, crying, Why aren’t you afraid? Surely the creature was in the same danger? Surely the merest touch of a Fall would destroy the croyel as effectively as any physical death?

Why was turiya Herem willing to risk the destruction of a monster that both Roger and Lord Foul wanted alive?

But Linden had no time for this. When her heart beat again, her scattered mind sprang back into focus.

“Go!” With a shove, she sent Liand toward Jeremiah. “Save him if you can! Caesures are my problem!”

Then she swung the Staff of Law and begged it for fire.

If Joan struck again, and closer—If the Raver could impose that much coherence—

A moment later, dark flames bloomed from the Staff; and some of the aftereffects of wielding white gold left her. This conflagration was hers in spite of its compelled blackness: it felt right in her hands. And she was not Joan. She could choose. Earthpower and Law could heal the harm of wild magic. As long as Joan did not contrive to strike the exact place where Linden stood, the exact moment, Linden would be able to protect Liand.

“Ringwielder, no!” Pahni cried. “You must not permit this! I implore you! The peril is too great!”

She meant the peril to Liand.

“Cord!” barked Mahrtiir harshly. “Be silent! This matter is not ours to adjudge.”