But Infelice had not given her what she needed. Linden tried again. “How long will it take? Hours? Days? Weeks?”

Like angry weeping, the Elohim replied, “We will seek to delay our passing because we must. We will flee and conceal ourselves at such distances as we are able to attain, requiring the Worm to scent us out singly, for we do not wish to perish. With sustenance, however, the Worm’s might will grow. Ere a handful of days have passed, its puissance will discover and consume us. Then there will be no force in all the Earth great enough to delay the Worm.”

Again the Harrow gave his humorless laugh; but no one heeded him.

“All right,” Linden repeated. “A handful of days.” But she was no longer looking at Infelice. Her attention had veered away. “That isn’t much.” Stave or the Humbled may have had further questions for the Elohim. Like Linden herself, the Haruchai did not forgive. There were many things of which they could have accused Infelice. And Mahrtiir may have wished to protest the implied fate of the Ranyhyn. Linden would have let them say whatever they wanted. She was not speaking to them as she muttered, “I need to face this. I can’t put it off any longer.”

She expected the Harrow to offer her a bargain. An exchange. Paralysis or urgency was the only choice left to her; and Jeremiah needed her.

Do it, she told herself. While you still can.

But when Linden turned away from Infelice, the Ramen and Liand joined her. A moment later, the Manethrall stepped in front of her, compelling her to consider his blinded visage.

“Ringthane,” he began gruffly. “Chosen. There is much here which transcends us. We are Ramen, servants of the great Ranyhyn. For millennia, we have been content to be who we are. We do not participate in the outcome of worlds.

“But there is one matter of which I must speak.”

Linden stared at him. Her face felt too stiff with emotion to hold any expression. She may have looked as ungiving as Stave’s kindred. But Mahrtiir was her friend. He had lost his eyes, and with them some measure of his self-worth, in her aid. With an effort, she said, “I’m listening.”

Carefully the Manethrall said, “Since we are assured that it must be so, I grant that the harm of the first Ringthane’s resurrection is vast and terrible. But it is done. It cannot be undone. And his need remains. It is present and immediate. To heal him now will not redeem that which is past, but may do much to relieve that which is to come.”

He was asking her to take a risk that she had already refused. For his sake, however, and for her other friends, she essayed an answer.

“I can’t really explain it. If you haven’t been possessed, you don’t know what it’s like to have someone else messing around inside you,” heart and soul. “Just doing that to him would be bad enough. But this is worse. A broken mind isn’t as simple as a cut, or a compound fracture, or an infection. Just one mistake—”