The Haruchai turned a searching gaze on Linden. “I will remind you, however, that even here Manethrall Mahrtiir would counsel trust. The ways of the Ranyhyn are a mystery in the Land, and their discernment surpasses ours. I surmise that in this place we will witness some event, or encounter some friend or foe, which they deem needful. Come good or ill, boon or bane, we must hold fast to our faith in the great horses.”

An encounter? Linden drew a shuddering breath, tried to calm the rapid stutter of her pulse. An event? What could possibly happen here? She had ridden for leagues across open terrain, but her life was still constrained by stone walls that allowed no turning, no choices: no conceivable escape. No help for her son. Stave was wrong: Desecration did not lie ahead of her. It was here, in this pile of ruined bones. Or the Ranyhyn had followed Kelenbhrabanal’s example by electing a form of self-sacrifice which she was helpless to alter.

Yet the former Master was also right.—hold fast to our faith—What else could she do? She was here now, with no food or water, no hope for Jeremiah; no chance to make one last effort in the Land’s name. What remained, except to pray that she and her friends had not made a terrible mistake by surrendering their fate to the Ranyhyn?

When the horses gained the bottom of the caldera, Linden found that the mound of bones did not rise much higher than her head. And around them lay a clear space perhaps a dozen paces wide, suggesting that the bones had been placed here rather than simply discarded. At some point in the lost past, someone had arranged the scatter of skeletons into a heap like a cairn. But why anyone had bothered to do so, she could not conceive.

In the cleared flat, the horses halted, facing the bones. Their muscles trembled with fatigue. Sweat still ran from their flanks. But they did not shift their hooves or walk around the pile. Instead they stood motionless, waiting, as if they expected something ineffable to manifest itself within the clutter.

It is ever thus. The alternative is despair.

Linden closed her hand around Covenant’s ring through her shirt. She was finding it harder and harder to believe that despair was not a better choice. Here her deeds had come to doom, as they must—She could not escape their ramifications.

She had violated the Laws of Life and Death to restore Thomas Covenant; but she had failed to bring him back whole. From that moment, it was probably inevitable that he would abandon her. Only his fatal loyalty to other people’s mistakes had prevented him from turning his back sooner.

She should have listened—

Without warning, Jeremiah slipped down from Khelen’s back; and a caesure appeared, seething luridly among the teeth of the caldera’s rim.

Christ!