Nevertheless her distress caught the attention of her friends. Mahrtiir lifted his head. Pahni looked up at Linden: hope flared suddenly in the young Cord’s eyes and then faded, extinguished by what she saw. Bhapa regarded Linden like a man who had lost faith and now sought to regain it.

The Humbled appeared to ignore her. Anele had stretched out on the thick grass near Covenant’s feet. There he slept with one hand covering his mouth like a man who feared that he might babble in his dreams. But the Giants turned toward Linden expectantly.

Liand hesitated for only an instant. Then he moved to stand in front of Linden. The black augury of his eyebrows emphasized the questions thronging in his kind eyes. Yet he reached out and clasped her shoulders gently as if he meant to reassure her.

“Linden,” he began in a tone of deliberate calm, “it is too much. Too much has transpired. Of these events, too many lie beyond my comprehension. We have been informed that the last crisis of the Earth now approaches, yet such avowals appear empty of meaning before the wonder and terror which you have wrought.

“Other needs press upon you. It is my intent to respect them, as I have respected you from the first, and will continue to the last. This, however, I must ask.

“I perceive that your understanding of what has occurred exceeds that of any Stonedownor or Raman. In one form, it surpasses even that of the Masters, whose memories span millennia. In another, it out-runs the wide learning of these Giants, though they have journeyed distances and met perils inconceivable to me. Nonetheless I ask this of you. Was it not impossible for you to have foreseen the outcome of your deeds here? Do you not share with each and all of your companions, Masters and Giants and Ramen alike, an inability to scry the future? And if you have no gift of prescience, are you not by that lack rendered blameless?

“Upon the rocks in Salva Gildenbourne, when we were beset by the skurj, I hazarded our lives by wielding both orcrest and the Staff of Law in an attempt to summon rain—an attempt which exceeded every gift of knowledge and skill and strength within me. That we evaded Kastenessen’s snare is no tribute to my foresight. I was merely foolish, foolish and desperate. Yet my folly was transformed to hope, not by any deed of mine, but through the aid of the Demondim-spawn, and with your own far greater might.

“Linden—my friend—” Briefly Liand faltered, overcome by compassion. Then he regained a measure of dignity. “May the same not be said of you? Can any being or power aver with certainty that your folly will not be transformed to hope by the succor of some lore or theurgy”—he referred to Covenant with a glance—“which we cannot foresee?”

Linden shook her head. She heard his sincerity. She felt it in the grasp of his hands. Still she rejected it. She had been given too many warnings. The horserite visions of the Ranyhyn may have been difficult to interpret: the images with which Lord Foul had afflicted her during her translation to the Land were not.