The Masters seemed to discuss Covenant’s remark privately before Branl answered, “Ur-lord, we are able to contain our memories because we do not do so alone. Across the generations of the Haruchai, we have learned together to accommodate an ever-expanding recall. But we cannot gift our communion to others. We lack that power or craft. That we hear and answer the silent speech of Sandgorgons results from the remnants of samadhi Sheol within them, not from any outreach of our own minds.

“We are cognizant of your straits. The vastness of Time exceeds you. But we know not how to aid you.”

Grinding his teeth, Covenant reminded himself again to relax. “Don’t worry about it,” he repeated more severely. “One of us will think of something. And if we don’t—” He sighed. “The Ranyhyn still know what they’re doing.”

He had to believe that. He thought that he knew where to find Joan; but he had no notion what he would do when he reached her. He was only sure that she was his responsibility—and that he would never return to claim Linden if he did not first find an answer to Joan’s excruciation.

Barrows and shale seemed to stretch indefinitely into Covenant’s future and the Land’s past: a wracked wasteland like a battlefield where armies beyond counting had slaughtered each other for centuries. Yet eventually that region gave way to a wide sheet of old lava. Beyond it, the riders found a beaten plain webbed with gullies. Nonetheless Naybahn and Mhornym continued to discover water and forage; occasional aliantha. Between them, they kept Covenant fed and his mount running.

Later they came to a protracted series of ridges that lay athwart the south like fortifications, obstructing the course of the Ranyhyn. However, Naybahn and Mhornym surmounted each line of hills by angling away from Landsdrop to more gradual slopes in the east.

By Covenant’s reckoning, each ridge nudged his company closer to the boundaries of the Sarangrave.

By degrees, the Ranyhyn turned more directly toward the Sunbirth Sea. According to Clyme, they were passing south of the Sarangrave’s verge. If Mhornym and Naybahn held to this heading, their path would skim the northern edge of the Shattered Hills.

With every league, Covenant became more confident that he knew where the Ranyhyn were taking him. Somewhere among the broken stone and ravaged cliffs of Foul’s Creche, he would find Joan. Why else had the Ardent striven to convey everyone as far as he could in this direction? And if Ridjeck Thome were indeed their goal, the horses had chosen the safest route; probably the quickest. Any other approach would force them into the jumbled maze of the Shattered Hills: an area fraught with hazards, apt for ambush.