“Diassomer Mininderain,
The mate of might, and Master’s wife,
All stars’ and heavens’ chatelaine,
With power over realm and strife,
Attended well, the story tells,
To a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells.”

Linden remembered in spite of her confusion. Oh, come, my love, and bed with me—

Covenant had fallen into a private crevasse. Diassomer Mininderain had nothing to do with Linden, or with the dilemmas of her friends, or with the ending of the Earth. That woman was only a myth promulgated by the Clave for Lord Foul’s malign reasons.

“Covenant, please,” Linden begged. “Make sense.” She had done this to him. “We need you. I need you. Help us if you can.”

A shudder ran through him. Briefly he grimaced as if she had twisted his heart. “I’m sorry.” His hands made incomplete gestures like truncated supplications. “There are so many strands. I want to distinguish—But I don’t know how.”

Then his air of abstraction claimed him again. “If Creation and Despite have some kind of relevance to eternity—if they’re part of what eternity means somehow—other things may be relevant as well. One might be Indifference. Another might be Love. They’re all the same thing. But they’re all different.”

“Covenant!” Linden could not blunt the edge of desperation in her voice. “Please! We need you here.”

I think we should do this Linden’s way. Had he been referring to her intention to meet the Harrow’s demands? She can make this kind of decision. The rest of us can’t.

She had already done so much harm—

Liand’s earnest face added his appeal to hers. Distinctly Rime Coldspray said, “Covenant Giantfriend,” as if she hoped to remind him of who he was. “You redeemed the Dead of The Grieve from their long sorrow. Will you not now grant some boon or balm to our dolor and gall?”

But Covenant was trapped in his memories. He gave no sign that he had heard the Ironhand.

“Old stories—I mean the really old stories, like creation myths—are always true. Not literally, of course. Words aren’t good enough. And people always change the stories to suit themselves. But the stories are still true. Like the Clave’s version of what the Earth and Time are for. Or Diassomer Mininderain.

“None of this is her fault. She just can’t forgive it.”

Acute with blandishments and spells

Spoke a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells.

Linden found that she could not beseech him further. Helplessly she remembered: she had never been able to break the grip of her past, or of the Land’s.

With a-Jeroth the lady ran;
Diassomer with fear and dread
Fled from the Master’s ruling span.
On Earth she hides her trembling head,
While all about her laughter wells
From a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells.

“She was—or is—or has always been—an aspect of eternity. Maybe she was Love. The Lover. And maybe she fell when the Despiser did. That’s possible. Despite isn’t the opposite of Love. That’s Indifference. Love has more in common with Despite and Creation than with Indifference.”