But before he could muster a response, Branl stiffened: a subtle intensification.

“Skest advance upon us,” the Master announced. “They are nigh.” A moment later, he added, “They appear to have no direct path. They follow the dictates of the maze. Its intricacy delays them. Nonetheless they come.”

Damnation! Twisting in his seat, Covenant looked past Clyme for some sign of the Feroce. But of course the senses of the Humbled would recognize the lurker’s creatures before Covenant spotted them. Briefly he studied the hill-wall beside him; but he saw no hope there. Its outward face was too steep, too smooth. Given time, Branl and Clyme might contrive to scale it. Covenant could not.

Wincing, he glanced over the cliff; tried to imagine a descent. If he abandoned the Ranyhyn, they might have time to escape.

Then vertigo hit him, a blow to the stomach. He jerked his eyes away.

“Say something,” he panted at his companions. “Tell me what to do. Tell me what we’re going to do.”

They were Haruchai. As far as he was concerned, no Haruchai had ever failed him. Not even when Bannor had refused to accompany him to Foul’s Creche.

Rigid as rock, Clyme began, “We will trust—”

He may have meant the Ranyhyn, or the Feroce, or Covenant himself; but Covenant no longer heard anything. Through the cloth covering the krill, he felt a sudden throb of heat.

Joan! Instinctively he flinched. His whole body tried to squirm away from the dagger.

An instant passed before he realized that the rush of heat was not as fierce as he had expected. He could bear it.

Ah, hell. Was she simply unsure of her target? Was she too badly broken to focus her force when she could not sense his touch on the krill? Or was she getting weaker—?

His own questions distracted him. A moment passed before he felt crawling on the sensitive parts of his skin; hiving insects; fornication. Things that could bite and sting were on his scalp, under his clothes, in his boots.

With no more warning than that, a caesure erupted above and beyond the slate barrier.

The Fall was comparatively minor, a mere flick of wild magic and chaos no more than five paces wide. And it had missed Covenant and his companions. At once, it began to lurch away, chewing westward through stone and time into the confusions of the Shattered Hills. Nevertheless it was as destructive as a hurricane in the substance of the world. Centuries or millennia were superimposed and shredded until the rock exploded, torn apart by the instantaneous migraine of its own slow life. Shards and splinters were flung in all directions like shrapnel, cutting as knives, fatal as bullets.