“All right,” Covenant muttered as if he were Linden. “Let’s see if this works.”

He took the krill from his waist. Careful not to touch any part of the dagger, he flipped its covering aside until he had exposed the gem.

A blare of radiance stung his sight. It swept back the gloom. The jewel was a cynosure of argence. In that narrow place, it effaced imminent night.

Blinking as if his eyes were still full of blood, he saw skest wheel away from the few remaining Feroce. Turiya’s creatures knew the krill; or they remembered it. They or their distant ancestors had encountered it in the Sarangrave. Now they mewled like frightened young. They flinched and cowered. Then they began to retreat.

As if they shared one mind, a dozen skest all crowded toward the cleft and the maze at the same time.

Yes.

The Feroce let them go. Only five of the lurker’s worshippers still lived. They clung desperately to the green fires in their hands and trembled, shaken by atavistic dread.

When the skest were gone, the Feroce came a step or two nearer. Standing on gutted granite, they stopped. Their small forms seemed to ache with fatigue and defeat.

“We are weak,” they said, timorous as if they deserved punishment. “We have come too far from our waters. Distance frays the majesty of our High God. The skest are too many. We cannot quell them.”

Impassively Branl stated, “The skest will await us among the passages of the Shattered Hills.” With both hands, he stroked Naybahn’s neck. He may have been apologizing.

Or grieving.

Covenant’s jaws knotted. “And they’ll still be afraid.” Flanked by the Humbled and the Ranyhyn, he studied his straits. “They aren’t the real problem.” He knew how to reach Joan. “First we have to get there.” With his free hand, he indicated the eaten stone between him and the cleft; the only available entrance to the maze. The rock still steamed and stank as lingering acid bit deeper into its substance. “And we have to think of a way to save the Ranyhyn.”

The clifftop looked too badly gnawed to support him. It would never hold Naybahn or Mhornym.

Nevertheless Branl left Covenant’s side at once. Pressing himself to the hill-wall opposite the precipice, he side-stepped carefully toward the cleft.

Now Covenant saw that a narrow span of stone at the base of the hill had been left undamaged. It was too slim for the Ranyhyn, but it accommodated Branl.

When the Master reached the cleft, he glanced inward, nodded his satisfaction at the retreat of the skest. Then he told Covenant, “Our path is secure.” Frowning, he added, “It will not serve the Ranyhyn.”

Pale in the krill’s vividness, the flames of the Feroce guttered, timid and apprehensive. After a moment, they sighed, “Stone lives. Its life is slow. Its pain is slow. But it lives. It remembers.