“Timewarden,” Cav-Morin mused in a melody that wrenched at Covenant’s bones, “this is false.” He had always been Covenant’s favorite among his kind: a gentler spirit who knew when to condone human intrusion even though he did not know why he should do so. In his own way, he had loved the Ranyhyn as much as the Ramen did. “Your presence is false. Can you not discern this?

“Your time lies beyond our ken. You are needed then, not here. You are loved then, not here.

“There must be forbidding. The end must be opposed by the truths of stone and wood, of orcrest and refusal.”

With those words, he turned his back. Wearing sunshine like song and glory, he went to rejoin the other Forestals.

His counsel lit recognition like tinder in Covenant’s veins.

Suddenly Covenant was full of fire. His nerves burned. His muscles blazed. His heart hammered in his damaged chest. All of his senses opened, and he could smell—

Oh, God.

Smell? Damnation! He could practically taste Herem Kinslaughterer’s evil. It was everywhere around him, everywhere: hidden behind every tree, lurking under every leaf, twisting like mockery and malice around every bough. Concealed by sunlight, it boiled and chuckled, delighted with its own cunning.

This was turiya’s doing, this corruption of the remembered past. He had sent Covenant here to distract him until Joan recovered her failing strength; until she was ready to scatter the instants of his life like dust over the seafloor. But the Raver’s power showed through the veil of Covenant’s recall.

Still the ploy had succeeded. Turiya Herem had chosen a memory that Covenant adored. Covenant could have remembered this scene happily until he died. He loved it and the Forestals too much to trust his own discomfort.

Or the ploy would have succeeded. Perhaps it should have. But the Raver had made a mistake. He had underestimated the sheer might and melody of the Forestals. He had not considered that they might be able to detect his influence; that they might sing against it, opening Covenant’s perceptions.

Now Covenant burned with his own fire and abhorrence; his own storm of refusal. And somewhere long ages in the future, millennia after the last Forestal had surrendered his life, Covenant’s maimed hands still held the krill.

The krill was life. It was the instrument of his resurrection, as it was of Hollian’s before him. And Joan had increased its magicks. Covenant could use it. With wild magic, he could reclaim his heritage.

For centuries, his spirit had extended throughout the Arch of Time. Now he had been severed from it. He would never wield its forces again. But he could understand them. He could grasp the nature and implications of Joan’s theurgy. He could call upon them indirectly.