Her companions seemed unable to speak. They had not shared her visions. To them, the idea that she had roused the Worm must have felt vaguely unreal; impossible to imagine. But even Liand, the least experienced and least informed of her friends, understood the magnitude of her surrender to the Harrow.

A short distance away, the Ardent’s ribbands wavered aimlessly, as if he sought to conceal a private terror.

Perhaps the thought that without power she could no longer be held responsible for the world’s doom should have allowed her a measure of relief; but it did not. Instead she felt fatally weakened, as if she had dealt herself a wound too grievous to survive.

Chapter 4. - After Unwisdom

4.

After Unwisdom

Linden Avery wanted to sit down on the benign grass and cover her face. She was full of shame, and had no right to it. In giving the Harrow what he wanted, if not in wrenching Thomas Covenant out of the Arch of Time, she had known what she was doing. She had made her choice deliberately. She could not excuse herself with blame.

Help me? she wanted to ask, although she hardly knew who might remain able or willing to aid her. Please?

You have companions, Chosen, who have not faltered in your service. If you must have counsel, require it of them.

Among them, only Liand retained any theurgy—and she had ignored his advice. She had not heeded any of her friends.

Too diminished to continue standing in front of the Harrow, Linden walked hesitantly toward Covenant. For the moment, at least, he had become a lesser pain, in spite of his uncontrollable lapses and his leprosy.

And he would be safe in Andelain—all of her companions would be safe—when the Harrow took her away. While Loric’s krill reflected wild magic from Joan’s ring, the Wraiths could refuse any evil. Even Kastenessen and the skurj, even Roger and Esmer, were precluded from bearing their malice among the Hills.

Nevertheless such things did not comfort her. The emptiness of her hands left her vulnerable in more ways than she could count. She was acutely conscious of the floundering dismay with which her friends followed her away from the Harrow. The bullet hole in her shirt had no significance now that the red flannel did not cover Covenant’s wedding band. Instead the wound of her death, like the strip that she had torn from the fabric for the Mahdoubt’s gown, and the small rents plucked by twigs and branches, merely made her look as tattered as her spirit.

In contrast, the grass stains on her jeans had never felt so fatal. They dragged at her steps like omens or arcane stigmata.

She had nothing to hold on to except Jeremiah’s crumpled racecar deep in her pocket. It was her only defense. Her son needed her. She did not know another way to save him.