Ten: Escape from Elohim

THE bells were clear to Linden now; but she no longer cared what they were saying. She was locked to Covenant's vacant eyes, his slack, staring face. If he could see her at all, the sight had no meaning to him. He did not react when she took hold of his head, thrust her horrified gaze at him.

The Giants were clamouring to know what had happened to him. She ignored them. Desperately marshalling her percipience, she tried to penetrate the flat emptiness of his orbs, reach his mind. But she failed: within his head, her vision vanished into darkness. He was like a snuffed candle, and the only smoke curling up from the extinguished wick was his old clenched stricture:

“Don't touch me.”

She began to founder in that dark. Something of him must have remained sentient, otherwise he could not have continued to articulate his self-despite. But that relict of his consciousness was beyond her grasp. The darkness seemed to leech away her own light. She was falling into an emptiness as eternal and hungry as the cold void between the stars.

Savagely, she tore herself out of him.

Honninscrave and Seadreamer stood with the First at Covenant's back. Pitchwife knelt beside Linden, his huge hands cupping her shoulders in appeal. “Chosen.” His whisper ached among the trailing wisps of dark. “Linden Avery. Speak to us.”

She was panting in rough heaves. She could not find enough air. The featureless light of Elemesnedene suffocated her. The Elohim loomed claustrophobically around her, as unscrupulous as ur-viles. “You planned this,” she grated between gasps. “This is what you wanted all along.” She was giddy with extremity. “To destroy him.”

  The First drew a sharp breath. Pitchwife's hands tightened involuntarily. Wincing to his feet as if he needed to meet his surprise upright, he lifted Linden erect. Honninscrave gaped at her. Seadreamer stood with his arms rigid at his sides, restraining himself from vision.

“Enough,” responded Infelice. Her tone was peremptory ice. “I will submit no longer to the affront of such false judgment. The Elohimfest has ended.” She turned away.

“Stop!” Without Pitchwife's support, Linden would have fallen like pleading to the bare ground. All her remaining strength went into her voice. “You've got to restore him! Goddamn it, you can't leave him like this!”

Infelice paused, but did not look back. “We are the Elohim. Our choices lie beyond your questioning. Be content.” Gracefully, she continued down the hillside.

Seadreamer broke into motion, hurled himself after her. The First and Honninscrave shouted, but could not halt him. Bereft of his wan, brief hope, he had no other outlet for his pain.

But Infelice heard or sensed his approach. Before he reached her, she snapped, “Hold, Giant!”

He rebounded as if he had struck an invisible wall at her back. The force of her command sent him sprawling.

With stately indignation, she faced him. He lay grovelling on his chest; but his lips were violent across his teeth, and his eyes screamed at her.

“Assail me not with your mistrust,” she articulated slowly, “lest I teach you that your voiceless Earth-Sight is honey and benison beside the ire of Elemesnedene”

“No.” By degrees, life was returning to Linden's limbs; but still she needed Pitchwife's support. “If you want to threaten somebody, threaten me. I'm the one who accuses you.”

Infelice looked at her without speaking.

“You planned all this,” Linden went on. “You demeaned him, dismissed him, insulted him—to make him angry enough so that he would let you into him and dare you to hurt him. And then you wiped out his mind. Now”—she gathered every shred of her vehemence—“restore it!”

“Sun-Sage,” Infelice said in a tone of glacial scorn, “you mock yourself and are blind to it.” Moving disdainfully, she left the eftmound and passed through the ring of dead trees.

On all sides, the other Elohim also turned away, dispersing as if Linden and her companions held no more interest for them—With an inchoate cry, Linden swung toward Covenant. For one wild instant, she intended to grab his ring, use it to coerce the Elohim.

The sight of him stopped her. The First had raised him to his feet. He stared through Linden as though she and everything about her had ceased to exist for him; but his empty refrain sounded like an unintentional appeal.

“Don't touch me.”

Oh, Covenant! Of course she could not take his ring. She could not do that to him, if for no other reason than because it was what the Elohim wanted. Or part of what they wanted. She ached in protest, but her resolve had frayed away into uselessness again. A surge of weeping rose up in her; she barely held it back. What have they done to you?

“Is it sooth?” the First whispered to the ambiguous sky. “Have we gained this knowledge at such a cost to him?”

Linden nodded dumbly. Her hands made fumbling gestures. She had trained them to be a physician's hands, and now she could hardly contain the yearning to strangle. Covenant had been taken from her as surely as if he had been slain—murdered like Nassic by a blade still hot with cruelty. She felt that if she did not move, act, stand up for herself somehow, she would go mad.

Around her, the Giants remained still as if they had been immobilized by her dismay. Or by the loss of Covenant, of his determination. No one else could restore the purpose of the quest.

That responsibility gave Linden what she needed. Animated by preterite stubbornness, she lurched down the hillside to find if Seadreamer had been harmed.

He was struggling to his feet. His eyes were wide and stunned, confused by Earth-Sight. He reeled as if he had lost all sense of balance. When Honninscrave hastened to his side, he clung to the Master's shoulder as if it were the only stable point in a breaking world. But Linden's percipience found no evidence of serious physical hurt. Yet the emotional damage was severe. Something in him had been torn from its moorings by the combined force of his examination, the loss of the hope his brother had conceived for him, and Covenant's plight. He was caught in straits for which all relief had been denied; and he bore his Earth-Sight as if he knew that it would kill him.

This also was something Linden could not cure. She could only witness it and mutter curses that had no efficacy.

Most of the bells had receded into the background, but two remained nearby. They were arguing together, satisfaction against rue. Their content was accessible now, but Linden no longer had any wish to make out the words. She had had enough of Chant and Daphin.

Yet the two came together up the eftmound toward her, and she could not ignore them. They were her last chance. When they faced her, she aimed her bitterness straight into Daphin's immaculate green gaze.

“You didn't have to do that. You could've told us where the One Tree is. You didn't have to possess him. And then leave him like that”

Chant's hard eyes held a gleam of insouciance. His inner voice sparkled with relish.

But Daphin's mind had a sad and liquid tone as she returned Linden's glare. “Sun-Sage, you do not comprehend our Wurd. There is a word in your tongue which bears a somewhat similar meaning. It is 'ethic.' ”

Jesus God! Linden rasped in sabulous denial. But she kept herself still.

“In our power,” Daphin went on, "many paths are open to us which no mortal may judge or follow. Some are attractive—others, distasteful. Our present path was chosen because it offers a balance of hope and harm. Had we considered only ourselves, we would have selected a path of greater hope, for its severity would have fallen not upon us but upon you. But we have determined to share with you the cost. We risk our hope. And also that which is more precious to us—life, and the meaning of life. We risk trust.

“Therefore some among us”—she did not need to refer openly to Chant—“urged another road. For who are you, that we should hazard trust and life upon you? Yet our Wurd remains. Never have we sought the harm of any life. Finding no path of hope which was not also a path of harm, we chose the way of balance and shared cost. Do not presume to judge us, when you conceive so little the import of your own acts. The fault is not ours that Sun-Sage and ring-wielder came among us as separate beings.”

Oh, hell, Linden muttered. She had no heart left to ask

Daphin what price the Elohim were paying for Covenant's emptiness. She could think of no commensurate expense. And the timbre of the bells told her that Daphin would give no explicit answer. She did not care to waste any more of her scant strength on arguments or expostulations. She wanted nothing except to turn her back on the Elohim, get Covenant out of this place.

As if in reply, Chant said, “In good sooth, it is past time. Were the choice in my hands, your expulsion from Elemesnedene would long since have silenced your ignorant tongue.” His tone was nonchalant; but his eyes shone with suppressed glee and cunning. “Does it please your pride to depart now, or do you wish to utter more folly ere you go?”

Clearly, Daphin chimed:

—Chant, this does not become you. But he replied:

—I am permitted. They can not now prevent us.

Linden's shoulders hunched, unconsciously tensing in an effort to strangle the intrusion in her mind. But at that moment, the First stepped forward. One of her hands rested on the hilt of her broadsword. She had leashed herself throughout the Elohimfest; but she was a trained Swordmain, and her face now wore an iron frown of danger and battle. “Elohim, there remains one question which must be answered.”

Linden stared dumbly at the First. She felt that nothing remained to the company except questions; but she had no idea which one the First meant.

The First spoke as if she were testing her blade against an unfamiliar opponent. “Perhaps you will deign to reveal what has become of Vain?”

Vain?

For an instant, Linden quailed. Too much had happened. She could not bear to think about another perfidy. But there was no choice. She would crack if she did not keep moving, keep accepting the responsibility as It came.

She cast a glance around the eftmound; but she already knew that she would see no sign of the Demondim-spawn. In a whirl of recollection, she realised that Vain had never come to the Elohimfest. She had not seen him since the company had separated to be examined. No: she had not seen him since the expulsion of the Haruchai. At the time, his absence had troubled her unconsciously; but she had not been able to put a name to her vague sense of incompleteness.

Trembling suddenly, she faced Chant. He had said as clearly as music, They can not now prevent us. She had assumed that he referred to Covenant; but now his veiled glee took on other implications.

“That's what you were doing.” Comprehension burned through her. “That's why you provoked Cail—why you kept trying to pick fights with us. To distract us from Vain.” And Vain had walked into the snare with his habitual undiscriminating blankness.

Then she thought again, No. That's not right. Vain had approached the clachan with an air of excitement, as if the prospect of it pleased him. And the Elohim had ignored him from the beginning, concealing their intent against him.

“What in hell do you want with him?”

Chant's pleasure was plain. "He was a peril to us. His dark makers spawned him for our harm. He was an offense to our Wurd, directed with great skill and malice to coerce us from our path. This we will never endure, just as we have not endured your anile desires. We have imprisoned him.

“We wrought covertly,” he went on like laughter, “to avoid the mad ire of your ring-wielder. But now that peril has been foiled. Your Vain we have imprisoned, and no foolish beseechment or petty mortal indignation will effect his release.” His eyes shone. “Thus the umbrage you have sought to cast upon us is recompensed. Consider the justice of your loss and be still.”

Linden could not bear it. Masking her face with severity so that she would not betray herself, she sprang at him.

He stopped her with a negligent gesture, sent her reeling backward. She collided with Covenant; and he sprawled to the hard ground, making no effort to soften the impact. His face pressed the dirt.

The Giants had not moved. They had been frozen by Chant's gesture. The First fought to draw her falchion. Seadreamer and Honninscrave tried to attack. But they were held motionless.

Linden scrambled to Covenant's side, heaved him upright. “Please.” She pleaded with him uselessly, as if Chant's power had riven her of her wits. “I'm sorry. Wake up. They've got Vain.”

But he might as well have been deaf and senseless. He made no effort to clean away the dirt clinging to his slack lips.

Emptily, he responded to impulses utterly divorced from her and the Giants and the Elohim:

“Don't touch me.”

Cradling him, she turned to appeal one last time to Daphin's compassion. Tears streaked her face.

But Chant forestalled her. “It is enough,” he said sternly. “Now begone.”

At that moment, he took on the stature of his people. His stance was grave and immitigable. She receded from him; but as the distance between them increased, he grew in her sight, confusing her senses so that she seemed to fall backward into the heavens. For an instant, he shone like the sun, burning away her protests. Then he was the sun, and she caught a glimpse of blue sky before the waters of the fountain covered her like weeping.

She nearly lost her balance on the steep facets of the travertine. Covenant's weight dragged her toward a fall. But at once Cail and Brinn came leaping through the spray to her aid. The water in their hair sparkled under the midday sun as if they—or she—were still in the process of transformation between Elemesnedene and the outer maidan.

The suddenness of the change dizzied her. She could not find her balance behind the sunlight as the Haruchai helped her and Covenant down the slope, through the gathering waters to dry ground. They did not speak, expressed no surprise; but their mute tension shouted at her from the contact of their hard hands. She had sent them away.

The sun seemed preternaturally bright. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the featureless lumination of Elemesnedene. Fiercely, she scrubbed at her face, trying to clear away the water and the glare as if she wanted to eradicate every suggestion of tears or weeping from her visage.

But Brinn caught hold of her wrists. He stood before her like an accusation. Ceer and Hergrom braced Covenant between them.

The four Giants had emerged from the trough around the fountain. They stood half-dazed in the tall yellow grass of the maidan as if they had just wandered out of a dream which should not have been a nightmare. The First clutched her broadsword in both fists, but it was of no use to her. Pitchwife s deformity appeared to have been accentuated. Seadreamer and Honninscrave moved woodenly together, linked by their pain.

But Brinn did not permit Linden to turn away. Inflectionlessly, he demanded, “What harm has been wrought upon the ur-Lord?”

She had no answer to the accusation in his stare. She felt that her sanity had become uncertain. To herself, she sounded like a madwoman as she responded irrelevantly, “How long were we in there?”

Brinn rejected the importance of her question with a slight shake of his head. “Moments only. We had hardly ceased our attempts to re-enter the clachan when you returned.” His fingers manacled her. “What harm has been wrought upon the ur-Lord?”

Oh my God, she groaned. Covenant so sorely damaged. Vain lost. Gifts refused. Moments only? It was true: the sun had scarcely moved at all since her last glimpse of it before entering Elemesnedene. That so much pain could have been committed in such a little time!

“Let me go.” The plaint of a lorn and frightened child. “I've got to think.”

For a moment, Brinn did not relent. But then Pitchwife came to her side. His misshapen eyes yearned on her behalf. In a hobbled tone, he said, “Release her. I will answer as best I may.”

Slowly, Brinn unlocked his fingers; and Linden slumped into the grass.

She huddled there with her face hidden against her knees. Old, familiar screams echoed in her, cries which no one had been able to hear until long after her father had bled to death. Tears squeezed from her eyes like involuntary self-recrimination.

The voices of her companions passed back and forth over her head. Pitchwife began to recount the events in Elemesnedene; but shortly the demand for brevity dismayed his Giantish instincts, and he trailed off into directionless protests, The First took the task from him. Tersely, she detailed what she knew of Covenant's examination, then described the Elohimfest. Her account was succinct and stark. Her tone said plainly that she, like Pitchwife, ached for a full and formal telling. But this maidan—with the Elohim so near at hand—was no place for such a tale; and she withheld it sternly. She related how the location of the One Tree had been revealed and what price Covenant had paid for that vision. Then she stiffened herself to her conclusion.

“Vain the Elohim have imprisoned. It is their word that he is perilous to them—a threat directed against them across the seas by those who made him. They will not suffer his release. Mayhap they have already taken his life.”

There she fell silent; and Linden knew that nothing else remained to be said. She could not hope for any inspiration to rescue her from her burdens. As if she knew what they were thinking, she watched while Ceer and Hergrom splashed back to the travertine slopes of the fountain, attempting once again to enter Elemesnedene. But the way was closed to them. It had been closed to all the company, and there was nothing else left to be done. Yet when the two Haruchai retreated to the maidan, the water seemed to gleam on the surface of their stubbornness; and she saw with a groan of recognition that she would have to fight them as well. They had not forgiven her for sending them out of Elemesnedene.

She tried to rise to her feet; but for a while she could not. The weight of decision held her down. Who was she, that she should try to take Covenant's place at the head of the quest? Gibbon-Raver had promised her an outcome of anguish and ruin.

But her companions were asking themselves how they could force or trick their way back into the clachan. Though she felt that she was going crazy, she seemed to be the only sane one among them. And she had already accepted her role. If she could not at least stand loyal to herself, to the decisions she had made and the people she cared about, then everything she had already been and borne came to nothing.

Clinching her long intransigence, she interrupted the company by climbing upright. Then she muttered, “There's nothing more we can do here. Let's get going.”

They were struck silent as if she had shocked them. They glanced among themselves, wondering at her—at her willingness to abandon Vain, or at her attempt to command them. The First had sheathed her blade, but she showed her desire for battle in every muscle. Honninscrave and Seadreamer had found their way past pain into anger. Even Pitchwife had become enthusiastic for combat. And the Haruchai stood poised as if they were looking for a place to hurl violence.

“Don't touch me,” Covenant answered. The abysm behind his eyes made him look like a blind man. His reiterated warning was the only evidence that he retained any vestige of mind at all.

“I mean it.” Linden's tongue was thick with despair; but she knew that if she recanted now she would never be able to stop fleeing. “There's nothing we can do for Vain. Let's get back to the ship.”

“Chosen.” The First's voice was as keen as iron. “We are Giants. Whatever his purpose, this Vain is our companion. We do not blithely turn from the succour of any companion.” Linden started to object; but the Swordmain cut her off. ''Also, we have been told that he was given to Covenant Giantfriend by the Dead of Andelain. By a Giant of the Lost—by Saltheart Foamfollower, the Pure One of the sur-jheherrin. Him we have beheld in the opening of Covenant's mind.

“We will not see such a gift lost. Though we do not comprehend him, we conceive that the gifts given to Covenant by his Dead are vital and necessary. Vain must be recovered.”

Linden understood. The Elohim had planted a seed of possibility, and its fruit was apparent in the gazes of her companions. That she should take Covenant's ring and use it.

She shook her head. That would be a violation as fundamental as any rape. His ring was his peril and his hope, and she would not take it from him. Its power meant too much to her.

And she had other reasons to deny the idea. Covenant's plight could wait, at least until the company was safely away from this place; but Vain's could not. What the Demondim-spawn needed from her was not what it appeared to be.

To the First, she said flatly, “No.” In this, at least, she knew who she was. “It isn't up to you.”

“I am the First—” began the Swordmain.

“It would've been Covenant's decision,” Linden went on severely, clamping herself rigid with all her will, “but he's in no condition. That leaves me.”

She could not explain herself for fear the Elohim would hear her and take action. They were surely able to hear anything they desired, uncover any purpose they chose. So she invented reasons as if she knew what she was talking about.

“You can't do it. He's so important because he comes from outside. Like the white gold. You don't. We wouldn't be here at all if the job could be done by anybody else. You can't take his place,” she insisted. "I'm going to, whether I can or not.

"And I say we're going to leave. Let Vain take care of himself. We don't even know why he was given to Covenant.

Maybe this is the reason. To get him into Elemesnedene, so he can do whatever he was created for. I don't know, and I don't care. We have what we came to get. And I don't want to keep Covenant here. They're after his ring. I'll be damned if we're going to stand around and let them hurt him again."

The First replied with a perplexed frown, as though Linden's stability had become a matter of open doubt. But Brinn showed no doubt. In a voice like stone, he said, “We know nothing of these questions. Our ignorance was thrust upon us when we sought to serve the promise we have given the ur-Lord.” His accusation was implicit. "We know only that he has been harmed when he should have been in our care. And Vain is his, given to him in aid of his quest. For that reason alone, we must stand by the Demondim-spawn.

“Also,” he continued inflexibly, “you have become a question in our sight. Vain made obeisance to you when you were redeemed from Revelstone. And he it was who strove to bear you from the peril of the graveling and the Sunbane-sickness. Perchance it was he who brought the sur-jheherrin to our aid against the lurker, in your name. Do you lack all wish to serve those who have served you?”

Linden wanted to cry out at his words. He rubbed them like salt into her failures. But she clung to her purpose until the knuckles of her will whitened. “I understand what you're saying.” Her voice quivered, deserted by the flat dispassion which she had tried for so long to drill into herself. “But you can't get in there. They've closed us out. And we don't have any way to make them change their minds. Covenant is the only one they were ever afraid of, and now they don't have that to worry about.” If Covenant had chosen that moment to utter his blank refrain, her control might have snapped. But he was mercifully silent, lost in the absence of his thoughts. “Every minute we stay here, we're taking the chance they might decide to do something worse.”

The challenge of Brinn's gaze did not waver. When she finished, he replied as though her protest were gratuitous, 'Then heal him. Restore to him his mind, so that he may make his own choosing on Vain's behalf."

At that, Linden thought she would surely break. She had already endured too much. In Brinn's eyes, she saw her flight from Covenant during his venom-relapse returning to impugn her. And Brinn also knew that she had declined to protect Covenant from Infelice's machinations. The First had not omitted that fact from her tale. For a moment, Linden could not speak through the culpability which clogged her throat.

But the past was unalterable; and for the present no one had the right to judge her. Brinn could not see Covenant deeply enough to judge her. Covenant's plight was hers to assess—and to meet as she saw fit. Gritting her control so hard that it ached in the bones of her skull, she said, “Not here. Not now. What's happened to him is like amnesia. There's a chance it'll heal itself. But even if it doesn't—even if I have to do something about it—I'm not going to take the risk here. Where the Elohim can tamper with anything.” And Vain might be running out of time. “If I'm not completely careful—” She faltered as she remembered the darkness behind his eyes. “I might extinguish what's left.”

Brinn did not blink. His stare said flatly that this argument was just another refusal, as unworthy of Covenant as all the others. Despairingly, Linden turned back to the First.

“I know what I'm doing. Maybe I've already failed too often. Maybe none of you can trust me. But I'm not losing my mind.” In her ears, her insistence sounded like the frail pleading of a child. “We've got to get out of here. Go back to the ship. Leave.” With all her determination, she refrained from shouting, Don't you understand? That's the only way we can help Vain! “We've got to do it now.”

The First debated within herself. Both Honninscrave and Seadreamer looked studiously elsewhere, unwilling to take sides in this conflict. But Pitchwife watched Linden as if he were remembering Mistweave. And when the First spoke, he smiled like the lighting of a candle in a dark room.

Dourly, she said, “Very well. I accept your command in this. Though I can fathom little concerning you, you are the Chosen. And I have seen evidence of strange strength in you, when strength was least looked for. We will return to Starfare's Gem.”

Abruptly, she addressed the Haruchai. “I make no claim upon your choosing. But I ask you to accompany us. Vain lies beyond your reach. And the Giantfriend and the Chosen require every aid.”

Brinn cocked his head slightly as if he were listening to a silent consultation. Then he said, “Our service was given to the ur-Lord—and to Linden Avery in the ur-Lord's name. Though we mislike that Vain should be abandoned, we will not gainsay you.”

That Vain should be abandoned. Linden groaned. Every word the Haruchai uttered laid another crime to her charge. More blood on her hands, though she had taken an oath to save every life she could. Maybe Brinn was right. Maybe her decision was just another denial. Or worse. Are you not evil?

But she was suddenly too weak to say anything else. The sunlight blurred her sight like sweat. When Cail offered her his arm, she accepted it because she had no choice. She felt unable to support herself. As she joined her companions moving along the River Callowwail toward Woodenwold and the anchorage of Starfare's Gem, she was half-blind with sunlight and frailty, and with the extremity of her need to be right.

The maidan seemed to stretch out forever ahead of her. Only the cumulative rush of the River marked the expanse, promising that the grass was not like Elemesnedene, not featureless and unending, Cail's assistance was bitter and necessary to her. She could not comprehend the gentleness of his aid. Perhaps it was this quality of the Haruchai which had driven Kevin Landwaster to the Ritual of Desecration; for how could he have sustained his self-respect when he had such beings as the Bloodguard to serve him?

The Callowwail reflected blue in turbulent pieces back at the sky. She clung to her own self-respect by considering images of Vain, seeking to remember everything he had done. He had remained passive when the demented Coursers had driven him into a quagmire in Sarangrave Flat. And yet he had found a way to rejoin the company. And surely he had chosen to hazard Elemesnedene for his own secret reasons?

Slowly, her sight cleared. Now she could see the splendid autumn of Woodenwold rising before her. Soon she and her companions would be among the trees. Soon—

The sudden fierce clanging of the bells staggered her. Except for Cail's grasp, she would have fallen. The Elohim had been silent since her expulsion from the clachan; but now the bells were outraged and desperate in her mind, clamouring woe and fury.

Pitchwife came to her, helped Cail uphold her. “Chosen?” he asked softly, urgently. “What harms you?” His tone reflected the stricken pallor of her countenance.

“It's Vain,” she panted through the silent clangour. Her voice sounded too thin and detached to have come from her. “He's trying to escape.”

The next instant, a concussion like a thunderclap buffeted the company. The cloudless sky darkened; powers blasting against each other dimmed the sun. A long tremor like the opening howl of an earthquake ran through the ground.

Giants yelled. Fighting to keep their balance, the Haruchai circled defensively around Linden and Covenant.

As she looked back toward the fountainhead of the Callowwail, Linden saw that the water was on fire.

Burning and blazing, a hot surge of power spread flames down the current. Its leading edge spat out fury like the open door of a furnace. On either side of the swift fire, the maidan rippled and flowed as though it were evaporating.

In the heart of the heat, Linden descried a dark figure swimming.

Vain!

He struggled down the Callowwail as if he were beset by acid. His strokes were frantic—and growing weaker every moment. The flames tore at his flesh, rent his black essence. He appeared to be dissolving in the fiery current.

“Help him!” Vain's need snatched Linden to a shout. “They're killing him!”

The Haruchai reacted without hesitation. Their doubt of her did not hamper their gift for action. Springing forward, Ceer and Hergrom dove straight into the River and the crux of the flames.

For an instant, she feared that they would be consumed. But the fire did not touch them. It burned to the pitch of Vain's ebon being and left their flesh unharmed.

As the Haruchai reached him, he threw his arms around their necks; and at once the erosion of his strength seemed to pause as if he drew sustenance from them. Gathering himself suddenly, he thrust them beneath the surface. With a concentrated effort, he cocked himself, braced his feet on their shoulders. From that base, he leaped out of the Callowwail.

The flames tried to follow; but now they ran off his sleek skin like water, fraying in the sunlight. He had escaped their direct grasp. And the sun poured its light into him like an aliment. Over all the maidan, the air was dim with preternatural twilight; but on Vain the sun shed its full strength, reversing the dissolution which the Elohim had wrought against him. Spreading his arms, he turned his black eyes upward and let the light restore him to himself.

The bells rang out keen loss, wild threats, but did no more damage.

In the River, the power faded toward failure. Ceer and Hergrom broke the surface together, unscathed, and climbed the bank to stand with the rest of the company, watching Vain.

Slowly, the Demondim-spawn lowered his arms; and as he did so, midday returned to the maidan. In a moment, he stood as he had always stood, balanced between relaxation and readiness, with a faint, undirected smile on his lips. He seemed as uncognisant as ever of the company, blind to assistance or rescue.

“Your pardon,” said the First to Linden in quiet wonder. “I had given too little thought to the compulsion which drives him to follow you.”

Linden remained still, held by vindication and relief. She did not know whether Vain followed herself or Covenant—and did not care. For once, she had been right.

But the company could not stay where it was. Many of the bells had faded back into silence, receding with the flames. However, others were too angry to retreat; and the threat they conveyed impelled her to say, “Come on. Some of them want to try again. They might not let us leave.”

Honninscrave looked at her sharply. “Not?” His glad memories of the Elohim had already suffered too much diminution. But he was a Giant and knew how to fight. “Stone and Sea!” he swore, “they will not prevent us. If we must, we will swim from the Raw, towing Starfare's Gem after us.”

The First gave him a nod of approval, then said, “Still the Chosen speaks truly. We must depart.” At once, she swept Covenant into her arms and set off at a lope toward Woodenwold.

Before Linden could try to follow, Seadreamer picked her up, carried her away along the verge of the Callowwail. Cail and Ceer ran at his sides. Brinn and Hergrom dashed ahead to join the First. Eager for his ship, Honninscrave sped past them. Pitchwife's deformed back hindered him, but he was able to match the pace the First set.

Behind them, Vain trotted lightly, like a man who had been running all his life.