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.