But Covenant doesn’t have time to go from simmer to explosion, because Daphin is back, bringing with her another Elohim, this one named Chant and marked with malice. No one but Linden heard that they were heralded by the return of bells chiming.
The Elohim are mystified. Their vision has seen that the Sun-Sage and ring-wielder are the same being. Covenant is angry at the implied pressure to give his ring to Linden. Daphin suggests solutions:
Which can’t be expected to make Covenant any happier or feel any more useful. But leadership of the group has insensibly passed to Linden, and it is Linden who accepts the invitation of the Elohim into Elemesnedene.”Perhaps there is a merging to come. Or a death.”
As the group walks up the River Callowwail (lovely name), Linden is trying to deal with her feelings of disorientation. The importance the Elohim have given her makes her feel more helpless and lost than ever. The sounds of bells make her feel like she is missing something important.
They reach the maidan or mound from which the river fountains. Here is the entrance to Elemesnedene, and here is where SRD starts making even his own normal language sound simple, using mystifying vocabulary to convey the Elohim otherworldliness.
The Elohim climb the mound and disappear, and the bells disappear, too. Linden seizes the chance to confirm that none of the others hear bells. Again she has to trust her own senses before those of other people.The water looked as edifying as crystal, as clinquant* as faery promises; but the travertine it had formed and dampened appeared obdurate, uncompromising. The mound seemed to huddle unto itself as if it could not be moved by any appeal. The whorled and skirling shapes on its sides – cut and deposited by ages of spray, the old scrollwork of the water – gave it an elusive eloquence...
*clinquant - glittering, as fool's gold
Entering through the fountain takes them into a whole different world, invisible from the Callowwail meadows. SRD describes wonder upon wonder – all of it visual. I get a distinct sense, right from the start, that these visual beauties are meaningless.
No suggestion of an emotional resonance or transcendence of any kind. A clear case of “beauty is only skin deep”. If this is what SRD intended, it is very adroitly handled indeed.Nearby grew a silver sapling. Though not tall, it was as stately as a prince; and its leaves danced about its limbs without touching them. Like flakes of precious metal, the leaves formed a chiaroscuro around the tree, casting glints and spangles as they swirled.
On the other side, a fountain spewed glodes of color and light. Bobbing upward, they broke into silent rain and were inhaled again by the fountain.
The group becomes aware that these beauties are the Elohim in other forms. While humans and giants are awed by the power of beings who can transform like this, they are vulnerable to the Elohim demand that each member of the party be tested, alone. The Haruchai are not. Each Haruchai insists on accompanying the human he is responsible for. When Linden sees the Haruchai are ready to fight these hopelessly powerful beings, she makes an agreement that they will be deposited, unharmed, at the foot of the fountain, outside of Elemesnedene. Cail’s look accuses Linden of betraying the Haruchai.
Surrounded by “sportive and gratuitous incarnations” as she is, Linden feels lost. Her earthsight cannot read the Elohim. But she is determined to live up to Covenant’s resolve, so it is a relief that the Elohim “test” is to allow her to ask whatever questions she likes. She is given the full story on Elohim superiority and self-sufficiency.For all its amazements, the clachan suddenly seemed a cold and joyless place, where beings of inbred life and convoluted intent mimed an exuberance they were unable to share.
Linden is perceiving a coldness beyond the radiance and the power. The gentle Daphin says,”You don’t pay attention to each other? This” – she indicated Morninglight’s watershow – “isn’t intended to communicate something?”
The question seemed to give Daphin a gentle surprise. “What is the need? I also am the heart of the Earth, as he is. Wherefore should I desire his truth, when I may freely seek my own?”
As Linden realizes exactly how powerful the Elohim are, suddenly the bells speak so she can understand.“That you should presume to judge us at all is incondign and displeasing. We are the heart of the earth and not to be judged.”
“We must hasten, lest this Sun-Sage learn to hear us too acutely.”
