The chapter starts in darkness, and thus other senses are required to provide the narrative:
She awoke in a dark dank, tugged step after step toward consciousness by the dull rhythmic repetition of a grunt of strain, a clash of metal.
Senses are not only intensified by darkness but also by the portrayal of Lindens heightened health sense.
She can feel the prison around her: finished rock surrounded her, then faded into an immense impending weight.
She can smell the faint sick smell of blood... the blood of hustin and soldiers.
She can sense her companions: Honninscraves aura was a knurling of anger and resolve, Vains darkness was harder than any granite, more rigid than any annealed metal, she senses Pitchwife as injured but not mortally so.
She contemplates their failure and then suddenly realizes that she cannot sense Covenant at all. Now she believes all is totally lost.
She had failed at everything.. Her deliberate efforts to make Kaseryn unsure of himself to aggravate the implicit trust between the ghaddi and his Kemper had come to ruin.
The companions contemplate their fate;. There is a discussion of their plight with The First and Honninscrave. Although Covenant is gone, presumably all is not yet lost in that Kemper has not yet disposed of them.
Another surprise visit, now from the drunken Rant Absolain. The charade of his leadership is over; he is obviously just a puppet of Kaseryn. His opening of the door illuminates the cell, and they can see Covenant has been there all along, invisible to all of their senses save their vision.
Linden is dismayed to see Kaseryns gold band around Covenants neck; he is now just Kaseryns puppet as well. His eyes are open but sightless; Kaseryn torments her by having Covenant mindlessly kiss her. This is the embodiment of Lindens worst fear: to be totally possessed and controlled by evil. She believed this to be her fathers fate, and believed as well it to be her own fate when she killed her mother.
Spoiler
And of course, she will eventually succumb to this fear entirely when possessed by the Raver in Kiril Threndor.
There is a moment of respite when Honninscrave incredibly breaks his chains and slays Kaseryn. This is but a temporary victory, perhaps similar to the battle of The Pelenoor Fields (LOTR) or the defeat of the first assault of the Machines in The Matrix Revolution. A crucial victory won by courage and sacrifice, but only allowing for the arrival of the next onslaught, as Kaseryn promptly resurrects himself and promises a hideous death for Honninscrave.
Kaseryn commands Linden to possess Covenant and to thus compel him to hand over the white gold. Linden finally appears to comply. As with her other decisions, her companions doubt her intentions, especially the Haruchai and Findail (making his usual surprise entrance).
The gold band around Covenants neck is removed by Kaseryn, and she enters Covenants mind. Unlike previous attempts, this time she abandons herself completely; leaving behind her medical training, her fears, and her past. Thus she and Covenant meet as children, not yet encumbered by the venoms of their futures, and she has just enough time to give him the idea that she sees as the key to their release.
There is no time for action; as soon as Covenant is conscious Kaseryn will possess him and thus control the white gold.
There is only time for a single word; a word whose consequences can free them, free the people of Bhrathairealm, and keep their purpose alive.
Nom.
(I dare you to say it out loud! )
Commentary: This is an incredible chapter, both in its wordsmithing and in the story it tells. We can easily perceive the scene without the use of visual description as SRD uses other senses so vividly. We share their sense of despair; shackled by chains and by magic; their hero totally subdued; their enemy impervious even to a fatal blow.
Many themes of previous narrative come together here; Lindens fear of possession; the weird predictions and plans of the Elohim as they protected Covenant from penetration; the failure of tyrants to ultimately control their people and their environment; the ability of arcane creatures to respond to a summons from a great distance.
I would suspect that most of us were surprised at our first reading of the end of this chapter; Nom was a great idea and certainly beat just having TC use the white gold or having the cavalry miraculously appear!
srtrout
). Brinn's reaction to Honninscrave's behavior is a fresh demonstration of how similar the Giants and Haruchai truly are at core, despite the fact that the former are demonstrative about it and the latter usually are not:
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