Linden realizes that the soundless bells are the voices of the Elohim speaking to each other. She cannot understand it when she attempts to concentrate on it...
...Linden decides to keep both her knowledge and limitations secret, as she suspects that the Elohim areThe more she struggled to comprehend it, the more it sounded like bells and nothing else.
Linden is then led to the Elohimfest by Daphin of the Elohim. The Elohim are confusing to Linden --keeping their true purposes hidden.
but also, she feels, at least momentarily, a compulsion of power that reminds her of Revelstone and of being in Santonin's power...But for that moment she felt sure she would never again meet any people so capable of beauty.
The Elohimfest is held on an eftmound, near a ring of dead trees. Linden wonders why natural trees cannot survive in the home of the Elohim.
The other questors come to join Linden at the mound, all coming from various directions, and some showing signs of emotional pain -- including Thomas, who says that Chant has tried to talk him into giving Chant his white gold ring.
Chant has told Covenant that
he also told Covenant that he didn't matter, because he was already defeated.These Elohim consider themselves the center of the Earth. According to him, everything important happens here. The rest of the world is like a shadow cast by Elemesnedene. Foul and the Sunbane are just symptoms. The real disease is something else - he didn't bother to say exactly what. Something about a darkness threatening the heart of the Earth. He wants my ring. He wants the wild magic. So he can attack the disease.
More and more Elohim arrive all of the time...
She is told that his name is Findail the Appointed.Then her attention was arrested by the approach of another Elohim. When he first entered the ring, she did not notice him. Neither his clean white flesh nor his creamy robe distinguished him from the gracile throng. But as he drew nearer - walking with an aimless aspect around the hill - he attracted her eyes like a lodestone. The sign of him sent a shiver down her spine. He was the first Elohim she had seen who chose to wear an appearance of misery.
Linden is then told that Infelice is coming, and that the Elohimfest will begin with her arrival."Therefore whensoever there is a need upon the Earth which requires us, one is Appointed to be our wisdom. According to the need, his pupose varies. In one age, the Appointed may deny our unity, challenging us to seek more deeply for the truth. In another, he may be named to fulfill that unity." For an instant, her tone took on a more ominous color. "In all ages, he pays the price of doubt. Findail will hazzard his life against the Earth's doom."
Infelice says that the Elohim usually charge for their gifts, but they will freely give the Sun-Sage what she needs if they are able, without a price. Linden gives the first request to Honniscrave, who asks for his brother's voice .The Elohim say that in order to retore his voice, they would have to blind his visions. Linden then asks that they help Thomas with his venom situation. Again, the Elohim refuse, as they claim that the venom is too intertwined with his being.She was a tall woman, and her lovliness was as lucent as gemfire. Her hair shone. Her supple form shed gleams like a sea in moonlight. her raiment was woven of diamonds, adorned with rubies. A penumbra of glory outlined her against the trees and sky. She was Infelice,and she stood atop the eftmound like the crown of every wonder in Elemesnedene.
Her sovereign eyes passed over the company, came to Linden, met and held her stare. Under that gaze, Linden's knees grew week. She felt a yearning to abase herself before this regal figure. Surely humility was the only just response to such a woman. Honninscrave was already on his knees, and the other Giants wre following his example.
But Covenant remained upright, an icon graven of hard bone and intransigence.
Linden then gives the Elohim a piece of her mind and tells them that at least the questors are trying to fight ther Sun Bane and Foul, which is more than can be said for the faery folk, despite all of their arrogance...and Honninscrave joins in to say that the Elohim are sadly diminished from the legends of the Giants...and Linden overhears another conversation amongst the bells:Power is life, and for him its roots are venom and leproys. The price of such aid would be the loss of all power forever.
Infelice tells Honninscrave to be quiet and then asks Linden if she is now content. Before Linden can get more than six words out of her mouth, Covenant breaks in with his own request -- he wishes to know where to find the One Tree.One of them was saying:
-He speaks truly. We are altered from what we were.
A darker answer knelled:
-No. It is only that these mortals are more arrogant than any other.
But the first replied:
-No. It is we who are more arrogant. In time past, would we not have taken this cost upon ourselves? Yet we now require the price of him, that we will be spared it.
At once a third chime interposed:
-You forget that he himself is the peril. We have chosen the only path which offers hope to him as well as the Earth. The price may yet befall the Appointed.
Infelice tells Covenant that the information is already in his mind, and he replies that he cannot get at the knowledge.At once the bells rand insistently. One of them struck out:
-Infelice, do not. Our hope will be lost.
The crystal answer came clearly from her:
-It is understood and agreed. I will not.
Linden tries to fling herself at Covenant to stop him, but cannot do so in time. he asks the Elohim to open his mind.The chiming grew hushed, like bated breath. But Linden had caught the import of the bells. This was the moment for which they had been waiting.
At the top of the eftmound, Infelice smiled.
OK, good people. Go to it, and rip this chapter apart.
I tried to cover this chapter for Infelice but a series of events made me kinda crazy and eventually burnt me out: A thunderstorm knocked out my power twice then heavy rain made me get up and close every window in the house then the dog wouldn't stop barking and then, after two and a half hours, I had almost half of the dissection done and my server decided to close all my windows! Like I dummy I didn't save or copy anything. So after doing a dissection for Casting the Augury and The Questimoon earlier and being on the net alot lately I kinda shut down and couldn't deal with it. Dissecting is definately a "labor of love" and Donaldson is so dense that it can take 4 hours to do justice to 14 pages! 
