Seek Deep Stone
Looks like I took too much into the quotes. Strange, seemed to me I was cutting off even very interesting things already, perhaps used to having it all and in detail from reading SRD a lot. Or just me, not really able to cut this.
In this chapter the characters find themselves in a new variant of an unpleasant place to be - in this case, near the apex of a fragile-looking bridge in a dark cold cave, that is so deep the air is no good for breating. Since that's not serious, compared to the situations they normally get into, that's certainly not all.
So, here's the source... Apparently no help from knowing that for now - not even the way how that works, let alone something that could be used.the pervasive brume of Kevin’s Dirt was stifling. He was dangerously close to its source; to the living bane that Kastenessen and Esmer and moksha Raver had tapped or harnessed in order to generate the fug which hampered the Staff of Law.
So near that unanswerable evil, Linden and Liand and the Ramen were surely as truncated, as blind and nearly insensate, as he was. Anele’s heritage of Earthpower might preserve him; but even the percipience of the Haruchai and the Giants was likely to fail. In moments, every one of Linden’s companions would be effectively as eyeless as Mahrtiir, as deaf as seas, as unresponsive to touch as bluff rock.
Unaware of the danger -
And The Harrow shows himself nicely.And no one aided him. Blinded, they did not know how. The Harrow should have taken action. This was his doing. But perhaps he was content to let his companions—his victims—fall. He had not vowed to defend them from the dangers of this journey. Under the circumstances, the prospect of
being rid of Linden and her friends probably pleased him.
Liand with Orcrest.Gradually light began to emerge from the young man’s right fist.
By slow degrees at first, the glow swelled. Benighted and heavy, the bulk of the Swordmainnir took shape. The Humbled appeared around Covenant as though they had condensed from the thinner substance of shadows. Linden leaned, panting, on Grueburn’s breastplate. Held by Galesend, Anele had covered his face with his hands in terror.
Then Liand grew stronger. The ramifications of exerted Earthpower purified the air around him, enabling him to breathe more easily.
In a rush, radiance burst out to contradict the dark.
Common thing here, not the first time someone being a real ruin is helpful in a way not to get all the weight of the situation.they grew stronger; strong enough to recognize the extremity of their situation.
Off the bridge for now.“No,” the Ardent wheezed, straining for air. “I cannot. The Harrow has misled himself.” Fright ached in his voice. “The span is warded. We must not fall!”
Like a mirage of himself, the Insequent fled toward the safer rock of Mount Thunder’s roots, away from the portal.
“Withdraw,” Coldspray commanded through her teeth. “Follow the Ardent. Now. With care. This stone is seamed with age, ancient beyond reckoning. Our weight may surpass its endurance.”
Now that's just wonderful.In addition, the Harrow - Like another piece of sanity, Covenant remembered that the Harrow had never opened the portal. Perhaps he did not know how. Or how to use the Staff of Law. He did not care about Linden’s pain. The bridge was a way in; but it was also a snare. A defense. Protected. If the Harrow erred, he would shatter the span.
And it just couldn't be so easy.The portal was the reason. It explained why the Harrow had transported everyone here, instead of directly to Jeremiah. The defenses which the Viles had woven for their demesne were complex and duplicitous. If he did not enter the Lost Deep correctly, the entire subterranean realm might collapse. Or he and everyone with him might be slain in some more oblique and cruel fashion.
Where it debouched into the cavern, however, it opened like a fan formed of relatively level obsidian veined with malachite. The white purity of the orcrest’s illumination accentuated the green hue of the malachite. The branching of the veins through the obsidian gave them an eerie resemblance to the grass stains on Linden’s jeans.
Those veins resembled the stains which Covenant had once worn after passing through Morinmoss.
The runes? And also must be like the stains Covenant and Mhoram had on them after passing through Morinmoss as well.
“When the Viles formed that bridge, they called it the Hazard. But translation doesn’t do it justice. When they said ‘Hazard,’ they didn’t just mean that terrible power. And they didn’t just mean they covered the bridge with wards so it would shatter if someone tried to enter the Lost Deep without knowing how. It was their hazard, too.
“Making it, they risked everything. Who they were. What they meant to themselves. It was their only link to the rest of the Land. The rest of the Earth. When they crossed out of the Lost Deep, everything they’d ever done or cared about might be destroyed.
While they kept themselves isolated, they could imagine they were perfect. But they were smart enough to know the world is a big place. Even the Land is a big place. They might meet beings and forces that would make them look paltry.
An insight into the Viles' view on things.
[Sigh]“They created the Hazard because they were too intelligent to be content with ideas of perfection that hadn’t been tested. Compared. Measured.”
The Haruchai would understand that better than anyone.
“Does the Harrow know how to open the door?”
Make an educated guess...
“I cannot aid him here.” His voice was a taut wheeze. “This has been his life’s quest. It is not mine. Nor has it been any other living Insequent’s. I possess no knowledge, either earned or given, to ease his dilemma.”
The Ardent is here not for that.
“It is my task to ensure that the Harrow abides by his oath. That mission I have begun. I will continue it. I will assist him when I am able to do so. For the nonce, however, Timewarden, I have another purpose, one which the conjoined will of the Insequent has urged. I have drawn you hither, to my side rather than to the Harrow’s. Him you cannot succor. Here knowledge which you have forgotten may be restored.
“Among those who assiduously seek out auguries and prescience, there is disagreement concerning the outcome of our present quest. Yet all concur that we must stand in this place at this time. Here we are vouchsafed an opportunity which will not recur, and which is greatly to be desired.”
“Chosen,” Stave said flatly: a veiled command. “Attend to Anele.”
Anele lay facedown on the uneven obsidian with his arms and legs outstretched as if in deliberate prostration. Beneath his scrawny frame, veins of green radiated outward as though they depicted rays of light. Somehow the malachite conveyed the impression that it throbbed to the beat of his pulse.
Those veins resembled the stains which Covenant had once worn after passing through Morinmoss.
More or less confirms the thing about the runes above.
What the chapter title says.In a voice like stone and apprehension and sorrow crushed together until they were in danger of crumbling, the old man said distinctly, “It is here.”
The Harrow had brought Linden’s company to stone so deep that no human capable of interpreting it had ever touched it before.
Interesting, the old lore of wood and stone remembered again.“The wood of the world has forgotten.” Anele sounded as harsh as the rock beneath him. “It cannot reclaim itself. It requires aid. Yet this stone remembers.”
“There must be forbidding.”
Sounds like even the forbidding, if they figure it out, is going to be just buying time.Without forbidding, there is too little time.
Certainly, the Land wasn't going to be left at peace even forthe possibly last days.“Even here it is felt,” the old man said as if he were answering her. “Written. Lamented.” But the words were not a reply. Anele’s fixation on the lines of malachite within the obsidian was complete. He responded to the world’s oldest secrets, not to her. “The rousing of the Worm. It devours the magic of the Earth. The life. But its hunger is too great. When it has depleted lesser sustenance, it must come to the Land.”
Worm food now!Lesser sustenance? He must have meant the Elohim. But Covenant could not be sure.
So, if thiss is not some mistaken musing, this looks like it pretty much discards the idea LF needs something more, though that does seem suspicious.By its very nature, the Worm would give Lord Foul what the Despiser had always craved.
The way she usually does? Sounds not too appealing.Covenant did not know how Linden would be able to bear that responsibility.
“The Worm will come.” Gradually Anele’s voice took on a ritual cadence, a sound of litany, as if he recited a sacral truth. “It must. Bringing with it the last crisis of the Earth, it will come. Here it will discover its final nourishment.”
Here - probably the Land. Can't be left at peace even for the possibly last days.
“Here?” Linden asked, still whispering. Bereft or abandoned: Covenant could not tell the difference. “In the Lost Deep? In that chasm? What nourishment?”
Surely she knew that Anele did not hear her?“If it is not forbidden, it will have Earthpower,” Anele said in tones of rock and woe. “If it is not opposed by the forgotten truths of stone and wood, orcrest and refusal, it will have life. The very blood of life from the most potent and private recesses of the Earth’s heart. When the Worm of the World’s End drinks the Blood of the Earth, its puissance will consume the Arch of Time.”And again - refuse - that must be that same forbidding.“To Melenkurion Skyweir, Covenant thought dumbly. Of course. Not here. Not to the Lost Deep, or to any place within Mount Thunder. The Despiser had buried too much evil in these depths. The Worm needed Earthpower concentrated and pure, the world’s essential chrism. As pure as orcrest. As pure as the wrath of Forestals, who had possessed the power to refuse -
Some capture of the Ardent's interests.the Ardent announced with quiet satisfaction. “As it was foreseen, so it has transpired. And I alone among the Insequent bear witness. The Harrow himself has heard no single word. He cares naught for the joy of such epiphanies.”
Evil as it is, what is that with the forbidding he failed to remember? They're going to really need that. Though likely it won't be all they need even then. Not only from the phrase above about forbidding, but also because of the thing LF mentioned about his plans and the presence of much more threats around. Lots more fun ahead, and even the most necessarily urgent thing is all unclear.But Covenant shared none of their reactions. He was slipping again, skidding down a scree of moments into the Land’s past. Losing the present. There was evil in the chasm. It was going to wake up. He could not stop himself.
-the necessary forbidding-
He did not understand how he could have failed to remember.
From "the wrath of Forestals, who had possessed the power to refuse" it looks like that is something they did, apparently when the forbidding for the Ravers was made - the Colossus of the Fall. May have something to do with the runes as well - likely the ones on the Staff and the stains left on the clothes of Linden by the grass and maybe way back on clothes of Covenant and Lord Mhoram by the Morinmoss.
[mod edit to correct the title]