Our faithful searchers - or, rather, their land-wise mounts - have found sufficient malachite for Jeremiah's construct...
...Jeremiah's construct to shelter or to trap the Elohim.
We are immediately confronted with a new problem:
"It [the malachite] was effectively inaccessible."
Linden takes time to think...
Huge costs or risks of time, power, and life need to be taken into consideration.
Stave and Jeremiah... are perhaps unable to tell whether her mind is frozen in place this time, or running through a sequence of possibilities.
So they urge her on.
Her mind latches on to hints that have been given to her:
"The lady's fate is writ in water."
I love her honest humility in her interaction with Jeremiah when he's cluelessly asking why they need water - instead of saying all the things she could say, she confesses that she's not sure her plan will work.
But we know how her plan plays out:
She DOES find water in the rock - just enough, perhaps - to superheat it and burst the face of the rock...
...in spite of the extreme difficulty of mental effort - following "suggestions" and "oblique implications" within the rock...
...in spite of the mountain metaphorically (or perhaps actually - within the context of the Land) bearing ire and ill will against her...
...and in spite of the schist she has to deal with, some truly obstructionist schist.
Jeremiah offers her strength with earthpower - the gift of Anele - to magnify her efforts.
We hold our breath when we fear her efforts have yielded nothing from that unyielding stone face.
And a natural inhabitant of the Land (our beloved Stave) throws the stone that finally brings it all down.
Then Linden collapses into unconsciousness.
One problem is solved; but that was perhaps only a problem within a problem.
I think Linden has had hints as to where this timeline is going, and has been wrestling over it.
We have the tension between her wanting to be there for her son, and her needing to leave his presence -- that she may find a way to protect him and his work from the Worm, and other enemies.
She has other needs too: purpose for herself, and to give purpose to others' lives, struggles, and sacrifices.
So Linden chooses to brave a caesure to seek what she believes is needed - the lore of Forbidding - from a Forestal.
(How she even concluded this is a story in itself, I'd say!)
She reveals her purpose to Stave first.
Ah, Stave...
Linden's choice to make a request of him rather than command him is beautiful.
And, after Linden says she'll take Hyn and Mahrtiir with her, Stave accepts, agreeing to ward her son while she is away.
Stave even calls her by her first name: "Linden."
Stave speaks of what is in his heart: "But do not doubt that my heart is torn within me. I will know neither certainty nor peace until you return."
He returns her embrace when she gives him a hug.
Who could have anticipated this sort of interaction when, eons ago, we met Bannor of the haruchai?
Mahrtiir is the first to be refreshed and healed through Linden's use of the staff. Her heart is drawn to him, as it was to Anele in times past:
"His condition seemed as explicit as iconography. Uselessness and the loss of his health-sense had marked his mien until he looked haggard, too downtrodden to endure more: as deprived as he had been in the Lost Deep."
And he shall come with her.
At the end of the chapter, he will willingly offer himself to accompany Linden and Hyn into the caesure before she even asks.
Of course, the giants have re-appeared on the scene before Linden regained consciousness - Frostheart Grueburn, Rime Coldspray, Latebirth, Onyx Stonemage, Galesend, Kindwind, Cabledarm, and Bluntfist.
On Mahrtiir's request, Linden extends her power and shares it with the giants.
She regrets that she can only offer them so little healing, so little power.
"Whatever she did for them would not be enough."
Their food supplies are out, too. Problems Linden doesn't let herself think about much.
They get their story, though - of where Linden, Jeremiah and Stave have been - and of where Linden is going and why.
Their reaction is... they have hope.
They honor Linden, lifting her in the air "as if she were the standard around which all of the Swordmainnir rallied."
Not everyone is hopeful and content; as Linden expected, Jeremiah objects.
Some of his objections seem simplistic to me; I am surprised by them.
Doesn't he know of the immense costs that will be paid soon?
But maybe he's on to something.
The risks are also immense, and he speaks of the risk she will alter the Land's History, causing damage to the Arch of Time.
And the risk she won't return - one she hasn't honestly acknowledged to him.
Do his efforts to reason with Linden pull her back to only seeking Caer-Caveral rather than the older Forestals?
Or had she already made that decision?
Nonetheless, she is unable to comfort him, and he withdraws.
The chapter ends with Linden summoning wild magic, hoping gratitude and trust may ward against Desecration.
So that's ...some... of what happened here.
What do you guys think of all this?
Let's carry on this adventure… that we may struggle to untangle mysteries "as complex and - perhaps - self-referential as the wards which guarded the Lost Deep."
(and what's up with that line about the Viles and their wards, anyway?)
