The Aid of the Feroce
Frostheart Grueburn, carrying Linden, enters through the opening of the Defiles Course into Mount Thunder, to begin the ascent towards confrontation and Kiril Threndor. Bluff Stoutgirth carrying Covenant and Cirrus Kindwind carrying Jeremiah are walking nearby, as are Stave and a krill-bearing Branl. Behind them are Onyx Stonemage and Halewhole Bluntfist of the Swordmainnir. Also following are Baf Scatterwit, Hurl, Etched Furledsail. Squallish Blustergale, Wiver Setrock and others from Stoutgirth's sailor crew. Ahead of them, Ironhand Rime Coldspray and the lurker's servants the Feroce are leading the company.
Entering into the mountain, Linden is aware of suddenly being surrounded by blackness except for the krill's light, with the heavens blotted from view.
The watercourse, now mostly dried out, is at first a series of terraces with some tumbled boulders the Feroce slide over while Giants squeeze single file between the boulder piles. The watercourse narrows and the ceiling stretches ever higher while seeming fragile, with occasional fallen rock to reinforce that fragile perception. Moss begins to cover everything as they go further up and inward, reflecting the sickly green glow of the guiding Feroce.The decimations of the stars had been a constant reminder of the carnage which the Worm had already wrought. But what had been lost only made what remained more precious.
The air suddenly feels thick with poisonous vapors and the leading Giants start coughing very roughly. Jeremiah seems to be faltering with his control of the Staff of Law's air-cleansing abilities.
Linden wishes to mentally reach out and draw added power from the Staff to help Jeremiah, but reflects that he needs to become accustomed to meeting this challenge without assistance. Then the Giants stop marching in sudden exhaustion and Baf Scatterwit swoons, slips, and cracks a kneecap.He was not ready for this; not ready at all to have twenty-one lives depending on him for every breath.
Linden realizes she must at least say something helpful to Jeremiah, telling him he need only encourage the Staff's power rather than force it. Jeremiah protests that he can't do it and it doesn't make sense.
Jeremiah tries it after the briefest of protests, and soon he enables the company to continue onward breathing air free of rot or poison.Linden fought for patience. "Try it this way. Close your eyes. Forget where you are. Forget what's happening. Forget the Staff, if you can. Concentrate on Earthpower and air, clean air, air that keeps you alive. It's like building one of your castles. You think about what you're making. You don't think about how you make it. The Staff is just a means.
"You can do this if you trust yourself."
They all pass through a stinging waterfall. The Feroce scramble up the stone wall face behind the waterfall, and Branl goes up ahead with the krill to light the way. As they all scramble up, Linden sees krill-light reflected upon a black-surfaced lake of undetermined boundary. The lake is motionless, seamlessly absorbing everything that drops into it. The Feroce seem to have disappeared. Covenant remarks he saw them go into the lake. They resurface quickly, warning the company it must hasten from a peril of majesty and wonder.
Covenant orders the company to surge forward. Linden sees a lithe, thick, serpentine body glide above the lake's surface, suggesting it's part of an immense monster. Covenant guesses it's the lurker's mother. The Feroce call it their High God's god and declare its thoughts to be broken. They warn it will seek to kill everybody. The water level starts rising and the company starts running upstream through a narrowing cavern. This unfortunately ends in a cul-de-sac with another waterfall.
However, the uneven stone behind this waterfall permits easier climbing for the Giants and Haruchai. Stave requests rope from the Anchormaster as the water level rises high enough to force the Giants to stay close to the cavern walls. Baf Scatterwit stumbles into the lake's edge, immersing her right foot. Stave leads the way up the cul-de-sac wall with a Giant sailor holding coiled rope behind him. Grueburn calls attention to Scatterwit's right foot having been cut off at the ankle, though it's seemingly cauterized and isn't bleeding. Grueburn takes Scatterwit's arm and supports her forward. Giant sailor Wiver Setrock struggles upward on rope cast down and anchored by Stave, then casts another rope down. Sailors Keenreef and Hurl then climb with new ropes.
Anchormaster Bluff Stoutgirth asserts to Ironhand Rime Coldspray that he holds command in such straits, and Coldspray doesn't dispute this. Stoutgirth determines the order of Giants to ascend, and assigns Scatterwit to the company's rear.From the Ironhand's back, Covenant asked the lurker's creatures, "What about you? We need you."
"The Feroce are the Feroce," they replied as if that answer sufficed. Sinking at every step, they began to back away. As they submerged, their fires flared briefly on the water, then went out.
"Hellfire," Covenant muttered. "Bloody damnation."
Atop this wall they ascend to a wide-mouthed tunnel narrowing to a chute angling sharply upward, filled with the diminished river at its bottom. The Giants have anchored themselves by sitting in the river and bracing against potholes to serve as anchors for the climbing company. Jeremiah announces that he is seeing Melenkurion Skyweir from the Worm's viewpoint, as the Worm is swimming through the Black River. Hurl proclaims all of the company has safely climbed above the lake. Stoutgirth orders all onward but Hurl, who he orders to stay back and watch the still-rising lake.
As Hurl notifies that the lake of the lurker's god is rising to the base of the waterfall, the Giants run up the chute in a series of splashes while some of them are hauling Scatterwit by rope or pushing her upward. They gain a widened cavern where the river had eaten out deposits from the sandstone and shale of the walls. Where the river dug out a pit in the underlying basalt, Rime Coldspray re-assumes command and orders a rest. Food is brought out and Linden takes the Staff from Jeremiah to clean the air while he rests. The Feroce's emerald light is seen ascending the walls of the chute towards the company, and soon they and Hurl are seen moving towards them. Hurl is grinning and unharmed. The Feroce are shrunken after their immersion in the lake of their High God's god.
The Feroce repeat to Covenant that the company must hasten. Hoping to give the Feroce courage, Covenant reminds them their ancestors the jheherrin saved the Pure One when weaker than the Feroce are now, and yet were set free. The Feroce say they will obey. Covenant tells Coldspray they should continue on.
Unprompted, Jeremiah asks Linden for the Staff, and suggests he shouldn't have any more help wielding its power. Linden semi-reluctantly returns it. Jeremiah's control over Earthpowerful Law is becoming noticeably more effective than when they first started climbing inside the mountain. Some Giants slip while clamoring up the steep wet stone chute, but are timely caught by others below them, and jests are made among them about these mistakes.Nodding, the Ironhand addressed Bluff Stoutgirth. "Anchormaster?"
"Aye." Stoutgirth grinned. To his crew, he said as if he were jesting, "Come, sluggards. Have done with feasting and sloth. While we dally, the world's doom grows fretful. Soon it may set its sails and depart unopposed."
His crew responded with snorts or groans, or with ripostes; yet they immediately began packing away their provisions. Soon they were ready.
Above the chute, the river runs across a gently sloping flat stone area from which two water sources flow together at the higher end of this flat. Both sources of water ultimately flow from different areas of the far wall's gutrock. Branl's holding of the krill at the stream's mouth reveals all this in bejeweled brightness.
They all approach the cave's outlet on the far side's walls. The Feroce appear to be further diminished at this point, so high above the Sarangrave; their green fires flicker more hesitantly as they fearfully predict, "You will be wroth with us. You will not heed." The Feroce point at the fissure and tell Covenant it misleads. They insist the inlet within the right water body, the inflow of polluted-looking water, carries the memory of sunlight. It must be the polluted water route to get to the Wightwarrens, Kiril Threndor, and eventually outside to the Upper Land. "As one, the creatures pointed at the turbulence spewing from beneath the surface of the pond."There were indeed two, one diagonally across from her on the left, the other opposite her and somewhat to the right. The stream on the left tumbled from a fissure in the wall, a crack barely wide enough to admit a Giant. The water frothing there conveyed the impression that it cascaded from somewhere far above the cave. In the krill's light, its spray shone silver.
The other stream boiled out of an opening beneath the lake's surface. Apparently it came from the base of a subtle flaw in the stone, a seam where distinct forms of rock had been reluctantly fused. Under the pressure of its own weight, water seethed into the pond.
Only the fissure on the left offered the company an egress. An ascent there would be difficult. If the crack narrowed, it might become impassable. But the water there was fresh.
God, it was fresh--it came from a clean spring, or from several. And the fissure was accessible. The company could reach it without enduring an immersion in the pond; without subjecting Linden to more of the bane's touch.
Covenant and Linden want to believe the Feroce, but don't see how they can survive going that way. Jeremiah demands, "Look". Linden focuses where he indicates to fused stone, noticing the seam of the fused rock appears thin enough to break with wild magic. She further senses a wedge-shaped space with its tip just beyond the seam, widening out with ascending distance. And the level of water pressure had dropped since Linden opened the ceilings to drop water into the Lost Deep.
The Anchormaster has Hurl, Setrock, and other Giants analyze the hardness and density of this fused stone, confirming that the Feroce, Linden, and Jeremiah sense flowing water from a chamber just behind the seam-boundaried fused stone in the wall below the polluted lake. Hurl and Setrock warn that ordinary force will not smash that stone in or loosen it outward. Linden volunteers to cut the seam surrounding the fused stone using wild magic. But a lot of water would then be released. Covenant cautions everybody of this, and asks them to be prepared to aid Linden to keep her out of the water's rush. Jeremiah is so concerned for her that his air-cleaning power flickers out from the Staff. His power then feebly resumes after all start to gag on the suddenly rotten air. Jeremiah recovers his control after Linden says to concentrate on air and leave worrying about her rescue to the Giants.
Coldspray tells Covenant the Giants will see to Linden's safety and they arrange themselves in an arc near the seamed stone. Stave walks toward Linden (placed in Stoutgirth's arms by Grueburn, who stands nearby).
Linden is speechless with gratitude. She, Grueburn, and Stave see the Giant sailor Etched Furledsail approaching, who tells them to "fear nothing" as Linden is handed to him. Furledsail also cautions Linden not to resist with force once she breaches the wall, to allow Giants quick mobility.Stave came to her side. He gave her a grave bow, regarded her with his single eye. "In such straits, Chosen," he remarked, "it may be that Giants are better able to ward you than one Haruchai. Nonetheless I will not be parted from you. I have accepted once an absence from your side. I will not do so again."
Linden Ringthane searches for the hidden door within her that accesses wild magic when mentally opened. Linden's silent response to Furledsail's cautioning words prompts the latter to raise an eyebrow; causes a slight shrug from Stave. The Chosen hesitates, fearing the force of the water that will come through. But Covenant and Jeremiah call her by name, and Stave confidently declares, "You are Linden Avery the Chosen, named in honor Ringthane, Giantfriend, and Wildwielder. Much is asked of you, but much has also been given. The time for doubt has passed. Only deeds or death remain. On other occasions, you have dared Desecration. You need not fear it now." Linden finds her inner door to wield wild magic as Furledsail moves with her into the polluted pond toward the seams around the fused rock. As water rushes out in response to her power, Linden is tossed to Hurl, then to Setrock, and then back to her friend Grueburn. Grueburn fiercely grins as Linden internally howls with triumph.
Did you call me your daughter? she shouted at Lord Foul. Watch and learn, you smug bastard!
Spoiler
As the onslaught of water rushes into the cave, the Feroce disappear from the company's sight.
) But, after her marriage to Thomas, and the discussions about forgiveness that she and Thomas had at that time, not to mention between herself and her son, it seemed that she no longer was so hard on herself, that she didn't blame herself for everything that happened. That she had learned how to forgive herself. This is why I do not understand her comment about forgiveness at this point. It makes me think that the forgiveness she seeks comes from someone else, or something else. Or maybe that it is someone else, or something else, that needs forgiveness. 
Yeah, I'll have to restore my OPAL credentials by pointing out that Linden is brave to keep facing the fear of possession by the Bane's power, which seems to be getting stronger as they go upriver--it's as if when Linden opened that ceiling, it's allowed more of the Bane's essence to waft upward through Mount Thunder. She's got guts, that Linden Ringthane!
Is there no limit to your limited tales?