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Kevin's Watch, ancient Earthpower-wrought spire. Three times now has the tip of Kevin's outpost welcomed outsiders into the Land. The solid stones beneath their feet, and the view out over the Land around them, have been a familiar scene which, along with the journey down out of the mountains, served to prepare them for what they might have to face."Through a din like the destruction of the heavens, the massive spire of Kevin's Watch shuddered and snapped. Between one heartbeat and the next, it became rubble poised a thousand feet above the hills."
But now, Linden has found the view from the Watch obscured by wrongness, her only guide is a madman, and the solid reassurance of the Watch is literally torn from beneath her feet.
With Anele clinging to her neck she plunges down toward the valley floor, a thousand feet of air between them and the ground, surrounded by the rubble of one of the Land's oldest monuments. Stone, cracked and failing: the fall of Kevin's Watch will set a theme for the entire series, of Earth failing against the dangers that have arisen. The stones of the Watch smash into her body, Linden and her burden ricochet from boulder to boulder; as Anele's grip threatens to choke her, as another rock smashes into her temple--in a flood of pain, the Wild Magic fills her.
Until the Watch fell, as she entered the and, she had used the Wild Magic unconsciously, to heal herself. This time, she has been reaching for it, reaching out to Covenant's ring--but notice that it does not come until she is struck on the head by a rock. It seems that for some reason she is unable to consciously access the Wild Magic. It must be "beneath or beyond consciousness", and it is when she comes close to losing consciousness that the Wild Magic envelopes her and Anele in flame, and slows their fall."In the imponderable gap between instants, she felt that she had dropped into the core of a sun. Its glare appeared to catch and seethe in the earth's yellow shroud, lighting the obscurity to its horizons like a lightning-strike.
Then rampant flame bore her away, and she vanished into a whiteness like the pure grief of stars."
As she slows their descent, with the white fire raging through her, she becomes less aware of what is around her, and instead we are reminded of a story, told to her the last time she was in the Land:
Time is key, in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Time binds the world together, and binds the Despier within it. The Wild Magic is keystone of Time, and so is both bound to the Arch of Time, and unconstrained within it. Only the Wild Magic, accessed through White Gold, can unmake the Arch of Time, can break--or bend--the Law of Time itself. Without the Law of Time, "there could be no life; no creation; no beauty.""Stars, she had heard, were the bright children of the world's birth, the glad offspring of the Creator, trapped inadvertantly in the heavens by the same binding which had imprisoned the Despiser. They could only be set free, restored to their infinite home, by the severing of Time."
But as Linden realises, there could also be no evil.
Linden knows that Joan is in the Land, with her ring, partner to the one Linden wears. And Lord Foul has Joan.
As soon as the thought has entered her mind, it is replaced by another, a fact that Linden will not let herself put aside: "Lord Foul had taken Jeremiah."
It is with these things in mind that she takes hold of the Wild Magic, and with it, she bears Anele safely to the earth.
*
She wakes, weak and bruised, atop the rubble of Kevin's Watch, the sun clear in the sky above her. She can feel the damage in the stones beneath her, like the splinter of harm she had felt as she stood on Kevin's Watch before the fall; now she feels the pain of a raw wound.
Anele is gone, and her thought towards him as she lies there bears a selfish tinge that hints at a need to always be the healer, the saviour: "Damn it, she had to be able to save somebody."
Still weakened, she takes in her surroundings: the rubble is spread across a hillside beneath the new scar where Kevin's Watch stood. Only a little time has passed since their fall; enough for dust to settle.
Even hurt and in shock, she realises that where Anele had been right about the aura--the caesure--he might be right about other things. But she still finds it difficult to move. Even when she manages to sit up, she can only sit and stare at her hands for a time. It is here where she finally begins to realise that something is wrong."After a moment, she realised that the tumbling stone must have been seen or heard by everyone who lived in the vicinity. Simple curiosity might bring them out to look at the wreckage. The help she needed might be on its way to her.
Or Anele's enemies might come--"
At first she cannot identify it; she is dismayed by her sudden weakness, an element of self-doubt creeping into her thoughts. Then she remembers the clear sky, where before everything below the Watch was shrouded in wrongness. The yellow cloud is gone, and so is her healthsense. The realisation penetrates through her shock, and she scrabbles for some element of that perception, tries to read the damage in her skin, in the rocks beneath her.
When she was in the Land before, her healthsense had defined her. She had been subjected to the horrors of the sunbane and Ravers, but she had also seen into the truth of beauty and health, and had used it to heal. Without it, she almost feels helpless.
Apparently trying to put her loss of ability out of her mind momentarliy, she comes back to to the idea of Anele. What she had seen of his madness while on the Watch had attracted her instincts as a healer--her need for something to heal. She clings to the thought of Anele as a puzzle to be solved, as something she will fix, and so sets out to find him.
When she finds him huddled behind a rock, her senses are once again frustrated.
In an echo of the words of the Lords to Covenant, so long ago: He was closed to her now."Bending over him, she tried to force her senses into him; tried to see beyond the surface of his seamed, unwashed skin. But of the madness and Earthpower which had defined him earlier she caught no glimpse."
This is not the only thing about him that appears different to her. His manner is changed, and he seems lucid; completely unlike his behaviour atop the spire. And he appears to know who she is, or at least where she has come from.
Linden immediately realises this is an opportunity for answers. She begins to question him, but stops when, despite his apparent blindness, he points directly at her ring. 'You have power. That is well. You will have need of it.'"'The Law of Death was broken,' he murmured, apparently speaking to himself while his fingertips traced her expression, 'long ago.' He held his head cocked to one side, considering her eyelessly. 'The Law of Life was sundered in Andelain. Such things are possible.'"
The questions come tumbling into a reader's head. Why does he suddenly seem knowledgeable? Where has his madness gone? Who is this strange old man?
Linden is as confused and disturbed as the reader. Fumbling for something to say, she comments on their fall from the Watch, and his disappearance, at which he claims that he feared her; his phantom pursuers again, these others he claimed to be after him as surely as he believed the caesure was.
As he continues speaking, more new ideas, new names appear: Kevin's Dirt, which "blinds them", his elusive they, the "Masters". More strangeness, more that is unfamiliar. Linden is beginning to see how different this place is to the Land she was accustomed to.
Kevin's Dirt, it seems, is the name of the yellow fog that covered the Land when they looked down from the Watch. More than that, it has not gone at all--according to Anele, she simply cannot see it. It has blinded her. And another unexplained fargment: 'Only the Masters--'
Cracks are beginning to show in his appearence of sanity. He once again becomes anxiuos of those that chase him, and begs Linden's protection. It is only after she reminds him that she saved him from dying in the fall that he calms. Once again Linden decides to try questioning him. He identifies the aura that shattered the Watch as a caesure, and when Linden mentions Lord Foul, he reveals more of his knowledge:
It seems all we are ever given in this book is more unanswered questions. Why would the Despiser seek to destroy this old man? Caesures are 'sent' by Foul, but there is still no hint of what they are."'The Grey Slayer,' he breathed. 'Maker of Desecration. He seeks to destroy me. He sends his caesures to achieve ruin. Kevin's Dirst blinds the Land. The Masters name him their foe, yet they serve him and know it not.'"
Interestingly, despite the context, Anele's words do not connect Kevin's Dirt to Lord Foul, simply stating that it "blinds the Land".
After telling him about her problems--about Jeremiah--Linden waits for him to respond. When he does, it is yet another piece to be added to the puzzle.
How can this sad, tired old man, this blind madman, be the Land's last hope?'You have a son.' ... 'His birthright has been torn from him. Mine I have lost. I am not worthy of protection. I live only because I am the Land's last hope.
'Ask your questions. I will attempt to answer.'
Linden starts with a simple question: Why is it called Kevin's Dirt. When asked, Anele seems to look around him for the answer. 'These stones do not know,' he says. '...Kevin's Dirt is a human name. It is too recent to be discerned here.'
Can Anele truly read answers in stone? We have seen the like before: in The Power That Preserves, in a cave in the mountains near Doom's Retreat, an Unfettered One spent his life trying to read history in the rock. He failed in his purpose--the stones move too slowly for any human to read them. So what does Anele do, when he seems to look to the rocks for answers?
Her questions continue to garner few useful answers: the earth does not know how long Kevin's Dirt has existed, but Anele's guesses suggest it has been a very long time. The caesures, however, have roamed the Land for only a hundred years.
Anele claims not to know how old he is, not to remember whether his parents live, or when he received his 'birthright'. His answers become less certain: There were no caesures when he was born, but he is less than one hundred years old. Even he does not seem able to explain it. Here also he contradicts his ravings from the Watch, and later: 'The caesures do not desire me. I am scant threat to the Grey Slayer.'
This is the point when Linden becomes frustrated with his answers. He contradicts himself, his answers make no sense; his madness makes it hard for her to trust his words, but she must continue asking.
Of the caesures: "They sever. Dislocate. I cannot name it."
Of his reading of stone: "Look around you. The truth is visible here."
Of course Linden can discern nothing. She is beginning to think again of her tiredness.
She goes over things that have been known since much earlier: The Law of Death, broken by Elena. Anele calls it "The boundary which distinguishes the end of life".
On the Law of Life, his memory once again troubles him. It seems that he is drawing the story of Sunder and Hollian from somewhere in his own memory, yet he does not know where: "Do I read or remember? Have I heard a tale?"
And once again, he talks of things that are incomprehensible to us at this stage:
Skurj? Another new name, a new threat we do not know. Linden recognises that Anele is punishing himself--she was like that once, as well."'The fault is mine. All this' - he gestured wildly around him - 'Kevin's Dirt and caesures, the Masters and the dread fire of the skurj. All the Land's pain. The fault is mine.'"
Finally, he tells her of the Law of Life: "It is the boundary which distinguishes the end of death."
Here Linden muses on how all this could be possible. Her Staff of Law had been used to reshape the Earthpower, to restore it to its former beauty. Its very existence should have made things like caesures and Kevin's Dirt impossible. Her frustration mounts, feeling that she had done so much good to come to nothing--feeling betrayed, it seems, by those who should have continued her work. When she demands he tell her how it is his 'fault', to speak of his birthright, he only becomes more frantic. Eventually, he flees from her.
She scrambles up the slope after him, and find that he is standing at the top, looking down, grinning like a lunatic. Up the slope, to stand right before him, and asks him to help her understand what is wrong.
And everything she thought she knew about Anele-- changes.
------------------"Distinctly he pronounced, 'I see you are the Chosen, called Linden Avery. At one time, you were named "Sun-Sage" for your power against the Sunbane. I have your son.'"
This chapter raises question after question after question:
What is Kevin's Dirt, and how did it come to be?
What are the caesures? Did Lord Foul create them?
Who are the Masters, and why are they after Anele?
What are the skurj?
Why hasn't the Staff of Law protected the Land from these threats?
And, most importantly, most pressing: Who or what on Earth is Anele?
"This was the boundary that distinguishes the end of life made fragile". 
) me, too, but for different reasons. SRD makes a point to say that she was struck on the head "again". He is purposely tying it to the previous times she was struck . . . in the last chapter. Clearly, there is something significant about this.