I haven’t seen this discussed yet. Caerroil Wildwood demanded an answer from Linden to a question “she couldn’t answer.” His demand relates to the Runes on her Staff, and to the resurrection of Covenant. It also relates directly to the transformation she has just undergone at the end of part 1. Not only that, we get the line from which the book III was supposed to get its title (before it was changed). So clearly, this event is crucial to both the plot of FR and the overall story of the LC.
Right after Linden sees “the Truth” of her son’s suffering, she is remade like her Staff. Blackened by righteous rage, she became someone who doesn’t forgive, someone who can contemplate revenge. Just like Caerroil. The mound of Gallows Howe stirs her with recognition. The death soaked up by the soil doesn’t feel evil; it feels just. Here the slayers of trees met their rightful end.
CW says to Linden:
“She had not known that she contained such possibilities until she had beheld her son’s suffering. Here, however, she found that she welcomed the taste of retribution. It made her stronger.”
Linden replies:“I have granted boons, and may do so again. For each, I demand such payment as I deem meet. But you have not requested that which you most require. Therefore I will exact no recompense. Rather I ask only that you accept the burden of a question for which you have no answer.”
CW:“Just tell me what it is. If I can find an answer, I will.”
That's his question. The point of giving Linden the Runes: presumably so she can bring back Covenant. At least that's what she does with the possibility he enabled with the runes. So he's looking for an answer to entropy, how to stop the end of all things. At one time, Donaldson said this is what he's trying to explore with his Chronicles--a human answer to this inevitability.“It is this. How may life endure in the Land, if the Forestals fail and perish, as they must, and naught remains to ward its most vulnerable treasures? We were formed to stand as guardians in the Creator’s stead. Must it transpire that beauty and truth shall pass utterly when we are gone?”
Mahdoubt says:
“He asks only that she seek out knowledge, for its lack torments him. The fear that no answer exists multiplies his long sorrow.”
“I will,” repeated Linden, although she could not guess what her promise might cost her, and had no idea how she would keep it. Caerroil Wildwood was too extreme to be refused.
CW:
Then CW takes her staff and says,“Then I will grant that which you require.”
The task of its creation. The runes were necessary to complete it.“This blackness is lamentable” –his tone itself was elegiac—“but I will not alter it. Its import lies beyond my ken. However, other flaws may be amended The theurgy of the wood’s fashioning is unfinished. It was formed in ignorance, and could not be otherwise than it is. Yet its wholeness is needful. Willingly I complete the task of its creation.”
After these Runes, Linden felt
Now fast-forward to the end:“. . . a renewed severity in the wood, a greater and more exacting commitment, as though the necessary commandments of Law had been fortified.”
“And now Caerroil Wildwood had given her new power. Gallows Howe itself had made her stronger.”
There were two dangers associated with using both Law and wild magic together: her physical body couldn't take such power, and her mind would go crazy. The krill allowed her to physically managed such powers, but the runes enabled her to retain her sanity. It "imposed a kind of structure on potential chaos." The kind of chaos which can drive you crazy. But this also hints at the opposite of entropy. Holding chaos at bay.“The actions of Linden’s friends were like Caerroil Wildwood’s runes: they articulated her resolve.”
“Now instinctively she understood the runes with which Caerroil Wildwood had elaborated her Staff. They were for this. The Forestal of Garroting Deep had engraved the ebony wood with his knowledge of Life and Death. Indirectly he had given her a supernal relationship with Law. For a moment, at least, his gift enabled her to commingle wild magic and Earthpower without losing control of one or falsifying the other.”
“It should have been too much. Either alone will transcend your strength—Human flesh had not been formed to survive such forces. Yet Linden felt no danger. She was hardly conscious of strain. Perhaps her mind had already shattered. If so, she did not recognize the loss, or choose to regret it. Loric’s gem drew immeasurable might away from her mortal blood and nerves and bones. Caerroil Wildwood’s runes imposed a kind of structure on potential chaos.
So here we have Linden bringing her dead lover back from the dead, and she's able to do so only because of the payment given to her in exchange for her promise to try to find an answer to the question of all things ending. Which, of course, is now the new title of the next book.
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