Part 1 "to achieve the ruin of the Earth"
Chapter 2 Unfinished Needs
For two books, we waited for a chapter from Covenant’s point of view. These are, after all, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Finally, we got one in the opening chapter of AATE!
Well, I hope you’re sated, because chapter two is back to being from Linden’s POV…including that dimly-lit inner monologue for which she is known.
Make no mistake; I am not of the THOOLAH persuasion…but don’t count me as a Linden fan-boy either. Thomas Covenant was pretty hard to like and accept throughout the First Chronicles. So it is with Linden at times. I trust SRD has a plan for Linden. I do not know what SRD’s plan will turn out to be, so I remain OPAL – Opinion Pending About Linden.
A lot takes place in this chapter. Get comfortable, because this is going to take a while. Here we go…
Realizing what she has wrought by resurrecting TC (and how broken he is, now that she has him back), Linden is horrified and paralyzed. In many ways, we see much of the personal progress she had appeared to make in the ten years of in her “real world” and the events of the last two volumes has melted away. She is back in the stasis of self-doubt she occupied for so much of the Second Chronicles. Before we get out of the first paragraph of the chapter, we have been reminded of her role in the death of her parents, as well as her Second Chrons struggle to deal with Covenant’s fatal “real world” stabbing, her encounters with Ravers, and Covenant’s death in the confrontation with Lord Foul. Again…all in the first paragraph!
After that intensive glance into the narrative rear-view mirror, we see that she is, at best, emotionally distant from the reaction of her companions and the others present in the clearing of Andelain. Her entire attention is on the twin results of her decision to bring Covenant out of the Arch of Time and back into Life.
She had left any ordinary loss of hope or faith behind as soon as she had realized Covenant was not whole.
Let’s take a moment to look more closely at that last point. Way back in the “I Am Content” chapter of ROTE, Linden experienced a series of visions during her summoning to the Land. One of these places her back in the cavern of the One Tree, where Covenant nearly woke the Worm.She has roused the Worm of the World’s End.
No question that SRD was foreshadowing this moment. Further, deponent sayeth naught.Oh, this time it was not Covenant who raved with white fire, disturbing the Worm of the World’s End in its slumbers, threatening to rouse the destruction of the Earth. Now it was Linden herself. In her hands she held more power than she could comprehend or control, and with it she lashed out in a fury of desperation, seeking to reclaim her son, and achieving only cataclysm.
Unchecked, her needs goaded the Worm to wakefulness. It lifted its vast head, seeking havoc. For a moment as terrible as eternity, it looked into her eyes with recognition.
No! She cried in protest No! This was more of Joan’s madness, more of Lord Foul’s malice. But it was not; it was prophecy. She had regained her health-sense and knew the truth.
What the Dead Said
What reaches through Linden’s self-absorbed tail-chasing over “what have I done?” is not the plight of the rest of her living companions, whose distance from her thoughts render them little more than narrative set-dressing at this point. No, her reverie of auto-flagellation is broken by what now transpires between the specters of the dead High Lords of old.
Linden still has not quite learned that it is not all about her. The Desecration that Berek is referring to is the one perpetrated nearly 7,000 years earlier by his great-grandson, High Lord Kevin.At that moment, there was no part of her still capable of attending to the distress of her friends. Liand and Stave, Mahrtiir, Pahni and Bhapa, the Ranyhyn: she had nothing left for them. If the Humbled or the Law Breakers, Infelice or the Harrow had spoken to her, she would not have been able to hear them.
Nevertheless, there were powers abroad in the night that could reach her. When the great voice of Berek Halfhand announced, “The time has come to speak of the Ritual of Desecration,” she staggered as though she had been struck.
She believed that he meant to excoriate her.
Essentially, Berek, with the concurrence of Damelon and Loric, expresses that none of Kevin’s sires blame him for what he did, that it sprang from his passion for the Land and that they might well have done the same in his place. This ends up in a four-generation group hug, but not before Berek utters the following, which (knowing SRD) may have further significance as the story unfolds:
As the shades of Kevin, Loric and Damelon fade in the aftermath of Kevin being shriven by his three forefathers, Berek turns his attention to Linden…but she is no longer hearing him. He tries to convey to her the contrast he sees in her, that while she has fundamentally changed since he met her in his proper time, she still retains at her core the healer that worked wonders in his war camp. She needs, he tells her, to reach deep inside herself for that core; for it is from there that her purpose and service must spring.Doubtless, such passion may cause immeasurable harm. But it has not released the Despiser. It cannot. Mistaken though it may be, no act of love and horror – or indeed of self-repudiation – is potent to grant the Despiser his desires. He may be freed only by one who is compelled by rage and contemptuous of consequence.
Berek is wasting his ghostly breath. Linden is not listening, her focus is now on the only other dead High Lord still present: Elena. As the ignored Lord-Fatherer fades from the scene, Linden now confronts the specter of Covenant’s daughter.
Like Kevin, and like Linden herself, Elena bears the knowledge of the ill that resulted from her actions. Having witnessed the absolution Kevin had just received, perhaps Elena dares to hope for similar. If so, Linden is not on the same wavelength.
Linden calls out to her, seeking her return and her response, but Elena is gone.In a low voice, taut and bitter, she demanded, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” She was speaking to herself as much as to Elena’s woe. “It doesn’t accomplish anything. You’ve suffered enough. Tell me what to do now.”
Tell me how to bear what I’ve done.
She needed an answer. But apparently she – like Elena herself – had misjudged the Dead. In a different form, Elena may have once aided Covenant; she had no aid to offer now. Instead an echo of Linden’s dismay twisted her features. Raising her face to the doomed stars, she uttered a wail of desolation; the stark cry of a woman whose wracked heart had been denied.
Then she flared briefly in the krill’s light and vanished, following the distant ancestors of her High Lordship out of the vale; out of the night
Of the Dead, only one remains. Even though he spent millenia as Caer-Caveral, there is still much of Hile Troy in this ghost. His unrequited love for the High Lord he had served may add to the sharpness of his tone as he castigates Linden for offering no comfort to Elena. Not that it matters. Linden dismisses his criticism and wants only for someone to tell her what she should do. She even goes as far as to complain that Covenant had been given answers by his Dead in the distant past…why was she getting no help now?
There are many ways that Linden’s situation differs from what Covenant faced when he met his Dead, and Caer-Caveral tells her many of them, but the one piece of useful advice he gives her is the one thing she has yet to do all chapter: turn to her friends and companions. With that, he too departs to wherever the Dead reside when not appearing to the Living.
As The Worm Turns…
So, surely now Linden does as Berek and Caer-Caveral have suggested? She turns away from her dark and barren purposes, re-embraces her healing essence, and turns to her faithful companions for aid and counsel?
Yeah, right. Linden’s next move is to seek the help of probably the next-most-hostile party present, Infelice of the Elohim. But first….
Nobody in the clearing seems eager to look her in the eye, but Liand at least is willing to ask her to try to heal Covenant. While Liand has no idea what is physically wrong with the man Linden has just resurrected out of the Arch of Time, has no concept of leprosy, his health sense still recognizes both the presence of illness and the wrongness of the massive jumble of memories that is Covenant’s mind.
Linden, at least, knows her limitations in this matter, having learned the perils of possession in her earlier experiences in the Land.
With that, she stalks up to Infelice and basically demands to be told how to find Jeremiah. Surprise! Infelice refuses to tell her, wants nothing to do with Linden’s son, whom she calls “an abomination.” So Linden asks how to stop the Worm. This fares no better; Infelice disdainfully tells her it cannot be done. Why not? Well, all life must die somehow, and stopping the Worm of the World’s End would upset the balance of that cycle and only hasten and worsen the impending doom of all things.”Don’t you think,” she asked Liand precisely, “that I’ve done enough harm already?”
Stave, being Stave, chooses this moment to point out that if all life supposedly dies, then why do the Elohim transcend death and seem to be immortal? (He is really developing a gift for getting under Infelice’s skin) Her haughty demeanor slips into anger briefly before she masters herself and explains the timeless role of the Elohim in placating the Worm so that it will slumber and not destroy the Earth. Now that it has been roused beyond their ability to soothe, they will be the first to be consumed. They can run, but they can’t hide. As the Worm feeds on them, its puissance will grow and while it is already supposedly unstoppable, it will become even more so. It won’t happen instantly, but scant days remain.
This get through to Linden; she realizes that it is time to do something.
Ah, but she ends up deferring action further. Liand comes to her again, this time with the Ramen. Manethrall Mahrtiir take the lead this time in imploring her to do something to succor Covenant. Instead of the terse and self-critical refusal she gave Liand last time, she tells her friends more about why she will not use her power to reach into him and mend his mental and physical hurts.I need to face this. I can’t put it off any longer.
When Liand muses that surely it is not so wrong for her to extend her care in this way for a man she once loved, Galt steps into the conversation, forcefully asserting that yes, it would be wrong. It would result in further evil. With echos of Haruchai of a different age saying “We do not trust this Linden Avery”, he implies that he and the other Humbled intend to prevent her from any such action.
Didn’t Covenant just command them to “…choose her. She’s the only one who can do this” at the end of the last chapter? Yes, but it apparently did not make much of an impression on them, Stave remembers, though...
As she has been doing all chapter, Linden is tuning out both the Humbled’s censure of her and Stave’s defense. Now that she realizes she needs to do something, her attention is on the Harrow.”Nevertheless,” Stave remarked without inflection, “you will not raise your hand against her. The Unbeliever has instructed your forebearance. The Ranyhyn have declared their devoir against you. And I will not stand aside. No friend of the Chosen will stand aside. Mayhap even the Giants, who have named her Giantfriend, will abide by their allegiance. If you intend to impose your will on the Chosen, you must oppose all who have gathered here in her name. And you must defy the given command of the ur-lord, Thomas Covenant.”
Return of the Giants
Linden still does not get a chance to speak or act on that intention. Right on the heels of Stave’s reference to them, Rime Coldspray and the rest of the Giants return to the vale after their encounter with the spector of Honniscrave. With only a minimal acknowledgement of Covenant’s unconscious form or of anyone else present, they go straight to Infelice, and it is clear from their grim demeanor that there is unpleasant business on their minds.
Boy is there ever! Coldspray confronts Infelice with the knowledge they got from Honniscrave that she was the instigator of the long-ago bargain between the Giants and Elohim that granted the Giants their ability to understand all the languages of Earth…which Esmer has blocked. They now know what the price for that was: Longwrath’s madness and bloodlust, which was apparently the result of the Elohim foreseeing the current crisis way back then, claiming the life of an unnamed future Giant as their price for the gift of tongues, then setting their geas in motion with the intent of Longwrath stopping Linden before she could do what she has now done.
This certainly has made Infelice unpopular with the Giants. Linden doesn’t much appreciate it either, and says so:
The Harrow applauds this bitter little speech, but Galt, on behalf of the Humbled, finds it an occasion to condemn Linden further. This prompts Coldspray to basically tell the Haruchai to stuff their judgemental attitude, that Honniscrave told them enough of both Covenant and Linden that the Giants (while they may still harbor some doubt of the eventual outcome of matters) are steadfastly casting their lot with the Unbeliever and the Chosen – and want the Humbled to keep their criticisms to themselves.”That’s unconscionable.” She found herself saying, although she had not intended to speak. “Lord Foul would be proud of you. If you wanted me dead, you could have killed me yourselves. You’ve had plenty of chances. Tricking other people into doing your dirty work isn’t just shortsighted. It’s suicidal. You could have had allies. Now all you’ve got are people who won’t be sorry to see you die first.”
Of course, since the primary communication mode of the Haruchai is their telepathy, the Giant’s “Hush with the negativity, already!” restrictions won’t slow them down much…
Finally, Paying Some Attention to TC!
While Linden is recovering her focus on the urgency of doing something and getting around to taking action on that, Mahrtiir comes to the realization that Covenant (still unconscious on the grass) might benefit from some sustenance. He send his Cords, Bhapa and Pahni in search of aliantha. Since we are in the heart of Andelain, this is not hard to find. Both return quickly and the Manethrall sits with the resurrected ur-Lord’s head cradled in his lap and proceeds to feed him one pulped berry at a time.
Having left the Staff of Law and Covenant’s Ring lying on the ground since they were dropped in the aftermath of bringing Covenant back out of the Arch of Time, at long last Linden picks them up and goes to negotiate with the Harrow.
The Worm is coming and there is nothing to be done to stop it. Does he still want what he has been seeking from her since they met, the Staff and the Ring? Yes, of course he does. Nor is he apparently much concern about the Worm, confident that he can deal with it, even though Infelice has asserted that nothing can stop its advance.
Linden then asks him what he offers in exchange, but she doesn’t really get an answer. As we should have come to expect by now, no conversation goes uninterrupted in this chapter. From every direction, wraiths come streaming brightly into the clearing. At the same time, Infelice and Stave (who, you will recall, seldom agree on anything) both speak to Linden, advocating against making any bargains with the Harrow.
Before responding to either of them, Linden observes what the wraiths are doing. They are gathering on Covenant and imparting their vitality to him. Like the aliantha that Mahrtiir is feeding him, the gift of the wraiths does not heal his mind nor roll back his leprosy…but it restores some measure of strength to him. This reassures her and she replies to Infelice and Stave’s concerns about the Harrow:
Stave is content with this…Infelice not so much. She and the Harrow bicker more. Linden wants to tell them to put a sock in it, but a different voice is now heard. Thomas Covenant speaks.I’m not worried about that. If he’s wrong – if he can’t stop the Worm – he’ll die like the rest of us. But he may not be wrong. He did not work so long and hard for this just so he could enjoy a few days of empty superiority. And I am going to free my son. I can’t do anything else, but I can try to do that. I’m going to stop his suffering. I’m going to hold him in my arms at least one more time before the Worm gets us. If he and I have to die, his last memory is going to be that I love him.
He has not risen from the grass. He is still fundamentally weak, but he is conscious, alert, and communicating coherently. Nobody replies to indicates they have an alternative to offer.Do any of you have a better idea?
Predictably, Infelice doesn’t like this. She vanishes. The Harrow, equally predictably, is pleased and his complacent expression very much shows it. How Linden would like to wipe that grin off his face!”In that case” – he sounded sure in spite of his frailty – “I think we should do this Linden’s way. She can make this kind of decision. The rest of us can’t.” After a moment, he found the strength to add, “Mhoram would approve.”