Dang danlo you gave me a hellva chapter to dissect here. The chapter is 19 pages long by the hard-bound edition that I have. But of course you wouldn’t have done so if you didn’t think me equal to the task. (Bows low) Thank you for the gift, in accepting the gift I return honor to the giver (and I mean that).
Nicor! With the Worm settling back into it’s place of rest, Nicor, supposedly offsprings of the Worm boil about the Dromond like ants furiously milling about their destroyed home, kicked by a mischievous child. Just one of them can destroy the Dromond and the Giants struggle to save their ship, their lives and the lives of their companions.
Honninscrave is still the Master of the Starfare’s Gem and thus it falls to him to make all shipboard decisions, regardless of the fact that he is too far gone in grief and loss to do so with the same air of command and purpose that he had before the death of his beloved brother.
The door sprang open without any protest from Cail. A crewmember thrust her head past the threshold. "Master, you must come." Her voice was tight with alarm. "We are beset by Nicor." Honninscrave left the cabin slowly, like a, man responding by habit, unconscious of the urgency of the summons. Perhaps he no longer understood what was happening around him. Yet he did respond to the call of his ship.
Meanwhile Covenant lays back into his hammock filled with misery and grief. All his plans have gone to naught. The Staff of Law, The One Tree, sending Linden back to save him (yeah right!) and the loss of two more companions, both of them sacrificing themselves so that he can achieve his goals in the long and short term. What else is he to do? He stays in his cabin feeling sorry for himself.
As for Cail how alone is he? Without other Haruchai the mental connection that allowed all to know what’s going on around them without being there is gone. I cannot imagine the emptiness he must be feeling. It is painfully obvious that the Haruchai’s psychic abilities are limited in range for there is no connection to those who remain in the Land. Yet still the sense of purpose isn’t gone.
At least Cail still can serve and serve with the same dedication that all Haruchai have ever shown. Covenant orders Cail to retrieve his old clothes. He didn’t want them because they would be poignant reminders of the past life, before Linden.Cail-- Covenant tried to say. He did not want to leave the Haruchai in that loneliness. But Brinn had said, Cail will accept my place in your service until the word of the Bloodguard Bannor has been carried to its end. And no appeal or protest would sway Cail from the path Brinn had marked out for him. Covenant remembered Bannor too poignantly to believe that the Haruchai would ever judge themselves by any standards but their own.
Linden however still hasn’t the sense of defeat as Covenant. Her health sense allows her to understand a “language” which will speak to the agitated Nicor and calm them. Following the example of how Giants call the beasts she “claps out a rhythm” to Galewrath to beat on the hull of the ship til the Nicor are settled.
This very act gives Pitchwife a light of hope that he cannot contain. He goes to Covenant and relates the news with glee and newfound strength in the hope that LA gives him, though it pained him to tell the tale “worthy of long telling” briefly. Blessed Pitchwife who’s undying optimism gives us, the readers, a means to lift out of our melancholy at the end of The One Tree. After all “Joy is in the ears that hears.”
I was glad to hear he included Covenant in his summation of their situation. Had he only “praised” Linden I think it would’ve driven Covenant into a dark despair. But Covenant, ever Covenant pops the bubble. But ever the Giant Pitchwife isn’t swayed or discouraged.His hands gripped the edge of the hammock, rocked it as if to make Covenant hear him. "There is yet hope in the world. While we endure, and the Chosen and the Giantfriend remain among us, there is hope!"
This is one of the things that makes me love Pitchwife (and Giants in general), like Foamfollower before him he trades sarcasm from Covenant with empathy and does what he feels is best. Tries to understand.Weakly, he muttered, 'Tell that to Honninscrave. He could use some hope."
At that, Pitchwife's eyes darkened. But he did not look away. 'The Master has spoken of your refusal. I know not the good or ill of these matters, but the word of my heart is that you have done what you must--and that is well. Do not think me ungrieved by Seadreamer's fall--or the Master's hurt. Yet the hazard of your might is great. And who can say how the Nicor would answer such fire, though they have passed us by? None may judge the doom which lies upon you now. You have done well in your way."
He drinks the liquor but it offers no peace other than sleep.Pitchwife's frank empathy made Covenant's eyes burn. He knew acutely that he had not done well. Pain like Honninscrave's should not be refused, never be refused. But the fear and the despair were still there, blocking everything. He could not even meet Pitchwife's gaze. "Ah, Giantfriend," Pitchwife breathed at last. "You also are grieved beyond bearing. I know not how to solace you." Abruptly, he stooped, and one hand lifted a leather flask into the hammock. "If you find no ease in my tale of the Chosen, will you not at the least drink diamondraught and grant your flesh rest? Your own story remains to be told. Be not so harsh with yourself."
But he finds Linden waiting there in the cabin. The inevitable cannot be shunned aside or ignored. He has to tell her the truth. Her first words are exactly what Covenant would’ve said to himself.When he awoke, the cabin was full of afternoon sunshine, and the pungent taste of diamondraught lingered on his tongue. The Giantship was moving again. He remembered no dreams. The impression he bore with him out of slumber was one of blankness, a leper's numbness carried to its logical extreme. He wanted to roll over and never wake up again.
But love takes back the harshness and she recants what she said. He deserves better than that. She explains her presence by asking him where are they going? He has no answers however to give. Mainly because there are no answers left for him. None given, none to take. The pain of the failure is still weighing heavily upon him. But Linden reminds him of their purpose, Foul, the Sunbane still awaits their answers. But he’s still wallowing in self-pity.But a moment after he met her gaze she rose to her feet A knot of anxiety or anger marked her brows. Probing him with her health-sense, she stepped closer to the hammock. What she saw made her mouth severe. "Is that it?" she demanded. "You've decided to give up?"
Almost without transition, his hurt became resentment. She was being cruel, whether she realized it or not. He had already betrayed everything he loved with his mistakes and failures and lies. How much more responsibility did she wish him to assume? Bitterly, he replied, "I hear you saved us from the Nicor. You don't need me."
But of course “it’s not that easy.” Doctors are not only trained in the arts of physical medicines but of the mind. Linden’s health sense makes this all too acute to her.
His tone made her wince. "Don't say that!" she responded intensely. Her eyes were wide with awareness of what was happening to him. She could read every outcry of his wracked spirit. "I need you." In response, he felt his despair plunging toward hysteria. It sounded like the glee of the Despiser, laughing in triumph. Perhaps he had gone so far down this road now that he was the Despiser, the perfect tool or avatar of Lord Foul's will. But Linden's expostulation jerked him back from the brink. It made her suddenly vivid to him--too vivid to be treated this way. She was his love, and be had already hurt her too much.
It helps but he still has fear of the truth. In an effort to put off telling he asks about Seadreamer. This relieves her because at least he’s no longer in the depths of his own self-pity. He’s beginning to think about others, even if it’s a feint.
Seadreamer is buried at sea, despite Honninscrave desires to cremate his brother (“if that were possible”). A Giant’s desire for healing through a caamora. But Honninscrave forgets in his grief that with a caamora it is the soul that heals not the flesh.
Now the truth has to be said. But Covenant tries again to feint around the question by asking Linden why did she throw herself to the fire?
Thus he explains ...In response, she flared as if he had struck a ragged nerve. "Because I couldn't help you the way you were!" Suddenly, she was shouting at him. "Your body was there, but you weren't! Without you, it was just so much dying meat! Even if I'd had you in a hospital--even if I could've given you transfusions and surgery right then--I could not have saved you!
"I needed you to come back with me. How else was I supposed to get your attention?" Her pain made him look at her again; and the sight went through him like a crack through stone, following its flaws to the heart. She stood below him with her face hot and vivid in the light and her fists clenched, as intense and uncompromising as any woman he had ever dreamed. The fault was not hers, though surely she blamed herself. Therefore he could not shirk telling her the truth.
"I should've told you," he murmured in shame. "I tried to tell you everything else. But it hurt too much."
She glared at him as if she felt the presence of something horrible between them; but he did not look away. "It's always been this way. Nothing here interrupts the physical continuity of the world we came from. What happens here is self-contained. It's always the same. I go into the Land hurt--possibly dying. A leper. And I'm healed. Twice my leprosy disappeared. I could feel again, as if my nerves--" His heart twisted at the memory--and at the poignant distress of Linden's stare. "But before I left the Land, something always happened to duplicate the shape I was in earlier. Sometimes my body was moved. I stopped bleeding--or got worse. But my physical condition was always exactly what it would've been if I'd never been to the Land. And I'm still a leper. Leprosy doesn't heal. "So this time that knife hit me--and when we got to the Land I healed it with wild magic. The same way I healed those cuts the Clave gave me." They had slashed his wrists to gain blood for their soothtell; yet already the scars had faded, were nearly invisible. "But it doesn't make any difference. What happens here doesn't change what's going on there. All it does is change the way we feel about it." After that, his shame was too great to hold her gaze. 'That's why I didn't tell you about it. At first--right at the beginning --I thought you had enough to worry about. You would learn the truth soon enough. But after a while I changed. Then I didn't want you to know. I didn't think I had the right to ask you to love a dead man."
Her shock makes her think that Covenant was just another suicide. Minimize it all you want rationalize it all you want, justify it all you want, but in the end he expected and wanted to die. Why else would he have traded himself for Joan? None the less he explains...
Ah, c’est la amour. Love cares for naught except for itself. The world may crumble and stars may fall and seas dry up to deserts and all that matters is Love. Small consequences for a man who has lost everything... including love itself and when the opportunity presents itself, the hell with everything else.As he spoke, her shock boiled into anger. The moment he stopped, she demanded, "Do you mean to say that you've been planning to die all along?" Her voice was abruptly livid against the quiet background of the ship and the sea. "That you haven't even been trying to find a way to survive?" "No!" in despair, he sought to defend himself. "Why do you think I wanted a new Staff of Law --- needed it so badly? It was my only hope. To fight for the Land without risking wild magic. And to send you back. You're a doctor, aren't you? I wanted you to save me." But the anguish of her stare did not waver; and he could not meet it, could not pretend that what he had done was justified. "I've been trying," he pleaded. But no appeal was enough. "I didn't tell you because I wanted to love you for a while. That's all."
But surprisingly Linden doesn’t lose it (as I thought she would’ve). Instead she sits back down and weeps.
This isn’t loss on Covenant who now knows her story. It pangs him and he tries to offer solace but that backfires as he finds that he underestimated her again. Aww, it’s their first lovers spat!“Why do I end up killing everybody that I care about?”
Totally agree with Linden here. Don’t just lay down and die dammit, do something. Covenant probably sounded too much like her parents at the moment of their deaths. Self-pitying mewling that is useless to everyone including the dying.Her grief hurt him like the raw acid of his guilt. This, too was on his head. He wanted to descend from the hammock, go to her, take her in his arms; but he had forfeited that privilege. There was nothing he could do except fight back his own rue and protest, “It’s not your fault. You tried. I should’ve told you. You would’ve saved me if you could.”
The vehemence of her reaction took him by surprise. “Stop that!” she spat. “I’ve got eyes! A mind of my own! I’m not some innocent kid you can protect.” The sun flashed on her face. “You’ve been lying down here ever since we came back aboard as if you were to blame for everything. But you’re not. Foul set this up. He manipulated you into it. What’re you trying to do now? Prove him right?”
“I can’t help it!” he retorted, stung by the salt she rubbed into his futility. “Of course he’s right. Who do you think he is? He’s me. He’s just an externalization of the part of me that despises. The part that—“
“No.” Her contradiction cut him off, though she did not shout. She had become too clenched and furious for shouting., too extreme to be denied. “He’s not you. He’s not the one who’s going to die.” She might have said, I’m the one who kills. The word were plain in every line of her visage. But her passion carried her past that recognition as if she could not bear it in any other way. “Everybody makes mistakes. But all you’ve done is try to fight for what you love. You have an answer. I don’t.”
The heat of her assertion contained no self pity. “I haven’t had one since this thing started. I don’t know the Land the way you do. I haven’t got any power. All I’ve been able to do is follow you around.” Her hands rose into fists. “If you’re going to die, do something to make it count!”
Also here shows an argument against the thread (in the TC Discussion area) that Foul is really Covenant and Covenant is Foul. I’m not saying that it’s a true statement but it’s a view-point that is hard to dismiss. So, again the question comes up... is it all a dream?
Back to the story...
Now there’s a worthwhile goal. One suited for everyone on board the Dromond. A purpose and a destination. For the Giants a means to complete the journey that was led by the Earthsight and for the Haruchai a means to put an end to their slaughter. For Covenant (and Linden) a means to hurt Foul before confronting him. Better to weaken your enemy as much as possible before meeting him. Linden seems to intuitively know that this course is best all around. Besides it’s not doing anything or anybody any good letting it go on. It would’ve had to been put out sooner or later.Her demand made his failure as acute as agony. He could have shouted, I don’t have any choice! He beat me! There’s nothing I can do!
But he knew better. He was a leper and knew better. Leprosy itself was defeat, complete and incurable. Yet even lepers had reasons to go on living. Atiaran had told him that it was the task of the living to give meaning to the sacrifices of the dead; but he saw that truth went further: to give meaning to his own death. And to the prices the people he loved had already paid.
In the name of Linden’s harsh insistence, he sat up in the hammock and asked hoarsely, “What do you want?” His response seemed to steady her. The bitter pressure of her loss eased somewhat. In a hard voice, she said, “I want you to go back to the Land. To Revelstone. And stop the Clave. Put out the Banefire.” He drew a hissing breath at the sheer audacity of what she required; but she went on without heeding him, “If you do that, the Sunbane’ll slow down. Maybe it’ll even recede. That’ll give us time to look for a better answer.
What’s that old saying? Behind every great man....? Covenant has had too much happen, too much death and Foul knows it and knows Covenant’s weaknesses. All those who have died for/by him only sends him into despair, self-pity and self-doubt. He does fear more death in the days ahead.Then she surprised him again by faltering. She did not face him as she concluded, "Maybe I don't care about the Land the way you do. I was too scared to go into Andelain. I've never seen what it used to be like. But I know sickness when I see it. Even if I weren't a doctor, I'd have the Sunbane carved on me in places where I'll never be able to forget it. I want to do something about that. I don't have anything else. The only way I can fight is through you."
As she spoke, echoes of power capered in Covenant's veins. He heard what she was saying; but his fear took him back to the beginning. Stop the Clave? Put out the Banefire? In blunt alarm, he replied, "That'll be a lot of fun. What in hell makes you believe I can even think about things like that without endangering the Arch?"
She met him with a sour smile, humorless and certain. "Because you know how to restrain yourself now. I felt it--when you called back all that wild magic and used it to send me away. You're more dangerous now than you've ever been. To Lord Foul."
For a moment, he held the look she gave him. But then his eyes fell. No. It was still too much: he was not ready. The ruin of his life was hardly a day old. How was it possible to talk about fighting, when the Despiser had already defeated him? He had only one power, and it had been transformed by venom and falsehood into a graver threat than any Sunbane. What she wanted was madness. He did not have it in him.
So he tries to postpone by getting more answers. This is good because we (the readers need more answers). Thus the Sunsage calls/demands Findail. He appears and not to happy about the demand of his summons. Haughty as ever he faces them and tries successfully at first to intimate them with his presence. The two humans launch into him, tag-teaming their questions hoping to box the Elohim into a corner to get the answers that they want. But the information that he reveals stuns them both. When Findail asked first before answering the first question if Covenant was going to give up his ring I would’ve lied to the s.o.b. , to say yes just to see what answers he would’ve given then. But Covenant’s desire to keep the ring is almost like Frodo’s in that they’ll be damned if anyone else touches it.
When asked why the silence, why not just tell him the answer to the location of the One Tree? Findail explains that it was for his protection not only against Kasreyn but against whatever else might’ve happened at the One Tree. But because Linden broke the Elohim’s silence the horrific events took place. It still doesn’t give a clear explanation. To me it read much like a politicians double talk, giving an answer without providing any. The Elohim are certain that Covenant will be another Kevin and destroy the Earth to prevent Foul’s plan from attaining it’s fruition. He fears that himself. But when looking upon Linden he sees that it was harder on her. As if they blame her for screwing things up. It pisses Covenant off and while Linden struggles to recover he launches into Findail.Yet something must have changed for him. Before the crisis of the One Tree, he would not have answered any summons. But his manner remained as distant and disapproving as ever. Though he nodded an acknowledgment to Linden, his voice held a note of reproof. "I hear you. Vehemence is not needful."
His tone made no impression on Linden. Bracing her fists on her hips, she addressed him as if he had not spoken. "This has gone on long enough," she said stiffly. "Now we need answers."
Findail did not glance at Covenant. In Elemesnedene, the Elohim had treated Covenant as if he were of no personal importance; and now the Appointed seemed to take that stance again. He asked Linden, "Is it the ring-wielder's intent to surrender his ring?"
At once. Covenant snapped, "No!" Refusals ran in him like echoes of old delirium. Never give him the ring. Never. It was all that remained to him. "Then," Findail sighed, "I must answer as I may, hoping to persuade him from his folly.
But that’d be like Osama trying to direct the attack on the WTC by being in the plane himself. Thus by manipulating others to do his bidding he would be safe as Findail pointed out. But Covenant isn’t satisfied. At least they could’ve been warned."It's not that simple," he began. He did not know the true name of his objection. But Linden faced him in route appeal; and he did not let himself falter. "If Foul planned this all along, why did he go to the trouble?" That was not what he needed to ask. Yet he pursued it, hoping it would lead him to the right place. "Why didn't he just wake up the Worm himself?"
Findail realizes a mistake which he seems to shrug off as an “oops” or an “oh well, that didn’t work out so good did it?” So Covenant tries another tact to buy Linden more time.
Findail’s answer in short stuns Covenant. The only alternative he would’ve had without the venom would’ve been the Ritual Of Desecration. Without it Covenant wouldn’t have had any real power or control over the ring/wild-magic. Thus not as big of a threat to Foul as he might’ve thought he was. Thus Foul introduces venom to transform Covenant into an alloy like the White Gold. Thus hoping against hope that Covenant would be arrogant in his new-found power and might and challenge Foul and then wreak havoc with the Arch. “Remember he named you his enemy and seeks to mislead you. It boots nothing to avoid his snares for they are beset with other snares”."Perhaps in that I erred," he said softly, "Yet I could not turn aside from hope. It was my hope that some access of wisdom or courage would inspire the ring-wielder to step back from the precipice of his intent." Covenant continued groping. But now he saw that Linden had begun to rally. She shook her head, struggled internally for some way to refute or withstand Findail's accusation. Her mouth tightened: she looked like she was chewing curses. The sight lit a spark of encouragement in him, made him lean forward to aim his next challenge at the Elohim. "That doesn't justify you," he grated. "You talk about silencing me as if that was the only decent alternative you had. But you know goddamn well it wasn't. For one thing, you could've done something about the venom that makes me so bloody dangerous."
Thankfully though now Linden has recovered and takes up the lead.
Sigh, our own hopes in the answer of the enigma named Vain might be found is dashed.And the necessity of choice was dreadful. But Linden had taken hold of herself again. The conceptions which hurt her most were not the ones which pierced Covenant; and he had given her a chance to recover. The look she cast at him was brittle with stress; but it was alert once more, capable of reading his dismay. For an instant, empathy focused her gaze. Then she swung back toward the Appointed, and her voice bristled dangerously.
"That's just speculation. You're afraid you might lose your precious freedom, so you're trying to make him responsible for it You still haven't told us the truth." Findail faced her; and Covenant saw her flinch as if the Elohim's eyes had burned her. But she did not stop. "If you want us to believe you, tell us about Vain." At that, Findail recoiled. Immediately, she went after him. "First you imprisoned him, as if he was some kind of crime against you. And you tried to trick us about it, so we wouldn't know what you were doing. When he escaped, you tried to kill him. Then, when he and Seadreamer found you aboard the ship, you spoke to him." Her expression was a glower of memory. "You said, 'Whatever else you may do, that I will not suffer.'"
The Appointed started to reply; but she overrode him. "Later, you said, 'Only he whom you name Vain has it within him to expel me. I would give my soul that he should do so.' And since then you've hardly been out of his sight--except when you decide to run away instead of helping us." She was unmistakably a woman who had learned something about courage. "You've been more interested in him than us from the beginning. Why don't you try explaining that for a change?"
She brandished her anger at the Elohim; and for a moment Covenant thought Findail would answer. But then his grief-ensnared visage tightened. In spite of its misery, his expression resembled the hauteur of Chant and Infelice as he said grimly, "Of the Demondim-spawn I will not speak."
"That's right," she shot back at him at once. "Of course you won't If you did, you might give us a reason to do some hoping of our own. Then we might not roll over and play dead the way you want," She matched his glare; and in spite of all his power and knowledge she made him appear diminished and judged. Sourly, she muttered, "Oh, go on. Get out of here. You make my stomach hurt."
Spoiler
but of course we all know what really happened
Now here’s something for you fellow Haruchai lovers. The placement of the Guardian, the ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol.
If I’m not putting my foot in my mouth here. Seems that Berek left a Bloodguard or at least a Haruchai to guard the One Tree, thus creating the meaning of their lives right there. It had to been a Haruchai didn’t it? Part of me is railing against that because it was Kevin who allowed the establishment of the Bloodguard and if my history isn’t too far skewed Berek was before Kevin. Soo uhh, what gives here? Brinn and Cail recognized the guardian for what he was. Or was the guardian what they wanted him to be?Findail paused at the wall, answered over his shoulder. "The Worm was not made restive by his approach, for he did not win his way with combat. In that age, the One Tree had no Guardian. It was he himself who gave the Tree its ward, setting the Guardian in place so that the vital wood of the world's life would not again be touched or broken."
Another question still. How did Berek even GET to the One Tree? Were there an interaction between Giants back then? Did the people of the Land in Berek’s time had sea-craft?
Anyway, Findail finally leaves and Linden regards Covenant as he is trying to absorb the weight of the Elohim’s final words and overall message. Trying her best to comfort him she asks.
Covenant agrees that it’s best to give it a try. He agrees because he seeks to please the woman he loves. At least it’s going to be good news for The First. He still wonders after Linden. Her answer (and yet another wonderful line by SRD) gives a hint of the chapters ahead.Linden nodded severely. "So what's it going to be? Are you just going to lie here until your heart breaks? Or are you going to fight?"
My dissection is at an end here. Long as it may be... the chapter itself was long and filled with so much information. Not making any excuses or justifying the length of this particular dissection but those points are what I saw were important. Bows low with hands to my head palms up."What're you going to do?" At the door, she looked back at him, and her eyes were openly full of tears, "I'm going to wait." Her voice sounded as forlorn as the cry of a kestrel--and as determined as an act of valor. "My turn's coming." As she left, her words seemed to remain in the sunlit cabin like a verdict.
Or a prophecy. After she was gone. Covenant got out of the hammock and dressed himself completely in his old clothes.
Maybe it was in effect the Elohim, and the people of the Land had it wrong then. 
