When Esmer asked, "Now do you hear?" he might as well have yelled in her face.

She flinched. "Too loud." Her own voice bellowed at her. She clamped her hands over her ears. "It's too loud."

Esmer looked stricken; inexplicably ashamed of himself. Then he covered his chagrin with a feigned sneer. "It will pass."

Before she could reply, he turned to bark something at the Waynhim.

Clamorous as an avalanche, Stave and Mahrtiir landed in the sand of the ravine. Confused by the exaggeration of her hearing, Linden feared that they would hurl themselves at Esmer; or at the Waynhim.

But they ignored Cail's son, and her. Instead of attacking, they bowed deeply to the grey creature.

Their actions left Linden momentarily weak with relief.

Esmer seemed vexed, but he did not regard the Haruchai and the Manethrall. When the Waynhim had answered him, he faced Linden again.

"Wildwielder," he said darkly, "I have introduced you and your companions. As much as I am able, I have explained your purpose here. This is their reply.

"Your name they acknowledge. They know the ur-Lord Thomas Covenant's companion against the Sunbane. By their lore, they have learned of her role in fashioning the Staff of Law. And assuredly they understand the importance of white gold. For the sake of the great good that she accomplished at Thomas Covenant's side, in the name I.

of the wild magic that destroys peace, and because I have spoken on your behalf, they concede that you are indeed Linden Avery the Chosen, as you appear to be.

Therefore they will make you welcome."

Gradually the volume of Esmer's voice receded to a more bearable level. Lowering her hands, Linden found that she could hear him now without discomfort.

Stave's and Mahrtiir's feet no longer sounded like thunder as they crossed the sand toward her.

"They concede as well," Esmer continued, "that you have passed through a rupture in the Law of Time.

Their lore speaks of this peril. And I am able to compel their belief. They cannot deny my knowledge of such powers."

His tone darkened to bitterness as he said, "The Haruchai also they recognize, and the Ramen. They, too, will be welcomed, as well as the Stonedownor, for the same reason."

Esmer paused while a look of savagery mounted in his gaze. "But never," he concluded, "will they permit the presence of urviles in their covert. And they will not give the Staff of Law into your hands."

Stave nodded as though he had expected this, and approved. But Mahrtiir glared a warning at the Waynhim, and his sore fingers hinted at his garrote.

Instinctively Linden dismissed the refusal of the Waynhim. It was too much: she could not afford to believe that she would fail now. Her head still reeled with the aftereffects of the Waynhim's defenses, and Esmer's. She had no choice but to act as though she could not be thwarted.

They were Waynhim, and they had the Staff: that was all that mattered. She had nowhere else to turn. If they did not trust her, she would simply have to persuade them.

Quietly, almost calmly, she asked Esmer, "Why not?

They know I made it. Don't they think it belongs to me?"

His ferocity faded at once. Now he appeared to squirm.

"They fear you," he admitted. "Your presence in this time is a profound violation of the very Law which the Staff supports. How can they believe that your purpose is benign, when you have chosen to pursue that purpose by such hazardous means?

"Also," he added in a smaller voice, "they fear me.

They perceive the peril of my nature. That I act on your behalf tells against you."

Linden shook her head. The reasoning of the Waynhim did not surprise her. They were not her enemies.

Esmer, on the other hand "They have a point," she said more sharply. "What in hell are you doing here, Esmer?" Then she stopped herself. "No, don't answer that yet. First tell me how you got here.

Earlier, he had refused to enter the caesure with her.

In my presence, you will surely fail. What had he meant, if not that his nature would not permit passage through a Fall?

"You are acquainted with Elohim," he answered, still squirming. "You know that they stand apart from all Law. I have not inherited their untrammeled separateness, but I have been granted a measure of their freedom." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Time seldom hinders me."

"Then why didn't you just come get the Staff for me?

You keep saying you want to help. Why did we have to go through all that pain?"

Esmer looked away. "The Elohim respect the Law of Time. It preserves the Earth. They have no wish to rouse the Worm of the World's End. To that extent, I am bound by their Wiird."

Linden swore to herself. As usual, his response was too conflicted and ambiguous to help her. Instead of pursuing the subject, she changed directions.

"You said the Waynhim were blind to my ring. Why is that?"

Esmer's mien reflected a rolling wave of emotions: anxiety, defensiveness, shame. "It is an effect of my nearness."

She heard hints in his words, suggestions of insight, but their meaning eluded her. There were conclusions which she should have been able to draw-Too many truths had already slipped through her fingers, leaving her less and less prepared for each succeeding crisis.

But she could not think beyond the exigencies of her immediate situation.

Esmer had mentioned betrayal. As if treachery were essential to his identity. And he had avowed that his presence would ensure her failure.

"So if you hadn't showed up here and broken down their defenses," she said grimly, "we wouldn't be in this mess. The Waynhim would have sensed the urviles, sure, but they would have felt my ring at the same time.

"And the urviles wouldn't have attacked them." She would not have permitted that. "As far as I can see, the Waynhim are refusing me now because you came all this way to threaten them."

Stave nodded again.

"So explain it to me, Esmer," she insisted. "What in hell are you doing here?"

"Wildwielder," he retorted, "you understand nothing." His words were scornful, but his tone and his manner ached with regret, apology; self-recrimination. "I feared what might transpire if the urviles accosted the Waynhim.

"The breaking of their wards is nothing. If you chose, you might have torn the barrier asunder. Or the urviles, given time, could have accomplished as much in your name. But such efforts would have been prolonged, allowing the Waynhim to withdraw. Nor would your actions have relieved their mistrust.

"My intervention has not harmed them. It was necessary only to prevent them from flight, so that you might be granted an opportunity to beseech them.

"Also the enmity among these Demondimspawn is deep and ancient. That the urviles have seen their Wiird in a new way does not comfort the Waynhim. In my ab I.

I.

MM.

sence, how would you mediate between them? And how would you counter their doubt of you? You do not know their speech. You cannot answer their concerns if you do not comprehend them.

"You must not spurn my aid." Yearning ached in his gaze. "How otherwise may I be redeemed?"

But Linden had no tolerance left for his self- justifications. "That's not my problem," she told him trenchantly. "You like to talk about betrayals. I don't think I can afford your help."

Turning her back on his puissance, she took a few steps toward the Waynhim.

"You know me," she told the waiting creature. "I don't care what Esmer says about me-or about you either. He's making this all sound complicated when it's actually simple.

"I'm the woman who made the Staff. Covenant sacrificed himself to protect the Arch of Time, and I used his ring to transform Vain and Findail so that I could stop the Sunbane.

"I came here through a caesure. That's true. And caesures are evil. That's true, too. But it doesn't change who I am." She believed that. "I just didn't have any other way to get here."

She could not read the creature's reactions. It might have regarded her with empathy or terror, and she would not have known the difference. Yet somehow the Waynhim conveyed the impression that it was not well; that some old sorrow or wound sapped its vitality, leaving it more frail than it should have been.

Grief over the nearextermination of its kind? Some other loss or burden? Linden could not tell. Like the urviles, the Waynhim baffled her healthsense.

Nevertheless its condition moved her. When she went on, she spoke more gently.

"If I'm going to fight Lord Foul, I need the Staff. I'm no 'Wildwielder.' That was Covenant, and he's dead.

And white gold can't stop caesures. You know that better than I do. Only Law can undo that kind of rupture.

"But that's not all." She glanced back at Cail's son, then told the Waynhim urgently, "Esmer may not have mentioned that Lord Foul has my son, my Jeremiah. Maybe I can rescue him with wild magic, maybe I can't. But I can't do it without risking the Arch, and that's too dangerous. I need the Staff.

Otherwise I might do enough harm to end the Earth."

Even Jeremiah would be destroyed.

"And the Staff belongs to me," she asserted. "Not just because I made it, but because I'm a healer. That's what I do." She chose her words with care. "I'm the right person to use it."

You're the only one who can do this.

The creature responded with a spate of harsh barking, bitter as a denial. When the Waynhim finished, Esmer said as if he had lost interest, "They were unaware that you have a son. They sorrow on his behalf. But all else that you have said they knew, and they are not swayed. Your presence is a violation of Law. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means."

At any other time, that argument would have stopped Linden. She recognized its validity. But she could not heed it now. She had already taken risks which she could not undo. She could only hope to justify them with her actions.

"Wait here," she told the Waynhim abruptly. "I'll show you why you should give me the Staff."

The creature inclined its head: a motion which could have meant anything, but which she chose to interpret as consent.

At once, she swung away to stride down the ravine toward her companions.

Deliberately she ignored Esmer. Accompanied by Stave and Mahrtiir, she hastened along the streambed, rushing to find her way through her ramified dilemmas before her instincts faltered or failed.

Although Esmer had withdrawn his barrier, the rest of her company still stood in midafternoon sunlight at the end of the ravine. The urviles remained undecipherable to her; but Liand's charged confusion and the alarm of the Cords reached her across the intervening sand and stone.

They were as human as she was; their needs as great.

Any explanation might have eased their hearts. But she could not pause for them. Holding up her hand to silence their questions, she spoke first to the urviles.

"You can't go any farther," she said brusquely. "You know that. The Waynhim won't have it. And I suspect you don't want to." Unless they craved the Staff for themselves. But if they did, they were too weak to act on their desire. "You've already done your part. You'll have to wait here."

Then she turned to Liand and the Cords. "Bhapa, Pahni, I want you to take care of the Ranyhyn. Keep them nearby. I don't know when we're going to need them again, but it might be sudden.

"As for you-" She faced Liand's open concern squarely. "Get Anele for me. Bring him into the ravine. If he can't convince the Waynhim-"

She left the thought unfinished: if the old man could not move the Waynhim, they had no hearts; and she was powerless.

Liand's gaze still pleaded with her, but he did not protest. When Pahni and Bhapa bowed in acquiescence, he smiled crookedly and did the same.

Touched by his generosity, Linden might have taken a moment to thank him, but her fears did not let her go.

As if she had released them, the urviles surrendered to their weariness again. Aban doning their wedge, they sank down to rest in the bottom of the watercourse. At the same time, the Cords and Liand started up the hillside toward the Ranyhyn and Anele.

With Mahrtiir and Stave beside her still, Linden returned to Esmer and the lone Waynhim, walking among the shadows as if she meant to challenge the dark.

Esmer and the creature were talking quietly, but they broke off their exchange as she approached. She could not be sure, but she thought that she saw tears in Esmer's indefinite gaze.

Too tense to remain silent, she asked, "Now what?"

Esmer lifted his shoulders: a shrug, perhaps, or a clench of self-restraint. "The Waynhim are valiant,"

he answered in a low voice, "and too many of them will perish if you do not contrive their salvation. They know their plight,.yet they do not flinch from it. I grieve for them, as I do for myself."

Oh, great, Linden thought to herself. Just what I need.

More riddles.

Aloud, she muttered, "So this is what your help is like.

You summoned a caesure for me, and the Ramen were driven out of their homes.

Now you're here to 'mediate' for me, and something terrible is going to happen to the Waynhim." He nodded stiffly.

A new concern occurred to her. "What about all the help you gave the Ramen before they came to the Verge of Wandering? How are you going to betray them for that?"

Esmer withheld his damp gaze. "I have already done so. I have brought them near to the Land when you had need of them. No more terrible doom has been required of me."

Linden wanted to snarl at him; but she kept her ire to herself. While she remained in this time, she could do nothing for the Ramen.

"Then," Stave remarked to Esmer, "the Chosen and all the Land would he better served without your aid."

Remembering Esmer's earlier violence, Linden braced herself to jump between him and the Haruchai. But Cail's son did not answer Stave's accusation.

"Ringthane," Mahrtiir offered slowly, "I cannot account for him." The Manethrall sounded troubled.