He might hear her more clearly now if she spoke to the Voice of the Masters.

"Tell me something," she asked abruptly. "How do they do it?"

Handir lifted an eyebrow. "Chosen?"

"The Demondim. How do they use the Illearth Stone?

You can sense them." And the discernment of the Haruchai exceeded hers. "Explain it to me.

"At first I thought they must have found some lost fragment of the original Stone. But now I don't think so. They have too much power-and too many of them have it at once. And we all know that the Illearth Stone was destroyed.

"So how do they do it?"

The older Haruchai paused for a moment, apparently considering his response. He may have thought that the capabilities of the Demondim were irrelevant to Stave's accusations. Still he decided to answer.

"The Demondim wield a Fall. Among them they both command and sustain it, causing it to serve them. This Fall spans time to a distant age when the Illearth Stone remained intact. Similarly it extends deep among the roots of Gravin Threndor, to the place where the Stone lay hidden until Drool Rockworm discovered it.

Therefore the might which the Demondim employ is great. It arises unhindered from its source."

Linden frowned. He might be right-Like the Lost Deep, where the Demondim had bred their descendants, the Illearth Stone had once been buried far beneath Mount Thunder. The Vile-spawn could conceivably have known the Stone's location centuries or millennia before Drool Rockworm uncovered it.

But she needed confirmation. "Are you sure? If they can do that, why don't they just shatter Time and be done with it? Instead they're toying with us. Why do they even bother?"

"If Corruption were able to destroy the Arch," replied Handir, "he would have done so ere now. Some Law or power constrains him, and his servants with him.

"Observe that the Fall violates the Law of Time, but that the use of the Illearth Stone which the Fall enables does not. The Demondim have not altered the past. In some fashion, the Law of Time intervenes to preserve itself.

"This we do not comprehend. We know only that the Falls are perilous and terrible. We cannot say why their evil does not suffice to undo the Arch. The Lords spoke of restrictions inherent to the nature of power.

They named 'the necessity of freedom,' among others.

However, such lore is beyond our ken. It is only plain to us that the Demondim act as they do because their power extends no further."

"All right." Linden nodded, accepting the idea. "For some reason, they have limits." Obviously something prevented Lord Foul from using Joan's ring directly.

"That might help us. But it's not enough. Here's the important question.

"Can you beat them? All of you together?" Every living Haruchai? "Can you prevent them from turning this whole place into a pile of rubble?"

Handir faced her as if nothing she might say could disturb him. "We cannot."

Trying to pierce his impassivity, Linden made a show of surprise. "And you don't think you need me? You don't think you need power? You admit you can't save Revelstone, much less the Land, but you don't want help?"

From the edge of the floor, Liand nodded vigorous approval. Mahrtiir watched her with encouragement gleaming in his eyes.

But the Voice of the Masters was not swayed. "Kevin Landwaster heeded such concerns," he countered.

"We do not. Our worth and our purposes are measured by the forces arrayed against us, but we are not judged by victory or defeat, life or death. Rather we value ourselves according to our honor and steadfastness. That the Demondim are able to wield the might of the Illearth Stone does not require us to abandon who we are.

"Knowing this, we do not choose to emulate the Landwaster's despair."

Linden stifled a groan. In Handir's response, she recognized the passion of the Haruchai for absolute judgments. Even Cail, who had served the Search for the One Tree with an almost limitless valor and fidelity: even he had not questioned the final denunciation of the Haruchai. His fault was not that he had succumbed to the merewives, but that he had lived on after his seduction. She did not doubt that the Masters would rather die as a race than retract their chosen form of service.

But she was not prepared to simply strive and fail and die. Not while her son needed her. Not while the Land was in such peril.

And she knew that Handir had not told her the whole truth. He had said nothing of his people's fear that they would be taken by the passion which had overcome Cail as well as Korik, Sill, and Doar. Liand was right about the Masters. They feared to grieve.

Tightening her grasp on the Staff, she frowned at Handir. "I think I understand," she said slowly.

"You're mortal. You can't afford to judge yourselves by standards that transcend your limitations. That was Korik's mistake. It may even have been Kevin's."

There her detachment faltered. Anger began to throb in her voice as she continued.

"But that doesn't explain why you don't want help. It doesn't explain your so-called Mastery of the Land.

"It's one thing to give your best and then accept what happens. You do that. You've always done it. But this time you've gone further. This time you think you have the right to prevent other people from doing the same.

Isn't that true? As far as I can tell, you didn't become Masters because you want to save the Land. You did it because you want to stop anyone else from saving it.

"Am I wrong?" she demanded. "Then say so. Tell me why."

The Voice of the Masters remained relaxed in front of her; apparently untouched. But his nostrils flared slightly with each breath, and a small muscle clenched and released at the corner of his jaw.

Linden thought that she heard indignation in his tone as he retorted, "That is unjust. We prevent nothing except the use of power."

"No, you don't," she insisted. "You've gone much further than that. Stave accused me of healing him without giving him a choice. You've prevented anyone from having the choice to use power. In effect, you've decided in advance that there hasn't ever been and won't ever be anyone in the Land wise enough to use Earthpower well. You've prejudged every person and every decision and every action since the day you became Masters. And that just doesn't make sense.

"Look at it this way," she said, hurrying so that she would not be interrupted. "You know what's going to happen when the Demondim come back. You'll fight them with everything you've got, and you'll be slaughtered. But you don't know what would happen if you trusted me to help you. Or if you helped me find my son."

Then Linden shook her head. "But that's not a good example. I'm not ignorant. And so far you haven't done anything to get in my way. Here's a better one.

"You can't possibly know what the result would be if Liand had the training and resources to be a Graveler." She did not glance at the Stonedownor, although she felt his surprise. "Sunder did. You know that. And you also know that Covenant would not have lived long enough to save your people from the Clave if Sunder hadn't helped him. So how can you believe that Liand doesn't have the right to know as much as Sunder did?"

Abruptly she stopped, nearly panting with the force of her assertion.

Handir raised an eyebrow; but he did not pause to consult with the other Masters.

"Linden Avery," he replied flatly, "we act as we do because the alternative is plainly impossible. We cannot intervene in decisions and actions after their effects have become known. The opportunity to prevent them has passed. And we are too few. All the Haruchai who have ever lived would not suffice to ward from evil every person who might seek to make use of Earthpower.

"Yet we have determined that we cannot stand aside.

The evil is too great. And Brinn has become the Guardian of the One Tree. Are we less than he? Must we do less than serve as the guardians of the Land?

No. You cannot ask it of us. But if we will serve, how otherwise may our task be accomplished? We must prevent the use of Earthpower. No other way is possible for us."

Linden did not hesitate. She could not. And in her chambers she had prepared herself for this moment.

Handir had given her the opening she needed.

Breathing hard, she glared at him. "Then look at it this way," she continued, carried on a rising wave of anger. "There stand the Humbled." With the back of her hand, she slapped a gesture toward the Masters holding Anele. "Galt and-"

Momentarily she stumbled. She did not know their names.

"The Humbled," Handir informed her, "are Galt, Clyme, and Branl."

"Fine," she returned. "The Humbled. They're supposed to be living reminders that you can't master evils like the Illearth Stone and Ravers and Corruption. Which sounds good, I have to admit. But how did they get the job? How did you choose them?"

Again she did not grant their Voice a chance to interrupt her. "Christ, Handir, they fought for the privilege." Her words were flames. They leaped and burned as she uttered them. "They think it's an honor to be maimed like that. They beat the shit out of each other for the status of reminding you that you need humility."

Responding to her passion, the Staff began to burn in her grasp. Its fire reached higher with every utterance.

If she did not restrain it, the rush of power would light the unharmed ceiling of the Close.

She would be able to see what the love of the Giants had crafted there.

For a moment, she let her fire rise. Then, deliberately, she swallowed her ire until the Staff was quenched.

The force of her emotions served only to remind her that she was not helpless. It would not increase her credibility.

Quietly now, she said, "I think you've missed the point of what happened on the Isle of the One Tree. I don't know how Cail told the story, but I was there. I saw it.

"Brinn didn't win that fight. He lost. In fact, he surrendered," just as Covenant had surrendered to Lord Foul in Kiril Threndor. "He let the Guardian kill him. And he became the new Guardian by taking the old one with him when he died.

"I'm sorry, Handir," she finished as calmly as she could. "If you and the Humbled and the rest of the Masters are trying to follow Brinn's example, you're going about it the wrong way. You haven't just denied everyone else the right to make their own choices. You've missed the point."

Handir held up his hand. In spite of his apparent relaxation, however, his gesture had the certainty of a blow. With one small motion, he dominated the Close as if the rectitude and indignation of all his people were invested in him. Even the light seemed to concentrate on him, focused by his underlying authority.

The Cords and Liand stared at him in chagrin.

Mahrtiir swore under his breath.

"It is enough," the Voice of the Masters pronounced like a knell. "We have heard you. Now you will desist.

Because you are the Chosen, we have suffered the challenge of your words. But you fault us to no purpose.

"Perhaps you have described us justly. Perhaps not. It alters nothing. Your recriminations do not pertain to the hazard of your actions in the Land. The truth remains that you have dared the destruction of all the Earth for the sake of your son. And now you do not assure us that the danger is past. Rather you seek to disguise your actions by diminishing ours.

"Yet this answer I will grant to you." The muscles at the corners of his jaw knotted and released to the beat of his words. "It is true that we have placed ourselves foremost in the Land's defense. For this we might claim to merit respect rather than accusation. But if we fall, the Land will remain, and all who wish to strive against Corruption may do so in any fashion which seems good to them."

"No, Handir," Linden retorted at once. "Now you're just being dishonest." She had come too far to hold back. "You've done everything you can to erase that possibility. You've kept the people of the Land from knowing anything about Earthpower, or their own history, or the evils they'll have to face. I tell you, it's wrong. You've made too many decisions for other people, and you never had the right.

"But I'm not done," she added immediately. "I've given you two answers." Inadequacy. Arrogance. "I've pointed out that you aren't in a position to judge me. If you refuse to listen, that's your problem, not mine.

"I've got one more answer for you."

Ignorance.

She was desperate now; on the verge of a risk as great in its own way as daring to enter a caesure. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means. But the Masters had denied every other argument. And she had believed almost from the first that she would not be able to rescue her son without Anele's help.

As if she knew that she would not be refused, she looked at the son of Sunder and Hollian among the Humbled and said softly, "Anele, come here."

The old man had given no sign that he had heard or understood what was being said around him. He seemed unaware of anything except the fact that the Masters had claimed him. Without Linden's protection, he had no defense.

Yet when she spoke his name, he jerked up his head, and his moonstone eyes caught a flare of fire from the lamps. Threshing his arms as if to break free of the Humbled, although they made no effort to restrain him, he crossed the tormented stone and flung himself down in front of her. His thin arms embraced her knees and the Staff in supplication.

"Protect," he panted. "Oh, protect Anele. They are heartless. They will devour his soul. They devour all things, leaving only pain."

Liand started forward to attend to the old man; but Linden waved him back. She needed Anele where he was. His contact with the Staff might calm him so that he could heed her.

To Handir, she said, "You don't really care about keeping him prisoner. You just want to control him so he can't do any harm. You've explained that. I think I understand it. But you haven't thought it through."

Her heart ached in her chest as she considered what she meant to do. She had found no gap in the Masters'

defenses. Her intentions might taint Anele irredeemably in their eyes. They might go to any extreme to keep him. But she had no recourse that she could see-or accept. Apart from Anele, she had no arguments left except power. And she would not fight the Haruchai. The Land needed them. Too many of them had already spent their lives for her sake.

The old man was her last hope. Therefore she chose to place him in danger.

With one hand, she clenched her courage to the smooth shaft of the Staff. The other she lowered so that it rested on Anele's dismayed head, hoping that the touch of her palm would reassure him.

Doing so, she also reassured herself.

Although the Masters had conceded nothing, she met Handir's flat gaze and began.

"Stave must have told you that Anele reads stone. He's like an Unfettered One. He's taught himself to hear slowly enough to understand what the rocks are saying.

"Sure, that means he can tell people about the Land's history." If he stood on the right kind of stone. "You don't want that. But it also means he can tell us what the Earth is saying about its own pain.

"He's already identified threats we wouldn't know about otherwise. Skurj. A broken Durance.

Kastenessen. That alone makes him too useful to be locked away. "But he has more to offer. A lot more. If he's free."

Urgently she wished that she could interpret Handir's expression. But she had no idea whether he heard her with sympathy or scorn. She had to trust that the Masters saw her more clearly than she did them; that what was in her heart would show through the inadequacy of her ability to express it.

"If I'm right," she said carefully, "the-I'm not sure what to call it-the 'content' of his madness is controlled by the surface under his feet. When he stands on broken stones, he hears them. When he's on native gutrock, he becomes sane. But when the stone has been worked in some way"-by Giants in Revelstone, or by Liand's people in Mithil Stonedown-"then he's like this. He seems to understand what's happening, but he can't always respond appropriately.

"But there's more. Stave wasn't with us all the time.

He didn't see everything that happened."

Impulsively she glanced at Stave. She had withheld some of her experience with Anele's madness from him; had distrusted him to that extent. Her concern that he might take umbrage impelled her to turn away from Handir for a moment.

The look on his face gave her nothing. The puckering of his new scars seemed to imply that he would not forgive her.

It was possible that he did not understand the concept.

Perhaps none of the Haruchai did.

Aching, she faced the older Master again.