to see the spoilers, run your cursor over them...
continued:
[spoiler]
As the Giants carry the party towards Andelain, Linden is thinking and remembering. Her earlier encounters in and near Andelain. Various things people have said to her that seem important, such as
There is hope in contradiction. She thinks about the dead and the breakings of the Laws of Death and Life. She thinks about her unspoken purpose, which we do not even know yet.
I think Linden is going over everything in her mind one more time, step by step, making sure of her decision. I think she is also psyching herself up to do whatever it is that she has planned... 
The party reaches Andelain, in all of its health, beauty, and glory.
The Giant carrying Anele puts him down, and he talks as if he is his mother, Hollian. He tells Linden that she should not have come, that she carries too much darkness, and that Lord Foul has set many snares for her. 
Yet - Mhoram once told Covenant that avoiding those snares is useless...
And Hollian then tells Linden that there is more in her heart and in Andelain and in the dead than Foul can ever imagine...
Contradictions, indeed! 
And lastly - Hollian asks Linden to be kind to Anele, for after Linden dooms the Land, as she must, Anele is the hope of the Land. 
Now, this makes me think of the previous chapter where Anele tells Linden that she must find the oldest rock. Is this because the oldest rock must hold memories of creation?
Anele then walks away, and Linden tells everyone to let him go - that he cannot come to any harm in Andelain.
The Giants then ask for a caamora for their dead. The Humbled have no problem with this...
While two of the Giants go back to gather wood from the forest for the fire of grief, Linden heals the remaining ones. All of the wounds from the skurj are infected and nasty. When the first one came in the forest, it did say that it rotted the very ground. These creatures sound like horrific disease vectors. 
When the two Giants return with the wood, Linden heals them as well.
And then, at sunset, the Giants have their caamora. Coldspray talks sternly about responsibility and fault. They describe the dead. Together they burn clean their pain in the fire.
Linden also wishes for a caamora, but she wants a flame of an unspecified sort - could it be the flames of Thomas Covenant's ring?
Stave, of all people, tells Linden that he has doubts about what she plans to do, and the secretness of it all. He does not understand why she wants the krill, when she does not need it to talk to her dead, or to go to Mount Thunder to do away with Kevin's Dirt.
But their discussion is interrupted when Longwrath comes to Andelain. Or tries to come - the Wraiths of Andelain block his way. And despite his sword waving and yelling and anger - they manage to keep him out.
When have the Wraiths gotten such power?
Stave tells Linden that the Masters know where the krill can be found. And then everyone tries to sleep.
Linden's mind is racing. She thinks of how dead Kevin told her that Covenant was broken and would serve the Despiser, and how wrong Kevin had been. She knows people say similar things about herself, and she hopes that they are just as wrong.
In the morning she is told that it will take two days to get to the krill, if carried by Giants. This is not quick enough for her, so she begins to look for alternatives.
The company had parted with the Ranyhyn to spare the great horses the passage through the forest and the risks from the skurj. Though Liand objects, on the grounds that it might cause suffering, it is decided to summon the great horses once more.
Stave calls the great ones, and it turns out that perhaps Liand was right - they are exhausted, and all of them are hurt.
Linden immediately heals them with the Staff of Law.
She remembers that in the Horse Rite they had shown her as being misguided, and that her efforts to regain Jeremiah and Thomas Covenant would wake the Worm of World's End. But she thinks that they only warned, not prophesied.
They company rides the great ones, the Giants running along as best they can, with Linden to heal them with the Staff at need.
The company stops three times - once to collect Anele, who is muttering to himself in a range of voices, and once to heal, eat, and drink. The third time is when they reach the Soulsease River. The sun is only beginning to set, and the krill is only a league away. But on the far side of the River, the Harrow is waiting.
[/spoiler]
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment