Ahira's Hangar

Holy cows, cats, and crap. What an ending for part one.

And now on to part two, in a very info packed and important chapter:







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Linden has somehow survived the great earthquake and the splitting of Skyweir by instinct and Earthpower. Whether or not she has emotionally survived what she has learned about her poor son is another question.

As the chapter, and part two of the book begin, she is staggering into Garroting Deep. She is soaked, heading back into Lord Foul's nuclear winter, hungry, and exhausted. But she is so emotionally devastated she is beyond caring.

She is expecting to die from either physical hardship or at the magic of Wildwood. I honestly believe a part of her even wants to die.

She had suffered enough; had earned the right to simply lie down and die.

And just as her emotions and heart have been burned away, the very Staff of Law has been changed by her ordeal; it is black as night now.

Ony stubborness and the thought of Thomas Covenant keep her moving.

Linden has forgotten herself and given up on herself. She has forgotten her urge to heal; her own mighty achievements in forming the Staff of Law, ending the Sunbane, breaking the connection between the demondim and the Illearth Stone, and healing the sick in Berek's camp.

She only sees that she could not help her son.

The darkness of her parents' leagacy has overtaken her, in this hour of grief and fury. Her insecurities and lack of self-faith have captured her. While she has proven to be the equal of Thomas Covenant and any other of the Land's great heros, she feels a bone deep inadequacy over her failure to help her son. She feels that she cannot help the Land in its great need.

Trudging along the river, she sees a light. She knows that she must find the fire maker and warn them about the Forestal. She reaches the fire and sees that it belongs to the Mahdoubt. But how??? How could the Mahdoubt be there? But Linden is too exhausted and emotionally devastated to even think of how this could be.

Linden tries to warn the woman about Wildwood, but all she can get out of her mouth is the cry of her devastated heart: Why didn't they just kill me?"

In response, the Mahdoubt offers her hot food and comfort.

Again, Linden tried to warn her about Wildwood, again the only thing she is capable of uttering is: Why didn't they just kill me?

Once again, the Mahdoubt offers hot food, warmth, caring, and comfort.

On the third attempt, Linden manages to get out a few words of warning about the Forestal, but again also gives out her heart's cry:
Why didn't they just kill me?

The Mahdoubt coaxes Linden to put down the Staff, sit near the warm fire, and eat the nourishing food, while she "speculates" on the answers Linden so desperately needs. Her speculations are better than most people's answers.

The Mahdoubt's kindness and peacefullness are every bit as important to Linden as those answers. And they keep her calm as she hears the approaching music of Wildwood.

And Wildwood comes. And he and the Mahdoubt treat each other with respect - and dare I say it - affection? And the Forestal does no harm to Linden - she carries marks of the grass upon her clothing, and he will not harm her as long as she holds faith with the grass and the trees.

He leads her and the Mahdoubt to Gallow's Howe, where he gives Linden the burden of a question in answer to a gift he will give her.

It is this. How may life endure in the Land, if the Forestals fail and perish, as they must, and naught remains to ward its most vulnerable treasures? We were formed to stand as guardians in the Creator's stead. Must it transpire that beauty and truth shall pass utterly when we are gone?

And as his gift to Linden, he uses his power to carve runes in her Staff of Law.

Linden realizes that the Mahdoubt can get her back to her own proper time, but the Mahdoubt urges her back to the fire for more warmth and stew and comfort. Linden does return to the fire, for more food and springwine - but she is even more convinced that the Mahdoubt has come there to aid her.

The Mahdoubt admits that she is one of the Insequent. She tells Linden a bit about her people - that:
...When the Insequent are young, they join and breed and make merry. But as their years accumulate, they are overtaken by an insatiable craving for knowledge. It compels them. Therefore they turn to questings which comsume the remainder of their days. However, these questings demand solitude. They must be pursued privately or not at all. Each of the Insequent desires understanding and power which the others do not possess. For that reason, they become misers of knowledge. They move apart from each other, and their dealings are both infrequent and cryptic...The name of the Theomach is known to the Mahdoubt, as is that of the Vizard. Their separate paths are unlike hers, as hers is unlike theirs. But the Insequant have this loyalty to their own kind, that they neither oppose or betray one another. Those who transgress in such matters - and they are few, assuredly so - descend to a darkness of spirit from which they do not return. They are lost to name and knowledge and purpose, and until death claims them naught remains but madness. Therefore of the Theomach's quests and purposes, or of the Vizard's, the Mahdoubt cannot speak at this time. All greed is perilous...Hence is the Mahdoubt wary of her words. She has no wish for darkness...

This is a rather fascinating glimpse of this new, powerful, and mysterious people. Rivals of the Elohim? Bound to some sort of agreement or magic where if they interfere with each other they go mad until they die?

The Mahdoubt also tells Linden that Linden already knows what she needs to know to get aid, and perhaps will remember it if she rests...

The Mahdoubt also wants to know what Linden's purpose is, in going back to her own time. Linden wants to rescue her son (even if Lord Foul has held him and marked him since he was little more than a baby, go to Andelain to try to find the spirit of Thomas Covenant, and find Loric's Krill. The Mahdoubt tells linden that Linden embraces devastation - but that there is hope in contradiction.

Linden paces and tries to figure out what is going on, and what she knows about the Mahdoubt that might get her help.

And then she remembers the Mahdoubt's patchwork gown, where the patches represent gratitude and love.

It is not easy for Linden, as she has nothing to cut or sew with - but as she sews a scrap of her shirt to the Mahdoubt's gown with a fire sharpened twig and a few threads unwoven from her shirt, the Mahdoubt begins to chant.

And when the sewing and the chant are done, Linden is back in her own time and place - the plateau of Revelstone.

I cannot even begin to imagine the power of the Insequent, or what sort of people they might be.


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The second half of FR is titled "victims and enactors of Despite" -- hmmm, is this an omen for Linden?

This is a sublimely serene chapter, after the chaos and fury of Melenkurion Skyweir. The pace is perfect, allowing us (and Linden) to recover our wits somewhat. A curious thought: perhaps Linden, in her present state, is what High Lord Elena would've resembled had she survived her own ordeal at Skyweir. Exhausted and numb, deadened in spirit.

Yet the peculiar emotional quality of this chapter also reminds me of The Power That Preserves -- that episode where a delirious Covenant stumbles into Morinmoss and is healed by one of the Unfettered. Linden, while not actually delirious, is certainly dazed as she too enters a forest - though Garroting Deep is the last place you'd want to be stumbling into! And in my mind, the Mahdoubt's cozy fire and cooking is an echo of that long-dead Unfettered's humble abode.

So I read this chapter with a mixture of sadness and gladness: sad about Linden's emotional ruin, and glad for the Mahdoubt's comforting presence. Her nourishment restores Linden to herself and gives her back a sense of purpose. She has arisen from the depths of despair - which I guess is the other meaning of this chapter's title.

The subsequent encounter with Caerroil Wildwood is, well, simply magical. I love the hushed reverence that has always informed SRD's portrayal of the Forestals. How fitting it is that a Forestal should "complete" the fashioning of Linden's Staff of Law. Meanwhile, Wildwood's knowledge that even the age of the Forestals must one day end is profoundly sad.

"How may life endure in the Land, if the Forestals fail and perish, as they must, and naught remains to ward its most vulnerable treasures? We were formed to stand as guardians in the Creator's stead. Must it transpire that beauty and truth shall pass utterly when we are gone?"

Wildwood's question to Linden is clearly important, but what it means for the rest of the Last Chronicles is not so clear. Berek also, in despair on the slopes of Mount Thunder, had cried, "Alas for the Earth. We are overthrown, and have no friend to redeem us. Beauty shall pass utterly from the Land." We should remember that the initial title for the 3rd book was Shall Pass Utterly, before it was changed to Against All Things Ending. What on earth does it all mean?? Methinks even more Kleenex for the reader in the remaining books.

The final part of this chapter is enchanting, too. Never in a million years would I have guessed the real meaning of the Mahdoubt's patchwork gown! She is awesome.

So, while the Melenkurion Skyweir chapters rocked me, I treasure this one for the compassion of the Mahdoubt and the wisdom of Wildwood.


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