Ahira's Hangar

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The battle against the terrifying skurk is over. Liand's thought of powering up his orcrest through the Staff of Law and using the power to bring rain has saved the day.

But the cost has been high.

One Giant is dead, and another thought lost to Longwrath's madness. One Giant has lost her arm. Another was nearly hamstrung. All are wounded, some with broken bones. Only two of the Giants are only lightly hurt. All four of the haruchai, all three of the Ramen, Liand, and Anele have all been burned. Only Linden has no physical harm - but...

Her injuries were more spiritual, and she had borne them longer.

The company takes long enough for Linden to heal those who are willing, and then they run again towards Andelain.

And this:

The Skurj had vindicated Linden's visions durign her translation to the Land. If Lord Foul kept his promises, she would eventually have to face the Worm of World's End.

Those visions came to Linden in Runes, and they appeared to come to her as a prpphecy from Lord Foul, rather than the more personally delivered oral prophecies that Thomas Covenant has received when he came to the Land.

While they fight their way through the temperate jungle asquickly as they can, Longwrath once again breaks free. he reaches for his sword to come after Linden...only to find that his sword was left behind at the volcanic plug battle site. Then he turns and runs back to get the sword rather than attacking Linden.

Perhaps this is just another manifestation of his madness - or perhaps there is something special about that particular sword that makes it more desirable than any of his companions' swords in that he does not try to get one of those instead?

Coldspray says to let him go back alone - while he still wants to kill Linden, none of their foes will bother him.

I hate seeing a Giant all broken minded and violent like that.

And his killing of another Giant, one of Longwrath's guards, Scend Wavegift, is confirmed. He broke her neck.

The Giant who feels like her laxness allowed the killing to happen, Latebirth, decides to call herself Lax Blunderfoot from now on. Coldspray tells her that they can discuss her name later - to let her shame become anger, and let that anger help her make a path through the jungle.

They find a stream and follow it, running full tilt, at a speed that even the haruchai have trouble with - towards Andelain.

Slowly the trees begin to thin out. The hills become gentler. Linden can feel Andelain....

to be continued. this is another huge chapter filled with all sorts of important things.


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Sorry I did not have a chance to get to this over the weekend. And now I am at work and my book is at home. But I hope to finish up this chapter as soon as I get home tonight.

If anyone else wants to finish it up in the meantime, however, I shall not complain.

continued:


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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 undertand 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 worng.

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 Jermiah and Thomas Covanent 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.


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Not much to add...I'm easily befuddled by clues, and there's a whole lotta them here. Yeah, it's peculiar that Longwrath seems to need that particular sword of his in order to carry out his mission to kill Linden, and freaks when he doesn't have it.

His violent, un-Giantlike demeanor is definitely disturbing. He's almost as bad as a Giant-Raver.

How the Wraiths are able to block his way into Andelain is a mystery to me. Maybe the concentrated Earthpower in Andelain allows the Wraiths to do this? Maybe they can block entry to anyone who intends violence.


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