| Chapter 20: The Quest |
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But when he spoke, the only word he could find ws, "Linden--?"
Without inflection, Ceer replied, "She has awakened." Covenant did not realize that he had fallen until he found himself suspended in Brinn's arms. For a long moment, he could not force his legs to straighten. But the metheglin helped him. Slowly, he took his own weight, stood upright again. "How--?" "Ur-Lord, we strove to wake her." Suppressing the lilt of his native tongue to speak Covenant's language made Ceer sound completely detached. "But she lay as the dead, and would not be succored. We bore her from the Keep, knowing not what else to do. Yet your black companion--" He paused, asking for a name. "Vain," Covenant said, almost choking onthe memory of that grin. "He's an ur-vile." A slight contraction of his eyebrows expressed Ceer's surprise; but he did not utter his thoughts aloud. "Vain," he resumed, "stood by unheeding for a time. But then of a sudden he approached Linden Avery the Chosen." Dimly, Covenant reflected that the Haruchai must already have spoken to Sunder or Hollian. "Knowing nothing of him, we strove to prevent him. But he cast us aside as if we were not who we are. He knelt to the Chosen, placed his hand upon her. She awakened." |