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Cavewights, and allowing the Harrow to escape with his life.
    Later Linden hears that a large number of Sandgorgons have come to the Land, driven by the rent remnants of a Raver’s malign spirit. In Covenant’s name, they answered Linden’s call. But now they have repaid their debt to him. They seek a new outlet for their own savage hungers, and for the Raver’s malice.
    When Linden and her companions have done what they can for the homeless tree-villagers, they ride on to Salva Gildenbourne, a great forest which encircles most of Andelain. There they encounter a party of Giants, Swordmainnir, all women except for one deranged man, Longwrath, who is their prisoner. When the Giants and Linden’s company reach a place of comparative safety, they stop to rest and exchange tales.
    The leader of the Giants, Rime Coldspray, the Ironhand, explains that Longwrath is a Swordmain who has been possessed by a geas : some external force drives him to kill an unnamed woman. With nine of her fellow Swordmainnir, the Ironhand has been following him across the seas, seeking the cause or purpose of his geas . After acquiring an apparently powerful sword, he has led the Giants to the Land. Here it becomes clear that the woman he feels coerced to kill is Linden herself.
    To protect Linden, and for the sake of Linden’s old friendship with the Giants of the Search, the Swordmainnir agree to accompany her to Andelain. But during the next day, they are assailed by the skurj , fiery worm-like monsters that serve Kastenessen. Two of the Giants are killed. Yet Liand saves the company by using his orcrest to summon a thunderstorm. The downpour forces the skurj underground, and the surviving companions are able to flee once more.
    At last, they reach the safety of Andelain. The sacred Hills are warded by the Wraiths, small candle-flame sprites that repulse evil by drawing power from the awakened krill . Thus protected, the companions hasten to find the place where Covenant and Linden left the krill long ago.
    During the dark of the moon, however, the company meets the Harrow again. Indirectly he has offered Linden a bargain: if she surrenders the Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring, he will take her to Jeremiah. But while he taunts Linden, Infelice, the monarch of the Elohim , appears. She argues passionately against the Harrow—and against everything that Linden intends to do. Yet Linden ignores both Infelice and the Harrow as she approaches the krill .
    There the Dead begin to arrive. While the four original High Lords observe, Caer-Caveral and High Lord Elena escort Thomas Covenant’s spectre. Yet the Lords and the last Forestal and Covenant himself refuse to speak. None of them answer Linden.
    Driven to the last extremity, Linden raises all of her power from both her Staff and Covenant’s ring, and commits their contradictory magicks to the krill . With the krill , she cuts through the Laws of Life and Death until she succeeds at resurrecting Covenant; drawing his spirit out of the Arch of Time; restoring his slain body.
    Yet power on such a scale has vast consequences. Resurrecting Covenant, Linden Avery also awakens the Worm of the World’s End.

Part One
    “to achieve the ruin of the Earth”

1.
    The Burden of Too Much Time

    Thomas Covenant knelt on the rich grass of Andelain as though he had fallen there from the distance of eons. He was full of the heavens and time. He had spent uncounted millennia among the essential strictures of creation, participating in every manifestation of the Arch: he had been as inhuman as the stars, and as alone. He had seen everything, known everything—and had labored to preserve it. From the first dawn of the Earth to the ripening of Earthpower in the Land—from the deepest roots of mountains to the farthest constellations—he had witnessed and understood and served. Across the ages, he had wielded his singular self in defense of Law and life.
    But now he could not contain such illimitable vistas.