Fear.
‘He is a shaper, a sealer. He could make whole that which is rent.’
‘And he could rend also. He could destroy us. The darkness in him is beyond our reach. We cannot know.’
‘We must defeat him.’
‘No. We must trust.’
‘Trust in what?’
Fear returned to swamp the broken discourse. Fear of the ancient evil, the Great Evil, returned again.
There had been truth in the signs they had Heard. She had confirmed it. And her word was beyond any gainsaying.
Fear. Crueller than the bitterest winter.
And self-reproach at a vigilance long-neglected; at an age-spanning complacency.
And such ignorance; such appalling lack of knowledge.
And all the time, Farnor ran and ran.
‘We must trust.’ A resonant, persistent declamation.
Doubt.
‘What can be said that has not been said? The Hearer Mar-k
