Merriman and Will are the oldest and the youngest of their kind, and there are certain gifts that they have that others of the Old Ones do not. Or perhaps it is only that the pattern must be held, and most of the Circle must stay behind to concentrate all their focus on that, and only a few can be spared to split their attention.

Those few, however, must be spared. If Bran is hurt -- if the regent cannot hold the pattern -- then it makes no difference if the spells are maintained or not.

At any rate, it is only two figures that dash into the courtyard now. One is a young man, with flopping brown hair and a round face now drawn with weariness and urgency; the other, white-haired and craggy, towers over him. Both of them stumble as they run towards Bran and Galadan; both of them run anyway, and faint whiteness shimmers around them from the intensity of the power of the Light that surrounds them.