White Gold Wielder Part 35

At one moment, she felt totally deaf; the next, sound went through her like a slap. Dragged down by her clothes and heavy shoes, she would have been exhausted in a short time without the First's support. The Swordmain's wound was a throbbing pain that reached Linden in spite of the chaos of water, the exertion of swimming. Yet the Giant bore both Covenant and the Chosen through the turmoil.

But as the water rose it became clearer, less conflicted*

and colder. Linden had forgotten how cold a fast river could be with no sunlight on it anywhere. The chill leeched into her, sucking at her bones. It whispered to her sore nerves that she would be warmer if she lowered herself beneath the surface, out of the air and the battering rain. Only for a moment, it suggested kindly. Until you feel warmer. You've already failed. It doesn't matter anymore. You deserve to feel warmer.

She knew what she deserved. But she ignored the seduction, clung instead to the First*concentrated on the hurt in the Giant's side. The cleaner water washed most of the sand and blood from the b.u.m; and the First was hardy. Linden was not worried about infection. Yet she poured her percipience toward that wound, put herself into it until her own side wailed as if she had been gored-Then, deliberately, she numbed the sensation, reducing the First's pain to a dull ache.

The cold frayed her senses, sapped her courage. Lightning and thunder blared above her, and she was too small to 328.

329 endure them. Rain nailed the face of the river. But she clinched herself to her chosen use and did not let go while (268 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

the current bore the company hurtling down the length of the long afternoon.

At last the day ended. The torrents thinned; the clouds rolled back. Legs scissoring, the First labored across to the west bank, then struggled out of the water and stood trembling on the sodden ground. In a moment, Pitchwife joined her. Linden seemed to feel his bones rattling in an ague of weariness.

Covenant looked as pale as a weathered tombstone, his Ups blue with cold, gall heavy on his features. "We need a fire," he said as if that, too, were his fault.

Sunder walked up the wet slope without a glance at his companions. He was hunched over Hollian as though his chest were full of broken gla.s.s. Beyond the reach of the river, he stumbled to his knees, lowered Hollian gently to the ground. He settled her limbs to make her comfortable.

His blunt fingers caressed the black strands of hair from her face, tenderly combed her tresses out around her head. Then he seated himself beside her and wrapped his arms over his heart, huddling there as if his sanity had snapped.

Pitchwife unshouldered his pack, took out a Giantish firepot which had somehow remained sealed against the water. Next he produced a few f.a.gots'from his scant supply of firewood. They were soaked, and he was exhausted; but he bent over them and blew raggedly until they took flame from the firepot. Nursing the blaze, he made it hot enough to sustain itself. Though it was small and pitiable, it gave enough heat to soften the chill in Linden's joints, the gaunt misery in Covenant's eyes.

Then Pitchwife offered them diamondraught. But they refused it until he and the First had each swallowed a quant.i.ty of the potent liquor. Because of his cramped lungs and her injury, the Giants were in sore need of sustenance. After that, however. Linden took a few sips which ran true warmth at last into her stomach.

Bitterly, as if he were punis.h.i.+ng himself, Covenant accepted the pouch of diamondraught from her; but he did not drink. Instead, he forced his stiff muscles and brittle bones toward Sunder.

His offer produced no reaction from the Graveler. In a 330 burned and gutted voice. Covenant urged, pleaded. Sunder did not raise his head. He remained focused on Hollian as if his world had shrunk to that frail compa.s.s and his companions no longer impinged upon him. After a while. Covenant shambled back to the fire, sat down, and covered his face with his hands.

A moment later, Vain appeared.

He emerged from the night into the campfire's small illumination and resumed at once his familiar blank stance. An ambiguous smile curved his mouth. The pa.s.sion Linden had (269 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

felt from him was gone. He appeared as insentient and unreachable as ever. His wooden forearm had been darkened and charred, but the damage was only superficial.

His left arm was withered and useless, like a congenital deformity. Pain oozed from several deep sores. Mottled streaks the color of ash marred his ebony flesh.

Instinctively, Linden started toward him, though she knew that she could not help him, that his wounds were as imponderable as his essential nature. She sensed that he had attacked the ur-viles for his own reasons, not to aid or even acknowledge the company; yet she felt viscerally that the wrong his sculptured perfection had suffered was intolerable.

Once he had bowed to her. And more than once he had saved her life. Someone had to at least try to help him.

But before she reached him, a wide, winged shape came out of the stars like the plunge of a condor. Changing shapes as it descended, it landed lightly beside the Demondim-sp.a.w.n in human form.

Findail.

He did not look at Covenant or Linden, ignored Sunder*s hunched and single-minded grief; instead, he addressed Vain.

"Do not believe that you will win my heart with bravery."

His voice was congested with old dismay, covert and unmistakable fear. His eyes seemed to search the Demondim-sp.a.w.n's inscrutable soul. "I desire your death. If it lay within the permit of my Wurd, I would slay you. But these comrades for whom you care nothing have again contrived to redeem you." He paused as if he were groping for courage, then concluded softly, "Though I abhor your purpose, the Earth must not suffer the cost of your pain."

Suddenly lambent, his right hand reached out to Vain's left shoulder. An instant of fire blazed from the touch, cast 331 startling implications which only Linden could hear into the fathomless night. Then it was gone. Findail left Vain, went to stand like a sentinel confronting the moonlit prospect of tile east.

The First breathed a soft oath of surprise. Pitchwife gaped in wonder. Covenant murmured curses as if he could not believe what he had seen.

Vain's left arm was whole, completely restored to its original beauty and function.

Linden thought she caught a gleam of relief from the Demondim-sp.a.w.n's black eyes.

Astonishment stunned her. Findail's demonstration gave her a reason to understand for the first time why the Elohim believed that the healing of the Earth should be left to them, that the best choice she or Covenant could make would be to give Findail the ring and simply step aside from the doom Lord Foul was preparing for them. The restoration of (270 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

Vain's arm seemed almost miraculous to her. With all the medical resources she could imagine, she would not have been able to match Findail's feat.

Drawn by the power be represented, she turned toward him with Sunder's name on his lips. Help him. He doesn't know how to bear it.

But the silhouette of the Appointed against the moon refused her before she spoke. In some-unexplained way, he had aggravated his own plight by healing Vain. Like Sunder, . he was in need of solace. His stance told her that he would deny any other appeal.

Pitchwife sighed. Muttering aimlessly to himself, he began to prepare a meal while the fire lasted, Later that night. Linden huddled near Covenant and the fading embers of the fire with a damp blanket hugged around her in an effort to ward oS the sky-deep cold and tried to explain her failure. "It was too sudden. I didn't see the danger In time."

"It wasn't your fault," he replied gruffly. "I had no right to blame you." His voice seemed to issue from an injury hidden within the clenched mound of his blanket*hidden and fatal. "I should've made them stay in Revelstone."

She wanted to protest his arrogation of responsibility. Without them, we would all be dead. How else were we going to 332 get away from those ur-viles? But he went on, "I used to be afraid of power. I thought it made me what I hate*another Landwaster. A source of Despite for the people I care about.

But I don't need power. I can do the same thing by just standing there."

She sat up and peered at him through the moon-edged night. He lay with his back to her, the blanket s.h.i.+vering slightly on his shoulders. She ached to put her arms around him, find some safe warmth in the contact of their bodies.

But mat was not what he needed. Softly, harshly, she said, "That's wonderful. You're to blame for everything. Next I suppose you're going to tell me you bit yourself with that venom, just to prove you deserve it."

He jerked over onto his back as if she had hit him between the shoulderblades. His face came, pale and wincing, out of the blanket. For a moment, he appeared to glare at her.

But then his emanations lost their fierce edge. "I know," he breathed to the wide sky. "Atiaran tried to tell me'the same thing. After all I did to her." Quietly, he quoted, " 'Castiga- tion is a doom which achieves itself. In punis.h.i.+ng yourself, you come to merit punishment.' All Foul has to do is laugh."

His dark features concentrated toward her. "The same thing's true for you. You tried to save her. It wasn't your fault."

Linden nodded. Mutely, she leaned toward him until he took her into his embrace.

When she awoke in the early gray of dawn, she looked (271 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

toward Sunder and saw that he had not moved during the night.

Hollian was rigid with death now, her delicate face pallid and aggrieved in the gloom; but he appeared unaware of any change, uncognizant of night or day*numb to anything except the shards of pain in his chest and her supine form.

He was chilled to the bone, but the cold had no power to make him s.h.i.+ver.

Covenant roused with a flinch, yanked himself roughly out of his dreams. For no apparent reason, he said distinctly, "Those ur-viles should've caught up with us by now." Then he, too, saw Sunder. Softly, he groaned.

The First and Pitchwife were both awake. Her injury was still sore; but diamondraught had quickened her native toughness, and the damage was no longer serious. She glanced at 333 the Graveler, then faced Covenant and Linden and shook her head. Her training had not prepared her to deal with Sunder's stricken condition.

Her husband levered himself off the ground with his elbow and crawled toward the sacks of supplies. Taking up a pouch of diamondraught, he forced his cramped muscles to lift him upright, carry him to the Graveler's side. Without a word, he opened the pouch and held it under Sunder's nose.

Its scent drew a sound like a m.u.f.fled sob from the Stonedownor. But he did not raise his head.

Helpless with pity, Pitchwife withdrew.

No one spoke. Linden, Covenant, and the Giants ate a cheerless meal before the sun rose. Then the First and Pitchwife went to find stone on which to meet the day. In shared apprehension. Linden and Covenant started toward Sunder.

But, by chance or design, he had seated himself upon an exposed face of rock. He needed no protection.

Gleaming azure, the sun crested the horizon, then disappeared as black clouds began to host westward.

Spasms of wind kicked across the gravid surface of the White River. Pitchwife hastened to secure the supplies. By tile time he was finished, the first drizzle had begun to fall. It mounted toward downpour with a sound like frying meat, Linden eyed the quick current of the White and shuddered.

Its cold ran past her senses like the edge of a rasp. But she had already survived similar immersions without diamondraught or metheglin to sustain her-She was determined to endure as long as necessary. Grimly, she turned back to the problem of Sunder.

He had risen to his feet. Head bowed, eyes focused on nothing, he faced his companions and the River.

He held Hollian upright in his arms, hugging her to his sore breast so that her soles did not touch the ground.

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Covenant met Linden's gaze. Then he moved to stand in front of Sunder. The muscles of his shoulders bunched and throttled; but his voice was gentle, husky with rue. "Sunder,"

he said, "put her down." His hands clenched at his sides.

"You'll drown yourself if you try to take her with you. I can't lose you too." In the background of his words blew a wind of grief like the rising of the rain. "We'll help you bury her."

Sunder gave no response, did not look at Covenant. He White Gold Wielder 334.

appeared to be waiting for the Unbeliever to get out of his way.

Covenant's tone hardened. "Don't make us take her away from you."

In reply. Sunder lowered Hollian's feet to the ground.

Linden felt no s.h.i.+ft in his emanations, no warning. With his right hand, he drew the krill from his jerkin.

The covering of the blade fell away, flapped out of reach along the wind. He gripped the hot handle in his bare fingers.

Pain crossed his face like a snarl, but he did not flinch. White light shone from the gem, as clear as a threat.

Lifting HolHan with his left arm, he started down toward the River.

Covenant let him pa.s.s. Linden and the Giants let him pa.s.s.

Then the First sent Pitchwife after him, so that he would not be alone in the swift, cold hazard of the current.

"He's going to Andelain," Covenant grated. "He's going to carry her all the way to Andelain. Who do you think he wants to find?"

Without waiting for an answer, he followed Pitchwife and the Graveler.

Linden stared after them and groaned, His Dead! The Dead in Andelain. Na.s.sic his father. Kalina his mother. The wife and son he had shed in the name of Mithil Stonedown.

Or Hollian herself?

Sweet Christ! How will he stand it? h.e.l.l go mad and never come back.

Diving into the current. Linden went downriver in a wild rush with the First swimming strongly at her side.

She was not prepared for the acute power of the cold. As her health-sense grew in range and discernment, it made her more and more vulnerable to what she felt. The days she had (273 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

spent in the Mithil River with Covenant and Sunder had not been this bad. The chill cudgeled her flesh, pounded her raw nerves. Time and again, she believed that surely now she would begin to wail, that at last the Sunbane would master her. Yet the undaunted muscle of the First's shoulder supported her. And Covenant stayed with her. Through the bludgeoning rain, the thunder that shattered the air, the lightning that ripped the heavens, his stubborn sense of purpose remained within reach of her percipience. In spite of 335 numbing misery and desperation, she wanted to live*

wanted to survive every ill Lord Foul hurled against her.

Until her chance came to put a stop to it.

Visible by lightning burst, Pitchwife rode the River a stroke or two ahead of the First. With one hand, he held up the Graveler. And Sunder bore Hollian as if she were merely sleeping.

Sometime during the middle of the day, the White dashed frothing and tumbling into a confluence that tore the travelers down the new channel like dead leaves in the wind. Joined by the Grey, the White River bad become the Soulsease; and for the rest of that day*and all the next*it carried the company along. The rains blinded Linden's sense of direction.

But at night, when the skies were clear and the waning moon rose over the pummeled wasteland, she was able to see that the river's course had turned toward the east The second evening after the confluence, the First asked Covenant when they would reach Andelain. He and Linden sat as close as possible to the small heat of their campfire; and Pitchwife and the First crouched there also as if even they needed something more than diamondraught to restore their courage. But Sunder remained a short distance away in the same posture he had a.s.sumed the two previous nights, hunched over his pain on the sheetrock of the campsite with Hollian outstretched rigidly in front' of him as if at any moment she might begin to breathe again.

Side by side. Vain and Findail stood at the fringes of the light. Linden had not seen them enter the River, did not know how they traveled the rain-scoured waste. But each evening they appeared together shortly after sunset and waited without speaking for the night to pa.s.s.

Covenant mused into the flames for a moment, then replied, "I'm a bad judge of distance. I don't know how far we've come." His face appeared waxen with the consequences of cold. "But this is the Soulsease. It goes almost straight to Mount Thunder from here. We ought*" He extended his hands toward the fire, put them too close to the flames, as if he had forgotten the reason for their numbness. But then his leper's instincts caused him to draw back. "It depends on tile sun. It's due to change. Unless we get a desert sun, the Riverll keep running. We ought to reach Andelain sometime tomorrow."

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The First nodded and went back to her private thoughts.

Behind her Giantish strength and the healing of her injury, she was deeply tired. After a moment, she drew her longsword, began to clean and dry it with the slow, methodical movements of a woman who did not know what else to do.

As if to emulate her, Pitchwife took his flute from his pack, shook the water out of it, and tried to play. But his hands or his lips were too weary to hold any music. Soon he gave up the attempt.

For a while. Linden thought about the sun and let herself feel a touch of relief. A fertile sun or a sun of pestilence would warm the water. They would allow her to see the sky, open up the world around her. And a desert sun would certainly not be cold.

But gradually she became aware that Covenant was still s.h.i.+vering. A quick glance showed her he was not ill. After his pa.s.sage through the Banefire, she doubted that he would ever be ill again. But he was clenched around himself, knotted so tightly that he seemed feverish.

She put her hand over his right forearm, drew his attention toward her. With her eyes, she asked what troubled him.

He looked at her gauntly, then returned his gaze to the fire as if among the coals he might find the words he needed.

When he spoke, he surprised her by inquiring, "Are you sure you want to go to Andelain? The last time you had the chance, you turned it down."

That was true. Poised at the southwest verge of the Hills with Sunder and Hollian, she had refused to go with Covenant, even though the radiance of health from across the Mithil River had been vivid to her bruised nerves. She had feared the sheer power of that region. Some of her fear she had learned from Hollian's dread, Hollian's belief that Andelain was a place where people lost their minds. But most of it had arisen from an encompa.s.sing distrust of everything to which her percipience made her vulnerable. The Sunbane had bored into her like a sickness, as acute and anguished as any disease; but as a disease she had understood it. And it had suited her: it had been appropriate to the structure of her life. But for that very reason Andelain had threatened her more intimately.

It had endangered her difficult self-possession. She had not believed that any good could come of anything which bad such strength over her.