White Gold Wielder Part 38

But all his moods seemed to change as soon as he felt them.

An old bleakness dulled his gaze; haggard lines marked his mien. Abruptly, he started toward the charred stump which had once been the Forestal of Andelain.

At once, she followed him. But she stopped when she understood that he had gone to say farewell.

He touched the inert gem of the krill with his numb fingers, tested the handle's coldness with the back of his hand. Then he leaned his palms and forehead against the blackened wood.

Linden could hardly hear him.

"From fire to fire," he whispered. "After all this time.

First Seadreamer and Brinn. Hamako. Then Honninscrave.

Now you. I hope you've found a little peace."

There was no answer. When at last he withdrew, his hands and brow were smudged with soot like an obscure and contra- dictory anointment. Roughly, he scrubbed his palms on his pants; but he seemed unaware of the stain on his forehead.

For a moment, he studied Linden as if he sought to measure her against the Forestal's example. Again she was reminded of the way he had once cared for Joan. But Linden was not his ex-wife; she faced him squarely. The encompa.s.sing health of the Hills made her strong. And what he saw appeared to rea.s.sure him. Gradually his features softened. Half to himself, be murmured, "Thank G.o.d you're still here." Then he raised his voice. "We should get going. Where are the Giants?"

She gave him a long gaze, which Hollian would have understood, before she turned to look for the First and Pitchwife.

They were not in sight. Vain and Findail stood near the foot of the slope exactly as they had remained all night; but the Giants were elsewhere. However, when she ascended to the hillcrest, she saw them emerge from a copse on the far side of a low valley, where they had gone to find privacy.

They responded to her wave with a hail and a gesture eastward, indicating that they would rejoin her and Covenant in that direction. Perhaps their keen eyes were able to descry the 355 (290 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

smile she gave them, glad to see that they felt safe enough in Andelain to leave their companions unguarded.

Covenant came to her wearily, worn by strain and lack of sleep. But at the sight of the Giants*or of the Hills unfurled before him like pleasure rolling along the kind breeze*he, too, smiled. Even from this distance, the restoration of Pitchwife's spirit was visible in the way be hobbled at his wife's side with a gait like a mummer's capriole. And her swinging stride bespoke eagerness and a fondly remembered night. They were Giants in Andelain. The pure expanse of the Hills suited them.

Softly, Covenant mused, "They aren't people of the Land.

Maybe Coercri was enough. Maybe they won't meet any Dead here." As he remembered the slain Unhomed*and the caamora of release he had given them in The Grieve*the timbre of his voice conveyed pride and pain. But then his gaze darkened; and Linden saw that he was thinking of Saltheart Foamfollower, who had lost his life in Covenant's former victory over the Despiser.

She wanted to tell him not to worry. Perhaps the battle for Revelstone had made Pitchwife familiar with despair and doom. Yet she believed that eventually he would find the song he needed. And the First was a Swordmain, as true as her blade. She would not lightly submit to death.

But Covenant had his own strange .sources of surety and did not wait for Linden's answer. With his resolve stiffening, he placed his half-hand firmly in her clasp and drew her toward the east along a way among the Hills which would intersect the path of the Giants.

After a moment, Findail and Vain appeared behind them, following them as always in the direction of their fate.

For a while. Covenant walked briskly, his smudged forehead raised to the sun and the savory atmosphere. But at the first brook they encountered, he stopped. From under his belt, he drew a knife which he had brought with him from Revelstone. Stooping to the crisp water, he drank deeply, then soaked his ragged beard and set himself to shave.

Linden held her breath as she watched him. His grasp on the blade was numb; and fatigue made his muscles awkward.

But she did not try to intervene. She sensed that this risk was necessary to him.

When he had finished, however, and his cheeks and neck were sc.r.a.ped clean, she could not conceal her relief. She knelt 356 beside him, cupped water into her hands, and washed tile soot from his forehead, seeking to remove the innominate implications of that mark.

An oak with a tremendous trunk spread its wide leaves over that part of the brook. Satisfied with Covenant's face, she pulled him after her and leaned back into the shade and the gra.s.s. The breeze played down the length of her legs like the sport of a lover; and she was in no hurry to rejoin the Giants.

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But suddenly she felt a mute cry from the tree. a burst of pain which s.h.i.+vered through the ground, seemed to violate the very air. She whirled from Covenant's side and surged to her feet, trembling to find the cause of the oak's hurt The cry rose. For an instant, she saw no reason for it. Harm shook the boughs; the leaves wailed; m.u.f.fled rivings ran through the heartwood. Around the oak, the Hills seemed to concentrate as if they were appalled. But she saw nothing except that Vain and Findail were gone.

Then, too swift for surmise, the Appointed came flowing out of the wood's anguish.

As he transformed himself from oak to flesh, his care-cut visage wore an unwonted shame. Vexed and defensive, he faced Linden and Covenant. "Is he not Demondim-sp.a.w.n?" he demanded as if they had accused him unjustly. "Are not his makers ur-viles, that have ever served the Despiser with their self-abhorrence? And will you trust him to my cost? He must be slain."

At his back, the oak's hurt sharpened to screaming.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Linden spat, half guessing what Findail had done*and afraid to believe it. 'You're killing it! Don't you even care that this is Andelain?*the only place left that at least ought to be safe?"

"Linden?" Covenant asked urgently. "What*?" He lacked her percipience, had no knowledge of the tree's agony.

But he did not have to wait for an answer. A sundering pain like the blow of an axe split Linden's nerves; and the trunk of the oak sprang apart in a flail of splinters.

From the core of the wood. Vain stepped free. Unscathed, he left the still quivering tree in ruins. He did not glance at Pindail or anyone else. His black eyes held nothing but darkness.

Linden stumbled to her knees in the gra.s.s and wrapped her arms around the hurt.

357 For a stunned moment, grief held the Hills. Then Covenant rasped, "That's terrific." He sounded as shaken as the dying boughs. "I hope you're proud of yourself."

Findail's reply seemed to come from a great distance. "Do you value him so highly? Then I am indeed lost"

"I don't give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n!" Covenant was at Linden's side. His hands gripped her shoulders, supporting her against the empathic force of the rupture. "I don't trust either of you. Don't you ever try anything like that again!"

The Elohim hardened, "I will do what I must. From the first, I have avowed that I will not suffer his purpose. The curse of Kastenessen will not impel me to that doom."

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Swirling into the form of a hawk, he flapped away through the treetops. Linden and Covenant were left amid the wreckage.

Vain stood before them as if nothing had happened.

For a moment longer, the ache of the tree kept Linden motionless. But by degrees Andelain closed around the destruction, pouring health back into the air she breathed, spreading green vitality up from the gra.s.s, loosening the knotted echo of pain. Slowly, her head cleared. Sweet Christ, she mumbled to herself. I wasn't ready for that.

Covenant repeated her name; his concern reached her through his numb fingers. She steadied herself on the under- girding bones of the Hills and nodded to him. "I'm all right."

She sounded wan; but Andelain continued to lave her in its balm. Drawing a deep breath, she pulled herself back to her feet.

Across the greensward, the suns.h.i.+ne lay like sorrow among the trees and shrubs, aliantha and flowers. But the shock of violence was over. Already, the distant hillsides had begun to smile again. The brook resumed its damp chuckle as though the interruption had been forgotten. Only the riven trunk went on weeping while the tree died, too sorely hurt to keep itself alive.

"The old Lords*" Covenant murmured, more to himself than to her. "Some of them could've healed this."

So could I, Linden nearly replied aloud. If I had your ring.

I could save it all. But she bit down the thought, hoped it did not show in her face. She did not trust her intense desire for power. The power to put a stop to evil.

However, he lacked the sight to read her emotions. His own 358 grief and outrage blinded him. When he touched her arm and gestured onward, she leaped the brook with him; and together they continued among the Hills.

Unmarred except by the dead wood of his right forearm, Vain followed them. His midnight countenance held no expression other than the habitual ambiguity of his slight grin.

The day would have been one of untrammeled loveliness for Linden if she could have forgotten FindaU and the Demondim-sp.a.w.n. As she and Covenant left the vicinity of the shattered oak, Andelain rea.s.serted all its beneficent mansue- tude, the gay opulence of its verdure, the tuneful sweep and soar and flash of its birds, the endearing caution and abundance of its wildlife. Nourished by treasure-berries and rill- water, and blandished from stride to stride by the springy surf, she felt crowded with life, as piquant as the scents of the flowers, and keen for each new vista of the Andelainian Hills.

After a time, the First and Pitchwife rejoined Linden and Covenant, appearing from the covert of an antique willow with leaves in their hair and secrets in their eyes. For greeting, Pitchwife gave a roistering laugh that sounded like his old (293 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

humor; and it was seconded by one of his wife's rare, beautiful smiles.

"Look at you," Linden replied in mock censure, leasing the Giants. "For shame. If you keep that up, you're going to become parents whether you're ready for it or not."

A shade like a blush touched the First's mien; but Pitchwife responded with a crow. Then he a.s.sumed an air of dismay.

"Stone and Sea forfend! The child of this woman would surely emerge bladed and bucklered from the very womb. Such a prodigy must not be blithely conceived,"

The First frowned to conceal her mirth. "Hush, husband,"

she murmured. "Provoke me not. Does it not suffice you that one of us is entirely mad?"

"Suffice me?" he riposted. "How should it suffice me? I have no wish for loneliness."

"Aye, and none for wisdom or decorum," she growled in feigned vexation. "You are indeed shameful."

When Covenant grinned at the jesting of the Giants, Linden nearly laughed aloud for pleasure.

Yet she did not know where Findail had gone or what he would do next. And the death of the oak remained aching in 359 the back of her mind. Ballasted by such things, her mood did not altogether lose itself in the a.n.a.lystic atmosphere. There was a price yet to be paid for the pa.s.sing of the Forestal, and the destination of the company had not changed. In addition, she had no clear sense of what Covenant hoped to achieve by confronting the Despiser. Caer-Caveral had once said of her. The woman of your world would raise grim shades here.

She relished Pitchwife's return to glee, enjoyed the new lightness which the badinage of the Giants produced in Covenant.

But she did not forget.

As evening settled around Andelain, she experienced a faint s.h.i.+ver of trepidation. At night the Dead walked the Hills. All of Covenant's olden friends, lambent with meanings and memories she could not share. The woman he had raped. And the daughter of that rape, who bad loved him*and had broken the Law of Death in his name, trying as madly as hate to spare him from his harsh doom. She was loath to meet those potent revenants. They were the men and women who had shaped the past, and she had no place among them.

Under a stately Gilden, the company halted. A nearby stream with a bed of fine sand provided water for was.h.i.+ng.

Aliantha were plentiful. The deep gra.s.s cus.h.i.+oned the ground comfortably. And Pitchwife was a^wellspring of good cheer, of diamondraught and tales. While the satin gloaming slowly folded itself away, leaving Linden and her companions uncovered to the darkness and the hushed stars, he described the long Giantclave and testing by which the Giants of Home had determined to send out the Search and had selected his wife to lead it. He related her feats as if they were stupendous, (294 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:43 PM]

teasing her with her prowess. But now his voice held a hidden touch of fever, a suggestion of effort which hinted at his more fundamental distress. Andelain restored his heart; but it could not heal his recollection of Revelstone and gratuitous bloodshed, could not cure his need for a better outcome. After a time, he lapsed into silence; and Linden felt the air of the camp growing tense with antic.i.p.ation.

Across the turf, fireflies winked and wandered uncertainly, as if they were searching for the Forestal's music. But eventually they went away. The company settled into a vigil. The mood Covenant emitted was raw with fatigue and hunger. He, too, appeared to fear his Dead as much as he desired them.

Then the First broke the silence. "These Dead," she began White Gold Wielder 360.

thoughtfully. "I comprehend that they are held apart from their deserved rest by the breaking of the Law of Death. But why do they gather here, where all other Law endures? And what impels them to accost the living?"

"Companions.h.i.+p," murmured Covenant, his thoughts elsewhere. "Or maybe the health of Andelain gives them something as good as rest." His voice carried a distant pang; he also had been left forlorn by the loss of Caer-Caveral's song.

"Maybe they just haven't been able to stop loving."

Linden roused herself to ask, "Then why are they so cryptic? They haven't given you anything except hints and mystifi- cation. Why don't they come right out and tell you what you need to know?"

"Ah, that is plain to me," Pitchwife replied on Covenant's behalf. "Unearned knowledge is perilous. Only by the seeking and gaining of it may its uses be understood, its true worth measured. Had Gossamer Glowlimn my wife been mystically granted the skill and power of her blade without training or test or experience, by what means could she then choose where to strike her blows, how extremely to put forth her strength? Unearned knowledge rules its wielder, to the cost of both."

But Covenant had his own answer. When Pitchwife finished. the Unbeliever said quietly, "They can't tell us what they know. We'd be terrified." He was sitting with his back to the Gilden; and his fused resolve gave him no peace. "That's the worst part. They know how much we're going to be hurt.

But if they tell us, where will we ever get the courage to face it? Sometimes ignorance is the only kind of bravery or at least willingness that does any good."

He spoke as if he believed what he was saying. But the hardness of his tone seemed to imply that he had no ignorance left to relieve the prospect of his intent.

The Giants fell still, unable to deny his a.s.sertion or respond to it. The stars shone bleak rue around the scant sliver of the moon. The night grew intense among the Hills. Behind the (295 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

comforting glow of its health and wholeness, Andelain grieved for the Forestal.

Terrified? Linden asked herself. Was Covenant's purpose as bad as that?

Yet she found it impossible to question him. Not here, with the Giants listening. His need for privacy was palpable to her.

noc(ors of Desecration 361 And she was too restless to concentrate. She remained charged with the energy and abundance of the Hills; and the night seemed to breathe her name, urging her to walk off her nervous antic.i.p.ation. Covenant's Dead were nowhere in evidence.

Within the range of her percipience lay only the fine slumber and beauty of the region.

A strange glee rose in her: she wanted to run and caracole under the slight moon, tumble and roll and tumble again down the lush hillsides, immerse herself in Andelain's immaculate dark. Perhaps a solitary gambol would act as an anodyne for the other blackness which the Sunbane had nourished in her veins.

Abruptly, she sprang to her feet. "I'll be back," she said without meeting the eyes of her companions. "Andelain is too exciting. I need to see more of it."

The Hills murmured to her, and she answered, sprinting away from the Gilden southward with all the gay speed of her legs.

Behind her, Pitchwife had taken up his flute. At once broken, piercing, and sweet, its awkward tones followed her as she ran. They carried around her like the ghost-limbs of the trees, the crouching midnight of the bushes, the unmoonlit loom and pause of the shadows. He was trying to play the song which had streamed so richly from Caer-Caveral.

For a moment, he caught it*or almost caught it*and it went through her like loss and exaltation. Then she seemed to outrun it as she pa.s.sed over a rise and sped downward again, deeper into the occult night of the Andelainian Hills.

The Forestal had said that she would raise grim shades here; and she thought of her father and mother. Unintentionally, without knowing what they were doing, they had bred her for suicide or murder. But now she defied them. Come on! she panted up at the stars. I dare you! For good or ill, healing or destruction, she had become stronger than her parents. The pa.s.sion surging in her could not be named or confined by the harsh terms of her inheritance. She taunted her memories, challenging them to appear before her. But they did not.

And because they did not, she ran on, as heedless as a child *altogether unready for the door of might which opened suddenly against her, slapping her to the ground as if she were not strong or real enough to be noticed by the old puissance emerging from it.

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A door like a gap in the first substance of the night, as abrupt and stunning as a detonation, and as tall as the heavens.

It opened so that the man could stride through it. Then it closed behind him.

Her face was thrust into the gra.s.s. She fought for breath, strove to raise her head. But the sheer force of the presence towering over her crushed her prostrate. His bitter outrage seemed to fall on her like the wreckage of a mountain. Beneath bis ire, he was so poignant with ruin, so extreme in the ancient and undiminished apotheosis of his despair, that she would have wept for him if she had been able. But his tremendous wrath daunted her, turned her vulnerability against herself. She could not lever her face out of the turf to look at him.

He felt transcendently tall and powerful. For an instant, she believed that he could not be aware of her, that she was too small for his notice. Surely he would pa.s.s by her and go about his fell business. But almost immediately her hope failed. His regard lit between her shoulderblades like the point of a spear.

Then he spoke. His voice was as desolate as the Land under a desert sun, as twisted and lorn as the ravages of a sun of pestilence. But anger gave it strength.

"Slayer of your own Dead, do you know me?"

No, she panted. No. Her finger? gouged into the loam as she struggled to s.h.i.+ft her abject posture. He had no right to do this to her. Yet his glare impaled her, and she could not move.