White Gold Wielder

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Cail’s voice reached him distantly. The Haruchai was saying, “Ur-Lord, this is not well. Chosen, hear me. It is not well. You must come away.” But his protest slowly ran out of strength. He moved to stand beside Covenant and did not speak again.

  Covenant had no sense of time. Eventually the waiting ended. A berg drifted past the line of spectators, showing everyone a flat space like a platform in its side. And from that space rose cries.

  “A ship at last!”

  “Help us!”

  “In the name of pity!”

  “We have been marooned!”

  He seemed to hear the same shouts behind him also, from the other side of the Giantship. But that strange detail made no impression on him.

  His eyes were the only part of him that moved. As the iceberg floated southward amid the slow procession, its flat side passed directly below the watchers. And he saw figures emerge from the pellucid ice—human figures. Three or four of them, he could not be sure. The number was oddly imprecise. But numbers did not matter. They were men, and their destitution made his heart twist against its shackles.

  They were hollow-eyed, gaunt, and piteous. Their hands, maimed by frostbite, were wrapped in shreds torn from their ragged clothing. Emaciation and hopelessness lined their faces. Their cracked and splintered voices were hoarse with despair.

  “Marooned!” they cried like a memory of the wind.

  “Mercy!”

  But no one on the dromond moved.

  “Help them.” Linden’s voice issued like a moan between her beaded lips. “Throw them a line. Somebody.”

  No one responded. Gripped by cold, volitionless, the watchers only stared as the iceberg drifted slowly by, bearing its frantic victims away. Gradually the current took the marooned men out of hearing.

  “In the name of God.” Her tears formed a gleaming fan of ice under each eye.

  Again Covenant’s heart twisted. But he could not break free. His silence covered the sea.

  Then another berg drew near. It lay like a plate on the unwavering face of the water. Beneath the surface, its bulk lightly touched the ship, scraped a groan from the hushed hull. For a moment, the plate caught the sun squarely, and its reflection rang like a knell. Yet Covenant was able to see through the glare.

  Poised in the sun’s image were people that he knew.

  Hergrom. Ceer.

  They stood braced as if they had their backs to the Sandwall. At first, they were unaware of the Giantship. But then they saw it. Ceer shouted a hail which fell without echo onto the decks of the dromond. Leaving Hergrom, he sprinted to the edge of the ice, waved his arms for assistance.

  Then out of the light came a Sandgorgon. White against the untrammeled background of the ice, the beast charged toward Hergrom with murder outstretched in its mighty arms.

  Tremors shook Cail. Strain made steam puff between his teeth. But the cold held him.

  For an instant, the implacable structure of Ceer’s face registered the fact that the Giantship was not going to help him. His gaze shivered in Covenant’s chest like an accusation that could never be answered. Then he sped to Hergrom’s defense.

  The Sandgorgon struck with the force of a juggernaut. Cracks sprang through the ice. A flurry of blows scattered Hergrom’s blood across the floe. Ceer’s strength meant nothing to the beast.

  And still no one moved. The Giants were ice themselves now, as frigid and brittle as the wilderland of the sea. Linden’s weeping gasped in her throat. Droplets of blood ran from Covenant’s palms as he tried to rip his bands from the railing. But the grasp of the cold could not be broken.

  Ceer. Hergrom.

  But the plate of ice slowly drifted away, and no one moved.

  After that, the waiting seemed long for the first time since Covenant had fallen under the spell of the Soulbiter.

  At last another hunk of ice floated near the Giantship. It was small, hardly a yard wide, its face barely above the water. It seemed too small to be the bringer of so much fear.

  For a moment, his vision was smeared with light. He could see nothing past the bright assault of the sun’s reflections. But then his eyes cleared.

  On that little floe stood Cable Seadreamer. He faced the dromond, stared up at the watchers. His posture was erect; his arms were folded sternly over the gaping wound in the center of his chest. Above his scar, his eyes were full of terrible knowledge.

  Stiffly he nodded a greeting. “My people,” he said in a voice as quiet and extreme as me cold. “you must succor me. This is the Soulbiter. Here suffer all the damned who have died in a false cause, unaided by those they sought to serve. If you will not reach out to me, I must stand here forever in my anguish, and the ice will not release me. Hear me, you whom I have loved to this cost. Is there no love left in you for me?”

  “Seadreamer,” Linden groaned. Honninscrave gave a cry that tore frozen flesh around his mouth, sent brief drops of blood into his beard. The First panted faintly, “No. I am the First of the Search. I will not endure it.” But none of them moved. The cold had become irrefragable. Its victory was accomplished. Already Seadreamer was almost directly opposite Covenant’s position. Soon he would pass amidships, and then he would be gone, and the people of Starfare’s Gem would be left with nothing except abomination and rue and cold.

  It was intolerable. Seadreamer had given his life to save Covenant from destroying the Earth. Prevented by muteness from sharing the Earth-Sight, he had placed his own flesh in the path of the world’s doom, purchasing a reprieve for the people he loved. And Covenant had refused to grant him the simple decency of a caamora. It was too much.

  In pain and dismay, Covenant moved. With a curse that splintered the silence, he burned his hands off the rail. Wild magic pulsed through him like the hot ichor of grief: white fire burst out of his ring like rage. “We’re going to lose him!” he howled at the Giants. “Get a rope!”

  An instant later, the First wrenched herself free. Her iron voice rang across the Giantship: “No!”

  Jerking toward the mooring of a nearby ratline, she snatched up one of the belaying-pins. “Avaunt, demon!” she yelled. “We will not hear you!”

  Fierce with fury and revulsion, she hurled the pin straight at Seadreamer.

  The Giants gaped as her projectile flashed through him.

  It struck a chip from the edge of the ice and skipped away into the sea, splashing distinctly. At once, his form wavered. He tried to speak again; but already he had dissolved into mirage. The floe drifted emptily away toward the south.

  While Covenant stared, the fire rushed out of him, quenched again by the cold.

  But an instant later the spell broke with an audible crackle and shatter of ice. Linden lifted raw hands to her face, blinked her cold-gouged eyes. Coughing and cursing, Honninscrave reeled back from the rail. “Move, sluggards!” His shout scattered flecks of blood. “Ware the wind!” Relief and dismay were etched in frost on different parts of Pitchwife’s face.

  Numbly the other Giants turned from the vista of the sea. Some seemed unable to understand what had happened; others struggled in mounting haste toward their stations. Seasauce and Hearthcoal bustled back to the galley as if they were ashamed of their prolonged absence. The First and Galewrath moved among the slower crewmembers, shaking or manhandling them into a semblance of alertness. Honninscrave strode grimly in the direction of the wheeldeck.

  A moment later, one of the sails rattled in its gear, sending down a shower of frozen dust; and the first Giant to ascend the ratlines gave a hoarse call:

  “The south!”

  A dark moil of clouds was already visible above the dromond’s taffrail. The gale was coming back.

  Covenant wondered momentarily how Starfare’s Gem would be able to navigate through the flotilla of icebergs in such a wind—or how the ice-laden sails would survive if the blast hit too suddenly, too hard. But then he forgot everything else because Linden was fainting and he was too far away to reach her. Mistweave barely caught her in
time to keep her from cracking her head open on the stone deck.

  FOUR: Sea of Ice

  The first gusts hit the Giantship at an angle, heeling it heavily to port. But then the main force of the wind came up against the stern, and Starfare’s Gem righted with a wrench as the sails snapped and bellied and the blast tried to claw them away. The dromond lay so massively in the viscid sea that for a moment it seemed unable to move. The upper spars screamed. Abruptly Dawngreeter split from top to bottom, and wind tore shrilling through the rent.

  But then Starfare’s Gem gathered its legs under it, thrust forward, and the pressure eased. As the clouds came boiling overhead, the Giantship took hold of itself and began to run.

  In the first moments, Honninscrave and the steerswoman were tested to their limits by the need to avoid collision with the nearest bergs. Under these frigid conditions, any contact might have burst the granite of the dromond’s flanks like dry wood. But soon the flotilla began to thin ahead of the ship. Starfare’s Gem was coming to the end of the Soulbiter. The wind continued to scale upward; but now the immediate danger receded. The dromond had been fashioned to withstand such blasts.

  But Covenant was oblivious to the ship and the wind: he was fighting for Linden’s life. Mistweave had carried her into the galley, where the cooks labored to bring back the heat of their stoves; but once the Giant had laid her down on her pallet, Covenant shouldered him aside. Pitchwife followed Cail into the galley and offered his help. Covenant ignored him. Cursing with methodical vehemence under his breath, he chaffed her wrists, rubbed her cheeks, and waited for the cooks to warm some water.

  She was too pale. The movement of her chest was so slight that he could hardly believe it. Her skin had the texture of wax. It looked like it would peel away if he rubbed it too hard. He slapped and massaged her forearms, her shoulders, the sides of her neck with giddy desperation pounding in his temples. Between curses, he reiterated his demand for water.

  “It will come,” muttered Seasauce. His own impatience made him sound irate. “The stoves are cold. I have no theurgy to hasten fire.”

  “She isn’t a Giant,” Covenant responded without looking away from Linden. “It doesn’t have to boil.”

  Pitchwife squatted at Linden’s head, thrust a leather flask into Covenant’s view. “Here is diamondraught.”

  Covenant did not pause; but he shifted his efforts down to her hips and legs, making room for Pitchwife.

  Cupping one huge palm under her head, the Giant lifted her into a half-sitting posture. Carefully he raised the mouth of his flask to her lips.

  Liquid dribbled from the corners of her mouth. In dismay, Covenant saw that she was not swallowing. Her chest rose as she inhaled; but no gag-reflex prevented her from breathing the potent liquor.

  At the sight, his mind went white with fire. The hysteria of venom and power coursed through his muscles—keen argent fretted with reminders of midnight and murder. He thrust Pitchwife away as if the Giant were a child.

  But he dared not try to reach heat into Linden. Without any health-sense to guide him, he would be more likely to kill than warm her. Swallowing flame, he wrenched her onto her side, hit her once between the shoulder blades, twice, hoping to dislodge the fluid from her lungs. Then he pressed her to her back again, tilted her head as he had been taught, clasped shut her nose, and with his mouth over hers started breathing urgently down her throat.

  Almost at once, effort and restraint made him dizzy. He no longer knew how to find the still point of strength in the center of his whirling fears. He had no power to save her life except the one he could not use.

  “Giantfriend.” Hearthcoal’s voice came from a great distance. “Here is a stewpot able to hold her.”

  Covenant’s head jerked up. For an instant, he gaped incomprehension at the cook. Then he rapped out, “Fill it!” and clamped his mouth back over Linden’s.

  A muffled thunder of water poured into the huge stone pot. Wind shrieked in the hawseholes, plucked juddering ululations from the shrouds. Around Covenant, the galley began to spin. Head up: inhale. Head down: exhale. He had no way to keep his balance except with fire. In another moment, he was going to erupt or lose consciousness, he did not know which.

  Then Seasauce said, “It is ready.” Pitchwife touched Covenant’s shoulder. Scooping his arms under Linden, Covenant tried to unknot his cramped muscles, stand erect.

  Starfare’s Gem brunted through the crest of a wave and dove for the trough. Unable to steady himself, be pitched headlong toward the wall.

  Hands caught him. Mistweave held him while Pitchwife pulled Linden from his embrace.

  He was giddy and irresistible with fire. He jerked away from Mistweave, followed Pitchwife toward the stove on which sat the oblong stewpot. The floor seemed to yaw viciously, but he kept moving.

  The stovetop was as high as his chin. He could see nothing of Linden past the pot’s rim except a crown of hair as Seasauce held her head above water. But he no longer needed to see her. Pressing his forehead against the base of the stewpot, he spread his arms as far as possible along its sides. The guts of the stove were aflame; but that heat would take too long to warm so much stone and water. Closing his eyes against the ghoul-whirl of his vertigo, he let wild magic pour down his arms.

  This he could do safely. He had learned enough control to keep his power from tearing havoc through the galley. And Linden was buffered from his imprecise touch. With white passion he girdled the pot. Then he narrowed his mind until nothing else impinged upon it and let the fire flow.

  In that way, he turned his back on silence and numbness.

  For a time, he was conscious only of the current of his power, squeezing heat into the stone but not breaking it, not tearing the fragile granite into rubble. Then suddenly he realized that he could hear Linden coughing. He looked up. She was invisible to him, hidden by the sides of the pot and the steam pluming thickly into the air. But she was coughing, clearing her lungs more strongly with every spasm. And a moment later one of her hands came out of the vapor to clutch at the lip of the pot.

  “It is enough,” Pitchwife was saying. “Giantfriend, it is enough. More heat will harm her.”

  Covenant nodded dumbly. With a deliberate effort, he released his power.

  At once, he recoiled, struck by the vertigo and fear he had been holding at bay. But Pitchwife put an arm around him, kept him on his feet. As the spinning slowed, he was able to watch Seasauce lift Linden dripping from the water. She still looked as pallid and frail as a battered child; but her eyes were open, and her limbs reacted to the people around her. When Mistweave took her from the cook, she instinctively hugged his neck while he wrapped her in a blanket. Then Cail offered her Pitchwife’s flask of diamondraught. Still shivering fiercely, she pulled the flask to her mouth. Gradually two faint spots of color appeared on her cheeks.

  Covenant turned away and hid his face against Pitchwife’s malformed chest until his relief eased enough to be borne.

  For a few moments while the diamondraught spread out within her, Linden remained conscious. Though she was so weak that she tottered, she got down from Mistweave’s arms. With the blanket swaddled around her, she stripped off her wet clothing. Then her gaze hunted for Covenant’s.

  He met it as bravely as he could.

  “Why—?” she asked huskily. Her voice quivered. “Why couldn’t we help them?”

  “It was the Soulbiter.” Her question made his eyes blur. Her heart was still torn by what she had seen, “They were illusions. We were damned if we refused to help. Because of how we would’ve felt about ourselves. And damned if we tried. If we brought one of those things aboard.” The Soulbiter, he thought as he strove to clear his vision. It was aptly named. “The only way out was to break the illusion.”

  She nodded faintly. She was fading into the embrace of the diamondraught. “It was like watching my parents.” Her eyes closed. “If they were as brave as I wanted them to be.” Her voice trailed toward silence. “If I let
myself love them.” Then her knees folded. Mistweave lowered her gently to her pallet, tucked more blankets around her. She was already asleep.

  By increments, the galley recovered its accustomed warmth. Seasauce and Hearthcoal labored like titans to produce hot food for the hard-pressed crew. As Honninscrave became more confident of the dromond’s stance against the gale, be began sending Giants in small groups for aliment and rest: a steady stream of them passed through the galley. They entered with hoar in their hair and strain in their eyes. The same gaunt look of memory marked every face. But the taste of hot food and the comradely bluster of the cooks solaced them; and when they returned to their tasks they bore themselves with more of their wonted jaunty sea-love and courage. They had survived the Soulbiter. Valiantly they went back to their battle with the bitter grue of the sea.

  Covenant remained in the galley for a while to watch over Linden. Her slumber was so profound that he distrusted it instinctively. He expected her to slip back into the tallow pallor of frostbite. She looked so small, frail, and desirable lying there nearly under the feet of the Giants. But her form curled beneath the blankets brought back other memories as well; and eventually he found himself falling from relief and warmth into bereavement. She was the only woman he knew who understood his illness and still accepted him. Already, her stubborn commitment to him—and to the Land—had proved itself stronger than his despair. He yearned to put his arms around her, clasp her to him. But he did not have the right. And in her analystic sleep she did not need the loyalty of his attendance. To escape the ache of what he had lost, he sashed his robe tightly about him and went out into the keening wind.

  Instantly he stumbled into the swirl of a snowfall as thick as fog. It flurried against his face. Ice crunched under his boots. When he blinked his eyes clear, he saw pinpricks of light around the decks and up in the rigging. The snow veiled the day so completely that the Giants were compelled to use lanterns. The sight dismayed him. How could Honninscrave keep the Giantship running, headlong and blind in such a sea, when his crew was unable to tend the sails without lamps?