White Gold Wielder

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  But the Master had no choice. While this wind held, the dromond could do nothing but grit its teeth and endure.

  The matter was out of Covenant’s hands. Braving the flung snow and the ice-knurled decks with Cail’s support, he went looking for the First.

  But when he found her in the cabin she shared with Pitchwife, he discovered that he did not know what to say. She was polishing her longsword, and her slow stroking movements had a quality of deliberate grimness which suggested that the survival of Starfare’s Gem was out of her hands as well. She had broken the spell of the Soulbiter; she could do nothing now. For a long moment, they shared a hard stare of determination and helplessness. Then he turned away.

  The snowfall continued. It clung to the air, and the wind whipped it forward, darkening the day as if the sky were clogged with ashes.

  It brought with it a slight moderation of the temperature; and the fierceness of the blast was softened somewhat. But in reaction the seas grew more tempestuous. And they no longer followed the thrust of the gale. Other forces bent them out of the grasp of the storm, forcing Starfare’s Gem to slog and claw its way across the grain of the current. Honninscrave shifted course as much as he dared to accommodate the seas; but the wind did not give him much latitude. As a result, the massive vessel pounded forward with a wild gait, a slewing pitch-and-yaw with a sickening pause on the wavetops while the dromond hung momentarily out of control, followed by a plunge which buried the stern to its taffrail in black water. Only the unfrightened demeanor of the Giants convinced Covenant that Starfare’s Gem was not about to founder.

  Shortly before sunset, the snow lifted, letting a little dirty yellow light lick briefly across the battered seas. At once, Honninscrave sent Giants into the tops to scan the horizons before the illumination failed. They reported no landfall in sight. Then a night blinded by clouds closed down over the Giantship, and Starfare’s Gem went running into the pit of an unreadable dark.

  In the galley, Covenant rode the storm with his back braced between one wall and the side of a stove and his gaze fixed on Linden. Blank to the vessel’s staggering, she slept so peacefully that she reminded him of the Land before the onset of the Sunbane. She was a terrain which should never have been violated by bloodshed and hate, a place that deserved better. But the Land had men and women—however few—who had fought and would fight for its healing. And Linden was among them. Yet in the struggle against her own inner Sunbane she had no one but herself.

  The night stretched out ahead of Starfare’s Gem. After a meal and a cup of thinned diamondraught, Covenant tried to rest. Recumbent on his pallet, he let the seas flop him from side to side and strove to imagine that he was being cradled. Fitfully he dozed his way into true sleep.

  But almost at once he began to flounder. He was back in the Sandhold, in Kemper’s Pitch, strapped motionless for torture. He had passed, untouched, through knives and fire; but now he was being hurled down into himself, thrown with the violence of greed toward the hard wall of his fate. Then, however, he had been saved by Hergrom; and now Hergrom was dead. There was no one to save him from the impact that broke everything, filled the air with the splintering thunder of a mountain being riven.

  His skin slick with sweat, he awakened—and the sound went on. Starfare’s Gem was shattering. Concussions yelled through the hull. His face pressed the wall. A chaos of crockery and utensils burst across the galley. He tried to thrust himself back; but the ship’s momentum pinned him. Stone screams answered the wind—the sound of masts and spars splitting under the strain. The dromond had been driven into some kind of collision.

  The next instant, Starfare’s Gem heaved to a halt. Covenant rolled out into the broken litter dancing across the floor. Bruising his knees and hands on the shards, he lurched to his feet. Then a tremendous weight hammered down on the prow of the ship; and the floor tilted as if the Giantship were on its way to the depths. The afterdoor of the galley jumped from its mounts. Until Starfare’s Gem stumbled back into a semblance of trim. Covenant had to cling to Cail and let the Haruchai uphold him.

  The dromond seemed to be settling. Cries of breakage retorted along the wind. Outside the galley, the air was frantic with shouts; but over them all rose Honninscrave’s stentorian howl:

  “Pitchwife!”

  Then Hearthcoal stirred in one corner; Seasauce shrugged the remains of a broken shelf off his back; and Covenant started to move. His first thought was for Linden; but a swift glance showed him that she was safe: still clasped in the sopor of diamondraught, she lay on her pallet with Mistweave braced protectively over her. Seeing Covenant’s look, Mistweave gave a quick nod of reassurance. Without hesitation, Covenant surged to the ruptured door and charged out into the teeth of the wind.

  He could see nothing: the night was as black as Vain. All the lanterns seemed to have been blown out. When he located a point of light hanging near Shipsheartthew, it showed him only that the wheeldeck had been abandoned. But shouts of command and desperation came from the direction of the prow. Gripping Cail’s shoulder because he could not keep his footing on the ice. Covenant labored forward.

  At first, he followed the sound of Honninscrave’s bellow, the First’s iron orders. Then lanterns began to appear as Giants called for light so that they could see their way amid the snarled wreckage which crowded the vessel’s foredeck.

  In a prodigious tangle of sundered canvas and gear, pulleys and lines, sprawled several thick stone beams—the two upper spars and a section of the foremast. The great trunk of the mast had been broken in half. One of the fallen spars was intact; the other lay in three jagged pieces. At every step, the Giants kicked through slivers of granite.

  Four crewmembers were crumpled in the wreckage.

  The lantern-light was so wan, cast so many shadows, that Covenant could not see if any of them were still alive.

  The First had her sword in her fist. Wielding it as deftly as a dagger, she cut through shrouds and sails toward the nearest of the fallen Giants. Galewrath and several others attacked the same task with their knives.

  Sevinhand started into the wreckage. Honninscrave called him back, sent him instead to muster hands at the pumps. Covenant felt the dromond sinking dangerously; but he had no time for that fear. Through the din, he shouted at Cail, “Get Linden!”

  “She has consumed much diamondraught,” the Haruchai replied. “She will not be lightly roused.” His tone was impersonal.

  “I don’t care!” snapped Covenant. “We’re going to need her!”

  Whirling away, he flung himself in the wake of the First.

  She was crouched beside a limp form. As Covenant reached her, she surged erect again. Her eyes echoed the lanterns hotly. Darkness lay along her blade like blood. “Come!” she rasped. “We can do nothing here.” Her sword sliced into the piled canvas with a sound like a cry.

  Covenant glanced at the Giant she had left. The crewmember was a young woman he remembered—a grinning sailor with a cheerful determination to be always in the forefront of any work or hazard. He recognized half her face: the rest had been crushed by the broken butt of the mast.

  For a moment, the dark came over him. Bereft of light, he blundered into the wreckage and could not fight free. But then he felt venom rise like bile in his throat, felt worms of fire begin to crawl down his forearm; and the shock steadied him. He had nearly let the wild destruction slip. Cursing, he stumbled after the First again.

  A stolid shout reported that Galewrath had found another of the injured Giants dead. Covenant forced himself to go faster, as if his haste might keep the other crewmembers alive. But the First had already left behind a third corpse, a man with an arm-long splinter of stone driven through the base of his throat In a fever of suppressed fire, Covenant thrashed onward.

  Galewrath and the First converged on the last Giant with Honninscrave and Covenant following closely.

  The face of this Giant was less familiar to him. She had never been brought specifically to his notice. But that
did not matter. He cared only that she was alive.

  Her breath came in hoarse wet heaves: black fluid ran from the corner of her mouth, formed a pool under her head. The bulk of the one unsnapped spar lay across her chest, crushing her to the hard deck. Both her forearms were broken.

  The First slapped her longsword into its scabbard. Together, she and Galewrath bent to the beam, tried to lift it. But the huge spar was far too heavy for them. Its ends were trapped: one stretched under the fallen mast; the other was snared in a mountain of gear and canvas.

  Galewrath went on straining at the beam as if she did not know how to admit defeat. But the First swung upright, and her voice rang out over the deck, demanding help.

  Giants were already on their way. Several of them veered toward the mast, fought to clear it so that they could roll it off the spar; others slashed into the wreckage at the far end with their knives.

  There was little time. The life was being squeezed out of the pinned Giant: it panted from her mouth in damp shallow gasps. Her face was intense with pain.

  No! Covenant panted in response. No. Thrusting himself forward, he cried through the clamor, “Get back! I’m going to break this thing off her!”

  He did not wait to see whether he was obeyed. Wrapping his arms as far as he could around the bole of the spar, be brought up white fire to tear the stone apart.

  With a fierce yell, Honninscrave wrenched Covenant from the spar, shoved him away.

  “Honninscrave—!” the First began.

  “I must have this spar whole!” roared the Master. His beard jutted fury and aggrievement along his jaw. “Starfare’s Gem cannot endure any sea with but one mast!” The plight of his ship consumed him. “If Pitchwife can mend this shaft by any amount, then I must have a spar to hold sail! He cannot remake the Giantship entire!”

  For an instant, he and the First confronted each other furiously. Covenant fought to keep himself from howling.

  Then a groan and thud of granite shook the deck as four or five Giants rolled the mast off the end of the spar.

  At once, the First and Honninscrave sprang to work. With Galewrath and every Giant who could lay hand to the beam, they pitted their strength against the spar.

  The long stone shaft lifted like an ordinary timber in their arms.

  As the weight left her, the crushed crewmember let out a shredded moan and lost consciousness.

  Immediately Galewrath crouched under the yard to her. Clamping one hand under the woman’s chin, the other at the back of her head to minimize the risk of further injuring a broken spine, the Storesmaster drew her comrade from beneath the spar to a small clear space in the middle of the wreckage.

  Covenant gaped at them half-wittedly, trembling as if he had been snatched from the brink of an act of desecration.

  Swiftly Galewrath examined the crushed woman. But the fragmentary light of the lanterns made her appear tentative, hampered by hesitation and uncertainty. She was the dromond’s healer and knew how to treat any hurt that she could see; but she had no way to correct or even evaluate such severe internal damage. And while she faltered, the woman was slipping out of reach.

  Covenant tried to say Linden’s name. But at that moment a group of Giants came through the shambles carrying lanterns. Mistweave and Cail were among them. Mistweave bore Linden.

  She lay in his arms as if she were still asleep—as if the diamondraught’s hold over her could not be breached by any desperation.

  But when he set her on her feet, her eyes fluttered open. Groggily she ran her fingers through her hair, pulled it back from her face. Shadows glazed her eyes; she looked like a woman who was walking in her dreams. A yawn stretched her mouth. She appeared unaware of the pain sprawling at her feet.

  Then abruptly she sank down beside the dying Giant as though her knees had failed. She bowed her head, and her hair swung forward to hide her face again.

  Rigid with useless impatience, the First clenched her fists on her hips. Galewrath glared back at the lamps. Honninscrave turned away as if he could not bear the sight, began whispering commands. His tone made the crew obey with alacrity.

  Linden remained bowed over the Giant as if she were praying. The noise of the crew in the wreckage, the creaking of the dromond’s granite, the muffled crackle of ice made what she was saying inaudible. Then her voice came into clearer focus.

  “—but the spinal cord is all right. If you splint her back, strap her down, the bones should mend.”

  Galewrath nodded stiffly, glowering as if she knew there was more to be said.

  The next moment, a tremor ran through Linden. Her head jerked up.

  “Her heart’s bleeding. A broken rib—” Her eyes cast a white blind stare into the dark.

  Through her teeth, the First breathed, “Succor her, Chosen. She must not die. Three others have lost life this night. There must not be a fourth.”

  Linden went on staring. Her voice had a leaden sound, as though she were almost asleep again. “How? I could open her up, but she’d lose too much blood. And I don’t have any sutures.”

  “Chosen.” The First knelt opposite Linden, took hold of her shoulders. “I know nothing of these ‘sutures.’ Your healing surpasses me altogether. I know only that she must die if you do not aid her swiftly.”

  In response, Linden gazed dully across the deck like a woman who had lost interest

  “Linden!” Covenant croaked at last. “Try.”

  Her sight swam into focus on him, and he saw glints of light pass like motes of vision across the dark background of her eyes. “Come,” she said faintly. “Come here.”

  All his muscles were wooden with suppressed dismay; but he forced himself to obey. Beside the dying Giant, he faced Linden. “What do you—?”

  Her expression stopped him. Her features wore the look of dreams. Without a word, she reached out, caught his halfhand by the wrist, stretched his arm like a rod over the Giant’s pain.

  Before he could react, she frowned sharply; and a blare of violation ripped across his mind.

  In a rush, fire poured from his ring. Wild magic threw back the night, washing the foredeck with incandescence.

  He recoiled in shock rather than pain; her hold did not hurt him. Yet it bereft him of choice. Without warning, all his preconceptions were snatched apart. Everything changed. Once before, in the cavern of the One Tree, she had exerted his power for herself; but he had hardly dared consider the implications. Now her percipience had grown so acute that she could wield his ring without his bare volition. And it was a violation. Mhoram had said to him, You are the white gold. Wild magic had become a crucial part of his identity, and no one else had the right to use it, control it.

  Yet he did not know how to resist her. Her grasp on what she was doing was impenetrable. Already she had set fire to the Giant’s chest as if she intended to burn out the woman’s heart.

  Around the Giantship, every sound fell away, absorbed by fire. The First and Galewrath shaded their eyes against the blaze, watched the Chosen with mute astonishment. Linden’s mouth formed mumbling shapes as she worked, but no words came. Her gaze was buried deep in the flames. Covenant could feel himself dying.

  For one moment, the Giant writhed against his thighs. Then she took a heavy, shuddering breath: and the trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth stopped. Her chest rose more freely. In a short time, her eyes opened and stared at the sensation of being healed.

  Linden dropped Covenant’s wrist. At once, the fire vanished. Night clapped back over the dromond. For an instant, even the lanterns appeared to have gone out. He flinched back against a pile of ruined gear, his face full of darkness. He hardly heard the First muttering, “Stone and Sea!” over and over again, unable to voice her amazement in any other way. He was completely blind. His eyes adjusted quickly enough, picking shapes and shadows out of the lantern-glow; but that was only sight, not vision: it had no power or capacity for healing.

  Before him, Linden lay across the torso of the Giant she had ca
lled back from death. She was already asleep.

  From his position in the dromond’s prow, Findail studied her as if he expected a transformation to begin at any moment.

  Blinking fiercely, Covenant fought to keep the hot grief down. After a moment, he descried Pitchwife near the First. The lamps made the malformed Giant’s face haggard, his eyes red. He was breathing heavily, nearly exhausted. But his voice was calm as he said. “It is done. Starfare’s Gem will not run with its wonted ease until it has been granted restoration by the shipwrights of Home. But I have wived the breaches. We will not go down.”

  “Run?” Honninscrave growled through his beard. “Have you beheld the foremast? Starfare’s Gem will never run. In such hurt, I know not how to make it walk.”

  The First said something Covenant did not hear. Cail came toward him, offered a hand to help him to his feet. But he did not react to any of them. He was being torn out of himself by the roots.

  Linden had a better right to his ring than be did.

  When the cold seeped so far into him that he almost stopped shivering, he made his preterite way to the oven-thick atmosphere of the galley. Seated there with his back to one wall, he stared at nothing as if he were stupefied, unable to register what he beheld. All he saw was the gaunt, compulsory visage of his doom.

  Outside, the Giants labored at the needs of the ship. For a long time, the muffled thud of the pumps rose from below-decks. The sails of the aftermast were clewed up to their yards to protect them from any resurgence of the now-diminished Dolewind. The stone of the foremast and its spars was cleared out of the wreckage and set aside. Anything that remained intact in the fallen gear and rigging was salvaged. Either Seasauce or Hearthcoal was away from the stoves constantly, carrying huge buckets of broth to the Giants to sustain them while they worked.

  But nothing the crew could do changed the essential fact: the dromond was stuck and crippled. When dawn came, and Covenant went, hollow-eyed and spectral, to look at the Giantship’s condition, he was dismayed by the severity of the damage. Aft of the midship housing, nothing had been hurt: the aftermast raised its arms like a tall tree to the blue depths and broken clouds of the sky. But forward Starfare’s Gem looked as maimed as a derelict. Scant feet above the first yards, which had been stripped to the bone by the collapse of the upper members, the foremast ended in a ragged stump.