“Perhaps this Worm was not large among the stars, but its emptiness was large beyond measure, and it roamed the heavens, consuming whole seas of brightness, cutting great swaths of loneliness across the firmament. Writhing along the ages, avid and insatiable, it fed on all that lay within its reach, until the heavens became as sparsely peopled as a desert.”
As Linden listened, she tasted some of the reasons behind the Giants' love of stories. Pitchwife's soft narration wove a thread of meaning into the becalmed sky and the Sea. Such tales made the world comprehensible. The mood of his telling was sad; but its sadness did no harm.
"Yet the devoured stars were beings as unlike to us as gods, and no Worm or doom could consume their power without cost. Having fed hugely, the Worm became listless and gravid. Though it could not sleep, for the eon's end of its slumber had not come, it felt a whelming desire for rest. Therefore it curled its tail about itself and sank into quiescence.
"And while the Worm rested, the power of the stars wrought within it. From its skin grew excrescences of stone and soil, water and air, and these growths multiplied upon
themselves and multiplied until the very Earth beneath our feet took form. Still the power of the stars wrought, but now it gave shape to the surface of the Earth, forging the seas and the land. And then was brought forth life upon the Earth. Thus were born all the peoples of the Earth, the beasts of the land, the creatures of the deep-all the forests and greenswards from pole to pole. And thus from destruction came forth creation, as death gives rise to life.
“Therefore, Chosen,” said Pitchwife firmly, “we live, and strive, and seek to define the sense of our being. And it is good, for though we compose a scant blink across the eyes of eternity, yet while the blink lasts we choose what we will, create what we may, and share ourselves with each other as the stars did ere they were bereaved. But it must pass. The Worm does not slumber. It merely rests. And the time must come when it is roused, or rouses itself. Then it will slough off this skin of rock and water to pursue its hunger across the cosmos until eon's end and slumber. For that reason, it is named the Worm of the World's End.”
There Pitchwife fell silent. Linden glanced at him, saw his gaze fixed on Galewrath as though he feared the limitations of her strength. But the Storesmaster did not falter. While her partner balanced the coracle, she went on articulating her rhythm steadfastly, reaching out into the deeps for an answer. Ripples danced around the edges of the drum and were swallowed by the flat calm of the Sea.
Slowly, Pitchwife turned his eyes to Linden; but he seemed not to see her. His mind still wandered the paths of his tale. Gradually, however, he came back to himself. When his sight focused, he smiled in bemusement.
“Chosen,” he said lightly, as if to soften the import of his words, “it is said that the Nicor are offspring of the Worm.”
That announcement brought back her anxiety. It gave her her first hint of what the Giants were doing, how they meant to move the ship. Perhaps his tale was nothing more than a myth; but it accounted for the purpose which had galvanized the dromond. Implications of peril pulled her attention outward, sent her senses hunting over the inert Sea. She could hardly believe what she was thinking. Do they mean to capture-?
Before she could ask Pitchwife if she had understood him correctly, a distant thrumming like a sensation of speed touched her feet through the stone of Starfare's Gem. An instant later, a shout cracked across the masts.
“Nicor!”
The cry snatched her around. Searching the shrouds, she saw a Giant pointing southward.
Other shouts verified the first. Linden's gaze reached for the starboard horizon. But she could descry nothing. She held her breath, as if in that way she could force her vision into focus.
More with her feet than her ears, she heard Galewrath's rhythm change.
And the change was answered. Thudding beats echoed against the keel of the dromond. Something had heard Galewrath's call-and was replying.
Abruptly, the horizon broke as a surge of water like a bowwave rose out of the calm. The Sea piled upward as though a tremendous head were rushing forward just below the surface. The surge was still a great distance away, but it came toward the ship at a staggering rate. The wave slashed out to either side, climbing higher and higher until it looked large enough to swamp the Giantship.
Galewrath's rhythm took on a febrile edge, like pleading. But the answer did not vary, gave no sign that it understood. Yet it cast suggestions of power which made Linden's knees tremble.
Now through the water she could see a dark shape. It writhed like a serpent, and every heave of its form bespoke prodigious strength. As the Nicor came within jerrid-range of the vessel, its head-wave reached the height of the rails.
With the clarity of panic, Linden thought, It's going to ram us.
Then the Storesmaster hit her drum a resounding blow which split it; and the creature sounded.
Its long body flashed ahead of the wave as the Nicor angled into the depths. A moment later, the surge hit with a force which rocked the dromond. Linden staggered against Cail, rebounded from the railing. Starfare's Gem bobbed like a toy on the Sea.
Gripping Cail for balance as the Giantship resettled itself, Linden threw a glance downward and saw the colossal length of the Nicor still passing the keel. The creature was several times as long as Starfare's Gem.
The coracles lurched in the waves which recoiled from the sides of the dromond. But the four Giants kept their poise, held themselves ready. Galewrath had abandoned her riven drum. She stood now with the loop of the hawser in both hands; and her eyes watched the Sea.
Another shout. Some distance off to port, the Nicor broke water. For an instant, its head was visible, its snout like a prow, foam streaming from its gargantuan jaws. Then the creature arced back underwater and ploughed away in a long curve westward.
Starfare's Gem fell still. Linden could feel nothing except the pervasive ache of Covenant's need and the rapid beating of the Nicor's talk. She lost sight of the wave as it passed behind Foodfendhall toward the stern of the vessel. Every eye in the rigging followed the creature's path; but no one made a sound.
Her fingers dug into Cail's shoulder until she thought the joints would part. The thrumming of the creature became louder to her nerves than Covenant's plight.
“Ward!”
The suddenness of the cry stung Linden's hearing.
“It comes!”
Instantly, Giants scrambled out of the rigging. Honninscrave and the Anchormaster yelled orders. The crew gained the deck, braced themselves for a collision. Half a score of them slapped holding-blocks around the hawser near the cablewell.
The Storesmaster's strident shout rang over the vessel.
“How does it come?”
A Giant sprang into the prow, responded, “It comes truly!”
Linden had no time to do anything except cling to Cail. In that instant, the heel of the Giantship began to rise. Starfare's Gem tilted forward as the Nicor's head-wave struck the stern. The creature was passing along the ship's keel.
At the same moment, Galewrath dove into the Sea. Hauling the hawser behind her, she plunged to meet the Nicor.
Linden saw the Storesmaster kicking strongly downward. For one suspended heartbeat, Galewrath was alone in the water. Then the head of the Nicor flashed out from under the ship. The creature drove straight toward Galewrath.
As the two forms came together, a flurry of movement confused the sight. Linden clutched Cail's hard flesh, ground grip toward bone. The Nicor seemed to shout at her through the Sea and the stone. She heard its brute hunger, its incomprehension of what had called out to it. At her side, Pitchwife's hands wrestled the railing as if it were alive.
All at once, the hawser sprang outward. It leaped past the coracles, rushed hissing like fire into the water.
“Now!” cried the First.
Immediately, Galewrath's helpers abandoned their craft. As they did so, they overturned the coracles. With the o
penings downward and air trapped inside, the coracles floated like buoys, supporting between them the tackle and the iron ring through which the hawser sped.
Beneath the swimmers, the long dark body of the Nicor went writhing eastward. Lines were thrown down to them; but they did not respond. Their attention was focused on the place where Galewrath had disappeared.
When she broke water some distance past the coracles, a great shout went up from the Giantship. She waved her arms brusquely to signal that she was unharmed. Then she began to swim toward the dromond.
Short moments later, she and her companions stood dripping before the First. “It is done,” she panted, unable to conceal her pride. “I have looped the snout of the Nicor.”
The First returned an iron grin. But at once she swung toward the Giants poised on either side of the hawser near the cablewell. The cable was running headlong through the holding-blocks. “Our line is not endless,” she said firmly. “Let us begin.”
Ten Giants answered her with grins, nods, muttered promises. They planted their legs, braced their backs. At Honninscrave's command, they began to put pressure on the holding-blocks.
A scream of tortured cable shrilled across the deck. Smoke leaped from the blocks. The Giants were jerked forward a step, two steps, as they tried to halt the unreeling of the hawser.
The prow dipped under them like a nod; and Starfare's Gem started forward.
The screaming mounted. Honninscrave called for help. Ten more Giants slapped holding-blocks onto the hawser and threw their weight against it. Muscles knotted, thews stood out like bone, gasps burst along the line. Linden felt the strain in them and feared that not even Giants could bear such pressure. But by degrees the shrilling faded as the hawser slowed. The dromond gained speed. When the cable stopped, Starfare's Gem was knifing through the Sea as fast as the Nicor could tow it.
“Well done!” Honninscrave's eyes glinted under his massive brows. “Now let us regain what line we may, ere this Nicor conceives a desire to sound.”
Grunting with exertion, the Giants heaved on the hawser. Their feet seemed to clinch the granite of the deck, fusing ship and crew into a single taut organism. One arm's-length at a time, they drew in the cable. More of the crew came to their aid. The dromond began to gain on the Nicor.
Slowly, Linden uncramped her grip from Cail's shoulder. When she glanced at him, he appeared unconscious of her. Behind the flatness of his visage, he was watching the Giants with an acuity like joy, as if he almost shared her astonishment.
From the prow, crewmembers kept watch on the hawser. The buoys held the line's guide-ring above water; by observing the cable's movement in the ring, the Giants were able to see any change of direction made by the Nicor. This information they relayed to the steerswoman, so that she could keep Starfare's Gem on the creature's course.
But the buoys served another, more important purpose as well: they provided forewarning in case the Nicor should sound. If the creature dove suddenly and strongly enough, the prow of the Giantship might be pulled down before the hawser could be released. Perhaps some of the crew might be rent overboard when the others dropped the line. The buoys would give the Giants advance warning, so that they could let go of the cable together safely.
For a few moments, Linden was too full of amazement to think about anything else. But then a pang of recollection reminded her of Covenant.
Immediately, urgently, she sent her senses scrambling toward the afterdeck. At first, she could not feel her way past the immense straining of the Giants. They were a cynosure of effort, blocking her percipience. But then her grasp on the ambience of the dromond clarified, and she felt Covenant living as she had left him-locked rigid within his argent caul, rendered by his own act untouchable and doomed. An ache of dismay sucked at her when she thought that perhaps the ploy of the Giants had already failed. She protested, but could not seal herself against the fear. They did not deserve to fail.
The next moment, the Nicor thrashed through a violent change of direction. Starfare's Gem canted as if it had been stricken below the waterline. Swiftly, the steerswoman spun Shipsheartthew. The dromond began to straighten.
The Nicor wrenched itself the other way. Hooked by its prow, the Giantship pitched to that side. Water leaped toward the railing and Linden like a hammer blow.
The Sea curled away scant feet from her face. Then Honninscrave shouted, “Ease the line!”
The Giants obeyed; and the hawser leaped to a squeal through the holding-blocks, shot with a loud yammer past the prow. As the steerswoman fought the wheel, Starfare's Gem righted itself.
“Once more!” the Master ordered. “Hold!”
At his signal, blocks bit back into the cable, brought it squalling to a halt.
Linden found that she had forgotten to breathe. Her chest burned with the strain.
Before she could recover her balance, the dromond sagged back on its stern. Then the deck was nearly ripped from under her. The Nicor had surged to a stop, coiled its strength, and leaped forward again with redoubled ferocity.
In the instant that the pressure was released, all the Giants staggered backward. Some of them fell. Then the hawser tore at their arms as the Nicor began to run.
They were off-balance, could not hold, Honninscrave barked urgently, “Release!” They struggled to obey.
But they could not all unclose their holding-blocks at the same instant. One of them was late by a fraction of a heartbeat.
With the whole force of the Nicor, he was snatched forward. His grip appeared to be tangled on the hawser. Before he could let go, he crashed head and body against the rail of the prow.
The impact tore him free of the line. He tumbled backward, lay there crushed and still.
Shouts echoed unheard around Linden as Honninscrave mustered his crew to grip the hawser again. Her whole attention was fixed on the broken Giant. His pain cried out to her. Thrusting away from Cail, she jumped the hissing cable as if she were inured to peril, dashed to the sprawled form. All her instincts became lucid and precise.
She saw his shattered bones as if they were limned in light, felt his shredded tissues and internal bleeding as though the damage were incused on her own flesh. He was severely mangled. But he was still alive. His heart still limped; air still gurgled wetly from his pierced lungs. Perhaps he could be saved.
No. The harm was too great. He needed everything a modern hospital could have provided-transfusions, surgery, traction. She had nothing to offer except her health-sense.
Behind her, the ululation of the hawser fell silent as the Giants regained their hold. At once, they strove to win back the line they had lost. Starfare's Gem swept forward.
And yet his heart still beat. He still breathed. There was a chance. It was worth the attempt.
Without hesitation, she knelt at his side, cleared her mind of everything else. Reaching into him with her senses, she committed herself to the support of his faltering life.
With her own pulse, she steadied his, then bent her attention to the worst of his internal injuries. His pain flooded through her, but she refused to be mastered by it. His need outweighed pain, And it enabled her to trace his wounds as if they were laid bare before her. First she confronted his lungs. Broken ribs had punctured them in several places. Firmly, she nudged his tissues closed around the bones so that his lungs would not fill with blood. Then she followed the damage elsewhere. His bowels had been lacerated, but that was not the most immediate danger. Other organs were bleeding profusely. She poured herself toward them, fought to-
“Chosen.” Cail's voice cut through her concentration. “Brinn calls. The ur-Lord rouses himself.”
The words pierced her like cold death. Involuntarily, her awareness sprang in the direction of the afterdeck.
Cail was right. Covenant's sheath had begun to flash back and forth, flickering toward disaster. Within it, he twisted as though he were on the verge of the last rigor.
But the Giant — ! His life was seeping out of him. S
he could feel it flow as if it formed a palpable pool around her knees. Like the wound in her nightmare.
No!
As it flashed, Covenant's power gathered for one more blast. The import of that accumulation was written in the distress of his aura. He was preparing to release his white fire, let go
of it entirely. Then the last barrier between him and the venom would be gone. She knew without seeing him that his whole right side from hand to shoulder, waist to neck, was grotesquely swollen with poison.
One or the other, Covenant or the Giant.
While she sat there, stunned with indecision, they might both die.
No!
She could not endure it. Intolerable that either of them should be lost!
Her voice broke as she cried out, “Galewrath!” But she did not listen to the way her call cracked across the foredeck, did not wait for an answer. Cail tugged at her shoulder; she ignored him. Panting urgently, frenetically, Covenant! she plunged back into the stricken Giant.
The injuries which would kill him most quickly were there and there — two hurts bleeding too heavily to be survived. His lungs might go on working, but his heart could not continue. It had already begun to falter under the weight of so much blood-loss. With cold accuracy she saw what she would have to do. To keep him alive. Occupying his abdomen with her percipience, she twisted his nerves and muscles until the deeper of the two bleedings slowed to a trickle.
Then Heft Galewrath arrived, knelt opposite her. Covenant was going to die. His power gathered. Still Linden did not permit herself to flinch. Without shifting her attention, she grabbed Galewrath's hand, directed the thumb to press deeply into the Giant's stomach at a certain point. There. That pressure constricted the flow of the second fatal hurt.
“Chosen,” Cail's tone was as keen as a whip.
“Keep pressing there.” Linden sounded wild with hysteria, but she did not care. “Breathe into him. So he doesn't drown on blood.” She prayed that the experience of the seas had taught Galewrath something akin to artificial respiration.
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