White Gold Wielder t2cotc-3

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “It won't even be a new experience for you. It'll be just like what you did to your mother. The only difference is that I'll still be alive when you're done.”

  Then he wrenched himself to a halt, gasping with the force of his desire to retract his jibe, silence it before it reached her, She raised her fists in the moonlight, and he thought she was going to start railing at him. But she did not. Her percipience must have made the nature of his distress painfully clear to her. For a long moment, she held up her arms as if she were measuring the distance a blow would have to travel to strike him. Then she lowered her bands. In a flat, impersonal tone that she had not used toward him for a long time, she said, “That isn't what I meant.”

  “I know.” Her detachment hurt him more than rage. He was certain now that she would be able to make him weep if she wished. “I'm sorry.” His contrition sounded paltry in the sharp night, but he had nothing else to offer her. “I’ve come all this way, but I might as well have stayed in the cavern of the One Tree. I don't know how to face it.”

  “Then let somebody try to help you.” She did not soften; but she refrained from attacking him. ”If not for yourself, do it for me. I'm right on the edge already. It is all I can do,” he articulated carefully, “to just look at the Sunbane and stay sane. When I see you suffering, I can't keep my grip.

  “As long as I don't have any power, there's nothing I can do about Lord Foul. Or the Sunbane. So you're the only reason I've got. Like it or not. I'm here because of you. I'm fighting to stay in one piece because of you. I want to do something”- her fists rose again like a shout, but her voice remained fiat- “for this world-or against Foul-because of you. If you go on like this, I'll crack.” Abruptly, her control frayed, and pain welled up in her words like blood in a wound. “I need you to at least stop looking so much like my goddamn father.”

  Her father, Covenant thought mutely. A man of such self-pity that he had cut his wrists and blamed her for it. You never loved me anyway. And from that atrocity had come the darkness which had maimed her life-the black moods, the violence she had enacted against her mother, the susceptibility to evil. Her instances of paralysis. Her attempt on Ceer's life.

  Her protest wrung Covenant's heart. It showed him with stunning vividness how little he could afford to fail her. Any other hurt or dread was preferable. Instinctively, he made a new promise-another commitment to match all the others he had broken or kept.

  “I don't know the answer,” he said, keeping himself quiet in fear that she would perceive how his life depended on what he was saying. “I don't know what I need. But I know what to do about the Clave.” He did not tell her what his nightmares had taught him. He did not dare. “When we're done there, I'll know more. One way or the other.”

  She took him at his word. She had a severe need to trust him. If she did not, she would be forced to treat him as if he were as lost as her parents; and that alternative was plainly appalling to her. Nodding to herself, she folded her arms under her breasts and left the hilltop, went back to the shelter and scant warmth of the cave.

  Covenant stayed out in the dark alone for a while longer. But he did not break.

  Nine: March to Crisis

  BEFORE dawn, the new company ate breakfast, repacked their supplies, and climbed the nearest hillside to await the sun with stone underfoot Covenant watched the east gauntly, half fearing that the Sunbane might already have accelerated to a cycle of only one day. But as the sun crested the horizon, the air set blue about it like a corona, giving the still sodden and grey landscape a touch of azure like a hint of glory-as if Covenant thought dourly, the Sunbane in any hands but Foul's would have been a thing of beauty. But then blackness began to seethe westward; and the light on the hills dimmed. The first fingers of the wind teased at Covenant's beard, mocking him.

  Sunder turned to him. The Graveler's eyes were as hard as pebbles as he took out the wrapped bundle of the krill. His voice carried harshly across the wind. “Unbeliever, what is your will? When first you gave the krill into my hand, you counselled that I make use of it as I would a rukh- that I attune myself to it and bend its power to my purpose. This I have done. It was my love who taught me”- he glanced at Hollian- “but I have learned the lesson with all my strength.” He had come a long way and was determined not to be found wanting. “Therefore I am able to ease our way-to hasten our journey. But in so doing I will restore us unquestionably to the Clave's knowledge, and Gibbon na-Mhoram will be forewarned against us.” Stiffly, he repeated, “What is your will?”

  Covenant debated momentarily with himself. If Gibbon were forewarned, he might kill more of his prisoners to stoke the Banefire. But it was possible that he was already aware of the danger. Sunder had suggested as much the previous day. If Covenant travelled cautiously, he might simply give the na-Mhoram more time for preparation.

  Covenant's shoulders hunched to strangle his trepidation. “Use the krill,” he muttered. “I've already lost too much time.”

  The Graveler nodded as if he had expected no other reply.

  From his jerkin, he took out his Sunstone.

  It was a type of rock which the Land's former masters of stone-lore had named orcrest. It was half the size of his fist, irregularly shaped but smooth; and its surface gave a strange impression of translucence without transparency, opening into a dimension where nothing but itself existed.

  Deftly, Sunder nipped the cloth from the krill's-gem, letting bright argent blaze into the rain-thick gloom. Then he brought the Sunstone and that gem into contact with each other.

  At once, a shaft of vermeil power from the orcrest shot straight toward the hidden heart of the sun. Sizzling furiously, the beam pierced the drizzle and the thunderheads to tap the force of the Sunbane directly. And the krill shone forth as if its light could cast back the rain.

  In a snarl of torrents and heavy thunder, the storm swept over the hilltop. The strait red shaft of the orcrest seemed to call down lightning like an affront to the heavens. But Sunder stood without flinching, unscathed by any fire.

  On the company, no rain fell. Wind slashed the region; thunder crashed; lightning ran like screams across the dark. But Sunder's power formed a pocket in the storm, a zone free of violence.

  He was doing what the Clave had always done, using the Sunbane to serve his own ends. But his exertion cost no blood. No one had been shed to make him strong.

  That difference sufficed for Covenant. With a grim gesture, he urged his companions into motion.

  Quickly, they ranged themselves around Sunder. With Hollian to guide him, the Graveler turned toward the southwest. Holding his orcrest and the krill clasped together so that they flamed like a challenge, he started in the direction of Revelstone. His protection moved with him, covering all the company.

  By slow degrees, a crimson hue crept into the brightness of the krill, tinging the light as if the core of the gem had begun to bleed; and long glints of silver streaked the shaft of Sunbane-fire. But Sunder shifted his hands, separated the two powers slightly to keep them pure. As he did so, his zone contracted somewhat, but not enough to Harnper the company's progress.

  They were scourged by wind. Mud clogged their strides, made every step treacherous. Streams frothing down the hillsides beat against their legs, joined each other to form small rivers and tried to sweep the travellers away. Time and again, Covenant would have fallen without Cail's support. Linden clung severely to Fole's shoulder. All the world had been reduced to a thunderous wall of water-an impenetrable downpour lit by vermeil and argent, scored by lightning. No one tried to speak; only the Giants would have been able to make themselves heard. Yet Sunder's protection enabled the company to move faster than the Sunbane had ever permitted Sometime during the day, two grey, blurred shapes appeared like incarnations of the storm and entered the rainless pocket, presented themselves to Covenant. They were Haruchai. When he had acknowledged them, they joined his companions without a word.

  The intensity with which Linden regarded Sun
der told Covenant something he already knew: the Graveler's mastery of two such disparate periapts was a horrendous strain on him. Yet he was a Stonedownor. The native toughness of his people had been conditioned by generations of survival under the ordeal of the Sunbane. And his sense of purpose was clear. When the day's journey finally ended, and he let his fires fall, he appeared so weary that he could hardly stand-but he was no more defeated by fatigue than Covenant, who had done nothing except labour through nearly ten leagues of mire and water. Not for the first time Covenant thought that the Graveler was more than he deserved.

  As the wind whipped the clouds away to the west, the company made camp in an open plain which reminded Covenant of the strict terrain near Revelstone. In a bygone age, that region had been made fruitful by the diligence of its farmers and cattleherds-and by the beneficent power of the Lords. Now everything was painfully altered. He felt that he was on the verge of the Clave's immediate demesne-that the company was about to enter the ambit of the na-Mhoram's Keep.

  Nervously, he asked Hollian what the next day's sun would be. In response, she took out her slim Iianar wand. Its polished surface gleamed like the ancient woods of the Land as she held it up in the light of the campfire.

  Like Sunder's left forearm, her right palm was laced with old scars-the cuts from which she had drawn blood for her foretellings. But she no longer had any need of blood. Sunder smiled and handed her the wrapped krill. She uncovered it only enough to let one white beam into the night. Then, reverently, like a woman who had never learned anything but respect for her own abilities, she touched her Iianar to the light.

  And flame grew like a plant from the wood. Delicate shoots waved into the air; buds of filigree fire bloomed; leaves curled and opened. Without harming her or the wood, flame spread around her like a growth of mystery, It was as green and tangy as springtime and new apples.

  At the sight Covenant's nerves tightened involuntarily.

  Hollian did not need to explain to him and Linden what her fire meant. They had witnessed it several times in the past. But for the benefit of the watching, wide-eyed Giants, she said quietly, "The morrow will bring a fertile sun.”

  Covenant glanced at Linden. But she was studying the Haruchai, scrutinizing them for any sign of peril. However, Sunder had said that Gibbon's grasp" extended only a day's journey beyond the gates of Revelstone; and when Linden at last met Covenant's gaze she shook her head mutely.

  Two more days, he thought. One until that Raver can reach us. Unless he decides to try his Grim again. The ill that you deem most terrible- That night, nightmares stretched him until he believed he would surely snap. They had all become one virulent vision, and in it his fire was as black as venom.

  In the pre-green gloom of dawn, another pair of Haruchai arrived to join the company. Their faces were as stony and magisterial as the mountains where they lived; and yet Covenant received the dismaying impression that they had come to him in fear. Not fear of death, but of what the Clave could make them do.

  Their plight is an abomination. He accepted them. But that was not enough. Banner had commanded him to redeem them.

  When the sun rose, it tinged the stark bare landscape a sick hue that reminded him of the Illearth Stone.

  Six days had passed since the desert sun had melted every vestige of vegetation off the Upper Land. As a result, all the plain was a wilderness. But the ground was so water-soaked that it steamed wherever the sun touched it; and the steam seemed to raise fine sprouts of heather and bracken with the suddenness of panic. Where the dirt lay in shadow, it remained as barren as naked bones; but elsewhere the uncoiling green stems grew desperately, flogged by the Sunbane and fed by two days of rain. In moments, the brush had reached the height of Covenant's shins. If he stood still much longer, he might not be able to move at all.

  But ahead of him, the Westron Mountains thrust their ragged snowcaps above the horizon. And one promontory of the range lay in a direct line with Sunder's path. Perhaps Revelstone was already visible to the greater sight of the Giants.

  If it were, they said nothing about it. Pitchwife watched the preternatural heath with a look of nausea. Mistweave's doubt had assumed an aspect of belligerence, as if he resented the way Fole had supplanted him at Linden's side-and yet believed that he could not justify himself. The First hefted her longsword, estimating her strength against the vegetation. Only Honninscrave studied the southwest eagerly; but his clenched visage revealed nothing except an echo of his earlier judgment: This is the world which my brother purchased with his soul. Do you consider such a world worthy of life?

  However, the First was not required to cut the company's way. Sunder used his Sunstone and the krill as the Riders used their rukhs, employing the Sunbane to force open a path. With vermeil fire and white light, the Graveler crushed flat the growth ahead of the company, ploughed a way through it. Unhindered by torrents and streams and mire, the travellers were able to increase the previous day's pace.

  Before the heather and bracken grew so tall that they blocked Covenant's view of the mountains, he glimpsed a red beam like Sunder's standing from the promontory toward the sun. With an inward shiver, he recognized it. To be visible from that distance, it would have to be tremendous.

  The shaft of the Banefire.

  Then the writhing brush effaced all the southwest from sight.

  For a time, the tight apprehension of that glimpse occupied all his attention. The Banefire. It seemed to dwarf him. He had seen it once. devouring blood with a staggering heat and ferocity that had filled the high cavity of the sacred enclosure. Even at the level where the Readers had tended the master-rukh, that conflagration had hit him with an incinerating force, burning his thoughts to ashes. The simple memory of it made him flinch. He could hardly believe that even rampant wild magic would be a match for it. The conflict between such powers would be fierce enough to shatter mountains. And the Arch of Time? He did not know the answer.

  But by mid-morning Sunder began to stumble; and Covenant's attention was wrenched outward. The Graveler used his periapts as if together they formed a special kind of rukh; but they did not The rukhs of the Riders drew their true strength straight from the master rukh and the Banefire, and so each Rider needed only enough personal exertion to keep open a channel of power to Revelstone; the Banefire did the rest. But Sunder wielded the Sunbane and the krill directly.

  The effort was exhausting him.

  Linden read his condition at a glance. “Give him diamondraught” she muttered stiffly. Her rigid resistance to the ill of the vegetation made her sound distant, impersonal. “And carry him. He'll be all right. If we take care of him.” After a moment, she added, "He's stubborn enough to stand it.”

  Sunder smiled at her wanly. Pallor lay beneath the shade of his skin; but as he sipped the Giantish liquor he grew markedly stronger. Yet he did not protest when Honninscrave hoisted him into the air. Sitting with his back against the Master's chest, his legs bent over the Giant's arms, he raised his powers again; and the company resumed its trek.

  Shortly after noon, two more Haruchai joined Covenant, bringing to ten the number of their people ranged protectively on either side of him and his companions.

  He saluted them strictly; but their presence only made him more afraid. He did not know how to defend them from Gibbon.

  And his fear increased as Sunder grew weaker. Even with Sunstone and krill, the Graveler was only one lone man.

  While the obstacles swarming in front of him were simply bracken and heather, he was able to furrow them as effectively as any Rider. But then the soil changed: the terrain became a jungle of mad rhododendron, jacaranda, and honeysuckle. Through that tangle he could not force his way with anything like the direct accuracy which the Banefire made possible. He had to grope for the line of least resistance; and the jungle closed behind the travellers as if they were lost.

  The sun had fallen near the Westron Mountains, and the light had become little more than a filtered gloom, when Linden a
nd Hollian gasped simultaneously, “Sunder!”

  Honninscrave jerked to a halt. The First wheeled to stare at the Graveler Covenant's throat constricted with panic as he scrambled forward at Linden's back.

  The Master set Sunder down as the company crowded around them. At once, Sunder's knees buckled. His arms shook with a wild ague.

  Covenant squeezed between the First and Pitchwife to confront the Graveler. Recognition whitened Hollian's face, made her raven hair look as stark as a dirge. Linden's eyes flicked back and forth between the Sunstone and the krill.

  The vermeil shaft springing from his orcrest toward the setting sun had a frayed and charred appearance, as if it were being consumed by a hotter fire. And in the core of the krill's clear gem burned a hard knot of blackness like a canker.

  “The na-Mhoram attempts to take him!” Hollian panted desperately. “How can he save himself, when he is so sorely weary?”

  Sunder's eyes were fixed on something he could no longer see. New lines marked his ashen face, cut by the acid sweat that slicked his skin. Tremors knotted in his muscles. His expression was as naked and appalled as a seizure.

  “Put them down!” Linden snapped at him, pitching her voice to pierce his fixation. “Let go! Don't let him do this to you!”

  The comers of Sunder's jaw bulged dangerously. With a groan as if he were breaking his own arm, he forced down the Sunstone, dropped it to the ground. Instantly, its crimson beam vanished: the orcrest relapsed to elusive translucence.

  But the blackness at the centre of the krill swelled and became stronger.

  Grimly, Sunder clinched his free hand around the blade's wrappings. Heat shone from the metal. Bowing his head, he held the krill in a grip like fever and fought to throw off the Clave's touch-fought with the same human and indefeasible abandon by which he had once nearly convinced Gibbon that Covenant was dead.