White Gold Wielder t2cotc-3

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  The restraint Hile Troy had asked of Covenant made him shudder.

  “Now it ends,” fluted Caer-Caveral. The singing which conveyed his words was at once exquisitely beautiful and unbearable. “Do not fear for me. Though it is severe, this must be done. I am weary, eager of release and called to rest. Your love supplies the power, and none other may take the burden from you. Son of Nassic-” the music contained no command now, but only sorrow- “you must strike me.”

  Covenant flinched as if he expected Sunder to obey. The Graveler was desperate enough for anything. But Linden watched him with all her senses and saw his inchoate violence founder in dismay. He lowered the krill. His eyes were wide with supplication. Behind the mad obsession which had ruled him since HoIIian's death still lived a man who loathed killing-who had shed too much blood and never forgiven himself for it. His soul seemed to collapse inward. After days of endurance, he was dying.

  The Forestal struck the turf with his staff, and the Hills rang. “Strike!”

  His demand was so potent that Linden raised her hands involuntarily, though it was not directed at her. Yet some part of Sunder remained unbroken, clear. The comers of his jaw knotted with the old obduracy which had once enabled him to defy Gibbon. Deliberately, he unbent his elbow, let the krill dangle from his weak hand. His head slumped forward until his chin rested on his chest. He no longer made any effort to breathe.

  Caer-Caveral sent a glare of phosphorescence at the Graveler. “Very well,” he trilled angrily. “Withhold-and be lost. The Land is ill served by those who will not pay the price of love.” Turning sharply away, he strode back through the company in the direction from which he had come. He still bore HoIIian's physical form clasped in his left arm.

  And the Dead eh-brand went with him as if she approved. Her eyes were silver and grieving.

  It was too much. A strangled cry tore Sunder's refusal. He could not let Hollian go; his desire for her was too strong. Raising the krill above his head in both fists, he ran at the Forestal's back.

  Too late, Covenant shouted, “No!” and leaped after Sunder.

  The Giants could not move. The music held them fascinated and motionless. Linden was not certain that they were truly able to see what was happening.

  She could have moved. She felt the same stasis which enclosed the First and Pitchwife; but it was not strong enough to stop her. Her percipience could grasp the melody and make it serve her. With the slow instantaneousness of visions or nightmares, she knew she was able to do it. The music would carry her after Sunder so swiftly that he might never reach the Forestal.

  Yet she did not. She had no way to measure the implications of this crisis. But she had seen the pain shining in HoIIian's eyes, the eh-brand's recognition of necessity. And she trusted the sum, brave woman. She made no effort to stop Sunder as he hammered the point of the krill between Caer-Caveral's shoulder blades with the last force of his life.

  From the blow burst a deflagration of pearl flame which rent away immobility, sent Linden and the Giants sprawling, hurled Covenant to the grass. At once, all the music became fire and raced toward the Forestal, sweeping around him-and Sunder and Hollian with him-so that they were effaced from sight, consumed in an incandescent whirlwind that spouted into the heavens, reached like the ruin of every song toward the bereft stars. A cacophony of fear clashed and wept around the flame; but the flame did not hear it. In a rush of ascension, the blaze burned its hot, mute agony against the night as if it fed on the pure heart of Andelain, bore that spirit writhing and appalled through the high dark.

  And as it rose, Linden seemed to hear the fundamental fabric of the world tearing.

  Then, before the sight became unendurable, the fire began to subside. By slow stages, the conflagration changed to an ordinary fire, yellow with heat and eaten wood, and she saw it burning from the black and blasted stump of a tree trunk which had not been there when Caer-Caveral was struck.

  Stabbed deep into the charred wood beyond any hope of removal was the krill. Only the flames that licked the stump made it visible: the light of its gem was gone.

  Now the fire failed swiftly, falling away from the stricken trunk. Soon the blaze was extinguished altogether. Smoke curled upward to mark the place where the Forestal had been slain.

  Yet the night was not dark. Other illuminations gathered around the stunned companions.

  From beyond the stump, Sunder and Hollian came walking hand-in-hand. They were limned with silver like the Dead; but they were alive in the flesh-human and whole. Caer-Caveral's mysterious purpose had been accomplished. Empowered and catalyzed by the Forestal's spirit, Sunder's passion had found its object; and the krill had severed the boundary which separated him from Hollian. In that way, the Graveler, who was trained for bloodshed and whose work was killing, had brought his love back into life.

  Around the two of them bobbed a circle of Wraiths, dancing a bright cavort of welcome. Their warm loveliness seemed to promise the end of all pain.

  But in Andelain there was no more music.

  Fifteen: Enactors of Desecration

  IN the lush, untrammelled dawn of the Hills, Sunder and Hollian came to say farewell to Covenant and Linden.

  Linden greeted them as if the past night had been one of the best of her life. She could not have named the reasons for this; it defied expectation. With Caer-Caveral's passing, important things had come to an end. She should have lamented instead of rejoicing. Yet on a level too deep for language she had recognized the necessity of which the Forestal had spoken. This Law also- Andelain had been bereft of music, but not of beauty or consolation. And the restoration of the Stonedownors made her too glad for sorrow. In a paradoxical way, Caer-Caveral's self-sacrifice felt like a promise of hope.

  But Covenant's mien was clouded by conflicting emotions. With his companions, he had spent the night watching Sunder and Hollian revel among the Wraiths of Andelain-and Linden sensed that the sight gave him both joy and rue. The healing of his friends lightened his heart; the price of that healing did not. And surely he was hurt by his lack of any health-sense which would have enabled him to evaluate what the loss of the Forestal meant to Andelain.

  However, there were no clouds upon the Graveler and the eh-Brand. They walked buoyantly to the place where Linden and Covenant sat; and Linden thought that some of the night's silver still clung to them, giving them a numinous cast even in daylight, like a new dimension added to their existence. Smiles gleamed from Sunder's eyes. And Hollian bore herself with an air of poised loveliness. Linden was not surprised to perceive that the child in the eh-brand's womb shared her elusive, mystical glow.

  For a moment, the Stonedownors gazed at Covenant and Linden and smiled and did not speak. Then Sunder cleared his throat. “I crave your pardon that we will no longer accompany you.” His voice held a special resonance that Linden had never heard before in him, a suggestion of fire. “You have said that we are the future of the Land. It has become our wish to discover that future here. And to bear our son in Andelain.

  “I know you will not gainsay us. But we pray that you find no rue in this parting. We do not-though you are precious to us. The outcome of the Earth is in your hands. Therefore we are unafraid.”

  He might have gone on; but Covenant stopped him with a brusque gesture, a scowl of gruff affection. “Are you kidding?” he muttered. “I'm the one who wanted you to stay behind. I was going to ask you- ” He sighed, and his gaze wandered the hillside. “Spend as much time here as you can,” he breathed. “Stay as long as possible. That's something I've always wanted to do.”

  His voice trailed away; but Linden was not listening to its resigned sadness. She was staring at Sunder. The faint silver quality of his aura was clear-and yet undefinable. It ran out of her grasp like water. Intuition tingled along her nerves, and she started speaking before she knew what she would say.

  “The last time Covenant was here, Caer-Caveral gave him the location of the One Tree.” Each word surprised her like a hint of r
evelation. “But he hid it so Covenant couldn't reach it himself. That's why he had to expose himself to the Elohim, let them work then plots-” The bare memory brought a tremor of anger into her voice. “We should never have had to go there in the first place. Why did Caer-Caveral give him that gift-and then make it such a secret?”

  Sunder looked at her. He was no longer smiling. A weird intensity filled his gaze like a swirl of sparks. Abruptly, he said, “Are you not now companioned by the Appointed of the Elohim? How otherwise could that end have been achieved?”

  The strangeness of the Graveler's tone snatched back Covenant's attention. Linden felt him scrambling after inferences; a blaze of hope shot up in him. “Are you-?” he asked. “Is that it? Are you the new Forestal?”

  Instead of answering. Sunder looked to Hollian, giving her the opportunity to tell him what he was.

  She met his gaze with a soft smile. But she answered quietly, kindly, “No.” She had spent time among the Dead and appeared certain of her knowledge. “In such a transferral of power, the Law which Caer-Caveral sought to rend would have been preserved. Yet we are not altogether what we were. We will do what we may for the sustenance of Andelain-and for the future of the Land.”

  Questions thronged in Linden. She wanted a name for the alteration she perceived. But Covenant was already speaking.

  “The Law of Life.” His eyes were hot and gaunt on the Stonedownors. “Elena broke the Law of Death-the barrier that kept the living and the dead from reaching out to each other. The Law Caer-Caveral broke was the one that kept the dead from crossing back into life.”

  “That is sooth,” replied Hollian. “Yet it is a fragile crossing withal, and uncertain. We are sustained, and in some manner defined, by the sovereign Earthpower of the Andelainian Hills. Should we depart this region, we would not long endure among the living.”

  Linden saw that this was true. The strange gleam upon the Stonedownors was the same magic which had given Caer-Caveral's music its lambent strength. Sunder and Hollian were solid, physical, and whole. Yet in a special sense they had become beings of Earthpower-and they might easily die if they were cut off from their source.

  Covenant must have understood the eh-Brand's words also. But he heard them with different ears than Linden's. As their implications penetrated him, his sudden hope went out.

  That loss sent a pang through Linden. She had been concentrating too hard on Sunder and Hollian. She had not realized that Covenant had been looking for an answer to his own death.

  At once, she reached out a band to his shoulder, felt the effort he made to suppress his dismay. But the exertion was over in an instant. Braced on his certainty, he faced the Stonedownors. His tone belied the struggle he made to keep it firm.

  “I'll do everything I can,” he said. “But my time's almost over. Yours is just beginning. Don't waste it.”

  Sunder returned a smile that seemed to make him young. “Thomas Covenant,” he promised, “we will not.”

  No goodbyes were said. This farewell could not be expressed with words or embraces. Arm in arm, the Graveler and the eh-brand simply turned and walked away across the bedewed grass. After a moment, they passed the crest of the hill and were gone.

  Behind them, they left a silence that ached as if nothing would be able to take their place.

  Linden stretched her arm over Covenant's shoulders and hugged him, trying to tell him that she understood.

  He kissed her hand, then rose to his feet. As he scanned the bright morning, the untainted sun, the flower-bedizened landscape, he sighed, “At least there's still Earthpower.”

  “Yes,” Linden averred, climbing erect to join him, “The Hills haven't changed.” She did not know how else to comfort him. “Losing the Forestal is going to make a difference. But not yet.” She was sure of that. Andelain's health still surged around her in every blade and leaf, every bird and rock. No disease or weakness was visible anywhere. And the shining sun had no aura. She thought that the tangible world had never held so much condensed and treasurable beauty. Like a prayer for Andelain's endurance, she repeated, “Not yet.”

  A grin of grim relish bared Covenant's teeth. "Then he can't hurt us. For a while, anyway. I hope it drives him crazy.”

  Linden breathed a secret relief, hoping that he had weathered the crisis.

  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 contradictory 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 encompassing health of the Hills made her strong. And what he saw appeared to reassure him. Gradually his features softened. Half to himself, be murmured, “Thank God 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 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 savoury 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 scraped clean, she could not conceal her relief. She knelt 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 grass. 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.

  But suddenly she felt a mute cry from the tree. a burst of pain which shivered 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; muffled 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-spawn?” 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 bastard!” 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?”