White Gold Wielder Page 21

  The full shout of Sunder’s reply was barely audible. “You will find none here!”

  Then the light receded: the Graveler had turned away. Holding the krill high to guide the company, he moved off into the storm.

  Covenant dropped his hands like a cry he could not utter.

  For an instant, no one followed Sunder. Silhouetted against the krill’s shining, Hollian stood before Covenant and Linden. He hardly saw what she was doing as she came to him, gave him a tight hug of welcome. Before he was able to respond, she left him to embrace Linden.

  Yet her brief gesture helped him pull himself together. It felt like an act of forgiveness—or an affirmation that his return and Linden’s were more important than hope. When Cail urged him after the light, he pushed his numb limbs into motion.

  They were in a low place between hills. Gathered water reached almost to his knees. But its current ran in the direction he was going, and Cail bore him up. The Haruchai seemed more certain than ever. It must have been the mental communion of his people which had drawn Durris and Fole, with the Stonedownors behind them, toward the company. And now Cail was no longer alone. Mud and streams and rain could not make him miss his footing. He supported Covenant like a figure of granite.

  Covenant had lost all sense of his companions; but he was not concerned. He trusted the other Haruchai as he trusted Cail. Directing his attention to the struggle for movement, he followed Sunder as quickly as his imbalance and fatigue allowed.

  The way seemed long and harsh in the clutches of the storm. At last, however, be and Cail neared an impression of rock and saw Sunder’s krill-light reflecting wetly off the edges of a wide entrance to a cave. Sunder went directly in, used the argent heat of the krill to set a ready pile of wood afire. Then he rewrapped the blade and tucked it away within his leather jerkin.

  The flames were dimmer than the krill, but they spread illumination around a larger area, revealing bundles of wood and bedding stacked against the walls. The Stonedownors and Haruchai had already established a camp here.

  The cave was high but shallow, hardly more than a depression in the side of a hill. The angle of the ceiling’s overhang let rainwater run inward and drizzle to the floor, with the result that the cave was damp and the fire, not easily kept alight. But even that relative shelter was a balm to Covenant’s battered nerves. He stood over the flames and tried to rub the dead chill out of his skin, watching Sunder while the company arrived to join him.

  Durris brought the four Giants. Fole guided Linden as if he had already arrogated to himself Mistweave’s chosen place at her side. Vain and Findail came of their own accord, though they did not move far enough into the cave to avoid the lashing rain. And Hollian was accompanied by Harn, the Haruchai who had taken the eh-Brand under his care in the days when Covenant had rescued them from the hold of Revelstone and the Banefire.

  Covenant stared at him. When Sunder and Hollian had left Seareach to begin their mission against the Clave, Harn had gone with them. But not alone: they had also been accompanied by Stell, the Haruchai who had watched over Sunder.

  Where was Stell?

  No, more than that; worse than that. Where were the men and women of the Land, the villagers Sunder and Hollian had gone to muster? And where were the rest of the Haruchai? After the heinous slaughter which the Clave had wrought upon their people, why had only Durris and Fole been sent to give battle?

  You will find none here.

  Had the na-Mhoram already won?

  Gaping at Sunder across the guttering fire, Covenant moved his jaw, but no words came. In the cover of the cave, the storm was muffled but incessant—fierce and hungry as a great beast. And Sunder was changed. In spite of all the blood his role as the Graveler of Mithil Stonedown had forced him to shed, he had never looked like a man who knew how to kill. But he did now.

  When Covenant had first met him, the Stonedownor’s youthful features had been strangely confused and conflicted by the unresolved demands of his duty. His father had taught him that the world was not what the Riders claimed it to be—a punishment for human offense—and so he had never learned to accept or forgive the acts which the rule of the Clave and the stricture of the Sunbane required him to commit. Unacknowledged revulsion had marked his forehead; his eyes had been worn dull by accumulated remorse; his teeth had ground together, chewing the bitter gristle of his irreconciliation. But now he appeared as honed and whetted as the poniard he had once used to take the lives of the people he loved. His eyes gleamed like daggers in the firelight. And all his movements were tense with coiled anger—a savage and baffled rage that he could not utter.

  His visage held no welcome. The First had told him that the quest had failed. Yet his manner suggested that his tautness was not directed at the Unbeliever—that even bare relief and pleasure had become impossible to articulate.

  In dismay, Covenant looked to Hollian for an explanation. The eh-Brand also showed the marks of her recent life. Her leather shift was tattered in places, poorly mended. Her arms and legs exposed the thinness of scant rations and constant danger. Yet she formed a particular contrast to Sunder.

  They were both of sturdy Stonedownor stock, dark-haired and short, though she was younger than he. But her background had been entirely different than his. Until the shock which had cost her her home in Crystal Stonedown—the crisis of the Rider’s demand for her life, and of her rescue by Covenant, Linden, and Sunder—she had been the most prized member of her community. As an eh-Brand, able to foretell the phases of the Sunbane, she had given her people a precious advantage. Her past had contained little of the self-doubt and bereavement which had filled Sunder’s days. And that difference was more striking now. She was luminous rather than angry—as warm of welcome as he was rigid. If the glances she cast at the Graveler had not been so full of endearment, Covenant might have thought that the two Stonedownors had become strangers to each other.

  But the black hair that flew like raven wings about her shoulders when she moved had not changed. It still gave her an aspect of fatality, a suggestion of doom.

  In shame, Covenant found that he did not know what to say to her either. She and Sunder were too vivid to him; they mattered too much. You will find none here. With a perception as acute as intuition, he saw that they were not at all strangers to each other. Sunder was so tight and bitter precisely because of the way Hollian glowed; and her luminescence came from the same root as his pain. But that insight did not give Covenant any words he could bear to say.

  Where was Stell?

  Where were the people of the Land? And the Haruchai?

  And what had happened to the Stonedownors?

  The First tried to bridge the awkward silence with Giantish courtesy. In the past, the role of spokesman in such situations had belonged to Honninscrave; but he had lost heart for it.

  “Stone and Sea!” she began. “It gladdens me to greet you again, Sunder Graveler and Hollian eh-Brand. When we parted, I hardly dared dream that we would meet again. It is—”

  Linden’s abrupt whisper stopped the First. She had been staring intensely at Hollian; and her exclamation stilled the gathering, bore clearly through the thick barrage of the rain.

  “Covenant. She’s pregnant.”

  Oh my God.

  Hollian’s slim shape showed nothing. But hardly ninety days had passed since the Stonedownors had left Seareach. Linden’s assertion carried instant conviction; her percipience would not be mistaken about such a thing.

  The sudden weight of understanding forced him to the floor. His legs refused to support the revelation. Pregnant.

  That was why Hollian glowed and Sunder raged. She was glad of it because she loved him. And because he loved her, he was appalled. The quest for the One Tree had failed. The purpose for which Covenant had sent the Stonedownors back to the Upper Land had failed. And Sunder had already been compelled to kill one wife and child. He had nowhere left to turn.

  “Oh, Sunder.” Covenant was not certain that he spoke
aloud. Eyes streaming, he bowed his head. It should have been covered with ashes and execration. “Forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

  “Is the fault yours then that the quest has failed?” asked Sunder. He sounded as severe as hate. “Have you brought us to this pass, that my own failure has opened the last door of doom?”

  Yes, Covenant replied—aloud or silent, it made no difference.

  “Then hear me, ur-Lord.” Sunder’s voice came closer. Now it was occluded with grief. “Unbeliever and white gold wielder. Illender and Prover of Life.” His hands gripped Covenant’s shoulders. “Hear me.”

  Covenant looked up, fighting for self-control. The Graveler crouched before him. Sunder’s eyes were blurred; beads of wet firelight coursed his hard jaws.

  “When first you persuaded me from my home and duty in Mithil Stonedown,” he said thickly, “I demanded of you that you should not betray me. You impelled me on a mad search of the desert sun for my friend Marid, whom you could not save—and you refused me the use of my blood to aid you—and you required of me that I eat aliantha which I knew to be poison—and so I beseeched of you something greater than fidelity. I pleaded of you meaning for my life—and for the death of Nassic my father. And still you were not done, for you wrested Hollian Amith-daughter from her peril in Crystal Stonedown as if it were your desire that I should love her. And when we fell together into the hands of the Clave, you redeemed us from that hold, restored our lives.

  “And still you were not done. When you had taught us to behold the Clave’s evil, you turned your back on that crime, though it cried out for retribution in the face of all the Land. There you betrayed me, ur-Lord. The meaning of which I was in such need you set aside. In its place, you gave me only a task that surpassed my strength.”

  That was true. In blood-loss and folly and passion, Covenant had made himself responsible for the truth he had required Sunder to accept. And then he had failed. What was that, if not betrayal? Sunder’s accusations made him bleed rue and tears.

  But Sunder also was not done. “Therefore,” he went on hoarsely, “it is my right that you should hear me. Ur-Lord and Unbeliever, white gold wielder,” he said as if he were addressing the hot streaks that stained Covenant’s face, “you have betrayed me—and I am glad that you have come. Though you come without hope, you are the one hope that I have known. You have it in your hands to create or deny whatever truth you will, and I desire to serve you. While you remain, I will accept neither despair nor doom. There is neither betrayal nor failure while you endure to me. And if the truth you teach must be lost at last, I will be consoled that my love and I were not asked to bear that loss alone.

  “Covenant, hear me,” he insisted. “No words suffice. I am glad that you have come.”

  Mutely Covenant put his arms around Sunder’s neck and hugged him.

  The crying of his heart was also a promise. This time I won’t turn my back. I’m going to tear those bastards down. He remained there until the Graveler’s answering clasp had comforted him.

  Then Pitchwife broke the silence by clearing his throat; and Linden said in a voice husky with empathy, “It’s about time. I thought you two were never going to start talking to each other.” She was standing beside Hollian as if they had momentarily become sisters.

  Covenant loosened his hold; but for a moment longer he did not release the Graveler. Swallowing heavily, he murmured, “Mhoram used to say things like that. You’re starting to resemble him. As long as the Land can still produce people like you. And Hollian.” Recollections of the long-dead Lord made him blink fiercely to clear his sight. “Foul thinks all he has to do is break the Arch of Time and rip the world apart. But he’s wrong. Beauty isn’t that easily destroyed.” Recalling a song that Lena had sung to him when she was still a girl and he was new to the Land, he quoted softly, “ ‘The soul in which the flower grows survives.’ ”

  With a crooked smile, Sunder rose to his feet. Covenant joined him, and the two of them faced their companions. To the First, Sunder said, “Pardon my unwelcome. The news of your quest smote me sorely. But you have come far across the unknown places of the Earth in pain and peril, and we are well met. The Land has need of you—and to you we may be of use.” Formally he introduced Durris and Fole in case the Giants had not caught their names earlier. Then he concluded, “Our food is scanty, but we ask that you share it with us.”

  The First replied by presenting Mistweave to the Stonedownors. They already knew Vain; and Findail she ignored as if he had ceased to impinge upon her awareness. After a glance around the shallow, wet cave, she said, “It would appear that we are better supplied for sharing. Graveler, how great is our distance from this Revelstone the Giantfriend seeks?”

  “A journey of five days,” Sunder responded, “or of three, if we require no stealth to ward us from the notice of the Clave.”

  “Then,” stated the First, “we are stocked to the verge of bounty. And you are in need of bounty.” She looked deliberately at Hollian’s thinness. “Let us celebrate this meeting and this shelter with sustenance.”

  She unslung her pack; and the other Giants followed her example. Honninscrave and Mistweave started to prepare a meal. Pitchwife tried to stretch some of the kinks out of his back. The rain continued to hammer relentlessly onto the hillside, and water ran down the slanted ceiling, formed puddles and rivulets on the floor. Yet the relative dryness and warmth of the shelter were a consolation. Covenant had heard somewhere that exposure to an incessant rain could drive people mad. Rubbing his numb fingers through his beard, he watched his companions and tried to muster the courage for questions.

  The First and Pitchwife remained stubbornly themselves in spite of rain and weariness and discouragement. While she waited for food, she took out her huge longsword, began to dry it meticulously; and he went to reminisce with Sunder, describing their previous meeting and adventures in Sarangrave Flat with irrepressible humor. Mistweave, however, was still doubtful, hesitant. At one point, he appeared unable to choose which pouch of staples he should open, confused by that simple decision until Honninscrave growled at him. Neither time nor the blows he had struck against the arghuleh had healed his self-distrust, and its cracks were spreading.

  And the Master seemed to grow increasingly unGiantlike. He showed a startling lack of enthusiasm for his reunion with the Stonedownors, for the company of more Haruchai—even for the prospect of food. His movements were duties he performed simply to pass the time until he reached his goal, had a chance to achieve his purpose. Covenant did not know what that purpose was; but the thought of what it might be sent a chill through him. Honninscrave looked like a man who was determined to rejoin his brother at any cost.

  Covenant wanted to demand some explanation; but there was no privacy available. Setting the matter aside, he looked around the rest of the gathering.

  Linden had taken Hollian to a dryer place against one wall and was examining the eh-Brand with her senses, testing the health and growth of the child Hollian carried. The noise of the rain covered their quiet voices. But then Linden announced firmly, “It’s a boy.” Hollian’s dark eyes turned toward Sunder and shone.

  Vain and Findail had not moved. Vain appeared insensate to the water that beaded on his black skin, dripped from his tattered tunic. And even direct rain could not touch the Appointed: it passed through him as if his reality were of a different kind altogether.

  Near the edge of the cave, the Haruchai stood in a loose group. Durris and Fole watched the storm; Cail and Harn faced inward. If they were mentally sharing their separate stories, their flat expressions gave no sign of the exchange.

  Like Bloodguard, Covenant thought. Each of them seemed to know by direct inspiration what any of the others knew. The only difference was that these Haruchai were not immune to time. But perhaps that only made them less willing to compromise.

  He was suddenly sure that he did not want to be served by them anymore. He did not want to be served at all. The commitments people made to him we
re too costly. He was on his way to doom; he should have been traveling alone. Yet here were five more people whose lives would be hazarded with his. Six, counting Hollian’s child, who had no say in the matter.

  And what had happened to the other Haruchai—to those that had surely come like Fole and Durris to oppose the Clave?

  And why had Sunder and Hollian failed?

  When the food was ready, he sat down among his companions near the fire with his back to the cave wall and his guts tight. The act of eating both postponed and brought closer the time for questions.

  Shortly Hollian passed around a leather pouch. When Covenant drank from it, he tasted metheglin, the thick, cloying mead brewed by the villagers of the Land.

  Implications snapped at him. His head jerked up. “Then you didn’t fail.”

  Sunder scowled as if Covenant’s expostulation pained him; but Hollian met the statement squarely. “Not altogether.” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes were somber. “In no Stonedown or Woodhelven did we fail altogether—in no village but one.”

  Covenant set the pouch down carefully in front of him. His shoulders were trembling. He had to concentrate severely to keep his hands and voice steady. “Tell me.” All the eyes of the travelers were on Sunder and Hollian. “Tell me what happened.”

  Sunder threw down the hunk of bread he had been chewing. “Failure is not a word to be trusted,” he began harshly. His gaze avoided Covenant, Linden, the Giants, nailed itself to the embers of the fire. “It may mean one thing or another. We have failed—and we have not.”

  “Graveler,” Pitchwife interposed softly. “It is said among our people that joy is in the ears that hear, not in the mouth that speaks. The quest for the One Tree has brought to us many aghast and heart-cruel tales, and we have not always heard them well. Yet are we here—sorely scathed, it may be”—he glanced at Honninscrave—“but not wholly daunted. Do not scruple to grant us a part in your hurt.”

  For a moment, Sunder covered his face as if he were weeping again. But when he dropped his hands, his fundamental gall was bright in his eyes.