White Gold Wielder Read online

  “Stop calling me that,” Covenant growled. His mouth was full of gall. Ur-Lord was the title the Haruchai typically used for him. “There haven’t been any Lords worth mentioning for three thousand years.”

  But he could not refuse to give the Stonedownors the story of his failed quest.

  * * *

  The task of narration was shared by Linden, the First, and Pitchwife. Sunder and Hollian gaped at the tale of the Elohim and Findail, of the way in which Covenant had been silenced; but they had no words for their incomprehension. When the companions began to speak of Cable Seadreamer, Honninscrave rose abruptly and stalked out into the rain; but he returned shortly, looking as sharp and doomed as a boulder gnawed by the sempiternal hunger of the sea. His voice rising in grief at loss and celebration of valor, Pitchwife described the crisis of the One Tree. Then the First related the sailing of Starfare’s Gem into the bitten cold of the north. She explained the company’s harsh decision to abandon the dromond; and the stem iron of her voice made the things she said seem more bearable.

  It fell to Covenant to speak of Hamako and the Waynhim, of the company’s reentry into the Sunbane. And when he was finished, the violence of the storm had become less.

  The rain was fading toward sunset. As the downpour receded to a drizzle, the clouds broke open in the east and followed the sun away, exposing the Land to a night as clear and cold as the stars. A moon with a look of roe on its face swelled toward its full.

  The fire seemed brighter now as dark deepened outside the cave. Sunder stirred the embers while he considered what he had heard. Then he addressed Covenant again, and the flames glinted like eagerness in his eyes. “Is it truly your intent to assail the Clave? To bring the Banefire to an end?”

  Covenant nodded, scowling.

  Sunder glanced at Hollian, then back to Covenant. “I need not say that we will accompany you. We have been thwarted beyond endurance. Even Hollian’s child—” For a moment, he faltered in confusion, murmured, “My son,” as if he had just realized the truth. But then he resumed firmly, “Even he is not too precious to be hazarded in such a cause.”

  Covenant started to retort. No, you’re wrong. You’re all too precious. You’re the future of the Land. If it has a future. But the Graveler had come too far to be denied. And Covenant had lost the right or the arrogance to try to withhold the consequences of their own lives from the people he loved.

  He took a deep breath, held it to steady himself. The force of Durris’ arm had left a pain in his chest that would not go away. But Sunder did not ask the question he feared, did not say. How can you think to confront the might of Revelstone, when your power threatens the very foundation of the Earth? Instead the Graveler inquired, “What will become of the Haruchai?”

  That question, too, was severe; but Covenant could face it. Slowly he let the pent air out of his lungs. “If I succeed, they’ll be all right.” Nightmares of fire had annealed him to his purpose. “If I fail, there won’t be much left to worry about.”

  Sunder nodded, looked away. Carefully he asked, “Thomas Covenant, will you accept the krill from me?”

  More abruptly than he intended. Covenant snapped, “No.” When he had first given away Loric’s blade, Linden had asked him why he no longer needed it. He had replied, I’m already too dangerous. But he had not known then how deep the danger ran. “You’re going to need it.” To fight with if he failed.

  Or if he succeeded.

  That was the worst gall, the true root of despair—that even a complete victory over the Clave would accomplish nothing. It would not restore the Law, not heal the Land, not renew the people of the Land. And beyond all question it would not cast down the Despiser, The best Covenant could hope for was a postponement of his doom. And that was as good as no hope at all.

  Yet he had been living with despair for so long now that it only confirmed his resolve. He had become like Kevin Landwaster, incapable of turning back, of reconsidering what he meant to do. The sole difference was that Covenant already knew he was going to die.

  He preferred that to the death of the Land.

  But he did not say such things to his companions. He did not want to give the impression that he blamed Linden for her inability to aid his dying body in the woods behind Haven Farm. And he did not wish to quench the Stonedownors’ nascent belief that they had one more chance to make what they had undergone meaningful. Despair belonged to the lone heart, and he kept it to himself. Lord Foul had corrupted everything else—had turned to ill even the affirmative rejection of hate which had once led Covenant to withhold his hand from the Clave. But Sunder and Hollian had been restored to him. Some of the Haruchai and the Giants could still be saved. Linden might yet be returned safely to her natural world. He had become ready to bear it.

  When Honninscrave left the cave again to pace out his tension under the unpitying stars. Covenant followed him.

  The night was cold and poignant, the warmth of the earth drenched away by the long rain. Apparently unconscious of Covenant, Honninscrave climbed the nearest hillside until he gained a vantage from which he could study the southwestern horizon. His lonely bulk was silhouetted against the impenetrable sky. He held himself as rigid as the fetters in Kasreyn’s dungeon; but the manacles on him now were more irrefragable than iron. From far back in his throat came small whimpering noises like flakes of grief.

  Yet he must have known that Covenant was there. After a moment, he began to speak.

  “This is the world which my brother purchased with his soul.” His voice sounded like cold, numb hands rubbing each other to no avail. “Seeing that the touch of your power upon the One Tree would surely rouse the Worm, he went to his death to prevent you. And this is the result. The Sunbane waxes, perpetrating atrocity. The human valor of the Stonedownors is baffled. The certainty of the Haruchai is thwarted. And against such evils you are rendered futile, bound by the newborn doom to which Cable Seadreamer served as midwife. Do you consider such a world worthy of life? I do not.”

  For a time, Covenant remained silent. He was thinking that he was not the right person to hear Honninscrave’s hurt. His own despair was too complete. His plight was constricted by madness and fire on all sides; and the noose was growing tighter. Yet he could not let the need in Honninscrave’s question pass without attempting an answer. The Giant was his friend. And he had his own losses to consider. He needed a reply as sorely as Honninscrave did.

  Slowly he said, “I talked to Foamfollower about hope once.” That memory was as vivid as healthy sunshine. “He said it doesn’t come from us. It doesn’t depend on us. It comes from the worth and power of what we serve.” Without flinching, Foamfollower had claimed that his service was to Covenant. When Covenant had protested, It’s all a mistake, Foamfollower had responded, Then are you so surprised to learn that I have been thinking about hope?

  But Honninscrave had a different objection. “Aye, verily?” he growled. He did not glance at Covenant. “And where now under all the Sunbane lies the ‘worth and power’ that you serve?”

  “In you,” Covenant snapped back, too vexed by pain to be gentle. “In Sunder and Holiian. In the Haruchai.” He did not add, In Andelain. Honninscrave had never seen that last flower of the Land’s loveliness. And he could not bring himself to say, In me. Instead he continued, “When Foamfollower and I were together, I didn’t have any power. I had the ring—but I didn’t know how to use it. And I was trying to do exactly what Foul wanted. I was going to Foul’s Creche. Walking right into the trap. Foamfollower helped me anyway.” The Giant had surrendered himself to agony in order to carry Covenant across the fierce lava of Hotash Slay. “Not because there was anything special or worthy or powerful about me, but simply because I was human and Foul was breaking my heart. That gave Foamfollower all the hope he needed.”

  In the process, Covenant had caused the Giant’s death. Only the restraint he had learned in the cavern of the One Tree kept him from crying. Don’t talk to me about despair! I’m going to
destroy the world and there’s nothing I can do about it! I need something better from you! Only that restraint—and the tall dark shape of the Master as he stood against the stars, torn by loss and as dear as life.

  But then Honninscrave turned as if he had heard the words Covenant had not uttered. His moon-gilt stance took on a curious kindness. Softly he said, “You are the Giantfriend, and I thank you that there is yet room in your heart for me. No just blame attaches to you for Seadreamer’s death—nor for the refusal of caamora with which by necessity you sealed his end. But I do not desire hope. I desire to see. I covet the vision which taught my brother to accept damnation in the name of what he witnessed.”

  Quietly he walked down from the hilltop, leaving Covenant exposed to the emptiness of the night.

  In the cold silence, Covenant tried to confront his plight, wrestled for an escape from the logic of Lord Foul’s manipulations. Revelstone was perhaps only three days away. But the wild magic had been poisoned, and venom colored all his dreams. He contained no more hope than the black gulf of the heavens, where the Worm of the World’s End had already fed. Honninscrave’s difficult grace did not feel like forgiveness. It felt as arduous as a grindstone, whetting the dark to a new sharpness. And he was alone.

  Not because he lacked friends. In spite of the Land’s destitution, it had blessed him with more friendship than he had ever known. No, he was alone because of his ring. Because no one else possessed this extreme power to ruin the Earth. And because he no longer had any right to it at all.

  That was the crux, the conflict he could not resolve or avoid; and it seemed to cripple his sense of himself, taking his identity away. What did he have to offer the Land except wild magic and his stubborn passion? What else was he worth to his friends?—or to Linden, who would have to carry the burden as soon as he set it down? From the beginning, his life here had been one of folly and pain, sin and ill; and only wild magic had enabled him to make expiation. And now the Clave had reduced the village to relics. It had ensnared the Haruchai once more. The Sunbane had attained a period of two days. Seadreamer and Hergrom and Ceer and Hamako were dead. If he surrendered his ring now, as Findail and doom urged, how would he ever again be able to bear the weight of his own actions?

  We are foemen, you and I, enemies to the end. But the end will be yours. Unbeliever, not mine. At the last there will be but one choice for you, and you will make it in all despair. Of your own volition you will give the white gold into my hand.

  Covenant had no answer. In Andelain among the Dead, Mhoram had warned, He has said to you that you are his Enemy. Remember that he seeks always to mislead you. But Covenant had no idea what the former High Lord meant.

  Around him, a dismay which no amount of moonlight could palliate gripped the hills. Unconsciously he had sunk to the ground under the glinting accusation of the stars. Findail had said like the Despiser, He must be persuaded to surrender his ring. If he does not, it is certain that he will destroy the Earth. Covenant huddled into himself. He needed desperately to cry out and could not—needed to hurl outrage and frenzy at the blind sky and was blocked from any release by the staggering peril of his power. He had fallen into the Despiser’s trap, and there was no way out.

  When he heard feet ascending the hill behind him, he covered his face to keep himself from pleading abjectly for help.

  He could not read the particular emanations of his companions. He did not know who was approaching him. Vaguely he expected Sunder or Pitchwife. But the voice which sighed his name like an ache of pity or appeal was Linden’s.

  He lurched erect to meet her, though he had no courage for her concern, which he had not earned.

  The moon sheened her hair as if it were clean and lovely. But her features were in shadow; only the tone of her voice revealed her mood. She spoke as if she knew how close he was to breaking.

  As softly as a prayer, she breathed, “Let me try.”

  At that, something in him did break. “Let you?” he fumed suddenly. He had no other way to hold back his grief. “I can hardly prevent you. If you’re so all-fired bloody eager to be responsible for the world, you don’t need my permission. You don’t even need the physical ring. You can use it from there. All you have to do is possess me.”

  “Stop,” she murmured like an echo of supplication, “stop.” But his love for her had become anguish, and he could not call it back.

  “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 hands. 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,” she 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 flat—“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 gray lan
dscape 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 counseled 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 traveled 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 stonelore 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.