The One Tree

Ninteen: Thaumaturge

THAT name seemed to stun the air, appalling the very stone of the Sandhold.

From a great and lonely distance, Covenant watched Kasreyn of the Gyre recoil. The Kemper dropped his eyepiece. Dismay and rage crumpled his old face. But he could not call back the word Covenant had spoken. An anguish of indecision gripped him for a moment, paralyzing him. Then the old fear rose up in him, and he fled to preserve his life.

He flung the iron door shut behind him, thrust the bolts into place. But those metallic sounds meant nothing to Covenant. He was perfectly aware of his situation. All his senses had been functioning normally: he recognized his peril, understood the plight of his companions, knew what had to be done. Yet he was scarcely sentient. The gap between action and impact, perception and consequence, was slow to close. Consciousness welled up in him from the contact which Linden had forged; but the distance was great and could not be filled instantly.

At first, the recovery seemed swift. The bonds connecting him to his adolescence, then his young manhood, healed themselves in a surge of memory which felt like fire — annealment and cautery in one. And that fire rapidly became the numinous intensity with which he had given himself to writing and marriage. But then his progress slowed. With Joan on Haven Farm, before the publication of his novel and the birth of their son, he had felt that his luminescence was the most profound energy of life. But it had proven itself hollow at the core. His bestseller had been little more than an inane piece of self-congratulation. And his marriage had been destroyed by the blameless crime of leprosy.

After that, the things he recollected made him writhe.

His violent and involuntary isolation, his imposed self-loathing, had driven him deep into the special madness of lepers. He had stumbled into the Land as if it were the final summation and crisis of his life. Almost at once, he had raped the first person who befriended him. He had tormented and dismayed people who helped him. Unwittingly, he had walked the path Lord Foul marked out for him-had not turned aside from that doom until the consequences of his own actions came back to appal him. And then he might have achieved ruin instead of restitution, had he not been supported at every turn by people like Mhoram and Bannor and Foamfollower, people whose comprehension of love and valour far surpassed his own. Even now, years later, his heart cried out against the harm he had done to the Land, to the people of the Land-against the paucity with which he had finally served them.

His voice echoed in the dank constriction of the cell. His companions strained toward him as he knelt like abjection on the cold stone. But he had no attention to spare for them.

And he was not abject. He was wounded, yes; guilty beyond question; crowded with remorse. But his leprosy had given him strength as well as weakness. In the thronehall of Foul's Creche, confronting the Despiser and the Illearth Stone, he had found the eye of his paradox. Balanced between the contradictions of self-abhorrence and affirmation, of Unbelief and love-acknowledging and refusing the truth of the Despiser-he had come into his power. He felt it within him now, poised like the moment of clarity which lay at the heart of every vertigo. As the gap closed, he resumed himself.

He tried to blink his eyes free of tears. Once again, Linden had saved him. The only woman he had met in more than eleven years who was not afraid of his illness. For his sake, she had insisted time after time on committing herself to risks, situations, demands she could neither measure nor control. The stone under his hands and knees felt unsteady; but he meant to climb to his feet. He owed her that. He could not imagine the price she must have paid to restore him.

When he tried to stand, the whole cell lurched. The air was full of distant boomings like the destruction of granite. A fine powder sifted through the torchlight, hinting at cracks in the ceiling. Again, the floor shifted. The cell door rang with stress.

A voice said flatly, “The Sandgorgon comes.” Covenant recognized Brinn's characteristic dispassion.

“Thomas Covenant.” No amount of iron self-command could conceal the First's dismay. “Giantfriend! Has the Chosen slain you? Has she slain us all? The Sandgorgon. comes!”

He was unable to answer her with words. Words had not come back to him yet. Instead, he replied by planting his feet widely, lifting himself erect against the visceral trembling of the stone. Then he turned to face the door.

His ring hung inert on his half-hand. The venom which triggered his wild magic had been quiescent for long days; and he was too recently returned to himself. He could not take hold of his power. Yet he was ready. Linden had provided for this necessity by the same stroke with which she had driven Kasreyn away.

Findail sprang to Covenant's side. The Elohim's distress was as loud as a yell, though he did not shout. “Do not do this.” Urgency etched his words across the trembling. “Will you destroy the Earth?” His limbs strained with suppressed need. “The Sun-Sage lusts for death. Be not such a fool. Give the ring to me.”

At that, the first embers of Covenant's old rage warmed toward fire.

The distant boomings went on as if parts of the Sandhold had begun to collapse; but the peril was much closer. He heard heavy feet slapping the length of the outer corridor at a run.

Instinctively, he flexed his knees for balance and battle.

The feet reached the door, paused.

Like a groan through his teeth, Pitchwife said, “Gossamer Glowlimn, I love you.”

Then the cell door crumpled like a sheet of parchment as Nom hammered down and through it with two stumped arms as mighty as battering rams.

While metallic screaming echoed in the dungeon, the Sandgorgon stood hunched under the architrave. From the elevation of the doorway, the beast appeared puissant enough to tear the entire Sandhold stone from stone. Its head had no face, no features, betrayed nothing of its feral passion. Yet its attention was cantered remorselessly on Covenant.

Leaping like a roar down into the chamber, the beast charged as if it meant to drive him through the back wall.

No mortal flesh and bone could have withstood that onslaught. But the Despiser's venom had only been rendered quiescent by the Elohim. It had not been purged or weakened. And the Sandgorgon itself was a creature of power.

In the instant before Nom struck, Thomas Covenant became an eruption of white flame.

Wild magic: keystone of the Arch of Time: power that was not limited or subdued by any Law except the inherent strictures of its wielder. High Lord Mhoram had said like a prophecy of fire, You are the white gold, and Covenant fulfilled those words. Incandescence came upon him. Argent burst from him as if from the heart of a silver furnace.

At his side, Findail cried in protest, 'No!"

The Sandgorgon crashed into Covenant. Impact and momentum knocked him against the wall. But he hardly felt the attack. He was preserved from pain or damage by white fire, as if that flame had become the outward manifestation of his leprosy, numbing him to the limitations of his mortality. A man with living nerves might have felt the power too acutely to let it mount so high: Covenant had no such restraint. The venom was avid in him. The fang-scars on his forearm shone like the eyes of the Despiser. Almost without thought or volition, he buffered himself against Nom's assault.

The Sandgorgon staggered backward.

Like upright magma, he flowed after it. Nom dealt out blows that would have pulverized monoliths. Native savagery multiplied by centuries of bitter imprisonment hammered at Covenant. But he responded with blasts like the fury of a bayamo. Chunks of granite fell from the ceiling and burst into dust. Cracks webbed the floor. The architrave of the door collapsed, leaving a gap like a wound to the outer corridor. Findail's protests sounded like the wailing of rocks.

Covenant continued to advance. The beast refused to retreat farther. He and Nom wrapped arms around each other and embraced like brothers of the same doom.

The Sandgorgon's strength was tremendous. It should have been able to crush him like a bundle of rotten twigs. But he was an avatar of flame, and every flare lifted him higher into the ecstasy of venom and rage. He had already become so bright that his companions were blinded. Argence melted and evaporated falling stone, enlarging the dungeon with every hot beat of his heart. He had been so helpless! Now he was savage with the desire to strike back. This Sandgorgon had slain Hergrom, crippled Ceer. And Kasreyn had set that harm in motion. Kasreyn! He had tortured Covenant when Covenant had been utterly unable to defend himself; and only Hergrom's intervention had saved him from death-or from a possession which would have been worse than death. Fury keened in him; his outrage burned like the wrath of the sun.

But Nom was not to blame. The beast was cunning, hungry for violence; but it lived and acted only at the whim of Kasreyn's power. Kasreyn, and again Kasreyn. Images of atrocity whirled through Covenant. Passion made him as unanswerable as a volcano.

He felt Nom weakening in his arms. Instinctively, he lessened his own force. The poison in him was newly awakened, and he could still restrain it. He did not want to kill.

At once, the Sandgorgon put out a new surge of strength that almost tore him in half.

But Covenant was too far gone in power to fail. With wild magic, he gripped the beast, bound it in fetters of flame and will. It struggled titanically, but without success. Clenching it, he extricated himself from its arms and stepped back.

For a long moment, Nom writhed, pouring all the ancient ferocity of its nature into an effort for freedom. But it could not break him.

Slowly, it appeared to understand that it had finally met a man able to destroy it. It stopped fighting. Its arms sank to its sides. Long quiverings ran through its muscles like anticipations of death.

By degrees, Covenant relaxed his power, though he kept a handful of fire blazing from his ring. Soon the beast stood free of flame.

Pitchwife began to chuckle like a man who had been brought back from the edge of hysteria. Findail gazed at Covenant as if he were uncertain of what he was seeing. But Covenant had no time yet for anything except the Sandgorgon. With tentative movements, Nom tested its release. Surprise aggravated its quivering. Its head jerked from side to side, implying disbelief. Carefully, as if it feared what it was doing, it raised one arm to aim a blow at Covenant's head.

Covenant clenched his fist, sending a spew of fire into the ring he had created above him. But he did not strike. Instead-he fought his rusty voice into use.

“If you don't kill me, you won't have to go back to the Doom.”

Nom froze as if it understood him. Trembling in every muscle, it lowered its arm.

A moment later, the beast surprised him by sinking to the floor. Its quivering grew stronger, then began to subside. Deliberately, the Sandgorgon touched its forehead to the stone near Covenant's feet like an offer of service.

Before Covenant could react, Nom rose erect again. Its blank face revealed nothing. Turning with animal dignity, it climbed to the broken doorway, picked its way without hesitation through the rubble of the architrave, and disappeared down the passage.

In the distance, the sounds of collapsing stone had receded; but at intervals an occasional dull thud reached the cell, as if a section of wall or ceiling had fallen. Nom must have done serious damage on the way inward.

Abruptly, Covenant became aware of the brightness of his fire. It pained his sight as if his orbs had relapsed to normalcy. He reduced his power until it was only a small flame on his ring. But he did not release it entirely. All of Bhrathairealm lay between the company and Starfare's Gem; and he did not mean to remain a prisoner any longer. Memories of Revelstone came back to him-helplessness and venom in revulsion. In the aftermath of the soothtell, he had killed twenty-one members of the na-Mhoram's Clave. The fang-marks on his forearm continued to gleam at him. He became suddenly urgent as he turned to look at his companions.

Vain stood nearby: the iconography of the ur-viles in human form. His lips wore a black grin of relish. But Covenant had no time to spend on the Demondim-spawn. How quickly would Kasreyn be able to rally the defences of the Sandhold? He thrust past Vain toward his friends.

The First murmured his name in a limping voice. She appeared hardly able to support the weight of her reprieve. At her side, Pitchwife shed tears unabashedly and faded in and out of laughter. The severe bruise at his temple seemed to damage his emotional balance. Honninscrave stood with a broken chain dangling from his free arm and blood dripping from his wrists; but his face was clenched around the new hope Covenant had given him.

From the other walls, Haruchai eyes reflected the white gold like pride. They looked as extravagant as the Vow which had bound the Bloodguard to the Lords beyond death and sleep. Even Ceer's orbs shone, though behind the reflections lay a pain so acute that even Covenant's superficial sight could read it. Red fluid oozed from the bandages around his knee.

Seadreamer seemed unaware of Covenant. The mute Giant's gaze was glazed and inward. His manacled hands strained toward his head as if he ached to cover his face. But at least he showed no physical hurt.

Then Covenant saw Linden.

She staggered him. She hung from her rigid fetters as if both her arms had been broken. Her head had slumped forward; her wheaten hair veiled her face and chest. Covenant could not tell if she were breathing, if he had hurt or killed her in his struggle with Nom.

Findail had been murmuring almost continuously. “Praise the Wurd that he has desisted.” The words came in snatches of apprehension. “Yet the outcome of the Earth lies in the hands of a madman. She has opened the path of rum. Was I not Appointed to prevent her? My life is now forfeit. It is insufferable.”

Covenant feared to approach her, dreaded to see that she had been wounded or worse. He flung his panic at Findail. His fists knotted the Elohim's creamy mantle. His power gathered to blare through Findail's lean flesh.

“What happened to her?”

For an instant, Findail's yellow eyes seemed to consider the wisdom of simply melting out of Covenant's grasp. But instead he said, “Withhold your fire, ring-wielder. You do not know the peril. The fate of the Earth is fragile in your ungentle hands.” Covenant sent out a flare of rage. At once, Findail added, “I will answer.”

Covenant did not release him. Wild magic roiled in him like a nest of snakes. His heart beat on the verge of an outcry.

“She has been silenced,” Findail said carefully, studying Covenant as he spoke, “as you were silenced at the Elohimfest. Entering you, she took the stillness which warded you into herself.” He spoke as if he were trying to make Covenant hear another message, an implied justification for what the Elohim had done. But Covenant had no ears for such things. Only the clench of his fists kept him from exploding.

“But for her it will not endure,” Findail went on. “It is yours, formed for you, and will not hold her. She will return to herself in her own time. Therefore,” he continued more urgently, “there is no call for this wild magic. You must quell it. Do you not hear me? The Earth rests upon your silence.”

Covenant was no longer listening. He thrust Findail away. Fire flashed from the opening of his hands like an instant of tinder. Turning to Linden, he struck the bonds from her arms, the chains from her ankles, then reached out to catch her. But she did not fall: her body reflexively found its balance as if her most primitive instincts prompted her to avoid the necessity of his embrace. Slowly, her head came up. In the yellow-and-white light of torches and wild magic, he saw that her eyes were empty.

Oh, Linden! He could not stop himself. He put his arms around her, hugged and rocked her as if she were a child. He had been like this himself. And she had done it to herself for him. His embrace spread a penumbra of argence over her. The flow of his power covered her as if he would never be able to let her go. He did not know whether to weep because she was alive or to cry out because she was so destitute. She had done it to herself. For him.

Brinn spoke firmly, without fear or any other inflection. “Ur-Lord, this Kemper will not wish to permit our departure. We must hasten.”

“Aye, Giantfriend,” said the First. Every passing moment restored more of her combative steadiness. “Starfare's Gem remains at risk, and we are far from it. I doubt neither Sevinhand's resource nor his valiance, but I am eager to quit this place and set my feet once again upon the dromond.”

Those were words that Covenant understood-not vague threats such as Findail uttered, but a concrete call to action. The Elohim had said, The outcome of the Earth lies in the hands of a madman. He had asked for the ring. And Covenant had killed so many people, despite his own revulsion for bloodshed. He distrusted all power. Yet the wild magic ran through him like a pulse of rapture, avid for use, and consuming. The First's urging restored to him the importance of his quest, the need for survival and flight.

She brought back images of Kasreyn, who had forced Linden to this extremity.

Carefully, he released Linden, stepped back from her. For a long moment, he studied her, fixing her blank and desirable face in his mind like a focus for all his emotions. Then he turned to his companions.

With a mental gesture, he struck the bonds from their wrists and ankles, beginning with Seadreamer and then Ceer so that the mute Giant could tend the injured Haruchai. Ceer's hurt gave him a renewed pang which made flame spill from his arms as if he were nothing more than firewood for the wild magic. More than once, he had healed himself, preserved himself from harm. Yet his numbness rendered him incapable of doing the same for his friends. He had to exert a fierce restraint to hold his frustration back from another explosion.

In a moment, the rest of the company was free. Pitchwife was uncertain on his feet, still suffering the effects of the blow he had received. But Brinn moved forward as if he were prepared to attempt anything in Covenant's service. Cail took charge of Linden. The First drew her new longsword, gripped it in both fists; and her eyes were as keen as the edges of the iron. Honninscrave flexed the chain he had broken, testing its usefulness as a weapon.

They spent a short moment savouring the taste of their release. Then the First sprang up the stairs out of the cell, and the company followed her.

The outer corridor disappeared around corners to left and right; but the First immediately chose the direction the departing Sandgorgon had taken. Covenant went down that passage behind her with Brinn and Honninscrave beside him and his other companions at his back. The Giants had to stoop because the corridor was too low-ceilinged for them. But beyond the first corner was a larger hallway marked by many cell doors. The hustin that had guarded the place were dead now, lying broken where Nom had left them. Covenant did not take the time to look into the cells; but he snapped all the door-bolts as he passed.

That hall gave into a warren of passages. The First was forced to halt, uncertain of her way. A moment passed before Brinn spotted a stair ascending from the end of one corridor. At once, the company started in that direction.

Ahead of them, a slim woman came down the stairs, began running toward them. When she saw them, she stumbled to a stop in surprise, then hurried forward again.

She was hardly recognizable as the Lady Alif. Her robe had been torn and blackened. Her hair hung about her in straggles; her scalp was mottled with sore bare patches. Four long red weals disfigured her right cheek.

Facing the First and Covenant, she panted. “The Sandgorgon-How is it that you-?” But an instant later, she registered Covenant's fire, the alert heat in his eyes. She sagged momentarily. “Ah, I feared for you. You were my hope, and when the Sandgorgon-I came to look upon you, thinking to see my own death.” Her features winced around her wounds. But her thoughts came together quickly, and she cried out, “You must flee! Kasreyn will levy all the might of the Sandhold against you.”

The First shot a glance at Covenant; but he was not Linden, could not tell whether to trust this woman. Memories of the Lady filled him with unease. Would she be here now if he had been able to succumb to her?

Sternly, the First said, “Lady, you have been harmed.”

She raised one hand to her cheek-a gesture of distress. She had been one of the Favoured; her position had depended on her beauty. But a moment later she dropped her hand, drew her dignity about her, and met the First's scrutiny squarely.

“The Lady Benj is not gentle in triumph. As she is the gaddhi's Favoured, I was not permitted to make defence.”

At that, the First gave a nod like a promise of violence. “Will you guide us from this place?”

The Lady did not hesitate. “Yes. There is no life for me here.”

The First started toward the stairs: the battered woman stopped her. “That way leads to the First Circinate. From thence there is no path outward but that which lies through the gates-the strength of the Sandhold. I will show another way.”

Covenant approved. But he had other plans. His form shed flickers of power at every heartbeat. “Tell me where you're going.”

Rapidly, she replied, “The Sandgorgon has made a great breach in the Sandhold. Following the beast's path, we will gain the open sand within the Sandwall. Then the surest path to the Harbour lies atop the Sandwall itself. It will be warded, but mayhap the Kemper's mind will be bent otherwhere-toward the gates.”

“And we will be less easily assailed upon the wall,” said the

First grimly, “than within the gates, or in the streets of Bhrathairain. It is good. Let us go.”

But Covenant was already saying, “All right. I'll find you on the wall. Somewhere. If I don't show up before then, wait for me at the Spikes.”

The First swung toward him, burned a stare at him. “Where do you go?”

He was acute with venom and power. “It won't do us any good to fight our way through the Guards. Kasreyn is the real danger. He can probably sink the ship without setting foot outside Kemper's Pitch.” Memories swirled in him-flaring recollections of the way he had once faced Foamfollower, Triock, and Lena after the defence of Mithil Stonedown and had made promises. Promises he had kept. “I'm going to bring this bloody rock down around his ears.”

In those days, he had had little or no understanding of wild magic. He had made promises because he lacked any other name for his passion. But now Linden was silenced, had gone blank and blind for his sake; and he was limned in white fire. When the First gave him a nod, he left the company, went at a run toward the stairs.

Brinn was instantly at his side. Covenant cast a glance at the Haruchai. They would be two lone men against the entire Sandhold. But they would be enough. At one time, he and Brinn had faced all Revelstone alone-and had prevailed.

But as he started up the stairs, a flash of creamy white snagged his attention, and he saw Findail running after him.

He hesitated on the steps. The Elohim ran as easily as Vain. When he reached Covenant, Findail said intently, “Do not do this. I implore you. Are you deaf as well as mad?”

For an instant, Covenant wanted to challenge Findail. His palms itched with power; flames skirled up and down his arms. But he held himself back. He might soon have a better chance to obtain the answers he wanted. Swinging away from the Elohim, he climbed the stairs as swiftly as the fire in his legs.

The stairs were long; and when they ended, they left him in the maze of halls and passages at the rear of the First Circinate. The place seemed empty. Apparently, the forces of the Sandhold had already been summoned elsewhere. He did not know which way to go. But Brinn was certain. He took the lead; and Covenant followed him at a run.

The breaking of rocks had stopped. The stones no longer trembled. But from a distance came the sound of sirens-raw and prolonged cries like the screaming of gargoyles. They wailed as if they were mustering all Bhrathairealm for war.

Chewing the knowledge that no flight from the Sandhold or Bhrathairain Harbour could hope to succeed while Kasreyn of the Gyre lived, Covenant increased his pace.

Sooner than he expected, he left the complex backways and poured like a flow of silver into the immense forecourt of the First Circinate, between the broad stairways which matched each other upward.

The forecourt was heavily guarded by hustin and soldiers.

A shout sprang at the ceiling. The forces of the Sandhold were ranked near the gates to fend off an attempted escape. They looked vast and dim, for night had fallen and the forecourt was lit only by torches held among the Guards. At the shout, assailants surged forward.

Brinn ignored them. He sped lightly to the nearest stairs, started upward. Covenant followed on the strength of wild magic. Findail moved as if the air about him were his wings.

Answering the shout, a cadre of hustin came clattering from the Second Circinate. Scores of Guards must have been waiting there, intending to catch the company in a pincer. Shadows flickered like disconcertion across their bestial faces as they saw the three men rising to meet them instead of fleeing.

Brinn tripped one of them, staggered a second, wrested the spear from a third. Then Covenant swept all the hustin from the stair with a sheet of flame and raced on.

Pausing only to hurl that spear at the pursuit, Brinn dashed back into the lead.

The Second Circinate was darker than the First. The squadrons poised there did not betray their presence with torches. But Covenant's power shone like a cynosure, exposing the danger. At every step, he seemed to ascend toward exaltation. Venom and fire conveyed him forward as if he were no longer making his own choices. Since the hustin and soldiers were too many for Brinn to attack effectively, Covenant called the Haruchai to his side, then raised a conflagration around the two of them and used it like the armour of a battlewain as he continued on his way. His blaze scored a trail across the floor. The attackers could not reach him through it. Spears were thrown at him, but wild magic struck them into splinters.

Outside the Sandhold, the sirens mounted in pitch, began to pulse like the ululation of the damned. Covenant paid no attention to them. Defended by fire, he moved to the next stairs and went up into the Tier of Riches.

The lights of that place had been extinguished; but it was empty of foes. Perhaps the Kemper had not expected his enemies to gain this level; or perhaps he did not wish to risk damage to centuries of accumulated treasure. At the top of the stairs, Covenant paused, gathered his armour of flame into one hot mass and hurled it downward to slow the pursuit. Then again he ran after Brinn, dodging through the galleries with his rage at Kasreyn fixed squarely before him.

Up the wide rich stairway from the Tier they spiralled like a gyre and burst into The Majesty.

Here the lights were undimmed. Huge cruses and vivid candelabra still focused their rumination toward the Auspice as if the dominion of the gaddhi's seat were not a lie. But all the Guards had been withdrawn to serve Kasreyn elsewhere. Nothing interfered with Covenant's advance as he swept forward, borne along by wild magic and sirens. With Findail trailing behind them like an expostulation, Brinn and the Unbeliever moved straight to the hidden door which gave access to Kemper's Pitch, sprang upward toward Kasreyn's private demesne.

Covenant mounted like a blaze into a night sky. The climb was long, should have been arduous; but wild magic inured him to exertion. He breathed air like fire and did not weaken. The sirens cast glaring echoes about his head; and behind that sound he heard hustin pounding heavily after them as rapidly as the constriction of the stairway permitted. But he was condor-swift and puissant, outrunning any pursuit. In passion like the leading edge of an apotheosis, he felt he could have entered Sandgorgons Doom itself and been untouched.

Yet under the wild magic and the exultation, his mind remained clear. Kasreyn was a mighty thaumaturge. He had reigned over this region of the Earth for centuries. And if Covenant did not contrive a defence against the pursuing Guards, he would be forced to slay them all. That prospect struck cold through him. When this transport ended, how would he bear the weight of so much bloodshed?

As he entered the large chamber where the Lady Alif had attempted his seduction, he fought down his power, reduced it to a guttering suggestion around his ring. The effort made his head spin like vertigo; but he ground his teeth until the pressure was contained. It laboured in him; he feared he would not be able to hold it for long. Harshly, he called Brinn back from the ironwork ascent to Kasreyn's lucubrium.

The Haruchai looked at him with an inflection of surprise. In response, Covenant jerked a nod upward. “That's my job.” His voice was stretched taut by restraint. Already, the lid he had placed over the pressure seemed to bulge and crack. “You can't help me there. I won't risk you. And I need you here.” The sounds of pursuit rose clearly through the open doorway. “Keep those Guards off my back.”

Brinn measured Covenant with a stare, then nodded. The stairway was narrow. Alone, he might be able to hold this chamber against any number of hustin. The task appeared to please him, as if it were condign work for an Haruchai. He gave the ur-Lord a formal bow. Covenant moved toward the stairs.

Still Findail remained at his back. The Elohim was speaking again, adjuring Covenant to withhold. Covenant did not listen to the words; but he used Findail's voice to help him steady himself. In his own fashion, Findail represented a deeper danger than Kasreyn of the Gyre. And Covenant had conceived a way to confront the two of them together.

If he could retain control long enough.

Without the wild magic, he had to ascend on the ordinary strength of his legs. The desert night was chilly; but sweat stood on his brow as if it were being squeezed from his skull by the wailing of the sirens. His restraint affected him like fear. His heart thudded, breathing rasped, as he climbed the final stairs and came face to face with the Kemper.

Kasreyn stood near one wall of the lucubrium, behind a long table. The table held several urns, flasks, retorts, as well as a large iron bowl which steamed faintly. He was in the process of preparing his arts.

A few steps to one side was the chair in which he had once put Covenant to the question. But the chair's apparatus had been altered. Now golden circles like enlarged versions of his ocular sprouted from it in all directions on thin stalks like wands.

Covenant braced himself, expecting an immediate attack-Fire heaved at the leash of his will. But the Kemper cast a rheumy glance at him, a look of old disdain, then returned his attention to his bowl. His son slept like a dead thing in the harness on his back. “So you have mastered a Sandgorgon.”

His voice rustled like the folds of his robe. For centuries, he had demonstrated that nothing could harm him. Honninscrave's blow had left no mark. “That is a mighty deed. It is said among the Bhrathair that any man who slays a Sandgorgon will live forever.”

Covenant struggled for control. Venom and power raged to be released. He felt that he was suffocating on his own restraint. The blood in his veins was afire with reasons for this man's death. But standing there now, facing the gaddhi's Kemper, he found he could not self-consciously choose to kill. No reasons were enough. He had already killed too many people.

He answered hoarsely, like a rasp of bereavement, “I didn't.”

That caught Kasreyn's attention. “Not?” Suddenly, he was angry. “Are you mad? Without death, no power can recompel that beast to its imprisonment. Alone, it may bring down upon us the former darkness. You are mighty, in good sooth,” he snapped. “A mighty cause of ruin for all Bhrathairealm.”

His ire sounded sincere; but a moment later he seemed to forget it. Other concerns preoccupied him. He looked back into his bowl as if he were waiting for something. “But no matter,” he murmured. “I will attend to that in my time. And you will not escape me. Already, I have commanded the destruction of your much vaunted Giantship. Its flames brighten Bhrathairain Harbour even as you stand thus affronting me.”

Covenant flinched involuntarily. Starfare's Gem in flames! Strands of wild magic slipped their fetters, reached for the Kemper. The effort of calling them back hurt Covenant's chest like a rupture. His skull throbbed with strain as he articulated thickly, “Kasreyn, I can kill you.” White fire outlined each word. “You know I can kill you. Stop what you're doing. Stop that attack on the ship. Let my friends go.” Power blurred his sight like the frightful imprecision of nightmare. “I'll burn every bone in your body to cinders.”

“Will you, forsooth?” The Kemper laughed-a barking sound without humour. His gaze was as raw and pitiless as the sirens. “You forget that I am Kasreyn of the Gyre. By my arts was Sandgorgons Doom formed and this Sandhold raised, and I hold all Bhrathairealm in my hands. You are mighty in your way and possess that which I desire. But you are yet petty and incapable withal, and you offend me.”

He spoke sternly; but still he did not attack. With one hand, he made a slow, unthreatening gesture toward his chair. “Have you observed my preparation?” His manner was firm. “Such gold is rare in the Earth. Mayhap it may be found no otherwhere than here. Therefore came I hither, taking the mastery of Bhrathairealm upon myself. And therefore also do I strive to extend my sway over other realms, other regions, seeking more gold. With gold I perform my arts.” He watched Covenant steadily. “With gold I will destroy you.”

As he uttered those words, his hands jumped forward, tipped and hurled his iron bowl.

A black liquid as viscid as blood poured over the table, setting it afire-splashed to the floor, chewed holes in the stone-gusted and spattered toward Covenant.

Acid: vitriol as potent as the dark fluid of ur-viles. Instinctively, Covenant flung up his arms, throwing white flame in all directions. Then, a fraction of a heartbeat later, he rallied. Focusing his power, he swept the black liquid away.

During that splinter of time, the Kemper moved. As Covenant's eyes cleared, Kasreyn no longer stood behind his table. He was sitting in his chair, surrounded by small golden hoops.

Covenant could not hold back. The wild magic required utterance. Too swiftly for restraint or consideration, he flung silver-white at the Kemper-a blast feral enough to incinerate any mortal flesh.

He barely heard Findail's anguished shout: 'No!"

But his fire did not reach Kasreyn. It was sucked into the many circles around the chair. Then it recoiled, crashing throughout the lucubrium with doubled, tripled ferocity.

Tables shattered; shelves burst from the walls; shards scored the air with shrill pain. A rampage of debris and fire assailed Covenant from every side at once. Only his reflexive shout of wild magic saved him.

The concussion knocked him to the floor. The stone seemed to quiver under him like wounded flesh. Echoes of argent reeled across his vision.

The echoes did not dissipate. Kasreyn had taken hold of Covenant's defensive conflagration. It burned wildly back and forth within the gold circles, mounting flare after flare. Its increase scalded the air.

Findail crouched in front of Covenant. “Withhold, you fool!” His fists pounded at Covenant's shoulders. “Do you not hear me? You will havoc the Earth! You must withhold!”

Caught in a dazzling confusion of flares and pressure, Covenant could hardly think. But a hard grim part of him remained clear, wrestled for choice. He panted, “I've got to stop him. If I don't, he'll destroy the quest.” Kill Linden. The Giants. The Haruchai. “There won't be anybody left to defend the Earth.”

“Madman!” Findail retorted. “It is you who imperil the Earth, you! Are you blind to the purpose of the Despiser's venom?”

At that, Covenant reeled; but he did not break. Holding himself in a grip of ire and fear, he demanded, “Then you stop him!”

The Appointed flinched. “I am Elohim. The Elohim do not take life.”

“One or the other.” Flame rose in Covenant's voice. “Stop him. Or answer my questions. All of them. Why you're here. What you're afraid of. Why you want me to hold back.” Findail did not move. Kasreyn's power mounted toward cataclysm moment by moment. “Make up your mind.”

The Elohim drew a breath like a sob. For an instant, his yellow eyes were damp with pain.

Then his form frayed, melted. He lifted into the air in the shape of a bird.

Fire coruscated around him. He flitted scatheless through it, a swift darting of Earthpower. Elongating and flattening himself as he flew, he swooped like a manta toward the Kemper.

Before Kasreyn could react, Findail flashed past his face, pounced onto his son.

At once, the Elohim became a hood over the infant's head. He sealed himself under the small chin, behind the downy-haired skull, clung there like a second skin.

Suffocating the child.

A scream ripped from Kasreyn's chest. He sprang upright, staggered out of the protection of his chair. His hands groped behind him, clawed at Findail; but he could not rake the Elohim loose. His limbs went rigid. Asphyxiation mottled his face with splotches of madness and terror.

Again he screamed — a cry of horror from the roots of his being:

"My life!"

The shriek seemed to break his soul. He toppled to the floor like a shattered tower.

Slowly, the theurgy blazing about his chair began to fade.

Covenant was on his feet as if he had intended to rush to Kasreyn's aid. Pressure for power and abomination of death shone from him like the onset of an involuntary ecstasy.

Lifting back into human shape, Findail stepped away from the Kemper's body. His visage was engraved with grief. Softly, he said, “That which he bore was no son of his flesh. It was of the croyel-beings of hunger and sustenance which demnify the dark places of the Earth. Those who bargain thus for life or might with the croyel are damned beyond redemption.” His voice sounded like mist and tears. “Ring-wielder, are you content?”

Covenant could not respond. He hung on the verge of eruption, had no choice but to flee the damage he was about to do. Fumbling for mastery, he went to the stairs. They seemed interminable. Yet somehow he withheld himself-a nerve-tearing effort he made more for Brinn's sake than his own. So that Brinn would not die in the outcome.

In the chamber below, he found the Haruchai. Brinn had choked the stair so effectively with fallen hustin that he had nothing to do except wait until the Guards farther down were able to clear their way.

He looked a question at Covenant; but Covenant had no answer for him either. Trembling in every muscle, the Unbeliever unreined only enough wild magic to open the long dead gyre of the stairway. Then he went downward with Brinn and Findail behind him.

Before he reached The Majesty, he lost control. Flame tore him out of himself. He became a blaze of destruction. The stairs lurched. Cracks leaped through the stone.

Far above him, the top of Kemper's Pitch began to crumble.

Twenty: Fire in Bhrathairain

LINDEN Avery could see and hear normally. Cail was steering her along a subterranean passage lit only at distant intervals by torches. The First and Honninscrave were ahead of her, following a woman who appeared to be the Lady Alif. Pitchwife and Seadreamer were nearby. Seadreamer cradled Ceer across his massive forearms. Vain moved like a shadow at the rear of the company. But Covenant was gone. Brinn and Findail were nowhere to be seen. Linden observed these facts as clearly as the light permitted. In a sense, she understood them. Her upper arms throbbed, especially where Cail had bruised her.

But the reportage of her senses conveyed so little meaning that it might have been in an alien language. Covenant was gone. Behind what she saw and heard, behind her physical sensations, she was a child who had just lost a new friend; and nothing around her offered any solace for her grief.

Because Cail drew her forward by the sore part of her arm, she went with him. But she was preoccupied with images like anticipations of bereavement, and that pain did not touch her.

Later, the company arrived at a scene of destruction. A long chamber which had apparently been a Guard-room lay under the foundations of a section of the Sandhold's outer wall. Now both were a jumbled slope of fallen wreckage leading toward the open night. Covenant was gone. The corpses of hustin sprawled or protruded at spots from the chaos the Sandgorgon had made. Stark against the stars, the rim of the Sandwall was visible through the breach.

Without hesitation, the Lady Alif tried to climb the slope. But the ragged chunks of rock were too large for her. The First lifted the Lady onto her own strong back. Then she bounded upward.

Honninscrave did the same with Linden. One of his huge hands locked her wrists together under his beard. His shoulders hurt her arms. She began remembering her father.

In spite of his deformed chest and damaged head, Pitchwife ascended without difficulty. He was a Giant, familiar with stone and climbing. Cail's strength and balance compensated for his human stature. Vain was capable of anything. Only Seadreamer had trouble: holding Ceer, he did not have the assistance of his hands. But Pitchwife helped him. As rapidly as possible, the company went up into the night.

When they reached the open sand within the Sandwall, the First set the Lady Alif down. Honninscrave lowered Linden to the ground. Now she saw that the hole in the First Circinate was matched by a breach in the Sandwall. Given time and freedom, the Sandgorgon could almost certainly have brought down the entire Sandhold. But apparently the thoughts of those beasts did not run to sustained destruction. Perhaps they had no thought of destruction at all, but simply broke down obstacles which stood between them and their obscure desires.

In the distance rose the wail of sirens. Raw and shrill, like the crying of stone, the Sandhold's outrage cut through the moonlight and the dark.

But other cries were in Linden's ears-her own screams as she begged at her dying father. Night had flooded her soul then, though her father had died in daylight. He had sat in a half-broken rocker in the attic with blood pouring like despair from his gashed wrists. She could smell the sweet reek of blood, feel her former nausea more explicitly than Cail's grasp on her arm. Her father had thrown the key out the window, enforcing his self-pity on her, denying her the power to save him. Darkness had risen at her out of the floorboards and the walls, out of his mouth-his mouth stretched black in fathomless abjection and triumph, the insatiable hunger for darkness. He had spattered blood like Hergrom's on her. The attic which she had thought of as her personal haven had become horrible.

The Lady Alif led the company westward, hastening toward the nearest stairs to the top of the Sandwall. She was too badly battered to sustain any pace faster than a quick walk. The First strode beside her. The chain Honninscrave carried clanked faintly over the scrunch and shuffle of feet. Repeatedly, he surged ahead in his urgency for his ship. Cail drew Linden forward. Her steps were awkward on the sand, but the emptiness which had come upon her from Covenant made her helpless to resist. She was helpless to save her father. She had tried-tried everything her young mind had been able to conceive. In her last desperation, she had told him that she would not love him if he died. He had replied, You never loved me anyway. Then he had bled to death as if to demonstrate that his words were true: a lesson of darkness which had paralyzed her body for days afterward while it sank down into the roots of her being.

Darkness. The light of a moon only one day from its full and already descending toward the west. Sirens. And then, in the shadow of the Sandwall, stairs.

They were wide. The questers ascended them in a scant cordon around Linden and Cail, Seadreamer and Ceer. Linden's exhausted flesh was not equal to this climb, this pace. But her past-locked mind made no effort to hang back against Cail's insistence. Covenant was gone. Of all her companions, only Pitchwife seemed vulnerable to fatigue. The distortion of his chest cramped his lungs, exacerbated his movements, so that his respiration wheezed and his strides appeared to stagger. He might have been the only mortal friend Linden had.

As she was drawn back into the moonlight, she stumbled involuntarily. Cail snatched her upright again like the shout which jerked across the Sandwall, piercing the ululation of the sirens anharmonically. “We are seen!” the Lady Alif panted. “Your pardon. I fear I have led you amiss.” Though she was struggling for breath, she bore herself bravely. “From the moment when I conceived the desire to exact from Kasreyn the price of my humiliation, all my choices have gone awry. We are discovered too soon.”

“Covenant Giantfriend will obtain the payment you desire,” growled the First. She was staring toward the south. In answer to the shout, squat dark shapes had begun to appear there as hustin emerged from the inner passages of the Sandwall. “For the rest, have no fear.” Her fists anchored her courage to her new sword. “We are free in the night, with our way plain before us. We will live or die as we may, and no blame to you.”

Like a glare of iron in the moonlight, she started toward the outer arm of the wall which led to Bhrathairain and the Harbour. The rest of the company followed as if she had become as certain as the long surge of the Sea.

Dozens and then scores of the Guards came in pursuit, brandishing spears. They looked black and fatal against the pale stone. But they had been formed for strength rather than swiftness; and the company was able to remain ahead of them. For a short time, the child in Linden recovered a semblance of normalcy as her life settled into new patterns after her father's death. Masked by the resilience of youth, she had lived as if the very bones of her personality had not been bent and reshaped by what had happened. Yet her mother's continually reiterated self-pity and blame had eroded her as rocks were worn away by water. Pretending that she did not care, she had laid the foundation for all her later pretences, all her denials. Even her commitment to the medical burden of life and death had taken the form of denial rather than affirmation.

Covenant was gone. Her senses functioned normally, but she did not know that she was returning to herself slowly from the void where she had been left and lost by her efforts to save him. The company was nearing the arm of the Sandwall which formed the western courtyard between Bhrathairain and the Sandhold. And from that direction came pouring hustin like a flood along the top of the wall. Already the junction of the inner and outer walls was blocked.

For a few strides, the First continued forward, narrowing the gap between her and the path she wished to take toward Bhrathairain Harbour. Then she halted so that the company would have a moment in which to prepare for battle.

The Guards began closing rapidly. They made no sound except the clatter of their feet. They were creations of the Kemper's will, lacking even the capacity for independent blood-lust or triumph. The Sandwall stood level with the rim of the First Circinate; but the Sandhold towered toward the stars for four more levels, dominating all that side of the firmament. There Kemper's Pitch affronted the heavens. It seemed high beyond comprehension and as ineluctable as any doom. No flight could escape the purview of that eminence. Kasreyn's lust for eternity was written where any eye might read it.

Through the stone of the Pitch, Linden's senses caught hints of white fire. They affected her like glimpses of her mother's cancer. The sirens cried out like her mother's terror.

In a flat voice, Ceer demanded to be set down so that he would not hamper Seadreamer in the coming fight. At a nod from the First, Seadreamer lowered the injured Haruchai gently to his good leg.

Around Linden, the Lady Alif, and Ceer, the four Giants and Cail placed themselves in a protective formation, at the points of a pentacle of combat.

Linden saw what they were doing. But she understood only that they had turned their backs. The doctors had turned their backs on her mother. Not on her mother's melanoma, which they fought with unremitting tenacity, careless of the battleground on which their struggle was waged. But to the older woman's abjection they had been deaf and unheeding, as if they were unable to grasp the fact that she did not fear death as much as pain or slow suffocation. Her lungs were filling with a fluid which no postural drainage could relieve. She was afraid not of dying but of what dying cost, just as she had always been afraid of the cost of life.

And there had been no one to listen to her except Linden herself. A girl of fifteen, with a black hunger where her soul should have been. Please, God, let me die. She had been alone in her mother's room day after day because there had been no one else. Even the nurses had stopped coming, except as required by the doctors' orders.

The Lady Alif placed her back to Linden's. Linden could not see any faces except Ceer's and Vain's. The Demondim-spawn was as blank as death. Sweat left trails of discounted pain down the sides of Ceer's visage. Covenant was gone. In the moonlight, the hustin lost their human aspect, became beasts.

The only sounds were the haste of heavy feet, the raw threat of the sirens, the First's defiance. Then the massed Guards struck at both sides of the company at once.

Their movements were sluggish and vague. Kasreyn's mind was elsewhere, and they lacked precise instructions. Perhaps they could have destroyed the company immediately if they had simply stood back and thrown their spears. But they did not. Instead, they charged forward, seeking combat hand-to-hand.

The First's blade shed faint lightning under the gleam of the moon. Honninscrave's chain smashed about him like a bludgeon. Pitchwife rent a spear from the first hustin to assail him, then jabbed that razor-tip in the faces of his attackers. Seadreamer slapped weapons aside, stepped within range of the spears to fell Guards with both fists.

Lacking the sheer bulk of the Giants, Cail could not match their blunt feats. But his swift precision surpassed the hustin.

He broke the shafts in their hands, blinded their eyes, impelled them into collision with each other.

Yet the top of the Sandwall thronged with Guards, and their numbers were irresistible. The First dealt out death around her, wielded her blade as suddenly as fire; but she could not prevent the gushing corpses from being thrust against her, could not keep the blood from making slick swaths under her feet. Honninscrave's chain frequently tangled itself among the spears, and while he tore it free he was forced to retreat. Pitchwife held his position, but slew few hustin. And neither Seadreamer nor Cail could completely seal their sides of the defence. Guards threatened to break into the zone behind them.

Kemper's Pitch stood over the company as if Kasreyn's attention were bent in that direction, slowly squeezing the questers in the fist of his malice. For an instant, abrupt wild magic made the high stone appear translucent; but it had no effect upon the hustin. The sirens screamed like the glee of ghouls.

And a Guard slipped into the centre of the defence.

Charging massively forward, it aimed its spear at Linden.

She did not move. She was snared by the old seduction of death-the preterite and immedicable conviction that any violence directed at her was condign, that she deserved the punishment she had always denied. Let me die. She had inherited that cry, and nothing would ever silence it. She deserved it. Her bereft gaze followed the advancing iron as if it were welcome.

But then Ceer hopped in front of her. Half immobilized by the splints on his leg, the bindings around his shoulder, he could not defend her in any other way. Diving forward, he accepted the spear-tip in his belly.

The blow drove him against her. They fell together to the stone.

Savagely, Seadreamer wheeled, broke the Guard's back.

Ceer sprawled across Linden's legs. The weight of his life pinned her there. Blood tried to pour from his guts, but he jammed his fist into the wound. Around her, her companions fought at the edges of their lives, survived for moments longer because they were too stubborn to acknowledge defeat. Impressions of horror shone out of Kemper's Pitch. But Linden was unable to lift her eyes from Ceer. The torn agony within him etched itself across her nerves. His features were empty of import; but his pain was as vivid as memory in her.

His gaze focused on her face. It was acute with need. Moonlight burned like fever in his orbs. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper of blood panting between his lips.

“Help me rise. I must fight.”

She heard him-and did not hear him. Let me die. She had heard that appeal before, heard it until it had taken command of her. It had become the voice of her private darkness, her intimate hunger. The stone around her was littered with fallen spears, some whole, some broken. Unconsciously, her hands found an iron-tipped section of wood as long as her forearm. When Gibbon-Raver had touched her, part of her had leaped up in recognition and lust: her benighted powerlessness had responded to power. And now that response came welling back from its fountainhead of violence. You never loved me anyway. Silence bereft her of the severe resolve which had kept that black greed under control. Power!

Gripping the wood like a spike, she copied the decision which had shaped her life. Ceer lifted the fist from his belly too slowly to stop her. She raised both arms and tried to drive the spearpoint down his throat.

Cail kicked out at her. His foot caught the upper part of her right arm, where the bruises were deepest, made her miss her thrust and flop backward like a dismembered doll. The stone stunned her. For a moment, she could not breathe. Like her mother. Her head reeled as if she had been thrown into the sky. Her arm went numb from shoulder to fingertip.

Sobbing filled her mind. But to her outer hearing that grief sounded like the sharp dismay of animals. The hustin were wailing together-one loss in many throats. The fighting had stopped.

Panting hugely, the First gasped, “Has she-?”

Some of the Guards flung themselves from the parapet toward the Sandhold. Others shambled like cripples toward the nearest descents from the Sandwall. None of them remembered the company at all.

“No,” replied Cail inflexibly. “Her intent failed. It is the wound which reaves him of life.” His voice held no possibility of forgiveness.

Linden felt Ceer's superficial weight being lifted from her legs. She did not know what she was saying. She possessed only a distant consciousness that there were words in her mouth.

“You never loved me anyway.”

Cail dragged her to her feet. His visage was adamantine in the moonlight. His hands vised her right arm; but she felt nothing there.

The Giants were not looking at her. They stared up at Kemper's Pitch as if they were entranced.

High against the heavens, worms of white fire crawled through the stone, gnawing it inexorably to rubble. Already the top of the spire had begun to collapse. And moment by moment more of the Pitch crumbled, falling ponderously toward ruin. Wild magic glared against the dark dome of the sky. Havoc veined the base of Kasreyn's tower like serpents.

Through her teeth, the First breathed, “Thus have the hustin lost their master.”

Faintly underfoot Linden sensed the plunge of the spire. And those vibrations were followed by other shocks as megalithic shards of stone crashed onto The Majesty.

“Now,” Pitchwife coughed, “let us praise the name of Covenant Giantfriend-and pray that he may endure the destruction he has wrought. Surely The Majesty also will fall-and perhaps the Tier of Riches as well. Much will be lost, both lives and wealth.” His tone faded into an ache. “I will grieve for the Chatelaine, whom Kasreyn held in cruel thrall.”

“Aye,” Honninscrave affirmed softly. “And I will grieve for the Sandhold itself. Kasreyn of the Gyre wrought ill in many things, but in stone he wrought well.”

Seadreamer remained locked in his muteness, hugged his arms like bonds over his heart. But his eyes reflected the feral argent emblazoning the heavens. And Vain stood as straight as a salute, facing the site of Covenant's power with a grin like the ancient ferocity of the ur-viles.

Around them, the air shivered to the timbre of wreckage.

Then the Lady Alif spoke across the incessant squalling of the sirens. “We must go.” Her features were stretched taut by what she saw, by the ruin of the life she recognized-and yet elevated also, gifted with a new vision to replace the old. “Kasreyn is ended-and his Guards with him. Yet our peril remains. None now in the Sandhold can call back the commands he has given. And I fear as well that there will be war this night, to determine who will hold power in Bhrathairealm. You must flee if you wish to live.”

The First nodded. She bent quickly to look at Ceer. He was dead-had bled to death like Linden's father, though the two men could not have been more dissimilar. The First touched his cheek in benediction, sent a dark glance at Linden. But she did not speak. Honninscrave was still urgent for his ship. Picking her way among the dead and dying hustin, she set off along the top of the Sandwall at a swinging stride.

Honninscrave joined her. Pitchwife scrambled to follow. Moaning inarticulately deep in his throat, Seadreamer left Ceer. And Cail, who had not eased one jot of his grip on Linden's lifeless arm, impelled her roughly after the Giants.

She had no sensation from the shoulder to the hand of her right arm. It hung strengthless and empty in spite of the way her heart laboured. Cail's kick must have crushed a nerve. There was blood on her head, responsibility which she had never acknowledged to anyone. Her pants were thickly soaked with blood. They stuck to her legs like sin. The void was closing more rapidly now, afflicting her with pangs of self-awareness. How could she walk with Ceer's life so intimately drenched about her? It was the same potent Haruchai blood with which the Clave had fed the Banefire for generations; and she was only one ineffectual woman, numbed of arm and soul. She would never escape the sweet cloying stain and adhesion of blame.

The sounds of breakage from the heights of the Sandhold went on, a granite counterpoint to the sirens; but the wild light of power began to fade. Darkness slowly regained its hold over Bhrathairealm. Moonlight covered the huge bulk of the Sandhold and the wide ridge of the Sandwall with a suggestion of evanescence, lay across the duned waste of the Great Desert like the caress of a lover. In that allusive light, the pulsing screech of the alarms sounded fanatic and belorn.

The company was drawing closer to their source. As the questers hastened out onto the arm which stretched toward the Harbour, crossed above the western courtyard, the screaming seemed to change pitch. It arose from the gargoyles which crouched like basilisks over the inner gates.

Instinctively, the companions quickened pace. The gates themselves appeared deserted. The hustin had left their posts, and the gaddhi's Horse was surely occupied elsewhere. But the sirens still compelled apprehension and flight. Kasreyn was dead; the peril he had set in motion was not. As swiftly as

Linden and the Lady Alif could move, the company hurried northward.

From the juncture beyond the courtyard, the wall sloped downward as the terrain declined toward the sea. In moments, stone came between the questers and the sirens, blunting the wail. And the companions were able to see out over Bhrathairain.

Laid bare under the moon, the town swept toward the Harbour in a complex network of fixed and moving lights. The lamps of aroused homes and defended merchantries stood against roving brands held by looters, or soldiers, or fleeing sailors. Bhrathairain looked like a writhe of sparks, as if the whole town were gathering toward flame.

In the Harbour, the fire had already begun.

The Giants sprang to the parapet, stared fervidly toward the berth where they had left Starfare's Gem. Honninscrave chewed curses as if he could hardly prevent himself from leaping over the wall.

Linden was not as far-eyed as either the Giants or the Haruchai. But she was nearly restored to herself. The void still muffled all her thoughts and movements as if her brain were swaddled in cotton; but it did not keep her from tasting the urgency of her companions. She followed them to the parapet, tried to see what they saw.

In the area where the dromond had been docked, all the ships were ablaze.

The shock brought her back into her body. The weight of her numb arm, and Cail's grip on it, became suddenly too heavy to be borne. She stumbled forward. At once, the Haruchai hauled her back. The force of his jerk swung her to face him.

She confronted his flat face, the fires reflecting in his eyes. “I can't-” Her voice seemed as inutile as her arm. There were so many things she should say to him, would have to say to him. But not now. She swallowed thickly. “Can't see. That far. What happened to the ship?”

Cail's gaze narrowed as he gauged the change in her. Slowly, he unclawed his fingers from her arm. His expression did not relent. But he lifted one hand to point toward the Harbour.

Pitchwife had heard her. He placed a hand on her shoulder as if he were accepting her from Cail-or perhaps interposing himself between them-and steered her to a view of the bay.

As he did so, he spoke carefully, like a man whose lungs had been damaged by his exertions.

“This is the Anchormaster's doing. It was his intent to contrive a means that we might be warned, should the Bhrathair once again attempt harm to Starfare's Gem. Now it appears that such an attempt was indeed made. Therefore he has set this fire, hoping that some word of it might tell us of his peril.”

“But where-?” Her thoughts limped after him. She saw nothing along the wharves but one huge blaze. “Where's the ship?”

“There.” He directed her gaze some distance out from the piers. Still she could not see the dromond. “Sevinhand has done bravely.” Pitchwife's voice was tight in his throat. “But now Starfare's Gem must strive for its life.” Then she saw it.

Small in the distance, a fireball arced silently over the black face of the water, casting a lurid light and wide reflections. It came from an armoured galleass with a catapult braced on its decks.

The fireball carried toward the unmistakable stone spars of Starfare's Gem.

Sevinhand had raised every span of canvas which the Giantship's two remaining masts could hold. Vivid in that moment of light, the gap between them gaped like a fatal wound; and the sails themselves seemed to reach out for the fireball.

Other ships were there as well: two penteconters nearly as large as Starfare's Gem; two triremes, both massively iron-prowed for ramming; another catapult-armed galleass. They were hounding the dromond, seeking a way to bring it down. But it was already turning. The fireball carried over its stern, crashed into the oily heaving of the sea. At once, the ball detonated, spreading sheets of flame across the water. Gouts and blazes struck the Giantship's sides; but they fell back from the moire-stone, did no damage.

Before the flames guttered out, Linden saw one of the triremes curving inward, racing to sink its prow athwart the dromond. Ranks of oars frothed the sea. Then the light was gone. In spite of the moon, the ships disappeared.

Through his teeth, Honninscrave snarled instructions Sevinhand could not hear. The Master was desperate for his vessel. Linden held her breath involuntarily. No sound reached them. The tumult in Bhrathairain, the battle in the Harbour, were inaudible through the sirens. But then a new fireball kicked upward from the second galleass. It had been hastily launched, poorly aimed. It accomplished nothing except illumination.

In the glare, Linden saw Starfare's Gem veering through the wreckage of the trireme. The back of the attacker had been broken. Its remains went down under the dromond's heel. For a moment, the flames were full of tiny writhing shapes. Then the darkness returned, effacing Starfare's Gem as it moved to engage the nearest penteconter.

Honninscrave and Seadreamer were unable to look away from the combat. But the Lady Alif pulled at the First's arm. With an effort, the First wrenched her attention back from the Harbour.

“You must hasten to the Spikes,” the Lady was saying. “Be wary-they are warded. But only there may you hope to rejoin your vessel. And the way is long.”

“Do you not accompany us?” the First asked in quick concern.

“There is a stair nigh,” came the reply. “I will return to my people.”

“Lady.” The First's voice was soft with protest. “What life do you hope here? After this night, Bhrathairealm will not be what it was. You have risked much for us. Let us in return bear you from this place. Our way will be neither easy nor unjeopardous, but it will spare you the whims of tyrants.”

But the Lady Alif had found strengths in herself which appeared to surprise her. “You speak truly,” she said as if in wonder at her own audacity. “Bhrathairealm will not be what it was. And I have forgotten the trick of taking joy in the whims of tyrants. But now there will be work for any who no longer love the gaddhi. And I possess some of the secrets of the Sandhold. That knowledge may be of service to those who do not wish to replace one Rant Absolain with another.” She stood erect in her tattered robes, a woman who had at last come into her heart's estate. “I thank you for what you have offered-and for what you have wrought this night. But I will depart now. The Spikes are warded. Be wary.”

“Lady!” the First called after her; but she had already retreated into the dark, and the shadows along the parapets had swallowed her. Gently, the First sighed, “Go well. There is hope and beauty for any folk who give birth to such as you.” But no one heard her except Linden and Pitchwife.

Shivering to herself, Linden turned back toward the Harbour in time to see Dawngreeter burning like a torch.

Faintly, she descried Giants in the rigging. They cut loose the sail, sent it fluttering like a wounded bird into the sea. Before the light ended, they were busy clewing another sail to the yards.

The dromond had left more damage in its wake. One of the penteconters and a galleass had collided side-to-side. Many of the penteconter's oars were shattered; and that wreckage made a shambles of the galleass's decks, crippling the catapult. While the three remaining vessels scrambled to renew their attack, Starfare's Gem rode the night breeze toward open water.

“Now!” the First snapped, breaking the fixed attention of her comrades. “We must make speed toward the Spikes. The Giantship will gain them with fire and pursuit at its back. It must not be asked to delay there for our coming.”

Shadows of fear and wrath obscured Honninscrave's face; but he did not pause. Though he could not keep his gaze from the Harbour, he swung northward, broke into a trot.

Assuming that she would be obeyed, the First followed him.

But Linden hesitated. She was already exhausted. Ceer's death was slowly encrusting her pants, and she did not know what had become of Covenant. The things she had done left a metallic taste of horror in her mouth. First Hergrom and now Ceer. Like her mother. The doctors had refused to accept responsibility for her mother's death, and now she was a doctor, and she had tried to kill Ceer. Covenant was gone.

While the First fled, Linden turned back toward the Sandhold, hunting for any sign of power which would indicate that Covenant was still alive.

There was nothing. The donjon hunched against the night sky like a ruin. Behind its pale walls, it was full of a darkness which the moon could not assuage. The only discernible life was the life of the sirens. They squalled as if their rage would never be appeased.

Her right arm hung at her side as if she had taken Covenant's leprosy upon herself. Stiffly, she started toward the Sandhold.

Cail caught her by the arm, swung her around as if he meant to strike her. But Pitchwife and Seadreamer had not left her. Pitchwife's eyes burned as he slapped Cail's grasp away from her. A distant part of her wondered if she were going to lose her arm. With a gesture, Pitchwife summoned Seadreamer. At once, the mute Giant lifted her into his embrace. Carrying her as he had carried her through Sarangrave Flat, he went in pursuit of Honninscrave and the First.

Gradually, the sirens faded into the distance. The company was moving faster than Covenant would ever be able to follow. If he were still able to follow at all. The rims of her right shoulder ached dimly, like the shock after an amputation. When she looked up, she saw nothing but the long scar like a slash of old moonlight under Seadreamer's eyes. The position in which he held her blocked Starfare's Gem's progress from view. She had been reduced to this and lacked even the strength for protest.

She was taken by surprise when Seadreamer abruptly wheeled back to the south and halted. The other Giants had also stopped. Cail stood poised on the balls of his feet. They all peered into the vague light toward Vain-or something beyond Vain.

Then she heard it: hooves beating the stone of the Sandwall. Iron-shod hooves, many of them. Twisting in Seadreamer's grasp, she saw a massed cluster of shadows pour forward. They appeared to surge and seethe as they galloped.

“Honninscrave,” the First said like iron, “you and Seadreamer must continue to the Spikes. Bear the Chosen and Cail Haruchai with you. Pitchwife and I will do what we may to ward you.”

Neither brother protested. No Giant of the Search could have refused her when she used that tone. Slowly, Honninscrave and Seadreamer withdrew. After only a fraction of hesitation, Cail also retreated. Vain moved to stay with Linden. Together, the First and Pitchwife stood to meet the gaddhi's Horse.

But soon both Honninscrave and Seadreamer stopped. Linden felt Seadreamer's muscles yearning toward the First. Honninscrave clenched himself as if he did not know how to abandon a comrade. Caught between conflicting needs, they watched the mounted soldiers pound forward.

The First held her falchion in her hands and waited. Pitchwife hunched forward with his hands braced on his knees, gathering breath and strength for battle. In the immanent silver of the light, they looked like colossal icons, numinously silent and puissant.

Then a command was barked in the Bhrathair tongue. The horses bunched to a halt. Sparks squealed between iron and stone.

While the others stopped, one of the mounts came dancing with froth on its lips to confront the Giants. A familiar voice said, “First of the Search, I salute you. Who would have believed you capable of so casting Bhrathairealm into chaos?”

The First made a warning sign with the tip of her sword. “Rire Grist,” she said in a voice of quiet danger. “Return whence you have come. I do not desire to shed more blood.”

The Caitiffin's mount fought its bit; he controlled the frightened animal roughly. “You mistake me.” His urbane diplomacy was gone. He sounded now like a soldier, and his tone held a note of eagerness, “Had I possessed the wisdom to take your true measure, I would have aided you earlier.” A note of ambition. “Kasreyn is dead. The gaddhi is little better than a madman. I have come to escort you to the Spikes, that at least you may hope for your vessel in safety.”

The First's blade did not waver. Softly, she asked, “Will you rule Bhrathairealm, Caitiffin?”

“If I do not, another will.”

“Perhaps,” she pursued. “Yet why do you seek to aid us?”

He had his answer ready. “I wish the goodwill of the tale you will bear to other lands. And I wish also that you should begone swiftly, that I may set about my work free of powers I can neither comprehend nor master.”

He paused, then added with palpable sincerity, “Moreover, I am grateful. Had you failed, I would not have endured long in Kasreyn's favour. Perhaps I would have been given to the Sandgorgons.” A shudder tinged his voice. “Gratitude has meaning to me.”

The First considered him for a moment. Then she demanded, “If you speak sooth, call back the warships which harry our dromond.'”

His horse flinched. He wrestled with it momentarily before he answered. “That I cannot do.” He was taut with strain. “They obey the sirens, which I know not how to silence. I have no means to make myself heard at such a distance.”

As if involuntarily, the First looked out into the Harbour. There, the swift trireme had forced Starfare's Gem to turn. The Giantship sailed broadside to the galleass, exposed for attack. The penteconter was closing rapidly.

“Then I require evidence of your good faith.” For an instant, her voice quivered; but she quickly smothered her concern with sternness. “You must send your command back to the Sandhold in search of Thomas Covenant. Those who oppose him must be stopped. He must have a mount, that he may overtake us with all haste. And you must accompany us alone. You will provide for our safety at the Spikes. And from that vantage you will seek means to be heard by these warships.” Her threat was as plain as her blade.

For a moment, the Caitiffin hesitated. He let his horse curvet as if its prancing could help him to a decision. But he had come too far to turn back. Wheeling toward his soldiers, he dismounted. One of them took the reins of his destrier while he barked a string of commands. At once, his squad turned, sprang into a gallop back up the long slope of the Sandwall.

When they were gone, Rire Grist bowed to the First. She acknowledged his decision with a nod. In silence, she put out her hand to Pitchwife's shoulder. Together, they started again toward the Spikes. If she recognized the disobedience of her companions, she did not reprove it.

With Cail at his side like a warder, Rire Grist hurried to keep pace with the Giants as they strode northward.

Another fireball revealed that Sevinhand had somehow eluded the snare of the warships. The dromond was once again cutting straight for the Spikes.

In the glare as the fireball burst across the water, the Spikes themselves were clearly visible. They rose ominously against the horizon, and the gap between them seemed too small for any escape.

Every tack and turn the Glantship was forced to make delayed its progress. The company was well in advance of the dromond as they approached the western tower. There the Caitiffin ran ahead with Cail beside him, shouted commands up at the embrasures. In moments, he was answered. The particular timbre of Seadreamer's muscles told Linden that he understood what the Bhrathair said-and that Rire Grist was not betraying the company.

But his fidelity made no impression on her. She felt empty of everything except her arm's numbness and Starfare's Gem's peril and Covenant's absence. She did not listen to the Bhrathair. Her hearing was directed back along the Sandwall toward the sirens and the hope of hoof beats.

Soldiers came out of the Spike, saluted Rire Grist. He spoke to them rapidly. They trotted back into the tower, accompanied by the Caitiffin. The First sent Honninscrave in Cail's place to ensure that Rire Grist did not change his mind. Shortly, commands echoed in the narrows as the Caitiffin shouted across to the eastern Spike.

Together, the Giants moved to the corner of the tower so that they could watch both the Harbour and the Sandwall. There they waited. In Seadreamer's arms Linden also waited. But she felt that she shared nothing with them except their silence. Her eyes did not reach as far as theirs. Perhaps her hearing also did not reach as far. And the dromond's, granite dance of survival across the water frayed her concentration. She did not know how to believe that either Covenant or the Giantship would endure.

After a long moment, Pitchwife breathed, “If he comes belatedly-If Starfare's Gem must await him within these narrows-”

“Aye,” growled the First. “No catapult will fail at such a target. Then Rire Grist's good faith will count for nothing.”

Cail did not speak. He stood with his arms folded on his chest as if his rectitude were full of violence and had to be restrained.

Softly, Pitchwife muttered, “Now, Sevinhand.” His fists beat lightly on the parapet. “Now.”

After a time which contained no sound except the distant and forlorn rage of the alarms and the faint wet soughing of water against the base of the Spike, the Sandwall suddenly echoed with the clamour of oars. Tricked by one of Sevinhand's manoeuvres, the trireme and the penteconter fought to avoid disabling each other. A fireball broke on the rocks directly below the company, sending tremors of detonation through the stone.

The blast absorbed Linden's senses. White blotches burned toward red across her vision. She did not hear him coming.

Abruptly, the Giants turned to face the crooked length of the Sandwall. Seadreamer set her on her feet. Her balance failed her; she nearly fell. Cail took three steps forward, then stopped like an act of homage.

A horse appeared to condense out of the moonlight at a run. As the thud and splash of the oars regained rhythm, hooves came staccato through the noise. Almost without transition, the horse neared the company. It stumbled to a halt, stood with its legs splayed on the edge of exhaustion. Brinn sat in the saddle.

He saluted the Giants. Lifting one leg over the saddlehorn, he dismounted. Only then did Covenant become visible. He had been crouching against the Haruchai's back as if he feared for his life-dismayed by the speed and height of the horse. Brinn had to help him down.

“Well come, Giantfriend,” the First murmured. Her tone expressed more gladness than a shout. “Well come indeed.”

From out of the dark, wings rustled. A shadow flitted up the roadway toward Covenant. For a moment, an owl poised itself in the air above him as if it meant to land on his shoulder. But then the bird and its shadow dissolved, poured together on the stone as Findail reshaped his human form. In the vague light, he looked like a man who had been horrified and could see no end to it.

Covenant stood where Brinn had set him as if all the courage had run out of him. He seemed benighted and beyond hope. He might have fallen back under the power of the Elohim. Linden started toward him without thinking. Her good arm reached out to him like an appeal.

His power-ravaged gaze turned toward her. He stared at her as if the sight surpassed everything he had suffered. “Linden-” His voice broke on her name. His arms hung at his sides as if they were weighed down by pity and need. His tone rasped with the effort he made to speak. “Are you all right?”

She dismissed the question. It had no importance compared to the anguish reflecting from his face. His dismay at all the killing he had done was palpable to her. Urgently, she said, “You had to do it. There was no other way. We'd already be dead if you hadn't.” Covenant, please! Don't blame yourself for saving our lives.

But her words brought back his pain, as if until now only his concern for her and the company had protected him from what he had done. “Hundreds of them,” he groaned; and his face crumpled like Kemper's Pitch. “They didn't have a chance.” His features seemed to break into tears, repeating the fires of the Harbour and the Spike in fragments of grief or sweat. “Findail says I'm the one who's going to destroy the Earth.”

Oh, Covenant! Linden wanted to embrace him, but her numb arm dangled from her shoulder as if it were withering.

“Giantfriend,” the First interposed, driven by exigency. “We must go down to Starfare's Gem.”

He bore himself like a cripple. Yet somewhere he found the strength to hear the First, understand her. Or perhaps it was guilt rather than strength. He moved past Linden toward the Spike as if he could not face his need for her. He was still trying to refuse her.

Unable to comprehend his abnegation, she had no choice but to follow him. Her pants had become as stiff and necessary as death after Ceer's last wound. Her arm would not move. After all, Covenant was right to refuse her. Sooner or later, the Haruchai would tell him about Ceer. Then she would never be able to touch him. When Pitchwife took the place Cail had repudiated at her side, she let him steer her into the tower.

There Honninscrave rejoined the company. Guided by information Rire Grist had given him, he led the way down a series of stairs which ended on a broad shelf of rock no more than the height of a Giant above the sea. Starfare's Gem had already thrust its prow between the Spikes.

Here at last the sirens became inaudible, drowned by the echoing surge of water. But Honninscrave made himself heard over the noise, caught the dromond's attention. Moments later, as Starfare's Gem drew abreast of the rock, lines were thrown outward. In a flurry of activity, the companions were hauled up to the decks of the Giantship.

The huge penteconter came beating into the gap hardly a spear's cast behind the dromond. But as Starfare's Gem fled, Rire Grist kept his word. He and his soldiers launched a volley of fire-arrows across the bows of the penteconter, signalling unmistakably his intent to prevent any pursuit of the Giantship. Like the Lady Alif, he had found his own conception of honour in the collapse of Kasreyn's rule.

The warship could not have been aware of that collapse. But Rire Grist was known as the Kemper's emissary. Accustomed to the authority and caprice of tyrants, the crew of the penteconter began to back oars furiously.

Lifting its sails to the wind, Starfare's Gem ran scatheless out into the open sea and the setting of the moon.

Twenty One: Mother's Child

FINALLY Linden's arm began to hurt. Her blood became acid, a slow dripping of corrosion from her shoulder down along the nerves above her elbow. Her forearm and hand still remained as numb and heavy as dead meat; but now she knew that they would eventually be restored as well. Every sensate inch of her upper arm burned and throbbed with aggrievement.

That pain demanded attention, awareness, like a scourge. Repeatedly her old black mood rolled in like a fog to obscure the landscape of her mind; and repeatedly the hurt whipped it back. You never loved me anyway. When she looked out from her cabin at the gray morning lying fragmented on the choppy seas, her eyes misted and ran as if she were dazzled by sheer frustration. Her right hand lay in her lap. She kneaded it fiercely, constantly, with her left, trying to force some meaning into the inert digits. Ceer! she moaned to herself. The thought of what she had done made her writhe.

She was sitting in her cabin as she had sat ever since Pitchwife had brought her below. His concern had expressed itself in murmurings and weak jests, tentative offers of consolation; but he had not known what to do with her, and so he had left her to herself. Shortly after dawn-a pale dawn, obscured by clouds-he had returned with a tray of food. But she had not spoken to him. She had been too conscious of who it was that served her. Pitchwife, not Cail. The judgment of the Haruchai hung over her as if her crimes were inexpiable.

She understood Cail. He did not know how to forgive. And that was just She also did not know.

The burning spread down into her biceps. Perhaps she should have taken off her clothes and washed them. But Ceer's blood suited her. She deserved it. She could no more have shed that blame than Covenant could have removed his leprosy. Suffering on the rack of his guilt and despair, he had held himself back from her as if he did not merit her concern and she had missed her chance to touch him. One touch might have been enough. The image of him that she had met when she had opened herself to him, rescued him from the affliction of the Elohim, was an internal ache for which she had no medicine and no anodyne-an image as dear and anguished as love. But surely by now Cail had told him about Ceer. And anything he might have felt toward her would be curdled to hate. She did not know how to bear it.

Yet it had to be borne. She had spent too much of her life fleeing. Her ache seemed to expand until it filled the cabin. She would never forget the blood that squeezed rhythmically, fatally, past the pressure of Ceer's fist. She rose to her feet. Her pants scraped her thighs, had already rubbed the skin raw. Her numb hand and elbow dangled from her shoulder as if they had earned extirpation. Stiffly, she moved to the door, opened it, and went out to face her ordeal.

The ascent to the afterdeck was hard for her. She had been more than a day without food. The exertions of the previous night had exhausted her. And Starfare's Gem was not riding steadily. The swells were rough, and the dromond bucked its way through them as if the loss of its midmast had made it erratic. But behind the sounds of wind and sea, she could hear voices slapping against each other in contention. That conflict pulled her toward it like a moth toward flame.

Gusts of wind roiled about her as she stepped out over the storm-sill to the afterdeck. The sun was barely discernible beyond the gray wrack which covered the sea, presaging rain somewhere but not here, not this close to the coast of Bhrathairealm and the Great Desert.

The coast itself was no longer visible. The Giantship was running at an angle northwestward across the froth and chop of the waves; and the canvas gave out muffled retorts, fighting the unreliable winds. Looking around the deck, Linden saw that Pitchwife had indeed been able to repair the side of the vessel and the hole where Foodfendhall had been, making the dromond seaworthy again. He had even contrived to build the starboard remains of the hall into a housing for the galley. Distressed though she was, she felt a pang of untainted gratitude toward the deformed Giant. In his own way, he was a healer.

But no restoration in his power healed the faint unwieldiness of the way Starfare's Gem moved without its midmast.

That Sevinhand had been able to outmanoeuvre the warships of the Bhrathair was astonishing. The Giantship had become like Covenant's right hand, incomplete and imprecise.

Yet Covenant stood angrily near the centre of the afterdeck as if he belonged there, as if he had the right. On one side were the First and Pitchwife; on the other, Brinn and Cail. They had fallen silent as Linden came on deck. Their faces were turned toward her, and she saw in their expressions that she was the subject of their contention.

Covenant's shirt still bore the black hand-smears of hustin blood with which she had stained him in the forecourt of the First Circinate.

Behind her, Honninscrave's voice arose at intervals from the wheeldeck, commanding the Giantship. Because Foodfendhall no longer blocked her view forward, she was able to see that Findail had resumed his place in the prow. But Vain remained standing where his feet had first touched the deck when he had climbed aboard.

Seadreamer was nowhere to be seen. Linden found that she missed him. He might have been willing to take her part.

Stiffly, she advanced. Her face was set and hard because she feared that she was going to weep. The wind fluttered her long-unwashed hair against her cheeks. Under other circumstances, she would have loathed that dirt. She had a doctor's instinct for cleanliness; and a part of her had always taken pride in the sheen of her hair. But now she accepted her grimy appearance in the same spirit that she displayed the dark stains on her thighs. It, too, was just.

Abruptly, Pitchwife began to speak. “Chosen,” he said as if he were feverish, “Covenant Giantfriend has described to us his encounter with Kasreyn of the Gyre. That tale comes well caparisoned with questions, which the Appointed might answer if he chose-or if he were potently persuaded. He perceives some unhermeneuticable peril in-”

Brinn interrupted the Giant flatly. His voice held no inflection, but he wielded it with the efficacy of a whip. “And Cail has spoken to the ur-Lord concerning the death of Ceer. He has related the manner in which you sought Ceer's end.”

An involuntary flush burned Linden's face. Her arm twitched as if she were about to make some request. But her hand hung lifeless at the end of her dead forearm.

“Chosen.” The First's throat was clenched as if words were weapons which she gripped sternly. "There is no need that you should bear witness to our discord. It is plain to all that you are sorely burdened and weary. Will you not return to your cabin for aliment and slumber?"

Brinn remained still while she spoke. But when she finished, he contradicted her squarely. “There is need. She is the hand of Corruption among us, and she sought Ceer's death when he had taken a mortal wound which should have befallen her.” The dispassion of his tone was as trenchant as sarcasm. “Let her make answer-if she is able.”

“Paugh!” Pitchwife spat. His grotesque features held more ire than Linden had ever seen in him. “You judge in great haste, Haruchai. You heard as all did the words of the Elohim. To Covenant Giantfriend he said, 'She has been silenced as you were silenced at the Elohimfest.' And in taking that affliction upon herself she purchased our lives from the depths of the Sandhold. How then is she blameworthy for her acts?”

Covenant was staring at Linden as if he were deaf to the interchanges around him. But the muscles at the corners of his eyes and mouth reacted to every word, wincing almost imperceptibly. His beard and his hot gaze gave him a strange resemblance to the old man who had once told her to Be true. But his skin had the hue of venom; and beneath the surface lay his leprosy like a definitive conviction or madness, indefeasible and compulsory. He was sure of those things-and of nothing else, either in himself or in her.

Are you not evil?

In a rush of weakness, she wanted to plead with him, beg him to call back those terrible words, although he was not the one who had uttered them. But Brinn was casting accusations at her, and she could not ignore him.

“No, Giant,” the Haruchai replied to Pitchwife. “The haste is yours. Bethink you. While the silence of the Elohim was upon him, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant performed no act. He betrayed neither knowledge nor awareness. Yet was she not capable of action?”

Pitchwife started to retort. Brinn stopped him. “And have we not been told the words which Gibbon-Raver spoke to her? Did he not say, 'You have been especially chosen for this desecration'? And since that saying, have not all her acts wrought ill upon us?” Again, Pitchwife tried to protest; but the Haruchai overrode him. “When the ur-Lord fell to the Raver, her hesitance”-he stressed that word mordantly- "imperilled both him and Starfare's Gem. When the Elohim sought to bereave him of our protection, she commanded our dismissal, thus betraying him to the ill intent of those folk. Though she was granted the right of intervention, she refused to wield her sight to spare him from his doom.

“Then, Giant,” Brinn went on, iterating his litany of blame, "she did not choose to succour the ur-Lord's silence. She refused us to assail Kasreyn in Hergrom's defence, when the Kemper was alone in our hands. She compelled us to re-enter the Sandhold when even the Appointed urged flight. Her aid she did not exercise until Hergrom had been slain and Ceer injured-until all were imprisoned in the Kemper's dungeon, and no other help remained.

“Hear me.” His words were directed at the First now-words as hard as chips of flint. "Among our people, the old tellers speak often of the Bloodguard who served the former Lords of the Land-and of Kevin Landwaster, who wrought the Ritual of Desecration. In that mad act, the old Lords met their end, for they were undone by the Desecration. And so also should the Bloodguard have ended. Had they not taken their Vow to preserve the Lords or die? Yet they endured, for Kevin Landwaster had sent them from him ere he undertook the Ritual. They had obeyed, not knowing what lay in his heart.

"From that obedience came doubt among the Bloodguard, and with doubt the door to Corruption was opened. The failure of the Bloodguard was that they did not judge Kevin Landwaster-or did not judge him rightly. Therefore Corruption had its way with the old Lords and with the Bloodguard, And the new Lords would have likewise fallen, had not the ur-Lord accepted upon himself the burden of the Land.

"Now I say to you, we will not err in that way again. The purity of any service lies in those who serve, not in that which they serve, and we will not corrupt ourselves by trust of that which is false.

“Hear you, Giant?” he concluded flatly. “We will not again fail of judgment where judgment is needed. And we have judged this Linden Avery. She is false-false to the ur-Lord, false to us, false to the Land. She sought to slay Ceer in his last need. She is the hand of Corruption among us. There must be retribution.”

At that, Covenant flinched visibly. The First glowered at Brinn. Pitchwife gaped aghast. But Linden concentrated on Covenant alone. She was not surprised by Brinn's demand.

Outside the Sandwall, his apparent callousness toward Hergrom's death had covered a passion as extravagant as his commitment. But Covenant's silence struck her as a final refusal. He was not looking at her now. From the beginning, he had doubted her. She wanted to go to him, pound at him with her fists until he gave some kind of response. Is that what you think of me? But she could barely lift her arm from the shoulder, still could not flex her elbow.

A stutter of canvas underscored the silence. Gusts beat Linden's shirt against her. The First's expression was hooded, inward. She appeared to credit the picture Brinn had painted. Linden felt herself foundering. All of these people were pushing her toward the darkness that lurked like a Raver in the bottom of her heart.

After a moment, the First said, “The command of the Search is mine. Though you are not Giants-not bound to me-you have accepted our comradeship, and you will accept my word in this matter.” Her assertion was not a threat. It was a statement as plain as the iron of her broadsword. “What retribution do you desire?”

Without hesitation, Brinn replied, “Let her speak the name of a Sandgorgon,”

Then for an instant the air seemed to fall completely still, as if the very winds of the world were horrified by the extremity of Brinn's judgment. The deck appeared to cant under Linden's feet; her head reeled. Speak-?

Is that what you think of me?

Slowly, words penetrated her dismay. The First was speaking in a voice thick with suppressed anguish.

“Chosen, will you not make answer?”

Linden fought to take hold of herself. Covenant said not one word in her defence. He stood there and waited for her, as the Giants and Haruchai waited. Her numb hand slapped softly against the side of her leg, but the effort was futile. She still had no feeling there.

Thickly, she said, “No.”

The First started to expostulate. Pitchwife's face worked as if he wanted to cry out. Linden made them both fall silent.

“They don't have the right.”

Brinn's mouth moved. She cracked at him in denial, “You don't have the right.”

Then every voice around the afterdeck was stilled. The Giants in the rigging watched her, listening through the ragged run of the seas, the wind-twisted plaint of the shrouds. Brian's visage was closed against her. Deliberately, she forced herself to face the raw distress in Covenant's eyes.

“Did you ever ask yourself why Kevin Landwaster chose the Ritual of Desecration?” She was shivering in the marrow of her bones. “He must've been an admirable man-or at least powerful”- she uttered that word as if it nauseated her- “if the Bloodguard were willing to give up death and even sleep to serve him. So what happened to him?”

She saw that Covenant might try to answer. She did not let him. “I'll tell you. The goddamn Bloodguard happened to him. It wasn't bad enough that he was failing-that he couldn't save the Land himself. He had to put up with them as well. Standing there like God Almighty and serving him while he lost everything he loved.” Her voice snarled like sarcasm; but it was not sarcasm. It was her last supplication against the dark place toward which she was being impelled. You never loved me anyway. “Jesus Christ! No wonder he went crazy with despair. How could he keep any shred of his self-respect, with people like them around? He must've thought he didn't have any choice except to destroy everything that wasn't worthy of them.”

She saw shock in Covenant's expression, refusal in Brinn's. Quivering, she went on, “Now you're doing the same thing.” She aimed her fierce pleading straight at Covenant's heart. “You've got all the power in the world, and you're so pure about it. Everything you do is so dedicated.” Dedicated in a way that made all her own commitments look like just so much cowardice and denial. “You drive everyone around you to such extremes.” And I don't have the power to match you. It's not my—

But there she stopped herself. In spite of her misery, she was not willing to blame him for what she had done. He would take that charge seriously-and he did not deserve it. Bitter with pain at the contrast between his deserts and hers, she concluded stiffly, “You don't have the right.”

Covenant did not respond. He was no longer looking at her. His gaze searched the stone at her feet like shame or pleading.

But Brinn did not remain silent. “Linden Avery.” The detachment of his tone was as flat as the face of doom. “Is it truly your claim that the Bloodguard gave cause to Kevin Landwaster's despair?”

She made no reply. She was fixed on Covenant and had no room for anyone else.

Abruptly, something in him snapped. He jerked his fists through the air like a cry; and wild magic left an arc of argent across the silence. Almost at once, the flame vanished. But his fists did not unclose. “Linden.” His voice was choked in his throat-at once harsh and gentle. “What happened to your arm?”

He took her by surprise. The Giants stared at him. Cail's brows tensed into a suggestion of a scowl. But that brief flare of power took hold of the gathering. In an instant, the conflict changed. It was no longer a contest of Haruchai against Linden. Now it lay between Covenant and her, between him and anyone who sought to gainsay him. And she found that she had to answer him. She had lost any defence she might have had against his passion.

Yet her sheer loathing for what she had done made the words acid. “Cail kicked me. To stop me from killing Ceer.”

At that stark statement, his breath hissed through his teeth like a flinch of pain.

Brinn nodded. If he had taken any hurt from Linden's accusation, he did not show it.

For a moment, Covenant grasped after comprehension. Then he muttered, “All right. That's enough.”

The Haruchai did not retreat. “Ur-Lord, there must be retribution.”

“No,” Covenant responded as if he had heard a different reply. “She's a doctor. She saves lives. Do you think she isn't already suffering?”

“I know nothing of that,” retorted Brinn. “I know only that she attempted Ceer's life.”

Without warning, Covenant broke into a shout. “I don't care!” He spat vehemence at Brinn as if it were being physically torn out of him. “She saved me! She saved all of us! Do you think that was easy? I'm not going to turn my back on her, just because she did something I don't understand!”

“Ur-Lord-” Brinn began.

“No!” Covenant's passion carried so many implications of power that it shocked the deck under Linden's feet. “You've gone too far already!” His chest heaved with the effort he made to control himself. "In Andelain-with the Dead-Elena talked about her. She said, 'Care for her, beloved, so that in the end she may heal us all.' Elena“ he insisted. ”The High Lord. She loved me, and it killed her. But never mind that. I won't have her treated this way.“ His voice shredded under the strain of self-containment. ”Maybe you don't trust her.“ His half-fist jabbed possibilities of fire around him. ”Maybe you don't trust me.“ He could not keep himself from yelling, ”But you are by God going to leave her alone!"

Brinn did not reply. His fiat eyes blinked as if he were questioning Covenant's sanity.

Instantly, light on the verge of flame licked from every line of the Unbeliever's frame. The marks on his forearm gleamed like fangs. His shout was a concussion of force which staggered the atmosphere.

“Do you hear me?”

Brinn and Cail retreated a step as if Covenant's might awed them. Then, together, they bowed to him as scores of the Haruchai had bowed when he had returned from Glimmermere with Loric's krill and their freedom in his hands. “Ur-Lord,” Brinn said in recognition. “We hear you.”

Panting through his teeth, Covenant wrestled down the fire.

The next moment, Findail appeared at his side. The Appointed's mien was lined with anxiety and exasperation; and he spoke as if he had been trying to get Covenant's attention for some time.

“Ring-wielder, they hear you. All who inhabit the Earth hear you. You alone have no ears. Have I not said and said that you must not raise this wild magic? You are a peril to all you deem dear.”

Covenant swung on the Elohim, With the index finger of his half-hand, he stabbed at Findail as if to mark the spot where he meant to strike.

“If you're not going to answer questions,” he snarled, “don't talk to me at all. If you people had any goddamn scruples, none of this would've happened.”

For a moment, Findail met Covenant's ire with his yellow gaze. Then, softly, he asked, “Did we not preserve your soul?”

He did not wait for a reply. Turning with the dignity of old pain, he went back to his chosen station in the prow.

At once, Covenant faced Linden again. The pressure in him burned as hotly as ever; and it forced her to see him more clearly. It had nothing to do with Findail-or with the Haruchai. In surprise, she perceived now that he had never intended to permit any retribution against her. He was raw with grief over Ceer and Hergrom-nearly mad with venom and power-appalled by what she had done. But he had never considered the idea of punishment.

He gave her no time to think. “Come with me.” His command was as absolute as the Haruchai. Pivoting sharply, he stalked to the new junction of the fore-and afterdecks. He seemed to choose that place so that he would not be overheard. Or so that he would not be a hazard to the masts and sails.

Pitchwife's misshapen features expressed relief and apprehension on different parts of his face. The First raised a hand to the sweat of distress on her forehead, and her gaze avoided Linden as if to eschew comment on anything the Giantfriend did or wanted. Linden feared to follow him. She knew instinctively that this was her last chance to refuse-her last chance to preserve the denials on which she had founded her life. Yet his stress reached out to her across the gray unsunlit expanse of the afterdeck. Stiffly, abrading her thighs at every step, she went toward him.

For a moment, he did not look at her. He kept his back to her as if he could not bear the sight of what she had become. But then his shoulders bunched, bringing his hands together in a knot like the grasp of a strangler, and he turned to confront her. His voice spattered acid as he said, “Now you're going to tell me why you did it.”

She did not want to answer. The answer was in her. It lay at the root of her black mood, felt like the excruciation which clawed the nerves of her elbow. But it dismayed her completely. She had never admitted that crime to anyone, never given anyone else the right to judge her. What he already knew about her was bad enough. If she could have used her right hand, she would have covered her face to block the harsh penetration and augury of his gaze. In an effort to fend him off, she gritted severely, “I'm a doctor. I don't like watching people die. If I can't save them-”

“No.” Threats of wild magic thickened his tone. “Don't give me any cheap rationalizations. This is too important.”

She did not want to answer. But she did. All the issues and needs of the past night came together in his question and demanded to be met. Ceer's blood violated her pants like the external articulation of other stains, other deaths. Her hands had been scarred with blood for so long now that the taint had sunk into her soul. Her father had marked her for death. And she had proved him right.

At first, the words came slowly. But they gathered force like a possession. Soon their hold over her was complete. They rose up in her one after another until they became gasping. She needed to utter them. And all the time Covenant watched her with nausea on his visage as if everything he had ever felt for her were slowly sickening within him.

“It was the silence,” she began-words like the faint, almost pointless hammerstrokes which could eventually break granite. “The distance.” The Elohim had driven it into him like a wedge, breaking the necessary linkage of sensation and consciousness, action and import. “It was in me. I knew what I was doing. I knew what was happening around me. But I didn't seem to have any choice. I didn't know how or even why I was still breathing.”

She avoided his gaze. The previous night came back to her, darkening the day so that she stood lightless and alone in the wasteland she had made of her life.

“We were trying to escape from the Sandhold, and I was trying to climb out of the silence. I had to start right at the bottom. I had to remember what it was like-living in that old house with the attic, the fields and sunshine, and my parents already looking for a way to die. Then my father cut his wrists. After that, there didn't seem to be any distinction between what we were doing and what I remembered. Being on the Sandwall was exactly the same thing as being with my father.”

And her mother's gall had soured the very blood in her veins. In losing her husband, being so selfishly abandoned by him, the older woman had apparently lost her capacity for endurance. She had been forced by her husband's financial wreckage-and by Linden's hospital bills-to sell her house; and that had affected her like a fundamental defeat. She had not abrogated her fervour for her church. Rather, she had transferred much of her dependency there. Though her welfare checks might have been sufficient, she had wheedled an apartment from one member of the church, imposed on others for housework jobs which she performed with tremendous self-pity. The services and prayer-meetings and socials she used as opportunities to demand every conceivable solace and support. But her bitterness had already become unassuageable.

By a process almost as miraculous as resurrection, she had transformed her husband into a gentle saint driven to his death by the cruel and inexplicable burden of a daughter who demanded love but did not give it. This allowed her to portray herself as a saint as well, and to perceive as virtue the emotional umbrage she levied against her child. And still it was not enough. Nothing was enough. Virtually every penny she received, she spent on food. She ate as if sheer physical hunger were the symbol and demonstration of her spiritual aggrievement, her soul's innurturance. At times, Linden would not have been adequately clothed without the charity of the church she had learned to abhor-thus vindicating further her mother's grievance against her. Both chidden and affirmed by the fact that her daughter wore nothing but cast-offs, and yet could not be cajoled or threatened into any form of gratitude, the mother raised her own sour ineffectuality to the stature of sanctification.

The story was hot in Linden's mouth-an acrid blackness which seemed to well up from the very pit of her heart. Her eyes had already begun to burn with the foretaste of tears. But she was determined now to pay the whole price. It was justified.

"I suppose I deserved it. I wasn't exactly easy to get along with. When I got out of the hospital, I was different inside. It was like I wanted to show the world that my father was right-that I never did love him. Or anybody else. For one thing, I started hating that church. The reason I told myself was that if my mother hadn't been such a religion addict she would've been home the day my father killed himself. She could've helped him. Could've helped me. But the real reason was, that church took her away from me and I was just a kid and I needed her.

"So I acted like I didn't need anybody. Certainly not her or God. She probably needed me as badly as I needed her, but my father had killed himself as if he wanted to punish me personally, and I couldn't see anything about her needs. I think I was afraid that if I let myself love her-or at least act like I loved her-she would kill herself too.

“I must've driven her crazy. Nobody should've been surprised when she got cancer.”

Linden wanted to hug herself, comfort somehow the visceral anguish of recollection; but her right hand and forearm failed her. Memories of disease crept through her flesh. She

strove for the detached severity with which she had told Covenant about her father; but the sickness was too vivid for repression. Suffocation seemed to gather in the bottoms of her lungs. Covenant emitted a prescient dismay.

“It could have been treated. Extirpated surgically. If she had been treated in time. But the doctor didn't take her seriously. She was just a fat whiner. Widow's syndrome. By the time he changed his mind-by the time he got her into the hospital and operated-the melanoma had metastisized. There wasn't anything left for her to do except lie there until she died.”

She panted involuntarily as she remembered that last month, re-enacting the way her mother gasped on the thick fluids which had filled her with slow strangulation. She had sprawled on the hospital bed as if the only parts of her which remained alive were her respiration and her voice. Heavy folds and bulges of flesh sagged against the mattress as if they had been severed from her bones. Her limbs lay passive and futile. But every breath was a tortuous sibilant invocation of death. And her voice went on and on berating her daughter's sins. She was not trying to win her daughter to the church. She had come to need that denial, to depend upon it. Her protest against it was her only answer to terror. How else could she be sure she had a claim on God's love?

“It was summer then.” Memory possessed Linden. She was hardly aware of the Giantship, of the cloud-locked sky lowering like a bereavement. “I didn't have school. There wasn't anywhere else for me to go. And she was my mother.” The words could not convey a fifteen-year-old girl's grief. "She was all I had left. The people of the church took care of me at night. But during the day I didn't have anything else to do. I spent a month with her. Listening to her sob and moan as if it were my fault.

"The doctors and nurses didn't care. They gave her medication and oxygen, and twice a day they cleaned her up. But after that they didn't know what to do about her. They didn't let themselves care. I was just alone with her. Listening to her blame me. That was her way of begging. The nurses must've thought I wanted to help. Or else they couldn't stand it themselves. They gave me a job. They gave me boxes and boxes of tissue and told me to wipe her when she needed it. The sweat. And the mucus that dribbled out of her mouth even when she didn't have enough strength to cough. I had to sit right beside her. Under all that weight, she was just a skeleton. And her breath-The fluid was rotting in her lungs. It got so bad it made me sick.“ A stench like the gangrenous reek of the old man whose life she had saved on Haven Farm. ”The nurses gave me food, but I flushed it down the toilet."

Be true.

“She wouldn't look at me. I couldn't make her look at me. When I tried, she squeezed her eyes shut and went on begging.”

Please, God, let me die.

And after a month, the girl had taken that frail life into her own hands. Grief and affront and culpability had covered her more entirely than all Ceer's blood, stained her more intimately, outraged her more fundamentally. She had needed the power to take some kind of action, create some kind of defence; and because her conscious mind lacked the strength, the dark hunger she had inherited from her father's death had raised its head in her. You never loved me anyway. Swarming up from the floorboards of the attic, spewing like a hatred of all life from his stretched and gleeful mouth. His mouth, which should have been open in pain or love. Facing her mother, the blackness had leaped up like a visage of nightmare, had appeared full-formed, precise, and unquestionable not in her mind but rather in her hands, so that her body knew what she meant to do while her brain could only watch and wail, not prevent, control, or even choose. She had been weeping violently, but without sound, had not dared to let one sob through her teeth to be heard by the nurses, betray her. She had hardly seen what she was doing as she unhooked the tubes of oxygen from her mother's nostrils. The darkness in her had begun to gibber. It laughed like lust at the prospect of nourishment. Death was power. Power. The strength to stuff accusations back down the throats of those who accused her. Are you not evil? Shedding the tears which had dogged her all her life and would never stop, never be forgiven, she began thrusting sheets of tissue one by one into her mother's mouth.

“At least that made her look at me.” Covenant was a blur across her sight; but she felt him aching at her as if he were being broken by her words. "She tried to stop me. But she didn't have the strength. She couldn't lift her own weight enough to stop me.

“Then it was over. I didn't have to breathe that stench anymore.” She was no longer trembling. Something inside her had parted. “When I was sure, I went on as if I'd already planned exactly what I was going to do. I took the tissues out of her mouth-flushed them down the toilet. I put the oxygen tubes back in her nose. Then I went and told the nurses I thought my mother had stopped breathing.”

The deck canted under her feet; she almost fell. But then Starfare's Gem righted itself, righted her. Her eyes felt as livid as the fire which spilled from her right shoulder, etching the nerves until it vanished into the numbness beyond her elbow. Now Covenant's emanations were so poignant that she could not be blind to them. He regarded her in stricken recognition, as if he and the Giantship were cripples together. Through her tears, she saw that even his leprosy and venom were precious to her. They were the flaws, the needs, that made him honest and desirable. He wanted to cry out to her-or against her, she did not know which. But she was not finished.

"I gave her what she wanted. God Himself couldn't do anything except let her suffer, but I gave her what she wanted.

“It was evil.”

He started to protest as if he felt more grief than she had ever allowed herself. She cut him off.

"That's why I didn't want to believe in evil. I didn't want to have to look at myself that way. And I didn't want to know your secrets because I didn't want to tell you mine.

“But it's true. I took away her life. I took away the chance that she might find her own answer. The chance that a miracle might happen. I took away her humanity.” She would never be finished with it. There was no expiation in all the world for what she had done. “Because of me, the last thing she felt in her life was terror.”

“No.” Covenant had been trying to stop her. “Linden. Don't. Don't blame yourself like this,” He was gaunt with dismay. Every line of his form was an appeal to her across the stone of the deck. “You were just a kid. You didn't know what else to do. You're not the only one. We all have Lord Foul inside us.” He radiated a leper's yearning for the wounded and the bereft. “And you saved me. You saved us all.”

She shook her head. "I possessed you. You saved yourself. He had let the Elohim bereave him of mind and will until all that remained was the abject and unsupportable litany of his illness. He had accepted even that burden in the name of his commitment to the Land, his determination to battle the

Despiser. And she had surrendered herself entirely, braved the worst horrors of her past, to bring him back. But she saw no virtue in that. She had done as much as anyone to drive him into his plight. And she had helped create the conditions which had forced her to violate him. “All my life”-her hands flinched-“I've had the darkness under control. One way or another. But I had to give that up, so I could get far enough inside you. I didn't have any left for Ceer.” Severely, she concluded, “You should've let Brinn punish me.”

“No.” His contradiction was a hot whisper that seemed to jump the gap between them like a burst of power. Her head jerked back. She saw him clearly, facing her as if her honesty meant more to him than any act of bloodshed. From the depths of his own familiarity with self-judgment, he averred, “I don't care about your mother. I don't care if you possessed me. You had good reason. And it isn't the whole story. You saved the quest. You're the only woman I know who isn't afraid of me.” His arms made a wincing movement like an embrace maimed from its inception by need and shame. “Don't you understand that I love you?”

Love? Her mouth tried to shape the word and could not. With that avowal, he changed everything. In an instant, her world seemed to become different than it was, Stumbling forward, she confronted him. He was pallid with exhaustion, damaged by the pressure of his doom. The old knife-cut marked the centre of his stained shirt like the stroke of fatality. But his passion resonated against the added dimension of her hearing; and she was suddenly alive and trembling. He had not intended to refuse her. The efforts he made to withhold himself were not directed at her. It was himself that he struggled to reject. He was rife with venom and leprosy; but she recognized those things, accepted them. Before he could retreat, she caught her left arm around him, raised her right as high as she could to hold him.

For a moment longer, he strove against himself, stood rigid and unyielding in her clasp. But then he surrendered. His arms closed around her, and his mouth came down on hers as if he were falling.

Twenty Two: “Also love in the world”

LATE the next morning, after the long night of the full moon, she awakened in her hammock. She felt deeply comfortable, assuaged by sleep. Her right arm was warm and drowsy to the tips of the fingers, like a revenant of her former self, the child unacquainted with death — aneled of numbness as if her blood had become chrism. She was reluctant to open her eyes. Though the cabin beyond her eyelids was refulgent with sunshine, she did not want the day to begin, did not want the night to end.

Yet the whole length of her body-freshly scrubbed the night before and alert to caresses-remembered the pressure of Covenant's presence, knew that he was gone. Somehow, he had contrived to leave the hammock without rousing her. She started to murmur a sleepy protest. But then the nerves of her cheek felt a faint tingle of wild magic. He was still in the cabin with her. She smiled softly to herself as she raised her head, looked over the edge of the hammock toward him.

He stood barefoot and vivid in the sunlight on the floor below her. His clothes, and hers, hung on chairbacks, where they had been left to dry after being washed by the Haruchai- a task which Brinn and Cail had undertaken the previous afternoon at the behest of their particular sense of duty. But he made no move to get dressed. His hands covered his face like an unconscious mimicry of sorrow. With the small flame of his ring, he was cleaning the beard from his cheeks and neck.

In silence so that she would not interrupt his concentration, she watched him intently, striving to memorize him before he became aware of her scrutiny, became self-conscious. He was lean to the point of gauntness, all excess burned away by his incessant heat. But the specific efficiency of his form pleased her. She had not known that she was capable of taking such an unprofessional interest in someone else's body. Then his beard was gone, and he dropped his fire. Turning, he saw that she was studying him. A momentary embarrassment concealed the other things in his eyes. He made a vague gesture like an apology. “I keep thinking I ought to be able to control it, I keep trying to learn.” He grimaced wryly. “Besides which, I don't like the itch.” Then his mouth became sombre. “If it's small enough-and if I don't let myself get angry-I can handle it. But as soon as I try to do anything that matters-”

She went on smiling until he noticed her expression. Then he dismissed the question of power with a shrug. Half smiling himself, he touched his pale clean chin. “Did I get it all? I can't tell-my hands are too numb.”

She answered with a nod. But his tone made her aware of the complexity in his gaze. He was looking at her with more than just his memories of the past night. He was disturbed about something. She did not want to give up her rare and tender easement; but she did not hesitate. Gently, she asked, “What's the matter?”

His eyes retreated from her, then returned with a tangible effort. “Too many things.” He faced her as if he did not know how to accept her care. “Wild magic. Questions. The sheer selfishness of taking your love, when-” He swallowed thickly. “When I love you so much, and I'm so dangerous, and maybe I'm not even going to live through it.” His mouth was a grimace of difficult honesty. “Maybe we're not going to get back in time for you to do anything about that knife in my chest. I want out. I don't want to be responsible anymore. Too many people have already been killed, and it just gets worse.”

She heard him, understood him. He was a hungry man who had at last tasted the aliment for which his soul craved. She was no different. But the possibility he dreaded-the knife-wound in his chest-was not real to her. The old scar was barely visible. It had faded into the pallor of his skin. She could not imagine that healing undone, abrogated as if it had never occurred.

Yet that was only part of what she felt. In her own way, she was content to be where she was-with him on Starfare's Gem, seeking the One Tree accompanied by Giants and Haruchai, Findail and Vain. She was willing to confront the future Lord Foul prepared for them. As clearly as possible, she gave that to Covenant.

“I don't care. You can be as dangerous or selfish as you want,” The danger in him had been attractive to her from the beginning. And his selfishness was indistinguishable from love. “I'm not afraid.”

At that, his gaze clouded. He blinked at her as if she were brighter than the sunlight. She thought that he would ascend the stepladder, return to her arms; but he did not. His countenance was open and vulnerable, childlike in apprehension. His throat knotted, released, as he repeated, “Findail says I'm going to destroy the Earth.”

Then she saw that he needed more from her than an avowal. He needed to share his distress. He had been alone too long. He could not open one door to her without opening others as well. In response, she climbed out of her comfort, sat up to face him more squarely. Findail, she thought. Recollections sharpened her mood. The Elohim had tried to prevent her from entering Covenant. He had cried at her, Are you a fool? This is ruin! The doom of the Earth is upon my head. Her voice took on severity as she asked, “What did he mean-'Did we not preserve your soul'? When he talked to you yesterday?”

Covenant's mouth twisted. “That's one of the things that scares me.” His eyes left her to focus on what had happened to him. “He's right. In a way. They saved me. When I was alone with Kasreyn-before Hergrom rescued me.” His voice was lined with bitterness. "I was helpless. He should have been able to do anything he wanted. But he couldn't get past that silence. I heard every word he said, but I wasn't able to do anything about it, and he wasn't able to make me try. If I hadn't been that way, he probably would've gotten my ring.

“But that doesn't tell me why.” He looked up at her again, his features acute with questions. “Why did they do it to me in the first place? Why is Findail so afraid of me?”

She watched him closely, trying to gauge the complexity of what he knew and remembered and needed. He had the face of a single-minded man — a mouth as strict as a commandment, eyes capable of fire. Yet within him nothing was simple; everything was a contradiction. Parts of him lay beyond the reach of her senses, perhaps even of her comprehension. She answered him as firmly as she could.

“You're afraid of yourself.”

For a moment, he frowned as if he were on the edge of retorting, You mean if I were arrogant or inexperienced or maybe just stupid enough, there wouldn't be anything to be afraid of? But then his shoulders sagged. “I know,” he murmured. “The more power I get, the more helpless I feel. It's never enough. Or it's the wrong kind. Or it can't be controlled. It terrifies me.”

“Covenant.” She did not want to say harsh things to him, ask questions which hurt. But she had never seen him evade anything which might prove harsh or painful; and she wanted to match him, show herself a fit companion for him. “Tell me about the necessity of freedom.”

He stiffened slightly, raised his eyebrows at the unexpected direction of her thoughts. But he did not object. “We've talked about this before,” he said slowly. "It's hard to explain. I guess the question is, are you a person-with volition and maybe some stubbornness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising-or are you a tool? A tool just serves its user. It's only as good as the skill of its user, and it's not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something special-something more than you can do for yourself-you can't use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises will work in your favour. You have to use something that's free to not be what you had in mind.

“That's what it comes down to on both sides. The Creator wants to stop Foul. Foul wants to break the Arch of Time. But neither of them can use a tool, because a tool is just an extension of who they are, and if they could get what they wanted that way they wouldn't need anything else. So they're both trying to use us. The only difference I can see is that the Creator doesn't manipulate. He just chooses and then takes his chances. But Foul is something else. How free are we?”

“No.” Linden did her best to face him without flinching. “Not we.” She did not want to hurt him; but she knew it would be false love if she tried to spare him. “You're the one with the ring. How free are you? When you took Joan's place-” Then she stopped. She did not have the heart to finish that sentence.

He understood. Her unspoken words echoed the pang of his own fear. “I'm not sure.” Once again, his gaze left her, not to avoid her, but to follow the catenations of his memories.

But she was not done, and what remained to be said was too difficult to wait. “After the Elohimfest. When I tried to get inside you.” She spoke in pieces, feeling unable to pick up all the fragments at once. With a shudder of recollection, she strove for clarity. "It was the same day Findail showed up. I was waiting-hoping you would recover spontaneously. But then I couldn't wait any longer. If nothing else, I thought you would be able to get answers out of him."

She closed her eyes, shutting out the way he looked at her. “But I only got so far.” Dark and hungry for power, she had tried to take mastery of him. And now the virulence of the result came back to her. She began rocking unconsciously against the faint sway of the hammock, seeking to comfort herself, persuade her memories into language. “Then I was thrown out. Or I threw myself out. To escape what I saw.” Aching, she described her vision of him as a Sunbane-victim, as monstrous and abominable as Marid.

At once, she sought his face as if it were an image to dispel dismay. He was watching her sharply, ire and dread conflicted in his gaze. With a harshness she did not intend and could not suppress, she rasped, “Can you really tell me you aren't already sold? You aren't already a tool of the Despiser?”

“Maybe I'm not.” The lines of his face became implacable, as if she had driven him beyond reach, compelled him to retreat to the granite foundation of his pain and isolation. His voice sounded as cold as leprosy. “Maybe the Elohim just think I am. Maybe what you saw is just their image of me.” Then his features clenched. He shook his head in self-coercion. “No. That's just one more cheap answer.” Slowly, his grimace softened like a chosen vulnerability, exposing himself to her. “Maybe Findail's right. I ought to give him my ring. Or give it to you. Before it's too late. But I'll be goddamned if I'm going to surrender like that. Not while I still have hopes left.”

Hopes? she mouthed silently. But he was already replying.

“You're one. That old man on Haven Farm chose you. He told you Be true. You're still here, and you're willing, and that's one. What you just told me is another. If what you saw is the truth-if I really am Foul's tool or victim-then I can't stop him. But he won't be able to use me to get what he wants.”

Roughly, he jerked himself to a stop, paused to give her a chance to consider the implications of what he was saying. That Lord Foul's purposes did in fact revolve around her. That the onus of the Earth's survival rested on her in ways which she could not begin to envision. That she was being manipulated To achieve the ruin of the Earth.

For a moment, the conception froze her, brought back fear to the sunlit cabin. But then Covenant was speaking again, answering her apprehension.

“And there's one more. One more hope.” His tone was softer now, almost tender-suffused with sorrow and recognition. "I told you I've been to the Land three times before. In a way, it was four, not three. The first three times, I didn't have any choice. I was summoned whether I wanted to go or not. After the first time, I didn't want to.

"But the third was the worst. I was in the woods behind the Farm, and there was this little girl who was about to get bitten by a timber-rattler. I went to try to save her. But I fell. The next thing I knew, I was halfway into Revelstone, and Mhoram was doing his damnedest to finish summoning me.

"I refused. That girl was in the real world, and the snake was going to kill her. That was more important to me than anything else, no matter what happened to the Land.

“When I told Mhoram about her”-his voice was a clench of loss-“he let me go.” The tension of his arms and shoulders seemed to echo, Mhoram.

Yet he forced himself to continue. “I got back too late to stop the snake. But the girl was still there. I managed to suck out some of the venom, and then somehow I got her back to her parents. By that time, the fourth summoning had already started. And I accepted it. I went by choice. There wasn't anything else I wanted except one last chance to fight Foul.”

He was gazing up at Linden squarely now, letting her see his unresolved contradictions, his difficult and ambiguous answers. “Did I sell myself to Foul by refusing Mhoram? Or to the Creator by accepting that last summons? I don't know. But I think that no human being can be made into a tool involuntarily. Manipulated into destruction, maybe. Misled or broken. But if I do what Foul wants, it'll be because I failed somehow-misunderstood something, surrendered to my own inner Despiser, lost courage, fell in love with power or destruction, something.” He articulated each word like an affirmation. “Not because I'm anybody's tool.”

“Covenant.” She yearned toward him past the gentle ship-roll swaying of the hammock. She saw him now as the man she had first met, the figure of strength and purpose who had persuaded her against her will to accept his incomprehensible vision of Joan and possession, and then had drawn her like a lover in his wake when he had gone to meet the crisis of Joan's redemption-as the upright image of power and grief who had broken open the hold of the Clave to rescue her, and later had raised a mere bonfire in The Grieve to the stature of a caamora for the long-dead Unhomed. She said his name as if to ascertain its taste in her mouth. Then she gave him her last secret, the last piece of information she had consciously withheld from him.

“I haven't told you everything that old man said to me. On Haven Farm. He told me Be true. But that wasn't all.” After the passage of so much time, she still knew the words as if they had been incused on her brain. “He said, 'Ah, my daughter, do not fear. You will not fail, however he may assail you.' ” Meeting Covenant's gaze, she tried to give her eyes the clarity her voice lacked. “ 'There is also love in the world.' ”

For a moment, he remained motionless, absorbing the revelation. Then he lifted his half-hand toward her. His flesh gleamed in the sunshine which angled into the cabin from the open port. The wry lift at the corners of his mouth counterpoised the dark heat of his orbs as he said, “Can you believe it? I used to be impotent. Back when I thought leprosy was the whole story.”

In reply, she rolled over the edge of the hammock, dropped her feet to the stepladder. Then she took his hand, and he drew her down into the light.

Later, they went out on deck together. They did not wear their own clothes, but rather donned short robes of gray, flocked wool which one of the Giants had sewn for them-left behind their old apparel as if they had sloughed off at least one layer of their former selves. The bulk of the robes was modest and comfortable; but still his awareness of her was plain in his gaze. Barefoot on the stone as if they had made their peace with the Giantship, they left her cabin, ascended to the afterdeck.

Then for a time Linden felt that she was blushing like a girl. She strove to remain detached; but she could not stifle the blood which betrayed her face. Every Giant they met seemed to look at her and Covenant with knowledge, laughter, and open approval. Pitchwife grinned so hugely that his pleasure dominated the disformation of his features. Honninscrave's eyes shone from under his fortified brows, and his beard bristled with appreciation. Sevinhand Anchormaster's habitual melancholy lifted into a smile which was both rue-trammelled and genuine-the smile of a man who had lost his own love so long ago that envy no longer hindered his empathy. Even Galewrath's stolid face crinkled at what she saw. And a rare softness entered the First's demeanour, giving a glimpse of her Giantish capacity for glee.

Finally their attentions became so explicit that Linden wanted to turn away. Embarrassment might have made her sound angry if she had spoken. But Covenant faced them all with his arms cocked mock-seriously on his hips and growled, “Does everybody on this bloody rock know what we do with our privacy?”

At that, Pitchwife burst into laughter; and in a moment all the Giants within earshot were chortling. Covenant tried to scowl, but could not. His features kept twitching into involuntary humour. Linden found herself laughing as if she had never done such a thing before.

Overhead, the sails were taut and brave with wind, bellying firmly under the flawless sky. She felt the vitality of the stone and the crew like a tingling in the soles of her feet. Starfare's Gem strode the bright sea as though it had been restored to wholeness. Or perhaps it was Linden herself who had been restored.

She and Covenant spent the afternoon moving indolently about the dromond, talking with the Giants, resting in shared silence on the sun-warmed deck. She noted obliquely that Vain had not left his position at the railing: he stood like a piece of obsidian statuary, immaculate and beautiful, the blackness of his form contrasted or defined only by his tattered tunic and the dull iron bands on his right wrist and left ankle. He might have been created to be the exact opposite of Findail, who remained in the vessel's prow with his creamy raiment ruffling in the wind as if the fabric were as fluid as he, capable of dissolving into any form or nature he desired. It seemed impossible that the Appointed and the Demondim-spawn had anything to do with each other. For a while, Linden and Covenant discussed that mystery; but they had no new insights to give each other.

Brinn and Cail held themselves constantly available, but at a distance, as if they did not wish to intrude-or were uncomfortable in Linden's proximity. Their thoughts lay hidden behind a magisterial impassivity; but she had learned that their expressionlessness was like a shadow cast by the extremity of their passions. She seemed to feel something unresolved in them. Covenant had demanded and won their forbearance. Apparently, their trust or mistrust was not so readily swayed.

Their impenetrable regard discomfited her. But she was soothed by Covenant's nearness and accessibility. At intervals, she brushed his scarred forearm with her fingertips as if to verify him. Beyond that, she let herself relax.

As they sprawled in a wide coil of hawser, Pitchwife came to join them. After some desultory conversation, she commented that she had not seen Seadreamer. She felt bound to the mute Giant by a particular kinship and was concerned about him.

“Ah, Seadreamer,” Pitchwife sighed. “Honninscrave comprehends him better than I-and yet comprehends him not at all. We are now replenished and restored. While this wind holds, we are arrow-swift toward our aim. Thus cause for hope need not be widely sought or dearly purchased. Yet a darkness he cannot name gathers in him. He confronts the site of the One Tree as a spawning-ground of dread.” For a moment, Pitchwife's voice rose. “Would that he could speak! The heart of a Giant is not formed to bear such tales in silence and solitude.” Then he grew quiet again. “He remains in his cabin. I conceive that he seeks to spare us the visions he cannot utter.”

Or maybe, Linden mused, he simply can't stand having people watch him suffer. He deserves at least that much dignity. Of all the people on Starfare's Gem, she alone was able to experience something comparable to what he felt. Yet her percipience was not Earth-Sight, and she could not bridge the gap between them. For the present, she set the question of Seadreamer aside and let her mood drift back into the jocund ambience of the Giants.

So the day passed; and in the evening Honninscrave shortened sail, freeing as much of the crew as possible for a communal gathering. Soon after supper, nearly twoscore Giants came together around the foremast, leaving only Sevinhand at Shipsheartthew and three or four crewmembers in the shrouds. Linden and Covenant joined them as if drawn there by laughter and badinage and the promise of stories. The foredeck was dark except for an occasional lantern; but the dark was warm with camaraderie and anticipation, comfortable with the clear-eyed comfort of Giants. High above the slow dance of the masts, stars elucidated the heavens. When the singing began, Linden settled herself gladly against the foremast and let the oaken health of the crew carry her away.

The song had a pulse like the unalterable dirge of the sea; but the melody rose above it in arcs of eagerness and laughter, relish for all joy or sorrow, abundance or travail. The words were not always glad, but the spirit behind them was glad and vital, combining melancholy and mirth until the two became articulations of the same soul-irrepressibly alive, committed to life.

And when the song was done, Honninscrave stepped forward to address the gathering. In a general way, the story he told was the tale of Bhrathairealm; but he concentrated specifically on the Haruchai so that all the Giants would know how Hergrom had lived and died. This he did as an homage to the dead and a condolence for the living. Ceer's valour he did not neglect; and his people remained silent around him in a stillness which Brinn and Cail could not have failed to recognize as respect.

Then other tales followed. With a finely mimicked lugubriousness, Heft Galewrath narrated the story of two stubbornly atrabilious and solitary Giants who thrashed each other into a love which they persistently mistook for mortal opposition. Pitchwife offered an old sea-rimed ballad to the memory of the Unhomed. And Covenant rose from Linden's side to tell the gathering about Berek Halfhand, the ancient hero of the Land who had perceived the Earthpower in the awakening of the Fire-Lions of Mount Thunder, fashioned the Staff of Law to wield and support that puissance, and founded the Council of Lords to serve it. Covenant told the story quietly, as if he were speaking primarily to himself, trying to clarify his sense of purpose; but the tale was one which the Giants knew how to appreciate, and when he finished several of them bowed to him, acknowledging the tenebrous and exigent link between him and the Land's age-long-dead rescuer.

After a moment, Pitchwife said, “Would that I knew more of this rare Land. The lives of such as Berek make proud hearing.”

“Yes,” murmured Covenant. Softly, he quoted, “ 'And the glory of the world becomes less than it was.' ” But he did not explain himself or offer a second tale.

A pause came over the Giants while they waited for a new story or song to commence. Then the dimness in front of Linden and Covenant swirled, and Findail appeared like a translation of the lamplight. His arrival sparked a few startled exclamations; but quiet was restored almost at once. His strangeness commanded the attention of the gathering.

When the stillness was complete beyond the faint movements of the sheets and the wet stone-on-sea soughing of the dromond, he said in a low voice, “I will tell a tale, if I may.”

With a stiff nod, the First granted him permission. She appeared uncertain of him, but not reluctant to hear whatever he might say. Perhaps he would give some insight into the nature or motives of his people. Linden tensed, focused all her senses on the Appointed. At her side, Covenant drew his back straight as if in preparation for a hostile act.

But Findail did not begin his tale at once. Instead, he lifted his eroded visage to the stars, spread his arms as if to bare his heart, and raised a song into the night.

His singing was unlike anything Linden had heard before. It was melodic in an eldritch way which tugged at her emotions. And it was self-harmonized on several levels at once, as if he were more than one singer. Just as he occasionally became stone or wind or water, he now became song; and his music arose, not from the human form he had elected to wear, but from his essential being. It was so weird and wonderful that Linden was surprised to find she could understand the words.

"Let those who sail the Sea bow down;

Let those who walk bow low;

For there is neither peace nor dream

Where the Appointed go.

"Let those who sail the Sea bow down,

For they have never seen

The Earth-Wrack rise against the stars

And ruin blowing keen.

"Mortality has mortal eyes.

Let those who walk bow low,

For they are chaff before the blast

Of what they do not know.

"The price of sight is risk and dare

Or loss of life and all,

For there is neither peace nor dream

When Earth begins to fall.

“And therefore let the others bow

Who neither see nor know;

For they are spared from voyaging

Where the Appointed go.”

The song arose from him without effort, and when it was done it left conviction like an enhancement behind it. In spite of her instinctive distrust, her reasons for anger, Linden found herself thinking that perhaps the Elohim were indeed honest. They were beyond her judgment. How could she understand-much less evaluate-the ethos of a people who partook of everything around them, sharing the fundamental substance of the Earth?

Yet she resisted. She had too many causes for doubt. One song was not answer enough. Holding herself detached, she waited for the Appointed's tale.

Quietly over the stilled suspirations of the Giants, he began. For his tale he resumed his human voice, accepted the stricture of a mortal throat with deliberate forbearance, as if he did not want his hearers to be swayed for the wrong reasons. Or, Linden thought, as if his story were poignant to him, and he needed to keep his distance from it.

“The Elohim are unlike the other peoples of the Earth,” he said into the lantern-light and the dark. "We are of the Earth, and the Earth is of us, more quintessentially and absolutely than any other manifestation of life. We are its Wurd. There is no other apposite or defining name for us. And therefore have we become a solitary people, withholding ourselves from the outer world, exercising care in the encroachments we permit the outer world to have upon us. How should we do otherwise? We have scant cause to desire intercourse with lives other than ours. And it is often true that those who seek us derive scant benefit from what they find.

"Yet it was not always so among us. In a time which we do not deem distant, but which has been long forgotten among your most enduring memories, we did not so hold to ourselves. From the home and centre of Elemesnedene, we sojourned all the wide Earth, seeking that which we have now learned to seek within ourselves. In the way of the Earth, we do not age. But in our own way, we were younger than we are. And in our youngness we roamed many places and many times, participating perhaps not always wisely in that which we encountered.

"But of that I do not speak. Rather, I speak of the Appointed. Of those who have gone before me, passing out of name and choice and time for the sake of the frangible Earth. The fruit of sight and knowledge, they have borne the burdens upon which much or all of the Earth has depended.

"Yet in their work youth has played its part. In past ages upon occasion we accepted-I will not say smaller-but less vital hazards. Perceiving a need which touched our hearts, we met together and Appointed one to answer that need. I will name one such, that you may comprehend the manner of need of which I speak. In the nigh-unremembered past of the place which you deem the Land, the life was not the life of men and women, but of trees. One wide forest of sentience and passion filled all the region-one mind and heart alive in every leaf and bough of every tree among the many myriad throngs and glory of the woods. And that life the Elohim loved.

"But a hate rose against the forest, seeking its destruction. And this was dire, for a tree may know love and feel pain and cry out, but has few means of defence. The knowledge was lacking. Therefore we met, and from among us Appointed one to give her life to that forest. This she did by merging among the trees until they gained the knowledge they required.

“Their knowledge they employed to bind her in stone, exercising her name and being to form an interdict against that hate. Thus was she lost to herself and to her people-but the interdict remained while the will of the forest remained to hold it.”

“The Colossus,” Covenant breathed. “The Colossus of the Fall.”

“Yes,” Findail said.

"And when people started coming to the Land, started cutting down the trees as if they were just so much timber and difficulty, the forest used what it'd learned to create the Forestals in self-defence. Only it took too long, and there were too many people, and the Forestals weren't enough, they couldn't be everywhere at once, couldn't stop the many blind or cruel or simply unscrupulous axes and fires. They were lucky to keep the mind of the forest awake as long as they did."

“Yes,” Findail said again.

“Hellfire!” Covenant rasped, “Why didn't you do something?”

“Ring-wielder,” replied the Elohim, "we had become less young. And the burden of being Appointed is loathly to us, who are not made for death. Therefore we grew less willing to accept exigencies not our own. Now we roam less, not that we will know less-for what the Earth knows we will know wherever we are-but that we will be less taken by the love which leads to death.

“But,” he went on without pause, "I have not yet told my tale. I desire to speak of Kastenessen, who alone of those who have been Appointed sought to refuse the burden.

"In the youth of the Elohim, he was more youthful than others-a youth such as Chant is now, headstrong and abrupt, but of another temperament altogether. Among those who sojourned, he roved farther and more often. At the time of his election, he was not present in Elemesnedene,

"Rather, he inhabited a land to the east, where the Elohim are neither known nor guessed. And there he did that which no Elohim has ever done. He gave himself in love to a mortal woman. He walked among her folk as a man of their own kind. But in her private home he was an Elohim to ravish every conception of which flesh that dies is capable.

"That was an act which we repudiated, and would repudiate again, though we do not name it evil. In it lay a price for the woman which she could neither comprehend nor refuse. Gifted or in sooth blighted by all Earth and love and possibility in one man-form, her soul was lost to her in the manner of madness or possession rather than of mortal love. Loving her, he wrought her ruin and knew it not. He did not choose to know it.

"Therefore was he Appointed, to halt the harm. For at that time was a peril upon the Earth to which we could not close our eyes. In the farthest north of the world, where winter has its roots of ice and cold, a fire had been born among the foundations of the firmament. I do not speak of the cause of that fire, but only of its jeopardy to the Earth. Such was its site and virulence that it threatened to rive the shell of the world. And when the Elohim gathered to consider who should be Appointed, Kastenessen was not among us. Yet had he been present to bespeak his own defence, still would he have been Appointed, for he had brought harm to a woman who could not have harmed him, and he had called it love.

"But such was the strength of the thing which he named love that when the knowledge of his election came to him, he took the woman his lover by the hand and fled, seeking to foil the burden.

"So it fell to me, and to others with me, to give pursuit. He acted as one who had wandered into madness, for surely it was known to him that in all the Earth there was no hiding-place from us. And were it possible that he might pass beyond our reach, immerse himself in that from which we would be unable to extricate him, he could not have done so with the woman for companion. Her mortal flesh forbade. Yet he would not part from her, and so we came upon him and took him.

“Her we gave what care we could, though the harm or love within her lay beyond our solace. And him we bore to the fire which burned in the north. To us he remained Elohim, not to be freed from his burden. But to him he was no longer of us, or of the Earth, but only of the woman he had lost. He became a madness among us. He would not accept that he had been Appointed, or that the need of the Earth was not one which might be eschewed. He railed against us, and against the heavens, and against the Wurd. To me especially he gave curses, promising a doom which would surpass all his dismay-for I had been nearer to him among the Elohim than any other, and I would not hear him. Because of his despair, we were compelled to bind him to his place, reaving him of name and choice and time to set him as a keystone for the threatened foundation of the north. Thus was the fire capped, and the Earth preserved, and Kastenessen lost.”

Findail stopped. For a moment, he remained still amid the stillness of the Giants; and all his hearers were voiceless before him, lost like Kastenessen in the story of the Appointed. But then he turned to Linden and Covenant, faced them as if everything he had said was intended to answer their unresolved distrust; and a vibration of earnestness ran through his voice.

“Had we held any other means to combat the fire, we would not have Appointed Kastenessen as we did. He was not chosen in punishment or malice, but in extremity.” His yellow eyes appeared to collect the lantern-light, shining out of the dark with a preternatural brightness. “The price of sight is risk and dare. I desire to be understood.”

Then his form frayed, and he flowed out of the gathering, leaving behind him silence like an inchoate and irrefragable loneliness.

When Linden looked up at the stars, they no longer made sense to her. Findail might as well have said, This is ruin.

For three more days, the weather held, bearing Starfare's Gem with brisk accuracy at a slight angle along the wind. But on the fifth day out from Bhrathairealm, the air seemed to thicken suddenly, condensing until the breeze itself became sluggish, vaguely stupefied. The sky broke into squalls as if it were crumbling under its own weight. Abrupt gusts and downpours thrashed the Giantship in all directions. At unpredictable intervals, other sounds were muffled by the staccato battery of canvas, the hot hissing of rain. Warm, capricious, and temperamental, the squalls volleyed back and forth between the horizons. They were no threat to the dromond; but they slowed its progress to little more than a walk, made it stagger as it tacked from side to side. Hampered by the loss of its midmast, Starfare's Gem limped stubbornly on toward its goal, but was unable to win free of the playground of the storms.

After a day of that irregular lurch and stumble, Linden thought she was going to be seasick. The waves confused the stability she had learned to expect from the stone under her bare feet. She felt the protracted frustration of the crew vibrating through the moire-granite, felt the dromond's prow catch the seas every way but squarely. And Covenant fretted at her side; his mood gave a pitch of urgency to the Giantship's pace. Beneath the surface of their companionship, he was febrile for his goal. She could not stifle her nausea until Pitchwife gave her a gentle mixture of diamondraught and water to quiet her stomach.

That night she and Covenant put together a pallet on the floor of her cabin so that they would not have to endure the aggravated motion of the hammock. But the next day the squalls became still more sportive. After sunset, when a gap in the clouds enabled him to take his bearings from the stars, Honninscrave announced that the quest had covered little more than a score of leagues since the previous morning. “Such is our haste,” he muttered through his beard, "that the

Isle of the One Tree may sink altogether into the sea ere we draw nigh to it."

Pitchwife chuckled. “Is it a Giant who speaks thus? Master, I had not known you to be an admirer of haste.”

Honninscrave did not respond. His eyes held reminders of Seadreamer, and his gaze was fixed on Covenant.

After a moment, Covenant said, “A few centuries after the Ritual of Desecration, a Cavewight named Drool Rockworm found the Staff of Law. One of the things he used it for was to play with the weather.”

Linden looked at him sharply. She started to ask, Do you think someone is causing-? But he went on, “I blundered into one of his little storms once. With Atiaran.” The memory roughened his tone. “I broke it. Before I believed there even was such a thing as wild magic.”

Now everyone in the vicinity was staring at him. Unspoken questions marked the silence. Carefully, the First asked, “Giantfriend, do you mean to attempt a breaking of this weather?”

For a time, he did not reply. Linden saw in the set of his shoulders, the curling of his fingers, that he wanted to take some kind of action. Even when he slept, his bones were rigid with remembered urgency. The answer to his self-distrust lay at the One Tree. But when he spoke, he said, “No.” He tried to smile. The effort made him grimace. “With my luck, I'd knock another hole in the ship.”

That night, he lay facedown on the pallet like an inverted cenotaph of himself, and Linden had to knead his back for a long time before he was able to turn and look at her.

And still the storms did not lessen. The third day made them more numerous and turbid. Linden spent most of her time on deck, peering through wind and rain for some sign that the weather might change. Covenant's tension soaked into her through her senses. The One Tree. Hope for him. For the Land. And for her? The question disturbed her. He had said that a Staff of Law could be used to send her back to her own life.

During a period of clear sky between squalls in the middle of the afternoon, they were standing at the rail halfway up the starboard foredeck, watching clouds as black as disaster drag purple and slashing rain across the water like sea-anchors, when a shout sprang from the foremast. A shout of warning. Honninscrave replied from the wheeldeck. An alarm spread through the stone. Heavy feet pounded the decks. The First and Pitchwife came trotting toward Linden and Covenant.

“What-?” Covenant began.

The Swordmain reached the rail beside Linden, pointed outward. Her gaze was as acute as a hawk's.

Pitchwife positioned himself directly behind the Unbeliever.

Suddenly, Seadreamer also appeared. For an instant, Linden leaped to the impossible conclusion that the Isle of the One Tree was near. But Seadreamer's stare lacked the precise dread which characterized his Earth-Sight. He looked like a man who saw a perilous wonder bearing down on him.

Her heart pounding, she swung to face the sea.

The First's pointing arm focused Linden's senses. With a shock of percipience, she felt an eldritch power floating toward the Giantship.

The nerves of her face tasted the weird theurgy before her eyes descried it. But then an intervening squall abruptly frayed and fell apart, dissipated as if its energy had encountered an apt and hungry lightning rod. She saw an area of calm advancing across the face of the sea.

It was wider than the length of the dromond, and its periphery was not calm. Around the rim, waterspouts kicked into the air like geysers. They burst straight upward as if no wind could touch them, reached as high as the Giantship's spars, then fanned into spray and rainbows, tumbled sun-bedizened back into the sea. In turn, irrhythmically, now here, now at the farther edge, the spouts stretched toward the sky like celebrants, defining the zone of calm with their innominate gavotte. But within their circle the sea lay fiat, motionless, and reflective-a sopor upon the heart of the deep.

The waterspouts and the calm, were moving with slow, bright delicacy toward Starfare's Gem.

Covenant tried again. “What-?” His tone was clenched and sweating, as if he felt the approaching power as vividly as Linden did.

Stiffly, the First replied, “Merewives” And Pitchwife added in a soft whisper, “The Dancers of the Sea.”

Linden started to ask, What are they? But Pitchwife had already begun to answer. Standing at Covenant's back, he breathed, “They are a widely told tale. I had not thought to be vouchsafed such a sight.”

The waterspouts were drawing near. Linden tasted their strength like a spray against her cheeks, though the sensation had no flavour except that of the strength itself-and of the faint poignance which seemed to arise like longing from the upward reach of the waters. But Honninscrave and Starfare's Gem made no attempt to evade the approach. All the Giants were entranced by wonder and trepidation.

“Some say,” Pitchwife went on, “that they are the female soul of the sea, seeking forever among the oceans for some male heart hardy enough to consummate them. Others say that they are the lost mates of a race which once lived within the deeps, and that their search is for their husbands, who have been slain or mazed or concealed. The truth I know not. But all tales agree that they are perilous. Their song is one which no man may gainsay or deny. Chosen, do you hear their song?” Linden did not speak. He took her response for granted. “I also do not hear it. Perhaps the merewives have no desire for Giants, as they have none for women. Our people have never suffered scathe from these folk.” His voice sharpened involuntarily as the first spouts wet the sides of the Giantship. “Yet for other men-!”

Linden recoiled instinctively. But the spray was only saltwater. The strength of the merewives did not touch her. She heard no song, although she sensed some kind of passion moving around her, intensifying the air like a distant crepitation. Then the first spouts had passed the dromond, and Star fare's Gem sat inside the zone of calm, resting motionless within a girdle of rainbows and sun-diamonds and dancing. The sails hung in their lines, deprived of life. Slowly, the Giantship began to revolve as if the calm had become the eye of a whirlpool.

“If they are not answered,” Pitchwife concluded, nearly shouting, “they will pass.”

Linden heard the strain in his voice, the taut silence beside her. With a jerk, she looked toward Covenant.

He was bucking and twisting against Pitchwife's rigid grasp on his shoulders.

Twenty Three: Withdrawl from Service

THE call of the merewives went through Covenant like an awl, so bright and piercing that he would not have known it for music if his heart had not leaped up in response. He did not feel himself plunging against Pitchwife's hold, did not know that he was gaping and gasping as if he could no longer breathe air, were desperate to inhale water. The song consumed him. Its pointed loveliness and desire entered him to the marrow. Vistas of grandeur and surcease opened beyond the railing as if the music had words –

Come to us for heart-heal and soul-assuage, for consummation of every flesh.

— as if the sun-glistered and gracile dance of the waterspouts were an utterance in a language he understood. Only Pitchwife's hands prevented him from diving into the deep sea in reply.

Linden's face appeared in front of him, as vivid as panic. She was shouting, but he did not hear her through the song. Only those hands prevented him from sweeping her aside on his way to the sea. His heart had stopped beating-or perhaps no time had passed. Only those hands-!

In a flash, his fire gathered. Wild magic burned through his bones to blast Pitchwife away from him.

But power and venom turned the music of the merewives to screaming in his mind. Revulsion flooded through him-the Dancers' or his, he could not tell the difference. They did not want a man like him-and Pitchwife was his friend, he did not wish to hurt his friend, not again, he had already hurt more friends than he could endure. In spite of Pitchwife's Giantish capacity to sustain fire, his grip had been broken. Not again!

Free of the song, Covenant stumbled forward, collided with Linden.

She grappled for him as if he were still trying to hurl himself into the sea. He wrestled to break loose. The passing of the music left incandescent trails of comprehension through him. The merewives did not want the danger he represented. But they desired men-potent and vital men, men to sustain them. Linden fought to hold him, using the same skills she had once used against Sunder. He tried to shout, Let me go! It isn't me they want! But his throat was clogged with memories of music. Consummation of every flesh. He twisted one arm free, pointed wildly.

Too late.

Brinn and Cail were already sprinting toward the rail.

Everyone had been watching Covenant. Seadreamer and the First had moved toward him to catch him if Linden failed. And they had all learned to rely on the invulnerability of the Haruchai. None of them could react in time.

Together, Brinn and Cail bounded onto the railing. For a fractional instant, they were poised in the sunlight, crouched to leap forward like headlong joy. Then they dove for the sea as if it had become the essence of all their hearts' desires.

For a moment like the pause of an astonished heart, no one moved. The masts stood straight and still, as if they had been nailed to the clenched air. The sails dangled like amazement in their shrouds. Yet the dromond went on turning. As soon as the calm gathered enough momentum, the vessel would be sucked down. The Haruchai had left no splash or ripple behind to mark their existence.

Covenant's mouth stretched into a lost shout. He was panting to himself, Brinn, Brinn. He had placed so much faith in the Haruchai, needed them so much. Were their hearts mortal and frangible after all? Bannor had commanded him, Redeem my people. He had failed again.

With an effort like a convulsion, he flung Linden aside. As she staggered away, he let out a cry of flame.

His eruption broke the onlookers out of their trance. The First and Honninscrave yelled orders. Giants leaped into action.

Linden tried to take hold of Covenant again. Her fear for him mottled her face. But his blaze kept her back. He moved toward the railing like a wash of fire.

Seadreamer and Pitchwife were there ahead of him. They fought like foemen, Seadreamer trying to reach the sea, Pitchwife restraining him. As he struggled, Pitchwife gasped out, “Are you not male? Should they turn their song against you, how will you refuse it?”

Covenant put out an arm of flame, yanked Seadreamer back onto the foredeck. Then he was at the rail himself. Fire poured down his arms as if he were summoning a cataclysm against the Dancers.

People shouted at him — Linden, Findail, the First. He did not know what he would do if the merewives directed their song at him again-and did not care. He was rapt with fury for Brinn and Cail. The Haruchai had served him steadfastly when his need had been so great that he could not even ask for help.

Abruptly, a hand struck his shoulder, turned him to the side. The First confronted him, her arm raised for another blow. “Giantfriend, hear me!” she shouted. “Withhold your might, lest they find means to bend it against you!”

“They're my friends!” His voice was a blare of vehemence.

“And mine!” she responded, matching his ire with iron. “If they may be reached by any rescue, I will do it!”

He did not want to stop. The venom in his veins was alight with glee. For an instant, he was on the verge of simply brushing her aside, a mere annoyance to his power.

But then Linden joined the First, imploring him with her eyes, her open hands. Trepidation aggrieved her face, made her suddenly poignant to him. Her hair shone about her shoulders like yearning. He remembered who he was-a leper with good reason to fear wild magic. “They're my friends” he repeated hoarsely. But if he heard the song of the Dancers again he would not be able to refuse it. He had no way to rescue Brinn and Cail except with a violence so immense that it might destroy Starfare's Gem as well.

He turned from the railing, raised his face to the cerulean stasis of the sky as if he meant to shock it with expostulation. But he did not. Sagging, he let the fire fray away from his bones. His ring seemed to manacle the second finger of his half-hand.

He heard Findail's tight sigh of relief. But he ignored the Elohim. He was gazing at Seadreamer. He might have injured the mute Giant.

But Seadreamer was like his kindred, immune to fire if not to pain. He had mastered himself and met Covenant's look as if they shared reasons for abashment.

Covenant winced voicelessly. When Linden came to him, put her hands on his arm like a gesture of consolation, he closed his numb fingers over hers and turned toward the preparations of the Giants.

The First had been joined by Galewrath. Crewmembers hastened between them and the nearest hatchway. With grim celerity, the First unbelted her sword, removed her mail. Her eyes were fixed on the flat water as if it had become a place of concealment for something fatal. In moments, the Giants brought up two long canvas tubes like hoses from the underdecks. They reached in long coils across the foredeck and out of sight through the hatch. Then a shout echoed from below; and the tubes began to writhe and hiss like serpents as air was forced through them.

They were taking too long. Covenant's grip whitened Linden's hand, but he could not relax it. He could not judge how long Cail and Brinn had been gone. Surely they were dying for lack of air. Heat rose in him again. The effort of self-restraint made his head spin as if the dromond's movement had accelerated.

To the Giants near her, the First muttered, “Forewarn the Master. It is said that the merewives know little kindness when they are reft of their prey. If we do not fail, there will be need of his sea-craft.”

One of the crew dashed away to convey her message. For an instant, she looked at Covenant, at Linden. “Hold hope,” she said tautly. “I do not mean to fail.”

Go, he wanted to bark at her. Go!

Linden pulled away from him, took a step toward the First. Her lips were compressed with severity; the lines of her mien were as acute as Brinn's accusations. Covenant was learning to read her with an intimacy that almost matched her percipience. He heard the desire for vindication in her voice as she said, “Take me with you. I can help.”

The First did not hesitate. “Chosen, in this need we are swifter and more able than you.”

Without delay, she and Galewrath took hold of the tubes, climbed over the railing and jumped for the water.

Pitchwife watched them as if he were afraid. Covenant followed Linden to the hunched Giant's side, drawn there by the rush of the hoses. Like the Haruchai, the First and the Storesmaster appeared to vanish without marking the static water. But the tubes ran into the depths swiftly, and bubbles trailed back to the surface.

The waterspouts did not lessen. Rather, they seemed to grow more eager, as if they were tasting an answer to their long insatiation. Beyond them, the squalls continued to batter each other back and forth. The afternoon thickened toward evening. Yet the bubbles rose like implications of hope. Belowdecks, Giants laboured at the pumps, forcing air down the tubes.

The suspense clawed at Covenant's restraint, urging fire. His fists closed and unclosed helplessly. Abruptly, he shoved himself from the railing. “I've got to do something.” Rigid with suppression, he stalked toward the prow of the dromond.

Linden accompanied him as if she still feared he might succumb to madness or merewives at any moment. But her presence steadied him. When he reached the prow, he was able to confront the Appointed without shouting his desperation.

Findail's yellow eyes squinted in potential anguish. Covenant measured him with a glare. Then, roughly, he said, “You want to be trusted. No, not trusted. You're Elohim. You don't need anything as mortal and fallible as trust. You want to be understood. This is your chance. Help my friends. They've done everything flesh and blood can do to keep me alive. And not just me. Linden. The Sun-Sage, That has got to count for something.” His arms were locked at his sides; his hands, knurled into fists. Flame bled between his fingers, too potent and necessary to be quenched. The scars on his forearm ached with the memory of fangs. “By hell, you've got to do something to help my friends.”

“And if I do not?” Findail's tone held no hauteur. Difficulty and apprehension seamed his voice. “Will you compel me? Will you rend the Earth from its foundations to compel me?”

Covenant's shoulders were trembling. He could not still them. Word by word, he articulated, “I am asking you.” Danger bled in his throat. “Help my friends.”

Implicit recognitions filled Findail's gaze. But he did not relent. Slowly, he said, "It is sooth that there are many tales told of these merewives, the Dancers of the Sea. One such is the tale that they are the descendants and inheritors of the woman whom Kastenessen loved-that she took with her the power and knowledge which she gained from him, and also the daughters of all men-betrayed women, and set herself and them to seek restitution from all men who abandon their homes in the name of the sea. The Haruchai have gone to meet a jeopardy which arises only from the quenchless extravagance of their own hearts, for the merewives did naught except sing-but the Haruchai answered. I will not offend further against that which was born of Kastenessen's mad love."

Deliberately, he turned his back as if he were daring Covenant to smite him.

Passion ran down Covenant's arm, itching for violence. Findail refused every gesture which might have palliated the harm his people had done. Covenant had to grit his teeth to hold back protests which would have written themselves in fire across the Giantship. But Linden was with him. Her touch felt cool on his hot forearm.

“It wouldn't do any good.” His voice choked between his teeth. “Even if I tore his heart out with my bare hands.” But he believed in restraint. Blood-willingness appalled him, his own more than any other. Why else had he let Lord Foul live?

Her soft eyes regarded him as if she were about to say, How else can you fight? Bitter with vulnerability, she had once said, Some infections have to be cut out. That pain was still apparent in the marks of death and severity around her mouth; but now it took a different form, surprising him. Arduously, she said, “After Hergrom rescued you-killed that Guard-For a while, we were alone with Kasreyn. Brinn wanted to kill him then. And I wanted him to do it. But I couldn't — Couldn't let him. Even though I knew something terrible was going to happen to Hergrom. I couldn't be responsible for more killing.” Her mother was vivid in her eyes. “Maybe Brinn's right. Maybe that makes me responsible for what happened. But it wouldn't have made any difference. We couldn't have killed him anyway.”

She stopped. She did not need to go on. Covenant understood her. He could not have killed Lord Foul. Despite was not something which could be made to die.

Yet she was wrong about one thing: it would have made a difference. The same difference that killing her mother had made to her.

He wanted to tell her that he was glad she had not unleashed Brinn at Kasreyn. But he was too crowded with other needs. He remained still for a moment in recognition of her. Then he jerked into motion back toward the knot of Giants who paid out the hoses over the edge of the dromond.

Pressing himself against the rail, he stared at the bubbles. The cross-support was like a bar across his chest. Terrible amounts of time had passed. How could Brinn and Cail still be alive? The bubbles rose in bursts, as if the two Giants had reached a depth where the pressure threatened their lungs. The tubes throbbed and wheezed stertorously, articulating the labour of the pumps. He found himself breathing to the same rhythm.

He wrenched his gaze from the sea. The imponderable dance of the waterspouts went on, slowly invoking Starfare's Gem to its grave. The First's longsword lay in its scabbard on the deck like an abandoned thing, bereft of use and name. Linden was peering distractedly around the zone of calm, registering unspecified perceptions. Unconsciously, her lips spelled out the high geyser and spray of an alien tongue.

Abruptly, the hoses stopped moving.

At once, the enclosed atmosphere shivered as if it had been shocked. For an instant, a sound burned Covenant's brain like the song of the merewives violated into outrage. The squalls seemed to loom forward like fists of wrath, clenched for retribution.

Reacting to some felt signal, the Giants began to haul the tubes upward, pulling hand-over-hand with swift strength.

Covenant tried to turn toward them. But the sight of Linden held him. She had gone as pale as panic. Her hands covered her mouth; her eyes gaped whitely into the distance.

He grabbed at her arms, dug his numb fingers into her flesh. Her gaze stared past him, through him. “Linden!” he snapped, acid with fear and truncated sight. “What is it?”

“The squalls.” She spoke to herself, hardly seemed aware she was speaking aloud. “They're part of the Dance. The merewives raise them to catch ships. I should've seen it before.”

As suddenly as a flash of intuition, her eyes sprang into focus. She thrashed against him. “The squalls?' she panted urgently. ”I've got to warn Honninscrave! They're going to attack!

In bare comprehension, he released her. She staggered backward, caught her balance, flung herself into a run toward the wheeldeck.

He almost went after her. Her tense, fleet form drew him powerfully. But the First and Galewrath were being lifted toward the surface. With Brinn and Cail? Why else did the Dancers want to attack?

Giants heaved at the hoses. White-knuckled with anticipation, Pitchwife's hands clenched one of the rails. Seadreamer stood ready to dive if the First or Galewrath needed aid. The scar under his eyes was avid for anything which was not Earth-Sight.

The atmosphere concentrated toward a detonation.

Voices rose from the direction of the wheeldeck-first Linden's, then Honninscrave's. The Master was bellowing commands across the Giantship. Every crewmember who was not needed at the hoses leaped for the rigging.

Peering far over the side in spite of his vertigo, Covenant saw vague shapes rise. Pitchwife called unnecessarily for ropes; they were already at hand. As heads broke water, the lines were cast downward.

The First snatched a look upward, caught one of the ropes with her free hand. Galewrath did the same. Immediately, they were pulled out of the sea.

The First clutched Brinn to her chest with one arm. Galewrath had Cail draped over her shoulder.

Both the Haruchai hung as limp as sleep.

Pitchwife and Seadreamer stretched out their hands to help the divers aboard. Covenant tried to squeeze past them to get a closer look at Brinn and Cail, but could not.

As the Swordmain and Galewrath gained the foredeck, the entire sky shattered.

The waterspouts and the stillness vanished in one fractured instant. From every direction, squalls sprang at the Giantship with the fury of gales. Rain hammered the decks; ire blotted out the horizons. In the midst of its spin, Starfare's Gem staggered into a vicious concussion of waters. The stone quivered from mast to keel.

Covenant stumbled against Seadreamer, clung to the mute Giant for support. If Honninscrave had not been forewarned, the dromond might have lost its yards in the twisting savagery of the blasts. The masts themselves might have been torn from their moorings. But the crew had started to slacken sail before the violence hit. The dromond lurched and bucked, kicked wildly from side to side. Sheets leaped into snarls and chaos; canvas retorted in the conflict of winds. But Starfare's Gem was not hurt.

Then all the squalls became one, and the confusion resolved into a blast like the howling of a riven heart. It caught the Giantship broadside, heeled it far over onto its side. Covenant might have tumbled overboard if Seadreamer had not held him. Rain scythed against his face. The Master was no longer audible through the roar and slash of the storm.

Yet the Giants knew what had to be done. Somehow, they tautened a sail on the foremast. Canvas bit into the blast: Starfare's Gem surged upright as it turned. For an instant, the vessel trembled from stem to stern, straining against the leash of its own immense weight. Then more sail took hold, and the dromond began to run along the wind.

Covenant reeled from Seadreamer to the First. He clutched at Brinn, imploring the Haruchai for some sign of life. But Brinn dangled with his face open to the rain and did not move. Perhaps he was not breathing. Covenant could not tell. He tried to shout up at the First, but no words came. Two more deaths on his head-two men who had served him with a fidelity as great as any Vow. Despite his power, he was helpless to succour them.

Torrents gnashed at the decks. “Saltroamrest!” the First barked. At once, she strode toward the nearest hatchway.

Covenant followed as if no mere storm, no simple battering of wind and rain, no plunge and roll of footing, could keep him from her.

A deluge pursued him through the hatch, tried to tear him from the ladder as he struggled downward. Then it was cut off as Seadreamer heaved the hatch shut. Instantly, the sounds of the storm were muffled by granite. Yet the companion way pitched as the dromond crashed through the seas. The lanterns hanging from the walls swung wildly. Starfare's Gem's peril felt more personal in the constriction of the underdecks-unreadable, not to be escaped. Covenant hurried after the First and Galewrath, but did not catch up with them until they reached the huge bunkhold of Saltroamrest.

The space appeared as large as a cavern — a hall where nearly twoscore Giants slung their hammocks without intruding on each other. Lamps hung from all the pillars which supported the hammocks, making Saltroamrest bright. It was virtually empty. The crew was busy fighting for the dromond, either at the pumps or aloft. In the centre of the hall, a longtable had been formed into the floor. The First and the Storesmaster hastened to this table, laid Brinn and Cail carefully atop it.

Covenant went to the edge of the longtable. It was as high as the middle of his chest. While he blinked at the water dripping from his hair, the prone Haruchai retained their semblance of death. Their brown limbs lay perfect and devoid of life.

But then he saw that they were breathing. Their chests rose and fell gently. Their nostrils flared slightly at each inhalation,

A different salt stung Covenant's eyes. “Brinn,” he said, “Cail.” Oh dear God.

They lay as if they were wrapped in the sleep of the damned and did not move.

From an emotional distance, he heard the First say, “Bring diamond? — aught.”“ Pitchwife went to obey. ”Storesmaster,“ she continued, ”can you waken them?"

Galewrath approached the longtable. She studied the Haruchai bluntly, raised their eyelids, chaffed their wrists. After a moment spent listening to their respirations, she announced that their lungs were free of water. With the First's permission, she slapped Cail's face gently, then harder and harder until his head lolled soddenly from side to side. But no flicker of consciousness touched his visage. He and Brinn were twinned in sopor.

She stepped back with a frown knotted between her brows.

“Merewives,” the First muttered. “How could we have believed that comrades as staunch as these Haruchai would fall prey?”

Pitchwife returned at a swift, awkward gait, carrying a pouch in one hand. The First took it from him. While Galewrath propped Brinn into a sitting position, the First raised the leather mouth to his lips. The smell of diamondraught filled the air. Brinn swallowed reflexively. But he did not awaken. Cail also swallowed the liquor which was poured into his mouth. Nothing changed.

Covenant was beating his fists lightly against his thighs, trying to contain his urgency. He did not know what to do. The Giants scowled their ignorance at each other. “Linden,” he said as if they had spoken to him. “We need Linden.”

As if in answer to his need, a door at the aft end of Saltroamrest opened. The Chosen entered the hall, lurching against the pitch of the dromond's pace. Mistweave came with her, shadowing her in Cail's place. She was drenched and storm-battered- hair bedraggled, robe scattering water about her legs. But she came purposefully forward.

Covenant did not trust himself to speak. He remained silent and desperate as she approached the longtable.

After a moment, the First found her voice. “Stone and Sea, Chosen,” she muttered harshly, “you are not come too soon. We know not how to rouse them. Diamondraught they have been given, but it avails nothing. We have no lore for such somnolence.”

Linden stopped, stared at the First. Roughly, the Swordmain continued, “It is our fear that the hand of the merewives yet holds them-and that their peril is also the peril of Starfare's Gem. Mayhap we will not escape the wrath of the Dancers while they remain thus bound to the Haruchai. How else to regain what they desire, but to break the dromond with their storms?”

At that, Linden flinched. Her eyes flashed splinters of the unsteady lantern-light. “And you want me to go into them.” Covenant saw a vein in her temple throbbing like a small labour of fear. “Break the hold. Is that it?” Her glare demanded, Again? How much more do you think I can stand?

Covenant felt her protest acutely. At times in the past, he had experienced the health-sense which dismayed her, though he had never possessed it as keenly as she did. And the Haruchai had inflicted so much distrust upon her. But he was more helpless here than she. Blinded by the truncation of his nerves, he could not use his white fire for anything except destruction. Brinn and Cail lay as if they were less alive than Vain. He held Linden's hot gaze, made a broken gesture toward the Haruchai. Thickly, he replied, “Please.”

For a moment longer, she did not move. Pitchwife and the First held themselves still. Then Linden shrugged like a wince, as if her shoulders were sore. “It can't be any worse than what I've already done.” Deliberately, she stepped to the edge of the longtable.

Covenant watched her hungrily as she explored Brinn and Cail with her hands and eyes. As soon as she accepted the risk, apprehension for her rose up in him. Her every movement was distinct and hazardous. He had felt the power of the merewives, knew what it could do. And he remembered how she had looked in the dungeon of the Sandhold, after she had rescued him from the silence of the Elohim. Behind her rigid mouth and tormented past, behind her fear and grimness, she had a capacity for self-expenditure that shamed him.

But as she studied the Haruchai her manner softened. Her expression eased. The surety of the Haruchai seemed to flow into her through her hands. Softly, she said to herself, “At least those merewives know health when they see it.” Then she stepped back.

She did not look at her companions. In a tone of abrupt command, she told Pitchwife to take hold of Brinn's left arm, anchor the Haruchai to the table.

Pitchwife complied, mystification in his eyes. The First said nothing. Galewrath frowned noncommittally. Seadreamer's gaze shifted back and forth between Linden and Brinn as if he were trying to guess her intentions.

She did not hesitate. Grasping Brinn's right limb, she pulled it over the edge of the table, leaned her weight on it to stretch it against its socket. When she was sure of her position, she put her mouth close to his ear. Slowly, explicitly, she articulated, “Now I'm going to break your arm.”

The instant violence of Brinn's reaction took Pitchwife by surprise, broke his hold. He failed to stop the hard arc of Brinn's fist as the Haruchai flipped toward Linden, struck at her face.

His blow caught her on the forehead. She reeled backward, crashed against one of the pillars. Holding her ears as if the lanterns were caterwauling like banshees, she slumped to the floor.

For an instant, Covenant's life stopped. Cursing, the First strode toward Linden. Brinn dropped from the table, landed lightly on his feet. Galewrath planted herself in front of him, cocked her massive fist to keep him away from Linden. Cail sat up as if he meant to go to Brinn's aid. Together, Pitchwife and Seadreamer grappled for his arms.

Linden knotted her knees to her chest, clamped her head in both hands, rolled herself weakly from side to side as if she were beset by all the Dancers at once.

From a great distance, Covenant heard a voice snarling, “Damn you, Brinn! If she's hurt, I'll break your bloody arm myself!” It must have been his voice, but he ignored it. He was swarming toward Linden. Somehow, he shouldered the

First aside. Crouching beside Linden, he pulled her into his lap, wrapped his arms around her. She writhed in his embrace as if she were going mad.

A shout gathered in his mind, pounded toward utterance:

Let her go!

The puissance in him seemed to reach her. She dragged her hands down from her head, flung her face toward him. Her mouth shaped a word that might have been, No!

He held himself still as her eyes struggled into focus on his face. One by one, her muscles unclenched. She looked as pale as fever; her breathing rattled in her throat. But she raised a whisper out of her stunned chest. “I think I'm all right.”

Around Covenant, the lights capered to the tune of the storm's ire. He closed his eyes so that he would not lose control.

When he opened them again, the First and Pitchwife were squatting on either side, watching Linden's fragile recovery. Brinn and Cail stood a short distance away. Behind them loomed Seadreamer as if he were prepared to break both their necks. Galewrath waited to help him. But the Haruchai ignored the Giants. They looked like men who had made up their minds.

“There is no need to damn us,” said Brinn flatly. Neither he nor Cail met Covenant's glower. “We have already gazed upon the visage of our doom. Yet we seek pardon. It was not my intent to do harm.”

He appeared to have no interest in his own apology. "We withdraw our accusation against the Chosen. She has adjudged us rightly. Mayhap she is in sooth the hand of Corruption among us. But there are other Corruptions which we hold in greater abhorrence.

“We speak neither for our people among their mountains nor for those Haruchai who may seek to wage themselves against the depredations of the Clave. But we will no longer serve you.”

At that, a pang of astonishment went through Covenant. No longer serve — ? He hardly understood the words. Distress closed his throat. Linden tensed in his arms. What are you talking about?

What did they do to you?

Then the First was on her feet. With her stern, iron beauty, her arms folded like bonds across her chest, she towered over the Haruchai. “There is delusion upon you.” She spoke like the riposte of a blade. “The song of the merewives has wrought madness into your hearts. You speak of doom, but that which the Dancers offer is only death, nothing more. Are you blind to the peril from which you were retrieved? Almost Galewrath and I failed of your rescue, for we found you at a depth nigh to our limits. There you lay like men bemused by folly. I know not what dream of joy or transport you found in that song-and I care not. Recumbent like the dead, you lay in no other arms than the limbs of coral which had by chance preserved you from a still deeper plunge. Whatever visions filled your unseeing eyes were the fruit of entrancement and brine. That is truth. Is it your intent to return to these merewives in the name of delusion?” Her arms corded with anger. “Stone and Sea, I will not — !”

Brinn interrupted her without looking at her. “That is not our intent. We do not seek death. We will not again answer the song of the Dancers, But we will no longer serve either the ur-Lord or the Chosen.” His tone did not relent. He spoke as if he were determined to show himself no mercy. “We cannot.”

“Can't?” Covenant's expostulation was muffled by alarm,

But Brinn went on as if he were speaking to the First or to no one. “We doubt not what you have said. You are Giants, long-storied among the old tellers of the Haruchai, You have said that the song of the merewives is delusion. We acknowledge that you speak truth. But such delusion-”

Then his voice softened in a way that Covenant had never heard before. “Ur-Lord, will you not rise to confront us? We will not stoop to you. But it is unseemly that we should thus stand above you.”

Covenant looked at Linden. Her features were tense with the effort she made to recollect some semblance of stability; but she nodded, made a groping gesture toward Pitchwife. At once, the Giant lifted her out of Covenant's arms, leaving him free to face the Haruchai.

Stiffly, he climbed to his feet. He felt wooden with emotions he was afraid to admit. Was he going to lose the Haruchai? The Haruchai, who had been as faithful as Ranyhyn from the beginning?

What did they do to you?

But then Brinn met his gaze for the first time; and the passion in those dispassionate orbs made him tremble. Starfare's Gem heaved among the angry seas as if at any moment the granite might break. He started to spit out every word that came into his head. He did not want to hear what Brinn would say.

“You made a promise.” His chest rose and fell with the rough force of his knowledge that he had no right to accuse the Haruchai of anything. “I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want to be responsible for any more service like the kind Bannor insisted on giving me. But I had no choice.” He had been more than half crippled by loss of blood, might have died of sheer remorse and futility on the upland plateau above Revelstone if Brinn had not aided him. “What in hell are you talking about?”

“Ur-Lord.” Brinn did not swerve from the path he had chosen. “Did you not hear the song of the merewives?”

“What has that got to do with it?” Covenant's belligerence was hollow, but he could not set it aside. It was his only defence. “The only reason they took you is because they didn't want anybody as flawed or at least destructive as I am.”

Brinn shook his head, “Also,” he went on, “is it not truly said of the Unbeliever that at one time in his distress he vowed the Land to be a dream-a thing of falseness and seduction, not to be permitted?”

That struck Covenant voiceless. Everything he might have said seemed to curdle in him, sickened by anticipation. He had told Linden on Kevin's Watch, We're sharing a dream — a belief he had once needed and later outgrown. It had become irrelevant. Until this moment, he had considered it to be irrelevant.

Are you going to blame me for that too?

Deliberately, the Haruchai continued, "The First has said that the song of the Dancers is delusion. Perhaps in our hearts we knew it for delusion as we harkened to it. But we are Haruchai, and we gave it answer.

"Mayhap you know too little of us. The lives of our people upon the mountains are strict and costly, for peaks and snows are no gentle bourne. Therefore are we prolific in our seed, that we may endure from generation to generation. The bond joining man to woman is a fire in us, and deep. Did not Bannor speak to you of this? For those who became Bloodguard, the loss of sleep and death was a little thing, lightly borne. But the loss of wives-It was that which caused them to end their Vow when Corruption placed his hand upon them. Any man may fail or die. But how may one of the

Haruchai who has left his wife in the name of a chosen fidelity endure to know that even his fidelity may be riven from him? Better the Vow had never been uttered, no service given.

“Ur-Lord.” Brinn did not look away. He hardly blinked. Yet the unwonted implication of softness in his tone was unmistakable. “In the song of the merewives we heard the fire of our yearning for that which we have left behind. Assuredly we were deluded-but the delusion was sweet. Mountains sprang about us. The air became the keen breath which the peaks exhale from their snows. And upon the slopes moved the women who call to us in their longing for fire and seed and offspring.” For a moment, he broke into the tonal tongue of the Haruchai; and that language seemed to transform his visage, giving him an aspect of poetry. “Therefore did we leap to answer, disregarding all service and safety. The limbs of our women are brown from sun and birth. But there is also a whiteness as acute as the ice which bleeds from the rock of mountains, and it burns as the purest snow burns in the most high tor, the most wind-flogged col. For that whiteness, we gave ourselves to the Dancers of the Sea.”

Covenant could no longer meet Brinn's gaze. Banner had hinted at these things-things which made the Haruchai explicable. Their rigid and judgmental stance against the world came from this, that every breath they took was an inhalation of desire and loss.

He looked to his companions for help; but none of them had any to offer. Linden's eyes were misted with pain or recognition. Empathy twisted Pitchwife's mien. And the First, who understood extravagance, stood beside Brinn and Cail as if she approved.

Inflexibly, Brinn went on, “Thus we demonstrated ourselves false. Our given fidelity we betrayed at the behest of a delusion. Our promise to you we were unable to keep. We are unworthy. Therefore we will no longer serve you. Our folly must end now, ere greater promises than ours become false in consequence.”

“Brinn,” Covenant protested as if he were choking. “Cail.” His distress demanded utterance. “You don't need to do that. Nobody blames you.” His voice was harsh, as if he meant to be brutal. Linden reached a hand weakly toward him like a plea for pity. Her eyes streamed with comprehension of the plight of the Haruchai. But he ignored her. The hard clench of his passion prevented him from speaking in any other way.

“Banner did the same thing. Just what you're doing. We were standing on Landsdrop-with Foamfollower. He refused to come with us, when I needed- ” He swallowed convulsively. “I asked him what he was ashamed of. He said, 'I am not shamed. But I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service-lest the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured.' The same thing you're saying now. But don't you understand? It's not that simple. Anybody can fail. But the Bloodguard didn't just fail. They lost faith. Or why do you think Bannor had to meet me in Andelain? If you're right, why didn't he let you just go on paying the price of your unworth?”

Covenant wanted to beat his frustration at Brinn. Grimly, he restrained himself, strove instead to make his words felt through the Haruchai's intransigence.

“I'll tell you why. Maybe no Vow or promise is the answer to Despite-but neither is abdication. He didn't give me any promises, any gifts. He just said, 'Redeem my people. Their plight is an abomination. And they will serve you well.' ”

Then he stopped. He could not go on; he understood too well the extremity of the man he faced. For a moment, Saltroamrest was silent except for the labour of the dromond's pumps, the creaking of the masts, the muffled fury of the seas and wind. The lanterns continued to sway vulnerably. Seadreamer's eyes burned at the Haruchai as if he sensed a strange hope in their intractible self-judgment.

At last, Brinn spoke. He sounded almost gentle. “Ur-Lord, have we not served you well?”

Covenant's features contorted in bereavement. But he made a fierce effort, forced himself to reply, “You know you have.”

Brinn did not flinch or hesitate. “Then let it end.”

Covenant turned to Linden. His hands groped for contact with her. But his fingers were numb. He found no other answer in her.

Later that night, in the privacy of her cabin, while the storm thrashed and clawed at the Giantship, he rubbed the sore muscles of her neck and back. His fingers worked at her as if they were desperate with loss. Gradually, the diamondraught she had consumed to speed her recovery put her to sleep; but he did not stop massaging her until his hands were too tired to continue. He did not know what else to do with his despair. The defection of the Haruchai seemed to presage the collapse of all his hopes.

Later still, Starfare's Gem lifted its sails into the gray dawn and ran beyond the grief of the merewives. The rain ended like tears which had fallen too long; the wind frayed away toward other parts of the sea. Honninscrave needed only a slight adjustment of course to head the dromond directly for its goal.

But the Haruchai did not relent.

Twenty Four: The Isle

THE sky remained beclouded and blustery for two days, echoing the gray moil of the sea like indignation, as if Starfare's Gem were an intrusion which vexed the region. But then the wind rose in dismissal, and the dromond was swept into a period of clear days and crystal nights. Under the sun, the sea joined the heavens without seam or taint; and at night the specific glitter of the stars marked out the path of the quest for any experienced gaze to read.

Grimmand Honninscrave grew more eager every day. And the immaculate wind seemed to fan both the First and Pitchwife into a heat of anticipation. At unguarded moments, his misborn grotesquerie and her iron beauty looked oddly similar, as if their progress toward the One Tree were deepening their intimacy. The three of them studied the distance constantly, searching the horizon for validation of the choices which had taken them away from the Land in spite of Seadreamer's plain Earth-Sight.

Their keenness spread out across the Giantship, affecting all the crew. Even Heft Galewrath's blunt features took on a whetted aspect. And Sevinhand's old sadness passed through periods of sunshine like hope.

Linden Avery watched them as she watched the ship itself and Covenant, trying to find her place among them. She understood the Giants, knew that much of their eagerness arose on Seadreamer's behalf. His dumb misery was vivid to everyone. His people champed to accomplish their purpose and head back toward the Land, where he might be able to seek relief in the crisis of the Sunbane, the apotheosis of his vision. But she did not share that particular longing. She feared that the Giants did not recognize the true nature of his vision.

And Covenant's mood only aggravated her apprehension. He seemed avid for the One Tree to the point of fever. Emotionally if not physically, he had drawn away from her. The rejection of the Haruchai had driven him into a state of rigid defensiveness. When he talked, his voice had a ragged edge which he could not blunt; and his eyes sent out reflections of bloodshed. She saw in his face that he was remembering the Clave, people butchered to feed the Banefire, self-distrust; remembering power and venom over which he had no control. At times, his gaze was hollow with recollections of silence. Even his lovemaking became strangely vehement, as if despite their embraces he believed he had already lost her.

She could not forget that he intended to send her back to her former life. He was fervid for the One Tree for his own reasons, hoping that it would enable him to fight Lord Foul with something other than white fire and destruction. But he also wanted it because of her. To send her back.

She dreaded that, dreaded the One Tree, Seadreamer's mute and untouchable trepidation ached in her like an open wound. Whenever he came within range of her senses, she felt his ambience bleeding. At times, she could barely rein herself from urging Covenant, the First, anyone who would listen to abandon the quest-forget the One Tree, return to the Land, fight the Sunbane with whatever weapons were available and accept the outcome. She believed that Seadreamer knew exactly what Lord Foul was doing. And she did not want to be sent back.

Late one night, when Covenant had at last fallen into a sleep free of nightmares, she left his side, went up to the decks. She wore her woollen robe. Though the air had become noticeably cooler during the past few days, she shied away from her old clothes as if they represented exigencies and failures she did not wish to reconsider. On the afterdeck, she found Starfare's Gem riding unerringly before the wind under a moon already in its last quarter. Soon nothing would stand between the dromond and darkness except the ambiguous stars and a few lanterns. But for this night, at least, a crescent of light remained acute in the heavens.

Sevinhand greeted her quietly from the wheeldeck; but she did not go to him. Beyond the wind, the long stone sea-running of the dromond, the slumber of the Giants who were not on watch, she sensed Seadreamer's presence like a hand of pain cupped against her cheek. Huddling into her robe, she went forward.

She found the mute Giant sitting with his back to the foremast, facing the prow and Findail's silhouette. The small muscles around his eyes winced and tightened as he stared at Findail-and through Findail toward the One Tree-as if he were begging the Appointed to say the things which he, Seadreamer, could not. But Findail seemed immune to the Giant's appeal. Or perhaps such supplications were a part of the burden which he had been Appointed to bear. He also faced the prospect of the One Tree as if he feared to take his eyes from it.

In silence, Linden seated herself beside Seadreamer. He sat cross-legged, with his hands in his lap. At intervals, he turned the palms upward as if he were trying to open himself to the night, accept his doom. But repeatedly his fists clenched, shoulders knotted, transforming him to a figure of protest.

After a moment, she breathed, “Try.” The frail sickle-moon lit none of his visage except the pale scar which underlined his gaze; the rest remained dark. “There's got to be some way.”

With a violence that made her flinch, his hands leaped upward. Their heels thudded bitterly against his forehead. But an instant later he snatched air in through his teeth, and his hands began sketching shapes across the night.

At first, she was unable to follow his gestures: the outline he attempted to form eluded her. But he tried again, strove to grasp an image out of the blank air. This time, she understood him.

“The One Tree.”

He nodded rigidly. His arms made an arc around him.

“The ship,” she whispered. “Starfare's Gem.”

Again, he nodded. He repeated the movement of his arms, then pointed forward past the prow. His hands redelineated the tree-shape.

“The ship going to the One Tree.”

Seadreamer shook his head.

“When the ship gets to the One Tree,”

This time, his nod was stiff with grief. With one finger, he tapped his chest, pointing at his heart. Then his hands came together, twisted each other-a wrench as violent as a rupture. Trails of silver gleamed across his scar.

When Linden could no longer bear the sight, she looked away-and found Findail there, come to witness the Giant's pantomime. The moon lay beyond his right shoulder; all his face and form were dark.

“Help him,” she demanded softly. Help me. “Can't you see what he's going through?”

For a long moment, the Elohim did not move or reply. Then he stepped close to the Giant, reached out one hand to Seadreamer's forehead. His fingertips pressed gentleness onto the fate written there. Almost at once, Seadreamer slumped. Muscle by muscle, the pressure ran out of him as if it were being absorbed by Findail's touch. His chin sagged to his breast. He was asleep.

In silence, Findail turned back to the station he had chosen in the dromond's prow.

Carefully, so that she would not disturb the Giant's rest, Linden rose to her feet, returned like mute rue to lie at Covenant's side and stare at the ceiling of her cabin until she slept.

The next morning, she brought up the question of Seadreamer in front of the First, Pitchwife, Honninscrave, and Covenant. But the Master had no new insight to give her. And Pitchwife reiterated his hope that Seadreamer would gain some relief when their quest for the One Tree had been accomplished.

Linden knew better. Severely, she described her encounter with the mute Giant the previous night.

Pitchwife made no effort to conceal his dismay. Cocking her fists on her hips, the First gazed away past the prow and muttered long Giantish curses under her breath. Honninscrave's features knotted like the stiff tangle of his beard.

Covenant stood among them as if he were alone; but he spoke for them all. His gaze wandered the stone, avoiding Linden as he rasped, “Do you think we should turn back?”

She wanted to answer, Yes! But she could not. He had invested all his hope in the One Tree.

For a time, Honninscrave's commands to the crew were tinged with uncertainty, as if within him a voice of denial cried out that the dromond should be turned at once, sent with all possible speed away from its fatal destination. But he kept his fear to himself. The Giantship's path across the seas did not waver.

That clear wind blew for five days. It became gradually but steadily cooler as the vessel angled into the north; but it remained dry, firm, and insistent. And for three of those days, the quest arrowed swiftly along the waves without incident, meeting no danger, sighting no landfall.

But on the fourth day, a cry of astonishment and alarm rang down from the lookout. The stone under Linden's feet began to vibrate as if the sea were full of tremors. Honninscrave shortened sail, readied his ship for emergency. In another league, Starfare's Gem found itself gliding through a region crowded with Nicor.

Their immense shapes each broke water in several places; together, they marked the sea like a multitude. Their underwater talk thrummed against Linden's senses. Remembering the one Nicor she had seen previously, she feared for the safety of the dromond. But these creatures appeared oblivious to Starfare's Gem. Their voices conveyed no timbre of peril to her percipience. They moved without haste or hunger, lolling vaguely as if they were immersed in lethargy, boredom, or contentment. Occasionally, one of them lifted a massive snout, then subsided with a distant soughing of water like a sigh of indifference. Honninscrave was able to steer his vessel among them without attracting their attention.

“Stone and Sea!” Pitchwife breathed softly to Linden, “I had not thought that all the seas of the Earth together contained so many such creatures. The stories of them are so scanty that one Nicor alone might account for them all. What manner of ocean is it that we have entered with such blithe ignorance?”

The First was standing beside him. He looked up at her as he concluded, “Yet this will be a tale to delight any child.”

She did not meet his gaze; but the smile which softened her eyes was as private as the affection in his tone.

Honninscrave's care took the Giantship slowly among the Nicor; but by midafternoon the creatures had been left behind, and Starfare's Gem resumed its flying pace. And that night, a mood of over-stretched gaiety came upon the Giants. They roistered and sang under the implacable stars like feverish children, insensate to the quest's purpose or Seadreamer's pain; and Pitchwife led them in one long caper of enforced mirth, as if he were closer to hysteria than any of them. But Linden heard the truth of their emotion. They were affirming themselves against their own apprehensions, venting their suspense in communal frolic. And Pitchwife's wild effort heightened the mood to a catastasis, finally giving rise to a humour that was less desperate and more solacing-warm, purified, and indomitable. If Covenant had sought to join them, Linden would have gone with him.

But he did not. He stood apart as if the recanting of the Haruchai had shaken him to the core of his strength, rendering him inaccessible to consolation. Or perhaps he held back because he had forgotten how to be alone, how to confront his doom without loathing his loneliness. When he and Linden went below to her cabin, he huddled on the pallet as if he could hardly endure the bare comfort of her flesh. The One Tree was near. With the muffled uproar of the Giants in her ears, she hung on the verge of urging him, Don't do it. Don't send me back. But her inbred fears paralyzed her, and she did not take the risk.

All night, she felt that she was redreaming familiar nightmares. But when she awakened, they were gone from her memory.

Covenant stood beside the hammock with his back to her. He held his old clothes as if he meant to don them. She watched him with an ache in her eyes, begging him mutely not to return to what he had been, what they had been toward each other.

He seemed to feel her gaze on him: he turned to her, met her look. His face wore a grimace of bile. But he did not retreat from what he saw. Though his anticipation of the One Tree felt more like dread than eagerness, he was strong yet, as dangerous as she remembered him. After a moment, he threw his garments deliberately into the corner. Then he knelt to her, took her in his arms.

When they went out on deck later, he wore the woollen robe he had been given as if his leprosy inured him to the late autumn coolness of the air. His choice relieved her; and yet he appeared curiously ill-prepared in that robe, as if his love for her had robbed him of more defences than she knew how to estimate or compensate for.

They paced out the day across the decks, waiting. They were all waiting, she and Covenant and the Giants with them. Time and again, she saw crewmembers pause in their tasks to peer past the ship's prow. But throughout the morning they saw nothing except the expanse of the sea, stretching to the edges of the world. After their noon meal, they went on waiting and still saw nothing.

But in the middle of the afternoon, the call came at last-a shout of annunciation which nevertheless struck Linden's tension like a wail. Giants sprang for the rigging to see what the lookout had seen. Seadreamer appeared from belowdecks, climbed grimly upward. Covenant pressed his chest against the foredeck rail for a moment, as if in that way he might force himself to see farther. Then he muttered to Linden, “Come on,” and set off toward the vantage of the wheeldeck. Like him, she could hardly keep from running.

The First and Pitchwife were there with Honninscrave and a Giant tending Shipsheartthew. Sevinhand and Galewrath arrived shortly. Together, the companions stared ahead for some glimpse of the Isle of the One Tree.

For a league or more, the horizon remained immaculate and unexplained. Then Honninscrave's arm leaped to point almost directly over the prow. Linden was not as far-eyed as the Giants; but after another league she also spotted the Isle. Tiny in the distance, it stood like a point of fatality at the juncture of sea and sky-the pivot around which the Earth turned. As the wind carried Starfare's Gem swiftly forward, the Isle grew as if it would fulfil all the quest's expectations.

She looked at Covenant; but he did not meet her gaze. His attention was fixed ahead: his stance was as keen as if he were on the verge of fire. Though he did not speak, the strict, gaunt lines of his visage said as clearly as words that his life or death would be decided here.

By slow degrees, the island revealed itself to the approaching vessel. It stood like a cairn of old rock piled on the surface of the sea. Weather had softened and rimed the gray, jumbled stones, with the result that they seemed almost pure white where the sun touched them, nearly black where they lay in shadow. It was an eyot of day and night-rugged, hoary, and irrefragable. Its crown stood high above the Giantship; but the shape of its upper rims suggested that the island had once been a volcano, or that it was now hollow.

Later, the dromond drew close enough to discern that the Isle sat within a ragged circle of reefs. These jutted into the air like teeth, with many gaps between them; but none of the openings were large enough to admit Starfare's Gem.

As the sun declined, Honninscrave set the Giantship on a curving course to pass around the cairn so that he could look for a passage while his companions searched for some sign of the One Tree. Linden's eyes clung to the island: she studied every variation of its light-and-dark from crown to shore with every dimension of her sight. But she found nothing. The Isle was composed of nothing but blind stone, immune to every form of vitality but its own. Even among the rocks where the waves surged and fell, there lived no weeds or other sea-growths.

The rocks themselves were vivid to her, as massive and consequential as compressed granite-an outcropping of the essential skeleton of the Earth. But perhaps for that very reason they played host to none of the more transient manifestations of life. As she studied them, she realised that they did not even provide a roost for birds. Perhaps the water within the reefs did not hold fish.

“Where is it?” Covenant muttered, speaking to everyone and no one. “Where is it?”

After a moment, Pitchwife replied, “Upon the crest. Is that not a natural bourne for the thing we seek?”

Linden kept her doubts to herself. As the sun began to set, casting orange and gold in an unreadable chiaroscuro across the slopes, Starfare's Gem completed its circuit of the Isle; and she had seen nothing to indicate that the One Tree was here-or that it had ever existed.

At a nod from the First, Honninscrave ordered the furling of the sails, the anchoring of the dromond beyond the northern reefs. For a few moments, no one on the wheeldeck spoke; the emblazoned visage of the Isle held them. In this light, they could see that they were facing a place of power. The sun withdrew as if it were bidding farewell to the Earth. Behind the murmurous labour of the Giants, the complaining °f lines and pulleys, the wet embrace of the waves upon the reefs, everything was silent. Not one kestrel raised its cry to ameliorate the starkness of the Isle. The eyot stood within its protective teeth as if it had stood that way forever and would never be appeased.

Then the First said quietly, “Giantfriend, will you not await the new day, ere you attempt this place?”

A shudder like a sudden chill ran through him. In a rough voice, he replied, “No.”

The First sighed. But she did not demur. She spoke to Sevinhand; and he went to supervise the launching of a longboat.

Then she addressed Covenant again. “We have come a great way to this Isle. Because of your might-and of that which you wrought in The Grieve of our lost kindred-we have not questioned you concerning your purpose. But now I ask,” In the west, the sun seemed to be dying behind the long curve of the sea. Covenant's gaze was an echo of fire. “Have you given thought to the how of this Staff of Law you desire to conceive?”

Linden answered for him, claiming her place in the company because she did not know any other way to dissuade him from his intent for her. “That's why I'm here.”

He looked at her sharply; but she kept her eyes on the First. “My senses,” she said, awkward with self-consciousness. “The things I see and feel. Health. Rightness. Honesty. What else can it mean? I'm sensitive to Law. I can tell when things fit-and when they don't. I can guide him.”

Yet as soon as she made her claim, she knew that it was not enough. His emanations were precise. He had been counting on her help. But he did not change his mind. Instead, he regarded her as if she had expressed a desire to leave him. Hope and grief were indistinguishable in him.

Incognisant of Covenant's self-contradiction, the First accepted Linden's answer. With Pitchwife and Honninscrave, she left the wheeldeck, went to the railing where the longboat was being lowered.

Galewrath assumed command of Starfare's Gem. When she had satisfied herself that the dromond was being given proper care, she said to Covenant and Linden, “Go well.”

Covenant made no reply. He stared at the Isle as if he could read his doom in the fading glory of the sun.

Linden stepped close to him, placed her hand upon his shoulder. He turned stiffly, letting her see the conflicts in his face. He was a figure of illumination and darkness, like the Isle.

She tried again to make him understand her. “Seadreamer is afraid. I think he knows what Lord Foul is doing.”

His features knotted once, then released as if he were about to afflict her with a smile like the one he had once given Joan. “That doesn't matter.” Slowly, his expression grew more gentle. “When I was in Andelain, Mhoram said, 'It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares, and life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other. But it is necessary to comprehend them, so that they may be mastered.' ” Then he stiffened again. “Come on. Let's go find out what kind of trouble we're in.”

She did not want to let him go. She wanted to fling her arms around him, hug and hold him, make him stop what he was doing. But she did not. Was this not why she loved him-because he did not shy from his own pain? Gritting her courage, she followed him down the stairs as if he were leading her into night.

Sunset still held the masts, but the afterdeck had fallen into gloaming. She needed a moment to adjust her sight before she was able to descry Seadreamer standing at the rail with Honninscrave, the First, and Pitchwife. Vain was there also, as black as the coming dark. Findail had moved aft as well; his robe formed a pale blur beside Vain's ebony. And Brinn and Cail had come. Linden was surprised to see them. Covenant's stride faltered as he neared them. But they did not speak, and he went abruptly past them. Reaching the First, he asked, “Are we ready?”

“As ready as may be,” she replied, “with our fate unknown before us.”

He answered like the darkness thickening around the dromond, “Then let's get started.”

At once, Findail interposed in a tone of warning and supplication, “Ring-wielder, will you not bethink you? Surrender this mad purpose while choice yet remains to you. I tell you plainly that you are the plaything of powers which will destroy you-and the Earth with you. This attempt upon the One Tree must not be made.”

Mutely, Seadreamer nodded as if he had no choice.

Covenant jerked around to face the Appointed. Speaking softly, almost to himself, he breathed, "I should've known that's what you're afraid of. The One Tree. The Staff of Law.

You're afraid I might actually succeed. Or why did you try to capture Vain? Why have you tried so hard to keep us from trusting ourselves? You are going to lose something if we succeed. I don't know what it is, but you're terrified about it.

“Well, take a look,” he went on grimly. “Vain's still with us. He's still got the heels of the old Staff.” He spoke as if his doubt of the Demondim-spawn no longer mattered. “I'm still here. I've still got my ring. Linden's still here.” Suddenly, his voice dropped to a whisper like a suspiration of anguish. “By hell, if you want me to surrender, you have got to give me a reason.”

The Appointed returned Covenant's demand in silence. Clearly, he did not intend to answer.

After a moment, Covenant swung back to the rest of the company, glaring as if he expected them to argue with him. But Honninscrave was tense with empathy. There was no hesitation in the First's stern resolve or Pitchwife's anticipation of wonder. And Seadreamer made no attempt to dissuade the Unbeliever.

Driven by the demons of his personal exigency, Covenant moved to the railing, set his feet to the rope-ladder leading down to the longboat.

Linden followed him at once, unwilling to let even one Giant take her place at his side.

Cail and Brinn were right behind her.

All of the Isle had now fallen into shadow except its crown, which held the fading sunset like an oriflamme that was about to be swallowed by the long night of the Earth. But while the light lasted, it made the crest look like a place where the One Tree might indeed be found. As she turned her back on the sight in order to descend the ladder, Linden remembered that this night would be the dark of the moon. Instinctively, she shivered. Her robe seemed suddenly scanty against the chill dark which appeared to rise out of the water like an exhalation. The rocking of the waves forced a splash up between the dromond and the longboat just as she was reaching one leg toward the smaller craft; and the water stung her bare flesh as if its salt were as potent as acid. But she muffled her involuntary gasp, lowered herself into the bottom of the boat, then moved to take a seat with Covenant in the prow. The water tightened the skin of her legs as it dried, sending a tingle through her nerves.

The Haruchai were followed by Honninscrave. While his bulk came downward, the sun lost its grasp on the Isle's crown, fell entirely beyond the horizon. Now the Isle was visible only as a shadow on the deep, silhouetted by the slowly emerging stars. Linden could not discern the lines of the reef at all. But as Honninscrave and Seadreamer seated themselves at the oars, their oaken shoulders expressed no doubt of their ability to find their way. The Master was speaking to his brother, but the chatter and splash of water covered the words.

Pitchwife and the First descended to the longboat in silence. From out of the night, a shadow floated into the bottom of the craft at Seadreamer's back, where it solidified and became Findail. Vain placed himself in the other half of the boat with Brinn and Cail, near the stem where the First and Pitchwife sat.

Linden reached out, took Covenant's hand. His fingers felt icy; his numbness had become a palpable cold.

The First waved a salute to the Giants of Starfare's Gem. If Sevinhand or Galewrath returned an answer, it was inaudible over the chill chuckling of the waters. Deftly, Honninscrave unmoored the longboat, thrust it away from the dromond with his oar. Surrounded only by lapping waves, the company moved out into the night.

For several moments, no one spoke. Covenant sat with his face turned to the dark, clenching Linden's hand as if it were an anchor. She watched the Isle gradually clarify itself as the stars behind it became more explicit; but still she could not make out the reefs. The blackness rising from the water seemed impenetrable. Yet the oars beat steadily, slipping in and out of the unquiet seas; and the boat moved forward as if it were being impelled at great speed, headlong toward its unknown end. The Isle loomed massively out of the night, as dangerous to approach as the entryway of hell.

Linden became suddenly and irrationally alarmed that the boat would strike one of the reefs and sink. But then the First said softly, “Somewhat to starboard.” The longboat changed directions slightly. A few heartbeats later, jagged coral shapes leaped up on either hand. Their unexpected appearance made Linden start. But the longboat passed safely between them into calmer water.

From this vantage-so close to the sea, with the night complete from horizon to horizon-the Isle seemed much farther away than it had from Starfare's Gem. But for a while the company made good progress. Goaded by vision, Seadreamer hauled heavily against his oars, knocking them in their locks at every stroke; and Honninscrave matched the rhythm if not the urgency of his brother's pull. As a result, the Isle grew slowly taller and more implacable, reaching toward the sky as if it were the base upon which the firmament of the stars stood. Linden began to think that the slopes would be unscalable in the dark-that perhaps they could not be climbed at all, especially if Covenant could not master his vertigo. His hand in hers felt as chill as if his very bones were cold.

But a short time later she forgot that anxiety, forgot even to grip Covenant's fingers. She was staring at the change which came over the Isle.

The First and Pitchwife stood. The boat glided to a stop in the water. Honninscrave and Seadreamer had lifted their oars so that they might look past the prow toward their destination.

Plumes and streamers of mist had begun to flow down off the sides of the island. The mist seemed to arise like steam from unseen cracks among the rocks. Some of it curled upward, frayed away into the sharp night. But most of it poured toward the sea, gathering and thickening as the streams commingled.

The mist was alight. It did not appear to shine of its own accord. Rather, it looked like ordinary fog under a full moon. But there was no moon. And the illumination was cast only upon the mist. Stately banners and rills of air came downward like condensations of moonglow, revealing nothing but themselves.

When its nimbus spread like a vapour of frost around the shores of the eyot, the mist began to pile out over the sea. Gradually all the Isle except the crown disappeared. Silver and ghostly, the glowing fog expanded toward the longboat as if it meant to fill the entire zone of the reefs.

Linden had to suppress a desire for flight. She felt viscerally certain that she did not want that eldritch and inexplicable air to touch her. But the quest's path lay forward. With an oddly stern and gentle command, the First returned Honninscrave and Seadreamer to their oars. “I am done with waiting,” she said. “If this is our future, let us at least meet it by our own choice.”

Thrust and sweep, the oars measured out the quest's progress toward the advancing mist. The stars overhead glittered as if in warning; but the longboat went on straight at the heart of the wet vapour. The mist continued to pile onto the sea. Already, it had become so thick that the sides of the eyot could no longer be seen, had accumulated so high that the rocky crown was almost obscured. Its illumination made it look gnashed and lambent with moonlight. Its outward flow accentuated the speed of the longboat; the craft seemed to rush madly across the dark face of the water.

Then the First murmured a command. Honninscrave and Seadreamer raised their oars. The boat glided in silence and poised apprehension into the mist.

At once, the sky disappeared. Linden felt the touch of moist light on her face and flinched, expecting danger or harm. But then her senses told her that the mist's power was too elusive, too much like moonshine, to cause damage-or to convey comprehension. Her companions were clearly visible; but the sea itself had vanished under a dense silver carpet, and the ends of the oars passed out of sight as if they had been gnawed off.

With a new twist of anxiety, she wondered how the quest would be able to find its way. But when the First spoke again, sending Honninscrave and Seadreamer back to their labour, her voice held an iron certainty; and she suggested small corrections of course as if her sense of direction were immune to confusion.

The movement of the longboat made the mist float against Linden's face. Beads of evanescent light condensed in Covenant's hair like the nacre sweat of his need and might. After a few moments, the mist swirled and folded, opening a glimpse of the crest of the Isle. Before the gap closed, Linden saw that the First's aim was accurate.

Pitchwife began speaking. His voice seemed to rise with difficulty, as if his cramped lungs were filling with mist and moisture. He complimented Honninscrave and Seadreamer on their rowing, wryly praised Vain's inscrutability, described other mists he had encountered in his voyages. The words themselves had no significance: only the act of uttering them mattered. For the sake of his companions-and of himself-he sought to humanize the enhancement of the mist. But an odd echo paced his speech, as if the vapour were a cavern. The First finally whispered tightly to him. He desisted.

In silence punctuated only by the splashing of the oars, the longboat went forward.

By degrees, the mist came to feel like a dream in which long spans of time passed with indefeasible haste. The obscure light exerted an hypnotic fascination. Drops of water like tiny globes fell from the line of Covenant's jaw, leaving faint spatters of illumination on his robe. Linden's raiment was bedizened with dying gems. Her hair hung wet and dark against the sides of her face.

When the mist unwound itself enough to permit another momentary view of the Isle, she hardly noticed that the rocks were no closer than before.

Honninscrave and Seadreamer continued rowing; but their breath slowly stiffened in their lungs, and their backs and shoulders cast emanations of strain. They made Linden aware of the passage of time. The trancelike vapour seemed to have consumed half the night. She tried to throw off her numbness, rub the damp stupefaction from her cheeks. At the next opening of the mist, she saw the Isle clearly.

The longboat had not advanced at all.

“Hellfire,” Covenant rasped. “Hell and blood.”

“Now am I mazed in good sooth,” began Pitchwife. “This atmosphere-” But he lost the words he needed.

Findail stood facing the Isle. His mien and hair were dry, untouched by the mist. He held his arms folded across his chest as if the sea were gripped motionless in the crooks of his elbows. The focus of his eyes was as intent as an act of will.

“Findail-” Linden began. “What in God's name are you doing to us?”

But then violence broke out behind the Appointed.

Brinn attempted to leap past Honninscrave and Seadreamer. Seadreamer grappled for him, held him back. Thrashing together, they fell into the bottom of the boat. Honninscrave shipped his oars, then caught hold of Seadreamer's as they slipped from the locks. At once, Pitchwife came forward to take the oars. Honninscrave swung around and began trying to extricate Brinn and Seadreamer from each other.

Cail moved toward the fray. Rising to her feet, the First caught hold of him, jerked him unceremoniously behind her. Then her sword was in her hands.

“Enough!”

Honninscrave shifted out of her way. Seadreamer stopped fighting. Before Brinn could evade her, she had her blade at his throat.

Cail tried to go to Brinn's aid. Honninscrave blocked him.

“Now,” the First said, “you will tell me the meaning of this.”

Brinn did not reply to her. He directed his voice at Covenant. “Ur-Lord, permit me to speak with you.”

At once, Seadreamer shook his head vehemently.

Covenant started to respond. Linden stopped him. “Just a minute.” She was panting as if the mist were hard to breathe. Quickly, she crossed the thwarts to Seadreamer. He huddled in the bottom of the longboat. His eyes met hers like a plea.

“You've seen something,” she said. “You know what's going on here.”

His visage was wet with condensed mistglow. The moisture made his scar look like an outcry.

“You don't want Brinn to talk to Covenant.”

Seadreamer's eyes winced. She had guessed wrongly.

She tried again. “You don't want him to do what he has in mind. You don't want him to persuade Covenant to let him do it.”

At that, the mute Giant nodded with fierce urgency.

Her intuitions outran her. Seadreamer's intensity conveyed a personal dismay which transcended logic. “If Brinn does it-what he wants to do-then all the terrible things you've been seeing are going to happen. We won't be able to stop them.” Then the sight of his distress closed her throat. This is your only chance to save yourself.

Fighting to regain her voice, she confronted Covenant across the forepart of the boat. “Don't-” She was trembling. “Don't let him do it. The consequences-”

Covenant was not looking at her. He watched Brinn with an aghast nausea which forced Linden to wheel in that direction.

The Haruchai had gripped the First's blade in one hand. Against her great strength, he strove to thrust the iron away from his throat. Blood coursed down his forearm as the long-sword bit his flesh; but his determination did not waver. In a moment, he would sever his fingers if the First did not relent.

“Brinn!” Linden protested.

The Haruchai showed no sign that he heard her.

Cursing under her breath, the First withdrew her sword. “You are mad.” She was hoarse with emotion. “I will not accept the burden of your maiming or death in this way.”

Without a glance at her, Brinn climbed to his feet, moved toward Covenant. His hand continued to bleed, but he ignored it-only clenched his fingers around the wound and let it run. He seemed to carry his fist cocked as if he meant to attack the Unbeliever.

But near Covenant he stopped. “Ur-Lord, I ask you to hear me.”

Covenant stared at the Haruchai. His nod appeared oddly fragile; the acuity of his passion made him brittle. Around them, the mist flowed and seethed as if it would never let them go.

“There is a tale among the Haruchai” Brinn began without inflection, "a legend preserved by the old tellers from the farthest distance of our past, long ages before our people ever encountered Kevin Landwaster and the Lords of the Land. It is said that upon the edge of the Earth at the end of time stands a lone man who holds the meaning of the Haruchai- a man whom we name ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol. It is said that he has mastered all skill and prowess that we desire, all restraint and calm, and has become perfection-passion and mastery like unto the poised grandeur of mountains. And it is said, should ever one of the Haruchai seek out ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol and contest with him, we will learn the measure of our worth, in defeat or triumph. Therefore are the Haruchai a seeking people. In each heart among us beats a yearning for this test and the knowledge it offers.

“Yet the path which leads to ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol is unknown, has never been known. It is said that this path must not be known-that it may only be found by one who knows without knowledge and has not come seeking the thing he seeks.” In spite of its flatness, Brinn's voice expressed a mounting excitement. "I am that one. To this place I have come in your name rather than my own, seeking that which I have not sought.

“Ur-Lord, we have withdrawn from your service. I do not seek to serve you now. But you wield the white ring. You hold power to prevent my desire. Should you take this burden upon yourself, it will be lost to me-perhaps to all Haruchai forever. I ask that you permit me. Of Cable Seadreamer's Earth-Sight I comprehend nothing. It is clear to me that I will only succeed or fail. If I fail, the matter will fall to you. And if I succeed-” His voice dropped as if in no other way could he contain the strength of his yearning. “Ur-Lord.” Clenched as if it were squeezing blood out of itself, his fist rose like an appeal. “Do not prevent me from the meaning of our lives.”

Linden had no idea what Brinn was talking about. His speech seemed as unmotivated as an oration in a nightmare. Only Seadreamer and Findail showed any understanding. Seadreamer sat with his hands closed over his face as if he could not bear what he was hearing. And Findail stood alone like a man who knew all the answers and loathed them.

Roughly, Covenant scrubbed the mist-sweat from his forehead. His mouth fumbled several different responses before he rasped, “What in hell are you talking about?”

Brinn did not speak. But he lifted his arm, pointed in the direction of the Isle.

His gesture was so certain that it drew every eye with it.

Somewhere beyond the prow of the craft, a window opened in the mist, revealing a stark ledge of rock. It stood at a slight elevation above the sea. The elusive pearl vapour made distances difficult to estimate; but the damp, dark rock appeared to be much closer than the Isle had been only a short time ago. In fact, the ledge might not have been a part of the Isle at all. It seemed to exist only within the context of the mist.

Cross-legged on the shelf sat an ancient man in a tattered colourless robe.

His head was half bowed in an attitude of meditation. But his eyes were open. The milky hue of cataracts or blindness filled his orbs. Faint wisps of hair marked the top of his head; a gray stubble emphasized the hollowness of his cheeks. His skin was seamed with age, and his limbs had been starved to the point of emaciation. Yet he radiated an eerie and unfathomable strength.

Brinn or Cail might have looked like that if the intensity of their lives had permitted them to reach extreme old age.

Almost at once, the mist closed again, swirling back upon itself in ghostly silence.

“Yes,” Findail said as if he did not expect anyone to hear him. “The Guardian of the One Tree. He must be passed.”

Covenant stared at the Appointed. But Findail did not answer his gaze. With a wrench, the Unbeliever aimed himself at Brinn. The mist lit his face like the lambency of dismay.

“Is that what you want to do?” His voice croaked in the nacre stillness. “Confront the Guardian? Fight him?”

Softly, Brinn replied, "The Elohim has said that you must pass him to attain the One Tree. I conceive him to be ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol. If I succeed, we will both be served.”

“And if you fail?” Covenant lashed the word at Brinn's dispassion. “You already believe you're unworthy. How much more do you think you can stand?”

Brinn's visage remained inflexible. “I will know the truth. Any being who cannot bear the truth is indeed unworthy.”

Covenant winced. His bruised gaze came to Linden for help.

She saw his conflict clearly. He feared to hazard himself-his capacity for destruction-against the Guardian. But he had never learned how to let anyone take his place when he was afraid: his fear was more compulsory than courage. And he did not want to deny Seadreamer. The mute Giant still hid his face as if he had passed the limits of his soul's endurance.

Linden wavered, caught by her own contradictions. She instinctively trusted Seadreamer; but the need which had driven Brinn to thrust aside the First's sword moved her also. She understood the severity of the Haruchai, yearned to make her peace with it. Yet she could not forget Seadreamer's rending efforts to communicate his vision to her.

The First and Pitchwife were standing together, watching her. Honninscrave's fingers kneaded Seadreamer's shoulders; but his eyes also studied her. Covenant's gaze bled at her. Only Brinn was not waiting for her response. His attention was locked to the Unbeliever.

Unable to say yes or no, she tried to find another way out of the dilemma. “We've been rowing half the night”-she directed her words at Brinn, fought to force the tremors out of them-“and we aren't getting any closer. How do you think you can reach that man to fight him?”

Then she cried out; but she was too late. Brinn had taken her question as a form of permission. Or had decided to forego Covenant's approval. Too swiftly to be stopped, he leaped into the prow of the longboat and dove toward the Isle.

The mist swallowed him. Linden heard the splash as he hit the water, but did not see the wake of his passage.

She surged forward with Covenant and Honninscrave. But the Haruchai was beyond reach. Even his swimming made no sound.

“Damn you!” Covenant shouted. His voice echoed and then fell dead in the cavernous fog. “Don't fail!”

For a moment like a pall, no one spoke. Then the First said, “Honninscrave.” Her voice was iron. “Seadreamer. Now you will row as you have not rowed before. If it lies within the strength of Giants, we will gain that Isle.”

Honninscrave flung himself back to his oar-seat. But Seadreamer was slower to respond. Linden feared that he would not respond, that he had fallen too far into horror. She gathered herself to protest the First's demand. But she had underestimated him. His hands came down from his face into fists. Lurching, he returned to his seat, recovered his oars. Gripping their handles as if he meant to crush them, he attacked the water.

Linden staggered at the suddenness of the thrust, then caught herself on a thwart and turned to face forward at Covenant's side.

For a moment, Honninscrave flailed to match his brother's frenetic rhythm. Then they were stroking like twins.

The mist opened again. A glimpse of stars and night beyond the crest of the Isle demonstrated that the longboat was still making no progress.

A heartbeat later, the vapour moiled, and the shelf of rock became visible once more.

It appeared far closer than the island. And it was empty. The old man had left it.

But this time the mist did not reclose immediately.

From behind it, Brinn stepped up onto one end of the ledge. He bowed formally to the blank air as if he were facing an honoured opponent. Smoothly, he placed himself in a stylized combatant's stance. Then he recoiled as if he had been struck by fists too swift to be evaded.

As he fell, the mist swirled and shut.

Linden hardly noticed that the Giants had stopped rowing. Twisting in their seats, Honninscrave and Seadreamer stared forward intensely. There were no sounds in the longboat except Pitchwife's muttering and Covenant's bitten curses.

Shortly, the mist parted again. This time, it exposed a cluster of boulders at a higher elevation than the shelf.

Brinn was there, leaping and spinning from rock to rock in a death-battle with the empty atmosphere. His cut hand was covered with blood; blood pulsed from a wound on his temple. But he moved as if he disdained the damage. With fists and feet he dealt out flurries of blows which appeared to impact against the air-and have effect. Yet he was being struck in turn by a rapid vehemence that surpassed his defences. Cuts appeared below one eye, at the corner of his mouth; rents jerked through his tunic, revealing bruises on his torso and thighs. He was beaten backward and out of sight as the mist thickened anew.

Covenant crouched feverishly in the prow of the craft. He was marked with beads of illumination like implications of wild magic. But no power rose in him. Linden was certain of that. The chill sheen on his skin seemed to render him inert, numbing his instinct for fire. His bones appeared precise and frail to her percipience. He had stopped cursing as if even rage and protest were futile.

Cail had come forward and now stood staring into the mist. Every line of his face was sharp with passion; moisture beaded on his forehead like sweat. For the first time, Linden saw one of the Haruchai breathing heavily.

After a prolonged pause, another vista appeared through the mist. It was higher than the others, but no farther away. Immense stones had crushed each other there, forming a battleground of shards and splinters as keen as knives. They lacerated Brinn's feet as he fought from place to place, launching and countering attacks with the wild extravagance of a man who had utterly abandoned himself. His apparel fluttered about him in shreds. No part of his body was free of blood or battery.

But now the Guardian was faintly visible. Flitting from blow to blow like a shadow of himself, the old man feinted and wheeled among the shards as if he could not be touched. Yet many of Brinn's efforts appeared to strike him, and each contact made him more solid. With every hit, Brinn created his opponent out of nothingness.

But the Guardian showed no sign of injury; and Brinn was receiving punishment beyond measure. Even as Linden thought that surely he could not endure much more, the Haruchai went down under a complex series of blows. He had to hurl himself bodily over the stones, tearing his skin to pieces, in order to evade the old man's attempt to break his back.

He could not flee quickly enough. The Guardian pounced after him while the mist blew across the scene, obscuring them with its damp radiance.

“I've got-” Covenant beat his fists unconsciously against the stone prow. Blood seeped from the cracked skin of his knuckles. “Got to help him.” But every angle of his arms and shoulders said plainly that he did not know how.

Linden clung to herself and fought to suppress her instinctive tears. Brinn would not survive much longer. He was already so badly injured that he might bleed to death. How could he go on fighting, with the strength running from his veins moment by moment?

When the mist opened for the last time, it revealed an eminence high above the sea. She had to crane her neck to descry the slight downward slope which led to the sharp precipice. And beyond the precipice lay nothing except an avid fall from a tremendous height.

After a moment, Brinn appeared. He was being beaten backward down the slope, toward the cliff-reeling as if the life had gone out of his legs. All his clothing had been shredded away; he wore nothing but thick smears and streams of blood. He was hardly able to raise his arms to fend off the blows which impelled him to retreat.

The Guardian was fully substantial now. His milky eyes gleamed in the mist-light as he kicked and punched Brinn toward the precipice. His attacks struck with a sodden silence more vivid than any noise of battered flesh. His robe flowed about his limbs as if its lack of colour were the essence of his strength. No hint or flicker of expression ruffled his detachment as he drove Brinn toward death.

Then Brinn reached the edge of the cliff. From somewhere within himself, he summoned the desperation to fight back. Several blows jolted the Guardian, though they left no mark. For a moment, the old man was forced back.

But he seemed to become more adept and irresistible as he grew more solid. Almost at once, he brushed aside Brinn's counterattack. Lashing out like lightnings of flesh and bone, he coerced Brinn to the precipice again. A cunning feint toward Brinn's abdomen lowered his arms defensively. At once, the old man followed with a hammerblow to Brinn's forehead.

Brinn swayed on the rim, tottered. Began to fall.

Covenant's shout tore through the mist like despair:

“Brinn!”

In the fractional pause as his balance failed, Brinn glanced toward the aghast spectators. Then he shifted his feet in a way that ensured his fall. But as he dropped, his hands reached out. His fingers knotted into the old man's robe.

Surrendering himself to the precipice, he took the Guardian with him.

Linden crouched against the thwarts. She did not hear Seadreamer's inchoate groan, Pitchwife's astonished pain, Cail's shout of praise. Brinn's fall burned across her senses, blinding her to everything else. That plunge repeated in her like the labour of her heart. He had chosen.

Then rock scraped the side of the longboat; its prow thudded into a gap between boulders. Water sloshed along the impact. Linden and Covenant pitched against each other. Grappling together automatically, they stumbled into the bottom of the craft.

When they regained their feet, everything had changed around them. The mist was gone, and with it most of the stars; for the sun had begun to rise, and its nascent light already greyed the heavens. Starfare's Gem could be seen vaguely in the distance, riding at anchor beyond the barrier of the reefs. And above the craft, the Isle of the One Tree towered like a mound of homage to all the Earth's brave dead.

Honninscrave stepped past Linden and Covenant, climbed onto the boulder-strewn shore to secure the longboat in the place where it had wedged itself. Then he stooped and offered to help Linden and Covenant out of the boat. His face was blank with unexpected loss. He might have been a figure in a dream.

Cail approached Linden like triumph, put his hands on her waist and boosted her up to Honninscrave. The Master set her on the rocks behind him. Stiffly, she ascended over several boulders, then stopped and stared about her as if she had lost her sight. Covenant struggled toward her. Dawn set light to the crown of the Isle. The absence of the dromond's midmast was painfully obvious. Seadreamer fumbled at the rocks as if his exertions or Earth-Sight had made him old. The First, Pitchwife, and Honninscrave climbed behind him like a cortege. Vain and Findail followed the Giants like mourners But it was all superficial. Beneath everything lay the stark instant of Brinn's fall. Haunted by what they had witnessed, the companions did not look at each other as they gathered a short distance above the longboat.

Only Cail showed no distress. Though his expression remained as dispassionate as ever, his eyes gleamed like an inward grin. If she could have found her voice, Linden would have railed at him. But she had no words in her, or no strength to utter them. Brinn had met Covenant's cry with recognition-and had fallen. No words were enough. No strength was enough.

Pitchwife moved to Covenant's side, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. The First put her arms around Seadreamer as if to lift him up out of himself. Vain stared at nothing with his ambiguous smile. Findail betrayed no reaction. Yet Cail's gaze danced in the rising sunlight, bright with exaltation. After a moment, he said, “Have no fear. He did not fail.”

And Brinn appeared as if he had been invoked by Cail's words. Moving easily over the rocks, he came down toward the company. His strides were light and uninjured; the swing of his arms expressed no pain. Not until he stood directly before her was Linden able to see that he had indeed been severely wounded. But all his hurts were healed. His face and limbs wore an intaglio of pale new scars, but his muscles bunched and slid under his skin as if they were full of joy.

In the place of his lost apparel, he wore the colourless robe of the Guardian.

Linden gaped at him. Covenant's mouth formed his name over and over again, but made no sound. Honninscrave and the First were stunned. A slow grin spread across Pitchwife's face, echoing the gleam in Cail's eyes. Seadreamer stood upright in the dawn and nodded like a recognition of doom. But none of them were able to speak.

Brinn bowed to Covenant. “Ur-Lord,” he said firmly, “the approach to the One Tree lies before you.” He gestured toward the sun-burnished crown of the Isle. His tone carried a barely discernible timbre of triumph. “I have opened it to you.”

Covenant's face twisted as if he did not know whether to laugh or weep.

Linden knew. Her eyes burned like the birth of the morning.

The mute Giant went on nodding as if Brinn's victory had bereft him of every other answer.

Covenant was going to send her back.

Twenty Five: The Arrival of the Quest

COVENANT stared at Brinn and felt ruin crowding around him. The whole island was a ruin, a place of death. Why were there no mouldering corpses, no bleached bones? Not death, then, but eradication. All hope simply swept out of the world. The sunrise lay as rosy as a lie on the hard rocks.

I'm losing my mind.

He did not know what to do. Every path to this Isle was littered with gravestones. The Isle itself loomed above the company like a massif, rugged and arduous. The boulders of the slopes swarmed with implications of vertigo. And yet he had already made his decision, in spite of the fact that he hated it-and feared it was wrong, dreaded to learn that it was wrong, that after all he had endured and still meant to endure the only thing he could really do for the Land was die. That the logic of the old knife-scar over his heart could not be broken.

His voice sounded distant and small to him, insanely detached. He was as mad as the Haruchai. Impossible to talk about such things as if they were not appalling. Why did he not sound appalled? The approach to the One Tree lies before you. So the Tree was here after all, in this place of piled death. Not one bird trammelled the immense sky with its paltry life; not one weed or patch of lichen marked the rocks. It was insane to stand here and talk as if such things could be borne.

He was saying, “You're not Brinn.” Lunatic with distance and detachment. “Are you?” His throat would not accept that other name.

Brinn's expression did not waver. Perhaps there was a smile in his eyes; it was difficult to see in the early light. “I am who I am,” he said evenly. “Ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol. The Guardian of the One Tree. Brinn of the Haruchai. And many other names. Thus am I renewed from age to age, until the end.”

Vain did not move; but Findail bowed as if Brinn had become a figure whom even the Elohim were required to respect.

“No,” Covenant said. He could not help himself. Brinn. “No.” The First, Pitchwife, and Honninscrave were staring at the Haruchai with dumbfounded eyes. Seadreamer went on nodding like a puppet with a broken neck. Somehow, Brinn's victory had sealed Seadreamer's plight. By opening the way to the One Tree? Brinn.

Brinn's gaze was knowing and absolute. “Be not dismayed, ur-Lord.” His tone reconciled passion and self-control. “Though I may no longer sojourn in your service, I am not dead to life and use. Good will come of it, when there is need.”

“Don't tell me that!” The protest broke from Covenant involuntarily. I'm going to die. Or break my heart. “Do you think I can stand to lose you?”

“You will endure it,” that composed voice replied. “Are you not Thomas Covenant, ur-Lord and Unbeliever? That is the grace which has been given to you, to bear what must be borne.” Then Brinn's visage altered slightly, as if even he were not immune to loss. “Cail will accept my place at your side until the word of the Bloodguard Bannor has been carried to its end. Then he will follow his heart.” Cail's face caught the light ambiguously. “Ur-Lord, do not delay,” Brinn concluded, gesturing toward the sun-limned crest. “The way of hope and doom lies open to you.”

Covenant swore to himself. He did not seem to have the strength to curse aloud. The cold numb mist of the night clung to his bones, defying the sun's warmth. He wanted to storm and rave, expostulate like a madman. It would be condign. He had done such things before-especially to Bannor. But he could not. Brinn's mien held the completeness toward which Bannor had only aspired. Abruptly, Covenant sat down, thudded his back against a boulder and fought to keep his grief apart from the quick tinder of his venom.

A shape squatted in front of him. For an instant, he feared that it was Linden and nearly lost his grip. He would not have been able to sustain an offer of comfort from her. He was going to lose her no matter what he did, If he sent her back or if he failed, either way. But she still stood with her back to the sun and her face covered as if she did not want the morning to see her weep. With an effort, he forced himself to meet Pitchwife's anxious gaze.

The deformed Giant was holding a leather flask of diamondraught. Mutely, he offered it to Covenant.

For a moment like an instance of insanity, Covenant saw Foamfollower there, as vivid as Pitchwife. Foamfollower was commenting wryly, Some old seers say that privation refines the soul — but I say that it is soon enough to refine the soul when the body has no other choice. At that, the knot in Covenant loosened a bit. With a raw sigh, he accepted the flask and drank a few swallows of the analystic liquor.

The way of hope and doom, he thought mordantly. Hellfire.

But the diamondraught was a blessing to his abraded nerves, his taut and weary muscles. The ascent of the Isle promised vertigo; but he had faced vertigo before. To bear what must be borne. Ah, God.

Handing the flask back to Pitchwife, he rose to his feet. Then he approached Linden.

When he touched her shoulders, she flinched as if she feared him-feared the purpose which she could surely perceive in him as clearly as if it were written on his forehead. But she did not pull away. After a moment, he began, “I've got-” He wanted to say, I've got to do it. Don't you understand? But he knew she did not understand. And he had no one to blame but himself. He had never found the courage to explain to her why he had to send her back, why his life depended on her return to their former world. Instead, he said, “I've got to go up there.”

At once, she turned as if she meant to attack him with protests, imprecations, pleas. But her eyes were distracted and elsewhere, like Elena's. Words came out of her as if she were forcing herself to have pity on him.

“It's not as bad as it looks. It isn't really dead.” Her hands indicated the Isle with a jerk. “Not like all that ruin around Stonemight Woodhelven. It's powerful-too powerful for anything mortal to live here. But not dead. It's more like sleep. Not exactly. Something this”-she groped momentarily- “this eternal doesn't sleep. Resting, maybe. Resting deeply. Whatever it is, it isn't likely to notice us.”

Covenant's throat closed. She was trying to comfort him after all-offering him her percipience because she had nothing else to give. Or maybe she still wanted to go back, wanted her old life more than him.

He had to swallow a great weight of grief before he could face the company again and say, “Let's go.”

They looked at him with plain apprehension and hope. Seadreamer's face was knotted around his stark scar. The First contained herself with sternness; but Pitch wife made no effort to conceal his mixed rue and excitement. Honninscrave's great muscles bunched and released as if he were prepared to fight anything which threatened his brother. They were all poised on the culmination of their quest, the satisfaction or denial of the needs which had brought them so far across the seas of the world.

All except Vain. If the Demondim-spawn wore the heels of the Staff of Law for any conceivable reason, he did not betray it. His black visage remained as impenetrable as the minds of the ur-viles that had made him.

Covenant turned from them. It was on his head. Every one of them was here in his name-driven through risk and betrayal to this place by his self-distrust, his sovereign need for any weapon which would not destroy what he loved. Hope and doom. Vehemently, he forced himself to the ascent.

At once, Pitchwife and the First sprang ahead of him. They were Giants, adept at stone, and better equipped than he to find a bearable path. Brinn came to his side; but Covenant refused the Guardian's tacit offer of aid, and he stayed a few steps away. Cail supported Linden as she scrambled upward. Then came Honninscrave and Seadreamer, moving shoulder-to-shoulder. Vain and Findail brought up the rear like the shadows of each other's secrets.

From certain angles, certain positions, the crest looked unattainable. The Isle's ragged sides offered no paths; and neither Covenant nor Linden was able to scale sheer rock-fronts. Covenant only controlled the dizziness that tugged at his mind by locking his attention to the boulders in front of him. But the First and Pitchwife seemed to understand the way the stones would fit together, know what any given formation implied about the terrain above it. Their climb described a circuit which the company had no serious trouble following around the roughly conical cairn.

Yet Covenant was soon panting as if the air were too pure for him. His life aboard Starfare's Gem had not hardened him for such exertions. Each new upward step became more difficult than the last. The sun baked the complex light-and-dark of the rocks until every shadow was as distinct as a knife-edge and every exposed surface shimmered. By degrees, his robe began to weigh on him as if in leaving behind his old clothes he had assumed something heavier than he could carry. Only the numbness of his bare feet spared him from limping as Linden did at the small bruises and nicks of the stones. Perhaps he should have been more careful with himself. But he had no more room in his heart for leprosy or self-protection. He followed the First and Pitchwife as he had followed his summoner into the woods behind Haven Farm, toward Joan and fire.

The ascent took half the morning. By tortuous increments, the company rose higher and higher above the immaculate expanse of the sea. From the north, Starfare's Gem was easily visible, A pennon hung from the aftermast, indicating that all was well. Occasional sun-flashes off the ocean caught Covenant's eyes brilliantly, like reminders of the white flame which had borne him up through the Sandhold to confront Kasreyn. But he had come here to escape the necessity for that power.

Then the crown of the Isle was in sight. The sun burned in the cloudless sky. Sweat streamed down his face, air rasped hoarsely in his chest, as he trudged up the last slope.

The One Tree was not there. His trembling muscles had hoped that the eyot's top would hold a patch of soil in which a tree could grow. But it did not.

From the rim of the crest, a black gulf sank into the centre of the Isle.

Covenant groaned at it as Linden and Cail came up behind him. A moment later, Honninscrave and Seadreamer arrived. Together, the companions gaped into the lightless depths.

The gulf was nearly a stone's throw across; and the walls were sheer, almost smooth. They descended like the sides of a well far beyond the range of Covenant's sight. The air rising from that hole was as black and cold as an exhalation of night. It carried a tang that stung his nostrils. When he looked to Linden for her reaction, he saw her eyes brimming as if the air were so sharp with power that it hurt her.

“Down there?” His voice was a croak. He had to take hold of Brinn's shoulder to defend himself from the sick giddy yawning of the pit.

“Aye,” muttered Pitchwife warily. “No otherwhere remains. We have encountered this Isle with sufficient intimacy to ascertain that the One Tree does not lie behind us.”

Quietly, Brinn confirmed, “That is the way.” He was unruffled by the climb, unwearied by his night of battle. Beside him, even Cail appeared frangible and limited.

Covenant bared his teeth. He had to fight for breath against the dark air of the gulf. “How? Do you expect me to jump?”

“I will guide you.” Brinn pointed to the side of the hole a short distance away. Peering in that direction, Covenant saw a ledge which angled into the pit, spiralling steeply around the walls like a rude stairway. He stared at it, and his guts twisted.

“But I must say again,” Brinn went on, “that I may no longer serve you. I am ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol, the Guardian of the One Tree. I will not interfere.”

“Terrific,” Covenant snarled. Dismay made him bitter. When he let his anger show, a flicker of fire ran through him like a glimpse of distant lightning. In spite of everything that frightened or grieved or restrained him, his nerves were primed for wild magic. He wanted to demand, Interfere with what? But Brinn was too complete to be questioned.

For a moment, Covenant searched the area like a cornered animal. His hands fumbled at the sash of his robe. Fighting the uncertainty of his numb fingers, his half-hand, he jerked the sash tight as if it were a lifeline.

Linden was looking at him now. She could not blink the dampness out of her eyes. Her face was pale with alarm. Her features looked too delicate to suffer the air of that hole much longer.

With a wrench, he tore himself into motion toward the ledge.

She caught at his arm as if he had started to fall. “Covenant-” When his glare jumped to her face, she faltered. But she did not let herself duck his gaze. In a difficult voice, as if she were trying to convey something that defied utterance, she said, “You look like you did on Kevin's Watch. When you had to go down the stairs. You were the only thing I had, and you wouldn't let me help you.”

He pulled his arm away. If she tried to make him change his mind now, she would break his heart. “It's only vertigo,” he said harshly. “I know the answer. I just need a little while to find it again.”

Her expression pierced him like a cry. For one terrible moment, he feared that she was going to shout at him, No! It's not vertigo. You're so afraid of sharing anything, of letting anybody else help you-you think you're so destructive to everything you love-that you're going to send me back! He nearly cringed as he waited for the words to come. Echoes of his passion burned across the background of her orbs. But she did not rail against him. Her severity made her appear old and care-carved as she said, “You can't make the Staff without me.”

Even that was more than he could stand. She might as well have said, You can't save the Land without me. The implications nearly tore away what little courage he had left. Was it true? Was he really so far gone in selfishness that he intended to sell the Land so that he could live?

No. It was not true. He did not want the life he would be forced to live without her. But he had to live anyway, had to, or he would have no chance to fight Lord Foul. One man's sole human love was not too high a price.

Yet the mere sight of her was enough to tie his face into a grimace of desire and loss. He had to excoriate himself with curses in order to summon the grace to respond, “I know. I'm counting on you.”

Then he turned to the rest of the company. “What're we waiting for? Let's get it over with.”

The Giants passed a glance among themselves. Seadreamer's eyes were as red-rimmed as lacerations; but he nodded to the First's mute question. Pitchwife did not hesitate. Honninscrave made a gesture that exposed the emptiness of his hands.

The First's mouth tightened grimly. Drawing her long-sword, she held it before her like the linchpin of her resolve.

Linden stared darkly down into the gulf as if it were the empty void into which she had thrown herself in order to rescue Covenant and the quest from Kasreyn.

Moving as surely as if he had spent all his life here, Brinn approached the ledge. In spite of its crude edges and dangerous slope, the ledge was wide enough for a Giant. The First followed Brinn with Pitchwife immediately behind her.

Bracing his numb hands against Pitchwife's crippled back, Covenant went next. A rearward glance which threatened to unseat his balance told him that Cail was right behind him, poised between Linden and him to protect them both. Vain and Findail came after Linden. Then the pull of the gulf became too strong, plucked too perilously at his mind. Clinging to Pitchwife's sark with his futile fingers, he strove for the still point of clarity at the heart of his vertigo.

But when he had gone partway around the first curve, Linden called his name softly, directing his attention backward. Over his shoulder, he saw that Honninscrave and Seadreamer had not begun to descend. They faced each other on the rim in silence like an argument of life and death. Seadreamer was shaking his head now, refusing what he saw in Honninscrave's visage. After a moment, the Master slumped. Stepping aside, he let Seadreamer precede him down the ledge.

In that formation, the company slowly spiralled into darkness.

Two turns within the wall left the sunlight behind. Its reach lengthened as the sun rose toward midday; but the quest's descent was swifter. Covenant's eyes refused to adjust; the shadow baffled his vision. He wanted to look upward, see something clearly-and was sure he would fall if he did. The dark accumulated around him and was sucked into the depths, trying to sweep him along. Those depths were giddy and certain, as requisite as vertigo or despair. They gnawed at his heart like the acid of his sins. Somewhere down there was the eye of the spin, the still point of strength between contradictions on which he had once stood to defeat Lord Foul, but he would never reach it.

This ledge was the path of all the Despiser's manipulations. Seadreamer is afraid. I think he knows what Lord Foul is doing. A misstep took him as close as panic to the lip of the fall. He flung himself against Pitchwife's back, hung there with his heart knocking. Even to his blunt senses, the air reeked of power.

As if the venom were not enough, here was another force driving him toward destruction. The atmosphere chilled his skin, made his sweat scald down his cheeks and ribs like trails of wild magic.

Cail reached out to steady him from behind. Pitchwife murmured reassurances over his shoulder. After a while, Covenant was able to move again. They went on downward.

He needed the thickness of his robe to keep him from shivering. He seemed to be entering a demesne which had never been touched by the sun-a place of such dark and somnolent force that even the direct radiance of the sun would not be able to soften its ancient cold. Perhaps no fire would ever be strong enough to etiolate the midnight gaping beyond his feet. Perhaps none of the questers except Brinn had any right to be here. At every step, he became smaller. The dark isolated him. Beyond Pitchwife and Cail, he only recognized his friends by the sounds of their feet. The faint slap and thrust of their soles rose murmurously in the well, like the soughing of bat wings.

He had no way to measure time in that night, could not count the number of rounds he had made. For a mad instant, he looked up at the small oriel of the sky. Then he had to let Cail uphold him while his balance reeled.

The air of the gulf became colder, more crowded with faint susurrations, less endurable. For some reason, he believed that the pit became wider as it sank into the bowels of the Isle. In spite of his numbness, every emanation of the walls was as palpable as a fist-and as secret as an unmarked grave. He was suffocating on power which had no source and no form. He heard Linden behind him. Her respiration shuddered like imminent hysteria. The air made him feel veined with insane fire. It must have been flaying her nerves exquisitely.

Yet he wanted to cry out because he did not feel what she was feeling, had no way to estimate his plight or the consequences of his own acts. His numbness had become too deadly-a peril to the world as well as to his friends and to Linden.

And still he did not stop. It boots nothing to avoid his snares — He went on as if he were trudging down into Vain's black heart.

When the end came, he had no warning of it. Abruptly, the First said, “We are here,” and her voice sent echoes upward like a flurry of frightened birds. The position of Pitchwife's back changed. Covenant's next step struck level stone.

He began to tremble violently with reaction and cold. But he heard Linden half sobbing far back in her throat as she groped toward him. He put his arms around her, strained her to him as if he would never be able to find any other way to say goodbye.

Only the muffled breathing of his companions told him that he and Linden were not alone. Even that quiet sound echoed like the awakening of something fatal.

He looked upward. At first, he saw no sign of the sky. The well was so deep that its opening was indiscernible. But a moment later light lanced into his eyes as the sun broached the Isle's rim. His friends suddenly appeared beside him as if they had come leaping out of the dark, recreated from the raw cold of the gulf.

The First stood with her determination gripped in both hands. Pitchwife was at her side, grimacing. Supported by Honninscrave, Seadreamer clenched his despair between his teeth and glared whitely around him. Vain looked like an avatar of the gulfs dark. Findail's creamy robe seemed as bright as a torch.

Cail stood near Covenant and Linden with sunlight shining in his eyes. But Brinn was nowhere to be seen. The Guardian of the One Tree had left the cavern, carrying his promise not to interfere to its logical extreme. Or perhaps he did not want to watch what was about to happen to the people he had once served.

Reaching the floor of the well, the sunline moved more slowly; but still it spread by noticeable degrees out from the western wall where the quest stood. Covenant's eyes blurred. The light seemed to vacillate between vagueness and acuity, hope and doom. No one spoke. The atmosphere held them silent and motionless.

Without warning, tips of wood burst into view as the sun touched them. Gleaming like traceries of fire above the heads of the onlookers, twigs ran together to form branches. Boughs intersected and grew downward. In a slow rush like the flow of burning blood, all the boughs joined; and the trunk of the One Tree swept toward its roots in the floor of the gulf.

Limned and distinct against a background of shadow, the great Tree stood before the company like the progenitor of all the world's wood.

It appeared to be enormous. The well had indeed widened as it descended, forming a space as large as a cavern to hold the Tree. The darkness which hid the far walls focused all the sunlight onto the centre of the floor, so that the Tree dominated the air with every line and angle of its bright limbs. It was grand and ancient, clad in thick, knaggy bark like a mantle of age, and impossibly powerful.

And yet it had no leaves. Perhaps it had always been leafless. The bare stone was unmarked by any mould or clutter which might have come from the One Tree. Every branch and twig was stark, unwreathed. They would have looked dead if they had not been so vivid with light, The Tree's massive roots had forced their way into the floor with gigantic strength, breaking the surface into jagged hunks which the roots embraced with the intimacy of lovers. The Tree appeared to draw its strength, its leafless endurance, from a subterranean cause that was as passionate as lava and as intractable as gutrock.

For a long moment, Covenant and his companions simply stood and stared. He did not think he could move. He was too close to the goal which he had desired and loathed across the wide seas. In spite of its light-etched actuality, it seemed unreal. If he touched it, it would evaporate into hallucination and madness.

But the sun was still moving. The configuration of the well made its traversal dangerously swift. The One Tree was fully lit now; the company was falling back into shadow. Soon the sun would reach the eastern wall; and then the Tree would begin to go out. Perhaps it would cease to exist when sunfire no longer burned along its limbs. He was suddenly afraid that he did not have much time.

“Now, Giantfriend,” the First whispered. Her tone was thick with awe. “It must be done now. While the light endures.”

“Yes — .” Covenant's voice caught in his throat, came out like a flinch. He was appalled by what he meant to do. Linden was the first woman he had met since the ordeal of his illness began who was able to love him. To lose her now — ! But Brinn had said, Hope and doom. Bear what must be borne. He would die if he did not, would surely destroy what he loved if he did not.

Abruptly, he raised his right arm, pointed at the Tree. The small twin scars on his forearm shone faintly. “There,” Above its gnarled trunk, the Tree was wide-boughed and encompassing. From one of the nearest limbs grew a long straight branch as thick as his wrist. It ended in a fiat stump as if the rest of it had been cut off. “I'll take that one.”

Tension squirmed through him. He opened a shutter in his mind, let out a ray of power. A tiny flame appeared on his ring. It intensified until it was as incisive as a blade. There he held it, intending to use it to sever the branch.

Obscurely through the gloom, he saw Vain grinning.

“Wait.” Linden was not looking at him. She was not looking at anything. Her expression resembled the helpless immobility which had rendered her so vulnerable to Joan and Marid and Gibbon. She appeared small and lost, as if she had no right to be here. Her hands made weak pleading movements. Her head shook in denial. “There's something else.”

“Linden-” Covenant began.

“Be swift, Chosen,” demanded the First. “The time flees.”

Linden stared blindly past the company and the Tree and the light. “Something else here.” She was raw with fear and self-coercion, "They're connected-but they aren't the same. I don't know what it is. It's too much. Nobody can look at it." Paralysis or horror made her soft voice wild.

Covenant tried again urgently. “Linden”

Her gaze left the One Tree, touched him and then cringed as if she could not bear the sight of what he meant to do. Her words seemed to congeal toward silence as she spoke them. “The Tree isn't why nothing lives here. It doesn't make the air smell like the end of the world. It doesn't have that kind of power. There's something else here.” Her vision was focused inward as if like the Elohim she were studying herself for answers. “Resting.”

Covenant faltered. He was torn between too many emotions. His ring burned like venom and potential Desecration. A cry he was unable to utter wrung his heart:

Help me! I don't know what to do!

But he had already made his decision. The only decision of which he was capable. Go forward. Find out what happens. What matters. Who you are. Surely Linden would understand. He could not retreat from the compulsion of his own fear and loss.

When he looked at the First, she made a gesture that urged him toward the Tree.

Jerking himself into motion., he started forward.

At once, Seadreamer left the shadows. Trailed by Honninscrave's soft groan of protest, the mute Giant sprang ahead of Covenant, blocked his way. All the light on his face was gathered around his scar. His head winced refusals from side to side. His fists were poised at his temples as if his brain were about to burst.

“No,” Covenant gritted-a warning of ire and empathy. “Don't do this.”

The First was already at his side. “Are you mad?” she barked at Seadreamer. “The Giantfriend must act now, while the way is open.”

For an instant, Seadreamer burst into an incomprehensible pantomime. Then he took hold of himself. His respiration juddered as he forced himself to move slowly, making his meaning clear. With gestures as poignant as anguish, he indicated that Covenant must not touch the Tree. That would be disaster. He, Seadreamer, would attempt to take the branch.

Covenant started to object. The First stayed him. “Giantfriend, it is the Earth-Sight.” Pitchwife had joined the Swordmain. He stood as if he were prepared to wrestle Covenant in the name of Seadreamer's wishes. “In all the long ages of the Giants, no Earth-Sight has ever misled us.”

Out of the dark, Honninscrave cried, “He is my brother!” Suppressed tears occluded his voice. “Will you send him to die?”

The tip of the First's sword wavered. Pitchwife watched her with all his attention, waiting for her decision. Covenant's eyes flared back and forth between Honninscrave and Seadreamer. He could not choose between them.

Then Seadreamer hurled himself toward the One Tree.

"No!" The shout tore itself from Covenant's chest. Not again! Not another sacrifice in my place! He started after the Giant with flame pounding in his veins.

Honninscrave exploded past him. Roaring, the Master charged m pursuit of his brother.

But Seadreamer was moving with a desperate precision, as if this also were something he had foreseen exactly. In three strides, he spun to meet Honninscrave. His feet planted themselves on the stone: his fist lashed out.

The blow caught Honninscrave like the kick of a Courser. He staggered backward against Covenant. Only Cail's swift intervention kept the Master from crushing Covenant to the stone. The Haruchai deflected Honninscrave's bulk to one side, heaved Covenant to the other.

Covenant saw Seadreamer near the Tree. The First's command and Pitchwife's cry followed him together, but did not stop him. Livid in sudden sunlight, he leaped up the broken rocks which the roots embraced. From that position, the branch Covenant had chosen hung within easy reach of his hands.

For an instant, he did not touch it. His gaze reached toward the company as if he were poised on the verge of immolation. Passions he could not articulate dismayed his face along the line of his scar.

Then he took hold of the branch near its base and strove to snap it from its bough.

Twenty Six: Fruition

FOR a frozen splinter of time, Linden saw everything. Seadreamer's hands were closing on the branch. Covenant yearned forward as if he perceived the death in Seadreamer's eyes as clearly as she did. Cail supported the ur-Lord. The First, Pitchwife, and Honninscrave were in motion; but their running appeared slow and useless, clogged by the cold power in the air. The sunlight made them look at once vivid and futile.

She was alone in the western shadows with Vain and Findail. Percipience and reflected light rendered them meticulously to her. The Demondim-spawn's grin was as feral as a beast's. Waves of fear poured from Findail.

Disaster crouched in the cavern. It was about to strike. She felt it-all Lord Foul's manipulations coming to fruition in front of her. The atmosphere was rife with repercussions. But she could not move.

Then Seadreamer's hands closed.

In that instant, a blast like a shout of rage from the very guts of the Earth staggered the company. The Giants and Covenant were swept from their feet. The stone came up and kicked Linden as she sprawled forward.

Her breathing stopped. She did not remember hitting her head, but the whole inside of her skull was stunned, as if everything had been knocked flat. She wanted to breathe, but the air felt as violent as lightning. It would burn her lungs to cinders.

She had to breathe, had to know what was going on. Inhaling convulsively, she raised her head.

Vain and Findail had remained erect nearby, reflecting each other like antitheses across the gloom.

The well was full of stars.

A swath of the heavens had been superimposed on the cavern and the One Tree. Behind the sunlight, stars flamed with a cold fury. The spaces between them were as black as the fathomless depths of the sky. They were no larger than Linden's hand, no brighter than motes of dizziness. Yet each was as mighty as a sun. Together they transcended every power which life and Time could contain. They swirled like a galaxy in ferment, stirring the air into a brew of utter destruction.

A score of them swept toward Seadreamer. They seemed to strike and explode without impact; but their force lit a conflagration of agony in his flesh. A scream ripped the throat which had released no word since the birth of his Earth-Sight.

And wild magic appeared as if it had been rent free of all restraint by Seadreamer's cry. Covenant stood with his arms spread like a crucifixion, spewing argent fire. Venom and madness scourged forward as he strove to beat back Seadreamer's death. Foamfollower had already died for him.

His fury deflected or consumed the stars, though any one of them should have been too mighty for any mortal power to touch. But he was already too late. Seadreamer's hands fell from the branch. He sagged against the trunk of the Tree. Panting hugely, he took all his life in his hands and wrenched it into the shape of one last cry:

“Do not!”

The next moment, too much force detonated in his chest. He fell as if he had been shattered, thudded brokenly to the floor.

Honninscrave's wail rose among the stars, but it made no difference. They swirled as if they meant to devour all the company.

Covenant's outpouring faltered. Flame flushed up and down his frame like the beating of his pulse, but did not lash out. Horror stretched his visage, a realization of what he had avoided and permitted. In her heart, Linden ran toward him; but her body stayed kneeling, half catatonic, on the stone. She was unable to find the key that would unlock her contradictions. The First and Pitchwife still clung to Honninscrave's arms, holding him back from Seadreamer. Cail stood beside Covenant as if he meant to protect the Unbeliever from the anger of the stars.

And the stars still whirled, imposing themselves on the stone and the air and the retreating sunlight, shooting from side to side closer toward the heads of the companions. Abruptly, Cail knocked Covenant aside to evade a swift mote. The First and Pitchwife heaved Honninscrave toward the relative safety of the wall, then dove heavily after him.

Destruction which no blood or bone might withstand swarmed through the cavern.

Findail tuned himself to a pitch beyond the stars' reach. But Vain made no effort to elude the danger. His eyes were focused on nothing. He smiled ambiguously as one of the stars struck and burst against his right forearm.

Another concussion shocked the cavern. Ebony fire spat like excruciation from the Demondim-spawn's flesh.

When it ended, his forearm had been changed. From elbow to wrist, the skin and muscle and bone were gone, transformed into rough-barked wood. Deprived of every nerve or ligature, his hand dangled useless from his iron-bound wrist.

And still the stars swirled, seeking ruin. The power which had been at rest in the roots of the Isle was rousing. All Linden's nerves screamed at the taste of a world-riving puissance.

Desperately, the First shouted, “We will be slain!”

While that cry echoed, Covenant reeled to look at her, at Linden. For an instant, he appeared manic with indecision, as if he believed that the peril came from the One Tree itself, that he would have to destroy the Tree in order to save his friends. Linden tried to shout at him, No! That isn't it! But he would not have been able to hear her.

When he saw her kneeling stricken on the stone, the danger rose up in him. His fire re-erupted.

The sun was already leaving the One Tree. The light seemed to creep toward the east wall, then rush upward as if it were being expelled by violence. But wild magic burned away all the darkness. Covenant blazed as if he were trying to set fire to the very rock of the Isle.

Extreme argent half blinded Linden. Reeling stars filled her eyes like blots of dazzlement. Potent as suns, they should have surpassed every flame that Covenant's flesh could raise. But he was powerful now in a way that transgressed mortal limits. Avid and fiery, he shone as if he were capable of detonating the sheer foundations of the Earth.

The force of his conflagration struck his companions like the hand of a gale, thrust all of them except Vain and Findail helplessly against the walls. Cail was torn from his side. Pitchwife and the First lay atop Honninscrave, determined to protect him at any hazard. Linden was shoved upright to the stone and held there as if she were still gripped by fetters in

Kasreyn's dungeon. Venom as savage as ghouls raged in Covenant. It ignited him, transported him out of all restraint or choice. The stars were swept into him and seemed to vanish as if they were being consumed. Vivid and carious flames came from his scars, the marks of Marid's fangs. They raved through the mounting holocaust like glee.

He was trying to move forward, fighting toward the One Tree. Every vestige of his will and consciousness appeared to be focused on the branch which Seadreamer had touched.

Too deadly -

Alone and indomitable, he stood against the heavens and flailed wild magic at them like ecstasy or madness.

Yet the stars were not defeated. New motes of puissance were born to replace those his fury devoured. If he did not fail soon, he would be driven to the point of cataclysm. Around the roots of the Tree, the stone had begun to ripple and flow. In moments, the lives of his companions would be snuffed out by the unutterable wind of his power. Exalted and damned by fire, he raged against the stars as if his lust for might, mastery, triumph had eaten away every other part of him. He had become nothing except the vessel and personification of his venom.

Too deadly to go on living.

Still Linden could not move. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this. Stars gyred around the Tree, around Covenant. The stone boiled as if it were about to leap upward, take shape in its own defence. Wild magic lacerated her frail flesh, afflicting her with fire as Gibbon-Raver had once filled her with evil. She did not know how to move.

Then hands took hold of her, shook her. They were as compulsory as anguish. She looked away from Covenant and met Findail's frantic yellow eyes.

“You must stop him!” The Elohim's lips did not move. His voice rang directly into her brain. “He will not hear me!”

She gaped back at the Appointed. There were no words in all the cavern to articulate her panic.

“Do you not comprehend?” he knelled at her. "He has encountered the Worm of the World's End! Its aura defends the One Tree! Already he has brought it nigh rousing!

“Are you blind at last?” His voice rang like a carillon in agony. "Employ your sight! You must see! For this has the Despiser wrought his ill against you! For this! The Worm defends the One Tree! Have you learned nothing? Here the Despiser cannot fail! If the Worm is roused, the Earth will end, freeing Despite to wreak its vengeance upon the cosmos. And if the ring-wielder attempts to match his might against the Worm, he will destroy the Arch of Time. It cannot contain such a battle! It is founded upon white gold, and white gold will rive it to rubble!

“For this was he afflicted with the Despiser's venom!” Findail's clamour tormented every part of her being. “To enhance his might, enabling him to rend the Arch! This is the helplessness of power! You must stop him!”

Still Linden did not respond, could not move. But her senses flared as if he had torn aside a veil, and she caught a glimpse of the truth. The boiling of the stone around the Tree was not caused by Covenant's heat. It came from the same source as the stars. A source buried among the deepest bones of the Earth-a source which had been at rest.

This was the crux of her life, this failure to rise above herself. This was why Lord Foul had chosen her. This paralysis was simply flight in another form. Unable to resolve the paradox of her lust for power and her hatred of evil, her desire and loathing for the dark might of Ravers, she was caught, immobilized. Gibbon-Raver had touched her, taught her the truth. Are you not evil? Behind all her strivings and determination lay that denunciation, rejecting life and love. If she remained frozen now, the denial of her humanity would be complete.

And it was Covenant who would pay the price-Covenant who was being duped into destroying what he loved. The unanswerable perfection of Lord Foul's machinations appalled her. In his power, Covenant had become, not the Earth's redeemer, but its doom. He, Thomas Covenant-the man to whom she had surrendered her loneliness. The man who had smiled for Joan.

His peril erased every other consideration.

There was no evil here. She clung to that fact, anchored herself on it. No Ravers. No Despiser. The Worm was inconceivably potent-but it was not evil. Covenant was lunatic with venom and passion-but he was not evil. No ill arose to condition her responses, control what she did. Surely she could afford to unbind her instinct for power? To save Covenant?

With a shout, she thrust away from Findail, began surging through utter and immedicable argent as if it were lava toward the Unbeliever.

At every new lash and eruption of wild magic, every added flurry of stars, she felt that the skin was being flayed from her bones; but she did not stop. The gale howled in her ears. She did not let it impede her. A Giantish voice wailed after her, “Chosen!” and went unheeded. The cavern, had become a chaos of echoes and violence; but she traversed the cacophony as if her will outshone every other sound. The presence of so much power elevated her. Instinctively, she used that force for protection, took hold of it with her percipience so that the stars did not burn her, the gale did not hurl her back.

Power.

Impossibly upright amid conflagrations which threatened to break the Isle, she placed herself between Covenant and the One Tree.

His fire scaled about him in whorls and coruscations. He looked like a white avatar of the father of nightmares. But he saw her. His howl made the roots of the rock shudder as he grabbed at her with wild magic, drew her inside his defences.

She flung her arms around him and forced her face toward his. Mad ecstasy distorted his visage. Kevin must have worn that same look at the Ritual of Desecration. Focusing all the penetration of her senses, she tuned her urgency, her love, her self to a pitch that would touch him.

“You've got to stop!”

He was a figure of pure fire. The radiance of his bones was beyond mortality. But she pierced the blaze.

“It's too much! You're going to break the Arch of Time!”

Through the outpouring, she heard him scream. But she held herself against him. Her senses grappled for his flame, prevented him from striking out.

“This is what Foul wants!”

Driven by the strength she took from him, her voice reached him.

She saw the shock as truth stabbed into him. She saw realization strike panic and horror across his visage. His worst nightmares reared up in front of him; his worst fears were fulfilled. He was poised on the precipice of the Despiser's victory. For one horrendous moment, he went on crying power as if in his despair he meant to tear down the heavens.

Every star he consumed was another light lost to the universe, another place of darkness in the firmament of the sky.

But she had reached him. His face stretched into a wail as if he had just seen everything he loved shatter. Then his features closed like a fist around a new purpose. Desperation burned from him. She felt his power changing. He was pulling it back, channelling it in another direction.

At first, she did not question what he was doing. She saw only that he was regaining control. He had heard her. Clinging to him passionately, she felt his will assert itself against venom and disaster.

But he did not silence his power. He altered it. Suddenly, wild magic flooded into her through his embrace. She went rigid with dismay and intuitive comprehension, tried to resist. But she was composed of nothing except flesh and blood and emotion; and he had changed in a moment from unchecked virulence to wild magic incarnate, deliberate mastery. Her grip on his fire was too partial and inexperienced to refuse him.

His might bore her away. It did not touch her physically. It did not unbind her arms from him, did not harm her body. But it translated everything. Rushing through her like a torrent, it swept her out of herself, frayed her as if she were a mound of sand eroded by the sea, hurled her out among the stars.

Night burst by her on all sides. The heavens writhed about her as if she were the pivot of their fate. Abysms of loneliness stretched out like absolute grief in every direction, contradicting the fact that she still felt Covenant in her arms, still saw the enclosure of the well. And those sensations were fading. She clung to them with frenzy; but wild magic burned them to ash in her grasp and cast her adrift. She floated away into fathomless midnight.

Echoing without sound or hope, Covenant's voice rose after her:

“Save my life!”

She was hurtling toward a fire which became yellow and vicious as she approached it. It defined the night, pulling the dark around it so that it was defended on all sides by blackness.

Then the blaze began to fade as if it had already consumed most of its fuel. As the flames shrank, she sprawled to the ground, lay on her back on a surface of stone. She was in two places at once. The wild magic continued to flow through her, linking her to Covenant, to the cavern of the One Tree. But at the same time she was elsewhere. Her head throbbed as if she had been struck a heavy blow behind one ear. When she tried to rise, the pain almost broke the fragile remnant of her link.

With a fatal slowness, her sight squeezed itself into focus.

She was lying on a rough plane of native rock beside the relict of a bonfire. The rock was in the bottom of a barren and abandoned hollow. Nothing obscured her view of the night sky. The stars were distant and inconceivable. But around the rims of the hollow she saw shrubs, brush, and trees, gaunt and spectral in the dark.

She knew where she was, what Covenant was doing to her. Defying the pain, she heaved upright and faced the body stretched at her side.

His body.

He lay as if he had been crucified on the stone. But the wound was not in his hands or feet or side: it was in his chest. The knife jutted like a plea from the junction of his ribs and sternum. The viscid and dying pool of his life dominated the triangle of blood which had been painted on the rock.

She felt that terrible amounts of time had passed, though she was only three heartbeats away from the cavern of the One Tree. The link was still open. Covenant was still pouring wild magic toward her, still striving to thrust her back into her old world. And that link kept her health-sense alight. When she looked at his body beside her-at the flesh outraged by the approach of death-she knew that he was alive.

The blood oozing from around the knife, the internal bleeding, the loss of fluid were nearly terminal; but not yet, not yet. Somehow, the blade had missed his heart. Flickers of life ached in his lungs, quivered in the failing muscles of his heart, yearned in the passages of his brain. He could be saved. It was still medically feasible to save him.

But before her own heart beat again, another perception altered everything.

Nothing would save him unless he did to himself what he had just done to her-unless he came to reoccupy his dying body. While his spirit, the part of him which desired life, remained absent, his flesh could not rally. He was too far from any other kind of help, too far even from her medical bag. Only his will for life had a chance to sustain him. And his will still burned in the cavern of the One Tree, spending itself to preserve her from doom. He had sent her away as he had once sent Joan, so that his life would be forfeit instead of hers.

First her father.

Then her mother.

Now Covenant.

Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder, leper and lover, who had taught her to treasure the danger of being human.

Dying here in front of her.

Her heart lurched wildly. The link trembled. She started to protest, No! But before the word reached utterance she changed it into something else. As she scrambled to her feet, she clawed at the bond of power connecting her to Covenant. Her senses raced back along the current of wild magic. It was all she had. She had to make it serve her, wrest it from his grasp if necessary, anything rather than permit his death. Striving with every fraction of her strength, she cried out across the distance:

“Covenant!”

The sound fell stillborn in the woods. She did not know how to make him hear her. She clung to the link, but it resisted her service. If she had had the entire facilities and staff of a modern emergency room at her immediate disposal, she would not have been able to save him. His grip on the wild magic was too strong. The effort of mastering it had made him strong. Despair made him strong. And she had never wielded power before. In a direct contest for control of his might, she was no match for him.

But her percipience still lived. She knew him in that way more intimately than she had ever known herself. She felt his fierce grief and extremity across the gap between worlds. She knew—

Knew how to reach him.

She did not stop to count the cost. There was no time. Madly, she hurled herself into the dying bonfire as if it were her personal caamora.

For one splintered instant, those yellow flames leaped at her flesh. Harbingers of searing shot along her nerves.

Then Covenant saw her peril. Instinctively, he tried to snatch her back.

At once, she took hold of the link with every finger of her passion. Guided by her senses, she began to fight her way toward the source of the connection.

The woods became as insubstantial as mist, then fell into shreds as the winds between the stars tugged through them. The stone under her feet evaporated into darkness. Covenant's prone form denatured, disappeared. She began to fall, as bright as a comet, into the endless chasm of the heavens.

As she hurtled, she strove to muster words. You've got to come with me! It's the only way I can save you! But suddenly the power was quenched as if Covenant himself had been snuffed out. Her spiritual plummet among the stars seemed to become a physical plunge, a fall from a height which no human body might endure. Her heart wanted to scream, but there was no air, had never been any air, her lungs could not support the ether through which she dropped. She had gone off the edge of her fate. No cry remained which would have made any difference.

Helpless to catch herself, she stumbled forward onto her face on the floor of the cavern. Her pulses raced, chest laboured. Reminders of the bonfire flushed over her skin. A moment passed before she was able to realize that she had suffered no hurt.

Hands came to her aid. She needed the help. Her brain was giddy with transcendent dread. The stone seemed to buck and tremor under her. But the hands lifted her upright. She read the nature of their strength: they were Haruchai hands, Cail's hands. She welcomed them.

But she was blind. The floor went on lurching. The Isle had begun to tremble like the presage of a convulsion. There was no light. The stars of the Worm's aura were gone. Covenant's fire was gone. Dazzled by powers and desperation, her eyes refused to adjust to the gloom. All her companions were invisible. They might have been slain.

She fought to see through the Worm's unquiet ambience; but when she looked beyond Cail, she found nothing but Seadreamer's corpse. He lay in Honninscrave's embrace near the base of the One Tree as if his valiant bones had been burned to cinders.

The sight wrung her. Cable Seadreamer, involuntary victim of Earth-Sight and muteness. He had done nothing with his life except give it away in an effort to save the people he most treasured. She had failed him, too.

But then she became aware of Honninscrave himself, realised that the Master was breathing in great, raw hunks of loss. He was alive. That perception seemed to complete her transition, bringing her fully back into the company of her friends. The gloom macerated slowly as her eyes swam into focus.

Softly, Pitchwife said, “Ah, Chosen. Chosen.” His voice was thick with rue.

A short distance from Honninscrave and Seadreamer, Covenant sat spread-legged on the stone. He appeared unconscious of the violence building in the roots of the Isle. He faced the unattainable Tree with his back bowed as if he had broken his spine.

The First and Pitchwife stood together, trapped between Covenant and Honninscrave by their inability to comfort either pain. She still gripped her sword, but it had become useless to her. Her husband's face was full of silent weeping.

Vain remained a few paces away, wearing his black smile as if the wooden ruin of his right forearm meant nothing to him. Only Findail was nowhere to be seen. He had fled the crisis of Covenant's fire. Linden did not care if he never returned.

Stiffly, she carried her appeal toward Covenant. Kneeling between his legs, she faced him and tried to lift the words into her throat. You've got to go back. But she was unable to speak. It was too late. His power-haunted gaze told her plainly that he already knew what she wanted to say.

“I can't.” His voice sifted into the dark like a falling of ashes. “Even if I could stand it. Abandon the Land. Let Foul have his way.” His face was only a blur in the gloom, a pale smear from which all hope had been erased. “It takes too much power. I'd break the Arch.”

Oh, Covenant!

She had nothing else to give him.

Twenty Seven: The Long Grief

LINDEN could barely discern her companions through the dimness: Honninscrave and dead Seadreamer; the First and Pitchwife; Vain and Call. They stood around her like deeper shadows in the pervading dark. But Covenant was the one she watched. The image of him supine on the verge of death with that knife in his chest was as vivid to her as the etchwork of acid. She saw that face-the features acute with agony, the skin waxen and pallid-more clearly than the gaunt visage before her. Its vague shape appeared mortally imprecise, as if its undergirding bones had been broken-as if he were as broken as the Land which Lord Foul had restored to him, as broken as Joan. All the danger had gone out of him.

But the company could not remain where it was. A sharper convulsion shook the stone, as if the Worm were nearly awake. A scattering of pebbles fell from the walls, filling the air with light echoes. There was little time left. Perhaps it would not be enough. Gently, Cail stooped to Covenant. “Ur-Lord, come. This Isle cannot hold. We must hasten for our lives.”

Linden understood. The Worm was settling back to its rest; and those small movements might tear the Isle apart at any moment. She had failed at everything else; but this exigency was within her grasp. She rose to her feet, extended her hands to help Covenant.

He refused her offer. For a moment, darkness blotted out his mien. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by defeat.

“I should've broken the link. Before you had time to see. But I didn't have the courage to let you go. I can't bear it.”

Yet he moved. In spite of everything, he heeded the company's need. Tortured and leprous, he climbed Call's support until he was upright.

Another shock staggered the cavern. But Linden kept her balance alone.

The First and Pitchwife went to Honninscrave. With firm care, they urged him erect. He would not release his brother. Bearing Seadreamer in his arms, he permitted himself to be nudged toward the ledge after Covenant and Linden.

In silence, the questers trudged up out of the tomb of their dreams.

Tremors threatened them repeatedly during that hard ascent. The ledge pitched as if it sought to shrug them back into the gulf. Vibrations made the stone quiver like wounded flesh. At intervals, hunks of rock fell, striking out sharp resonations which scaled upward like cries of bereavement. But Linden was not afraid of that. She was hardly aware of the exertion of the climb. She felt that she could count the last drops of blood as they seeped around the knife in Covenant's chest.

When she gained the crest, looked out over the Isle and the wide sea, she was wanly surprised to see that the sun had fallen no lower than midafternoon. Surely the ruin of the quest had consumed more time than that? But it had not. Such damage was as sudden as an infarction. As abrupt as the collapse of the old man on the roadway into Haven Farm

Slowly, irresistibly, the violence in the rock continued to build. As she started downward, she saw that the slopes were marked with new scars where boulders and outcroppings had fallen away. The old sea had swallowed all the rubble without a trace.

The last throes of the Isle were rising. Though she was hardly able to walk without stumbling, she urged the company faster. It was her responsibility. Covenant was so Desecration-ridden, so despair-blind, that he would have plunged headlong if Cail had not supported him. She needed help herself; but Brinn was gone, the First and Pitchwife were occupied with Honninscrave, and Call's duty was elsewhere. So she carried her own weight and croaked at her companions for haste. As awkwardly as cripples, they raced the Worm's unrest downward.

Vain followed them as if nothing had changed. But his right hand dangled from the dead wood of his transformed forearm. The band of the Staff of Law on his wrist clasped the boundary between flesh and bark.

At last, they reached the longboat. Somehow, it had not been struck by any of the falling boulders. The companions lurched and thudded aboard as if they were in rout.

As the First shoved the craft out into the water, the entire eyot jumped. A large section of the crest crumbled inward. The sea heaved into deep waves, setting the longboat a-dance. But it rode out the spasms unscathed. Then the First and Pitchwife took the oars and rowed through the sunlight toward Starfare's Gem.

The next tremor toppled more of the Isle's crown. Wide pieces of the engirdling reef sank. After that, the convulsions became almost constant, raising immense exhalations of dust like spume from the island's throat. Impelled by heavy seas, the longboat moved swiftly to the side of the Giantship. In a short time, the company gained the decks. Everyone gathered along the port rail to watch the cairn of the One Tree go down.

It sank in a last tremendous upheaval. Chunks of the Isle jumped like flames as its foundations shattered. Then all the rock settled around the Worm's new resting-place; and the sea rushed into the gap. The waters rose like a great geyser, spread outward in deep undulations which made the dromond roll from side to side. But that was the end. Even the reef was gone. Nothing remained to mark the area except bubbles which broke the surface and then faded, leaving azure silence in their wake.

Slowly, the spectators turned back to their ship. When Linden looked past Vain toward Covenant, she saw Findail standing with him. She wanted to be angry at the Elohim, would have welcomed any emotion which might have sustained her. But the time for such things had passed. No expostulation would bring back Covenant's hope. The lines engraving the Appointed's face were as deep as ever; but now they seemed like scars of pity.

“I cannot ease your sorrow,” he said, speaking so softly that Linden barely heard him. “That attempt was made, and it failed. But one fear I will spare you. The One Tree is not destroyed. It is a mystery of the Earth. While the Earth endures, it too will endure in its way. Perhaps your guilts are indeed as many as you deem them — but that is one you need not bear.”

Findail's unexpected gentleness made Linden's eyes blur. But the pained slump of Covenant's shoulders, the darkness of his gaze, showed that he had passed beyond the reach of solace. In a voice like the last drops of blood, he replied, “You could've warned me. I almost-” The vision of what he had nearly done clogged his throat. He swallowed as if he wanted to curse and no longer had the strength. “I'm sick of guilt.”

Honninscrave remained huddled over Seadreamer. Sevinhand and Gale wrath looked to him for instructions; but he did not respond, did not notice them at all. After a brief pause of respect, the First told the Anchormaster what to do.

Wrapping his old melancholy about him, Sevinhand rallied the crew. The anchors were raised, the sails set. In a short time, Starfare's Gem swung away from the grave of the lost Isle and headed northward into the open sea.

But Covenant did not stay to watch. Bereft beyond redemption, he left his companions, shambled in the direction of his cabin. He was dying with a knife in his chest and no longer had any way to fight the Despiser. Linden understood. When he turned his back on her, she did not protest.

This was her life after all — as true to herself, to what she was and what she wanted to become, as the existence she had left behind on Haven Farm. The old man whose life she had saved there had said to her, You will not fail, however he may assail you. The choices she had made could not be taken from her.

And that was not all. She remembered what Covenant had told her about his Dead in Andelain. His friend, High Lord Mhoram, had said to him, Do not be deceived by the Land's need. The thing you seek is not what it appears to be. The same prophecy was true for her as well. Like Brinn, she had found something she had not come seeking. With Covenant after their escape from Bhrathairealm, she had let some light into the darkness of her heart. And in the cavern of the One Tree she had found a use for that part of herself-a use which was not evil.

Since Covenant could not bear it now, she accepted from him the burden of hope. You will not fail — Not while she still believed in him — and knew how to reach him.

Yet she did not try to keep the tears from her eyes. Too much had been lost. As she went to stand beside Honninscrave, she folded her arms over her heart and let the long grief of the quest settle in her bones.