White Gold Wielder (15 page)

After supper, Pitchwife went to sleep almost at once, hugging his groundsheet about him. The First sat sternly beside the fire and toyed with the fagots as though she did not want to reconsider her decisions. As determined as ever to emulate the devotion of the
Haruchai
, Mistweave joined Cail standing watch over the company. And Honninscrave stared at nothing, met no one’s eyes. His orbs were hidden under the weight of his brows, and his face looked drawn and gaunt.

Linden paced tensely near the fire as if she wanted to talk to someone. But Covenant was absorbed by his visceral yearning for the heat of white flame. The effort of denial left him nothing to say. The silence became as cold and lonely as the ice. After a time, he gathered his blankets and followed Pitchwife’s example, wrapping himself tightly in his groundsheet.

He thought he would be able to sleep, if only because the cold was so persuasive. But Linden made her bed near his, and soon he felt her watching him as if she sought to fathom his isolation. When he opened his eyes, he saw the look of intention in her fire-lit face.

Her gaze was focused on him like an appeal; but the words she murmured softly took him by surprise.

“I never even learned her name.”

Covenant raised his head, blinked his incomprehension at her.

“That Giant,” she explained, “the one who was hurt when the foremast broke.” The one she had healed with his ring. “I never found out who she was. I’ve been doing that all my life. Treating people as if they were pieces of sick or damaged meat instead of actual individuals. I thought I was a doctor, but it was only the disease or the hurt I cared about. Only the fight against death. Not the person.”

He gave her the best answer he had. “Is that bad?” He recognized the attitude she described. “You aren’t God. You can’t help people because of who they are. You can only help them because they’re hurt and they need you.” Deliberately he concluded, “Otherwise you would’ve let Mistweave die.”

“Covenant.” Now her tone was aimed at him as squarely as her gaze. “At some point, you’re going to have to deal with me. With who I am. We’ve been lovers. I’ve never stopped loving you. It hurts that you lied to me—that you let me believe something that wasn’t true. Let me believe we had a future together. But I haven’t stopped loving you.” Low flames from the campfire glistened out of the dampness in her eyes. Yet she was resolutely unemotional, sparing him her recrimination or sorrow. “I think the only reason you loved me was because I was hurt. You loved me because of my parents. Not because of who I am.”

Abruptly she rolled onto her back, covered her face with her hands. Need muffled the self-control of her whisper. “Maybe that kind of love is wonderful and altruistic. I don’t know. But it isn’t enough.”

Covenant looked at her, at the hands clasped over her pain and the hair curling around her ear, and thought. Have to deal with you. Have to. But he could not. He did not know how. Since the loss of the One Tree, their positions had been reversed. Now it was she who knew what she wanted, he who was lost.

Above him, the stars glittered out their long bereavement. But for them also he did not know what to do.

When he awakened in the early dawn, he discovered that Honninscrave was gone.

A wind had come up. Accumulated snow gusted away over the half-buried remains of the campfire as Covenant thrashed out of his blankets and groundsheet. The First, Pitchwife, and Linden were still asleep. Mistweave lay felled in his canvas cover as if during the night his desire to match Cail had suffered a defeat. Only Cail, tne Demondim-spawn, and Findail were on their feet.

Covenant turned to Cail. “Where—?”

In response, Cail nodded upward.

Quickly Covenant scanned the massive chaos of the ridge. For a moment, he missed the place Cail had indicated. But then his gaze leaped to the highest point above the camp; and there he saw Honninscrave.

The Master sat atop a small tor of ice with his back to the south and the company. The wind tumbled down off the crest into Covenant’s face, bearing with it a faint smell of smoke.

Blood and damnation! Grimly Covenant demanded, “What in hell does he think he’s doing?” But he already knew the answer. Cail’s reply only confirmed it.

“Some while since, he arose and assayed the ice, promising a prompt return. With him he bore wood and a fire-pot such as the Giants use.”

Caamora
. Honninscrave was trying to burn away his grief.

At the sound of Cail’s voice, the First looked up from her bed, an inquiry in her eyes. Covenant found suddenly that he could not open his throat. Mutely he directed the First’s gaze up at Honninscrave.

When she saw the Master, she rasped a curse and sprang to her feet. Awakening Pitchwife with a slap of her hand, she asked Covenant and Cail how long Honninscrave had been gone.

Inflexibly the
Haruchai
repeated what he had told Covenant.

“Stone and Sea!” she snarled as Pitchwife and then Linden arose to join her. “Has he forgotten his own words? This north is perilous.”

Pitchwife squinted apprehensively up at Honninscrave; but his tone was reassuring. “The Master is a Giant. He is equal to the peril. And his heart has found no relief from Cable Seadreamer’s end. Perchance in this way he will gain peace.”

The First glared at him. But she did not call Honninscrave down from his perch.

Eyes glazed with sleep and vision. Linden gazed up at the Master and said nothing.

Shortly Honninscrave rose to his feet. Passing beyond the crest, he found his way downward. Soon he emerged from a nearby valley and came woodenly toward the company.

His hands swung at his sides. As he neared the camp, Covenant saw that they had been scoured raw by fire.

When he reached his companions, he stopped, raised his hands before him like a gesture of a futility. His gaze was shrouded. His fingers were essentially undamaged; but the aftereffects of his pain were vivid. Linden hugged her own hands under her arms in instinctive empathy.

The First’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Is it well with you, Grimmand Honninscrave?”

He shook his head in simple bafflement. “It does not suffice. Naught suffices. It burns in my breast—and will not burn out.”

Then as if the will which held him upright had broken he dropped to his knees and thrust his hands into a drift of snow. Tattered wisps of steam rose around his wrists.

Dumb with helpless concern, the Giants stood around him. Linden bit her lips. The wind drew a cold scud across the ice, and the air was sharp with rue. Covenant’s eyes blurred and ran. In self-defense there were many things for which he could claim he was not culpable; but Seadreamer’s death was not among them.

At last, the First spoke. “Come, Master,” she breathed thickly. “Arise and be about your work. We must hope or die.”

Hope or die. Kneeling on the frozen waste, Honninscrave looked like he had lost his way between those choices. But then slowly he gathered his legs under him, stretched his tall frame erect. His eyes had hardened, and his visage was rigid and ominous. For a moment, he stood still, let all the company witness the manner in which he bore himself. Then without a word he went and began to break camp.

Covenant caught a glimpse of the distress in Linden’s gaze. But when she met his look of inquiry, she shook her head, unable to articulate what she had perceived in Honninscrave.

Together they followed the Master’s example.

While Honninscrave packed the canvas and bedding, Mistweave set out a cold breakfast. His red-rimmed eyes and weary demeanor held a cast of abashment: he was a Giant and had not expected Cail’s endurance to be greater than his. Now he appeared determined to work harder in compensation—and in support of Honninscrave. While Covenant, Linden, and the other Giants ate, Mistweave toiled about the camp, readying everything for departure.

As Covenant and Linden settled into their sleds, bundled themselves against the mounting edge of the wind, the First addressed Honninscrave once more. She spoke softly, and the wind frayed away the sound of her voice.

“From the vantage of your
caamora
, saw you any sign?”

His new hardness made his reply sound oddly brutal:

“None.”

He and Mistweave shrugged themselves into the lines of the sleds. The First and Pitchwife went ahead. With Cail between the sleds and Vain and Findail in the rear, the company set off.

Their progress was not as swift as it had been the previous day. The increased difficulty of the terrain was complicated by the air pouring and gusting down from the ridge. Fistsful of ice crystals rattled against the wood of the sleds, stung the faces of the travelers. White plumes and devils danced among the company. The edges of the landscape ached in the wind.
Diamondraught
and food formed a core of sustenance within him, but failed to spread any warmth into his limbs. He did not know how long he could hold out against the alluring and fatal somnolence of the cold.

The next time he rubbed the ice from his lashes and raised his head, he found that he had not held out. Half the morning was gone. Unwittingly he had drifted into the passive stupor by which winter and leprosy snared their victims.

Linden was sitting upright in her sled. Her head shifted tensely from side to side as if she were searching. For a groggy instant, Covenant thought that she was using her senses to probe the safety of the ice. But then she wrenched forward, and her voice snapped over the waste:

“Stop!”

Echoes rode eerily back along the wind: Stop! Stop! But ice and cold changed the tone of her shout, made it sound as forlorn as a cry raised from the Soulbiter.

At once, the First turned to meet the sleds.

They halted immediately below a pile of broken ice like the rubble of a tremendous fortress reduced by siege. Megalithic blocks and shards towered and loomed as if they were leaning to fall on the company.

Linden scrambled out of her sled. Before anyone could ask her what she wanted, she coughed, “It’s getting colder.”

The First and Pitchwife glanced at each other. Covenant moved to stand beside Linden, though he did not comprehend her. After a moment, the First said, “Colder, Chosen? We do not feel it.”

“I don’t mean the winter,” Linden began at once, urgent to be understood. “It’s not the same.” Then she caught herself, straightened her shoulders. Slowly and sharply, she said, “You don’t feel it—but I tell you it’s there. It’s making the air colder. Not ice. Not wind. Not winter. Something else.” Her lips were blue and trembling. “Something dangerous.”

And this north is perilous, Covenant thought dully, as if the chill made him stupid. What kind of peril? But when he opened his mouth, no words came.

Honninscrave’s head jerked up. Pitchwife’s eyes glared white in his misshaped face.

At the same instant, the First barked, “
Arghule
!” and sprang at Covenant and Linden.

Thrusting them toward the sleds, she shouted, “We must flee!” Then she wheeled to scan the region.

Covenant lost his footing, skidded into Cail’s grasp. The
Haruchai
flipped him unceremoniously onto his sled. Linden vaulted to her place. At once, Honninscrave and Mistweave heaved the sleds forward as quickly as the slick surface allowed.

Before they had taken three strides, the ice a stone’s throw ahead rose up and came toward them.

The moving shape was as wide as the height of a Giant, as thick as the reach of Covenant’s arms. Short legs bore it forward with deceptive speed. Dark gaps around its edge looked like maws.

Cold radiated from it like a shout.

The First slid to a halt, planted herself in the path of the creature. “
Arghule
!” she cried again. “Avoid!”

Pitcbwife’s answering yell snatched her around. His arm hailed a gesture toward the ridge. “
Arghuleh
!”

Two more creatures like the first had detached themselves from the rubble and were rushing toward the company.

In the south appeared a fourth.

Together they emitted cold as fierce as the cruel heart of winter.

For an instant, the First froze. Het protest carried lornly across the wind. “But the
arghuleh
do not act thus.”

Abruptly Findail melted into a hawk and flew away.

Honninscrave roared a command: “Westward!” He was the Master of Starfare’s Gem, trained for emergencies. With a wrench that threw Covenant backward, he hauled his sled into motion. “We must break past!”

Mistweave followed. As he labored for speed, he called over his shoulder to Linden, “Do not fear! We are Giants, proof against cold!”

The next moment, the
arghuleh
attacked.

The creature approaching the First stopped. At Pitchwife’s warning shout, she whirled to face the
arghule
. But it did not advance. Instead it waved one of its legs.

From the arc of the gesture, the air suddenly condensed into a web of ice.

Expanding and thickening as it moved, the web sailed toward the First like a hunter’s net. Before it reached her, it grew huge and heavy enough to snare even a Giant.

At the same time, the
arghule
coming from the south halted, settled itself as though it were burrowing into the waste. Then violence boomed beneath it: ice shattered in all directions. And a crack sprang through the surface, ran like lightning toward the company. In the space between one heartbeat and another, the crack became as wide as the sleds.

It passed directly under Vain. The Demondim-spawn disappeared so quickly that Covenant did not see him fall.

Instinctively Covenant turned to look toward the other two
arghuleh
.

They were almost close enough to launch their assaults.

The sled lurched as Honninscrave accelerated. Covenant faced again toward the First.

The web of ice was dropping over her head.

Pitchwife struggled toward her. But his feet could not hold the treacherous surface. Cail sped lightly past him as if the
Haruchai
were as surefooted as a Ranyhyn.

The First defended herself without her sword. As the web descended, she chopped at it with her left arm.