White Gold Wielder Part 16

At that, her head jerked up; her gaze knifed at him. "He diedV she hissed like an imprecation too fierce and personal to be shouted. "He saved your life at least twice, and he spent his own life serving the Land you claim to care so much about, and the people that adopted him were nearly wiped off the face of the Earth, and he died!"

Covenant did not flinch. He was ready now for anything she might hurl at him-His own nightmares were worse than this. And he would have given his soul for the ability to match Hamako. "I'm not glad he died. I'm glad he found an answer."

For a long moment, her glare held. But then slowly the anger frayed out of her face. At last, her eyes fell. Thickly, she murmured, "I'm sorry. I just don't understand. Killing people is wrong." The memory of her mother was present to her as it was to Covenant. "But dear Christ! Saving them has got to be better than letting them die."

"Linden." She clearly did not want him to say anything else. She had raised the fundamental question of her life and needed to answer it herself. But he could not let the matter drop. With all the gentleness he had in him, he said, "Hamako didn't want to be saved. For the opposite reason that your father didn't want to be saved. And he won."

"I know," she muttered. "I know. I just don't understand it." As if to keep him from speaking again, she left the fire, went to get her blankets.

He looked around at the mute, attentive faces of the Giants.

But they had no other wisdom to offer him. He wanted intensely to be saved himself; but no one would be able to do that for him unless he surrendered his ring. He was beginning to think that his death would be welcome when it came.

A short time later, the fire blew out. Mistweave tried to light it again and failed. But when Covenant finally went to sleep, he dreamed that the blaze had become violent enough to consume him.

During the night, the wind died. The dawn was as clear as crystal; and the crags shone in the high, thin air as if no taint could reach them. A mood of impossible hope came over the companions as they labored toward the far end of the pa.s.s.

Under other circ.u.mstances, thfr view from that eminence (124 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:41 PM]

would have delighted them. Sunlight flashed through the pa.s.s to illumine the range as it tumbled downward in a dramatic succession of snow-bright crests and saw-backed aretes, mighty heads fronting the heavens and spines sprawling toward lower ground. And beyond the bare foothills all the way to the southwestern horizon lay the high North Plains which led to Revelstone.

But where the sun hit the Plains they looked as brown and battered as a desert.

That in itself would not have wrenched the Giants to silence, raised Linden's hands to her mouth, stifled Covenant's breathing; for at this time of year the region below them might be naturally dry. But as soon as the sun touched the denuded waste, a green fur began to spread across it. Distance made teeming shoots and sprouts look like an unconscionably rapid pelt.

With a curse, Covenant wheeled to scan the sun. But he 154.

White Gold Wielder could see no sign of the corona which should have accompanied the sudden verdure.

"We're under the fringe," said Linden tonelessly. "I told you about that*the last time we crossed Landsdrop. We won't see the aura until later."

Covenant had not forgotten her explanation. The Sunbane was a corruption of Earthpower, and it arose from the ground, from the deep roots of Mount Thunder where Lord Foul now made his home. But it was focused or triggered by the sun and manifested itself visibly there, in the characteristic penumbra of its phases and the power for perversion of its initial contact.

Thickly, he grated to his companions, "We'll need stone for protection. It's the first touch that does the damage." He and Linden had been preserved by the alien leather of their footwear. The ffaruchai and Vain had already shown that they were immune. Findail needed no advice on how to care for himself. But the Giants* Covenant could not bear that they might be at risk. "From now on*every day. We've got to have stone under us when the sun comes up."

The First nodded mutely. She and her people were still staring at the green mantle which thickened at every moment across the distant plains.

That sight made Covenant long for Sunder and Hollian.

The Graveler of Mithil Stonedown had left his home and people to serve as Covenant's guide through the perils of the Sunbane; and his obdurate skill and providence, his self- doubting courage, had kept Covenant and Linden alive. And Hollian's eh-Brand ability to foretell the phases of the Sunbane had been invaluable. Though he had Giants with him now, and Linden's strength. Covenant felt entirely unready to (125 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:41 PM]

face the Sunbane without the support of his former companions.

And he wanted to know what had happened to them. He had sent them from Seareach because they had believed that they had no clear role in the quest for the One Tree, no place among such mighty beings as Giants*and because he had loathed to leave the Clave uncontested during the unpredictable period of his absence. So he had given them the krill of Loric, the powerful blade which he had raised from Glimmermere. And he had laid upon them the charge of mustering resistance among the villages against the b.l.o.o.d.y requirements 155 of the Clave. Accompanied only by SteII and Ham, armed with nothing more than their own knives, the krill, Sunder's orcrest stone and Hollian's Manor wand, and encouraged by the thin hope that they might eventually gain the aid of more ffaruchai, the two lone Stonedownors had gone in sunlight and poignant valor to hazard their lives against the forces which ruled the Land.

That memory outweighed any amount of unreadiness. The distant preternatural green swelling below him brought back the past with renewed vividness. Sunder and Hollian were his friends. He had come this far in the name of Revelstone and the Clave; but now he wanted keenly to rejoin the two Stonedownors.

Rejoin or avenge.

"Come on," he rasped to his companions. "Let's get down there."

The First gave him a measuring glance, as though she half distrusted the constant hardening of his att.i.tude. But she was not a woman who hung back. With a stern nod, she sent him and Linden to the sleds. Then she turned and started down the steep, s...o...b..und slope as if she, too, could not wait to confront the ill that had brought the Search here.

'Heaving Covenant's sled into motion, Honninscrave let out a cry like a challenge and went plunging after the Swordmain.

In the course of that one day, the company pa.s.sed down out of the mountains, came to the foothills and the end of the snow. Careening at a mad pace which could only have been controlled by Giants, they sped from slope to slope, pausing only when the First needed to consider her best route. She seemed determined to regain the time lost by the arduous ascent of the range. Before noon, a band of green*the color of chrysoprase and Daphin's eyes*closed around the sun like a garrote. But Covenant could not look at it He was nearly blind with vertigo. He was barely able to cling to the rails of the sled and hold the contents of his stomach down.

Then the ice and snow of the heights failed on the verge of a moiling chaos of vegetation which had already grown high enough to appear impenetrable. His head still reeling, Covenant considered himself fortunate that dusk prevented the First from tackling the verdure immediately-But the Sword- (126 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:41 PM]

main was not insensitive to the nausea in his face*or the 156 aggravated ache in Linden's. While Mistweave and Honrin- scrave prepared a camp, she pa.s.sed a flask of diamondraught to the two humans, then left them alone to try to recover themselves.

The liquor settled Covenant's guts, but could not soften the wide, white outrage and dread of Linden's stare. At intervals during the evening, Pitchwife and the First addressed comments to her; but her replies were monosyllabic and distant The crouching vegetation spoke a language that only she could hear, consuming her attention. Unconscious of being watched, she chewed her lips as if she had lost her old severity and did not know how to recapture it.

Her huddled posture*thighs pressed against her chest, arms hugged around her shins, chin braced on her knees*reminded him of a time many days ago, a time when they bad begun traveling together, and she had nearly broken under the pressure of her first fertile sun. She had quailed into herself, protesting, can't shut it out. It's too personal. I don't believe in evil.p> can't shut it out. It's too personal. I don't believe in evil.p> She believed in evil now; but that only made the sensory a.s.sault of the Sunbane more intimate and unanswerable*as heinous as murder and as immedicable as leprosy.

He tried to stay awake with her, offering her the support of his silent companionship. But she was still taut and unslumberous when the mortal pull of his dreams took him away. He went to sleep thinking that if he had possessed anything akin to her percipience the Land would not be in such danger*

and she would not be so alone.

Visions he could neither face nor shun seemed to protract the night; yet dawn and Call's rousing touch came too early.

He awoke with a jerk and found himself staring at the dense growth. His companions were already up. While Pitchwife and Mistweave prepared a meal, and Honninscrave dismantled the sleds, the First studied the choked terrain, clenching a tuneless hum between her teeth. A gap among the peaks sent an early shaft of light onto the vegetation directly in front of the camp. The sun would touch the company soon.

Covenant's skin crawled as he watched the verdure writhe and grow. The contrast between the places where the sun hit and where it did not only made the effect more eerie and ominous. In the stony soil among the foothills, there were no trees-But the hardy, twisted shrubs were already as tall as trees; thistles and other weeds crowded the ground between the trunks; huge slabs of lichen clung to the rocks like scabs.

And everything the sun touched grew so rapidly that it seemed animate*a form of helpless flesh tortured mercilessly toward the sky. He had forgotten how horrific the Sunbane truly was. He dreaded the moment when he would have to descend into that lush green anguish.

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Then the sunlight fell through the gap onto the company.

At the last moment, the First, Honninscrave, and Pitchwife had found rocks on which to stand. Under Mistweave's feet lay the stone with which he had formerly shielded his campfires from ice and snow.

Distantly, Linden nodded at the caution of the Giants.

"Cail's got something you don't," she murmured. "You need the protection." But Vain and Findail required no defense; and Covenant and Linden had their footwear. Together, they faced the onset of the sun.

As it first crested the gap, the sun appeared normal. For that reason, at least this much of the foothills remained free of vegetation. Yet the company stayed motionless, suspended and silent in an antic.i.p.ation like dread. And before their eyes the sun changed. A green aura closed around it, altering the light. Even the strip of bare ground between the end of the snow and the beginning of the vegetation took on an emerald timbre.

Because of the winter which still held the mountains, the air was not warm. But Covenant found that he was sweating.

Grimly, Linden turned her back on the sun. The Giants went to their tasks. Vain's constant, black, ambiguous smile betrayed no reaction. But Findail's pain-marked face looked more aggrieved than ever. Covenant thought he saw the Elohim's hands trembling.

Shortly after the company had eaten, Honninscrave finished reducing the sleds to firewood. He and Mistweave packed their supplies into huge bundles for themselves and smaller ones for Pitchwife and the First. Soon Covenant's companions were prepared to commence the day's journey.

"Giantfriend," the First asked sternly, "is there peril for us here other than that which we have all witnessed?"

Peril, he thought dumbly. If the Riders of the Clave don't 158 come this far north. And nothing else has changed. "Not under this sun," he replied with sweat in his voice. "But if we stand still too long, we'll have trouble moving again."

The Swordmain nodded. "That is plain."

Drawing her blade, she took two long steps down the hillside and began hacking tall thistles out of her way.

Honninscrave followed her. With his bulk and muscle, he widened her path for the rest of the company.

Covenant compelled himself to take his position at Pitchwife's back. Cail followed between the Unbeliever and Linden.

Then came Mistweave, with Vain and Findail inseparably behind him.

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In that formation, the failed quest for the One Tree met the atrocity of the Sunbane.

For the morning and part of the afternoon, they managed a surprising pace. Monstrous scrub brush and weeds gave way to stands of immense, raw bracken clotted with clumps of gra.s.s; and every added degree of the sun's arc made each frond and leaf and stem yeam more desperately upward, as frantic as the d.a.m.ned. Yet the First and Honninscrave forged ahead as fast as Covenant and Linden could comfortably walk. The air became warmer, noticeably more humid, as the snows and elevation of the mountains were left behind.

Although Covenant had added his robe to Pitchwife's bundle, he perspired constantly. But his days in the range had toughened him somewhat; be was able to keep the pace.

But toward midafternoon the company entered a region like a surreal madland. Juniper trees as contorted as ghouls sprawled thickly against each other, strangled by the prodigious vines which festooned them like the web of a gargantuan and insane spider. And between the vine stems and tree trunks the ground was profuse with lurid orchids that smelled like poison. The First struck one fierce blow against the nearest vine, then s.n.a.t.c.hed back her green-slick blade to see if she had damaged it: the stem was as hard as ironwood.

Around her, the trees and vines rustled like execration. In order to advance at all, the companions had to clamber and squirm awkwardly among the hindrances.

Night caught them in the middle of the region, with no stone in sight and scarcely enough s.p.a.ce for them to lay their blankets between the trunks. But when Cail roused the 159 company the next morning, they found that he had somehow contrived to collect sufficient small rocks to protect two of the Giants. And the stone which Mistweave still carried could bold two more. Thus warded, they braced themselves to meet the sun.

When its first touch filtered insidiously down through the choked trees, Covenant flinched; and Linden jerked a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp.

They could see only pieces of the sun's aura-But those pieces were red. The color of pestilence.

"Two days!" Covenant spat to keep himself from groaning.

"It's getting worse."

The First stared at him. Bitterly, he explained that the Sunbane had formerly moved in a cycle of three days. Any shortening of that period meant that its power was increasing.

And that meant* But he could not say such things aloud.

The hurt of them went too deep. It meant that Sunder and Hollian had failed. Or that the na-Mhoram had found a source of blood as large as his malice. Or that Lord Foul was now confident of victory, and therefore the Clave no longer made any pretense of holding back the Sunbane.

Glowering, the First absorbed Covenant's answer. After a (129 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:41 PM]

moment, she asked carefully, "May it be that this is but a variation*that the essential period remains unaltered?"

That was possible. He remembered one sun of two days.

But when he turned to Linden for her opinion, she was not looking at him. Her band had not come down from her mouth. Her teeth were closed on the knuckle of her index finger, and a drop of blood marked her chin.

"Linden." He grabbed at her wrist, yanked her hand away.

Her dismay slapped at him. "The sun of pestilence." Her voice came twisted and harsh from her knotted throat. "Have you forgotten what it's like? We don't have any voure."

At that, a new fear stung Covenant. Voure was the pungent sap of a certain plant*a sap that warded off the insects which thrived under a red sun. And more: it was also an antidote for the Sunbane-sickness. That pestilential disease could attack through any kind of exposed cut or injury.

"HeIIfire," he breathed. Then snapped, "Get a bandage on that finger!" His arm was healed enough to be safe; but this sun might prove the small marks on her knuckle fatal.

Around him, steam rolled like a miasma. Wherever the light 160 touched the vines and trunks, their bark opened and began to ooze. The steam stank of decomposition.

Nameless insects started to whine like augers through the mounting stench. Suddenly, Covenant caught up with Linden's apprehension. In addition to everything else, she had realized before he did that even a Giant might sicken and fail from breathing too much of that vapor*or from being bitten by too many of those insects.

She had not moved. Her eyes appeared glazed and inward, as if she could not move. Small red beads formed around her knuckle and dropped to the dirt.

Fierce with exasperation and alarm, Covenant snarled at her, "By h.e.l.l! I said, get a bandage on that finger. And think of something. We're in big trouble."

She flinched. "No," she whispered. The delicacy of her features seemed to crumble. "No. You don't understand. You don't feel it. It was never this*I can't remember*' She swallowed heavily to keep herself from crying out. Then her tone became flat and dead. "You don't feel it. It's hideous.

You can't fight it."

Wisps of steam pa.s.sed in front of her face as if she, too, had begun to rot.

Urgently, Covenant grabbed her shoulders, ground his numb fingers into her. "Maybe I can't. But you can. You're the Sun-Sage. What do you think you're here for?"

The Sun-Sage. Elohim had given her that t.i.tle. For an instant, her gaze became wild; and he feared he bad torn the thin fabric of her sanity. But then her eyes focused on him (130 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:41 PM]

with an emotional impact that made him wince. Abruptly, she was alabaster and adamantine in his grasp. "Let go of me,"

she articulated distinctly. "You don't give enough to have the right- He pleaded with her mutely, but she did not relent. When he dropped his arms and stepped back, she turned away as if she were dismissing him from her life.

To the First, she said, "Get some green wood. Branches or whatever you can find." She sounded oddly hard and brittle, not to be touched. "Soak the ends in vitrim and light them.

The smoke should give us some protection."

The First c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at the tension between Covenant and Linden. But the Giants did not hesitate: they were acquainted with Linden's health-sense. In moments, 161 they had wrenched several boughs the size of brands from nearby trees. Pitchwife muttered mournfully at the idea of using his precious vitrim for such a purpose, but he handed one of his pouches to the First readily enough. Shortly, the four Giants and Cail held flaming branches that guttered and spat with enough smoke to palliate the reek of rot. Outsized flying insects hummed angrily around the area, then shot off in search of other prey.

When the supplies had been repacked, the First turned to Linden for instructions, tacitly recognizing the change which had taken place in the Chosen. Covenant was Giantfriend and ring-wielder; but it was Linden's percipience upon which the company depended now for survival.

Without a glance at Covenant, Linden nodded. Then she took Pitchwife's place behind the First and Honninscrave; and the company started moving.

Beclouded with smoke and rot, they struggled on through the wild region. Under the particular corruption of the sun's scarlet aura, vines which had been too hard for the First's sword were now marked with swellings that burst and sores that ran. Fetor and borers took hold of some of the trees, ate out their hearts. Others lost wide strips of bark, exposing bald wood fatally veined with termites. The narco-leptic sweetness of the orchids penetrated the acrid smoke from time to time. Covenant felt that tie was laboring through the fruition of what Lord Foul had striven to achieve ten years and three and a half millennia ago*the desecration of all of the Land's health to leprosy. Here the Despiser emerged in the throes of victory. The beauty of Land and Law had been broken. With smoke in his eyes and revulsion in his guts, images of gangrene and pain on all sides. Covenant found himself praying for a sun of only two days.

Yet the red sun produced one benefit: the rotting of the wood allowed the First to begin cutting a path once more.

The company was able to improve its pace. And finally the juniper wildland opened into an area of tall, thick gra.s.s as corrupt and cloying as a tarpit. The First called a halt for a brief meal and a few swallows of diamondraught.

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Covenant needed the liquor, but he could hardly eat. His gaze refused to leave the swelling of Linden's bitten finger.

Sunbane-sickness, he thought miserably. She had suffered from it once before. Sunder and Hollian, who were familiar 162.

White Gold WMder with such sickness, had believed that she would die. He would never forget the look of her as she had lain helpless in the grip of convulsions as flagrant as his nightmares. Only her health-sense and voure had saved her.