White Gold Wielder Part 18

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

In dismay. Covenant looked to Hollian for an explanation.

The eh-Brand also showed the marks of her recent life.

Her leather shift was tattered in places, poorly mended. Her arms and legs exposed the thinness of scant rations and constant danger. Yet she formed a particular contrast to Sunder.

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

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

In shame. Covenant found that he did not know what to say to her either. She and Sunder were too vivid to him; 171 they mattered too much. You will find none here. With a perception as acute as intuition, he saw that they were not at all strangers to each other. Sunder was so tight and bitter precisely because of the way Hollian glowed; and her lumines- cence came from the same root as his pain. But that insight did not give Covenant any words he could bear to say.

Where was Stell?

Where were the people of the Land? And the HaruchaH (139 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:42 PM]

And what had happened to the Stonedownors?

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

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

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

"Covenant. She's pregnant."

Oh my G.o.d.

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

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

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

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

"Is the fault yours then that the quest has failed?" asked Sunder. He sounded as severe as hate. "Have you brought us to this pa.s.s, that my own failure has opened the last door of doom?"172 Yes, Covenant replied*aloud or silent, it made no difference.

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

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

"When first you persuaded me from my home and duty in Mithil Stonedown," he said thickly, "I demanded of you that you should not betray me. You impelled me on a mad search of the desert sun for my friend Marid, whom you (140 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:42 PM]

could not save*and you refused me the use of my blood to aid you*and you required of me that I eat aliantha which I knew to be poison*and so I beseecbed of you something greater than fidelity. I pleaded of you meaning for my life*

and for the death of Na.s.sic my father. And still you were not done, for you wrested Hollian Amith-daughter from her peril in Crystal Stonedown as if it were your desire that I should love her. And when we fell together into the hands of the Clave, you redeemed us from that hold. restored our lives.

"And still you were not done. When you had taught" us to behold the Claves evil, you turned your back on that crime, though it cried out for retribution in the face of all the Land.

There you betrayed me, ur-Lord. The meaning of which I was in such need you set aside. In its place, you gave me only a task that surpa.s.sed my strength."

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

But Sunder also was not done. "Therefore," he went on hoa.r.s.ely, "it is my right that you should hear me. Ur-Lord and Unbeliever, white gold wielder,'* he said as if he were addressing the hot streaks that stained Covenant's face, "you have betrayed me*and I am glad that you have come.

Though you come without hope, you are the one hope that I have known. You have it in your hands to create or deny whatever truth you will, and I desire to serve you. While you 173 remain, I will accept neither despair nor doom. There is neither betrayal nor failure while you endure to me. And if the truth you teach must be lost at last, I will be consoled that my love and I were not asked to bear that loss alone.

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

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

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

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

Covenant loosened his hold; but for a moment longer he did not release the Graveler. Swallowing heavily, he murmured, "Mhoram used to say things like that. You're starting to resemble him. As long as the Land can still produce people (141 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:42 PM]

like you. And Holiian." Recollections of the long-dead Lord made him blink fiercely to clear his-sight. "Foul thinks all he has to do is break the Arch of Time and rip the world apart.

But he's wrong. Beauty isn't that easily destroyed." Recalling a song that Lena had sung to him when she was still a girl and he was new to the Land, he quoted softly, " 'The soul in which the flower grows survives.' "

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

The First replied by presenting Mistweave to the Stonedownors. They already knew Vain; and Findail she ignored as if he had ceased to impinge upon her awareness. After a glance around the shallow, wet cave, she said, "It would 174 appear that we are better supplied for sharing. Graveler, how great is our distance from this Revelstone the Giantfriend seeks?"

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

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

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

The First and Pitchwife remained stubbornly themselves in spite of rain and weariness and discouragement. While she waited for food, she took out her huge longsword, began to dry it meticulously; and he went to reminisce with Sunder, describing their previous meeting and adventures in Sarangrave Flat with irrepressible humor. Mistweave, however, was still doubtful, hesitant. At one point, he appeared unable to choose which pouch of staples he should open, confused by that simple decision until Honninscrave growled at him.

Neither time nor the blows he had struck against the arghuleh had healed his self-distrust, and its cracks were spreading.

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And the Master seemed to grow increasingly unGiantlike.

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

Covenant wanted to demand some explanation; but there 175.

was no privacy available. Setting the matter aside, he looked around the rest of the gathering.

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

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

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

Like Bloodguard, Covenant thought. Each of them seemed to know by direct inspiration what any of the others knew.

The only difference was that these Haruchai were not immune to time. But perhaps that only made them less willing to compromise.

He was suddenly sure that he did not want to be served by them anymore. He did not wan'1 to be served at all. The commitments people made to him were too costly. He was on his way to doom; he should have been traveling alone.

Yet here were five more people whose lives would be hazarded with his. Six, counting Hollian's child, who had no say in the matter.

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

And why had Sunder and Hollian failed?

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

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

Implications snapped at him. His head jerked up. "Then you didn't fail.*'

176.

White Gold Wielder Sunder scowled as if Covenant's expostulation pained him; but Hollian met the statement squarely. "Not altogether."

Her mouth smiled, but her eyes were somber. "In no Stonedown or Woodhelven did we fail altogether*in no village but one."

Covenant set the pouch down carefully in front of him.

His shoulders were trembling. He had to concentrate severely to keep his hands and voice steady- "Tell me." All the eyes of the travelers were on Sunder and Hollian. "Tell me what happened."

Sunder threw down the hunk of bread he had been chewing. "Failure is not a word to be trusted," he began harshly.

His gaze avoided Covenant, Linden, the Giants, nailed itself to the embers of the fire. "It may mean one thing or another.

We have failed*and we have not."

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

Do not scruple to grant us a part in your hurt."

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

"Hear me, then," he said stiffly. "Departing Seareach, we bore with us the krill of Loric and the ur-Lord's trust. In my heart were hope and purpose, and I had learned a new love when all the old were dead." All slain: his father by murder, his mother by necessity, his wife and son by his own hand.

"Therefore I believed that we would be believed when we spoke our message of defiance among the villages.

"From The Grieve, we wended north as well as west, seeking a way to the Upper Land which would not expose us to the lurker of Sarangrave Flat." And that part of the journey had been a pleasure, for they were alone together except for Stell and Harn; and Seareach from its coast to its high hills and the surviving remnant of Giant Woods had never been touched by the Sunbane. Uncertainty had clouded their earlier traversal of this region; but now they saw it as a beautiful land in the height of its fall glory, tasted the transforming savor of woodlands and animals, birds and flowers. The Clave 177 (144 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:42 PM]

taught that the Land had been created as a place of punishment, a gallow-fells, for human evil. But Covenant had repudi- ated that teaching; and in Seareach for the first time Sunder and Hollian began to comprehend what the Unbeliever meant.

So their purpose against the Clave grew clearer; and at last they dared the northern reaches of the Sarangrave in order to begin their work without more delay.

Climbing Landsdrop, they reentered the pale of the Sunbane.

The task of finding villages was not easy. They had no maps and were unacquainted with the scope of the Land. But eventually the farsighted Haruchai spotted a Rider; and that red-robed woman unwittingly led the travelers to their first destination*a small Woodhelven crouched in a gully among old hills.

"Far Woodhelven did not entirely welcome us," muttered the Graveler sourly.

'The Rider took from them their youngest and their best,"

Hollian explained. "And not in the former manner. Always the Clave has exercised caution in its demands, for if the people were decimated where would the Riders turn for blood? But with the foreshortening of the Suobane such hus- bandry was set aside. Riders accosted each village with doubled and trebled frequency, requiring every life that their Coursers might bear."

"Deprived of the Haruchai which you redeemed," Sunder added to Covenant, "the Riders turned from their accustomed harvestry to outright ravage. If the tales we have heard do not mislead us, this ravage commenced at the time of our seaward pa.s.sage from the Upper Land into Sarangrave Flat.

The na-Mhoram read us in the rukh which I then bore, and he knew you were gone into a peril from which you could not strike at him." The Graveler spoke as if he knew how Covenant would take this news*how Covenant would blame himself for not giving battle to the Clave earlier. "Therefore what need had he for any caution?"

Covenant flinched inwardly; but he clung to what the Stonedownors were saying, forced himself to hear it.

"When we entered Far Woodhelven," the eh-Brand went on, "they were reduced to elders and invalids and bitterness.

How should they have welcomed us? They saw us only as blood with which they might purchase a period of survival."178 Sunder glared into the fire, his eyes as hard as polished stones. "That violence I forestalled. Using the krill of Loric and the orcrest Sunstone, I raised water and ussusimiel without bloodshed under a desert sun. Such power was an astonishment to them. Thus when I had done they were ready to hear whatever words we might speak against the Clave. But what meaning could our speech have to them? What opposition remained possible to the remnant of their village? They were (145 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:42 PM]

too much reduced to do aught but huddle in their homes and strive for bare life. We did not altogether fail," he rasped, "but I know no other name for that which we accomplished."

Hollian put a gentle hand on his arm. The rain roared on outside the cave. Water trickled constantly past Covenant's legs. But he ignored the wet, closed his mind to the fierce and useless regret rising like venom from the pit of his stomach.

Later he would let himself feel the sheer dismay of what he had unleashed upon the Land. Right now he needed to listen.

"One thing we gained from Far Woodhelven," the eh-Brand continued. 'They gave us knowledge of a Stonedown lying to the west. We were not required to make search for the opportunity to attempt our purpose a second time."

"Oh, forsooth!" Sunder snarled. Bafflement and rage mounted within him. "That knowledge they gave us. Such knowledge is easily ceded. From that day to this, we. have not been required to make any search. The failure of each village has led us onward. As we pa.s.sed ever westward, nearer to Revelstone, each Woodhelven and Stonedown became more arduous of suasion, for the greater proximity of the na-Mboram's Keep taught a greater fear. Yet always the gifts of krill and Sunstone and lianar obtained for us some measure of welcome. But those folk no longer possessed blood enough to sustain their fear*and so also they lacked blood for resistance. Their only answer to our gifts and words was their knowledge of other villages.

"Thomas Covenant," he said suddenly, "this is bile to me*

but I would not be misheard. Betimes from village to village we happened upon a man or a woman young and hale enough to have offered other aid*and yet unwilling. We encountered folk for whom it was inconceivable that any man or woman might love the Land. Upon occasion our lives were attempted, for what dying people would not covet the powers we bore? Then only the prowess of the Haruchai preserved 179 us. Yet in the main we were given no other gift because no other gift was possible. I have learned a great bitterness which 1 know not how to sweet*but the blame of it does not fall upon the people of the Land. I would not have believed that the bare life of any village could suffer so much loss and still endure."

For a moment, he fell silent; and the battering sound of the rain ran through the cave. He had placed his hand over Hollian's; the force of his grip corded the backs of his knuckles. He was no taller than Linden, but his stature could not be measured by size. To Covenant, he appeared as thwarted and dangerous as Berek Halfhand had been on the slopes of Mount Thunder, when the ancient hero and Lord-Fatherer had at last set his hand to the Earthpower.

The silence was like the m.u.f.fled barrage of the storm-The Clave had already shed a heinous amount of blood*yet too many lives remained at stake, and Covenant did not know how to protect them. Needing support, he looked toward Linden. But she did not notice his gaze. Her head was up, her (146 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:42 PM]

eyes keen, as if she were scenting the air, tracing a tension or peril he could not discern.

He glanced at the Giants. But Honninscrave's...o...b.. were hidden beneath the clenched fist of his brows; and Mistweave, Pitchwife, and the First were fixed dh the Stonedownors.

At the mouth of the cave, Cail raised" one arm as though in spite of his native dispa.s.sion he wished to make a gesture of protest. But then he lowered his hand back to his side.