White Gold Wielder Part 42

The First scanned the thrashing River, the increasing con- White Gold Wielder 388.

striction of the precipitate walls, then raised her voice through the roar. "Earthfriend, you have said that the pa.s.sages of this mountain are a maze! How then may we discover the lurking place of the Despiser?"

"We won't have tol" His shout sounded feverish. He looked as tense and strict and avid as he had when Linden had first met him*when he had dammed the door of his house against her. "Once we get in there, all we have to do is wander around until we run into his defenses. h.e.l.l take care of the rest. The only trick is to stay alive until we get to himi"

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Abruptly, he tamed to his companions. "You don't have to cornel IT1 be safe. He won't do anything to me until he has me in front of him.'* To Linden, he seemed to be saying the same things he had said on. Haven Farm, You don't know what's going on here. You couldn't possibly understand it.

Go away. I don't need you. "You don't need to risk it"

But me First was not troubled by such memories. She replied promptly, "Of what worth is safety to us here? The Earth itself is at risk. Hazard is our chosen work. How will we bear the songs which our people will sing of us. if we do not hold true to the Search? We will not part from you.**

Covenant ducked hia head as though he were ashamed or afraid. Perhaps he was remembering Saltheart Foamfollower. Yet his refusal or inability to meet Linden's. gaze indicated to her that she had not misread him. He was stilt vainly trying to protect her, spare her the consequences of her choices*consequences she did not know how to measure.

And striving also to prevent her from interfering with what he meant to do.

But he did not expose himself to what she would say if he addressed her directly. Instead, he muttered, "Then let's get going." The words were barely audible. "I don't know how much longer I can stand this."

Nodding readily, me First at once moved ahead of him toward an erosion gully which angled down to the roadway.

With one hand, she gripped the hilt of her longsword. Like her companions, she had lost too much in this quest. She was a warrior and wanted to measure out the price in blows.

Covenant followed her stiffly. The only strength left in his limbs was the stubbornness of his will.

Linden started after him, then turned back to Pitchwife.

He still stood on the rim of the hill, gazing down into the Into the Wighfwarrens 389.

River's rush as if it would carry his heart away. Though he was half again as tall as Linden, his deformed spine and grotesque features made him appear old and frail. His mute aching was as tangible as tears. Because of it, she put everything else aside for a moment "He was telling the truth about that, anyway. He doesn't need you to fight for him. Not anymore." Pitchwife lifted his eyes like pleading to her. Fiercely, she went on, "And if he's wrong, I can stop him." That also was true: the Sunbane and Ravers and Andelain's hurt had made her capable of it.

**The First is the one who needs you. She can't beat Foul with just a sword*but she's likely to try. Don't let her get herself killed." Don't do that to yourself. Don't sacrifice her for me.

His visage sharpened like a cry. His hands opened at his sides to show her and the desert sky that they were empty.

Moisture blurred his gaze. For a moment, she feared he (319 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

would say farewell to her; and hard grief clenched her throat But then a fragmentary smile changed the meaning of his face.

"Linden Avery," he said clearly, "have I not affirmed and averred to all who would hear that you are well Chosen?"

Stooping toward her, he kissed her forehead. Then he hurried after the First and Covenant.

When she had wiped the tears^from her cheeks, she followed him.

Vain trailed her with his habitual blankness. Yet she seemed to feel a hint of antic.i.p.ation from him*an elusive tightening which he had not conveyed since the company had entered Elemesnedene.

Picking her way down the gully, she gained the rude shelf of the roadway and found her companions waiting for her.

Pitchwife stood beside the First, reclaiming his place there; but both she and Covenant watched Linden. The First's regard was a compound of glad relief and uncertainty. She welcomed anything that eased her husband's unhappiness*

but was unsure of its implications. Covenant's att.i.tude was simpler. Leaning close to Linden, he whispered against the background of the throttled River, "I don't know what you said to him. But thanks."

She had no answer. Constantly, he foiled her expectations.

When he appeared most destructive and unreachable, locked away in his deadly certainty, he showed flashes of poignant kindness, clear concern. Yet behind his empathy and courage 390 lay bis intended surrender, as indefeasible as despair. He contradicted himself at every turn. And how could she reply without telling him what she had promised?

But he did not appear to want an answer. Perhaps he understood her, knew that in her place he would have felt as she did. Or perhaps he was too weary and haunted to suffer questions or reconsider his purpose. He was starving for an end to his long pain. Almost immediately, he signaled his readiness to go on.

At once, the First started along the crude road toward the gullet of Mount Thunder.

With Pitchwife and then Vain behind her. Linden followed, stalking the stone, pursuing the Unbeliever to his crisis.

Below her, the Soulsease continued to shrink between its walls, consumed by the power of the Sunbane. The pitch of the rush changed as its roar softened toward sobbing. But she did not take her gaze from the backs of the First and Covenant, the rising sides of the gorge, the dark bulk of the mountain. Off that sun-ravaged crown had once come creatures of fire to rescue Thomas Covenant and the Lords from (320 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

the armies of Drool Rockworm, the mad Cavewigbt. But those creatures had been called down by Law; and there was no more Law.

She had to concentrate to avoid the treachery of the road's surface. It was cracked and dangerous. Sections of the ledge were so tenuously held in place that her precipience felt them shift under her weight. Others had fallen into the Gorge long ago, leaving bitter scars where the road should have been. Only narrow rims remained to bear the company past the gaps. Linden feared them more on Covenant's behalf than on her own: his vertigo might make him fall. But he negotiated them without help, as if his fear of height were just one more part of himself that he had already given up.

Only the strain burning in his muscles betrayed how close he came to panic.

Mount Thunder loomed into the sky. The desert sun scorched over the rocks, scouring them bare of spray. The noise of the Soulsease sounded increasingly like grief. In spite of her fatigue. Linden wanted to run*wanted to pitch herself into the mountain's darkness for no other reason than to get out from under the Sunbane. Out of daylight into the black catacombs, where so much power lurked and hungered.

Into the Wightwarrens 391 Where no one else would be able to see what happened when the outer dark met the blackness within her and took possession.

She fought the logic of that outcome, wrestled to believe that she would find some other answer. But Covenant intended to give Lord Foul his ring. Where else could she find the force to stop him?

She had done the same thing once before, in a different way. Faced with her dying mother, the nightmare blackness had leaped up in her, taking command of her hands while her brain had detached itself to watch and wail. And the darkness had laughed like l.u.s.t.

She had spent every day of every year of her adulthood fighting to suppress that avarice for death. But she knew of no other source from which she might obtain the sheer strength she would need to prevent Covenant from destruction.

And she had promised*

Treacher's Gorge narrowed and rose on either side. Mount Thunder vaulted above her like a tremendous cairn that marked the site of buried banes, immedicable despair. As the River's lamentation sank to a mere shout, the mountain opened its gullet in front of the company.

The First stopped there, glowering distrust into the tunnel that swallowed the Soulsease and the roadway. But she did not speak. Pitchwife unslung his diminished pack, took out his firepot and the last two f.a.gots he bad bome from Revel- (321 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

stone. One he slipped under his belt; the other he stirred into the firepot until the wood caught flame. The First took it from him, held it up as a torch. She drew her sword.

Covenant's visage wore a look of nausea or dread; but he did not hesitate. When the First nodded, he started forward.

Pitchwife quickly repacked his supplies. Together, he and Linden followed his wife and Covenant out of the Gorge and the desert sun.

Vain came after them like a piece of whetted midnight, acute and imminent.

Linden's immediate reaction was one of relief. The First's torch hardly lit the wall on her right, the curved ceiling above her. It shed no light into the chasm beside the roadway. But to her any dark felt kinder than the sunlight. The peak's clenched granite reduced the number of directions from 392 which peril could come. And as Mount Thunder cut off the sky, she heard the sound of the Soulsease more precisely.

The crevice drank the River like a plunge into the bowels of the mountain, carrying the water down to its defilement. Such things steadied her by requiring her to concentrate on them.

In a voice that echoed hoa.r.s.ely, she warned her companions away from the increasing depth of the chasm. She sounded close to hysteria; but she believed she was not. The Giants had only two torches. The company would need her special senses for guidance. She would be able to be of use again.

But her relief was shoruived. She had gone no more than fifty paces down the tunnel when she felt the ledge behind her heave itself into rubble.

Pitchwife barked a warning. One of his long,, arms swept her against the wall. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. For an instant while her head reeled, she saw Vain silhouetted against the daylight of the Gorge. He made no effort to save himself.

Thundering like havoc, the fragments of the roadway bore him down into the crevice.

Long tremors ran through the road, up the wall. Small stones rained from the ceiling, pelted after the Demondim-sp.a.w.n like a scattering of hail. Linden's chest did not contain enough air to cry out his name.

Torchlight splayed across her and Pitchwife. He tugged her backward, kept her pressed to the wall. The First barred Covenant's way. Sternness locked her face. Sputtering flames reflected from his eyes. "d.a.m.nation," he muttered. "d.a.m.nation!" Little breaths like gasps slipped past Linden's teeth.

The torch and the glow of day beyond the tunnel lit Findail as he melted out of the roadway, transforming himself from stone to flesh as easily as thought.

He appeared to have become leaner, worn away by pain.

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His cheeks were hollow. His yellow eyes had sunk into his skull; their sockets were as livid as bruises. He was rife with mortification or grief.

"You did that," Linden panted. "You're still trying to kill him."

He did not meet her gaze. The arrogance of his people was gone from him. "The Wiird of the Elohim is strict and Info the Wightwarrena 393.

costly." If he had raised his eyes to Linden's, she might have thought he was asking for understanding or acceptance. "How should it be otherwise? Are we not the heart of the Earth in all things? Yet those who remain in the bliss and blessing of Elemesnedene have been misled by their comfort Because the clachon is our home, we have considered that all questions may be answered there. Yet it is not in Elemesnedene that the truth lies, but rather in we who people the place. And we have mistaken our Wiird. Because we are the heart, we have conceived that whatever we will must perforce transcend all else.

"Therefore we do not question our withdrawal from the wide Earth. We contemplate all else, yet give no name to what we fear."

Then he did look up; and his voice took on the anger of self-justification. "But I have witnessed that fear. Chant and others have fallen to it Infelice herself knows its touch. And I have partic.i.p.ated in the binding to doom of the Appointed.

I have felt the curse of Kastenessen upon my head.** He was ashamed of what he had done to Vain*and determined not to regret it "You have taught me to esteem you. You bear the outcome of the Earth well. But my peril is thereby increased.

"I will not suffer that cost."

Folding his arms across his chest, he closed himself off from interrogation.

In bafflement. Covenant turned to Linden. But she had no explanation to offer. Her percipience had never been a match for the Elohim. She had caught no glimpse of Findail until ; he emerged from the roadway, still knew nothing about him except that he was Earthpower incarnate, capable of taking any form of life he wished. Altogether flexible. And dangerously unbound by scruple. His people had not hesitated to efface Covenant's mind for their own inhuman reasons. More than once, he bad abandoned her and her companions to death when he could have aided them.

His refusals seemed innumerable; and the memory of them made her bitter. The pain of the tree he had slaughtered in his last attempt on Vain's life came back to her. To Covenant, .she replied, "He's never told the truth before. Why should she start now?"

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Covenant frowned darkly. Although he had no cause to 394 trust FindaU's people, he appeared strangely reluctant to judge them, as if instinctively he wanted to do them more justice than they had ever done him.

But there was nothing any of the company could do about Vain. The river-cleft was deep now*and growing sharply deeper as it advanced into the mountain. The sound of the water diminished steadily.

The First gestured with her touch. "We must hasten. Our light grows brief." The f.a.got she held was dry and brittle; already half of it had burned away. And Pitchwife had only one other brand.

Swearing under his breath, Covenant started on down the tunnel.

Linden was shivering. The stone piled imponderably around her felt cold and dire. Vain's fall repeated itself across her mind. Her breathing sc.r.a.ped in her throat No one deserved to fall like that. In spite of Mount Thunder's chill atmosphere, sweat trickled uncertainly between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

But she followed Covenant and the First. Bracing herself on Pitchwife's bulky companionship, she moved along the roadway after the wavering torch. She stayed so close to the wall that it brushed her shoulder. Its hardness raised reminders of the hold of Revelstone and the dungeon of the Sandhold.

Findail walked behind her. His bare feet made no sound.

As the reflected light from the mouth of the gullet faded, the darkness thickened. Concentrated midnight seemed to flow up out of the crevice. Then a gradual bend in the wall cut off the outer world altogether. She felt that the doors of hope and possibility were being closed on all sides. The First's torch would not last much longer.

Yet her senses clung to the granite facts of the road and the tunnel. She could not see the rim of the chasm; but she knew where it was exactly. Pitchwife and Findail were also explicit in spite of the dark. When she focused her attention, she was able to read the surface of the ledge so clearly that she did not need to stumble. If she had possessed the power to repulse attack, she could have wandered the Wightwarrens in relative safety.

That realization steadied her. The inchoate dread gnawing at the edges of her courage receded.

The First's brand started to gutter.

Beyond it. Linden seemed to see an indefinable softening of Into the Wightwarrena 395 the midnight. For a few moments, she stared past the First (324 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

and Covenant. But her perdpience did not extend so far.

Then, however, the Swordmain halted, lowered her torch; and the glow ahead became more certain.

The First addressed Covenant or Linden. "What is the cause of that light?'*

"Warrenbridge," Covenant replied tightly. "The only way into the Wightwarrens." His tone was complex with memories.

"Be careful. The last time I was here, it was guarded."

The leader of the Search nodded. Placing her feet softly, she moved forward again. Covenant went with her.

Linden gripped her health-sense harder and followed.

Gradually, the light grew clear. It was a stiff, red-orange color; and it shone along the ceiling, down the wall of the tunnel. Soon Linden was able to see that the roadway took a harp turn to the right near the glow. At the same time, the overhanging stone vaulted upward as if the tunnel opened into vast cavern. But the direct light was blocked by a tremendous boulder which stood like a door ajar across the ledge. The chasm of the river vanished under that boulder.

r; Cautiously, the First crept to the edge of the stone and peered beyond it.

For an instant, she went rigid with surprise. Then she breathed a Giantish oath and strode out into the light.

Advancing behind Covenant, Linden found herself in a high, bright cavity like an entryhall to the catacombs.

^ The floor was flat, worn smooth by millennia of use. Yet $tt was impa.s.sable. The deft pa.s.sed behind the boulder, then i; turned to cut directly through the cavern, disappearing finally into the far wall. It was at least fifty feet wide, and there were no other entrances to the cavity on this side. The only egress . by beyond the crevice.

':- But in the center of the vault, a ma.s.sive bridge of native ^tone spanned the gulf. Warrenbridge. Covenant's memory ;>had not misled him.

The light came from the crown of the span. On either side of it stood a tall stone pillar like a sentinel; and they shone as if their essential rock were afire. They made the entire tavern bright*too bright for any interloper to approach .Warrenbridge unseen.

1 For an instant, the light held Linden's attention. It re- Alinded her of the hot lake of graveling in which she and the 396 company had once almost lost their lives. But these emanations were redder, angrier. They lit the entrance to the Wightwarrens as if no one could pa.s.s between them in hope or peace.

But the chasm and the bridge and the light were not what had surprised the First. With a wrench, Linden forced herself to look across the vault.

Vain stood there, at the foot of Warrenbridge. He seemed to be waiting for Covenant or Linden.