White Gold Wielder Part 49

But it was transitory. The fire faded rapidly. Soon it flickered and failed. His blasted husk lay on the floor and did not move again.

Too stunned to cry out. Linden hugged her arms around herself and keened in the marrow of her bones.

But Lord Foul went on laughing.

Like a ghoul he laughed, a demon of torment and triumph.

His l.u.s.t riddled the mountain; more stalact.i.tes fell. From wall to wall, a crack sprang through the chamber; and shattered stones burst like cries from the fissure. Kiril Threndor shrieked argent. The Despiser became t.i.tanic with white fire.

"Ware of me. my Enemy!" His shout deafened Linden in spite of her instinctive self-protection. She heard him, not with her overwhelmed ears, but with the tissues and vessels of her White Gold Wielder lungs. "I hold the keystone of Time, and I will reave it to (369 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

rubble! Oppose me if you dare!"

Fire mounted around him, whipped higher and higher by his fierce arms. The ring raged like a growing sun in his fist. Already, his power dwarfed the Banefire, outsized every puissance she had ever witnessed, surpa.s.sed even the haunted faces of her nightmares.

Yet she moved. Crawling across the agonized lurch and shudder of the stone, she wrestled her weak body toward Covenant. She could not help him. She could not help herself.

But she wanted to hold him in her embrace one more time.

To ask his forgiveness, though he would never be able to hear her. Lord Foul had become so tremendous that only the edges of his gathering cataclysm were still discernible. She crept past him as if she were ignoring him. Battered arid aggrieved of body and soul, she reached Covenant, sat beside him, lifted his head into her lap, and let her hair fall around his face.

In death, his visage wore a strange grimace of relief and pain. He looked like a man who was about to laugh and weep at the same-time.

At least I trusted you, she replied. Whatever else I did wrong. I trusted you in the end.

Then anguish seized her heart.

You didn't even say good-bye.

None of the people who had died while she loved mem had ever said good-bye.

She did not know how it was possible to continue breathing. Lord Foul's attar had become as intense as the light. The destruction he purposed tore a howl through the stone.

Kiril Threndor became the stretched mouth of the mountain's hurt. Her mere flesh seemed to fray and dissolve in the proximity of such power. His blast was nearly ready.

Instinctively, almost involuntarily, she looked up from Covenant's guilt and innocence, impelled by an inchoate belief that there should be at least one witness to the riving of Time. While her mind lasted, she could still watch what the Despiser did, still send her protest to hound him into the heavens. l A maelstrom swept around him and grew as if he meant to break the Earth by consuming it alive. His fire was so extreme that it pulsed through the mountain, made all of Mount Thunder pound. But gradually he pulled the flame into him- Hold Possession 449 self, focused it in the hand that held the ring. Too bright to be beheld, his fist throbbed like the absolute heart of the world.

With a terrible cry, he hurled his globe-splitting power upward.

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An instant later, his exaltation changed to astonishment and rage.

Somewhere in the rock which enclosed Kiril Threndor, his blast shattered. Because it was aimed at the Arch of Time, it was not an essentially physical force, though the concussion of its delivery nearly reft Linden of consciousness. It did no physical damage. Instead, it burst as if it had struck a midnight sky and snapped. In a fathomless abyss, ruptured fragments of fire shot and blazed.

And the hot lines of light spread like etchwork, merged and multiplied swiftly, took shape within the bulk of the mountain. From wild magic and nothingness, they created a sketch of a man.

A man who had placed himself between Lord Foul and the Arch of Time.

The outlines gained substance and feature as they absorbed the Despiser's attack.

Thomas Covenant.

He stood there inside Mount Thunder's gutrock, a specter altogether different than the ponderous stone. All which remained of his mortal being was the grimace of power and grief that marked his countenance.

"No!" the Despiser howled. "Tvo/"

But Covenant replied, "Yes." He had no earthly voice, made no human sound. Yet he could be heard through the clamor of tormented stone, the constant repercussions of Lord Foul's fury. Linden listened to him as if he were as clear as a trumpet "Brinn showed me the way. He beat the Guardian of the One Tree by sacrificing himself, letting himself fall. And Mhoram told me to 'Remember the paradox of white gold.' But for a long time I didn't understand. I'm the paradox. You can't take the wild magic away from me."

Then he seemed to move forward, concentrating more intensely on the Despiser. His command was as pure as white fire. "Put down the ring."

"Never!" Lord Foul shouted instantly-Might leaped in him, wild for use. "I know not what chicane or madness has 450 brought you before me from the Dead*but it will not avail!

You have once cast me down! I will not suffer a second de- bas.e.m.e.nt! Never! The white gold is mine, freely given! If you combat me. Death itself will not ward you from my Wrath!"

Something like a smile sharpened the specter's acute face.

"I keep telling you you're wrong. I wouldn't dream of fighting you."

Lord Foul's retort was a bolt that sizzled the air like frying meat. Power fierce enough to blow off the crown of the peak sprang at Covenant, raging for his immolation.

He did not oppose it, made no effort to resist or evade the attack. He simply accepted it The clench of pain between his (371 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

brows showed that he was hurt; but he did not flinch. The blast raved and scourged into him until Linden feared that even a dead soul could not survive it. Yet when it ended he had taken it all upon himself. Bravely, be stood forth from the fire.

"I'm not going to fight you." Even now, he seemed to pity his slayer. "All you can do is hurt me. But pain doesn't last.

It just makes me stronger." His voice held a note of sorrow for the Despiser. "Put down the ring."

But Lord Foul was so far gone in fury and frustration that he might have been deaf. "No!" he roared again. No fear hampered him: he was transported to the verge of absolute violence.

"Nor "N01'*

And with every cry he flung his utterest force against the Unbeliever.

Blast after blast, faster and faster. Enough white power to bring Mount Thunder down in rubble, cast it off Landsdrop into the ruinous embrace of Sarangrave Flat. Enough to leave the One Tree itself in ash and cinders. Enough to shatter the Arch of Time. All Lord Foul's ancient puissance was multiplied and channeled by the argent ring. He struck and struck, the unanswerable knell of his hunger adumbrating through Kiril Threndor until Linden's mind reeled and her life almost stopped, unable to support the magnitude of his rage. She clung to Covenant's body as if it were her last anchor and fought to endure and stay sane while Lord Foul strove to rip down the essential definition of the Earth.

The Sun-Sage 451.

But each a.s.sault hit nothing except the specter, hurt nothing except Covenant. Blast after blast, he absorbed the power of Despite and fire and became stronger. Surrendering to their savagery, he transcended them. Every blow elevated him from the mere grieving spectation of the Dead in Andelain, the ritualized helplessness of the Unhomed in Coercri, to the stature of pure wild magic. He became an unbreakable bulwark raised like glory against destruction.

At the same time, each attack made Lord Foul weaker.

Covenant was a barrier the Despiser could not pierce because it did not resist him; and he could not stop. After so many millennia of yearning, defeat was intolerable to him. In accelerating frenzy, he flung rage and defiance and immiti- gable hate at Covenant. Yet each failed blow cost him more of himself. His substance frayed and thinned, denatured moment by moment, as his attacks grew more reckless and extravagant.

Soon he had reduced himself to such evanescence that he was barely visible.

And still he did not stop. Surrender was impossible for him. If he had not been limited and confined by the mortal (372 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

Time of his prison, he would have gone on forever, seeking Covenant's eradication. For a while, his form guttered and wailed as complete fury drove hinn to the threshold of banish- ment. Then he failed and went out.  Though she was stunned and stricken. Linden heard the faint metallic clink of the ring when it fell to the dais and rolled to a stop.

TWENTY; The Sun-Sage SLOWLY, silence settled like dust back into Kiril Threndor. Most of the rockligbt had been extinguished, but pieces still flared along the facets of the walls, giving the chamber 452 an obscure illumination. Without the cloying scent of attar, the brimstone atmosphere smelled almost clean. Holes gaped in the ceiling where many of the stalact.i.tes had hung. Long tremors still rumbled into the distance, but they were no longer dangerous. They subsided like sighs as they pa.s.sed beyond Linden's percipience.

She sat cross-legged near the dais, with Covenant's head in her lap. No breath stirred his chest. He was already growing cold. The capacity for peril which had made him so dear to her had gone out. But she did not let him go. His face wore a grimace of defeat and victory*a strange fusion of commandment and grace*that was as close as he would ever come to peace.

She did not look up to meet the argent gaze of his revenant She did not need to see him bending over her as if his heart bled to comfort her. The simple sense of his presence was enough. In silence, she bowed over his body. Her eyes streamed at the beauty of what he had become.

For a long moment, his empathy breathed about her, clearing the last reek from the air, the taste of ruin from her lungs. Then he said her name softly. His voice was tender, almost human, as if he had not pa.s.sed beyond the normal strictures of life and death. "I'm sorry." He seemed to feel that it was he who needed her forgiveness, rather than she who ached for his. "I didn't know what else to do. I had to stop him."

I understand, she answered. You were right n.o.body else could*ve done it If she had possessed half his comprehension, a fraction of his courage, she might have tried to help him.

There had been no other way. But she would have failed.

She was too tainted by her own darkness for such pure sacrifices.

n.o.body else, she repeated. But any moment now she was going to begin sobbing. She had lost him at last. When the true grief started, it might never stop.

Yet he had already pa.s.sed beyond compa.s.sion into necessity. Or perhaps he felt the hurt rising in her and sought to answer it. As gentle as love, he said, "Now it's your turn.

Pick up the ring.'*

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The ring. It lay at the edge of the dais perhaps ten feet from her. And it was empty*devoid of light or power*an endless silver-white band with no more meaning than an The Sun-Sage 453 unused manacle. Without Covenant or Lord Foul to wield it, it had lost all significance.

She was too weak and lorn to wonder why Covenant wanted her to do something about his ring. If she had been given gome reason to hope that his spirit and his flesh might be brought back to each other, she would have obeyed him. No frailty or incomprehension would have prevented her from obeying him. But those questions had already been answered.

And she had no desire to let his body out of her embrace.

"Linden." His emanations were soft and kind; but she felt their urgency growing. "Try to think. I know it's hard*after what you've been through. But try. I need you to save the Land."

She could not look up at him. His dead face was all that remained to her, all that held her together. If she raised her head to his unbearable beauty, she would be lost as well.

With her fingertips, she stroked the gaunt lines of his cheek.

In silence, she said, I don't need to. You've already done it.

"No," he returned at once. "I haven't" Every word made his tension clearer. "All I did was stop him. I haven't healed anything. The Sunbane is still there. It has a life of its own.

And the Earthpower's been too badly corrupted. It can't recover by itself." His tone went straight into her heart.

"Linden, please. Pick up the ring."  Into her heart, where a storm of lamentation brewed.

Instinctively, she feared it It seemed to rise from the same source which had given birth to her old hunger for darkness, I can't, she said. Gusts and rue tugged through her. You know what power does to me. I can't stop hurting the people I want to help. FU just turn into another Raver.

His spirit shone with comprehension. But he did not try to answer her dread, to deny or comfort it. Instead, his voice took on a note of harsh exigency.

"I can't do it myself. I don't have your hands*can't touch that kind of power anymore. I'm not physically alive. And I can be dismissed. I'm like the Dead. They can be invoked-*

and they can be sent away. Anybody who knows how can make me leave." He appeared to believe he was in that danger.

"Even Foul could've done it, if he hadn't tried to use wild magic against me.

"Linden, think." His sense of peril burned in the cave.

"Foul isn't dead. You can't kill Despite. And the Sunbane will 454 bring him back. It'll restore him. He can't get past me to break the Arch. But he'll be able to do anything he wants to (374 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

the Land*to the whole Earth.

"Linden!" The appeal broke from him. But at once he coerced himself to quietness again. "I don't mean to hurt you.

I don't want to demand more than you can do. You've already done so much. But you've got to understand. You're starting to fade."

That was true. She recognized it with a dim startlement like the foretaste of a gale. His body had become harder and heavier, more real*or else her own flesh was losing definition. She heard winds blowing like the ancient respiration of the mountain. Everything around her*the rocklight, the blunt stone, the atmosphere of Kiril Threndor*sharpened as her perceptions thinned. She was dwindling. Slowly, inexorably, the world grew more quintessential and necessary than anything her trivial mortality could equal. Soon she would go out like a snuffed candle.

"This is the way it usually works," Covenant went on.

"The power - that called you here recoils when whoever summoned you dies. You're going back to your own life.

Foul isn't dead*but as far as your summons goes, he might as well be. You'll lose your last chance." His demand focused on her like anger. Or perhaps it was her own diminishment that made him sound so fiercely grieved. "Pick up the ring!"

She sighed faintly. She did not want to move; the prospect of dissolution struck her as a promise of peace. Perhaps she would die from it*would be spared the storm of her pain.

That hurt cut at her, presaging the wind which blew between the worlds. She had lost him. Whatever happened now, she had lost him absolutely.

Yet she did not refuse him. She had sworn that she would put a stop to the Sunbane. And her love for him would not let her go. She had failed at everything else.

She was in no hurry. There was still time. The process leeching her away was slow, and she retained enough percipience to measure it. Groaning at the ache in her bones, she unbowed her back, lowered his head tenderly to her thighs. Her fingers fumbled stiffly, as if they were no longer good for anything; but she forced them to serve her*to reb.u.t.ton her shirt, closing at least that much protection over The Sun-Sage 455 her bare heart. In her nightmare, she had used her shirt to try to stanch the bleeding. But she had failed then as well.

At that moment, a voice as precise as a bell rang in her mind. She seemed to recognize it, though it could not be him, that was impossible. Nothing had prepared her for his desperation.

*Avaunt, shade! Your work is donel Urge me no more dismay!

Commands clamored through the chamber; revocations thronged against Covenant Instantly, his specter frayed and (375 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

faded like blown mist. His power was gone. He bad no way to refuse the dismissal.

Crying Linden's name in supplication or anguish, he dissolved and was effaced. His pa.s.sing left trails of argent across her vision-Then they, too, were gone. There was nothing left of him to which she might cling.

At once, the bell rang again, clarion and compulsory. It was so close to frenzy that it nearly deafened her.

*Chosen, withhold! Do not dare the ring!

In the wake of the clangor, Findail and Vain entered Kirn Threndor, came struggling forward as if they were locked in mortal combat.

But the battle was all on one "side. Findail thrashed and twisted, fought wildly; Vain simply ignored him. The Elohim was Earthpower incarnate, so fluid of essence that he could turn himself to any conceivable form. Yet he was unable to break the Demondim-sp.a.w.n's grip. Vain still clasped his wrist The black creation of the ur-viles remained adamantine and undaunted.

Together, they moved toward the ring. Findail's free hand clawed in that direction. His mute voice was a tuneless clatter of distress.