White Gold Wielder

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Then he faced her again, cocked his fists on his hips. “But that I don’t believe. I don’t believe I’m anybody’s tool. And I don’t think Foul can win through the kinds of choices any of us has been making. The kind of choice is crucial. The Land wasn’t destroyed when I refused Mhoram’s summons for the sake of a snakebit kid. It isn’t going to be destroyed just because Foul forced me to choose between my own safety and Joan’s. And the opposite is true, too. If I’m the perfect tool to bring down the Arch of Time, then I’m also the perfect tool to preserve it. Foul can’t win unless I choose to let him.”

  His surety was so clear that Linden almost believed him. Yet within herself she winced because she knew he might be wrong. He had indeed spoken often of the importance of freedom. But the Elohim did not see the world’s peril in those terms. They feared for the Earth because Sun-Sage and ring-wielder were not one—because he had no percipience to guide his choices and she had no power to make her choices count. And if he had not yet seen the full truth of Lord Foul’s machinations, he might choose wrongly despite his lucid determination.

  But she did not tell him what she was thinking. She would have to find her own answer to the trepidation of the Elohim. And her fear was for him rather than for herself. As long as he loved her, she would be able to remain with him. And as long as she was with him, she would have the chance to use her health-sense on his behalf. That was all she asked: the opportunity to try to help him, redeem the harm of her past mistakes and failures. Then if he and the Land and the Earth were lost, she would have no one to blame but herself.

  The responsibility frightened her. It implied an acknowledgment of the role the Elohim had assigned to her, an acceptance of the risk of Gibbon’s malign promise, You are being forged. But there had been other promises also. Covenant had avowed that he would never cede his ring to the Despiser. And the old man on Haven Farm had said, You will not fail, however he may assail you. For the first time, she took comfort in those words. Covenant was looking at her intently, waiting for her response. After a moment, she pursued the thread of his explanation.

  “So he can’t break you. And you can’t fight him. What good is a stalemate?”

  At that, he smiled harshly. But his reply took a different direction than she had expected. “When I saw Mhoram in Andelain”—his tone was as direct as courage—“he tried to warn me. He said, ‘It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares, and life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other. When you have come to the crux, and have no other recourse, remember the paradox of white gold. There is hope in contradiction.’ ” By degrees, his expression softened, became more like the one for which she was insatiable. “I don’t think there’s going to be any stalemate.”

  She returned his smile as best as she could, trying to emulate him in the same way that he strove to match the ancient Lord who had befriended him.

  She hoped he would take her in his arms again. She wanted that, regardless of the Sunbane. She could bear the violation of the desert sun for the sake of his embrace. But as they gazed at each other, she heard a faint, strange sound wafting over the upland hills—a high run of notes, as poignant as the tone of a flute. But it conveyed no discernible melody. It might have been the wind singing among the barren rocks.

  Covenant jerked up his head, scanned the hillsides. “The last time I heard a flute up here—” He had been with Elena; and the music of a flute had presaged the coming of the man who had told him that his dreams were true.

  But this sound was not music. It cracked on a shrill note and fell silent. When it began again, it was clearly a flute—and clearly being played by someone who did not know how. Its lack of melody was caused by simple ineptitude.

  It came from the direction of Revelstone.

  The tone cracked again; and Covenant winced humorously. “Whoever’s playing that thing needs help,” he muttered. “And we ought to go back anyway. I want to settle things and get started today.”

  Linden nodded. She would have been content to spend a few days resting in Revelstone; but she was willing to do whatever he wanted. And she would be able to enjoy her scrubbed skin and clean hair better in the Keep, protected from the Sunbane. She took his hand, and together they climbed out of the basin of the tarn.

  From the hilltop, they heard the flute more accurately. It sounded like its music had been warped by the desert sun.

  The plains beyond the plateau looked flat and ruined to the horizons, all life hammered out of them: nothing green or bearable lifted its head from the upland dirt. Yet Glimmermere’s water and the shape of the hills seemed to insist that life was still possible here, that in some stubborn way the ground was not entirely wasted.

  However, the lower plains gave no such impression. Most of the river evaporated before it reached the bottom of Furl Falls: the rest disappeared within a stone’s throw of the cliff. The sun flamed down at Linden as if it were calling her to itself. Before they reached the flat wedge of the plateau which contained Revelstone, she knew that her determination to stand by him would not prove easy. In the bottom of her heart lurked a black desire for the power to master the Sunbane, make it serve her. Every moment of the sun’s touch reminded her that she was still vulnerable to desecration.

  But by the time they rejoined Cail at the city’s entrance, they could hear that the fluting came from the tip of the promontory overlooking the watchtower. By mute agreement, they walked on down the wedge; and at the Keep’s apex they found Pitchwife. He sat with his legs over the edge, facing eastward. The deformation of his spine bent him forward. He appeared to be leaning toward a fall.

  His huge hands held a flute to his mouth as if he were wrestling with it—as if he thought that by sheer obstinate effort he would be able to wring a dirge from the tiny instrument.

  At their approach, he lowered the flute to his lap, gave them a wan smile of habit rather than conviction. “Earthfriend,” he said; and his voice sounded as frayed and uncertain as the notes he had been playing. “It boons me to behold you again and whole. The Chosen has proven and reproven her worth for all to see—and yet has survived to bring her beauty like gladness before me.” He did not glance at Linden. “But I had thought that you were gone from us altogether.”

  Then his moist gaze wandered back to the dry, dead terrain below him. “Pardon me that I have feared for you. Fear is born in doubt, and you have not merited my doubt.” With an awkward movement like suppressed violence, he indicated the flute. “The fault is mine. I can find no music in this instrument.”

  Instinctively Linden went to stand behind the Giant, placed her hands on his shoulders. In spite of his sitting posture and crooked back, his shoulders were only a little below hers; and his muscles were so oaken that she could hardly massage them. Yet she rubbed at his distress because she did not know how else to comfort him.

  “Everybody doubts,” Covenant breathed. He did not go near the Giant. He remained rigidly where he was, holding his vertigo back from the precipice. But his voice reached out through the sun’s arid heat. “We’re all scared. You have the right.” Then his tone changed as if he were remembering what Pitchwife had undergone. Softly he asked, “What can I do for you?”

  Pitchwife’s muscles knotted under Linden’s hands. After a moment, he said simply, “Earthfriend, I desire a better outcome.”

  At once, he added, “Do not mistake me. That which has been done here has been well done. Mortal though you are, Earthfriend and Chosen, you surpass all estimation.” He let out a quiet sigh. “But I am not content. I have shed such blood— The lives of the innocent I have taken from them by the score, though I am no Swordmain and loathe such work. And as I did so, my doubt was terrible to me. It is a dire thing to commit butchery when hope has been consumed by fear. As you have said, Chosen, there must be a reason. The world’s grief should unite those who live, not sunder them in slaughter and malice.

  “My friends, there is a great need in my hea
rt for song, but no song comes. I am a Giant. Often have I vaunted myself in music. ‘We are Giants, born to sail, and bold to go wherever dreaming goes.’ But such songs have become folly and arrogance to me. In the face of doom, I have not the courage of my dreams. Ah, my heart must have song. I find no music in it.

  “I desire a better outcome.”

  His voice trailed away over the cliff-edge and was gone. Linden felt the ache in him as if she had wrapped her arms around it. She wanted to protest the way he seemed to blame himself; yet she sensed that his need went deeper than blame. He had tasted the Despiser’s malice and was appalled. She understood that. But she had no answer to it.

  Covenant was more certain. He sounded as strict as a vow as he asked, “What’re you going to do?”

  Pitchwife responded with a shrug that shifted Linden’s hands from his shoulders. He did not look away from the destitution sprawling below him. “The First has spoken of this,” he said distantly. The thought of his wife gave him no ease. “We will accompany you to the end. The Search requires no less of us. But when you have made your purpose known, Mistweave will bear word of it to Seareach. There Starfare’s Gem will come if the ice and the seas permit. Should you fail, and those with you fall, the Search must yet continue. The knowledge which Mistweave will bear to Seareach will enable Sevinhand Anchormaster to choose the path of his service.”

  Linden looked at Covenant sharply to keep him from saying that if he failed there would be no Earth left for the Search to serve. Perhaps the journey the First had conceived for Mistweave was pointless; still Linden coveted it for him. It was clear and specific, and it might help him find his way back to himself. Also she approved the First’s insistence on behaving as if hope would always endure.

  But she saw at once that Covenant had no intention of denying the possibility of hope. No bitterness showed beyond his empathy for Pitchwife: his alloyed despair and determination were clean of gall. Nor did he suggest that Pitchwife and the First should Join Mistweave. Instead he said as if he were content, “That’s good. Meet us in the forehall at noon, and we’ll get started.”

  Then he met Linden’s gaze. “I want to go look at Honninscrave’s grave.” His tone thickened momentarily. “Say goodbye to him. Will you come with me?”

  In response, she went to him and hugged him so that he would understand her silence.

  Together they left Pitchwife sitting on the rim of the city. As they neared the entrance to Revelstone, they heard the cry of his flute again. It sounded as lorn as the call of a kestrel against the dust-trammeled sky.

  Gratefully Linden entered the great Keep, where she was shielded from the desert sun. Relief filled her nerves as she and Covenant moved down into the depths of Revelstone, back to the Hall of Gifts.

  Cail accompanied them. Beneath his impassivity she sensed a strange irresolution, as if he wanted to ask a question or boon and did not believe he had the right. But when they reached their goal, she forgot his unexplained emanations.

  During Covenant’s battle with Gibbon, and the rending of the Raver, she had taken scant notice of the cavern itself. All her attention had been focused on what was happening and on the blackness which Gibbon had called up in her. As a result, she had not registered the extent to which the Hall and its contents had been damaged. But she saw the havoc now, felt its impact.

  Around the walls, behind the columns, in the corners and distant reaches, much of the Land’s ancient artwork remained intact. But the center of the cavern was a shambles. Tapestries had been cindered, sculptures split, paintings shredded. Cracks marked two of the columns from crown to pediment; hunks of stone had been ripped from the ceiling, the floor; the mosaic on which Gibbon had stood was a ruin. Centuries of human effort and aspiration were wrecked by the uncontainable forces Covenant and the Raver had unleashed.

  For a moment, Covenant’s gaze appeared as ravaged as the Hall. No amount of certainty could heal the consequences of what he had done—and had failed to do.

  While she stood there, caught between his pain and the Hall’s hurt, she did not immediately recognize that most of the breakage had already been cleared away. But then she saw Nom at work, realized what the Sandgorgon was doing.

  It was collecting pieces of rock, splinters of sculpture, shards of pottery, any debris it was able to lift between the stumps of his forearms, and it was using those fragments meticulously to raise a cairn for Honninscrave.

  The funerary pile was already taller than Linden; but Nom was not yet satisfied with it. With swift care, the beast continued adding broken art to the mound. The rubble was too crude to have any particular shape. Nevertheless Nom moved around and around it to build it up as if it were an icon of the distant gyre of Sandgorgons Doom.

  This was Nom’s homage to the Giant who had enabled it to rend Gibbon-Raver. Honninscrave had contained and controlled samadhi Sheol so that the Raver could not possess Nom, not take advantage of Nom’s purpose and power. In that way, he had made it possible for Nom to become something new, a Sandgorgon of active mind and knowledge and volition. With this cairn, Nom acknowledged the Master’s sacrifice as if it had been a gift.

  The sight softened Covenant’s pain. Remembering Hergrom and Ceer, Linden would not have believed that she might ever feel anything akin to gratitude toward a Sandgorgon. But she had no other name for what she felt as she watched Nom work.

  Though it lacked ordinary sight or hearing, the beast appeared to be aware of its onlookers. But it did not stop until it had augmented Honninscrave’s mound with the last rubble large enough for its arms to lift. Then, however, it turned abruptly and strode toward Covenant.

  A few paces in front of him, it stopped. With its back-bent knees, it lowered itself to the floor, touched its forehead to the stone.

  He was abashed by the beast’s obeisance. “Get up,” he muttered. “Get up. You’ve earned better than this.” But Nom remained prostrate before him as if it deemed him worthy of worship.

  Unexpectedly Cail spoke for the Sandgorgon. He had recovered his Haruchai capacity for unsurprise. He reported the beast’s thoughts as if he were accustomed to them.

  “Nom desires you to comprehend that it acknowledges you. It will obey any command. But it asks that you do not command it. It wishes to be free. It wishes to return to its home in the Great Desert and its bound kindred. From the rending of the Raver, Nom has gained knowledge to unmake Sandgorgons Doom—to release its kind from pent fury and anguish. It seeks your permission to depart.”

  Linden felt that she was smiling foolishly; but she could not stop herself. Fearsome though the Sandgorgons were, she had hated the idea of their plight from the moment when Pitchwife had told her about it. “Let it go,” she murmured to Covenant. “Kasreyn had no right to trap them like that in the first place.”

  He nodded slowly, debating with himself. Then he made his decision. Facing the Sandgorgon, he said to Cail, “Tell it, it can go. I understand it’s willing to obey me, and I say it can go. It’s free. But,” he added sharply, “I want it to leave the Bhrathair alone. Those people have the right to live, too. And God knows I’ve already done them enough damage. I don’t want them to suffer any more because of me.”

  Faceless, devoid of expression, the albino beast raised itself erect again. “Nom hears you,” Cail replied. To Linden’s percipience, his tone seemed to hint that he envied Nom’s freedom. “It will obey. Its folk it will teach obedience also. The Great Desert is wide, and the Bhrathair will be spared.”

  Before he finished, the Sandgorgon burst into a run toward the doorway of the Hall. Eager for its future, it vanished up the stairs, speeding in the direction of the open sky. For a few moments, Linden felt its wide feet on the steps: their force seemed to make the stone Keep jangle. But then Nom passed beyond her range, and she turned from it as if it were a healed memory—as if in some unexpected way the deaths of Hergrom and Ceer and Honninscrave had been made bearable at last.

  She was still smiling when Covenant addressed C
ail. “We’ve got some time before noon.” He strove to sound casual; but the embers in his eyes were alight for her. “Why don’t you find us something to eat? We’ll be in Mhoram’s room.”

  Cail nodded and left at once, moving with swift unhaste. His manner convinced Linden that she was reading him accurately: something had changed for him. He seemed willing, almost eager, to be apart from the man he had promised to protect.

  But she had no immediate desire to question the Haruchai. Covenant had put his arm around her waist, and time was precious. Her wants would have appeared selfish to her if he had not shared them.

  However, when they reached the court with the bright silver floor and the cracked stone, they found Sunder and Hollian waiting for them.

  The Stonedownors had rested since Linden had last seen them, and they looked better for it. Sunder was no longer slack-kneed and febrile with exhaustion. Hollian had regained much of her young clarity. They greeted Covenant and Linden shyly, as if they were uncertain how far the Unbeliever and the Chosen had transcended them. But behind their shared mood, their differences were palpable to Linden. Unlike Sunder’s former life, Hollian’s had been one of acceptance rather than sacrifice. The delicate scars which laced her right palm were similar to the pale pain-lattice on his left forearm, but she had never taken anyone else’s blood. Yet since that time her role had been primarily one of support, aiding Sunder when he had first attuned himself to Memla’s rukh during the company’s journey toward Seareach as well as in his later use of the krill. It was he, guilt-sore and vehement, who hated the Clave, fought it—and had been vindicated. He had struck necessary blows on behalf of the Land, showing himself a fit companion for Giants and Haruchai, Covenant and Linden. Now he bore himself with a new confidence; and the silver light seemed to shine bravely in his eyes, as though he knew that his father would have been proud of him.