White Gold Wielder

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  After a while. Covenant rasped, “Broken—” There was a slain sound in his voice, as if within him also something vital were perishing. “All that beauty—” Perhaps during the night he had lost his mind. “Your very presence here empowers me to master you. The ill that you deem most terrible is upon you.’ ” He was quoting Lord Foul; but he spoke as if the words were his. “ ‘There is despair laid up for you here—’ ”

  At once, the First turned to him. “Do not speak thus. It is false.”

  He gave no sign that he had heard her. “It’s not my fault,” he went on harshly. “I didn’t do any of this. None of it. But I’m the cause. Even when I don’t do anything. It’s all being done because of me. So I won’t have any choice. Just by being alive, I break everything I love.” He scraped his fingers through the stubble of his beard; but his eyes continued staring at the waste of Andelain, haunted by it “You’d think I wanted this to happen.”

  “No!” the First protested. “We hold no such conception. You must not doubt. It is doubt which weakens—doubt which corrupts. Therefore is this Despiser powerful. He does not doubt. While you are certain, there is hope.” Her iron voice betrayed a note of fear. “This price will be exacted from him if you do not doubt!”

  Covenant looked at her for a moment. Then he rose stiffly to his feet His muscles and his heart were knotted so tightly that Linden could not read him.

  “That’s wrong.” He spoke softly, in threat or appeal. “You need to doubt. Certainty is terrible. Let Foul have it. Doubt makes you human.” His gaze shifted toward Linden. It reached out to her like flame or beggary, the culmination and defeat of all his power in the Banefire. “You need every doubt you can find. I want you to doubt. I’m hardly human anymore.”

  Each flare and wince of his eyes contradicted itself. Stop me. Don’t touch me. Doubt me. Doubt Kevin. Yes. No. Please.

  Please.

  His inchoate supplication drew her to him. He did not appear strong or dangerous now, but only needy, appalled by himself. Yet he was as irrefusable as ever. She touched her hand to his scruffy cheek; her arms hurt with the tenderness of her wish to hold him.

  But she would not retreat from the commitments she had made, whatever their cost. Perhaps her years of medical training and self-abnegation had been nothing more than a way of running away from death; but the simple logic of that flight had taken her in the direction of life, for others if not for herself. And in the marrow of her bones she had experienced both the Sunbane and Andelain. The choice between them was as clear as Covenant’s pain.

  She had no answer for his appeal. Instead she gave him one of her own. “Don’t force me to do that.” Her love was naked in her eyes. “Don’t give up.”

  A spasm of grief or anger flinched across his face. His voice sank to a desert scraping in the back of his throat. “I wish I could make you understand.” He spoke flatly, all inflection burned away. “He’s gone too far. He can’t get away with this. Maybe he isn’t really sane anymore. He isn’t going to get what he wants.”

  But his manner and his words held no comfort for her. He might as well have announced to the Giants and Vain and the ravaged world that he still intended to surrender his ring.

  Yet he remained strong enough for his purpose, in spite of little food, less rest, and the suffering of Andelain. Dourly he faced the First and Pitchwife again as if he expected questions or protests. But the Swordmain held herself stern. Her husband did not look up from his flute.

  To their silence. Covenant replied, “We need to go north for a while. Until we get to the river. That’s our way into Mount Thunder.”

  Sighing, Pitchwife gained his feet. He held his flute in both hands. His gaze was focused on nothing as he snapped the small instrument in half.

  With all his strength, he hurled the pieces toward the Hills.

  Linden winced. An expostulation died on the Firsts lips. Covenant’s shoulders hunched.

  As grim as a cripple, Pitchwife raised his eyes to the Unbeliever. “Heed me well,” he murmured clearly. “I doubt.”

  “Good!” Covenant rasped intensely. Then he started moving again, picking a path for himself among the boulders.

  Linden followed with old cries beating against her heart. Haven’t you even got the guts to go on living? You never loved me anyway. But she knew as surely as vision that he did love her. She had no means by which to measure what had happened to him in the Banefire. And Gibbon’s voice answered her, taunting her with the truth. Are you not evil?

  The foothills of Mount Thunder, ancient Gravin Threndor, were too rugged to bear much vegetation. And the light of the desert sun advanced rapidly past the peak now, wreaking dissolution on the ground’s residual fertility. The company was hampered by strewn boulders and knuckled slopes, but not by the effects of the previous sun. Still the short journey toward the Soulsease was arduous. The sun’s loathsome corruption seemed to parch away the last of Linden’s strength. Heatwaves like precursors of hallucination tugged at the edges of her mind. A confrontation with the Despiser would at least put an end to this horror and rapine. One way or the other. As she panted at the hillsides, she found herself repeating the promise she had once made in Revelstone—the promise she had made and broken. Never. Never again. Whatever happened, she would not return to the Sunbane.

  Because of her weakness. Covenant’s exhaustion, and the difficulty of the terrain, the company did not reach the vicinity of the river until midmorning.

  The way the hills baffled sound enabled her to catch a glimpse of the swift water before she heard it. Then she and her companions topped the last rise between them and the Soulsease; and the loud howl of its rush slapped at her. Narrowed by its stubborn granite channel, the river raced below her, white and writhing in despair toward its doom. And its doom towered over it, so massive and dire that the mountain filled all the east. Perhaps a league to Linden’s right, the river flumed into the gullet of Mount Thunder and was swallowed away—ingested by the catacombs which mazed the hidden depths of the peak. When that water emerged again, on the Lower Land behind Gravin Threndor, it would be so polluted by the vileness of the Wightwarrens, so rank with the waste of charnals and breeding-dens, the spillage of forges and laboratories, the effluvium of corruption, that it would be called the Defiles Course—the source of Sarangrave Flat’s peril and perversion.

  For a crazy moment, Linden thought Covenant meant to ride that extreme current into the mountain. But then he pointed toward the bank directly below him; and she saw that a roadway had been cut into the foothills at some height above the river. The river itself was declining: six days had passed since the last sun of rain; and the desert sun was rapidly drinking away the water which Andelain still provided. But the markings on the channel’s sheer walls showed that the Soulsease virtually never reached as high as the roadway.

  Along this road in ages past, armies had marched out of Mount Thunder to attack the Land. Much of the surface was ruinous, cracked and gouged by time and the severe alternations of the Sunbane, slick with spray; but it was still traversable. And it led straight into the dark belly of the mountain.

  Covenant gestured toward the place where the walls rose like cliffs to meet the sides of Mount Thunder. He had to shout to make himself heard, and his voice was veined with stress. “That’s Treacher’s Gorge! Where Foul betrayed Kevin and the Council openly for the first time! Before they knew what he was! The war that broke Kevin’s heart started there!”

  The First scanned the thrashing River, the increasing constriction of the precipitate walls, then raised her voice through the roar. “Earthfriend, you have said that the passages of this mountain are a maze! How then may we discover the lurking place of the Despiser?”

  “We won’t have to!” His shout sounded feverish. He looked as tense and strict and avid as he had when Linden had first met him—when he had slammed 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. He’ll take c
are of the rest. The only trick is to stay alive until we get to him!”

  Abruptly he turned to his companions. “You don’t have to come! I’ll 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 the 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 his 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 still 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, the 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 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 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 anticipation 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 attitude 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 lay his 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 the armies of Drool Rockworm, the mad Cavewight. 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 percipience 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 heights 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.

  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 lust.

  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 fagots he had borne from Revelstone. 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 r
eaction 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 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 hoarsely, 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 shortlived. 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-spawn 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. “Damnation,” he muttered. “Damnation!” 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.