White Gold Wielder (49 page)

They spent the rest of the day winding through the hills beside the empty riverbed. Periodically the First strode up to a crest that gave her a wider view over the region; and her fingers rubbed the hilt of her longsword as if she were looking for a chance to use it. But she saw nothing that threatened the company except the waterless waste.

Whenever the hills opened westward, Linden could see the Westron Mountains sinking toward the horizon as they curved away to the south. And from the top of a rocky spine she was able to make out the distant rim of Revelstone, barely visible now above the crumpled terrain. Part of her yearned for the security it represented, for stone walls and the guardianship of
Haruchai
. Red limned the edges of the Land, made the desert hills as distinct as the work of a knife. Overhead the sky seemed strangely depthless. Considered directly, it remained a pale blue occluded with fine dust; but the corners of her vision caught a hue of crimson like a hint of the Despiser’s bloody-mindedness; and that color made the heavens look flat, closed.

Though she was defended by
voure
, she flinched internally at the vibrating ricochet of sandflies as big as starlings, the squirming haste of oversized centipedes. But when the First and Covenant started on down the far side of the spine, she wiped the sweat from her forehead, combed her hair back from her temples with her fingers, and followed.

Late in the afternoon, as shadows returned the sun’s vermin to quiescence, the company descended to the watercourse again so that they could travel more easily until sunset. Then, when the light faded, they stopped for the night on a wide stretch of sand. There they ate supper, drank
metheglin
lightly flavored with
diamondraught
, hollowed beds for themselves. And Hollian took out her
lianar
wand to discover what the morrow’s sun would be.

Without a word, Sunder handed her the wrapped
krill
. Carefully, as if Loric’s blade still awed her, she parted the cloth until a clear shaft of argent pierced the twilight. Sitting cross-legged with the knife in her lap, she began to chant her invocation; and as she did so, she raised her
lianar
into the
krill
-gem’s light.

From the wood grew shoots and tendrils of fine fire. They spread about her on the ground like creepers, climbed into the argence like vines. They burned without heat, without harming the wand; and their radiant filigree made the night eldritch and strange.

Her flame was the precise incarnadine of the present sun.

Linden thought then that Hollian would cease her invocation. A second day of pestilence was not a surprise. But the eh-Brand kept her power alight, and a new note of intensity entered her chant. With a start, Linden realized that Hollian was stretching herself, reaching beyond her accustomed limits.

After a moment, a quiet flare of blue like a gentle coruscation appeared at the tips of the fire-fronds.

For an instant, azure rushed inward along the vines, transforming the flames, altering the crimson ambience of the dark. Then it was quenched: all the fire vanished. Hollian sat with the
lianar
cradled in her fingers and the light of the
krill
on her face. She was smiting faintly.

“The morrow’s sun will be a sun of pestilence.” Her voice revealed strain and weariness, but they were not serious. “But the sun of the day following will be a sun of rain.”

“Good!” said Covenant. “Two days of rain, and we’ll practically be in Andelain.” He turned to the First. “It looks like we’re not going to be able to build rafts. Can you and Pitchwife support the four of us when the river starts to run?”

In answer, the First snorted as if the question were unworthy of her.

Gleaming with pride, Sunder put his arms around Hollian. But her attention was fixed on Covenant. She took a deep breath for strength, then asked, “Ur-Lord, is it truly your intent to enter Andelain once again?”

Covenant faced her sharply. A grimace twisted his mouth. “You asked me that the last time.” He seemed to expect her to renew her former refusal. “You know I want to go there. I never get enough of it. It’s the only place where there’s any Law left alive.”

The
krill
-light emphasized the darkness of her hair; but its reflection in her eyes was clear. “You have told that tale. And I have spoken of the acquaintance of my people with the peril of Andelain. To us its name was one of proven madness. No man or woman known to us entered that land where the Sunbane does not reign and returned whole of mind. Yet you have entered and emerged, defying that truth as you defy all others. Thus the truth is altered. The life of the Land is not what it was. And in my turn I am changed. I have conceived a desire to do that which I have not done—to sojourn among my fears and strengths and learn the new truth of them.

“Thomas Covenant, do not turn aside from Andelain. It is my wish to accompany you.”

For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Covenant said in a husky voice, “Thanks. That helps.”

Softly Hollian recovered the
krill
, let darkness wash back over the company. The night was the color of her hair, and it spread its wings out to the stars.

The next day, the red sun asserted its hold over the Land more swiftly, building on what it had already done. The company was forced out of the watercourse well before midmorning. Still they made steady progress. Every southward league softened the hills slightly, and by slow degrees the going became easier. The valleys between the rises grew wider: the slopes, less rugged. And Hollian had said that the next day would bring a sun of rain. Severely Linden tried to tell herself that she had no reason to feel so beaten, so vulnerable to the recurring blackness of her life.

But the Sunbane shone full upon her. It soaked into her as if she had become a sponge for the world’s ill. The stink of pestilence ran through her blood. Hidden somewhere among the secrets of her bones was a madwoman who believed that she deserved such desecration. She wanted power in order to extirpate the evil from herself.

Her percipience was growing keener—and so her distress was keener.

She could not inure herself to what she felt. No amount of determination or decision was enough. Long before noon, she began to stumble as if she were exhausted. A red haze covered her mind, blinding her to the superficial details of the terrain, the concern of her friends. She was like the Land, powerless to heal herself. But when Covenant asked her if she wanted to rest, she made no answer and went on walking. She had chosen her path and did not mean to stop.

Yet she heard the First’s warning. Unsteady on her feet, her knees locked, she halted with Covenant as the Giants came back at a tense trot from a low ridge ahead of the company. Distress aggravated Pitchwife’s crooked features. The First looked apprehensive, like iron fretted with rust. But in spite of their palpable urgency, they did not speak for a moment. They were too full of what they had seen.

Then Pitchwife groaned far back in his throat. “Ah, Earthfriend.” His voice shuddered. “You have forewarned us of the consequences of this Sunbane—but now I perceive that I did not altogether credit your words. It is heinous beyond speech.”

The First gripped her sword as an anchor for her emotions. “We are blocked from our way,” she said, articulating the words like chewed metal. “Perchance we have come blindly upon an army of another purpose—but I do not believe it. I believe that the Despiser has reached out his hand against us.”

Trepidation beat the haze from Linden’s mind. Her mouth shaped a question. But she did not ask it aloud. The Giants stood, rigid, before her; and she could see as clearly as language that they had no answer.

“Beyond that ridge?” asked Covenant. “How far?”

“A stone’s throw for a Giant,” the First replied grimly. “No more. And they advance toward us.”

He glanced at Linden to gauge her condition, then said to the First, “Let’s go take a look.”

She nodded, turned on her heel and strode away. He hurried after her. Linden, Sunder, and Hollian followed. Pitchwife placed himself protectively at Linden’s side. Vain and Findail quickened their steps to keep up with the company.

At the ridgecrest, Covenant squatted behind a boulder and peered down the southward slope. Linden joined him. The Giants crouched below the line-of-sight of what lay ahead. Findail also stopped. Careful to avoid exposing themselves, Sunder and Hollian crept forward. But Vain moved up to the rim as if he wanted a clear view and feared nothing.

Covenant spat a low curse under his breath; but it was not directed at the Demondim-spawn. It was aimed at the black seethe of bodies moving toward the ridge on both sides of the watercourse.

As black as Vain himself.

The sight of them sucked the strength from Linden’s limbs.

She knew what they were because Covenant had described them to her—and because she had met the Waynhim of Hamako’s
rhysh
. But they had been changed. Their emanations rose to her like a shout, telling her precisely what had happened to them. They had fallen victim to the desecration of the Sunbane.

“Ur-viles,” Covenant whispered fiercely. “Hell and blood!”

Warped ur-viles.

Hundreds of them.

Once they had resembled the Waynhim: larger, black instead of gray; but with the same hairless bodies, the same limbs formed for running on all fours as well as for walking erect, the same eyeless faces and wide, questing nostrils. But no longer. The Sunbane had made them monstrous.

Over the sickness in her stomach, Linden thought bleakly that Lord Foul must have done this to them. Like the Waynhim, the ur-viles were too lore-wise to have exposed themselves accidentally to the sun’s first touch. They had been corrupted deliberately and sent here to block the company’s way.

“Why?” she breathed, aghast. “
Why
?”

“Same reason as always,” Covenant growled without looking away from the grotesque horde. “Force me to use too much power.” Then suddenly his gaze flashed toward her. “Or to keep us out of Andelain. Exposed to the Sunbane. He knows how much it hurts you. Maybe he thinks it’ll make you do what he wants.”

Linden felt the truth of his words. She knew she could not stay sane forever under the pressure of the Sunbane. But a bifurcated part of her replied, Or maybe he did it to punish them. For doing something he didn’t like.

Her heart skipped a beat.

For making Vain?

The Demondim-spawn stood atop the ridge as if he sought to attract the notice of the horde.

“Damnation!” Covenant muttered. Creeping back a short way from the rim, he turned to the Giants. “What’re we going to do?”

The First did not hesitate. She gestured eastward along the valley below the ridge. “There lies our way. Passing their flank unseen, we may hope to outrun them toward Andelain.”

Covenant shook his head. “That won’t work. This isn’t exactly the direct route to Andelain—or Mount Thunder, for that matter—but Foul still knew where to find us. He has some way of locating us. It’s been done before.” He glared at his memories, then thrust the past side. “If we try to get around them, they’ll know it.”

The First scowled and said nothing, momentarily at a loss for alternatives. Linden put her back to the boulder, braced her dread on the hard stone. “We can retreat,” she said. “Back the way we came.” Covenant started to protest; but she overrode him. “Until tomorrow. When the rain starts. I don’t care how well they know where we are. They’re going to have trouble finding us in the rain.” She was sure of that. She knew from experience that the Sunbane’s torrents were as effective as a wall. “Once the rain starts, we can ride the river right through the middle of them.”

Covenant frowned. His jaws chewed a lump of bitterness. After a moment, he asked, “Can you do it? Those ur-viles aren’t likely to rest at night. We’ll have to keep going until dawn. And we’ll have to stay right in front of them. So they won’t have time to react when we try to get past them.” He faltered out of consideration for her, then forced himself to say, “You’re already having trouble just staying on your feet.”

She gave him a glare of vexation, started to say, What choice have we got? I can do whatever I have to. But a black movement caught the edge of her sight. She turned her head in time to see Vain go striding down the slope to meet the ur-viles.

Covenant snapped the Demondim-spawn’s name. Pitchwife started after Vain: the First snatched him back. Sunder hurried to the rim to see what would happen, leaving Hollian with taut concentration on her face.

Linden ignored them. For the first time, she felt an emotion radiating from Vain’s impenetrable form.

It was anger.

The horde reacted as if it could smell his presence even from this range. Perhaps that was how they knew where to find the company. A spatter of barking burst from the ur-viles: they quickened their pace. Their wide mass converged toward him.

At the foot of the slope, he halted. The ur-viles were no great distance from him now. In a few moments, they would reach him. As they moved, their barking resolved into one word:

“
Nekhrimah!
”

The word of command, by which Covenant had once compelled Vain to save his life. But Foamfollower had said that the Demondim-spawn would not obey it a second time.

For a moment, he remained still, as if he had forgotten motion. His right hand dangled, useless, from his wooden forearm. Nothing else marred his passive perfection. The scraps of his raiment only emphasized how beautifully he had been made.

“
Nekhrimah!
”

Then he raised his left hand. His fingers curved into claws. His hand made a feral clutching gesture.

The leading ur-vile was snatched to the ground as if Vain had taken hold of its heart and ripped the organ apart.

Snarling furiously, the horde broke into a run.

Vain did not hurry. His good arm struck a sideward blow through the air: two ur-viles went down with crushed skulls. His fingers knotted and twisted: one of the approaching faces turned to pulp. Another was split open by a punching movement that did not touch his assailant.