White Gold Wielder (31 page)

Sunder turned to him. The Graveler’s eyes were as hard as pebbles as he took out the wrapped bundle of the
krill
. His voice carried harshly across the wind. “Unbeliever, what is your will? When first you gave the
krill
into my hand, you counseled that I make use of it as I would a
rukh
—that I attune myself to it and bend its power to my purpose. This I have done. It was my love who taught me”—he glanced at Hollian—“but I have learned the lesson with all my strength.” He had come a long way and was determined not to be found wanting. “Therefore I am able to ease our way—to hasten our journey. But in so doing I will restore us unquestionably to the Clave’s knowledge, and Gibbon na-Mhoram will be forewarned against us.” Stiffly he repeated, “What is your will?”

Covenant debated momentarily with himself. If Gibbon were forewarned, he might kill more of his prisoners to stoke the Banefire. But it was possible that he was already aware of the danger. Sunder had suggested as much the previous day. If Covenant traveled cautiously, he might simply give the na-Mhoram more time for preparation.

Covenant’s shoulders hunched to strangle his trepidation. “Use the
krill
,” he muttered. “I’ve already lost too much time.”

The Graveler nodded as if he had expected no other reply.

From his jerkin, he took out his Sunstone.

It was a type of rock which the Land’s former masters of stonelore had named
orcrest
. It was half the size of his fist, irregularly shaped but smooth; and its surface gave a strange impression of translucence without transparency, opening into a dimension where nothing but itself existed.

Deftly Sunder nipped the cloth from the
krill
’s gem, letting bright argent blaze into the rain-thick gloom. Then he brought the Sunstone and that gem into contact with each other.

At once, a shaft of vermeil power from the
orcrest
shot straight toward the hidden heart of the sun. Sizzling furiously, the beam pierced the drizzle and the thunderheads to tap the force of the Sunbane directly. And the
krill
shone forth as if its light could cast back the rain.

In a snarl of torrents and heavy thunder, the storm swept over the hilltop. The strait red shaft of the
orcrest
seemed to call down lightning like an affront to the heavens. But Sunder stood without flinching, unscathed by any fire.

On the company, no rain fell. Wind slashed the region; thunder crashed; lightning ran like screams across the dark. But Sunder’s power formed a pocket in the storm, a zone free of violence.

He was doing what the Clave had always done, using the Sunbane to serve his own ends. But his exertion cost no blood. No one had been shed to make him strong.

That difference sufficed for Covenant. With a
Grim
gesture, he urged his companions into motion.

Quickly they ranged themselves around Sunder. With Hollian to guide him, the Graveler turned toward the southwest. Holding his
orcrest
and the
krill
clasped together so that they flamed like a challenge, he started in the direction of Revelstone. His protection moved with him, covering all the company.

By slow degrees, a crimson hue crept into the brightness of the
krill
, tinging the light as if the core of the gem had begun to bleed; and long glints of silver streaked the shaft of Sunbane-fire. But Sunder shifted his hands, separated the two powers slightly to keep them pure. As he did so, his zone contracted somewhat, but not enough to hamper the company’s progress.

They were scourged by wind. Mud clogged their strides, made every step treacherous. Streams frothing down the hillsides beat against their legs, joined each other to form small rivers and tried to sweep the travelers away. Time and again, Covenant would have fallen without Cail’s support. Linden clung severely to Fole’s shoulder. All the world had been reduced to a thunderous wall of water—an impenetrable downpour lit by vermeil and argent, scored by lightning. No one tried to speak; only the Giants would have been able to make themselves heard. Yet Sunder’s protection enabled the company to move faster than the Sunbane had ever permitted.

Sometime during the day, two gray, blurred shapes appeared like incarnations of the storm and entered the rainless pocket, presented themselves to Covenant. They were
Haruchai
. When he had acknowledged them, they joined his companions without a word.

The intensity with which Linden regarded Sunder told Covenant something he already knew: the Graveler’s mastery of two such disparate periapts was a horrendous strain on him. Yet he was a Stonedownor. The native toughness of his people had been conditioned by generations of survival under the ordeal of the Sunbane. And his sense of purpose was clear. When the day’s journey finally ended, and he let his fires fall, he appeared so weary that he could hardly stand—but he was no more defeated by fatigue than Covenant, who had done nothing except labor through nearly ten leagues of mire and water. Not for the first time, Covenant thought that the Graveler was more than he deserved.

As the wind whipped the clouds away to the west, the company made camp in an open plain which reminded Covenant of the strict terrain near Revelstone. In a bygone age, that region had been made fruitful by the diligence of its farmers and cattleherds—and by the beneficent power of the Lords. Now everything was painfully altered. He felt that he was on the verge of the Clave’s immediate demesne—that the company was about to enter the ambit of the na-Mhoram’s Keep.

Nervously he asked Hollian what the next day’s sun would be. In response, she took out her slim
lianar
wand. Its polished surface gleamed like the ancient woods of the Land as she held it up in the light of the campfire.

Like Sunder’s left forearm, her right palm was laced with old scars—the cuts from which she had drawn blood for her foretellings. But she no longer had any need of blood. Sunder smiled and handed her the wrapped
krill
. She uncovered it only enough to let one white beam into the night. Then, reverently, like a woman who had never learned anything but respect for her own abilities, she touched her
lianar
to the light.

And flame grew like a plant from the wood. Delicate shoots waved into the air; buds of filigree fire bloomed; leaves curled and opened. Without harming her or the wood, flame spread around her like a growth of mystery.

It was as green and tangy as springtime and new apples.

At the sight, Covenant’s nerves tightened involuntarily.

Hollian did not need to explain to him and Linden what her fire meant. They had witnessed it several times in the past. But for the benefit of the watching, wide-eyed Giants, she said quietly, “The morrow will bring a fertile sun.”

Covenant glanced at Linden. But she was studying the
Haruchai
, scrutinizing them for any sign of peril. However, Sunder had said that Gibbon’s grasp extended only a day’s journey beyond the gates of Revelstone; and when Linden at last met Covenant’s gaze she shook her head mutely.

Two more days, he thought. One until that Raver can reach us. Unless he decides to try his
Grim
again.
The ill that you deem most terrible
. That night, nightmares stretched him until he believed he would surely snap. They had all become one virulent vision, and in it his fire was as black as venom.

In the pre-green gloom of dawn, another pair of
Haruchai
arrived to join the company. Their faces were as stony and magisterial as the mountains where they lived; and yet Covenant received the dismaying impression that they had come to him in fear. Not fear of death, but of what the Clave could make them do.

Their plight is an abomination
. He accepted them. But that was not enough. Bannor had commanded him to redeem them.

When the sun rose, it tinged the stark bare landscape a sick hue that reminded him of the Illearth Stone.

Six days had passed since the desert sun had melted every vestige of vegetation off the Upper Land. As a result, all the plain was a wilderness. But the ground was so water-soaked that it steamed wherever the sun touched it; and the steam seemed to raise fine sprouts of heather and bracken with the suddenness of panic. Where the dirt lay in shadow, it remained as barren as naked bones; but elsewhere the uncoiling green stems grew desperately, flogged by the Sunbane and fed by two days of rain. In moments, the brush had reached the height of Covenant’s shins. If he stood still much longer, he might not be able to move at all.

But ahead of him, the Westron Mountains thrust their ragged snowcaps above the horizon. And one promontory of the range lay in a direct line with Sunder’s path. Perhaps Revelstone was already visible to the greater sight of the Giants.

If it were, they said nothing about it. Pitcbwife watched the preternatural heath with a look of nausea. Mistweave’s doubt had assumed an aspect of belligerence, as if he resented the way Fole had supplanted him at Linden’s side—and yet believed that he could not justify himself. The First hefted her longsword, estimating her strength against the vegetation. Only Honninscrave studied the southwest eagerly; but his clenched visage revealed nothing except an echo of his earlier judgment:
This is the world which my brother purchased with his soul. Do you consider such a world worthy of life?

However, the First was not required to cut the company’s way. Sunder used his Sunstone and the
krill
as the Riders used their
rukhs
, employing the Sunbane to force open a path. With vermeil fire and white light, the Graveler crushed flat the growth ahead of the company, plowed a way through it. Unhindered by torrents and streams and mire, the travelers were able to increase the previous day’s pace.

Before the heather and bracken grew so tall that they blocked Covenant’s view of the mountains, he glimpsed a red beam like Sunder’s standing from the promontory toward the sun. With an inward shiver, he recognized it. To be visible from that distance, it would have to be tremendous.

The shaft of the Banefire.

Then the writhing brush effaced all the southwest from sight.

For a time, the tight apprehension of that glimpse occupied all his attention. The Banefire. It seemed to dwarf him. He had seen it once, devouring blood with a staggering heat and ferocity that had filled the high cavity of the sacred enclosure. Even at the level where the Readers had tended the
master-rukh
, that conflagration had hit him with an incinerating force, burning his thoughts to ashes. The simple memory of it made him flinch. He could hardly believe that even rampant wild magic would be a match for it. The conflict between such powers would be fierce enough to shatter mountains. And the Arch of Time? He did not know the answer.

But by midmorning Sunder began to stumble; and Covenant’s attention was wrenched outward. The Graveler used his periapts as if together they formed a special kind of
rukh;
but they did not. The
rukhs
of the Riders drew their true strength straight from the
master-rukh
and the Banefire, and so each Rider needed only enough personal exertion to keep open a channel of power to Revelstone; the Banefire did the rest. But Sunder wielded the Sunbane and the
krill
directly.

The effort was exhausting him.

Linden read his condition at a glance. “Give him
diamondraught
,” she muttered stiffly. Her rigid resistance to the ill of the vegetation made her sound distant, impersonal. “And carry him. He’ll be all right. If we take care of him.” After a moment, she added, “He’s stubborn enough to stand it.”

Sunder smiled at her wanly. Pallor lay beneath the shade of his skin; but as he sipped the Giantish liquor he grew markedly stronger. Yet he did not protest when Honninscrave hoisted him into the air. Sitting with his back against the Master’s chest, his legs bent over the Giant’s arms, he raised his powers again; and the company resumed its trek.

Shortly after noon, two more
Haruchai
joined Covenant, bringing to ten the number of their people ranged protectively on either side of him and his companions.

He saluted them strictly; but their presence only made him more afraid. He did not know how to defend them from Gibbon.

And his fear increased as Sunder grew weaker. Even with Sunstone and
krill
, the Graveler was only one lone man.

While the obstacles swarming in front of him were simply bracken and heather, he was able to furrow them as effectively as any Rider. But then the soil changed: the terrain became a jungle of mad rhododendron, jacaranda, and honeysuckle. Through that tangle he could not force his way with anything like the direct accuracy which the Banefire made possible. He had to grope for the line of least resistance; and the jungle closed behind the travelers as if they were lost.

The sun had fallen near the Westron Mountains, and the light had become little more than a filtered gloom, when Linden and Hollian gasped simultaneously, “Sunder!”

Honninscrave jerked to a halt. The First wheeled to stare at the Graveler. Covenant’s throat constricted with panic as he scrambled forward at Linden’s back.

The Master set Sunder down as the company crowded around them. At once, Sunder’s knees buckled. His arms shook with a wild ague.

Covenant squeezed between the First and Pitchwife to confront the Graveler. Recognition whitened Hollian’s face, made her raven hair look as stark as a dirge. Linden’s eyes flicked back and forth between the Sunstone and the
krill
.

The vermeil shaft springing from his
orcrest
toward the setting sun had a frayed and charred appearance, as if it were being consumed by a hotter fire. And in the core of the
krill
’s clear gem burned a hard knot of blackness like a canker.

“The na-Mhoram attempts to take him!” Hollian panted desperately. “How can he save himself, when he is so sorely weary?”

Sunder’s eyes were fixed on something he could no longer see. New lines marked his ashen face, cut by the acid sweat that slicked his skin. Tremors knotted in his muscles. His expression was as naked and appalled as a seizure.