White Gold Wielder (53 page)

After a while, Covenant rejoined the two Giants and Linden. “Maybe he’ll meet her in Andelain,” he sighed. “Maybe she’ll be able to get through to him.”

“Let us pray for that outcome,” muttered the First. “His endurance must fail soon.”

Covenant nodded. As he chewed bread and dried fruit for breakfast, he went on nodding to himself like a man who had no other hope.

A short time later, the sun rose beyond the rim of the world; and the companions stood on the rainswept sheetrock to meet the daybreak.

It crested the horizon in a flaring of emerald, cast green spangles up the swift, broken surface of the River.

At the sight, Linden went momentarily weak with relief. She had not realized how much she had feared another sun of rain.

Warmth: the fertile sun gave warmth. It eased the vehemence of the current, softened the chill of the water. And it shone on her nerves like the solace of dry, fire-warmed blankets. Supported by the First, with Covenant beside her and Pitchwife and Sunder only a few short strokes away, she rode the Soulsease and thought for the first time that perhaps the River had not been gratuitously named.

Yet relief did not blind her to what was happening to the earth on either side of the watercourse. The kindness of the fertile sun was an illusion, a trick performed by the River’s protection. On the banks, vegetation squirmed out of the ground like a ghoul-ridden host. Flailed up from their roots, vines and grasses sprawled over the rims of the channel. Shrubs raised their branches as if they were on fire: trees clawed their way into the air, as frantic as the damned. And she found that her own relative safety only accentuated the sensations pouring at her from the wild, unwilling growth. She was floating through a wilderness of voiceless anguish: the torment around her was as loud as shrieks. Tortured out of all Law, the trees and plants had no defense, could do nothing for themselves except grow and grow—and hurl their dumb hurt into the sky.

Perhaps after all the Forestal of Andelain was gone. How long could he bear to hear these cries and be helpless?

Between rising walls of agony, the River ran on toward the east and Mount Thunder after a long southeastward stretch. Slowly Linden fell into a strange, bifurcated musing. She held to the First’s shoulder, kept her head above water, watched the riverbanks pass, the verdure teem. But on another level she was not aware of such things. Within her, the darkness which had germinated at Gibbon’s touch also grew. Fed by the Sunbane, it twined through her and yearned. She remembered now as if she had never forgotten that behind the superficial grief and pain and abhorrence had lurked a secret glee at the act of strangling her mother—a wild joy at the taste of power.

In a detached way, she knew what was happening to her. She had been too long exposed to Lord Foul’s corruption. Her command over herself, her sense of who she wanted to be, was fraying.

She giggled harshly to herself—a snapping of mirth like the sound of a Raver. The idea was bitterly amusing. Until now it had been the sheer difficulty and pain of traveling under the Sunbane which had enabled her to remember who she was. The Despiser could have mastered her long ago by simply allowing her to relax.

Fierce humor rose in her throat. Fertility seemed to caper along her blood, frothing and chuckling luridly. Her percipience sent out sneaky fingers to touch Covenant’s latent fire as if at any moment she would muster the courage to take hold of it for herself.

With an effort of will, she pulled at the First’s shoulder. The Giant turned her head, murmured over the wet mutter of the River, “Chosen?”

So that Covenant would not hear her, Linden whispered, “If I start to laugh, hit me. Hold me under until I stop.”

The First returned a glance of piercing incomprehension. Then she nodded.

Somehow Linden locked her teeth against the madness and did not let it out.

Noon rose above her and passed by. From the truncated perspective of the waterline, she could see only a short distance ahead. The Soulsease appeared to have no future. The world contained nothing except tortured vegetation and despair. She should have been able to heal that. She was a doctor. But she could not. She had no power.

But then without transition the terrain toward which the company was borne changed. Beyond an interdict as precise as a line drawn in the Earth, the wild fertility ended; and a natural woodland began on both sides of the Soulsease.

The shock of it against her senses told her what it was. She had seen it once before, when she had not been ready for it. It rushed into her even from this distance like a distillation of all
vitrim
and
diamondraught
, a cure for all darkness.

The First nudged Covenant, nodded ahead. Thrashing his legs, he surged up in the water; and his crow split the air:

“Andelain!”

As he fell back, he pounded at the current like a boy, sent sun-glistened streams of spray arcing across the Soulsease.

In silence, Linden breathed, Andelain, Andelain, as if by repeating that name she might cleanse herself enough to enter among the Hills. Hope washed through her in spite of everything she had to fear.
Andelain
.

Brisk between its banks, the River ran swiftly toward the Forestal’s demesne, the last bastion of Law.

As they neared the demarcation, Linden saw it more acutely. Here thronging, tormented brush and bracken, mimosas cracked by their own weight, junipers as grotesque as the dancing of demons, all stopped as if they had met a wall: there a greensward as lush as springtime and punctuated with peonies like music swept up the graceful hillslopes to the stately poplars and red-fruited elders that crowned the crests. At the boundary of the Forestal’s reign, mute hurt gave way to
aliantha
, and the Sunbane was gone from the pristine sky.

Gratitude and gladness and relief made the world new around her as the Soulsease carried the company out of the Land’s brokenness into Andelain.

When she looked behind her, she could no longer see the Sunbane’s green aura. The sun shone out of the cerulean heavens with the yellow warmth of loveliness.

Covenant indicated the south bank. The First and Pitchwife turned in that direction, angling across the current. Covenant swam with all his strength; and Linden followed. The water had already changed from ordinary free-flowing cleanness to crystal purity, as special and renewing as dew. And when she placed her hands on the grass-rich ground to boost herself out of the River, she received a new thrill, a sensation of vibrancy as keen as the clear air. She had been exposed to the Sunbane for so long that she had forgotten what the Earth’s health felt like.

But then she stood on the turf with all her nerves open and realized that what she felt was more than simple health. It was Law quintessenced and personified, a reification of the vitality which made life precious and the Land desirable. It was an avatar of spring, the revel of summer: it was autumn glory and winter peace. The grass under her feet sprang and gleamed, seemed to lift her to a taller stature. The sap in the trees rose like fire, beneficent and alive. Flowers scattered color everywhere. Every breath and scent and sensation was sapid beyond bearing—and yet they urged her to bear them. Each new exquisite perception led her onward instead of daunting her, carried her out of herself like a current of ecstasy.

Laughter and weeping rose in her together and could not be uttered. This was Andelain, the heart of the Land Covenant loved. He lay on his face in the grass, arms outspread as if to hug the ground; and she knew that the Hills had changed everything. Not in him, but in her. There were many things she did not understand; but this she did: the bale of the Sunbane had no power here. She was free of it here. And the Law which brought such health to life was worth the price any heart was willing to pay.

That affirmation came to her like a clean sunrise. It was the positive conviction for which she had been so much in need. Any price. To preserve the last beauty of the Land. Any price at all.

Pitchwife sat on the grass and stared hungrily up the hillsides, his face wide with astonishment. “I would not have credited—” he breathed to himself. “Not have believed—” The First stood behind him, her fingertips resting on his shoulders. Her eyes beamed like the sun-flashes dancing on the gay surface of the Soulsease. Vain and Findail had appeared while Linden’s back had been turned. The Demondim-spawn betrayed no reaction to Andelain; but Findail’s habitual distress had lightened, and he took the crisp air deep into his lungs as if, like Linden, he knew what it meant.

Free of the Sunbane and exalted, she wanted to run—wanted to stretch and bound up the Hills and tumble down them, sport like a child, see everything, taste everything, race her bruised nerves and tired bones as far as they would go into the luxuriant anodyne of this region, the sovereign solace of Andelain’s health. She skipped a few steps away from the River, turned to call Covenant after her.

He had risen to his feet, but was not looking at her. And there was no joy in his face.

His attention was fixed on Sunder.

Sunder! Linden groaned, instantly ashamed that she had forgotten him in her personal transport.

He stood on the bank and hugged Hollian upright against his chest, seeing nothing, comprehending no part of the beauty around him. For a time, he did not move. Then some kind of focus came into his eyes, and he stumbled forward. Too weak now to entirely lift the eh-Brand’s death-heavy form, he half dragged her awkwardly in front of him across the grass.

Ashen with hunger and exhaustion and loss, he bore her to the nearest
aliantha
. There he laid her down. Under its holly-like leaves, the bush was thick with viridian treasure-berries. The Clave had proclaimed them poison; but after Marid had bitten Covenant,
aliantha
had brought the Unbeliever back from delirium. And that experience had not been lost on Sunder. He picked some of the fruit.

Linden held her breath, hoping he would eat.

He did not. Squatting beside Hollian, he tried to feed the berries between her rigid lips.

“Eat, love.” His voice was hoarse, veined and cracked like crumbling marble. “You have not eaten. You must eat.”

But the fruit only broke on her teeth.

Slowly he hunched over the pain of his fractured heart and began to cry.

Pain twisted Covenant’s face like a snarl as he moved to the Graveler’s side. But when he said, “Come on,” his voice was gentle. “We’re still too close to the Sunbane. We need to go farther in.”

For a long moment, Sunder shook with silent grief as if at last his mad will had failed. But then he scooped his arms under Hollian and lurched, trembling, to his feet. Tears streamed down his gray cheeks, but he paid them no heed.

Covenant gestured to the Giants and Linden. They joined him promptly. Together they turned to the southeast and started away from the river across the first hillsides.

Sunder followed them, walking like a mute wail of woe.

His need conflicted Linden’s reactions to the rich atmosphere of Andelain. As she and her friends moved among the Hills, sunshine lay like immanence on the slopes: balm filled the shade of the trees. With Covenant and the Giants, she ate
aliantha
from the bushes along their way; and the savor of the berries seemed to add a rare spice to her blood. The grass gave a blessing back to the pressure of her shoes, lifting her from stride to stride as if the very ground sought to encourage her forward. And beneath the turf, the soil and skeleton of Andelain were resonant with well-being, the good slumber of peace.

And birds, soaring like melody above the treetops, squabbling amicably among the branches. And small woodland animals, cautious of the company’s intrusion, but not afraid. And flowers everywhere, flowers without number—poppy, amaryllis, and larkspur—snapdragon, honeysuckle, and violet—as precise and numinous as poetry. Seeing them, Linden thought that surely her heart would burst with pleasure.

Yet behind her Sunder bore his lost love inward, as if he meant to lay her at the feet of Andelain itself and demand restitution. Carrying death into the arduously defended region, he violated its ambience as starkly as an act of murder.

Though Linden’s companions had no health-sense, they shared her feelings. Covenant’s visage worked unselfconsciously back and forth between leaping eagerness and clenched distress. Pitchwife’s eyes devoured each new vista, every added benison—and flicked repeatedly toward Sunder as if he were flinching. The First held an expression of stem acceptance and approval on her countenance; but her hand closed and unclosed around the handle of her sword. Only Vain and the Appointed cared nothing for Sunder.

Nevertheless the afternoon passed swiftly. Sustained by treasure-berries and gladness, and by rills that sparkled like liquid gem-fire across their path, Linden and her companions moved at Sunder’s pace among the copses and hillcrests. And then evening drew near. Beyond the western skyline, the sun set in grandeur, painting orange and gold across the heavens.

Still the travelers kept on walking. None of them wanted to stop.

When the last emblazonry of sunset had faded, and stars began to wink and smile through the deepening velvet of the sky, and the twittering communal clamor of the birds subsided, Linden heard music.

At first it was music for her alone, melody sung on a pitch of significance which only her hearing could reach. It sharpened the star-limned profiles of the trees, gave the light of the low, waning moon on the slopes and trunks a quality of etched and lovely evanescence. Both plaintive and lustrous, it wafted over the Hills as if it were singing them to beauty. Rapt with eagerness, Linden held her breath to listen.

Then the music became as bright as phosphorescence; and the company heard it. Covenant drew a soft gasp of recognition between his teeth.

Swelling and aching, the melody advanced. It was the song of the Hills, the incarnate essence of Andelain’s health. Every leaf, every petal, every blade of grass was a note in the harmony: every bough and branch, a strand of singing. Power ran through it—the strength which held back the Sunbane. But at the same time it was mournful, as stem as a dirge; and it caught in Linden’s throat like a sob.