But the need was indefeasible. His anger slowly tightened. He became rigid, clenched against the chills. Ire indistinguishable from pain or exhaustion shaped itself to the circle of his ring. The Sunstone had no life; the white gold had no life. He gave them his life. There was no other answer.
Cursing silently, he hammered his fist at the mud.
White light burst in the
He raised his fist, brandished fire like a promise of retribution against the Sunbane. Then he dropped the Sunstone. It went out; but his ring continued to spout flame. In a choking voice, he gasped, “Sunder!”
At once, the Graveller gave him a dead gorse-branch. He grasped the wet bark in his half-hand: his arm shook as he squeezed white flame into the wood. When he set it down, it was afire.
Sunder supplied more wood, then knelt to tend the weak fire. Covenant set flame to the second branch, to a third and fourth. Sunder fed the burning with leaves and twigs, blew carefully on the flames. After a moment, he announced, “It is enough.”
With a groan, Covenant let his mind fall blank, and the blaze of his ring plunged into darkness. Night closed over the copse, huddled around the faint yellow light and smoke of the fire.
Soon he began to feel heat on his face.
Sagging within himself, he tried to estimate the consequences of what he had done, measure the emotional umbrage of power.
Shortly, the Graveller recovered his sack of melons from the raft, and dealt out rations of
When she finished her meal, Linden threw the rinds away. Staring into the flames, she said remotely, “I don't think I can take another day of this.”
“Is there choice?” Fatigue dulled Sunder's eyes. He sat close to the heat, as if his bones were thirsty for warmth. “The ur-Lord aims toward Revelstone. Very well. But the distance is great. Refusing the aid of the River, we must journey afoot. To gain the Keep of the na-Mhoram would require many turnings of the moon. But I fear we would not gain it. The Sunbane is too perilous. And there is the matter of pursuit.”
The set of Linden's shoulders showed her apprehension. After a moment, she asked tightly, “How much longer?”
The Graveller sighed. “None can foretell the Sunbane,” he said in a dun voice. “It is said that in generations past each new sun shone for five and six, even as many as seven days. But a sun of four days is now uncommon. And with my own eyes I have beheld only one sun of less than three.”
“Two more days,” Linden muttered. “Dear God.”
For a while, they were silent. Then, by tacit agreement, they both arose to gather wood for the fire. Scouring the copse, they collected a substantial pile of brush and branches. After that, Sunder stretched out on the ground. But Linden remained sitting beside the fire. Slowly, Covenant noticed through his numbness that she was studying him.
In a tone that seemed deliberately inflectionless, she asked, “Why does it bother you to use your ring?”
His ague had abated, leaving only a vestigial chill along his bones. But his thoughts were echoes of anger. “It's hard.”
“In what way?” In spite of its severity, her expression said that she wanted to understand. Perhaps she needed to understand. He read in her a long history of self-punishment. She was a physician who tormented herself in order to heal others, as if the connection between the two were essential and compulsory.
To the complexity of her question, he gave the simplest answer he knew. “Morally.”
For a moment, they regarded each other, tried to define each other. Then, unexpectedly, the Graveller spoke. “There at last, ur-Lord,” he murmured, “you have uttered a word which lies within my comprehension.” His voice seemed to arise from the wet wood and the flames. 'You fear both strength and weakness, both power and lack of power. You fear to be in need-and to have your need answered. As do I.
“I am a Graveller — well acquainted with such fear. A Stonedown trusts the Graveller for its life. But in the name of that life, that trust, he must shed the blood of his people. Those who trust must be sacrificed to meet the trust. Thus trust becomes a matter of blood and death. Therefore I have fled my home”- the simple timbre of lament in his tone relieved what he said of any accusation — “to serve a man and a woman whom I cannot trust. I know not how to trust you, and so I am freed of the burden of trust. There is naught between us which would require me to shed your lives. Or to sacrifice my own.”
Listening to Sunder's voice and the fire, Covenant lost some of his fear. A sense of kinship came over him. This dour self-doubting Stonedownor had suffered so much, and yet had preserved so much of himself. After a long moment, Covenant chose to accept what Sunder was saying. He could not pay every price alone. “All right,” he breathed like the night breeze in the copse. “Tomorrow night you can start the fire.”
Quietly, Sunder replied, “That is well.”
Covenant nodded. Soon he closed his eyes. His weariness lowered him to the ground beside the fire. He wanted to sleep.
But Linden held his attention. “It isn't enough,” she said stiffly. “You keep saying you want to fight the Sunbane, but you can hardly light a fire. You might as well be afraid of rubbing sticks together. I need a better answer than that”
He understood her point. Surely the Sunbane-capable of torturing nature itself at its whim-could not be abrogated by anything as paltry as a white gold ring. He distrusted power because no power was ever enough to accomplish his heart's desires. To heal the world. Cure leprosy. Bridge the loneliness which thwarted his capacity for love. He made an effort not to sound harsh. “Then find one. Nobody else can do it for you.”
She did not respond. His words seemed to drive her back into her isolation. But he was too tired to contend with her. Already he had begun to fade. As she settled herself for the night, he rode the susurration of the River into sleep.
He awoke cramped and chilled beside a pile of dead embers. The stars had been effaced; and in the dawn, the rapid Mithil looked dark and cold, as fatal as sleet He did not believe he could survive another day in the water.
But, as Sunder had said, they had no choice. Shivering in dire anticipation, he awakened his companions. Linden looked pale and haggard, and her eyes avoided the River as if she could not bear to think about it. Together, they ate a scant breakfast, then stood on a boulder to face the dawn. As they had expected, the sun rose in a glow of blue, and menacing clouds began to pile out of the east. Sunder shrugged in resignation and went to retie his shrinking sack of melons to the raft
The companions launched the bundle of wood. The sting of the water burned Covenant's breath out of his lungs; but he fought the cold and the current and the weight of his boots with his old leper's intransigence, and survived the first shock.
Then the rain commenced. During the night, the River had become less violent; it had washed itself free of floating brush and trees and had risen above the worst of its turbulence. But the rain was more severe, had more wind behind it. Gusts drove the raindrops until they hit like flurries of hail. Torrents lashed into the water with a hot, scorching sound.
The downpour rapidly became torment for the companions. They could not escape from the sodden and insidious cold. From time to time, Covenant glimpsed a burst of lightning in the distance, rupturing the dark; but the unremitting slash of rain into the Mithil drowned out any thunder. Soon his muscles grew so leaden, his nerves so numb, that he could no longer grip the raft. He jammed his hand in among the branches, hooked his elbow over one of the bindings, and survived.
Somehow, the day passed. At last, a line of clear sky broke open along the east. Gradually, the rain and wind eased. More by chance than intent, the companions gained a small cove of gravel and sand in the west bank. As they drew their raft out of the water, Covenant's legs failed, and he collapsed face-down on the pebbles as if he would never be able to move again.
Linden panted, “Firewood.” He could hear the stumbling scrunch of her shoes. Sunder also seemed to be moving.
