White Gold Wielder

and malleable children of Mount Thunder's gutrock, and Lord Foul had mastered them long ago. They could hardly hope to come between Covenant and the Despiser. Though the way to it was hard, his purpose was safe.

But in a small clear space against one wall sat Linden. He saw her with the precision of his fear. Her right shoulder leaned on the stone. With her arms, she hugged her knees to her chest like a lorn child. Her head was bowed; her hair had fallen forward, hiding her face. But the side of her neck was bare. It gleamed, pale and vulnerable, in the red-orange illumination.

Black against the pallor, dried blood marked her skin. It led in a crusted trail from behind her left ear down to the collar of her shirt.

She, too-! A tremor of grief went through him. She, too, had been made to match the physical condition of the body she had left behind in the woods behind Haven Farm. They did not have much time left.

He would have cried out, if he had possessed the strength. Not much time-and to spend it like this! He wanted to hold her in his arms, make her understand that he loved her-that no death or risk of ruin could desecrate what she meant to him. Lena had once tried to comfort him by singing. The soul in which the flower grows survives. He wanted—

But perhaps the blow she had been struck had been harder than either of them had realized, and she also was about to die. Killed like Seadreamer because she had tried to save him. And even if she did not die, she would believe that she had lost him to despair. In Andelain, EIena had told him to Care for her. So that in the end she may heal us all. He had failed at that as at so many other things.

Linden. He tried to say her name, but no sound came. A spasm of remorse twisted his face, made his bruises throb. Ignoring the pain, the fathomless ache of his exhaustion, he levered his elbows under him and strove to pry his weakness off the stone.

A rough kick pitched him onto his back, closer to the mound of bones. Gasping, he looked up into the leer of a Cavewight.

“Be still, accursed!” the creature spat. 'Punishment comes. Punishment and apocalypse! Do not hasten it.”

Cavorting grotesquely on his gangly limbs, he resumed his muttering and danced away.

Covenant wrestled for breath and squirmed onto his side to look toward Linden again.

She was facing him now, had turned toward him when the Cavewight spoke. Her visage was empty of blood, of hope. The gaze she cast at him, was stark with abuse and dumb pleading. Her hands clasped each other uselessly. Her eyes seemed as dark and hollow as wounds.

She must have looked like that when she was a child, locked in the attic with her father while he died.

He fought for his voice, croaked her name through the manifold invocation of the Cavewights. But she did not appear to hear him. Slowly, she dropped her head, lowered her gaze to the failure of her hands.

He could not go to her. He hardly knew where he might find enough strength to stand. And the Cavewights would not let him move. He had no way to combat them except with his ring-the wild magic he could not use. He and she were prisoners completely. And there was no name that either of them might call upon for rescue..

No name except the Despiser's.

Covenant hoped like madness that Lord Foul would act quickly.

But perhaps Lord Foul would not act. Perhaps he permitted the Cavewights to work their will, hoping that Covenant would once again be forced to power. Perhaps he did not understand-was incapable of understanding-the certainty of Covenant's refusal.

The throaty chant of the Cavewights was changing: the incessant various repetitions were shifting toward unison. One creature started a slightly sharper inflection, a more specific cadence; and his immediate neighbours fell into rhythm with him. Cavewight by Cavewight, the unison spread until the invoked name took Covenant by surprise, jolted alarm through him.

He knew that name.

Drool Rockworm.

More than three millennia ago. Drool Rockworm of the Cavewights had recovered the lost Staff of Law-and had conceived a desire to rule the Earth. But he had been too unskilled in lore to master what he had found. In seduction or folly, he had turned to the Despiser for knowledge. And Lord Foul had used the Cavewight for his own purposes.

Drool Rockworm.

First he had persuaded Drool to summon Covenant, luring the Cavewight with promises of white gold. Then he had snatched Covenant away, sent the Unbeliever instead to the Council of Lords. And the Lords had responded by challenging Drool's power. Sneaking into the Wightwarrens, they had taken the Staff from him, had called down the Fire-Lions of Mount Thunder to destroy him.

Thus armed, they had thought themselves victorious. But they had only played into the Despiser's bands. They had rid him of Drool, thereby giving him access to the terrible bane he desired-the Illearth Stone. And from that time forward the Cavewights had been forced to serve him like puppets.

Drool Rockworm.

The name vibrated like add in the air. The rocklight throbbed. All the Cavewights held themselves still. Their laval eyes focused on what they were invoking.

Beside Covenant, an eerie glow began to leak from the mound of bones. Sick red flames licked like swamp- fire around the pile. Fragments of bone seemed to waver and melt as if they were passing into hallucination.

Suddenly, he no longer believed that these creatures served the Despiser.

Drool Rockworm!

“Covenant.” Linden's voice reached between the beats of the name. She had come out of herself, drawn by what the Cavewights were doing. “There's something- ” Fiercely, she struggled to master her despair. “They're bringing it to life.”

Covenant winced in dismay. But he did not doubt her. The Law that protected the living had been broken. Any horror might now be summoned past the barrier of death, given the will-and the power. The mound squirmed with fires and gleamings like a monstrous cocoon, decay and dust in the throes of birth.

Then one of the Cavewights moved. He strode across the chant toward Covenant. “Rise, accursed,” he demanded. His eyes were as feral as his grin. “Rise for blood and torment”

Covenant stared whitely up at him, did not obey.

“Rise!” the creature raged. With one spatulate hand, he grabbed Covenant's arm and nearly dislocated it yanking him to his feet.

Covenant bit down panic and pain. “You're going to regret this!” He had to shout to make himself heard. The invocation pounded in his chest “Foul wants me! Do you think you can defy him and get away with it?”

“Hal” barked the Cavewight as if he were close to ecstasy. “We are too wily! He does not know us. We have learned. Learned. Him so wise.” For an instant, all the voices shared his contempt. Drool Rockworm! “He is blind. Believes we have not found you.” The creature spat wildness instead of laughter.

Then he wrenched Covenant around to face the mound. Linden groaned Covenant's name. He heard a thud as one of the creatures silenced her. His arm was gripped by fingers that knew how to break stone.

Flames began to writhe like ghouls across the mound, casting anguish toward the roof of the cave.

“Witness!” the Cavewight grated. “The Wightbarrow!”

The invocation took on a timbre of lust.

“We have served and served. Forever we have served. Chattel. Fodder. Sacrifice. And no reward. Do this. Do that Dig. Run. Die. No reward. None!

“Now he pays. Punishment and apocalypse.

The Cavewights’ virulence staggered Covenant. The muscles of his arm were being crushed. But he shut his mind to everything else. Groping for a way to save Linden's life if not his own, he protested hoarsely, “How? He's the Despiser He’ll tear your hearts out!”

But the Cavewights were beyond fear. “Witness!” Covenant's captor repeated. “See it Fire. Life! The Wightbarrow of Drool Rockworm!”

Drool Rockworm, hammered the chant. Drool Rockworm! “From the dead. We have learned. Bloodshed. Sunbane. Law broken. The blood of the accursed!” He almost capered in his exultation. “You!”

His free hand clasped a long spike of rock like a dagger.