White Gold Wielder

Cail's native caution impelled him to rouse Linden; and when she had tasted the air, she sent the company scrambling for the sleds.

The moon was only three days past its full, and the sky remained clear. The First was able to find a path with relative ease. But she was held back by Pitchwife's exhaustion. He could not move faster than a walk without her support. And in an effort to shore up his strength, he had consumed so much diamondraught that he was not entirely sober. At intervals, he began to sing lugubriously under his breath, as though he were lunatic with fatigue. Somehow, the companions kept a safe distance between themselves and the arghuleh. But they were unable to increase their lead.

And when the sun rose over the wasted ice, they found themselves in worse trouble. They were coming to the end of the floe. During the night, they had entered a region where the ice to the south became progressively more broken as hunks snapped off and drifted away. Ahead of the First, the west became impassable. And beyond a wide area where icebergs were being spawned lay open water. She had no choice but to force her way up into the ragged ridge which separated the arctic glacier from the crumbling sheet of the floe.

There Covenant thought that she would abandon the sleds. He and Linden climbed out to make their way on foot; but that did not sufficiently lighten the loads Honninscrave and Mistweave were pulling. Yet none of the Giants faltered. Forging into a narrow valley which breached the ridge, they began to struggle toward the north and west, as if in spite of the exhaustion they now shared with Pitchwife they had not begun to be daunted Covenant marvelled at their hardiness; but he could do nothing to help them except strive to follow without needing help himself.

That task threatened to surpass him. Cold and lack of sleep sapped his strength. His numb feet were as clumsy as cripples. Several times, he had to catch himself on a sled so that he would not fall back down the valley. But Honninscrave or Mistweave bore the added burden without complaint until Covenant could regain his footing.

For some distance, the First's route seemed inspired or fortuitous. As the valley rose into the glacier, bending crookedly back and forth between north and west, its bottom remained passable. The companions were able to keep moving.

Then they gained the upper face of the glacier and their path grew easier. Here the ice was as rugged as a battleground-pressure-splintered and wind-tooled into high fantastic shapes, riddled with fissures, marked by strange channels and hollows of erosion-and the company had to wend still farther north to find a path. Yet with care the First was able to pick a passage which did not require much strength. And as the companions left the area of the glacier's run, they were able to head once again almost directly westward.

Giddy with weariness and cold and the ice-glare of the sun, Covenant stumbled on after the sleds. A pace or two to his side. Linden was in little better condition. Diamondraught and exertion could not keep the faint, fatal hint of blue from her lips; and her face looked as pallid as bone. But her clenched alertness and the stubborn thrust of her strides showed that she was not yet ready to fall.

For more than a league, with the air rasping his lungs and fear at his back Covenant followed the lead of the Giants. Somehow, he did not collapse.

But then everything changed. The First's route was neither inspired nor fortuitous: it was impossible. Balanced unsteadily on locked knees, his heart trembling Covenant looked out from the edge of the cliff where the company had stopped. There was nothing below him but the bare, black sea.

Without forewarning, the company had reached the western edge of the glacier.

Off to the left was the jagged ridge which separated the main ice-mass from the lower floe. But elsewhere lay nothing but the endless north and the cliff and the grue-bitten sea.

Covenant did not know how to bear it. Vertigo blew up at him like a wind from the precipice, and his knees folded.

Pitchwife caught him. “No,” the deformed Giant coughed. His voice seemed to snag and strangle deep in his throat “Do not despair. Has this winter made you blind?” Rough with fatigue, he jerked Covenant upright. 'Look before you. It needs not the eyes of a Giant to behold this hope.”

Hope, Covenant sighed into the silence of his whirling head. Ah, God. I'd hope if I knew how.

But Pitchwife's stiff grasp compelled him. Groping for balance, he opened his eyes to the cold.

For a moment, they would not focus. But then he found the will to force his gaze clear.

There he saw it: distinct and unattainable across half a league of the fatal sea, a thin strip of land.

It stretched out of sight to north and south.

“As I have said,” Honninscrave muttered, “our charts hold no certain knowledge of this region. But mayhap it is the coast of the Land which lies before us.”

Something like a madman's laughter rose in Covenant's chest “Well, good for us.” The Despiser would certainly be laughing. “At least now we can look at where we want to go while we're freezing to death or being eaten by arghuleh.” He held the mirth back because he feared it would turn to weeping.

“Covenant!” Linden said sharply-a protest of empathy or apprehension.

He did not look at her. He did not look at any of them. He hardly listened to himself. “Do you call this hope?”

“We are Giants,” the First responded. Her voice held an odd note of brisk purpose. 'Dire though this strait appears, we will wrest life from it.”

Mutely, Honninscrave stripped off his sark, packed it into one of the bundles on his sled. Mistweave dug out a long coil of heavy rope, then followed the Master's example.

Covenant stared at them. Linden panted, “Do you mean-?” Her eyes flared wildly. “We won't last eight seconds in water that cold!”

The First cast a gauging look down the cliff. As she studied the drop, she responded, “Then our care must suffice to ward you.”

Abruptly, she turned back to the company. Indicating Honninscrave's sled, she asked Cail, “Does this weight and the Giantfriend's surpass your strength?”

Cail's flat mien suggested disdain for the question as he shook his head.

“The ice affords scant footing,” she warned.

He regarded her expressionlessly. “I will be secure.”

She gave him a firm nod. She had learned to trust the Haruchai. Returning to the rim, she said, “Then let us not delay. The arghuleh must not come upon us here.”

A prescient nausea knotting his guts Covenant watched Honninscrave tie one end of the rope to the rear of his sled. The Giant's bare back and shoulders steamed in the sharp air, but he did not appear to feel the cold.

Before Covenant could try to stop her, the First sat down on the edge, braced herself, and dropped out of sight Linden's gasp followed her away.

Fighting dizziness, he crouched to the ice and crept forward until he could look downward.

He arrived in time to see the First hit heavily into the sea. For an instant, white froth marked the water as if she were gone for good. Then she splashed back to the surface, waved B salute up at the company.

Now he noticed that the cliff was not sheer. Though it was too smooth to be climbed, it angled slightly outward from rim to base. And it was no more than two hundred feet high. Honninscrave's rope looked long enough to reach the water.

From the edge, Pitchwife grimaced down at his wife. “Desire me good fortune.” he murmured. Weariness ached in his tone. “I am ill made for such valours.” Yet he did not falter. In a moment, he was at the First's side, and she held him strongly above the surface.

No one spoke Covenant locked his teeth as if any word might unleash the panic crowding through him. Linden hugged herself and stared at nothing. Honninscrave and Mistweave were busy lashing their supplies more securely to the sleds. When they were done. the Master went straight to the cliff; but Mistweave paused beside Linden to reassure her. Gently, he touched her shoulder, smiled like a reminder of the way she had saved his life. Then he followed Honninscrave.

Covenant and Linden were left on the glacier with Cail, Vain, and the Appointed.

Gripping the rope, Cail nodded Covenant toward the sled.

Oh, hell! Covenant groaned. Vertigo squirmed through him. What if his hold failed? And what made the Giants think these sleds would float? But he had no choice. The arghuleh must be