White Gold Wielder

Linden trotted at his side. Her face was set with purpose now. Perhaps she had identified Hamako and the Waynhim from Covenant's descriptions of them. Or perhaps her percipience told her all she needed to know. When Covenant seemed to lag, she grasped his other arm and helped Cail draw him forward.

The Giants followed, pulling the sleds. Vain broke into a run to catch up with the company. Behind them, the Waynhim retreated from the greater numbers of the arghuleh.

In a moment, they reached Hamako. He greeted Covenant with a quick smile. “Well met, ring-wielder,” he said. “You are an unlooked-for benison in this waste.” Then at once he added, “Cornel” and swung away from the ring. Flanked by Waynhim, he ran into the maze of the menhirs.

Covenant's numb feet and heavy boots found no purchase on the snow-pack. Repeatedly, he slipped and stumbled as he tried to dodge after Hamako among the rocks. But Cail gripped his arm, upheld him. Linden moved with small quick strides which enabled her to keep her footing.

At the rear of the company, several Waynhim fought a delaying action against the arghuleh. But abruptly the ice-beasts gave up the chase as if they had been called back- as if whatever force commanded them did not want to risk sending them into ambush. Shortly, one of the grey, Demondim-made creatures spoke to Hamako; and he slowed his pace.

Covenant pushed forward to the man's side. Burning with memory and dread, he wanted to shout. Well met like hell! What in blood and damnation are you doing here? But he owed Hamako too much past and present gratitude. Instead, he panted, “Your timing's getting better. How did you know we needed you?”

Hamako grimaced at Covenant's reference to their previous meeting, when his rhysh had arrived too late to aid the ring-wielder. But he replied as if he understood the spirit of Covenant's gibe, “We did not.

“The tale of your departure from the Land is told among the Waynhim,” He grinned momentarily. “To such cunning watchers as they are, your passage from Revelstone to the Lower Land and Seareach was as plain as fire.” Swinging around another boulder into a broad avenue among the stones, he continued, “But we knew naught of your return. Our watch was set rather upon these arghuleh, that come massed from the north in defiance of all Law, seeking ruin. Witnessing them gather here, we sought to discover their purpose. Thus at last we saw you. Well that we did so-and that our numbers sufficed to aid you. The mustering-place of the rhysh is not greatly distant”- he gestured ahead- “but distant enough to leave you unsuccoured in your need.”

Listening hard Covenant grappled with his questions. But there were too many of them. And the cold bit into his lungs at every breath. With an effort of will, be concentrated on keeping his legs moving and schooled himself to wait.

Then the group left the region of jumbled monoliths and entered a wide, white plain that ended half a league away in an escarpment which cut directly across the vista of the south. Eddies of wind skirled up and down the base of the escarpment, raising loose snow like dervishes; and Hamako headed toward them as if they were the sign-posts of a sanctuary.

When Covenant arrived, weak-kneed and gasping for air, at the rock-strewn foot of the sheer rise, he was too tired to be surprised by the discovery that the snow-devils were indeed markers or sentinels of an eldritch kind. The Waynhim called out in their barking tongue; and the eddies obeyed, moving to stand like hallucinated columns OB either side of a line that led right into the face of the escarpment. There, without transition, an entrance appeared. It was wide enough to admit the company, but too low to let the Giants enter upright; and it opened into a tunnel warmly lit by flaming iron censers.

Smiling a welcome, Hamako said, “This is the mustering-place of the Waynhim, their rhyshyshim. Enter without fear, for here the ring-wielder is acknowledged, and the foes of the Land are withheld. In these tunes, there is no true safety anywhere. But here you will find reliable sanctuary for one more day-until the gathered rhysh come finally to their purpose. To me it has been, granted to speak for all Waynhim that share this Weird. Enter and be welcome.”

In response, the First bowed formally. “We do so gladly. Already your aid has been a boon which we are baffled to repay. In sharing counsel and stories and safety, we hope to make what return we may.”

Hamako bowed in turn; his eyes gleamed pleasure at her courtesy. Then he led the company down into the tunnel.

When Vain and the last of the Waynhim had passed inward, the entrance disappeared, again without transition, leaving in its place blunt, raw rock that sealed the company into the firelight and blissful warmth of the rhyshyshim.

At first Covenant hardly noticed that Findail had rejoined them. But the Appointed was there as if Vain's side were a post he had never deserted. His appearance drew a brief, muted chittering from the Waynhim; but then they ignored him as if he were simply a shadow of the black Demondim-spawn.

For a few moments, the tunnel was full of the wooden scraping of the sleds' runners. But when the companions reached a bulge in the passage like a rude antechamber, Hamako instructed the Giants to leave the sleds there, As the warmth healed Covenant's sore respiration, he thought that now Hamako would begin to ask the expected questions. But the man and the Waynhim bore themselves as if they had come to the end of all questions. Looking at Hamako more closely Covenant saw things which had been absent or less pronounced during their previous encounter-resignation, resolve, a kind of peace. Hamako looked like a man who had passed through a long grief and been annealed.

With a small jolt Covenant realized that Hamako was not dressed for winter. Only the worn swath of leather around his hips made him less naked than the Waynhim. In Vague fear Covenant wondered if the Stonedownor had truly become Waynhim himself? What did such a transformation mean?

And what in hell was this rhysh doing here?

His companions had less reason for apprehension. Pitchwife moved as if the Waynhim had restored his sense of adventure, his capacity for excitement. His eyes watched everything, eager for marvels. Warm air and the prospect of safety softened the First's iron sternness, and she walked with her hand lightly on her husband's shoulder, willing to accept whatever she saw. Honninscrave's thoughts were hidden beneath the concealment of his brows. And Mistweave—

At the sight of Mistweave's face Covenant winced. Too much had happened too swiftly. He had nearly forgotten the tormented moment of Mistweave's indecision. But the Giant's visage bore the marks of that failure like toolwork at the corners of his eyes, down the sides of his mouth-marks cut into the bone of his self esteem. His gaze turned away from Covenant's in shame.

Damn it to hell! Covenant rasped to himself. Is every one of us doomed?

Perhaps they all were. Linden walked at his side without looking at him, her mien pale and strict with the characteristic severity which he had learned to interpret as fear. Fear of herself-of her inherited capacity for panic and horror, which had proved once again that it could paralyze her despite every commitment or affirmation she made. Perhaps her reaction to the ambush of the arghuleh had restored her belief that she, too, was doomed.

It was unjust. She judged that her whole life had been a form of flight, an expression of moral panic. But in that she was wrong. Her past sins did not invalidate her present desire for good. If they did, then Covenant himself was damned as well as doomed, and Lord Foul's triumph was already assured.

Covenant was familiar with despair. He accepted it in himself. But he could not bear it in the people he loved. They deserved better.

Then Hamako's branching way through the rock turned a corner to enter a sizable cavern like a meeting hall; and Covenant's attention was pulled out of its galled channel.

The space was large and high enough to have held the entire crew of Starfare's Gem; but its rough walls and surfaces testified that the Waynhim had not been using it long. Yet it was comfortably well-lit. Many braziers flamed around the walls, shedding kind heat as well as illumination. For a moment Covenant found himself wondering obliquely why the Waynhim bothered to provide light at all, since they had no eyes. Did the fires aid their lore in some fashion? Or did they draw a simple solace from the heat or scent of the flames? Certainly the former habitation of Hamako's rhysh had been bright with warmth and firelight.

But Covenant could not remember that place and remain calm. And he had never seen so many Waynhim before: at least threescore of them slept on the bare stone, worked together around black metal pots as if they were preparing vitrim or invocations, or quietly waited for what they might learn about