White Gold Wielder

learn that I have been thinking about hope?

But Honninscrave had a different objection. “Aye, verily?”

he growled. He did not glance at Covenant. “And where now under all the Sunbane lies the 'worth and power' that you serve?”

“In you,” Covenant snapped back, too vexed by pain to be gentle. “In Sunder and Hollian. In the Haruchai.” He did not add, In Andelain. Honninscrave had never seen that last flower of the Land's loveliness. And he could not bring himself to say, In me. Instead, he continued, “When Foamfollower and I were together, I didn't have any power. I had the ring-but I didn't know how to use it. And I was trying to do exactly what Foul wanted. I was going to Foul's Creche. Walking right into the trap. Foamfollower helped me anyway.” The Giant had surrendered himself to agony in order to carry Covenant across the fierce lava of Hotash Slay. “Not because there was anything special or worthy or powerful about me, but simply because I was human and Foul was breaking my heart. That gave Foamfollower all the hope he needed.”

In the process, Covenant had caused the Giant's death. Only the restraint-he had learned in the cavern of the One Tree kept him from crying. Don't talk to me about despair! I'm going to destroy the world and there's nothing I can do about it! I need something better from you! Only that restraint and the tall dark shape of the Master as he stood against the stars, torn by loss and as dear as life.

But then Honninscrave turned as if he had heard the words Covenant had not uttered. His moon-gilt stance took on a curious kindness. Softly, he said, “You are the Giantfriend, and I thank you that there is yet room in your heart for me. No just blame attaches to you for Seadreamer's death-nor for the refusal of caamora with which by necessity you sealed his end. But I do not desire hope. I desire to see. I covet the vision which taught my brother to accept damnation in the name of what he witnessed.”

Quietly, he walked down from the hilltop, leaving Covenant exposed to the emptiness of the night.

In the cold silence, Covenant tried to confront his plight, wrestled for an escape from the logic of Lord Foul's manipulations. Revelstone was perhaps only three days away. But the wild magic had been poisoned, and venom collared all his dreams. He contained no more hope than the black gulf of the heavens, where the Worm of the World's End had already fed. Honninscrave's difficult grace did not feel like forgiveness. It felt as arduous as a grindstone, whetting the dark to a new sharpness. And he was alone.

Not because he lacked friends. In spite of the Land's destitution, it had blessed him with more friendship than he had ever known. No, he was alone because of his ring. Because no one else possessed this extreme power to ruin the Earth. And because he no longer had any right to it at all.

That was the crux, the conflict he could not resolve or avoid; and it seemed to cripple his sense of himself, taking his identity away. What did he have to offer the Land except wild magic and his stubborn passion? What else was he worth to his friends? — or to Linden, who would have to carry the burden as soon as he set it down? From the beginning, his life here had been one of folly and pain, sin and ill; and only wild magic had enabled him to make expiation. And now the Clave had reduced the village to relics. It had ensnared the Haruchai once more. The Sunbane had attained a period of two days. Seadreamer and Hergrom and Ceer and Harnako were dead. If he surrendered his ring now, as Findail and doom urged, how would he ever again be able to bear the weight of his own actions?

We are foemen, you and I, enemies to the end. But the end will be yours. Unbeliever, not mine. At the last there will be but one choice for you, and you will make it in all despair. Of your own volition you will give the white gold into my hand.

Covenant had no answer. In Andelain among the Dead, Mhoram had warned, He has said to you that you are his Enemy. Remember that he seeks always to mislead you. But Covenant had no idea what the former High Lord meant.

Around him, a dismay which no amount of moonlight could palliate gripped the hills. Unconsciously, he had sunk to the ground under the glinting accusation of the stars. Findail had said like the Despiser, He must be persuaded to surrender his ring. If he does not, it is certain that he will destroy the Earth. Covenant huddled into himself. He needed desperately to cry out and could not-needed to hurl outrage and frenzy at the blind sky and was blocked from any release by the staggering peril of his power. He had fallen into the Despiser's trap, and there was no way out.

When he beard feet ascending the hill behind him, he covered his face to keep himself from pleading abjectly for help.

He could not read the particular emanations of his companions. He did not know who was approaching him. Vaguely, he expected Sunder or Pitchwife. But the voice which sighed his name like an ache of pity or appeal was Linden's.

He lurched erect to meet her, though he had no courage for her concern, which he had not earned.

The moon sheened her hair as if it were clean and lovely. But her features were in shadow; only the tone of her voice revealed her mood. She spoke as if she knew how close he was to breaking.

As softly as a prayer, she breathed, “Let me try.”

At that, something in him did break. “Let you?” he fumed suddenly. He had no other way to hold back his grief. “I can hardly prevent you. If you're so all fired bloody eager to be responsible for the world, you don't need my permission. You don't even need the physical ring. You can use it from there. All you have to do is possess me.”

“Stop,” she murmured like an echo of supplication, “stop.” But his love for her had become anguish, and he could not call it back.

“It won't even be a new experience for you. It'll be just like what you did to your mother. The only difference is that I'll still be alive when you're done.”

Then he wrenched himself to a halt, gasping with the force of his desire to retract his jibe, silence it before it reached her, She raised her fists in the moonlight, and he thought she was going to start railing at him. But she did not. Her percipience must have made the nature of his distress painfully clear to her. For a long moment, she held up her arms as if she were measuring the distance a blow would have to travel to strike him. Then she lowered her bands. In a flat, impersonal tone that she had not used toward him for a long time, she said, “That isn't what I meant.”

“I know.” Her detachment hurt him more than rage. He was certain now that she would be able to make him weep if she wished. “I'm sorry.” His contrition sounded paltry in the sharp night, but he had nothing else to offer her. “I’ve come all this way, but I might as well have stayed in the cavern of the One Tree. I don't know how to face it.”

“Then let somebody try to help you.” She did not soften; but she refrained from attacking him. ”If not for yourself, do it for me. I'm right on the edge already. It is all I can do,” he articulated carefully, “to just look at the Sunbane and stay sane. When I see you suffering, I can't keep my grip.

“As long as I don't have any power, there's nothing I can do about Lord Foul. Or the Sunbane. So you're the only reason I've got. Like it or not. I'm here because of you. I'm fighting to stay in one piece because of you. I want to do something”- her fists rose again like a shout, but her voice remained fiat- “for this world-or against Foul-because of you. If you go on like this, I'll crack.” Abruptly, her control frayed, and pain welled up in her words like blood in a wound. “I need you to at least stop looking so much like my goddamn father.”

Her father, Covenant thought mutely. A man of such self-pity that he had cut his wrists and blamed her for it. You never loved me anyway. And from that atrocity had come the darkness which had maimed her life-the black moods, the violence she had enacted against her mother, the susceptibility to evil. Her instances of paralysis. Her attempt on Ceer's life.

Her protest wrung Covenant's heart. It showed him with stunning vividness how little he could afford to fail her. Any other hurt or dread was preferable. Instinctively, he made a new promise-another commitment to match all the others he had broken or kept.

“I don't know the answer,” he said, keeping himself quiet in fear that she would perceive how his life depended on what he was saying. “I don't know what I need. But I know what to do about the Clave.” He did not tell her what his nightmares had taught him. He did not dare. “When we're done there, I'll know more. One way or the other.”

She took him at his word. She had a severe need to trust him. If she did not, she would be forced to treat him as if he were as lost as her parents; and that alternative was plainly appalling to her. Nodding to herself, she folded her arms under her breasts and left the hilltop, went back to the shelter and scant warmth of the cave.