White Gold Wielder

doom of the Land is upon your shoulders. Through eyes and ears and touch, you are made to be what the Despiser requires. Once she had pleaded with Covenant, You've got to get me out of here. Before they make me kill you.

But she did not plead now or seek to shirk the consequences of her choices. Her voice sounded dull and stunned; yet she accepted Covenant's demands. “It's hard,” she murmured. “Hard to see past the Banefire. It wants me-wants to throw me at the sun. Throw me at the sun forever.” Fear glazed her eyes as if that cast had already begun. “It's hard to see anything else.” However, a moment later she frowned. Her gaze sharpened. “But Gibbon isn't there. Not there. He's still in the main Keep. And I don't feel anything else.” When she looked at Covenant again, she appeared as severe as she had at their first meeting. 'I don't think they've ever used the tower.”

A surge of relief started up in Covenant, but he fought it down. He could not afford that either. It blunted his control, let hints of blackness leak through his mind. Striving to match her, he muttered, 'Then let's go. With Nom and Linden, Call and Fole, he walked into the tunnel; and his companions followed him like echoes.

As he traversed the passage, be instinctively hunched his shoulders, bracing himself against the attack he still expected from the ceiling of the tunnel. But no attack came. Linden had read the tower accurately. Soon he stood in the courtyard. The sun shone before him on the high, buttressed face of the Keep and on the massive inner gates.

Those stone slabs were notched and bevelled and balanced so that they could open outward smoothly and marry exactly when they closed. They were heavy enough to rebuff any force of which their makers had been able to conceive. And they were shut, interlocking with each other like teeth. The lines where they hinged and met were barely distinguishable.

“I have said it,” the First breathed behind Covenant. “The Unhomed wrought surpassingly well in this place.”

She was right; the gates looked ready to stand forever.

Suddenly, Covenant became urgent for haste. If he did not find an answer soon. he would go up like tinder and oil. The sun had not yet reached mid-morning; and the shaft of the Banefire stood poised above him like a scythe titanic and bloody enough to reap all the life of the world. Sunder's hands clutched the krill and his orcrest, holding them ready; but he looked strangely daunted by the great Keep, by what it meant and contained. For the first time in the ordeal of the Search, Pitchwife seemed vulnerable to panic, capable of flight. Linden's skin was the colour of ashes. But Honninscrave held his fists clinched at his sides as if he knew he was close to the reasons for Seadreamer's death and did not mean to wait for them much longer.

Covenant groaned to himself. He should have begun his attack last night, while most of his friends slept. He was sick of guilt.

With a fervid sweep of his arm, he sent Nom at the gates.

The Sandgorgon seemed to understand instinctively. In three strides, it reached full speed.

Hurtling forward like a juggernaut, it crashed headlong against the juncture of the clenched slabs.

The impact boomed across the courtyard, thudded in Covenant's lungs, rebounded like a cannonade from the tower. The stones underfoot shivered; a vibration like a wail ran through the abutments. The spot Nom struck was crushed and dented as if it were formed of wood.

But the gates stood.

The beast stepped back as if it were astonished. It turned its head like a question toward Covenant But an instant later it rose up in the native savagery of all Sandgorgons and began to beat at the gates with the staggering might of its arms.

Slowly at first, then more and more rapidly, the beast struck, one sledgehammer arm and then the other in accelerating sequence, harder and faster, harder and faster, until the courtyard was full of thunder and the stone yowled distress. He was responsible for this-and still the gates held, bore the battery. Chips and splinters spat in all directions; granite teeth screamed against each other; the flagstones of the court seemed to ripple and dance. Still the gates held.

To herself, Linden whimpered as if she could feel every blow in her frangible bones.

Covenant started to shout for Nom to stop. He did not understand what the Sandgorgon was doing. The sight of such an attack would have rent Mhoram's heart But an instant later he heard the rhythm of Nom's blows more clearly, heard how that pulse meshed with the gutrock's protesting retorts and cries; and he understood. The Sandgorgon had set up a resonance in the gates, and each impact increased the frequency and amplitude of the vibrations. If the beast did not falter, the slabs might be driven to tear themselves apart.

Abruptly, red fire poured down off the abutment immediately above the gates. Riders appeared brandishing their rukhs: four or five of them. Wielding the Banefire together, they were more mighty than an equal number of individuals; and they shaped a concerted blast to thrust Nom back from the gates.

But Covenant was ready for them. He had been expecting something like this, and his power was hungry for utterance, for any release that would ease the strain within him. Meticulous with desperation, he put out wild magic to defend the Sandgorgon.

His force was a sickening mixture of blackness and argence, mottled and leprous. But it was force nonetheless, fire capable of riving the heavens. It covered the Riders, melted their rukhs to slag, then pitched them back into the Keep with their robes aflame.

Nom went on hammering at the gates in a transport of destructive ecstasy as if it had finally met an obstacle worthy of it.

Honninscrave quivered to hurl himself forward; but the First restrained him He obeyed her like a man who would soon be beyond reach of any command.

Then Nom struck a final blow-struck so swiftly that Covenant did not see how the blow was delivered. He saw only the small still fraction of time as the gates passed from endurance to rupture. They stood-and the change came upon them like the last inward suck of air before the blast of a hurricane-and then they were gone, ripped apart in a wrench of detonation with fragments whining like agony in all directions and stone-powder billowing so thickly that Nom disappeared and the broken mouth of Revelstone was obscured.

Slowly, the high, wide portal became visible through the dust. It was large enough for Coursers, suitable for Giants, But the Sandgorgon did not reappear Covenant's stunned ears were unable to pick out the slap of Nom's feet as the beast charged alone into the stone city.

“Oh my God,” Linden muttered over and over again, “oh my God.” Pitchwife breathed, “Stone and Sea!” as if he had never seen a Sandgorgon at work before. Hollian's eyes were full of fear. But Sunder had been taught violence and killing by the Clave, had never learned to love Revelstone: his face was bright with eagerness.

Half deafened by the pain of the stone Covenant entered the Keep because now he had no choice left but to go forward or die. And he did not know what Nom would do to the city. At a wooden run, he crossed the courtyard and passed through the dust into Revelstone as if he were casting the die of his fate.

Instantly, his companions arranged themselves for battle and followed him. He was only one stride ahead of Call, two ahead of the First, Linden, and Honninscrave, as he broached the huge forehall of the na-Mhoram's Keep.

It was as dark as a pit.

He knew that hall; it was the size of a cavern. It had been formed by Giants to provide a mustering-space for the forces of the former Lords. But the sun angled only a short distance into the broken entrance; and some trick of the high stone seemed to absorb the light; and there was no other illumination.

Too late, he understood that the forehall had been prepared to meet him.

With a crash, heavy wooden barriers slammed shut across the entryway. Sudden midnight echoed around the company.

Instinctively, Covenant started to release a blaze from his ring. Then he yanked it back. His fire was entirely black now, as corrupt as poison. It shed no more light than the scream that swelled against his self-control, threatening to tear his throat and split Revelstone asunder.

For an instant like a seizure, no one moved or spoke. The things they could not see seemed to paralyze even the First and the Haruchai. Then Linden panted, “Sunder.” Her voice shook wildly; she sounded like a madwoman. “Use the krill. Use it now.”

Covenant tried to swing toward her. What is it? What do you see? But his imprecise ears missed her position