White Gold Wielder

Covenant.

“Hear you?” Gibbon went on, raising his voice so that it contaminated every comer of the great Hall. “You are all fools, and you will not lift finger or flame against me. You will do naught but grovel at my whim or die. You are beaten, Unbeliever. You fear to destroy that which you love. Your love is cowardice, and you are beaten.”

Covenant's throat closed as if he were choking on smoke.

“And you. Linden Avery.” The na-Mhoram's raw contempt filled the air. “Knowing my touch, you have yet dared me again. And this you name victory to yourself, thinking that such folly expiates your rooted evil. You conceive that we have misesteemed you, that you have put aside Despite. But your belief is anile. You have not yet tasted the depths of your Desecration.

“Hear you all?” he cried suddenly, exalted by malice. “You are damned beyond description, and I will feast upon your souls.”

Torn between outrage and visceral horror, Linden made whimpering noises between her teeth. She had come this far because she loved Covenant and loathed evil; but Gibbon appalled her in every nerve and fiber of her being. Her face was as pale as a gravestone; her eyes stared like wounds Covenant had gone numb to everything else; but he was still aware of her. He knew what was happening to her. She was being ripped apart by her desire for the power to crush Gibbon-to extirpate him as if he were the part of herself she most hated.

If she did that, if she took hold of Covenant's fire and wielded it for herself, she would be lost. The inheritance of her parents would overcome her. Destroying Gibbon, she would shape herself in his image, affirm the blackness which had twisted her life.

That at least Covenant could spare her. And the moment had come. He was caught in the throes of a rupture so fundamental and puissant that it might tear Time asunder. If he did not act now, his control would be gone.

Deliberately, desperately, he started forward as if he did not realize that he had gone past the brink.

At once. Gibbon lifted his crozier higher, gripped it more tightly. His eyes spat red. “Bethink you. Unbeliever!” he snapped. “You know not what you do! Consider your hands.”

Involuntarily, Covenant looked down at them, at the krill-cuts across the insides of his fingers.

His severed flesh gaped, exposing bone. But the cuts were not bleeding. Instead, they oozed an essence of leprosy and venom. The very fluid in his veins had become corruption.

Yet he was prepared for this. His chosen path had brought him here. It was foretold by dreams. And he had already caused the shattering of Revelstone's gates, already brought immeasurable damage into the Keep. More harm would not alter his doom.

The scars on his forearm shone black fury. Like poison and flame, he strode onto the mosaic toward Gibbon.

“Fool!” the na-Mhoram cried. A grimace of fear betrayed his face. “You cannot oppose me! The Banefire surpasses you! And if it does not, I will possess your Linden Avery. Will you slay her also?” Covenant heard Gibbon. He understood the threat. But he did not stop.

Suddenly, the Raver sent a blast of fire toward Honninscrave; and Covenant erupted to protect the Master.

Erupted as if his heart could no longer contain the magma of his power.

Flame as dark and fathomless as an abyss shouted across the glittering surface of the mosaic, rebounded among the pillars, echoed off the high ceiling. Soulless force ripped Gibbon's blast from the air, scattered it in tatters, rose on and on with a deafening vehemence, trumpeting for the Raver's life. His hands lifted in front of him with the palms outward like an appeal for peace; but from his sliced fingers wild magic streamed, venomous and fatal. All his flesh had turned black; his bones were ebon and diseased. The only pure things about him were the stark circle of his ring and the quality of his passion.

The na-Mhoram retreated a step or two, held up his crozier with vermeil frenzy wailing from its triangle. Fire hot enough to incinerate stone crashed at Covenant. The concentrated ferocity of the Banefire seemed to scorch straight into his vitals. But he went forward through it.

That Gibbon had slaughtered the people of the Land to feed the Banefire and the Sunbane. That he had taught rites of bloodshed to those who survived, so that they slew each other in order to live. That he had filled Revelstone itself with such pollution. Blast and counter-blast, Honninscrave struggling uselessly again. Cad hauling Linden out of the terrible concussion of powers with screams in her eyes too acute for paralysis and precious artefacts falling like faggots. That he had torn the forehall with Grim- fire and had sent his innocent servants to compel their own butchery from the company. That he had so appalled Linden that she believed the legacy of her parents. That he had brought his violence here, requiring Covenant to spend the Land's treasured past as tinder.

Gibbon's crozier channelled so much might from the Banefire, so much force and rage, that Covenant nearly wept at the ruin it wrought, the price it exacted from him. Under his boots, the coloured pieces of the mosaic caught fire, became as brilliant and incandescent as prophecy. He trod an image of the Landwaster's heart as if that were where his own path led.

Erect and benighted in the core of his infernal power, he tried to advance on the na-Mhoram.

And failed.

Air and light ceased to exist. Every precious thing near his blaze burned away. The nearby columns began to melt:.

the floor of the Hall rippled on the verge of dissolution. More force than ever before in his life coursed from him and slammed at Gibbon. The essential fabric of the Earth's existence trembled as if the last wind had begun to blow.

Yet he failed.

Lord Foul had planned well, prepared well. Gibbon-Raver was cornered and could not flee, and so he did not falter. And the Banefire was too strong. Centuries of bloodshed had produced their intended fruit; and Gibbon fed it to Covenant, thrust it morsel by bitter morsel between his unwilling teeth. The Banefire was not stronger than he was; it was simply stronger than he dared to be. Strong enough to withstand any assault which did not also crumble the Arch of Time.

At the taste of that knowledge Covenant felt his death closing around him, and his despair grew wild. For a long moment with red fury blazing at him like the sun, he wanted to cry out, scream, howl so that the heavens would hear him, No! NO!

Hear him and fall.

But before the weaving of the world could tear, he found he knew that answer also. To bear what must be borne. After all, it was endurable-if he chose to go that far, and the choice was not taken from him. Certainly it would be expensive. It would cost him everything. But was that not preferable to a Ritual of Desecration which would make Kevin's look like an act of petty spite? Was it not?

After a time, he said softly. Yes. And again, Yes. Accepting it fully for the first time. You are the wild magic. Yes.

With the last ragged fragments of his will, he pulled himself back from the brink of cataclysm. He could not quench the blackness-and if he did not quench it soon, it would kill him. The venom was eating away his life. But not yet. His face was stretched and mortal with unutterable pain; but he had accepted it. Turning away from Gibbon, he walked off the mosaic.

As he looked toward Linden and Call to beg their forgiveness, Nom burst into the Hall of Gifts with the First in fierce pursuit.

She wrenched to a halt when she saw the wreckage of the Hall, the extent of Covenant's desperation; then she went swiftly to join Cail and Linden. But the Sandgorgon shot toward the na-Mhoram as if the beast at last had located its perfect prey.

Flashing past Covenant, pounding across the mosaic, Nom crashed into the red heart of Gibbon's power.

And was catapulted away over Honninscrave's head like a flung child. Even a Sandgorgon was a small thing to pit against the force of the Banefire.

But Nom understood frustration and fury, effort and destruction. It did not understand fear or defeat. Surely the beast recognized the sheer transcendence of Gibbon's might. But Nom did not therefore desist or flee. Instead,