White Gold Wielder

“You remember Kasreyn.” A wry quirk twisted the comer of his mouth. “How could you forget? Well, he talked quite a bit while he was trying to break me out of that silence. He told me that he used pure materials and pure arts, but he couldn't create anything pure. In a flawed world purity cannot endure. Thus within each of my works I must perforce place one small flaw, else there would be no work at all. That was why he wanted my ring. He said, 'It's imperfection is the very paradox of which the Earth is made, and with it a master may form perfect works and fear nothing.' If you look at it that way, an alloy is an imperfect metal.”

As he spoke, he turned from her slowly, not to avoid her gaze, but to look at the fundamental reassurance of his reflection in the tarn. “Well, I'm a kind of alloy. Foul has made me exactly what he wants-what he needs. A tool he can use to perfect his freedom. And destroy the Earth in the process.

“But the question is my freedom, not his. We've talked about the necessity of freedom. I've said over and over again that he can't use a tool to get what he wants. If he's going to win, he has to do it through the choices of his victims. I've said that.” He glanced at her as if he feared how she might react. “I believed it. But I'm not sure it's true anymore. I think alloys transcend the normal strictures. If I really am nothing more than a tool now, Foul can use me any way he wants, and there won't be anything we can do about it.”

Then he faced her again, cocked his fists on his hips. “But that I don't believe. I don't believe I'm anybody's tool. And I don't think Foul can win through the kinds of choices any of us has been making. The kind of choice is crucial. The Land wasn't destroyed when I refused Mhoram's summons for the sake of a snake-bitten kid. It isn't going to be destroyed just because Foul forced me to choose between my own safety and Joan's. And the opposite is true, too. If I'm the perfect tool to bring down the Arch of Time, then I'm also the perfect tool to preserve it. Foul can't win unless I choose to let him.”

His surety was so clear that Linden almost believed him. Yet within herself she winced because she knew he might be wrong. He had indeed spoken often of the importance of freedom. But the Elohim did not see the world's peril in those terms. They feared for the Earth because Sun-Sage and ring-wielder were not one-because he had no percipience to guide his choices and she had no power to make her choices count. And if he had not yet seen the full truth of Lord Foul's machinations, he might choose wrongly despite his lucid determination.

But she did not tell him what she was thinking. She would have to find her own answer to the trepidation of the Elohim. And her fear was for him rather than for herself. As long as he loved her, she would be able to remain with him. And as long as she was with him, she would have the chance to use her health- sense on his behalf. That was all she asked: the opportunity to try to help him, redeem the harm of her past mistakes and failures. Then if he and the Land and the Earth were lost, she would have no one to blame but herself.

The responsibility frightened her. It implied an acknowledgment of the role the Elohim had assigned to her, an acceptance of the risk of Gibbon's malign promise. You are being forged- But there had been other promises also Covenant had avowed that he would never cede his ring to the Despiser. And the old man on Haven Farm had said. You will not fail, however he may assail you. For the first time, she took comfort in those words.

Covenant was looking at her intently, waiting for her response. After a moment, she pursued the thread of his explanation.

“So he can't break you. And you can't fight him. What good is a stalemate?”

At that, he smiled harshly. But his reply took a different direction than she had expected. “When I saw Mhoram in Andelain”- his tone was as direct as courage- “he tried to warn me. He said, “It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares, and life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other. When you have come to the crux, and have no other recourse, remember the paradox of white gold. There is hope in contradiction.” By degrees, his expression softened, became more like the one for which she was insatiable. “I don't think there's going to be any stalemate.”

She returned his smile as best as she could, trying to emulate him in the same way that he strove to match the ancient Lord who had befriended him.

She hoped he would take her in his arms again. She wanted that, regardless of the Sunbane. She could bear the violation of the desert sun for the sake of his embrace. But as they gazed at each other, she heard a faint, strange sound wafting over the upland hills-a high run of notes, as poignant as the tone of a flute. But it conveyed no discernible melody. It might have been the wind singing among the barren rocks.

Covenant jerked up his head, scanned the hillsides “The last time I heard a flute up here-” He had been with Elena; and the music of a flute had presaged the coming of the man who had told him that his dreams were true.

But this sound was not music. It cracked on a shrill note and fell silent. When it began again, it was clearly a flute-and clearly being played by someone who did not know how. Its lack of melody was caused by simple ineptitude.

It came from the direction of Revelstone.

The tone cracked again; and Covenant winced humorously. “Whoever's playing that thing needs help,” he muttered. “And we ought to go back anyway. I want to settle things and get started today.”

Linden nodded. She would have been content to spend a few days resting in Revelstone; but she was willing to do whatever he wanted. And she would, be able to enjoy her scrubbed skin and clean hair better in the Keep, protected from the Sunbane. She took his band, and together they climbed out of the basin of the tarn.

From the hilltop, they heard the flute more accurately. It sounded like its music had been warped by the desert sun.

The plains beyond the plateau looked flat and ruined to the horizons, all life hammered out of them; nothing green or bearable lifted its head from the upland dirt. Yet Glimmermere's water and the shape of the hills seemed to insist that life was still possible here, that in some stubborn way the ground was not entirely wasted.

However, the lower plains gave no such impression. Most of the river evaporated before it reached the bottom of Furl Falls; the rest disappeared within a stone's throw of the cliff. The sun flamed down at Linden as if it were calling her to itself. Before they reached the flat wedge of the plateau which contained Revelstone, she knew that her determination to stand by him would not prove easy. In the bottom of her heart lurked a black desire for the power to master the Sunbane, make it serve her. Every moment of the sun's touch reminded her that she was still vulnerable to desecration.

But by the time they rejoined Cail at the city's entrance, they could hear that the fluting came from the tip of the promontory overlooking the watchtower. By mute agreement, they walked on down the wedge; and at the Keep's apex they found Pitchwife. He sat with his legs over the edge, facing eastward. The deformation of his spine bent him forward. He appeared to be leaning toward a fall.

His huge hands held a flute to his mouth as if he were wrestling with it-as if he thought that by sheer obstinate effort he would be able to wring a dirge from the tiny instrument.

At their approach, he lowered the flute to his lap, gave them a wan smile of habit rather than conviction. “Earthfriend,” he said; and his voice sounded as frayed and uncertain as the notes he had been playing. “It boons me to behold you again and whole. The Chosen has proven and reproven her worth for all to see-and yet has survived to bring her beauty like gladness before me.” He did not glance at Linden. “But I had thought that you were gone from us altogether.”

Then his moist gaze wandered back to the dry, dead terrain below him. “Pardon me that I have feared for you. Fear is born in doubt, and you have not merited my doubt.” With an awkward movement, like suppressed violence, he indicated the flute. “The fault is mine. I can find no music in this instrument.”

Instinctively, Linden went to stand behind the Giant, placed her hands on his shoulders. In spite of his sitting posture and crooked back, his shoulders were only a little below hers; and his muscles were so oaken that she could hardly massage them. Yet she rubbed at his distress because she did not know how else to comfort him.

“Everybody doubts,” Covenant breathed. He did not go near the Giant. He remained rigidly where he was, holding his vertigo back from the precipice. But his voice reached out through the sun's arid heat. “We're all scared. You have the right.” Then his tone changed as if he were remembering what Pitchwife had undergone. Softly, he asked, “What can I do for you?”

Pitchwife's muscles knotted under Linden's hands. After a moment, he said simply, “Earthfriend, I desire a better outcome.”

At once, he added, “Do not mistake me. That which has been done here has been well done. Mortal though