you are, Earthfriend and Chosen, you surpass all estimation.” He let out a quiet sigh. “But I am not content. I have shed such blood-The lives of the innocent I have taken from them by the score, though I am no Swordmain and loathe such work. And as I did so, my doubt was terrible to me. It is a dire thing to commit butchery when hope has been consumed by fear. As you have said. Chosen, there must be a reason. The world's grief should unite those who live, not sunder them in slaughter and malice.
“My friends, there is a great need in my heart for song, but no song comes. I am a Giant. Often have I vaunted myself in music. 'We are Giants, born to sail, and bold to go wherever dreaming goes.' But such songs have become folly and arrogance to me. In the face of doom, I have not the courage of my dreams. Ah, my heart must have song. I find no music in it.
“I desire a better outcome.”».
His voice trailed away over the cliff-edge and was gone. Linden felt the ache in him as if she had wrapped her arms around it. She wanted to protest the way he seemed to blame himself; yet she sensed that his need went deeper than blame. He had tasted the Despiser's malice and was appalled. She understood that. But she had no answer to it.
Covenant was more certain. He sounded as strict as a vow as he asked, “What're you going to do?”
Pitchwife responded with a shrug that shifted Linden's hands from his shoulders. He did not look away from the destitution sprawling below him. “The First has spoken of this,” he said distantly. The thought of his wife gave him no ease. “We will accompany you to the end. The Search requires no less of us. But when you have made your purpose known, Mistweave will bear word of it to Seareach. There Starfare's Gem will come if the ice and the seas permit. Should you fail, and those with you fall, the Search must yet continue. The knowledge which Mistweave will bear to Seareach will enable Sevinhand Anchormaster to choose the path of his service.”
Linden looked at Covenant sharply to keep him from saying that if he failed there would be no Earth left for the Search to serve. Perhaps the journey the First had conceived for Mistweave was pointless; still Linden coveted it for him. It was clear and specific, and it might help him find his way back to himself. Also she approved the First's insistence on behaving as if hope would always endure.
But she saw at once that Covenant had no intention of denying the possibility of hope. No bitterness showed beyond his empathy for Pitchwife; his alloyed despair and determination were clean of gall. Nor did he suggest that Pitchwife and the First should Join Mistweave. Instead, he said as if he were content, “That's good. Meet us in the forehall at noon, and we'll get started.”
Then he met Linden's gaze. “I want to go look at Honninscrave's grave.” His tone thickened momentarily. “Say good bye to him. Will you come with me?”
In response, she went to him and hugged him so that he would understand her silence.
Together they left Pitchwife sitting on the rim of the city. As they neared the entrance to Revelstone, they heard the cry of his flute again. It sounded as lorn as the call of a kestrel against the dust-trammelled sky.
Gratefully, Linden entered the great Keep, where she was shielded from the desert sun. Relief filled her nerves as she and Covenant moved down into the depths of Revelstone, back to the Hall of Gifts.
Call accompanied them. Beneath his impassivity she sensed a strange irresolution, as if he wanted to ask a question or boon and did not believe he had the right. But when they reached their goal, she forgot his unexplained emanations.
During Covenant's battle with Gibbon, and the rending of the Raver, she had taken scant notice of the cavern itself. All her attention had been focused on what was happening-and on the blackness which Gibbon had called up in her. As a result, she had not registered the extent to which the Hall and its contents had been damaged. But she saw the havoc now, felt its impact.
Those Who Part Around the walls, behind the columns, in the corners and distant reaches, much of the Land's ancient artwork remained intact. But the centre of the cavern was a shambles. Tapestries had been cindered, sculptures split, paintings shredded. Cracks marked two of the columns from crown to pediment; hunks of stone had been ripped from the ceiling, the floor; the mosaic on which Gibbon had stood was a ruin. Centuries of human effort and aspiration were wrecked by the uncontainable forces Covenant and the Raver had unleashed.
For a moment Covenant's gaze appeared as ravaged as the Hall. No amount of certainty could heal the consequences of what he had done-and had failed to do.
While she stood there, caught between his pain and the Hall's hurt, she did not immediately recognize that most of the breakage had already been cleared away. But then she saw Nom at work, realized what the Sandgorgon was doing.
It was collecting pieces of rock, splinters of sculpture, shards of pottery, any debris it was able to lift between the stumps of his forearms, and it was using those fragments meticulously to raise a cairn for Honninscrave.
The funerary pile was already taller than Linden; but Nom was not yet satisfied with it. With swift care, the beast continued adding broken art to the mound. The rubble was too crude to have any particular shape” Nevertheless Nom moved around and around it to build it up as if it were an icon of the distant gyre of Sandgorgons Doom.
This was Nom's homage to the Giant who had enabled it to rend Gibbon-Raver. Honninscrave had contained and controlled
The sight softened Covenant's pain. Remembering Hergrom and Ceer, Linden would not have believed that she might ever feel anything akin to gratitude toward a Sandgorgon. But she had no other name for what she felt as she watched Nom work.
Though it lacked ordinary sight or hearing, the beast appeared to be aware of its onlookers. But it did not stop until it had augmented Honninscrave's mound with the last rubble large enough for its arms to lift. Then, however, it turned abruptly and strode toward Covenant. A few paces in front of him, it stopped. With its back bent knees, it lowered itself to the floor, touched its forehead to the stone.
He was abashed by the beast's obeisance. “Get up,” he muttered. “Get up. You've earned better than this.” But Nom remained prostrate before him as if it deemed him worthy of worship.
Unexpectedly, Cail spoke for the Sandgorgon. He had recovered his
“Nom desires you to comprehend that it acknowledges you. It will obey any command. But it asks that you do not command it. It wishes to be free. It wishes to return to its home in the Great Desert and its bound kindred. From the rending of the Raver, Nom has gained knowledge to unmake Sandgorgons Doom-to release its kind from pent fury and anguish. It seeks your permission to depart”
Linden felt that she was smiling foolishly; but she could not stop herself. Fearsome though the Sandgorgons were, she had hated the idea of their plight from the moment when Pitchwife had told her about it. “Let it go,” she murmured to Covenant. “Kasreyn had no right to trap them like that in the first place.”
He nodded slowly, debating with himself. Then he made his decision. Facing the Sandgorgon, he said to Cail, “Tell it, it can go. I understand it's willing to obey me, and I say it can go. It's free. But,” he added sharply, “I want it to leave the
Faceless, devoid of expression, the albino beast raised itself erect again. “Nom hears you,” Cail replied. To Linden's percipience, his tone seemed to hint that he envied Nom's freedom. “It will obey. Its folk it will teach obedience also. The Great Desert is wide, and the
Before he finished, the Sandgorgon burst into a run toward the doorway of the Hall. Eager for its future, it vanished up the stairs, speeding in the direction of the open sky. For a few moments. Linden felt its wide feet on the steps; their force seemed to make the stone Keep jangle. But then Nom passed beyond her range, and she turned from it as if it were a healed memory-as if in some unexpected way the deaths of Hergrom and Ceer and Honninscrave had been made bearable at last.
She was still smiling when Covenant addressed Cail. “We've got some time before noon.” He strove to sound casual; but the embers in his eyes were alight for her. “Why don't you find us something to eat? We'll be in
