White Gold Wielder

Iianar into the krill-gem's light.

From the wood grew shoots and tendrils of fine fire. They spread about her on the ground like creepers, climbed into the argence like vines. They burned without heat, without harming the wand; and their radiant filigree made the night eldritch and strange.

Her flame was the precise incarnadine of the present sun.

Linden thought then that Hollian would cease her invocation. A second day of pestilence was not a surprise. But the eh-Brand kept her power alight, and a new note of intensity entered her chant. With a start. Linden realized that Hollian was stretching herself, reaching beyond her accustomed limits.

After a moment, a quiet flare of blue like a gentle coruscation appeared at the tips of the fire-fronds.

For an instant, azure rushed inward along the vines, transforming the flames, altering the crimson ambience of the dark. Then it was quenched; all the fire vanished. Hollian sat with the lianar cradled in her fingers and the light of the krill on her face. She was smiting faintly.

“The morrow's sun will be a sun of pestilence.” Her voice revealed strain and weariness, but they were not serious. “But the sun of the day following will be a sun of rain.”

“Good!” said Covenant. “Two days of rain, and we'll practically be in Andelain.” He turned to the First. “It looks like we're not going to be able to build rafts. Can you and Pitchwife support the four of us when the river starts to run?”

In answer, the First snorted as if the question were unworthy of her.

Gleaming with pride. Sunder put his arms around Hollian. But her attention was fixed on Covenant. She took a deep breath for strength, then asked, 'Ur-Lord, is it truly your intent to enter Andelain once again?”

Covenant faced her sharply. A grimace twisted his mouth. “You asked me that the last time.” He seemed to expect her to renew her former refusal. “You know I want to go there. I never get enough of it. It's the only place where there's any Law left alive.”

The krill light emphasized the darkness of her hair; but its reflection in her eyes was clear. 'You have told that tale. And I have spoken of the acquaintance of my people with the peril of Andelain. To us its name was one of proven madness. No man or woman known to us entered that land where the Sunbane does not reign and returned whole of mind. Yet you have entered and emerged, defying that truth as you defy all others. Thus the truth is altered. The life of the Land is not what it was. And in my turn I am changed. I have conceived a desire to do that which I have not done-to sojourn among my fears and strengths and learn the new truth of them.

“Thomas Covenant, do not turn aside from Andelain. It is my wish to accompany you.”

For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Covenant said in a husky voice, “Thanks. That helps.”

Softly, Hollian re-covered the krill, let darkness wash back over the company. The night was the colour of her hair, and it spread its wings out to the stars.

The next day, the red sun asserted its hold over the Land more swiftly, building on what it had already done. The company was forced out of the watercourse well before mid-morning. Still they made steady progress. Every southward league softened the hills slightly, and by slow degrees the going became easier. The valleys between the rises grew wider; the slopes, less rugged. And Hollian had said that the next day would bring a sun of ram. Severely, Linden tried to tell herself that she had no reason to feel so beaten, so vulnerable to the recurring blackness of her life.

But the Sunbane shone full upon her. It soaked into her as if she had become a sponge for the world's ill. The stink of pestilence ran through her blood. Hidden somewhere among the secrets of her bones was a madwoman who believed that she deserved such desecration. She wanted power in order to extirpate the evil from herself.

Her percipience was growing keener-and so her distress was keener.

She could not inure herself to what she felt No amount of determination or decision was enough. Long before noon, she began to stumble as if she were exhausted. A red haze covered her mind, blinding her to the superficial details of the terrain, the concern of her friends. She was like the Land, powerless to heal herself. But when Covenant asked her if she wanted to rest, she made no answer and went on walking. She had chosen her path and did not mean to stop.

Yet she heard the First's warning. Unsteady on her feet, her knees locked, she halted with Covenant as the Giants came back at a tense trot from a low ridge ahead of the company. Distress aggravated Pitchwife's crooked features. The First looked apprehensive, like iron fretted with rust. But in spite of their palpable urgency, they did not speak for a moment. They were too full of what they had seen.

Then Pitchwife groaned far back in his throat. “Ah, Earthfriend.” His voice shuddered. “You have forewarned us of the consequences of this Sunbane-but now I perceive that I did not altogether credit your words. It is heinous beyond speech.”

The First gripped her sword as an anchor for her emotions. “We are blocked from our way,” she said, articulating the words like chewed metal. “Perchance we have come blindly upon an army of another purpose-but I do not believe it. I believe that the Despiser has reached out his hand against us.”

Trepidation beat the haze from Linden's mind. Her mouth shaped a question. But she did not ask it aloud. The Giants stood, rigid, before her; and she could see as clearly as language that they had no answer.

“Beyond that ridge?” asked Covenant. “How far?” “A stone's throw for a Giant,” the First replied grimly. “No more. And they advance toward us.”

He glanced at Linden to gauge her condition, then said to the First, “Let's go take a look.”

She nodded, turned on her heel and strode away. He hurried after her Linden, Sunder, and Hollian followed. Pitchwife placed himself protectively at Linden's side. Vain and Findail quickened their steps to keep up with the company.

At the ridgecrest, Covenant squatted behind a boulder and peered down the southward slope. Linden joined him. The Giants crouched below the line of sight of what lay ahead. Findail also stopped. Careful to avoid exposing themselves, Sunder and Hollian crept forward. But Vain moved up to the rim as if he wanted a clear view and feared nothing.

Covenant spat a low curse under his breath; but it was not directed at the Demondim-spawn. It was aimed at the black seethe of bodies moving toward the ridge on both sides of the watercourse.

As black as Vain himself.

The sight of them sucked the strength from Linden's limbs.

She knew what they were because Covenant had described them to her-and because she had met the Waynhim of Hamako's rhysh. But they had been changed. Their emanations rose to her like a shout, telling her precisely what had happened to them. They had fallen victim to the desecration of the Sunbane.

“Ur-viles,” Covenant whispered fiercely. “Hell and blood”

Warped Ur-viles.

Hundreds of them.

Once they had resembled the Waynhim: larger, black instead of grey; but with the same hairless bodies, the same limbs formed for running on all fours as well as for walking erect, the same eyeless faces and wide, questing nostrils. But no longer. The Sunbane had made them monstrous.

Over the sickness m her stomach. Linden thought bleakly that Lord Foul must have done this to them. Like the Waynhim, the ur-viles were too lore-wise to have exposed themselves accidentally to the sun's first touch. They had been corrupted deliberately and sent here to block the company's way.

“Why?” she breathed, aghast. “Why?”

“Same reason as always,” Covenant growled without looking away from the grotesque horde. “Force me to use too much power.” Then suddenly his gaze flashed toward her. “Or to keep us out of Andelain. Exposed to the Sunbane. He knows how much it hurts you. Maybe he thinks it'll make you do what he wants.”

Linden felt the truth of his words. She knew she could not stay sane forever under the pressure of the Sunbane. But a bifurcated part of her replied. Or maybe he did it to punish them. For doing something he didn't like.

Her heart skipped a beat.

For making Vain?

The Demondim-spawn stood atop the ridge as if he sought to attract the notice of the horde.