White Gold Wielder

Covenant must have understood the eh-Brand's words also. But he heard them with different ears than Linden's. As their implications penetrated him, his sudden hope went out.

That loss sent a pang through Linden. She had been concentrating too hard on Sunder and Hollian. She had not realized that Covenant had been looking for an answer to his own death.

At once, she reached out a band to his shoulder, felt the effort he made to suppress his dismay. But the exertion was over in an instant. Braced on his certainty, he faced the Stonedownors. His tone belied the struggle he made to keep it firm.

“I'll do everything I can,” he said. “But my time's almost over. Yours is just beginning. Don't waste it.”

Sunder returned a smile that seemed to make him young. “Thomas Covenant,” he promised, “we will not.”

No goodbyes were said. This farewell could not be expressed with words or embraces. Arm in arm, the Graveler and the eh-brand simply turned and walked away across the bedewed grass. After a moment, they passed the crest of the hill and were gone.

Behind them, they left a silence that ached as if nothing would be able to take their place.

Linden stretched her arm over Covenant's shoulders and hugged him, trying to tell him that she understood.

He kissed her hand, then rose to his feet. As he scanned the bright morning, the untainted sun, the flower- bedizened landscape, he sighed, “At least there's still Earthpower.”

“Yes,” Linden averred, climbing erect to join him, “The Hills haven't changed.” She did not know how else to comfort him. “Losing the Forestal is going to make a difference. But not yet.” She was sure of that. Andelain's health still surged around her in every blade and leaf, every bird and rock. No disease or weakness was visible anywhere. And the shining sun had no aura. She thought that the tangible world had never held so much condensed and treasurable beauty. Like a prayer for Andelain's endurance, she repeated, “Not yet.”

A grin of grim relish bared Covenant's teeth. 'Then he can't hurt us. For a while, anyway. I hope it drives him crazy.”

Linden breathed a secret relief, hoping that he had weathered the crisis.

But all his moods seemed to change as soon as he felt them. An old bleakness dulled his gaze; haggard lines marked his mien. Abruptly, he started toward the charred stump which had once been the Forestal of Andelain.

At once, she followed him. But she stopped when she understood that he had gone to say farewell.

He touched the inert gem of the krill with his numb fingers, tested the handle's coldness with the back of his hand. Then he leaned his palms and forehead against the blackened wood. Linden could hardly hear him.

“From fire to fire,” he whispered. “After all this time. First Seadreamer and Brinn. Hamako. Then Honninscrave. Now you. I hope you've found a little peace.”

There was no answer. When at last he withdrew, his hands and brow were smudged with soot like an obscure and contradictory anointment. Roughly, he scrubbed his palms on his pants; but he seemed unaware of the stain on his forehead.

For a moment, he studied Linden as if he sought to measure her against the Forestal's example. Again she was reminded of the way he had once cared for Joan. But Linden was not his ex-wife; she faced him squarely. The encompassing health of the Hills made her strong. And what he saw appeared to reassure him. Gradually his features softened. Half to himself, be murmured, “Thank God you're still here.” Then he raised his voice. “We should get going. Where are the Giants?”

She gave him a long gaze, which Hollian would have understood, before she turned to look for the First and Pitchwife.

They were not in sight. Vain and Findail stood near the foot of the slope exactly as they had remained all night; but the Giants were elsewhere. However, when she ascended to the hillcrest, she saw them emerge from a copse on the far side of a low valley, where they had gone to find privacy.

They responded to her wave with a hail and a gesture eastward, indicating that they would rejoin her and Covenant in that direction. Perhaps their keen eyes were able to descry the smile she gave them, glad to see that they felt safe enough in Andelain to leave their companions unguarded.

Covenant came to her wearily, worn by strain and lack of sleep. But at the sight of the Giants-or of the Hills unfurled before him like pleasure rolling along the kind breeze-he, too, smiled. Even from this distance, the restoration of Pitchwife's spirit was visible in the way be hobbled at his wife's side with a gait like a mummer's capriole. And her swinging stride bespoke eagerness and a fondly remembered night. They were Giants in Andelain. The pure expanse of the Hills suited them.

Softly, Covenant mused, “They aren't people of the Land. Maybe Coercri was enough. Maybe they won't meet any Dead here.” As he remembered the slain Unhomed-and the caamora of release he had given them in The Grieve-the timbre of his voice conveyed pride and pain. But then his gaze darkened; and Linden saw that he was thinking of Saltheart Foamfollower, who had lost his life in Covenant's former victory over the Despiser.

She wanted to tell him not to worry. Perhaps the battle for Revelstone had made Pitchwife familiar with despair and doom. Yet she believed that eventually he would find the song he needed. And the First was a Swordmain, as true as her blade. She would not lightly submit to death.

But Covenant had his own strange.sources of surety and did not wait for Linden's answer. With his resolve stiffening, he placed his half-hand firmly in her clasp and drew her toward the east along a way among the Hills which would intersect the path of the Giants.

After a moment, Findail and Vain appeared behind them, following them as always in the direction of their fate.

For a while Covenant walked briskly, his smudged forehead raised to the sun and the savoury atmosphere. But at the first brook they encountered, he stopped. From under his belt, he drew a knife which he had brought with him from Revelstone. Stooping to the crisp water, he drank deeply, then soaked his ragged beard and set himself to shave.

Linden held her breath as she watched him. His grasp on the blade was numb; and fatigue made his muscles awkward. But she did not try to intervene. She sensed that this risk was necessary to him.

When he had finished, however, and his cheeks and neck were scraped clean, she could not conceal her relief. She knelt beside him, cupped water into her hands, and washed tile soot from his forehead, seeking to remove the innominate implications of that mark.

An oak with a tremendous trunk spread its wide leaves over that part of the brook. Satisfied with Covenant's face, she pulled him after her and leaned back into the shade and the grass. The breeze played down the length of her legs like the sport of a lover; and she was in no hurry to rejoin the Giants.

But suddenly she felt a mute cry from the tree. a burst of pain which shivered through the ground, seemed to violate the very air. She whirled from Covenant's side and surged to her feet, trembling to find the cause of the oak's hurt The cry rose. For an instant, she saw no reason for it. Harm shook the boughs; the leaves wailed; muffled rivings ran through the heartwood. Around the oak, the Hills seemed to concentrate as if they were appalled. But she saw nothing except that Vain and Findail were gone.

Then, too swift for surmise, the Appointed came flowing out of the wood's anguish.

As he transformed himself from oak to flesh, his care-cut visage wore an unwonted shame. Vexed and defensive, he faced Linden and Covenant. “Is he not Demondim-spawn?” he demanded as if they had accused him unjustly. “Are not his makers ur-viles, that have ever served the Despiser with their self-abhorrence? And will you trust him to my cost? He must be slain.”

At his back, the oak's hurt sharpened to screaming.

“You bastard!” Linden spat, half guessing what Findail had done-and afraid to believe it. “You're killing it! Don't you even care that this is Andelain? the only place left that at least ought to be safe?”

“Linden?” Covenant asked urgently. “What-?” He lacked her percipience, had no knowledge of the tree's agony.

But he did not have to wait for an answer. A sundering pain like the blow of an axe split Linden's nerves; and the trunk of the oak sprang apart in a flail of splinters.

From the core of the wood. Vain stepped free. Unscathed, he left the still quivering tree in ruins. He did not