The setting sun gave his visage a tinge of sacrificial glory. Watching him Covenant thought obscurely that the sun always set in the west-that a man who faced west would never see anything except decline, things going down, the last beauty before light and life went out.
After a moment, Honninscrave lifted his voice over the wet splashing of the shipside. “The Earth-Sight is not a thing which any Giant selects for himself. No choice is given. But we do not therefore seek to gainsay or eschew it. We believe-or have believed-,” he said with a touch of bitterness, “that there is life as well as death in such mysteries. How then should there be any blame in what has happened?” Honninscrave spoke more to himself than to Covenant or Cail “The Earth-Sight came upon Cable Seadreamer my brother, and the hurt of his vision was plain to all. But the content of that hurt he could not tell. Mayhap his muteness was made necessary by the vision itself. Mayhap for him no denial of death was possible which would not also have been a denial of life. I know nothing of that. I know only that he could not speak his plight-and so he could not be saved. There is no blame for us in this.” He spoke as though he believed what he was saying; but the loss knotted around his eyes contradicted him.
“His death places no burden upon us but the burden of hope.” The sunset was fading from the west and from his face, translating his mien from crimson to the pallor of ashes. “We must hope that in the end we will find means to vindicate his passing. To vindicate,” he repeated faintly, “and to comprehend.” He did not look at his auditors. The dying of the light echoed out of his eyes. “I am grieved that I can conceive no hope.”
He had earned the right to be left alone. But Covenant needed an answer. He and Foamfollower had talked about hope. Striving to keep his voice gentle in spite of his own stiff hurt, he asked, “Then why do you go on?”
For a long moment, Honninscrave remained still against the mounting dark as if he had not heard, could not be reached. But at last he said simply, “I am a Giant The Master of Starfare's Gem, and sworn to the service of the First of the Search. That is preferable.”
Preferable, Covenant thought with a mute pang. Mhoram might have said something like that. But Findail obviously did not believe it.
Yet Cail nodded as if Honninscrave's words were ones which even the extravagant
Covenant turned from the darkling sea, left the rail. He had no place among such people. He did not know what was preferable-and could not see enough success anywhere to make failure endurable. The decision he had made in Linden's name was just another kind of lie. Well, she had earned that pretence of conviction from him. But at some point any leper needed something more than discipline or even stubbornness to keep him alive. And he had too sorely falsified his relationship with her. He did not know what to do.
Around Starfare's Gem, the Giants had begun to light lanterns against the night. They illuminated the great wheel, the stairs down from the wheeldeck, the doorways to the under-decks and the galley. They hung from the fore-and after-masts like instances of bravado, both emphasizing and disregarding the gap where the midmast should have been. They were nothing more than small oil lamps under the vast heavens, and yet they made the Giantship beautiful on the face of the deep. After a moment Covenant found that he could bear to go looking for Linden.
But when he started forward from the wheeldeck, his attention was caught by Vain. The Demondim-spawn stood beyond the direct reach of the lanterns, on the precise spot where bus feet had first touched stone after he had come aboard from m» Isle of the One Tree; but his black silhouette was distinct against the fading horizon. As always, he remained blank to scrutiny, as though he knew that nothing could touch him.
Yet he had been touched. One iron heel of the old Staff of Law still clamped him where his wrist had been; but that hand dangled useless from the wooden limb which grew like a branch from his elbow Covenant had no idea why Foamfollower had given him this product of the dark and historically malefic ur-viles. But now he was sure that Linden had been right-that no explanation which did not include the secret of the Demondim-spawn was complete enough to be trusted. When he moved on past Vain, he knew more clearly why he wanted to find her.
He came upon her near the foremast, some distance down the deck from the prow where Findail stood confronting the future like a figurehead. With her were the First, Pitchwife. and another Giant. As Covenant neared them, he recognized Mistweave, whose life Linden had saved at the risk of his own during his most recent venom- relapse. The three Giants greeted him with the same gentle caution Honninscrave and Sevinhand had evinced-the wariness of people who believed they were in the presence of a pain which transcended their own. But Linden seemed almost unconscious of his appearance In the wan lantern-light, her face looked pallid, nearly haggard; and Covenant thought suddenly that she had not rested at all since before the quest had arrived at the Isle of the One Tree. The energy which had sustained her earlier had eroded away; her manner was febrile with exhaustion. For a moment, he was so conscious of her nearness to collapse that he failed to notice the fact that she, too, was wearing her old clothes the checked flannel shirt, tough jeans, and sturdy shoes in which she had first entered the Land, Though her choice was no different than his, the sight of it gave him an unexpected pang. Once again, be had been betrayed by his preterit instinct for hope. Unconsciously, he had dreamed that all the shocks and revelations of the past days would not alter her, not impel her to resume their former distance from each other. Fool! he snarled at himself. He could not escape her percipience. Down in his cabin, she had read what he was going to do before he had known it himself.
The First greeted him in a tone made brusque by the sternness of her own emotions; but her words showed that she also was sensitive to his plight. “Thomas Covenant, I believe that you have chosen well.” If anything, the losses of the past days and the darkness of the evening seemed to augment her iron beauty. She was a Swordmain, trained to give battle to the peril of the world. As she spoke, one hand gripped her sword's hilt as if the blade were a vital part of what she was saying. “I have named you Giantfriend, and I am proud that I did so. Pitchwife my husband is wont to say that it is the meaning of our lives to hope. But I know not how to measure such things. I know only that battle is better than surrender. It is not for me to judge your paths in this matter-yet am I gladdened that you have chosen a path of combat.” In the way of a warrior, she was trying to comfort him.
Her attempt touched him-and frightened him as well, for it suggested that once again he had committed himself to more than he could gauge. But he was given no chance to reply. For once, Pitchwife seemed impatient with what his wife was saying. As soon as she finished, he interposed, “Aye, and Linden Avery also is well Chosen, as I have said. But in this she does not choose well. Giantfriend, she will not rest” His exasperation was plain in his voice.
Linden grimaced Covenant started to say, “Linden, you need- “ But when she looked at him he stopped. Her gaze gathered up the darkness and held it against him.
“I don't have anywhere to go.”
The stark bereavement of her answer went through him like a cry. It meant too much: that her former world had been ruined for her by what she had learned; that like him she could not bear to return to her cabin-the cabin they had shared.
Somewhere in the distance, Pitchwife was saying, “To her have been offered the chambers of the
Covenant understood that also without heeding it. Brinn had blamed her for Hergrom's death. And she had tried to kill Ceer. “Leave her alone,” he said dully, as deaf to himself as to Pitchwife. “She'll rest when she's ready.”
That was not what he wanted to say. He wanted to say, Forgive me. I don't know how to forgive myself. But the words were locked in his chest. They were impossible.
Because he had nothing else to offer her, he swallowed thickly and said, “You're right. My friends didn't expect me to be doomed. Foamfollower gave me Vain for a reason.” Even that affirmation was difficult for him; but he forced it out. “What happened to his arm?”
She went on staring darkness at him as if he were the linchpin of her exhaustion. She sounded as misled as a sleepwalker as she responded, “Mistweave won't go away. He says he wants to take Cail's place.”
Covenant peered at her, momentarily unable to comprehend. But then he remembered his own dismay when Brinn had insisted on serving him; and his heart twisted. “Linden,” he demanded, forlorn and harsh in his inability to help her, “tell me about Vain's arm.” If he had dared, he would have taken hold of her. If he had had the right.
She shook her head; and lantern-light glanced like supplication out of her dry eyes. “I can't.” She might have protested like a child. It hurts. “His arm's empty. When I close my eyes, it isn't even there. If you took all the life out of the One Tree — took it away so completely that the Tree never had any — never had any meaning at all-it
