from him.”
She was pleading for Seadreamer's comprehension. “When I was in Revelstone, Gibbon touched me. I learned something about myself then.” The na-Mhoram had told her she was evil. That was the truth. “There's a part of me that wants to do it. Take over him. Take his power. I don't have any of my own, and I want it.” Want it. All her life, she had striven for power, for effectiveness against death. For the means to transcend her heritage- and to make restitution. If she had possessed Covenant's power, she would have gladly torn Gibbon soul from body in the name of her own crime. “That's what paralyzes me. I've spent my life trying to deny evil. When it shows up, I can't escape it.” She did not know how to escape the contradiction between her commitment to life and her yearning for the dark might of death. Her father's suicide had taught her a hunger she had satisfied once and dreaded to face again. The conflict of her desires had no answer. In its own way, Gibbon-Raver's touch had been no more horrible than her father's death; and the black force of her memories made her shiver on the verge of crying.
“Yet you must aid him.”
The hard voice pierced Linden. She turned sharply, found herself facing the First of the Search. She had been so caught up in what she was saying to Seadreamer, so locked into herself, that she had not felt the First's approach.
The First glared at her sternly. “I grant that the burden is terrible to you. That is plain.” She bore herself like a woman who had made a fierce decision of her own. “But the Search has been given into his hands. It must not fail.”
With a brusque movement, she drew her broadsword, held it before her as though she meant to enforce Linden's compliance with keen iron. Linden pressed her back against the rail in apprehension; but the First bent down, placed her glaive on the deck between them. Then she drew herself erect, fixed Linden with the demand of her stare. “Have you the strength to wield my blade?”
Involuntarily, Linden looked down at the broadsword. Gleaming densely in the moonlight, it appeared impossibly heavy.
“Have you the strength to lift it from where it lies?”
Linden wrenched her eyes back to the First in dumb protest.
The Swordmain nodded as if Linden had given her the reply she sought. “Nor have I the insight to act against the Giantfriend's illness. You are Linden Avery the Chosen. I am the First of the Search. We cannot bear each other's burdens.”
Her gaze shed midnight into Linden's upturned face. “Yet if you do not shoulder the lot which has befallen you, then I swear by my glaive that I will perform whatever act lies within my strength. He will not accept any approach. Therefore I will risk my people, and Starfare's Gem itself, to distract him. And while he strikes at them, with this sword I will sever the envenomed arm from his body. I know no other way to rid him of that ill-and us of the peril of his power. If fortune smiles upon us, we will be able to staunch the wound ere his life is lost.”
Sever? Sudden weakness flooded through Linden. If the first succeeded-! In a flash of vision, she saw that great Jade hacking like an execution at Covenant's shoulder. And blood, dark under the waxing moon, it would gush out almost directly from his heart. If it were not stopped in an instant, nothing could save him. She was a world away from the equipment she would need to give him transfusions, suture the wound, keep his heart beating until his blood pressure was restored. That blow could be as fatal as the knife-thrust which had once impaled his chest.
The back of her head struck the cross-support of the railing as she sank to the deck; and for a moment pain laboured in the bones of her skull. Sever? He had already lost two fingers to surgeons who knew no other answer to his illness. If he lived — She groaned. Ah, if he lived, how could she ever meet his gaze to tell him that she had done nothing-that she had stood by in her cowardice and allowed his arm to be cut away?
“No.” Her hands covered her face. Her craven flesh yearned to deny what she was saying. He would have reason to hate her if she permitted the First's attempt. And to hate her forever if she saved his life at the cost of his independent integrity. Was she truly this hungry for power? “I'll try.”
Then Cail was at her side. He helped her to her feet. As she leaned on his shoulder, he thrust a flask into her hands. The faint smell of diluted
Almost at once, she felt the liquor exerting its analystic potency. Her pulse carried life back into her muscles. The pain in her head withdrew to a dull throbbing at the base of her neck. The moonlight seemed to grow firmer as her vision cleared.
She emptied the flask, striving to suck strength from it-any kind of strength, anything which might help her withstand the virulence of the venom. Then she forced herself into motion toward the afterdeck.
Beyond Foodfendhall, she came into the light of lanterns. They had been placed along the roof of the housing and around the open deck so that the Giants and
The sight of him was almost too much for Linden. From head to foot, he looked force-battered, as if he had been beaten with truncheons. His eyes were wide and staring; but she could see no relict of awareness or sanity in them. His lips had been torn by the convulsive gnashing of his teeth. His forehead glistened with extreme sweat. In his illness, the beard which had formerly given him a heuristic aspect, an air of prophecy, now looked like a reification of his leprosy. And his right arm—
Hideously black, horrendously swollen, it twitched and grasped beside him, threatening his friends and himself with every wince. The dull silver of his wedding band constricted his second finger like blind cruelty biting into his defenceless flesh. And at his shoulder, the arm of his T-shirt was stretched to the tearing point. Fever radiated from the swelling as if his bones had become fagots for the venom.
That emanation burned against Linden's face even though she stood no closer to him than the verge of the lantern-light. He might already have died if he had not been able to vent the pressure of the poison through his ring. That release was all that kept his illness within bounds his flesh could bear.
Unsteadily, she gestured for Cail to retreat. Her hands shook like wounded birds. He hesitated; but Brinn spoke, and Cail obeyed. The Giants held themselves back, locking their breath behind their teeth. Linden stood alone in the margin of the light as if it were the littoral of a vast danger.
She stared at Covenant. The scars on the deck demonstrated beyond any argument that she would never get near enough to touch him. But that signified nothing. No laying on of hands could anele his torment. She needed to reach him with her soul. Take hold of him, silence his defences long enough to allow some
Either that or tear his power from him. If she was strong enough. Her health-sense made such an attempt feasible. But he was potent and delirious; and nothing in her life had prepared her to believe that she could wrestle with him directly for control of his ring. If she failed, he might kill her in the struggle. And if she succeeded—
She decided to aim herself against his mind. That seemed to be the lesser evil.
Trembling, she fought her visceral pariesis, compelled her tightened legs to take two steps into the light. Three. There
she stopped. Sinking to the stone, she sat with her knees hugged protectively against her chest. The becalmed air felt dead in her lungs. A waifish voice in the back of her brain pleaded for mercy or flight.
But she did not permit herself to waver. She had made her decision. Defying her mortality, her fear of evil and possession and failure, she opened her senses to him.
She began at his feet, hoping to insinuate herself into his flesh, sneak past his defences. But her first penetration almost made her flee. His sickness leaped the gap to her nerves like ghoul-fire, threatening her self- mastery. For a moment, she remained frozen in fear.
Then her old stubbornness came back to her. It had made her who she was. She had dedicated her life to healing. If she could not use medicine and scalpel, she would use whatever other tools were available. Squeezing her eyes shut to block out the distraction of his torment, she let her perceptions flow up Covenant's legs toward his heart.
