White Gold Wielder

  Softly as if at last even he had become capable of surprise, Cail murmured, “Waynhim. The old tellers speak of such creatures.”

  Covenant recognized them. Like the ur-viles, they were the artificial creations of the Demondim. But they had dedicated themselves and their weird lore to pursuits which did not serve the Despiser. During Covenant’s trek toward Revelstone, a band of Waynhim had saved him from a venom-relapse and death. But that had occurred hundreds of leagues to the south.

  Swiftly the creatures girdled the company, dashing the fluid of their power at the arghuleh.

  Then Covenant heard his name called by an unexpected voice. Turning, he saw a man emerge between the southward rocks. “Thomas Covenant!” the man shouted once more. “Come! Flee! We are unready for this battle!”

  A man whose soft brown eyes, human face, and loss-learned kindness had once given Covenant a taste of both mercy and hope. A man who had been rescued by the Waynhim when the na-Mhoram’s Grim had destroyed his home, During Stonedown. A man who served these creatures and understood them and loved them.

  Hamako.

  Covenant tried to shout, run forward. But he failed. The first instant of recognition was followed by a hot rush of pain as the implications of this encounter reached him. There was no reason why Hamako and this Waynhim rhysh should be so far from home—no reason which was not terrible.

  But the plight of the company demanded speed, decision. More arghuleh were arriving from the north. And more of those which had been damaged were discovering the expedient of using their ice to heal themselves. When Cail caught him by the arm, Covenant allowed himself to be impelled toward Hamako.

  Linden trotted at his side. Her face was set with purpose now. Perhaps she had identified Hamako and the Waynhim from Covenant’s descriptions of them. Or perhaps her percipience told her all she needed to know. When Covenant seemed to lag, she grasped his other arm and helped Cail draw him forward.

  The Giants followed, pulling the sleds. Vain broke into a run to catch up with the company. Behind them, the Waynhim retreated from the greater numbers of the arghuleh.

  In a moment, they reached Hamako. He greeted Covenant with a quick smile. “Well met, ring-wielder,” he said. “You are an unlooked-for benison in this waste.” Then at once he added, “Come!” and swung away from the ring. Flanked by Waynhim, he ran into the maze of the menhirs.

  Covenant’s numb feet and heavy boots found no purchase on the snow-pack. Repeatedly he slipped and stumbled as he tried to dodge after Hamako among the rocks. But Cail gripped his arm, upheld him. Linden moved with small quick strides which enabled her to keep her footing.

  At the rear of the company, several Waynhim fought a delaying action against the arghuleh. But abruptly the ice-beasts gave up the chase as if they had been called back—as if whatever force commanded them did not want to risk sending them into ambush. Shortly one of the gray, Demondim-made creatures spoke to Hamako; and he slowed his pace.

  Covenant pushed forward to the man’s side. Burning with memory and dread, he wanted to shout, Well met like hell! What in blood and damnation are you doing here? But he owed Hamako too much past and present gratitude. Instead he panted, “Your timing’s getting better. How did you know we needed you?”

  Hamako grimaced at Covenant’s reference to their previous meeting, when his rhysh had arrived too late to aid the ring-wielder. But he replied as if he understood the spirit of Covenant’s gibe, “We did not.

  “The tale of your departure from the Land is told among the Waynhim,” He grinned momentarily. “To such cunning watchers as they are, your passage from Revelstone to the Lower Land and Seareach was as plain as fire.” Swinging around another boulder into a broad avenue among the stones, he continued, “But we knew naught of your return. Our watch was set rather upon these arghuleh, that come massed from the north in defiance of all Law, seeking ruin. Witnessing them gather here, we sought to discover their purpose. Thus at last we saw you. Well that we did so—and that our numbers sufficed to aid you. The mustering-place of the rhysh is not greatly distant”—he gestured ahead—“but distant enough to leave you unsuccored in your need.”

  Listening hard, Covenant grappled with his questions. But there were too many of them. And the cold bit into his lungs at every breath. With an effort of will, be concentrated on keeping his legs moving and schooled himself to wait.

  Then the group left the region of jumbled monoliths and entered a wide, white plain that ended half a league away in an escarpment which cut directly across the vista of the south. Eddies of wind skirled up and down the base of the escarpment, raising loose snow like dervishes; and Hamako headed toward them as if they were the signposts of a sanctuary.

  When Covenant arrived, weak-kneed and gasping for air, at the rock-strewn foot of the sheer rise, he was too tired to be surprised by the discovery that the snow-devils were indeed markers or sentinels of an eldritch kind. The Waynhim called out in their barking tongue; and the eddies obeyed, moving to stand like hallucinated columns on either side of a line that led right into the face of the escarpment. There, without transition, an entrance appeared. It was wide enough to admit the company, but too low to let the Giants enter upright; and it opened into a tunnel warmly lit by flaming iron censers.

  Smiling a welcome, Harnako said, “This is the mustering-place of the Waynhim, their rhyshyshim. Enter without fear, for here the ring-wielder is acknowledged, and the foes of the Land are withheld. In these times, there is no true safety anywhere. But here you will find reliable sanctuary for one more day—until the gathered rhysh come finally to their purpose. To me it has been granted to speak for all Waynhim that share this Weird. Enter and be welcome.”

  In response, the First bowed formally. “We do so gladly. Already your aid has been a boon which we are baffled to repay. In sharing counsel and stories and safety, we hope to make what return we may.”

  Hamako bowed in turn; his eyes gleamed pleasure at her courtesy. Then he led the company down into the tunnel.

  When Vain and the last of the Waynhim had passed inward, the entrance disappeared, again without transition, leaving in its place blunt, raw rock that sealed the company into the fire-light and blissful warmth of the rhyshyshim.

  At first, Covenant hardly noticed that Findail had rejoined them. But the Appointed was there as if Vain’s side were a post he had never deserted. His appearance drew a brief, muted chittering from the Waynhim; but then they ignored him as if he were simply a shadow of the black Demondim-spawn.

  For a few moments, the tunnel was full of the wooden scraping of the sleds’ runners. But when the companions reached a bulge in the passage like a rude antechamber, Hamako instructed the Giants to leave the sleds there.

  As the warmth healed Covenant’s sore respiration, he thought that now Hamako would begin to ask the expected questions. But the man and the Waynhim bore themselves as if they had come to the end of all questions. Looking at Hamako more closely, Covenant saw things which had been absent or less pronounced during their previous encounter—resignation, resolve, a kind of peace. Hamako looked like a man who had passed through a long grief and been annealed.

  With a small jolt, Covenant realized that Hamako was not dressed for winter. Only the worn swath of leather around his hips made him less naked than the Waynhim. In vague fear, Covenant wondered if the Stonedownor had truly become Waynhim himself? What did such a transformation mean?

  And what in hell was this rhysh doing here?

  His companions had less reason for apprehension. Pitchwife moved as if the Waynhim had restored his sense of adventure, his capacity for excitement. His eyes watched everything, eager for marvels. Warm air and the prospect of safety softened the First’s iron sternness, and she walked with her hand lightly on her husband’s shoulder, willing to accept whatever she saw. Honninscrave’s thoughts were hidden beneath the concealment of his brows. And Mistweave—

  At the sight of Mistweave’s face, Covenant winced. Too much had happened too
swiftly. He had nearly forgotten the tormented moment of Mistweave’s indecision. But the Giant’s visage bore the marks of that failure like toolwork at the corners of his eyes, down the sides of his mouth—marks cut into the bone of his self-esteem. His gaze turned away from Covenant’s in shame.

  Damn it to hell! Covenant rasped to himself. Is every one of us doomed?

  Perhaps they all were. Linden walked at his side without looking at him, her mien pale and strict with the characteristic severity which he had learned to interpret as fear. Fear of herself—of her inherited capacity for panic and horror, which had proved once again that it could paralyze her despite every commitment or affirmation she made. Perhaps her reaction to the ambush of the arghuleh had restored her belief that she, too, was doomed.

  It was unjust. She judged that her whole life had been a form of flight, an expression of moral panic. But in that she was wrong. Her past sins did not invalidate her present desire for good. If they did, then Covenant himself was damned as well as doomed, and Lord Foul’s triumph was already assured.

  Covenant was familiar with despair. He accepted it in himself. But he could not bear it in the people he loved. They deserved better.

  Then Hamako’s branching way through the rock turned a corner to enter a sizable cavern like a meeting-hall; and Covenant’s attention was pulled out of its galled channel.

  The space was large and high enough to have held the entire crew of Starfare’s Gem; but its rough walls and surfaces testified that the Waynhim had not been using it long. Yet it was comfortably well-lit. Many braziers flamed around the walls, shedding kind heat as well as illumination. For a moment, Covenant found himself wondering obliquely why the Waynhim bothered to provide light at all, since they had no eyes. Did the fires aid their lore in some fashion? Or did they draw a simple solace from the heat or scent of the flames? Certainly the former habitation of Hamako’s rhysh had been bright with warmth and firelight.

  But Covenant could not remember that place and remain calm. And he had never seen so many Waynhim before: at least threescore of them slept on the bare stone, worked together around black metal pots as if they were preparing vitrim or invocations, or quietly waited for what they might learn about the people Hamako had brought. Rhysh was the Waynhim word for a community; and Covenant had been told that each community usually numbered between one- and twoscore Waynhim who shared a specific interpretation of their racial Weird, their native definition of identity and reason for existence. This Weird, he remembered, belonged to both the Waynhim and the ur-viles, but was read in vastly different ways. So he was looking at at least two rhysh. And Hamako had implied that there were more. More communities which had been ripped from home and service by the same terrible necessity that had brought Hamako’s rhysh here?

  Covenant groaned as he accompanied Hamako into the center of the cavern.

  There the Stonedownor addressed the company again. “I know that the purpose which impels you toward the Land is urgent,” he said in his gentle and pain-familiar voice. “But some little time you can spare among us. The horde of the arghuleh is unruly and advances with no great speed. We offer you sustenance, safety, and rest as well as inquiries”—he looked squarely at Covenant—“and perhaps also answers.” That suggestion gave another twist to Covenant’s tension. He remembered clearly the question Hamako had refused to answer for him. But Hamako had not paused. He was asking, “Will you consent to delay your way a while?”

  The First glanced at Covenant. But Covenant had no intention of leaving until he knew more. “Hamako,” he said grimly, “why are you here?”

  The loss and resolution behind Hamako’s eyes showed that he understood. But he postponed his reply by inviting the company to sit with him on the floor. Then he offered around bowls of the dark, musty vitrim liquid which looked like vitriol and yet gave nourishment like a distillation of aliantha. And when the companions had satisfied their initial hunger and weariness, he spoke as if he had deliberately missed Covenant’s meaning.

  “Ring-wielder,” he said, “with four other rhysh we have come to give battle to the arghuleh.”

  “Battle?” Covenant demanded sharply. He had always known the Waynhim as creatures of peace.

  “Yes.” Hamako had traveled a journey to this place which could not be measured in leagues. “That is our intent.”

  Covenant started to expostulate. Hamako stopped him with a firm gesture. “Though the Waynhim serve peace,” he said carefully, “they have risen to combat when their Weird required it of them, Thomas Covenant. I have spoken to you concerning that Weird. The Waynhim are made creatures. They have not the justification of birth for their existence, but only the imperfect lores and choices of the Demondim. And from this trunk grow no boughs but two—the way of the ur-viles, who loathe what they are and seek forever power and knowledge to become what they are not, and the way of the Waynhim, who strive to give value to what they are through service to what they are not, to the birth by Law and beauty of the life of the Land. This you know.”

  Yes. I know. But Covenant’s throat closed as he recalled the manner in which Hamako’s rhysh had formerly served its Weird.

  “Also you know,” the Stonedownor went on, “that in the time of the great High Lord Mhoram, and of your own last battle against the Despiser, Waynhim saw and accepted the need to wage violence in defense of the Land. It was their foray which opened the path by which the High Lord procured the survival of Revelstone.” His gaze held Covenant’s though Covenant could hardly match him. “Therefore do not accuse us that we have risen to violence again. It is not fault in the Waynhim. It is grief.”

  And still he forestalled Covenant’s protest, did not answer Covenant’s fundamental question. “The Sunbane and the Despiser’s malign intent rouse the dark forces of the Earth. Though they act by their own will, they serve his design of destruction. And such a force has come among the arghuleh, mastering their native savagery and sending them like the hand of winter against the Land. We know not the name of that might. It is hidden from the insight of the Waynhim. But we see it. And we have gathered in this rhyshyshim to oppose it.”

  “How?” the First interposed. “How will you oppose it?” When Hamako turned toward her, she said, “I ask pardon if I intrude on that which does not concern me. But you have given us the gift of our lives, and we have not returned the bare courtesy of our names and knowledge.” Briefly she introduced her companions. Then she continued, “I am the First of the Search—a Swordmain of the Giants. Battle is my craft and my purpose.” Her countenance was sharp in the firelight “I would share counsel with you concerning this combat.”

  Hamako nodded. But his reply suggested politeness rather than any hope for help or guidance—the politeness of a man who had looked at his fate and approved of it.

  “In the name of these rhysh, I thank you. Our intent is simple. Many of the Waynhim are now abroad, harrying the arghuleh to lure them hither. In this they succeed. That massed horde we will meet on the outer plain upon the morrow. There the Waynhim will concert their might and strike inward among the ice-beasts, seeking the dark heart of the force which rules them. If we discover that heart—and are equal to its destruction—then will the arghuleh be scattered, becoming once more their own prey.

  “If we fail—” The Stonedownor shrugged. There was no fear in his face. “We will at least weaken that horde sorely ere we die.”

  The First was faster than Covenant “Hamako,” she said, “I like this not. It is a tactic of desperation. It offers no second hope in event of first failure.”

  But Hamako did not waver. “Giant, we are desperate. At our backs lies naught but the Sunbane, and against that ill we are powerless. Wherefore should we desire any second hope? All else has been rent from us. It is enough to strike this blow as best we may.”

  The First had no answer for him. Slowly his gaze left her, returned to Covenant. His brown eyes seemed as soft as weeping—and yet too hard to be daunted. “Because I have been twice
bereft,” he said in that kind and unbreachable voice, “I have been granted to stand at the forefront, forging the puissance of five rhysh with my mortal hands.”

  Then Covenant saw that now at last he would be allowed to ask his true question; and for an instant his courage failed. How could he bear to hear what had happened to Hamako? Such extravagant human valor came from several sources—and one of them was despair.

  But Hamako’s eyes held no flinch of self-pity. Covenant’s companions were watching him, sensitive to the importance of what lay between him and Hamako. Even Mistweave and Honninscrave showed concern; and Linden’s visage ached as if Hamako’s rue were poignant to her. With a wrench of will, Covenant denied his fear.

  “You still haven’t told me.” Strain made his tone harsh. “All this is fine. I even understand it.” He was intimately familiar with desperation. In the warmth of the cavern, he had begun to sweat. “But why in the name of every good and beautiful thing you’ve ever done in your life are you here at all? Even the threat of that many arghuleh can’t compare with what you were doing before.”

  The bare memory filled his throat with inextricable wonder and sorrow.

  Lord Foul had already destroyed virtually all the natural life of the Land. Only Andelain remained, preserved against corruption by Caer-Caveral’s power. Everything else that grew by Law or love from seed or egg or birth had been perverted.

  Everything except that which Hamako’s rhysh had kept alive.

  In a cavern which was huge on the scale of lone human beings, but still paltry when measured by the destitution of the Land, the Waynhim had nurtured a garden that contained every kind of grass, shrub, flower, and tree, vine, grain, and vegetable they had been able to find and sustain. And in another cave, in a warren of pens and dens, they had saved as many species of animal as their lore and skill allowed.