Four: The Nicor of the Deep
HELPLESSLY, Linden watched herself go numb with shock. The residue of Covenant's leprosy seemed to well up in her, deadening her. She had done that to him? Brinn went stubbornly about the task of proving to himself that no strength or tool he could wield was capable of penetrating Covenant's sheath; but she hardly noticed the Haruchai. It was her doing.
Because she had tried to possess him. And because he had spared her the full consequences of his power.
Then Brinn blurred and faded as tears disfocused her vision. She could no longer see Covenant, except as a pool of hot argent in the streaked lambency of the lanterns. Was this why Lord Foul had chosen her? So that she would cause Covenant's death?
Yes. She had done such things before.
She retreated into the numbness as if she needed it, deserved it. But the hands which grasped her shoulders were gentle and demanding. Softly, they insisted on her attention, urged her out of her inner morass. They were kind and refused to be denied. When she blinked her gaze clear, she found herself looking into Pitchwife's pellucid eyes.
He sat in front of her, holding her by the shoulders. The deformation of his spine brought his misshapen face down almost to her level. His lips smiled crookedly.
“It is enough, Chosen,” he breathed in a tone of compassion. “This grief skills nothing. It is as the First has said. The fault is not yours.”
For a moment, he turned his head away. “And also not yours, my wife,” he said to the shadow of the First. “You could not have foreknown this pass.”
Then his attention returned to Linden. “He lives yet, Chosen. He lives. And while he lives, there must be hope. Fix your mind upon that. While we live, it is the meaning of our lives to hope.”
"I "—She wanted to speak, wanted to bare her dismay to Pitchwife's empathy. But the words were too terrible to be uttered.
His hands tightened slightly, pulling her posture more upright. “We do not comprehend this caul which he has woven about him. We lack your sight. You must guide us now.” His gentleness tugged at the edges of her heart. “Is this power something to be feared? Has he not perchance brought it into being to preserve his life?”
His words seemed to cast her gaze toward Covenant. She could barely see him through his shield. But she could see Vain. The Demondim-spawn stood near Covenant, and all suggestion of grinning was gone from his black mien. He bore himself as he always did, his hidden purpose untouched by any other morality. He was not even alive in any normal sense. But he concentrated on Covenant's wracked form as if together they were being put to the question of a cruel doom.
“No.” Linden's voice husked roughly out of her emptiness. “He still has that venom. He's dying in there.”
“Then”—Pitchwife's tone brought her back to his probing—“we must find the means to un-weave this power, so that he may be succoured.”
At that, her stomach turned over in protest. She wanted to cry out, Weren't you watching? I tried to possess him. This is my doing. But her ire was useless; and the Giant's empathy sloughed it away. Her remaining bitterness compressed itself into one word: “How?”
'Ah, Chosen.“ Pitchwife smiled like a shrug. ”That you must tell me."
She flinched, closed her eyes. Unconsciously, her hands covered her face. Had she not done enough harm? Did he want her to actually hold the knife that killed Covenant?
But Pitchwife did not relent. “We lack your sight,” he repeated in quiet suasion. “You must guide us. Think on hope. Clearly, we cannot pierce this caul. Very well. Then we must answer it with understanding. What manner of power is it? What has transpired in his mind, that he is driven to such defense? What need is occulted within him? Chosen.” Again his hands tightened, half lifting her to her feet. “How may we appeal to him, so that he will permit our aid?”
“Appeal—?” The suggestion drew a gasp of bile from her. Her arms dropped, uncovering her indignation. “He's dying! He's deaf and blind with venom and delirium! Do you think I can just go over there and ask him to please stop defending himself?”
Pitchwife cocked an eyebrow at her anger; but he did not flinch. A smile softened his features. “It is good,” he said through his twisted grin. “If you are capable of wrath, then you are also capable of hope.”
She started to spit at him, Hope? But he overrode her firmly. “Very well. You see no means of appeal. But there are other questions to which you might reply, if you chose.”
“What do you want from me?” she burned into his face. "Do you want me to convince you that it's my fault? Well, it is. He must've thought I was a Raver or something. He was delirious—in terrible pain. The last thing he knew before he relapsed, he was being attacked by those rats. How was he supposed to know I was trying to help him? He didn't even know it was me. Until too late.
“It's like—” She fumbled momentarily for a description. “Like hysterical paralysis. He's so afraid of his ring—and so afraid Foul's going to get it. And he's a leper. His numbness makes him think he can't control the power. He hasn't got the nerves to control it. Even without the venom, he's afraid all the time. He never knows when he's going to kill somebody else.”
Words poured from her. In the back of her mind, she relived what she had learned before Covenant hurled her away. As she spoke, those inchoate images took shape for her.
"And he knew what was happening to him. He's had relapses before. When the venom came over him, probably the only conscious thing he had left was fear. He knew he was defenseless. Not against us—against himself. Against Foul. He was already full of power when I tried to take over. What else could he do? He struck back. And then—"
For an instant, she faltered in pain. But she could not halt the momentum of the words.
“Then he saw it was me. For all he knew, he might've killed me. Exactly the kind of thing that terrified him most.” She gritted herself to keep from shivering in dismay. “So he closed all the doors. Shut himself off. Not to keep us out. To keep himself in.”
Deliberately, she fixed Pitchwife with her glare. “There is no way to appeal to him. You can stand there and shout at him until it breaks your heart, and he won't hear you. He's trying to protect you.” But then she ran out of ire, and her voice trailed away as she conceded lornly, “Us.” Me.
Around her, silence spread out into the stagnant night. Starfare's Gem lay still as if the loss of wind had slain it. The Giants remained motionless, becalmed, as if their vitality were leaking out of them into the dead Sea. Her speech seemed to hang like futility in the air, denying hope. She could not find any end to the harm she had inflicted on her companions.
But when Pitchwife spoke again, his resilience astonished her. “Linden Avery, I hear you.” No hue or timbre of despair marred his voice. He talked as though his lifetime as a cripple had taught him to overcome anything. “But this despond ill becomes us. By my heart, I flounder to think that so many Giants may be rendered mirthless! If words have such power, then we are behooved to consider them again. Come, Chosen. You have said that Covenant Giantfriend seeks to preserve us, and that he will not hear us if we speak. Very well. What will he hear? What language will touch him?”
Linden winced. His insistence simply reaffirmed her failure.
“What does he desire?” the Giant went on steadily, “What need or yearning lies uppermost in him? Mayhap if we provide an answer to his heart, he will perceive that we are not harmed—that his protection is needless—and he will let his power go.”
She gaped at him. His question took her by surprise; and her response came automatically, without forethought. “The One Tree. The quest.” Covenant's images were still in her. Pitchwife's calm drew them out of her. “He doesn't know what else to do. He needs a new Staff of Law. And we're not moving—”
At that, Pitchwife grinned.
An inchoate prescience shocked her. She surged at him, grabbed for the front of his sark. “The One Tree? He's dying! You don't even know where it is!”
Pitchwife's eyes gleamed in response. From somewhere nearby, the Storesmaster's blunt voice said, “It may be done. I have taken soundings. This Sea is apt for Nicor.”
At once, the First said harshly, “Then we will make the attempt.”
A chuckle widened Pitchwife's grin. His hale aura stroked Linden's senses with a steady confidence she could not comprehend. “There, Chosen,” he said. “Hope. We cannot bespeak Covenant Giantfriend, to say that we are well. But we can move Starfare's Gem. Mayhap he will feel that movement and be consoled.”
Move—? Linden's lips formed words she could not utter. You're kidding.
Heft Galewrath addressed her stolidly. “I can make no beginning until dawn. We must have light. And then the answer—if I am answered—may be slow in coming. Will the Giantfriend endure so long?”
“He—” Linden fought the extremity which closed her throat. Her brain kept repeating, Move Starfare's Gem? Without wind? “I don't know. He has the power. Maybe—maybe what he's doing will slow down the venom. He's shut his mind to everything else. Maybe he's stopped the venom too. If he has—” She struggled to achieve a coherent assessment. “He'll live until the venom eats through his heart. Or until he starves to death.”
Move Starfare's Gem?
Abruptly, Honninscrave started shouting orders. Around him, Giants sprang into motion as if they had been brought back to life by a sense of purpose. Their feet spread new energy through the stone as they hastened to their tasks. Several of them went below toward the storage-lockers; but many more swung up into the rigging, began to furl the sails. They worked on all three masts at once, repairing the damage which behung the midmast while they clewed up and lashed the canvas fore and aft.
Linden watched them as if the confusion in her head had become an external madness. They meant to move the ship. Therefore they furled the sails? Pitchwife had already followed the First and Galewrath forward; Honninscrave had positioned himself on the wheeldeck. And Seadreamer, who stood nearby with a private smoulder in his eyes, could not speak. She felt like a lost child as she turned to Cail.
Instead of replying, he offered her a bowl of food and another flask of macerated diamondraught.
She accepted them because she did not know what else to do.
Deliberately, she moved back into the lantern light around Covenant, sat down with her back to Foodfendhall as close to him as her nerves could bear. Her viscera still trembled at the taste of his illness, but she forced herself to remain near enough to monitor his shield—near enough to act promptly if the shield failed. And near enough to keep watch on Vain. The Demondim-spawn's strange attentiveness had not wavered; but his obsidian flesh gave no hint of his intent. With a sigh, she leaned against the stone and compelled herself to eat.
What else could she do? She did not believe that his shield would fail. It looked as absolute as his torment. And Vain went on gazing at that caul as though he expected the Unbeliever to drop through the bottom of the world at any moment.
Later, she slept.
She awoke in the first muggy gloaming of the becalmed dawn. Without their sails, the masts above her looked skeletal against the paling sky, like boughs shorn of leaves, of life. Starfare's Gem was little more than a floating rock under her—a slab of stone crucified between water and sky by the death of all winds. And Covenant, too, was dying: his respiration had become perceptibly shallower, more ragged. He wore his power intimately, like a winding-sheet.
The afterdeck was empty of Giants; and only two remained on the wheeldeck, Sevinhand Anchormaster and a steers-woman. No one was in the rigging, though Linden thought she glimpsed a figure sitting high overhead in Horizonscan, the lookout. Except for herself. Covenant, and Vain, Brinn, Cail, Hergrom, and Ceer, everyone had gone forward. She felt their activity through the stone.
For a while, she could not decide what to do. Her desire to learn what the Giants were about tugged at her. At the same time, she knew she belonged beside Covenant. Yet she obviously could not help him, and her uselessness wore at her. His Power, like his mind, was beyond her reach. Soon she became too tense to remain where she was. As a compromise, she went and ascended to the wheeldeck to examine Sevinhand's broken arm.
The Anchormaster was lean for a Giant, and his old face was engraved with an unGiantlike melancholy. In him, the characteristic cheer of his people had been eroded by an habitual grief. The lines on his cheeks looked like galls. But his mien lightened as Linden approached, and the smile with which he answered her desire to inspect his arm was plainly genuine.
He carried his limb in a sling. When she slipped back the cloth, she saw that the forearm had been properly splinted. Probing his skin with her fingers, she discerned that Cail had reported the injury accurately: the breaks were clean—and cleanly set. Already the bones had begun to knit.
She nodded her satisfaction, turned to go back to Covenant. But Sevinhand stopped her.
She looked at him inquiringly. His melancholy had returned. He remained silent for a moment while he considered her. Then he said, “Heft Galewrath will attempt a calling of Nicor. That is perilous.” The flinch of his eyes showed that he was personally acquainted with the danger. “Mayhap there will be sore and instant need for a healer. It is Galewrath who tends the healing of Starfare's Gem—yet the gravest peril will befall her. Will you not offer your aid?” He nodded forward. “Surely the Haruchai will summon you with all speed, should you be required by Covenant Giantfriend.”
His earnest gaze moved her. The Giants had already shown their concern and support for her in many ways. Seadreamer had carried her out of Sarangrave Flat after the breaking of her ankle. And Pitchwife had tried several times to demonstrate that there were other smiles in the world than the fatal one Covenant had given Joan. She welcomed a chance to offer some kind of service in return. And she was clearly valueless to Covenant as matters stood. Vain did not appear to pose any threat.
Turning to Cail, she said, “I'm counting on you.” His slight bow of acceptance reassured her. The flatness of his visage seemed to promise that his people could be trusted beyond any possibility of dereliction or inadequacy.
As she left the wheeldeck, she felt Sevinhand's relief smiling wanly at her back.
Hastening across the long afterdeck, she passed through
Foodfendhall toward the prow of the ship. There she joined a milling press of Giants. Most were busy at tasks she did not understand; but Pitch wife noticed her arrival and moved to her side. “You are well come, Chosen,” he said lightly. “Perchance we will have need of you.”
“That's what Sevinhand said.”
His gaze flicked aft like a wince, then returned to Linden. “He speaks from knowledge.” His misformed eyes cast a clear echo of the Anchormaster's sorrow. "At one time—perhaps several brief human lives past—Sevinhand Mastered another Giantship, and Seatheme his wife served as Storesmaster. Ah, that is a tale worth the telling. But I will curtail it. The time is not apt for that story. And you will have other inquiries.
“To speak shortly—” Abruptly, he grimaced in vexation. “Stone and Sea, Chosen! It irks my heart to utter such a tale without its full measure. I am surpassed to credit that any people who speak briefly are in good sooth alive at all.” But then his eyes widened as if he were startled by his own intensity, and his expression cleared. “Nevertheless. I bow to the time.” He saluted Linden as if he were laughing at himself. "Shortly, then. Sevinhand and his Giantship sailed a Sea which we name the Soulbiter, for it is ever fell and predictless, and no craft passes it without cost. There a calm such as we now suffer came upon them. Many and many a day the vessel lay stricken, and no life stirred the sails. Water and food became dire. Therefore the choice was taken to attempt a calling of Nicor.
“As Storesmaster, the task fell chiefly to Seatheme, for such was her training and skill. She was a Giant to warm the heart, and—” Again, he stopped. Ducking his head, he passed a hand over his eyes, muttered, “Ah, Pitchwife. Shortly.” When he looked up once more, he was smiling crookedly through his tears. “Chosen, she mistimed the catch. And rare is the Giant who returns from the jaws of the Nicor”
Linden met his gaze with an awkwardness in her throat. She wanted to say something, but did not know how to offer comfort to a Giant. She could not match his smile.
Beyond the foremast, the crew had completed the construction of three large objects under Galewrath's direction. They were coracles—boats made of leather stretched over wooden frames, each big enough to hold two Giants. But their sides rose and curved so that each vessel was three-quarters of a sphere. A complex of hawsers and iron rings connected the coracles to each other; they had to be lifted and moved together. At Galewrath's orders, the boats were borne forward and pitched over the prow.
Guiding Linden with a touch on her shoulder, Pitchwife took her to a vantage from which she had a clear view of the coracles. They floated lightly on the flat Sea.
A moment later, the Storesmaster's blunt voice carried over the foredeck. “The calling of Nicor is hazardous, and none may be commanded to share it. If I am answered by one alone, mayhap it will be a rogue, and we will be assailed. If I am answered by many, this Sea will become a discomfortable swimming-place. And if I am not answered—” She shrugged brusquely. “For good or ill, the attempt must be made. The First has spoken. I require the aid of three.”
Without hesitation, several Giants stepped forward. Seadreamer moved to join them; but the First halted him, saying, “I will not risk the Earth-Sight.” Quickly, Galewrath chose three crewmembers. The rest went to uncoil a rope as thick as Linden's thigh from its cablewell near the foremast. This hawser they fed down toward the coracles.
The Storesmaster looked to Honninscrave and the First for parting words. But the First said simply, “Have care, Heft Galewrath. I must not lose you.”
Together, Galewrath and her three companions dove overboard.
Swimming with accustomed ease, they moved to the coracles, towing behind them the free hawser. When they reached the tackle connecting the boats, they threaded their line through a central iron ring. Then they pulled it toward the foremost coracle.
This craft formed the apex of a triangle pointing eastward. With a prodigious heave of her legs, Galewrath rose up in the water and flipped herself over the edge into the coracle. It rocked under her weight, but continued to float. She braced it as another Giant joined her. Then they accepted the hawser from the remaining swimmers.
The two separated, one to each of the outer coracles, as Galewrath and her partner tugged a length of cable from Starfare's Gem through the ring into their craft. When she was satisfied with the amount of line she had available, she began to knot a large loop into the end of the hawser.
As soon as the other Giants had boarded their coracles, they announced that they were ready. They sounded tense; but one was grinning fiercely, and the other could not resist her temptation to cast a mock bow toward Starfare's Gem, rocking her coracle as she clowned.
Heft Galewrath responded with a nod. Shifting her weight, she tilted the edge of her craft down almost to the waterline. From that position, she placed an object that looked like a one-sided drumhead in the water. Her partner helped her balance the coracle so that it remained canted without shipping water.
Pitchwife tightened expectantly; but Galewrath's stolid mien gave no sign that she had undertaken anything out of the ordinary. From her belt, she drew out two leather-wrapped sticks and at once began to beat on the drum, sending an intricate, cross-grained rhythm into the Sea.
Faintly through the stone, Linden felt that beat carrying past the keel, spreading outward like a summons.
“Pitchwife.” She was still conscious of Covenant, though the intervening Giants muffled her perception of him. He was like a bruise between her shoulder blades. But Galewrath held her attention. Anticipation of danger made her nervous. She needed to hear voices, explanations. “What the hell is going on?”
The deformed Giant glanced at her as if to gauge the implications of her acerbic tone. After a moment, he breathed softly, “A calling of Nicor. The Nicor of the Deep.”
That told her nothing. But Pitchwife seemed to understand her need. Before she could ask for a better answer, he went on, “Such calling is rarely greeted swiftly. Belike we confront a wait of some durance. I will tell you the tale.”
Behind her, most of the crew had left the prow. Only the First, Honninscrave, Seadreamer, and one or two others remained; the rest ascended the ratlines. Together, they kept watch on all the horizons.
'Chosen,“ Pitchwife murmured, ”have you heard the name of the Worm of the World's End?“ She shook her head. Well, no matter.” A gleam of quickening interest ran along his tone—a love for stories.
Galewrath's rhythm continued, complex and unvarying. As it thudded flatly into the dead air and the rising heat and the ea, it took on a plaintive cast, like a keening of loneliness, a call for companionship. Her arms rose and fell tirelessly.
“It is said among the Elohim, whose knowledge is wondrous, and difficult of contradiction”—Pitchwife conveyed a chortle of personal amusement—“that in the ancient and eternal youth of the cosmos, long ere the Earth came to occupy its place, the stars were as thick as sand throughout all the heavens. Where now we see multitudes of bright beings were formerly multitudes of multitudes, so that the cosmos was an ocean of stars from shore to shore, and the great depth of their present solitude was unknown to them—a sorrow which they could not have comprehended. They were the living peoples of the heavens, as unlike to us as gods. Grand and warm in their bright loveliness, they danced to music of their own making and were content.”
A rustle went through the Giants watching from the foremast, then subsided. Their keen sight had picked out something in the distance; but it had vanished.
"But far away across the heavens lived a being of another kind. The Worm. For ages it slumbered in peace—but when it awakened, as it awakens at the dawn of each new eon, it was afflicted with a ravenous hunger. Every creation contains destruction, as life contains death, and the Worm was destruction. Driven by its immense lust, it began to devour stars.
“Perhaps this Worm was not large among the stars, but its emptiness was large beyond measure, and it roamed the heavens, consuming whole seas of brightness, cutting great swaths of loneliness across the firmament. Writhing along the ages, avid and insatiable, it fed on all that lay within its reach, until the heavens became as sparsely peopled as a desert.”
As Linden listened, she tasted some of the reasons behind the Giants' love of stories. Pitchwife's soft narration wove a thread of meaning into the becalmed sky and the Sea. Such tales made the world comprehensible. The mood of his telling was sad; but its sadness did no harm.
"Yet the devoured stars were beings as unlike to us as gods, and no Worm or doom could consume their power without cost. Having fed hugely, the Worm became listless and gravid. Though it could not sleep, for the eon's end of its slumber had not come, it felt a whelming desire for rest. Therefore it curled its tail about itself and sank into quiescence.
"And while the Worm rested, the power of the stars wrought within it. From its skin grew excrescences of stone and soil, water and air, and these growths multiplied upon
themselves and multiplied until the very Earth beneath our feet took form. Still the power of the stars wrought, but now it gave shape to the surface of the Earth, forging the seas and the land. And then was brought forth life upon the Earth. Thus were born all the peoples of the Earth, the beasts of the land, the creatures of the deep—all the forests and greenswards from pole to pole. And thus from destruction came forth creation, as death gives rise to life.
“Therefore, Chosen,” said Pitchwife firmly, “we live, and strive, and seek to define the sense of our being. And it is good, for though we compose a scant blink across the eyes of eternity, yet while the blink lasts we choose what we will, create what we may, and share ourselves with each other as the stars did ere they were bereaved. But it must pass. The Worm does not slumber. It merely rests. And the time must come when it is roused, or rouses itself. Then it will slough off this skin of rock and water to pursue its hunger across the cosmos until eon's end and slumber. For that reason, it is named the Worm of the World's End.”
There Pitchwife fell silent. Linden glanced at him, saw his gaze fixed on Galewrath as though he feared the limitations of her strength. But the Storesmaster did not falter. While her partner balanced the coracle, she went on articulating her rhythm steadfastly, reaching out into the deeps for an answer. Ripples danced around the edges of the drum and were swallowed by the flat calm of the Sea.
Slowly, Pitchwife turned his eyes to Linden; but he seemed not to see her. His mind still wandered the paths of his tale. Gradually, however, he came back to himself. When his sight focused, he smiled in bemusement.
“Chosen,” he said lightly, as if to soften the import of his words, “it is said that the Nicor are offspring of the Worm.”
That announcement brought back her anxiety. It gave her her first hint of what the Giants were doing, how they meant to move the ship. Perhaps his tale was nothing more than a myth; but it accounted for the purpose which had galvanized the dromond. Implications of peril pulled her attention outward, sent her senses hunting over the inert Sea. She could hardly believe what she was thinking. Do they mean to capture—?
Before she could ask Pitchwife if she had understood him correctly, a distant thrumming like a sensation of speed touched her feet through the stone of Starfare's Gem. An instant later, a shout cracked across the masts.
“Nicor!”
The cry snatched her around. Searching the shrouds, she saw a Giant pointing southward.
Other shouts verified the first. Linden's gaze reached for the starboard horizon. But she could descry nothing. She held her breath, as if in that way she could force her vision into focus.
More with her feet than her ears, she heard Galewrath's rhythm change.
And the change was answered. Thudding beats echoed against the keel of the dromond. Something had heard Galewrath's call—and was replying.
Abruptly, the horizon broke as a surge of water like a bowwave rose out of the calm. The Sea piled upward as though a tremendous head were rushing forward just below the surface. The surge was still a great distance away, but it came toward the ship at a staggering rate. The wave slashed out to either side, climbing higher and higher until it looked large enough to swamp the Giantship.
Galewrath's rhythm took on a febrile edge, like pleading. But the answer did not vary, gave no sign that it understood. Yet it cast suggestions of power which made Linden's knees tremble.
Now through the water she could see a dark shape. It writhed like a serpent, and every heave of its form bespoke prodigious strength. As the Nicor came within jerrid-range of the vessel, its head-wave reached the height of the rails.
With the clarity of panic, Linden thought, It's going to ram us.
Then the Storesmaster hit her drum a resounding blow which split it; and the creature sounded.
Its long body flashed ahead of the wave as the Nicor angled into the depths. A moment later, the surge hit with a force which rocked the dromond. Linden staggered against Cail, rebounded from the railing. Starfare's Gem bobbed like a toy on the Sea.
Gripping Cail for balance as the Giantship resettled itself, Linden threw a glance downward and saw the colossal length of the Nicor still passing the keel. The creature was several times as long as Starfare's Gem.
The coracles lurched in the waves which recoiled from the sides of the dromond. But the four Giants kept their poise, held themselves ready. Galewrath had abandoned her riven drum. She stood now with the loop of the hawser in both hands; and her eyes watched the Sea.
Another shout. Some distance off to port, the Nicor broke water. For an instant, its head was visible, its snout like a prow, foam streaming from its gargantuan jaws. Then the creature arced back underwater and ploughed away in a long curve westward.
Starfare's Gem fell still. Linden could feel nothing except the pervasive ache of Covenant's need and the rapid beating of the Nicor's talk. She lost sight of the wave as it passed behind Foodfendhall toward the stern of the vessel. Every eye in the rigging followed the creature's path; but no one made a sound.
Her fingers dug into Cail's shoulder until she thought the joints would part. The thrumming of the creature became louder to her nerves than Covenant's plight.
“Ward!”
The suddenness of the cry stung Linden's hearing.
“It comes!”
Instantly, Giants scrambled out of the rigging. Honninscrave and the Anchormaster yelled orders. The crew gained the deck, braced themselves for a collision. Half a score of them slapped holding-blocks around the hawser near the cablewell.
The Storesmaster's strident shout rang over the vessel.
“How does it come?”
A Giant sprang into the prow, responded, “It comes truly!”
Linden had no time to do anything except cling to Cail. In that instant, the heel of the Giantship began to rise. Starfare's Gem tilted forward as the Nicor's head-wave struck the stern. The creature was passing along the ship's keel.
At the same moment, Galewrath dove into the Sea. Hauling the hawser behind her, she plunged to meet the Nicor.
Linden saw the Storesmaster kicking strongly downward. For one suspended heartbeat, Galewrath was alone in the water. Then the head of the Nicor flashed out from under the ship. The creature drove straight toward Galewrath.
As the two forms came together, a flurry of movement confused the sight. Linden clutched Cail's hard flesh, ground grip toward bone. The Nicor seemed to shout at her through the Sea and the stone. She heard its brute hunger, its incomprehension of what had called out to it. At her side, Pitchwife's hands wrestled the railing as if it were alive.
All at once, the hawser sprang outward. It leaped past the coracles, rushed hissing like fire into the water.
“Now!” cried the First.
Immediately, Galewrath's helpers abandoned their craft. As they did so, they overturned the coracles. With the openings downward and air trapped inside, the coracles floated like buoys, supporting between them the tackle and the iron ring through which the hawser sped.
Beneath the swimmers, the long dark body of the Nicor went writhing eastward. Lines were thrown down to them; but they did not respond. Their attention was focused on the place where Galewrath had disappeared.
When she broke water some distance past the coracles, a great shout went up from the Giantship. She waved her arms brusquely to signal that she was unharmed. Then she began to swim toward the dromond.
Short moments later, she and her companions stood dripping before the First. “It is done,” she panted, unable to conceal her pride. “I have looped the snout of the Nicor.”
The First returned an iron grin. But at once she swung toward the Giants poised on either side of the hawser near the cablewell. The cable was running headlong through the holding-blocks. “Our line is not endless,” she said firmly. “Let us begin.”
Ten Giants answered her with grins, nods, muttered promises. They planted their legs, braced their backs. At Honninscrave's command, they began to put pressure on the holding-blocks.
A scream of tortured cable shrilled across the deck. Smoke leaped from the blocks. The Giants were jerked forward a step, two steps, as they tried to halt the unreeling of the hawser.
The prow dipped under them like a nod; and Starfare's Gem started forward.
The screaming mounted. Honninscrave called for help. Ten more Giants slapped holding-blocks onto the hawser and threw their weight against it. Muscles knotted, thews stood out like bone, gasps burst along the line. Linden felt the strain in them and feared that not even Giants could bear such pressure. But by degrees the shrilling faded as the hawser slowed. The dromond gained speed. When the cable stopped, Starfare's Gem was knifing through the Sea as fast as the Nicor could tow it.
“Well done!” Honninscrave's eyes glinted under his massive brows. “Now let us regain what line we may, ere this Nicor conceives a desire to sound.”
Grunting with exertion, the Giants heaved on the hawser. Their feet seemed to clinch the granite of the deck, fusing ship and crew into a single taut organism. One arm's-length at a time, they drew in the cable. More of the crew came to their aid. The dromond began to gain on the Nicor.
Slowly, Linden uncramped her grip from Cail's shoulder. When she glanced at him, he appeared unconscious of her. Behind the flatness of his visage, he was watching the Giants with an acuity like joy, as if he almost shared her astonishment.
From the prow, crewmembers kept watch on the hawser. The buoys held the line's guide-ring above water; by observing the cable's movement in the ring, the Giants were able to see any change of direction made by the Nicor. This information they relayed to the steerswoman, so that she could keep Starfare's Gem on the creature's course.
But the buoys served another, more important purpose as well: they provided forewarning in case the Nicor should sound. If the creature dove suddenly and strongly enough, the prow of the Giantship might be pulled down before the hawser could be released. Perhaps some of the crew might be rent overboard when the others dropped the line. The buoys would give the Giants advance warning, so that they could let go of the cable together safely.
For a few moments, Linden was too full of amazement to think about anything else. But then a pang of recollection reminded her of Covenant.
Immediately, urgently, she sent her senses scrambling toward the afterdeck. At first, she could not feel her way past the immense straining of the Giants. They were a cynosure of effort, blocking her percipience. But then her grasp on the ambience of the dromond clarified, and she felt Covenant living as she had left him—locked rigid within his argent caul, rendered by his own act untouchable and doomed. An ache of dismay sucked at her when she thought that perhaps the ploy of the Giants had already failed. She protested, but could not seal herself against the fear. They did not deserve to fail.
The next moment, the Nicor thrashed through a violent change of direction. Starfare's Gem canted as if it had been stricken below the waterline. Swiftly, the steerswoman spun Shipsheartthew. The dromond began to straighten.
The Nicor wrenched itself the other way. Hooked by its prow, the Giantship pitched to that side. Water leaped toward the railing and Linden like a hammer blow.
The Sea curled away scant feet from her face. Then Honninscrave shouted, “Ease the line!”
The Giants obeyed; and the hawser leaped to a squeal through the holding-blocks, shot with a loud yammer past the prow. As the steerswoman fought the wheel, Starfare's Gem righted itself.
“Once more!” the Master ordered. “Hold!”
At his signal, blocks bit back into the cable, brought it squalling to a halt.
Linden found that she had forgotten to breathe. Her chest burned with the strain.
Before she could recover her balance, the dromond sagged back on its stern. Then the deck was nearly ripped from under her. The Nicor had surged to a stop, coiled its strength, and leaped forward again with redoubled ferocity.
In the instant that the pressure was released, all the Giants staggered backward. Some of them fell. Then the hawser tore at their arms as the Nicor began to run.
They were off-balance, could not hold, Honninscrave barked urgently, “Release!” They struggled to obey.
But they could not all unclose their holding-blocks at the same instant. One of them was late by a fraction of a heartbeat.
With the whole force of the Nicor, he was snatched forward. His grip appeared to be tangled on the hawser. Before he could let go, he crashed head and body against the rail of the prow.
The impact tore him free of the line. He tumbled backward, lay there crushed and still.
Shouts echoed unheard around Linden as Honninscrave mustered his crew to grip the hawser again. Her whole attention was fixed on the broken Giant. His pain cried out to her. Thrusting away from Cail, she jumped the hissing cable as if she were inured to peril, dashed to the sprawled form. All her instincts became lucid and precise.
She saw his shattered bones as if they were limned in light, felt his shredded tissues and internal bleeding as though the damage were incused on her own flesh. He was severely mangled. But he was still alive. His heart still limped; air still gurgled wetly from his pierced lungs. Perhaps he could be saved.
No. The harm was too great. He needed everything a modern hospital could have provided—transfusions, surgery, traction. She had nothing to offer except her health-sense.
Behind her, the ululation of the hawser fell silent as the Giants regained their hold. At once, they strove to win back the line they had lost. Starfare's Gem swept forward.
And yet his heart still beat. He still breathed. There was a chance. It was worth the attempt.
Without hesitation, she knelt at his side, cleared her mind of everything else. Reaching into him with her senses, she committed herself to the support of his faltering life.
With her own pulse, she steadied his, then bent her attention to the worst of his internal injuries. His pain flooded through her, but she refused to be mastered by it. His need outweighed pain, And it enabled her to trace his wounds as if they were laid bare before her. First she confronted his lungs. Broken ribs had punctured them in several places. Firmly, she nudged his tissues closed around the bones so that his lungs would not fill with blood. Then she followed the damage elsewhere. His bowels had been lacerated, but that was not the most immediate danger. Other organs were bleeding profusely. She poured herself toward them, fought to—
“Chosen.” Cail's voice cut through her concentration. “Brinn calls. The ur-Lord rouses himself.”
The words pierced her like cold death. Involuntarily, her awareness sprang in the direction of the afterdeck.
Cail was right. Covenant's sheath had begun to flash back and forth, flickering toward disaster. Within it, he twisted as though he were on the verge of the last rigor.
But the Giant— ! His life was seeping out of him. She could feel it flow as if it formed a palpable pool around her knees. Like the wound in her nightmare.
No!
As it flashed, Covenant's power gathered for one more blast. The import of that accumulation was written in the distress of his aura. He was preparing to release his white fire, let go
of it entirely. Then the last barrier between him and the venom would be gone. She knew without seeing him that his whole right side from hand to shoulder, waist to neck, was grotesquely swollen with poison.
One or the other, Covenant or the Giant.
While she sat there, stunned with indecision, they might both die.
No!
She could not endure it. Intolerable that either of them should be lost!
Her voice broke as she cried out, “Galewrath!” But she did not listen to the way her call cracked across the foredeck, did not wait for an answer. Cail tugged at her shoulder; she ignored him. Panting urgently, frenetically, Covenant! she plunged back into the stricken Giant.
The injuries which would kill him most quickly were there and there —two hurts bleeding too heavily to be survived. His lungs might go on working, but his heart could not continue. It had already begun to falter under the weight of so much blood-loss. With cold accuracy she saw what she would have to do. To keep him alive. Occupying his abdomen with her percipience, she twisted his nerves and muscles until the deeper of the two bleedings slowed to a trickle.
Then Heft Galewrath arrived, knelt opposite her. Covenant was going to die. His power gathered. Still Linden did not permit herself to flinch. Without shifting her attention, she grabbed Galewrath's hand, directed the thumb to press deeply into the Giant's stomach at a certain point. There. That pressure constricted the flow of the second fatal hurt.
“Chosen,” Cail's tone was as keen as a whip.
“Keep pressing there.” Linden sounded wild with hysteria, but she did not care. “Breathe into him. So he doesn't drown on blood.” She prayed that the experience of the seas had taught Galewrath something akin to artificial respiration.
In a frenzy of haste, she scrambled toward Covenant.
The foredeck appeared interminable. The Giants straining at the hawser dropped behind her one by one as if their knotted muscles and arched backs, the prices they were willing to pay in Covenant's name, measured out the tale of her belatedness. The sun shone into their faces. Beyond Foodfendhall, the flickering of Covenant's power grew slower as it approached its crisis.
Hergrom seemed to materialize in front of her, holding
open the door to the housing. She hurdled the storm-sill, pounded through the hall. Ceer flung open the far door.
With a wrench of nausea, she felt white fire collecting in Covenant's right side. Gathering against the venom. In his delirium, blind instinct guided him to direct the power inward, at himself, as if he could eradicate the poison by fire. As if such a blast would not also tear his life to shreds.
She had no time to try for any control over him. Springing out onto the afterdeck, she dove headlong toward him, skidded across the stone past Vain's feet to collide with Covenant so that any fire he unleashed would strike her as well. And as she hurled herself into danger, she drove her senses as far into him as she could reach.
Covenant! Don't!
She had never made such an attempt before, never tried to thrust a message through the link of her percipience. But now, impelled by desperation and hazard, she touched him. Far below his surface extremity, the struggling vestiges of his consciousness heard her. Barriers fell as he abandoned himself to her. A spring of fire broke open from his right hand, releasing the pressure. Flame gushed out of him and flowed away, harming nothing.
A wave of giddiness lifted her out of herself. She tottered to her feet, staggered against Cail. Her lips formed words she could hardly hear.
“Give him diamondraught. As much as you can.”
Dimly, she watched Brinn obey. She wanted to return to the foredeck. But her limbs were so full of palsy and relief that she could not move. Around her, the deck started to spin. She had to summon more strength than she knew she owned before she was able to tell Cail to take her back to Galewrath and the injured Giant.
At sunset, Starfare's Gem passed out of the zone of calm. Waves began to rock the vessel and wind kicked at the shrouds, drawing a cheer from the weary crew. By that time, they had recaptured half the line connecting them to the Nicor. Honninscrave spoke to the First. With a flourish, she drew her broadsword, severed the hawser at one stroke.
Other Giants climbed into the rigging and began to unfurl the sails. Soon Starfare's Gem was striding briskly before a stiff wind into the eastern night.
By that time, Linden had done everything she could for the wounded Giant. She felt certain he would live. When he regained consciousness enough to gaze up into her exhausted visage, he smiled.