Sixteen: The gaddhi's Punishment
FOR a long time, Linden Avery could not sleep. The stone of the Sandhold surrounded her, limiting her percipience. The very walls seemed to glare back at her as if they strove to protect a secret cunning. And at the edges of her range moved the hustin like motes of ill. The miscreated Guards were everywhere, jailers for the Chatelaine as well as for the company. She had watched the courtiers at their banquet and had discerned that their gaiety was a performance upon which they believed their safety depended. But there could be no safety in the donjon which the Kemper had created for himself and his petulant gaddhi.
Her troubled mind longed for the surcease of unconsciousness. But underneath the wariness and alarm which the Sandhold inspired lay a deeper and more acute distress. The memory of the Kemper's geas squirmed in the pit of her heart. Kasreyn had simply looked at her through his ocular, and instantly she had become his tool, a mere adjunct of his intent. She had not struggled, had not even understood the need to struggle. His will had possessed her as easily as if she had been waiting for it all her life.
The Haruchai had been able to resist. But she had been helpless. Her percipient openness had left her no defense. She was unable to completely close the doors the Land had opened in her.
As a result, she had betrayed Thomas Covenant. He was bound to her by yearnings more intimate than anything she had ever allowed herself to feel for any man; and she had sold him as if he had no value to her. No, not sold; she had been offered nothing in return. She had simply given him away. Only Brinn's determination had saved him.
That hurt surpassed the peril of the Sandhold. It was the cusp of all her failures. She felt like a rock which had been struck too hard or too often. She remained superficially intact; but within her fault lines spread at every blow. She no longer knew how to trust herself.
In her bedchamber after the banquet, she mimicked sleep because Cail was with her. But his presence also served to keep her awake. When she turned her face to the wall, she felt his hard aura like a pressure against her spine, denying what little courage she had left. He, too, did not trust her.
Yet the day had been long and arduous; and at last weariness overcame her tension. She sank into dreams of stone—the irrefragable gutrock of Revelstone. In the hold of the Clave, she had tried to force herself bodily into the granite to escape Gibbon-Raver. But the stone had refused her. According to Covenant, the former inhabitants of the Land had found life and beauty in stone; but this rock had been deaf to every appeal. She still heard the Raver saying, The principal doom of the Land is upon your shoulders. Are you not evil? And she had cried out in answer, had been crying ever since in self-abomination, No! Never!
Then the voice said something else. It said, “Chosen, arise. The ur-Lord has been taken.”
Sweating nightmares, she flung away from the wall. Cail placed a hand on her shoulder; the wail which Gibbon had spawned sprang into her throat. But the door stood open, admitting light to the bedchamber. Cail's mien held no ill glee. Instinctively, she bit down her unuttered cry. Her voice bled as she gasped, “Taken?” The word conveyed nothing except inchoate tremors of alarm.
“The ur-Lord has been taken,” Cail repeated inflexibly. “The Lady Alif came for him in the Kemper's name. She has taken him.”
She stared at him, groped through the confusion of her dreams. “Why?”
Shadows accentuated Cail's shrug. “She said, 'Kasreyn of the Gyre desires speech with Thomas Covenant.' ”
Taken him. A knife-tip of apprehension trailed down her spine. “Is Brinn with him?”
The Haruchai did not falter. “No.”
At that, her eyes widened. “You mean you let —?” She was on her feet. Her hands grabbed at his shoulders. “Are you crazy? Why didn't you call me?”
She was fractionally taller than he; but his flat gaze out-sized her. He did not need words to repudiate her.
“Oh goddamn it!” She tried to thrust him away, but the effort only shoved her backward. Spinning, she flung toward the door. Over her shoulder, she snapped, “You should've called me.” But she already knew his answer.
In the corridor, she found the Giants. Honninscrave and Seadreamer were straightening their sarks, dressing hurriedly. But the First stood ready, with her shield on her arm, as if she had slept that way. Ceer was also there. Vain and Findail had not moved. But Brinn and Hergrom were nowhere to be seen.
The First answered Linden's hot visage sternly.
“It appears that we have miscounted the Kemper's cunning. The tale I have from Ceer. While we slept, the Lady Alif approached Hergrom where he stood with Vain and this Elohim. Speaking words of courtesy and blandishment, she drew nigh and into his face cast a powder which caused him slumber. Neither Vain nor Findail”—a keen edge ran through her tone— "saw fit to take action in this matter, and she turned from them as if their unconcern were a thing to be trusted. She then approached Brinn and the Giantfriend. Brinn also fell prey to her powder of slumber, and she bore Covenant away.
“Sensing the unwonted somnolence of his comrades, Ceer left me. In this passage, he saw the Lady Alif with Covenant, retreating.” She pointed down the corridor. “He went in pursuit. Yet ere he could gain them, they vanished.”
Linden gaped at the First.
“The slumber of Brinn and Hergrom was brief,” the Swordmain concluded. “They have gone in search of the Giantfriend—or of the Kemper. It is my thought that we must follow.”
The defense of Linden's heart cramped her breathing. What could Kasreyn possibly want from Covenant, that he was willing to risk so much coercion and stealth to gain it?
What else but the white ring?
A surge of hysteria rose up in her. She fought for self-command. Fear galvanized her. She turned on Ceer, demanded, “How could they have vanished?”
“I know not.” His countenance remained impassive. "At a certain place beyond these doors“—he searched momentarily for a word—”an acuteness came upon them. Then they were before me no longer. The means of their vanishment I could not discover."
Damn it to hell! With a wrench, Linden dismissed that unanswerable how. To the First, she gritted, “Kemper's Pitch.”
“Aye.” In spite of her empty scabbard, the Swordmain was whetted for action. “Kemper's Pitch.” With a jerk of her head, she sent Honninscrave and Seadreamer down the corridor.
They broke into a trot as Ceer joined them. At once, the First followed; then Linden and Cail ran after them, too concerned for Covenant to think about the consequences of what they were doing.
At the first corner, she glanced back, saw Vain and Findail following without apparent haste or effort.
Almost at once, the company encountered the Guards that had been stationed outside their rooms earlier. The faces of the hustin registered brutish surprise, uncertainty. Some of them stepped forward; but when the Giants swept defiantly past them, the hustin did not react. Mordantly, Linden thought that Kasreyn's attention must be concentrated elsewhere.
Like the Haruchai, the Giants had obviously learned more about the layout of the Second Circinate than she had been able to absorb. They threaded their way unerringly through the halls and passages, corridors and chambers. In a short time, they reached the forecourt near the stairways to the Tier of Riches. Upward they went without hesitation.
The Tier was as brightly lit as ever; but at this time of night it was deserted. Honninscrave promptly chose an intricate route through the galleries. When he arrived in the resting-place of the longsword at which the First had gazed with such desire, he stopped. Looking intently at her, he asked in a soft voice, “Will you not arm yourself?”
“Tempt me not.” Her features were cold. “Should we appear before the gaddhi or his Kemper bearing a gift which was denied us, we will forfeit all choice but that of battle. Let us not rashly put our feet to that path.”
Linden felt dark shapes rising from the Second Circinate. “Guards,” she panted. “Somebody told them what to do.”
The First gave Honninscrave a nod of command. He swung away toward the stairs to The Majesty.
Linden ran dizzily after the Giants up the spiralling ascent. Her breathing was hard and sharp; the dry air cut at her lungs. She feared the hustin in The Majesty. If they, too, had been given orders, what could the company do against so many of them?
As she sprang out of the stairwell onto the treacherous floor of the Auspice-hall, she saw that her fears were justified. Scores of squat, powerful hustin formed an arc across the company's way. They bristled with spears. In the faint light reflecting from the vicinity of the Auspice, they looked as intractable as old darkness.
The pursuing Guards had reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Stone and Sea!” hissed the First through her teeth. “Here is a gay pass.” Seadreamer took an impulsive step forward. “Hold, Giant,” she ordered softly. “Would you have us slain like cattle?” In the same tone, she addressed Linden over her shoulder. “Chosen, if any thought comes to you, be not shy to utter it. I mislike this peril.”
Linden did not respond. The posture of the Guards described the nature of Kasreyn's intentions against Covenant eloquently. And Covenant was as defenseless as an infant. The Elohim had reft him of everything which might have protected him. She chewed silent curses in an effort to hold back panic.
The hustin advanced on the company.
The next moment, a high shout echoed across The Majesty:
“Halt!”
The Guards stopped. The ones on the stairs climbed a few more steps, then obeyed.
Someone began to thrust forward among the hustin. Linden saw a vehement head bobbing past their ears, accompanied by a thick flurry of yellow hair. The Guards parted involuntarily. Soon a woman stood before the company.
She was naked, as if she had just come from the gaddhi's bed.
The Lady Alif.
She cast a look at the questers, daring them to take notice of her nudity. Then she turned to the Guards. Her voice imitated anger; but beneath the surface it quivered with temerity.
“Why do you accost the guests of the gaddhi?”
The porcine eyes of the hustin shifted uncomfortably toward her, back to the company. Their thoughts worked tortuously. After a pause, several of them answered, “These are not permitted to pass.”
“Not?” she demanded sharply. “I command you to admit them.”
Again the hustin were silent while they wrestled with the imprecision of their orders. Others repeated, “These are not permitted to pass.”
The Lady cocked her arms on her hips. Her tone softened dangerously. “Guards, do you know me?”
Hustin blinked at her. A few licked their lips as if they were torn between hunger and confusion. At last, a handful replied, “Lady Alif, Favoured of the gaddhi.”
“Forsooth,” she snapped sarcastically. “I am the Lady Alif, Favoured of the gaddhi Rant Absolain. Has Kasreyn granted you to refuse the commands of the gaddhi or his Favoured?”
The Guards were silent. Her question was too complex for them.
Slowly, clearly, she said, “I command you in the name of Rant Absolain, gaddhi of Bhrathairealm and the Great Desert, to permit his guests passage.”
Linden held her breath while the hustin struggled to sort out their priorities. Apparently, this situation had not been covered by their instructions; and no new orders came to their aid. Confronted by the Lady Alif's insistence, they did not know what else to do. With a rustling movement like a sigh, they parted, opening a path toward the Auspice.
At once, the Favoured faced the company. Her eyes shone with a hazardous revenge. “Now make haste,” she said quickly, “while Kasreyn is consumed by his intent against your Thomas Covenant, I have no cause to wish your companion well, but I will teach the Kemper that he is unwise to scorn those who defense in his service. Mayhap his pawns will someday gain the courage to defy him.” An instant later, she stamped her foot, sending out a tinkle of silver. “Go, I say! At any moment, he may recollect himself and countermand me.”
The First did not hesitate. Striding from circle to circle, she moved swiftly among the hustin. Ceer joined her. Honninscrave and Seadreamer followed, warding her back. Linden wanted to take a moment to question the Lady; but she had no time. Cail caught her arm, swung her after the Giants.
Behind the company, the Guards turned, reformed their ranks. Moving stiffly over the stone slabs, they followed Vain and Findail toward the Auspice.
When the Giants entered the brighter illumination around the throne, Brinn suddenly appeared out of the shadows. He did not pause to explain how he had come to be there. Flatly, he said, “Hergrom has discovered the ur-Lord. Come.” Turning, he sped back into the darkness behind the gaddhi's seat.
Linden glanced at the hustin. They were moving grimly, resolutely, but made no effort to catch up with the interlopers. Perhaps they had now been commanded to block any retreat.
She could not worry about retreat. Covenant was in the Kemper's hands. She ran after the First and Ceer into the shadow of the Auspice.
Here, too, the wall was deeply carved with tormented shapes like a writhe of ghouls. Even in clear light, the doorway would have been difficult to find, for it was cunningly hidden among the bas-reliefs. But Brinn had learned the way. He went directly to the door.
It swung inward under the pressure of his hand, admitting the company to a narrow stair which gyred upward through the stone. Brinn led, with Honninscrave, Seadreamer, and then Ceer at his back. Linden followed the First. Urgency pulled at her heart, denying the shortness of her breath, the scant strength of her legs. She wanted to cry out Covenant's name.
The stair seemed impossibly long; but at last it reached a door that opened into a large round chamber. The place was furnished and appointed like a seduction room. Braziers shed fight over its intense blue rugs, its lush cushions and couches: the tapestries bedecking the walls depicted a variety of lurid scenes. Almost instantly, the incense in the air began to fill Linden's lungs with giddiness.
Ahead of her, the Giants and Haruchai came to a halt. A husta stood there with its spear levelled at the questers, guarding the ironwork stair which rose from the defense of the chamber.
This husta had no doubt of its duty. One cheek was discolored with bruises, and Linden saw other signs that the Guard had been in a fight. If Hergrom had indeed found Covenant, he must have passed through this chamber to do so. But the husta was impervious to its pains. It confronted the company fearlessly.
Brinn bounded forward. He feinted at the Guard, then dodged the spear and leaped for the railing of the stair.
The husta tracked him with the point of its spear to strike him in the back. But Seadreamer was already moving. With momentum, weight, and oaken strength, he delivered a blow which stretched the Guard out among the cushions like a sated lover.
As a precaution, Honninscrave jumped after the husta, caught hold of its spear and snapped the shaft.
The rest of the company rushed after Brinn.
The stairs took them even higher into the seclusion of Kemper's Pitch.
Gripping the rail, Linden hauled herself from tread to tread, forced her leaden legs to carry her. The incense and the spiralling affected her like nightmare. She did not know how much farther she could ascend. When she reached the next level, she might be too weak to do anything except struggle for breath.
But her will held, carried her panting and dizzy into the lucubrium of the gaddhi's Kemper.
Her eyes searched the place frenetically. This was clearly Kasreyn's laboratory, where he wrought his arts. But she could not bring anything she saw into focus. Long tables covered with equipment, crowded shelves, strange contrivances seemed to reel around her.
Then her vision cleared. Beyond the spot where the Giants and Brinn had stopped lay a Guard. It was dead, sprawled in a congealing pool of its own rank blood. Hergrom stood over it like a defiance. Deliberately, he nodded toward one side of the lucubrium.
Kasreyn was there.
In his own demesne, surrounded by his possessions and powers, he appeared unnaturally tall. His lean arms were folded like wrath over his chest; but he remained as still as Hergrom, as if he and the Haruchai were poised in an impasse. His golden ocular dangled from its ribbon around his neck. His son slept like a tumour on his back.
He was standing in front of a chair which bristled with bindings and apparatus.
Within the bindings sat Covenant.
He was looking at his companions; but his eyes were empty, as if he had no soul.
With her panting clenched between her teeth, Linden slipped past the Giants, hastened forward. For an instant, she glared at Kasreyn, let him see the rage naked in her face. Then she turned her back on him and approached Covenant.
Her hands shook as she tried to undo the bonds. They were too tight for her. When Brinn joined her, she left that task to him and instead concentrated on examining Covenant.
She found no damage. His flesh was unmarked. Behind the slackness of his mouth and the confusion of his beard, nothing had changed. She probed into his body, inspected his bones and organs with her percipience; but internally also he had suffered no harm.
His ring still hung like a fetter on the last finger of his half-hand.
Relief stunned her. For a moment, she became lightheaded with incomprehension, had to steady herself on Brinn's shoulder as he released the ur-Lord. Had Hergrom stopped Kasreyn in time? Or had the Kemper simply failed? Had the silence of the Elohim surpassed even his arts?
Had it in fact defended Covenant from hurt?
“As you see,” Kasreyn said, “he is uninjured.” A slight tremble of age and ire afflicted his voice. “Despite your thought of me, I have sought only his succour. Had this Haruchai not foiled me with his presence and needless bloodshed, your Thomas Covenant would have been restored to you whole and well. But no trustworthiness can withstand your suspicion. Your doubt fulfils itself, for it prevents me from accomplishing that which would teach you the honesty of my intent.”
Linden spun on him. Her relief recoiled into fury. “You bastard. If you're so goddamn trustworthy, why did you do all this?”
“Chosen.” Indignation shone through the rheum of his eyes. “Do any means exist by which I could have persuaded you to concede Thomas Covenant to me alone?”
With all the strength of his personality, he projected an image of offended virtue. But Linden was not daunted. The discrepancy between his stance and his hunger was palpable to her. She was angry enough to tell him what she saw, expose the range of her sight. But she had no time. Heavy feet rang on the iron stairs. Behind the reek of death in the air, she felt hustin surging upward. As Brinn drew Covenant from the stair, she turned to warn her companions. They did not need the warning. The Giants and Haruchai had already poised themselves in defensive positions around the room.
But the first individual who appeared from the stairwell was not one of the hustin. It was Rant Absolain.
The Lady Alif was at his back. She had taken the time to cover herself with a translucent robe.
Behind them came the Guards.
When she saw the fallen husta, the Lady Alif's face betrayed an instant of consternation. She had not expected this. Reading her, Linden guessed that the Favoured had roused the gaddhi in an effort to further frustrate Kasreyn's plans. But the dead Guard changed everything. Before the Lady mastered her expression, it gave away her realization that she had made a mistake.
With a sting of apprehension, Linden saw what the mistake was.
The gaddhi did not glance at Kasreyn. He did not notice his guests. His attention was locked to the dead Guard. He moved forward a step, two steps, stumbled to his knees in the dark blood. It splattered thickly, staining his linen. His hands fluttered at the husta'?, face. Then he tried to turn the Guard over onto its back; but it was too heavy for him. His hands came away covered with blood. He stared at them, gazed blindly up at the crowd around him. His mouth trembled. “My Guard.” He sounded like a bereaved child. “Who has slain my Guard?”
For a moment, the lucubrium was intense with silence. Then Hergrom stepped forward. Linden felt peril thronging in the air. She tried to call him back. But she was too late. Hergrom acknowledged his responsibility to spare his companions from the gaddhi's wrath.
Hustin continued to arrive. The Giants and Haruchai held themselves ready; but they were weaponless and outnumbered.
Slowly, Rant Absolain's expression focused on Hergrom. He arose from his knees, dripping gouts of blood. For a moment, he stared at Hergrom as if he were appalled by the depth of the Haruchai's crime. Then he said, “Kemper.” His voice was a snarl of passion in the back of his throat. Grief and outrage gave him the stature he had lacked earlier. “Punish him.”
Kasreyn moved among the Guards and questers, went to stand near Rant Absolain. “O gaddhi, blame him not.” The Kemper's self-command made him sound telic rather than contrite. “The fault is mine. I have made many misjudgments.”
At that, the gaddhi broke like an over-stretched rope.
“I want him punished!” With both fists, he hammered at Kasreyn's chest, pounding smears of blood into the yellow robe. The Kemper recoiled a step; and Rant Absolain turned to hurl his passion at Hergrom. “That Guard is mine! Mine! Then he faced Kasreyn again. ”In all Bhrathairealm, I possess nothing! I am the gaddhi, and the gaddhi is only a servant!“ Rage and self-pity writhed in him. ”The Sandhold is not mine! The Riches are not mine! The Chatelaine attends me only at your whim!“ He stooped to the dead husta and scooped up handfuls of the congealing fluid, flung them at Kasreyn, at Hergrom. A gobbet trickled and fell from Kasreyn's chin, but he ignored it. ”Even my Favoured come to me from you! After you have used them!“ Rant Absolain's fists jerked blows through the air. ”But the Guard is mine! They alone obey me without looking first to learn your will!“ With a shout, he concluded, ”I want him punished!"
Rigid as madness, he faced the Kemper. After a moment, Kasreyn said, “O gaddhi, your will is my will.” His tone was suffused with regret. As he stepped slowly, ruefully, toward Hergrom, the tension concealed within his robe conveyed a threat. “Hergrom—” Linden began. Then her throat locked on the warning. She did not know what the threat was.
Her companions braced themselves to leap to Hergrom's aid. But they, too, could not define the threat.
The Kemper stopped before Hergrom, studied him briefly. Then Kasreyn lifted his ocular to his left eye. Linden tried to relax. The Haruchai had already proven themselves impervious to the Kemper's geas. Hergrom's flat orbs showed no fear.
Gazing through his eyepiece, Kasreyn reached out with careful unmenace and touched his index finger to the defense of Hergrom's forehead.
Hergrom's only reaction was a slight widening of his eyes.
The Kemper dropped both hands, sagged as if in weariness or sorrow. Without a word, he turned away. The Guards parted for him as he went to the chair where Covenant had been bound. There he seated himself, though he could not lean back because of the child he carried. With his fingers, he hid his face as if he were mourning.
But to Linden the emotion he concealed felt like glee.
She was unsure of her perception. The Kemper was adept at disguising the truth about himself. But Rant Absolain's reaction was unmistakable. He was grinning in fierce triumph.
His mouth moved as if he wanted to say something that would crush the company, demonstrate his own superiority; but no words came to him. Yet his passion for the Guards sustained him. He might indeed have been a monarch as he moved away. Commanding the hustin to follow him, he took the Lady Alif by the hand and left the lucubrium.
As she started downward, the Lady cast one swift look like a pang of regret toward Linden. Then she was gone, and the Guards were thumping down the iron stairs behind her. Two of them bore their dead fellow away.
None of the questers shifted while the hustin filed from the chamber. Vain's bland ambiguous smile was a reverse image of Findail's alert pain. The First stood with her arms folded over her chest, glaring like a hawk. Honninscrave and Seadreamer remained poised nearby. Brinn had placed Covenant at Linden's side, where the four Haruchai formed a cordon around the people they had sworn to protect.
Linden held herself rigid, pretending severity. But her sense of peril did not abate.
The Guards were leaving. Hergrom had suffered no discernible harm. In a moment, Kasreyn would be alone with the questers. He would be in their hands. Surely he could not defend himself against so many of them. Then why did she feel that the survival of the company had become so precarious?
Brinn gazed at her intently. His hard eyes strove to convey a message without words. Intuitively, she understood him.
The last husta was on the stairs. The time had almost come. Her knees were trembling. She flexed them slightly, sought to balance herself on the balls of her feet.
The Kemper had not moved. From within the covert of his hands, he said in a tone of rue, or cleverly mimicked rue, “You may return to your rooms. Doubtless the gaddhi will later summon you. I must caution you to obey him. Yet I would you could credit that I regret all which has transpired here.”
The moment had come. Linden framed the words in her mind. Time and again, she had dreamed of slaying Gibbon-Raver. She had even berated Covenant for his restraint in Revelstone. She had said, Some infections have to be cut out. She had believed that. What was power for, if not to extirpate evil? Why else had she become who she was?
But now the decision was upon her—and she could not speak. Her heart leaped with fury at everything Kasreyn had done, and still she could not speak. She was a doctor, not a killer. She could not give Brinn the permission he wanted.
His mien wore an inflectionless contempt as he turned his back on her. Mutely, he referred his desires to the leadership of the First.
The Swordmain did not respond. If she were aware of her opportunity, she elected to ignore it. Without a word to the Kemper or her companions, she strode to the stairs.
Linden gave a dumb groan of relief or regret, she did not know which.
A faint frown creased Brinn's forehead. But he did not hesitate. When Honninscrave had followed the First, Brinn and Hergrom took Covenant downward. At once, Cail and Ceer steered Linden toward the stairs. Seadreamer placed himself like a bulwark behind the Haruchai. Leaving Vain and Findail to follow at their own pace, the company descended from Kemper's Pitch. Clenched in a silence like a fist, they returned to their quarters in the Second Circinate.
Along the way, they encountered no Guards. Even The Majesty was empty of hustin.
The First entered the larger chamber across the hall from the bedrooms. While Linden and the others joined the Swordmain, Ceer remained in the passage to ward the door.
Brinn carefully placed Covenant on one of the settees. Then he confronted the First and Linden together. His impassive voice conveyed a timbre of accusation to Linden's hearing.
“Why did we not slay the Kemper? There lay our path to safety.”
The First regarded him as if she were chewing her tongue for self-command. A hard moment passed between them before she replied, “The hustin number fourscore hundred. The Horse, fifteenscore. We cannot win our way with bloodshed.”
Linden felt like a cripple. Once again, she had been too paralyzed to act; contradictions rendered her useless. She could not even spare herself the burden of supporting Brinn.
“They don't mean anything. I don't know about the Horse. But the Guards haven't got any minds of their own. They're helpless without Kasreyn to tell them what to do.”
Honninscrave looked at her in surprise. “But the gaddhi said—”
“He's mistaken.” The cries she had been stifling tore at the edges of her voice. “Kasreyn keeps him like a pet.”
“Then is it also your word,” asked the First darkly, “that we should have slain this Kemper?”
Linden failed to meet the First's stare. She wanted to shout, Yes! And, No. Did she not have enough blood on her hands?
“We are Giants,” the Swordmain said to Linden's muteness. “We do not murder.” Then she turned her back on the matter.
But she was a trained fighter. The rictus of her shoulders said as clearly as an expostulation that the effort of restraint in the face of so much peril and mendacity was tearing her apart.
A blur filled Linden's sight. Every judgment found her wanting. Even Covenant's emptiness was an accusation for which she had no answer.
What had Kasreyn done to Hergrom?
The light and dark of the world were invisible within the Sandhold. But eventually servants came to the chamber, announcing sunrise with trays of food. Linden's thoughts were dulled by fatigue and strain; yet she roused herself to inspect the viands. She expected treachery in everything. However, a moment's examination showed her that the food was clean. Deliberately, she and her companions ate their fill, trying to prepare themselves for the unknown.
With worn and red-rimmed eyes, she studied Hergrom. From the brown skin of his face to the vital marrow of his bones, he showed no evidence of harm, no sign that he had ever been touched. But the unforgiving austerity of his visage prevented her from asking him any questions. The Haruchai did not trust her. In refusing to call for Kasreyn's death, she had rejected what might prove the only chance to save Hergrom.
Some time later, Rire Grist arrived. He was accompanied by another man, a soldier with an atrabilious mien whom the Caitiffin introduced as his aide. He greeted the questers as if he had heard nothing concerning the night's activities. Then he said easily, "My friends, the gaddhi chooses to pleasure himself this morning with a walk upon the Sandwall. He asks for your attendance. The sun shines with wondrous clarity, granting a view of the Great Desert which may interest you. Will you come?"
He appeared calm and confident. But Linden read in the tightness around his eyes that the peril had not been averted.
The bitterness of the First's thoughts was plain upon her countenance: Have we choice in the matter? But Linden had nothing to say. She had lost the power of decision. Her fears beat about her head like dark wings, making everything impossible. They're going to kill Hergrom!
Yet the company truly had no choice. They could not fight all the gaddhi's Guards and Horse. And if they did not mean to fight, they had no recourse but to continue acting out their role as Rant Absolain's guests. Linden's gaze wandered the blind stone of the floor, avoiding the eyes which searched her, until the First said to Rire Grist, “We are ready.” Then in stiff distress she followed her companions out of the room.
The Caitiffin led them down to the Sandhold's massive gates. In the forecourt of the First Circulate, perhaps as many as forty soldiers were training their mounts, prancing and curvetting the destriers around the immense, dim hall. The horses were all dark or black, and their shod hooves struck sparks into the shadows like the crepitation of a still-distant prescience. Rire Grist hailed the leader of the riders in a tone of familiar command. He was sure of himself among them. But he took the company on across the hall without pausing.
When they reached the band of open ground which girdled the donjon, the desert sun hit them a tangible blow of brightness and heat. Linden had to turn away to clear her sight. Blinking, she looked up at the dust-tinged sky between the ramparts, seeking some relief for her senses from the massy oppression of the Sandhold. But she found no relief. There were no birds. And the banquettes within the upper curve of the wall were marked at specific intervals with hustin.
Cail took her arm, drew her after her companions eastward into the shadow of the wall. Her eyes were grateful for the dimness; but it did not ease the way the arid air scraped at her lungs. The sand shifted under her feet at every step, leeching the strength from her legs. When the company passed the eastern gate of the Sandwall, she felt an impossible yearning to turn and run.
Talking politely about the design and construction of the wall, Rire Grist led the company around the First Circinate toward a wide stair built into the side of the Sandwall. He was telling the First and Honninscrave that there were two such stairs, one opposite the other beyond the Sandhold—and that there were also other ways to reach the wall from the donjon, through underground passages. His tone was bland; but his spirit was not.
A shiver like a touch of fever ran through Linden as he started up the stairs. Nevertheless she followed as if she had surrendered her independent volition to the exigency which impelled the First.
The stairs were broad enough for eight or ten people at once. But they were steep, and the effort of climbing them in that heat drew a flush across Linden's face, stuck her shirt to her back with sweat. By the time she reached the top, she was breathing as if the dry air were full of needles.
Within its parapets, the ridge of the Sandwall was as wide as a road and smooth enough for horses or wains to travel easily. From this vantage, Linden was level with the rim of the First Circinate and could see each immense circle of the Sandhold rising dramatically to culminate in the dire shaft of Kemper's Pitch.
On the other side of the wall lay the Great Desert.
As Rire Grist had said, the atmosphere was clear and sharp to the horizons. Linden felt that her gaze spanned a score of leagues to the east and south. In the south, a few virga cast purple shadows across the middle distance; but they did not affect the etched acuity of the sunlight.
Under that light, the desert was a wilderness of sand—as white as salt and bleached bones, and drier than all the world's thirst. It caught the sun, sent it back diffused and multiplied. The sands were like a sea immobilized by the lack of any tide heavy enough to move it. Dunes serried and challenged each other toward the sky as if at one time the ground itself had been lashed to life by the fury of a cataclysm. But that orogeny had been so long ago that only the skeleton of the terrain and the shape of the dunes remembered it. No other life remained to the Great Desert now except the life of wind—intense desiccating blasts out of the deep south which could lift the sand like spume and recarve the face of the land at whim. And this day there was no wind. The air felt like a reflection of the sand, and everything Linden saw in all directions was dead.
But to the southwest there was wind. As the company walked along the top of the Sandwall, she became aware that in the distance, beyond the virga and the discernible dunes, violence was brewing. No, not brewing: it had already attained full rage. A prodigious storm galed around itself against the horizon as if it had a cyclone for a heart. Its clouds were as black as thunder, and at intervals it sent out lurid glarings like shrieks.
Until the Giants stopped to look at the storm, she did not realize what it was.
Sandgorgons Doom.
Abruptly, she was touched by a tremor of augury, as if even at this range the storm had the power to reach out and rend—
The gaddhi and his women stood on the southwest curve of the Sandwall, where they had a crystal view of the Doom. Nearly a score of hustin guarded the vicinity.
They were directly under the purview of Kemper's Pitch.
Rant Absolain hailed the questers as they approached. A secret excitement sharpened his welcome. He spoke the common tongue with a heartiness that rang false. On behalf of the company, Rire Grist gave appropriate replies. Before he could make obeisance, the gaddhi summoned him closer, drawing the company among the Guards. Quickly, Linden scanned the gathering and discovered that Kasreyn was not present.
Free of his Kemper, Rant Absolain was determined to play the part of a warm host. “Welcome, welcome,” he said fulsomely. He wore a long ecru robe designed to make him appear stately. His Favoured stood near him, attired like the priestesses of a love-god. Other young women were there also; but they had not been granted the honour of sharing the gaddhi's style of dress. They were decked out in raiment exquisitely inappropriate to the sun and the heat. But the gaddhi paid no attention to their obvious beauty; he concentrated °n his guests. In one hand, he held an ebony chain from which dangled a large medallion shaped to represent a black sun. He used it to emphasize the munificence of his gestures as he performed.
“Behold the Great Desert!” He faced the waste as if it were his to display. "Is it not a sight? Under such a sun the true tint is revealed—a hue stretching as far as the Bhrathair have ever journeyed, though the tale is told that in the far south the desert becomes a wonderland of every color the eye may conceive.“ His arm flipped the medallion in arcs about him. ”No people but the Bhrathair have ever wrested bare life from such a grand and ungiving land. But we have done more.
“The Sandhold you have seen. Our wealth exceeds that of monarchs who rule lush demesnes. But now for the first time”—his voice tightened in expectation—“you behold Sandgorgons Doom. Not elsewhere in all the Earth is such theurgy manifested.” In spite of herself, Linden looked where the gaddhi directed her gaze. The hot sand made the bones of her forehead ache as if the danger were just beginning; but that distant violence held her. “And no other people have so triumphed over such fell foes.” Her companions seemed transfixed by the roiling thunder. Even the Haruchai stared at it as if they sought to estimate themselves against it.
“The Sandgorgons.” Rant Absolain's excitement mounted. “You do not know them—but I tell you this. Granted time and freedom, one such creature might tear the Sandhold stone from stone. One! They are more fearsome than madness or nightmare. Yet there they are bound. Their lives they spend railing against the gyre of their Doom, while we thrive. Only at rare events does one of them gain release—and then but briefly.” The tension in his voice grew keener, whetted by every word. Linden wanted to turn away from the Doom, drag her companions back from the parapet. But she had no name for what dismayed her.
“For centuries, the Bhrathair lived only because the Sandgorgons did not slay them all. But now I am the gaddhi of Bhrathairealm and all the Great Desert, and they are mine!”
He ended his speech with a gesture of florid pride; and suddenly the ebony chain slipped from his fingers.
Sailing black across the sunlight and the pale sand, the chain and medallion arced over the parapet and fell near the base of the Sandwall. Sand puffed at the impact, settled again. The dark sun of the medallion lay like a stain on the clean earth.
The gaddhi's women gasped, surged to the edge to look downward. The Giants peered over the parapet.
Rant Absolain did not move. He hugged his arms around his chest to contain a secret emotion.
Reacting like a good courtier, Rire Grist said quickly, “Fear nothing, O gaddhi. It will shortly be restored to you. I will send my aide to retrieve it.”
The soldier with him started back toward the stairs, clearly intending to reach one of the outer gates and return along the base of the Sandwall to pick up the medallion.
But the gaddhi did not look at the Caitiffin. “I want it now,” he snapped with petulant authority. “Fetch rope.”
At once, two Guards left the top of the wall, descended to the banquette, then entered the wall through the nearest opening.
Tautly, Linden searched for some clue to the peril. It thickened in the air at every moment. But the gaddhi's attitude was not explicit enough to betray his intent. Rire Grist's careful poise showed that he was playing his part in a charade—but she had already been convinced of that. Of the women, only the two Favoured exposed any knowledge of the secret. The Lady Benj's mien was hard with concealment. And the Lady Alif flicked covert glances of warning toward the company.
Then the hustin returned, bearing a heavy coil of rope. Without delay, they lashed one end to the parapet and threw the other snaking down the outer face of the Sandwall. It was just long enough to reach the sand.
For a moment, no one moved. The gaddhi was still. Honninscrave and Seadreamer were balanced beside the First, Vain appeared characteristically immune to the danger crouching on the wall; but Findail's eyes shifted as if he saw too much. The Haruchai had taken the best defensive positions available among the Guards.
For no apparent reason, Covenant said, “Don't touch me.”
Abruptly, Rant Absolain swung toward the company. Heat intensified his gaze.
“You.” His voice stretched and cracked under the strain. His right arm jerked outward, stabbing his rigid index finger straight at Hergrom. “I require my emblem.”
The gathering clenched. Some of the women bit their lips. The Lady Alif's hands opened, closed, opened again. Hergrom's face betrayed no reaction; but the eyes of all the Haruchai scanned the group, watching everything.
Linden struggled to speak. The pressure knotted her chest, but she winced out, “Hergrom, you don't have to do that.”
The First's fingers were claws at her sides. “The Haruchai are our comrades. We will not permit it.”
The gaddhi snapped something in the brackish tongue of the Bhrathair, Instantly, the hustin brought their spears to bear. In such close quarters, even the swiftness of the
Haruchai could not have protected their comrades from injury or death.
“It is my right!” Rant Absolain spat up at the First. “I am the gaddhi of Bhrathairealm! The punishment of offense is my duty and my right!”
“No!” Linden sensed razor-sharp iron less than a foot from the defense of her back. But in her fear for Hergrom she ignored it, “It was Kasreyn's fault. Hergrom was just trying to save Covenant's life.” She aimed her urgency at the Haruchai. “You don't have to do this.”
The dispassion of Hergrom's visage was complete. His detachment as he measured the Guards defined the company's peril more eloquently than any outcry. For a moment, he and Brinn shared a look. Then he turned to Linden.
“Chosen, we desire to meet this punishment, that we may see it ended.” His tone expressed nothing except an entire belief in his own competence—the same self-trust which had led the Bloodguard to defy death and time in the service of the Lords.
The sight clogged Linden's throat. Before she could swallow her dismay, her culpability, try to argue with him, Hergrom leaped up onto the parapet. Three strides took him to the rope.
Without a word to his companions, he gripped the line and dropped over the edge.
The First's eyes glazed at the extremity of her restraint. But three spears were levelled at her; and Honninscrave and Seadreamer were similarly caught.
Brinn nodded fractionally. Too swiftly for the reflexes of the Guards, Ceer slipped through the crowd, sprang to the parapet. In an instant, he had followed Hergrom down the rope.
Rant Absolain barked a curse and hastened forward to watch the Haruchai descend. For a moment, his fists beat anger against the stone. But then he recollected himself, and his indignation faded.
The spears did not let Linden or her companions move.
The gaddhi issued another command. It drew a flare of fury from the Swordmain's eyes, drove Honninscrave and Seadreamer to the fringes of their self-control.
In response, a Guard unmoored the rope. It fell heavily onto the shoulders of Hergrom and Ceer.
Rant Absolain threw a fierce grin at the company, then turned his attention back to the Haruchai on the ground.
“Now, slayer!” he cried in a shrill shout. “I require you to speak!”
Linden did not know what he meant. But her nerves yammered at the cruelty he emanated. With a wrench, she ducked under the spear at her back, surged toward the parapet. As her head passed the edge, her vision reeled into focus on Hergrom and Ceer. They stood in the sand with the rope sprawled around them. The gaddhi's medallion lay between their feet. They were looking upward.
“Run!” she cried. “The gates! Get to the gates!”
She heard a muffled blow behind her. A spearpoint pricked the back of her neck, pinning her against the stone.
Covenant was repeating his litany as if he could not get anyone to listen to him.
“Speak, slayer!” the gaddhi insisted, as avid as lust.
Hergrom's impassivity did not flicker. “No.”
“You refuse? Defy me? Crime upon crime! I am the gaddhi of Brathairealm! Refusal is treachery!”
Hergrom gazed his disdain upward and said nothing.
But the gaddhi was prepared for this also. He barked another brackish command. Several of his women shrieked.
Forcing her head to the side, Linden saw a Guard dangling a woman over the edge of the parapet by one ankle.
The Lady Alif, who had tried to help the company earlier.
She squirmed in the air, battering her fear against the Sandwall. But Rant Absolain took no notice of her. Her robe fell about her head, muffling her face and cries. Her silver anklets glinted incongruously in the white sunshine.
“If you do not speak the name,” the gaddhi yelled down at Hergrom, “this Lady will fall to her death! And then if you do not speak the name”—he lashed a glance at Linden—“she whom you title the Chosen will be slain! I repay blood with blood!”
Linden prayed that Hergrom would refuse. He gazed up at her, at Rant Absolain and the Lady, and his face revealed nothing. But then Ceer nodded to him. He turned away. Placing his back to the Sandwall as if he had known all along what would happen, he faced the Great Desert and Sandgorgons Doom, straightened his shoulders in readiness.
Linden wanted to rage, No! But suddenly her strength was gone. Hergrom understood his plight. And still chose to accept it. There was nothing she could do.
Deliberately, he stepped on the gaddhi's emblem, crushing it with his foot. Then across the clenched hush of the crowd and the wide silence of the desert, he articulated one word:
“Nom.”
The gaddhi let out a cry of triumph.
The next moment, the spear was withdrawn from Linden's neck. All the spears were withdrawn. The husta lifted the Lady Alif back to the safety of the Sandwall, set her on her feet. At once, she fled the gathering. Smiling a secretive victory, the Lady Benj watched her go.
Turning from the parapet, Linden found that the Guards had stepped back from her companions.
All of them except Covenant, Vain, and Findail were glaring ire and protest at Kasreyn of the Gyre.
In her concentration on Hergrom, Linden had not felt or heard the Kemper arrive. But he stood now at the edge of the assembly and addressed the company.
“I desire you to observe that I have played no part in this chicane. I must serve my gaddhi as he commands.” His rheumy gaze ignored Rant Absolain. “But I do not participate in such acts.”
Linden nearly hurled herself at him. “What have you done!”
“I have done nothing,” he replied stiffly. “You are witness.” But then his shoulders sagged as if the infant on his back wearied him. “Yet in my way I have earned your blame. What now transpires would not without me.”
Stepping to the parapet, he sketched a gesture toward the distant blackness. He sounded old as he said, “The power of any art depends upon its flaw. Perfection cannot endure in an imperfect world. Thus when I bound the Sandgorgons to their Doom, I was compelled to place a flaw within my theurgy.” He regarded the storm as if he found it draining and lovely. He could not conceal that he admired what he had done.
“The flaw I chose,” he soughed, “is this, that any Sandgorgon will be released if its name is spoken. It will be free while it discovers the one who spoke its name. Then it must slay the speaker and return to its Doom.”
Slay? Linden could not think. Slay?
Slowly, Kasreyn faced the company again. "Therefore I must share blame. For it was I who wrought Sandgorgons
Doom. And it was I who placed the name your companion has spoken in his mind."
At that, giddy realizations wheeled through Linden. She saw the Kemper's mendacity mapped before her in white sunlight. She turned as if she were reeling, lurched back to the parapet. Run! she cried. Hergrom! But her voice made no sound.
Because she had chosen to let Kasreyn live. It was intolerable. With a gasp, she opened her throat. “The gates!” Her shout was frail and hoarse, parched into effectlessness by the desert. “Run! We'll help you fight!”
Hergrom and Ceer did not move.
“They will not,” the Kemper said, mimicking sadness. “They know their plight. They will not bring a Sandgorgon among you, nor among the innocents of the Sandhold. And,” he went on, trying to disguise his pride, “there is not time. The Sandgorgons answer their release swiftly. Distance has no meaning to such power. Behold!” His voice sharpened. “Though the Doom lies more than a score of leagues hence, already the answer draws nigh.”
On the other side of the company, the gaddhi began to giggle.
And out from under the virga came a plume of sand among the dunes, arrowing toward the Sandhold. It varied as the terrain varied, raising a long serpentine cloud; but its direction was unmistakable. It was aimed at the spot where Ceer and Hergrom stood against the Sandwall.
Even from that distance, Linden felt the radiations of raw and hostile power.
She pressed her uselessness against the parapet. Her companions stood aching behind her; but she did not turn to look at them, could not. Rant Absolain studied the approaching Sandgorgon and trembled in an ague of eagerness. The sun leaned down on the Sandhold like a reproach.
Then the beast itself appeared. Bleached to an albino whiteness by ages of sun, it was difficult to see against the pale desert. But it ran forward with staggering speed and became clear.
It was larger than the Haruchai awaiting it, but it hardly had size enough to contain so much might. For an instant, Linden was struck by the strangeness of its gait. Its knees were back-bent like a bird's, and its feet were wide pads, giving it the ability to traverse sand with immense celerity and force. Then the Sandgorgon was almost upon Hergrom and Ceer; and she perceived other details.
It had arms, but no hands. Its forearms ended in flat flexible stumps like prehensile battering rams—arms formed to contend with sand, to break stone.
And it had no face. Its head was featureless except for the faint ridges of its skull beneath its hide and two covered slits like gills on either side.
It appeared as violent and absolute as a force of nature. Watching it, Linden was no longer conscious of breathing, Her heart might have stopped. Even Covenant with all his wild magic could not have equalled this feral beast.
Together, Hergrom and Ceer stepped out from the Sandwall, then separated so that the Sandgorgon could not attack them both at once.
The creature shifted its impetus slightly. In a flash of white hide and fury, it charged straight at Hergrom.
At the last instant, he spun out of its way. Unable to stop, the Sandgorgon crashed headlong into the wall.
Linden felt the impact as if the entire Sandhold had shifted. Cracks leaped through the stone; chunks recoiled outward and thudded to the ground.
Simultaneously, Ceer and Hergrom sprang for the creature's back. Striking with all their skill and strength, they hammered at its neck.
It took the blows as if they were handfuls of sand. Spinning sharply, it slashed at them with its arms.
Ceer ducked, evaded the strike. But one arm caught Hergrom across the chest, flung him away like a doll.
None of them made a sound. Only their blows, their movements on the sand, articulated the combat.
Surging forward, Ceer butted the beast's chin with such force that the Sandgorgon rebounded a step. Immediately, he followed, raining blows. But they had no effect. The beast caught its balance. Its back-bent knees flexed, preparing to spring.
Ceer met that thrust with a perfectly timed hit at the creature's throat.
Again the Sandgorgon staggered. But this time one of its arms came down on the Haruchai's shoulder. Dumbly, Linden's senses registered the breaking of bones. Ceer nearly fell.
Too swiftly for any defense, the Sandgorgon raised one footpad and stamped at Ceer's leg.
He sprawled helplessly, with splinters protruding from the wreckage of his thigh and knee. Blood spattered the sand around him.
Seadreamer was at the edge of the parapet, straining to leap downward as if he believed he would survive the fall. Honninscrave and the First fought to restrain him.
The gaddhi's giggling bubbled like the glee of a demon.
Cail's fingers gripped Linden's arm as if he were holding her responsible.
As Ceer fell, Hergrom returned to the combat. Running as hard as he could over the yielding surface, he leaped into the air, launched a flying kick at the Sandgorgon's head.
The beast retreated a step to absorb the blow, then turned, tried to sweep Hergrom into its embrace. He dodged. Wheeling behind the Sandgorgon, he sprang onto its back. Instantly, he clasped his legs to its torso, locked his arms around its neck and squeezed. Straining every muscle, he clamped his forearm into the beast's throat, fought to throttle the creature.
It flailed its arms, unable to reach him.
Rant Absolain stopped giggling. Disbelief radiated from him like a cry.
Linden forced herself against the corner of the parapet, clung to that pain. A soundless shout of encouragement stretched her mouth.
But behind the beast's ferocity lay a wild cunning. Suddenly, it stopped trying to strike at Hergrom. Its knees bent as if it were crouching to the ground.
Savagely, it hurled itself backward at the Sandwall.
There was nothing Hergrom could do. He was caught between the Sandgorgon and the hard stone. Tremors like hints of earthquake shuddered through the wall.
The beast stepped out of Hergrom's grasp, and he slumped to the ground. His chest had been crushed. For a moment, he continued to breathe in a wheeze of blood and pain, torturing his ruptured lungs, his pierced heart. As white and featureless as fate, the Sandgorgon regarded him as if wondering where to place the next blow.
Then a spasm brought dark red fluid gushing from his mouth. Linden saw the thews of his life snap. He lay still.
The Sandgorgon briefly confronted the wall as if wishing for the freedom to attack it. But the beast's release had ended.
Turning away, it moved at a coerced run back toward its Doom. Shortly, it disappeared into the sand-trail it raised behind it.
Linden's eyes bled tears. She felt that something inside her had perished. Her companions were stunned into silence; but she did not look at them. Her heart limped to the rhythm of Hergrom's name, iterating that sound as though there must have been something she could have done.
When she blinked her sight clear, she saw that Rant Absolain had started to move away, taking his women and Guards with him. His chortling faded into the sunlight and the dry white heat.
Kasreyn was nowhere on the Sandwall.