“I will sing the song which Bahgoon sang, in the aftermath of his taming by his spouse and harridan, that many-legended odalisque Thelma Twofist!”
The power of his personal mirth drew a scattering of wan cheers and ripostes from the despondent Giants.
Striking a pose of exaggerated melancholy, he began. He did not actually sing; he could not make a singing voice audible. But he delivered his verses in a pitched rhythmic shout which affected his listeners like music.
"My love has eyes which do not glow
Her loveliness is somewhat formed askew,
With blemishes which number not a few,
And pouting lips o'er teeth not in a row.
"Her limbs are doughtier than mine,
And what I do not please to give she takes.
Her hair were better kempt with hoes and rakes.
Her kiss tastes less of diamondraught than brine.
"Her odorescence gives me ilclass="underline"
Her converse is by wit or grace unlit:
Her raiment would become her if it fit.
So think of me with rue: I love her still."
It was a lengthy song; but after a moment Linden was distracted from it. Faintly, she heard the First murmuring to herself, clearly unaware that anyone could hear her.
“Therefore do I love you, Pitchwife,” she said into the wind and the night. “In sooth, this is a gift to lift the heart. Husband, it shames me that I do not equal your grace.”
In a beneficial way, the deformed Giant seemed to shame all the crew. To answer his example, they stirred from their disconsolation, responded to each other as if they were coming back to life. Some of them were laughing; others straightened their backs, tightened their grips on the railing, as if by so doing they could better hear the song.
Instinctively, Linden roused herself with them. Their quickening emanations urged her to shrug off some of her numbness.
But when she did so, her percipience began to shout at her. Behind the restoration of the Giants rose a sense of peril. Something was approaching the Giantship-something malefic and fatal.
It had nothing to do with the storm. The storm was not evil. This was.
“Chosen?” Cail asked.
Distinctly, Covenant said, “Don't touch me.”
She tried to rise to her feet. Only Cail's swift intervention kept her from tumbling toward Pitchwife.
“Jesus!” She hardly heard herself. The darkness and the gale deafened her. “It's going to attack us here!”
The First swung toward her. “Attack us?”
As Linden cried out, “That Raver!” the assault began.
Scores of long dark shapes seethed out of the water below the aftermast. They broke through the reflections of the lanterns, started to wriggle up the steep stone.
As they squirmed upward, they took light. The air seemed to ignite them in fiery red.
Burning with crimson internal heat like fire-serpents, they attacked the deck, swarming toward Covenant and Linden.
Eels!
Immense numbers of them.
They were not on fire, shed no flame. Rather, they radiated a hot red malice from their snakelike forms. Driven by the lust of the Raver in them, they shone like incandescent blood as they climbed. They were as large as Linden's arm. Their gaping teeth flashed light as incisive as razors.
The First yelled a warning that fled without echo into the wind.
The leading eels reached the level of the mast; but Linden could not move. The sheer force of the Raver's presence held her. Memories of Gibbon and Marid burned in her guts; and a black yearning answered, jumping within her like wild glee. Power! The part of her that desired possession and Ravers, lusted for the sovereign strength of death, lashed against her conscious loathing, her vulnerable and deliberate rejection of evil; and the contradiction locked her into immobility. She had been like this in the woods behind Haven Farm, when Lord Foul had looked out of the fire at her and she had let Covenant go down alone to his doom.
Yet that threat to him had finally broken her fear, sent her running to his rescue. And the eels were coming for him now, while he was entirely unable to defend himself. Stung by his peril, her mind seemed to step back, fleeing from panic into her old professional detachment.
Why had Foul chosen to attack now, when the Elohim had already done Covenant such harm? Had the Elohim acted for reasons of their own, without the Despiser's knowledge or prompting? Had she been wrong in her judgment of them? If Lord Foul did not know about Covenant's condition—
Hergrom, Ceer, and the First had already started downward to meet the attack; but Pitchwife was closer to it than anyone else. Quickly, he slipped below his lifeline to the next cable. Bracing himself there, he bent and scooped up an eel to crush it.
As his hand closed, a discharge of red power shot through him. The blast etched him, distinct and crimson, against the dark sea. With a scream in his chest, he tumbled down the deck, struck heavily against the base of the mast. Sprawled precariously there, he lay motionless, barely breathing.
More eels crawled over his legs. But since he was still, they did not unleash their fire into him.
Hergrom slid in a long dive down to the stricken Giant. At once, he kicked three eels away from Pitchwife's legs. The creatures fell writhing back into the sea; but their power detonated on Hergrom's foot, sent him into convulsions. Only the brevity of the blast saved his life. He retained scarcely enough control over his muscles to knot one fist in the back of Pitchwife's sark, the other on a cleat of the mast. Twitching and jerking like a wildman, he still contrived to keep himself and Pitchwife from sliding farther.
Every spasm threatened to bring either him or the Giant into contact with more of the creatures.
Then the First reached the level of the assault. With her feet planted on the deck, a lifeline across her belly, she poised her broadsword in both fists. Her back and shoulders bunched like a shout of fear and rage for Pitchwife.
The First's jeopardy snatched Linden back from her detachment. Desperately, she howled, 'No!"
She was too late. The First scythed her blade at the eels closest to her feet.
Power shot along the iron, erupted from her hands into her chest. Fire formed a corona around her. Red static sprang from her hair. Her sword fell. Plunging in a shower of sparks, it struck the water with a sharp hiss and disappeared.
She made no effort to catch it. Her stunned body toppled over the lifeline. Below her, the water seethed with malice as more eels squirmed up the deck into air and fire.
Ceer barely caught her. Reading the situation with celerity bordering on prescience, he had taken an instant to knot a rope around his waist. As the First fell, he threw the rope to the nearest crewmember and sprang after her.
He snagged her by the shoulder. Then the Giant pulled on the rope, halting Ceer and the First just above the waterline.
“Don't move them!” Linden shouted instantly. “She can't take any more!”
The First lay still. Ceer held himself motionless. The eels crawled over them as if they were a part of the deck.
With a fierce effort, Hergrom fought himself under command. He steadied his limbs, stopped jerking Pitchwife, a heartbeat before more eels began slithering over the two of them.
Linden could hardly think. Her friends were in danger. Memories of Revelstone and Gibbon pounded at her. The presence of the Raver hurt her senses, appalled every inch of her flesh. In Revelstone, the conflict of her reactions to that ill power had driven her deep into a catatonia of horror. But now she let the taste of evil pour through her and fought to concentrate on the creatures themselves. She needed a way to combat them.