He feared that one of them would strike the raft or dam the River. But that did not happen. The trees which landed in the Mithil occluded the current without blocking it. And then the noise of their ruin receded as the River left that region behind.
Rain continued to fall like the collapse of the sky. Covenant placed himself at one end of the raft and used the weight of his boots to steady its course. Half paralyzed with cold, he and his companions rode through a day that seemed to have no measure and no end. When the rain began to dwindle, that fact could not penetrate his dogged stupor. As the clouds rolled back from the east, uncovering the clear heavens of evening, he gaped at the open air as if it spoke a language which had become alien to him.
Together, the companions flopped like dying fish to the riverbank, crawled out of the water. Somehow, Sunder mustered the strength to secure the raft against the rising of the River. Then he joined Covenant and Linden in the wind-shelter of a copse of preternatural gorse, and slumped to the ground. The teeming black clouds slid away to the west; and the sun set, glorious with orange and red. The gloaming thickened toward night.
“Fire.” Linden's voice quivered; she was trembling from head to foot. “We've got to have a fire.”
Covenant groaned his mind out of the mud on which he lay, raised his head. Long vibrations of cold ran through him; shivers knotted his muscles. The sun had not shone on the Plains all day and the night was as clear as perfect ice.
“Yes,” Sunder said through locked teeth. “We must have fire.”
Fire. Covenant winced to himself. He was too cold to feel anything except dread. But the need was absolute. And he could not bear to think of blood. To forestall the Graveller, he struggled to his hands and knees, though his bones seemed to clatter together. I’ll do it"
They faced each other. The silence between them was marked only by the chill breeze rubbing its way through the copse, and by the clenched shudder of breathing. Sunder's expression showed that he did not trust Covenant's strength, did not want to set aside his responsibility for his companions. But Covenant kept repeating inwardly, You're not going to cut yourself for me, and did not relent. After a moment, Sunder handed him the orcrest.
Covenant accepted it with his trembling half-hand, placed it in contact with his ring, glared at it weakly. But then he faltered. Even in ten years, he had not been able to unlearn his instinctive fear of power.
“Hurry,” Linden whispered.
Hurry? He covered his face with his left hand, striving to hide his ague. Bloody hell. He lacked the strength. The orcrest lay inert in his fist; he could not even concentrate on it. You don't know what you're asking.
But the need was indefeasible. His anger slowly tightened. He became rigid, clenched against the chills. Ire indistinguishable from pain or exhaustion shaped itself to the circle of his ring. The Sunstone had no life; the white gold had no life. He gave them his life. There was no other answer.
Cursing silently, he hammered his fist at the mud.
White light burst in the orcrest: flame sprang from his ring as if the metal were a band of silver magma. In an instant, his whole hand was ablaze.
He raised his fist, brandished fire like a promise of retribution against the Sunbane. Then he dropped the Sunstone. It went out; but his ring continued to spout flame. In a choking voice, he gasped, “Sunder!”
At once, the Graveller gave him a dead gorse-branch. He grasped the wet bark in his half-hand: his arm shook as he squeezed white flame into the wood. When he set it down, it was afire.
Sunder supplied more wood, then knelt to tend the weak fire. Covenant set flame to the second branch, to a third and fourth. Sunder fed the burning with leaves and twigs, blew carefully on the flames. After a moment, he announced, “It is enough.”
With a groan, Covenant let his mind fall blank, and the blaze of his ring plunged into darkness. Night closed over the copse, huddled around the faint yellow light and smoke of the fire.
Soon he began to feel heat on his face.
Sagging within himself, he tried to estimate the consequences of what he had done, measure the emotional umbrage of power.
Shortly, the Graveller recovered his sack of melons from the raft, and dealt out rations of ussusimiel. Covenant felt too empty to eat; but his body responded without his volition. He sat like an effigy, with wraiths of moisture curling upward from his clothes, and looked dumbly at the inanition of his soul.
When she finished her meal, Linden threw the rinds away. Staring into the flames, she said remotely, “I don't think I can take another day of this.”
“Is there choice?” Fatigue dulled Sunder's eyes. He sat close to the heat, as if his bones were thirsty for warmth. “The ur-Lord aims toward Revelstone. Very well. But the distance is great. Refusing the aid of the River, we must journey afoot. To gain the Keep of the na-Mhoram would require many turnings of the moon. But I fear we would not gain it. The Sunbane is too perilous. And there is the matter of pursuit.”
The set of Linden's shoulders showed her apprehension. After a moment, she asked tightly, “How much longer?”
The Graveller sighed. “None can foretell the Sunbane,” he said in a dun voice. “It is said that in generations past each new sun shone for five and six, even as many as seven days. But a sun of four days is now uncommon. And with my own eyes I have beheld only one sun of less than three.”
“Two more days,” Linden muttered. “Dear God.”
For a while, they were silent. Then, by tacit agreement, they both arose to gather wood for the fire. Scouring the copse, they collected a substantial pile of brush and branches. After that, Sunder stretched out on the ground. But Linden remained sitting beside the fire. Slowly, Covenant noticed through his numbness that she was studying him.
In a tone that seemed deliberately inflectionless, she asked, “Why does it bother you to use your ring?”
His ague had abated, leaving only a vestigial chill along his bones. But his thoughts were echoes of anger. “It's hard.”
“In what way?” In spite of its severity, her expression said that she wanted to understand. Perhaps she needed to understand. He read in her a long history of self-punishment. She was a physician who tormented herself in order to heal others, as if the connection between the two were essential and compulsory.
To the complexity of her question, he gave the simplest answer he knew. “Morally.”
For a moment, they regarded each other, tried to define each other. Then, unexpectedly, the Graveller spoke. “There at last, ur-Lord,” he murmured, “you have uttered a word which lies within my comprehension.” His voice seemed to arise from the wet wood and the flames. "You fear both strength and weakness, both power and lack of power. You fear to be in need-and to have your need answered. As do I.
“I am a Graveller — well acquainted with such fear. A Stonedown trusts the Graveller for its life. But in the name of that life, that trust, he must shed the blood of his people. Those who trust must be sacrificed to meet the trust. Thus trust becomes a matter of blood and death. Therefore I have fled my home”- the simple timbre of lament in his tone relieved what he said of any accusation — “to serve a man and a woman whom I cannot trust. I know not how to trust you, and so I am freed of the burden of trust. There is naught between us which would require me to shed your lives. Or to sacrifice my own.”
Listening to Sunder's voice and the fire, Covenant lost some of his fear. A sense of kinship came over him. This dour self-doubting Stonedownor had suffered so much, and yet had preserved so much of himself. After a long moment, Covenant chose to accept what Sunder was saying. He could not pay every price alone. “All right,” he breathed like the night breeze in the copse. “Tomorrow night you can start the fire.”