Covenant had no sense of time. Eventually the waiting ended. A berg drifted past the line of spectators, showing everyone a flat space like a platform in its side. And from that space rose cries.
“A ship at last!”
“Help us!”
“In the name of pity!”
“We have been marooned!”
He seemed to hear the same shouts behind him also, from the other side of the Giantship. But that strange detail made no impression on him.
His eyes were the only part of him mat moved. As the iceberg floated southward amid the slow procession, its flat side passed directly below the watchers. And he saw figures emerge from the pellucid ice-human figures. Three or four of them, he could not be sure. The number was oddly imprecise. But numbers did not matter. They were men, and their destitution made his heart twist against its shackles.
They were hollow-eyed, gaunt, and piteous. Their hands, maimed by frostbite, were wrapped in shreds torn from their ragged clothing. Emaciation and hopelessness lined their faces. Their cracked and splintered voices were hoarse with despair.
“Marooned!” they cried like a memory of the wind.
“Mercy!”
But no one on the dromond moved.
“Help them.” Linden's voice issued like a moan between her beaded lips. “Throw them a line. Somebody.”
No one responded. Gripped by cold, volitionless, the watchers only stared as the iceberg drifted slowly by, bearing its frantic victims away. Gradually, the current took the marooned men out of hearing.
“In the name of God.” Her tears formed a gleaming fan of ice under each eye.
Again Covenant's heart twisted. But he could not break free. His silence covered the sea.
Then another berg drew near. It lay like a plate on the unwavering face of the water. Beneath the surface, its bulk lightly touched the ship, scraped a groan from the hushed hull For a moment, the plate caught the sun squarely, and its reflection rang like a knell. Yet Covenant was able to see through the glare.
Poised in the sun's image were people that he knew.
Hergrom. Ceer.
They stood braced as if they had their backs to the Sandwall. At first, they were unaware of the Giantship. But then they saw it. Ceer shouted a hail which fell without echo onto the decks of the dromond. Leaving Hergrom, he sprinted to the edge of the ice, waved his arms for assistance.
Then out of the light came a Sandgorgon. White against the untrammelled background of the ice, the beast charged toward Hergrom with murder outstretched in its mighty arms.
Tremors shook Cail. Strain made steam puff between his teeth. But the cold held him.
For an instant, the implacable structure of Ceer's face registered the fact that the Giantship was not going to help him. His gaze shivered in Covenant's chest like an accusation that could never be answered. Then he sped to Hergrom's defence.
The Sandgorgon struck with the force of a juggernaut. Cracks sprang through the ice. A flurry of blows scattered Hergrom's blood across the floe. Ceer's strength meant nothing to the beast.
And still no one moved. The Giants were ice themselves now, as frigid and brittle as the wilderland of the sea. Linden's weeping gasped in her throat. Droplets of blood ran from Covenant's palms as he tried to rip his bands from the railing. But the grasp of the cold could not be broken.
Ceer. Hergrom.
But the plate of ice slowly drifted away, and no one moved.
After that, the waiting seemed long for the first time since Covenant had fallen under the spell of the Soulbiter.
At last another hunk of ice floated near the Giantship. It was small, hardly a yard wide, its face barely above the water. It seemed too small to be the bringer of so much fear.
For a moment, his vision was smeared with light. He could see nothing past the bright assault of the sun's reflections. But then his eyes cleared.
On that little floe stood Cable Seadreamer. He faced the dromond, stared up at the watchers. His posture was erect; his arms were folded sternly over the gaping wound in the centre of his chest Above his scar, his eyes were full of terrible knowledge.
Stiffly, he nodded a greeting. “My people,” he said in a voice as quiet and extreme as me cold. “you must succour me. This is the Soulbiter. Here suffer all the damned who have died in a false cause, unaided by those they sought to serve. If you will not reach out to me, I must stand here forever in my anguish, and the ice will not release me. Hear me you whom I have loved to this cost Is there no love left in you for me?”
“Seadreamer,” Linden groaned. Honninscrave gave a cry that tore frozen flesh around his mouth, sent brief drops of blood into his beard. The First panted faintly, “No. I am the First of the Search. I will not endure it.” But none of them moved. The cold had become irrefragable. Its victory was accomplished. Already Seadreamer was almost directly opposite Covenant's position. Soon he would pass amidships, and then he would be gone, and the people of Starfare's Gem would be left with nothing except abomination and rue and cold.
It was intolerable. Seadreamer had given his life to save Covenant from destroying the Earth. Prevented by muteness from sharing the Earth-Sight, he had placed his own flesh in the path of the world's doom. purchasing a reprieve for the people he loved. And Covenant had refused to grant him the simple decency of a caamora. It was too much.
In pain and dismay Covenant moved. With a curse that splintered the silence, he burned his hands off the rail. Wild magic pulsed through him like the hot ichor of grief: white fire burst out of his ring like rage. “We're going to lose him!” he howled at the Giants. “Get a rope!”
An instant later, the First wrenched herself free. Her iron voice rang across the Giantship: “No!”
Jerking toward the mooring of a nearby ratline, she snatched up one of the belaying pins. “Avaunt, demon!” she yelled. “We will not hear you”
Fierce with fury and revulsion, she hurled the pin straight at Seadreamer.
The Giants gaped as her projectile flashed through him.
It struck a chip from the edge of the ice and skipped away into the sea, splashing distinctly. At once, his form wavered. He tried to speak again; but already he had dissolved into mirage. The floe drifted emptily away toward the south.
While Covenant stared, the fire rushed out of him, quenched again by the cold.
But an instant later the spell broke with an audible crackle and shatter of ice. Linden lifted raw hands to her face, blinked her cold gouged eyes. Coughing and cursing, Honninscrave reeled back from the rail. “Move, sluggards!” His shout scattered flecks of blood. “Ware the wind!” Relief and dismay were etched in frost on different parts of Pitchwife's face.
Numbly, the other Giants turned from the vista of the sea. Some seemed unable to understand what had happened; others struggled in mounting haste toward their stations. Seasauce and Hearthcoal bustled back to the galley as if they were ashamed of their prolonged absence. The First and Galewrath moved among the slower crewmembers, shaking or manhandling them into a semblance of alertness. Honninscrave strode grimly in the direction of the wheeldeck.
A moment later, one of the sails rattled in its gear, sending down a shower of frozen dust; and the first Giant to ascend the ratlines gave a hoarse calclass="underline"
“The south!”
A dark moil of clouds was already visible above the dromond’s taffrail. The gale was coming back.
Covenant wondered momentarily how Starfare's Gem would be able to navigate through the flotilla of icebergs in such a wind-or how the ice-laden sails would survive if the blast hit White Cold Wielder too suddenly, too hard. But then he forgot everything else because Linden was fainting and he was too far away to reach her. Mistweave barely caught her in time to keep her from cracking her head open on the stone deck.