His visage held no welcome. The First had told him that the quest had failed. Yet his manner suggested that his tautness was not directed at the Unbeliever-that even bare relief and pleasure had become impossible to articulate.
In dismay Covenant looked to Hollian for an explanation. The eh-brand also showed the marks of her recent life. Her leather shift was tattered in places, poorly mended. Her arms and legs exposed the thinness of scant rations and constant danger. Yet she formed a particular contrast to Sunder.
They were both of sturdy Stonedownor stock, dark-haired and short, though she was younger than be. But her background had been entirely different than his. Until the shock which had cost her her home in Crystal Stonedown-the crisis of the Rider's demand for her life, and of her rescue by Covenant, Linden, and Sunder-she had been the most prized member of her community. As an eh-brand, able to foretell the phases of the Sunbane, she had given her people a precious advantage. Her past had contained little of the self-doubt and bereavement which had filled Sunder's days, And that difference was more striking now. She was luminous rather than angry-as warm of welcome as he was rigid. If the glances she cast at the Graveler had not been so full of endearment Covenant might have thought that the two Stonedownors had become strangers to each other.
But the black hair that flew like raven wings about her shoulders when she moved had not changed. It still gave her an aspect of fatality, a suggestion of doom.
In shame Covenant found that he did not know what to say to her either. She and Sunder were too vivid to him; they mattered too much. You will find none here. With a perception as acute as intuition, he saw that they were not at all strangers to each other. Sunder was so tight and bitter precisely because of the way Hollian glowed; and her luminescence came from the same root as his pain. But that insight did not give Covenant any words he could bear to say.
Where was Stell?
Where were the people of the Land? And the Haruchai And what had happened to the Stonedownors?
The First tried to bridge the awkward silence with Giantish courtesy. In the past, the role of spokesman in such situations had belonged to Honninscrave; but he had lost heart for it.
“Stone and Sea!” she began. “It gladdens me to greet you again. Sunder Graveler and Hollian eh-brand. When we parted, I hardly dared dream that we would meet again. It is- “
Linden's abrupt whisper stopped the First. She had been staring intensely at Hollian; and her exclamation stilled the gathering, bore clearly through the thick barrage of the rain.
“Covenant. She's pregnant.”
Oh my God.
Hollian's slim shape showed nothing. But hardly ninety days had passed since the Stonedownors had left Seareach. Linden's assertion carried instant conviction; her percipience would not be mistaken about such a thing.
The sudden weight of understanding forced him to the floor. His legs refused to support the revelation. Pregnant.
That was why Hollian glowed and Sunder raged. She was glad of it because she loved him. And because he loved her, he was appalled. The quest for the One Tree had failed. The purpose for which Covenant had sent the Stonedownors back to the Upper Land had failed. And Sunder had already been compelled to kill one wife and child. He had nowhere left to turn.
“Oh, Sunder.” Covenant was not certain that he spoke aloud. Eyes streaming, he bowed his head. It should have been covered with ashes and execration. “Forgive me. I'm so sorry.”
“Is the fault yours then that the quest has failed?” asked Sunder. He sounded as severe as hate. “Have you brought us to this pass, that my own failure has opened the last door of doom?”
Yes, Covenant replied-aloud or silent, it made no difference.
“Then hear me, ur-Lord.” Sunder's voice came closer. Now it was occluded with grief. “Unbeliever and white gold wielder. IlIender and Prover of Life.” His hands gripped Covenant's shoulders. "Hear me.”
Covenant looked up, fighting for self control. The Graveler crouched before him. Sunder's eyes were blurred; beads of wet firelight coursed his hard jaws.
“When first you persuaded me from my home and duty in Mithil Stonedown,” he said thickly, "I demanded of you that you should not betray me. You impelled me on a mad search of the desert sun for my friend Marid, whom you could not save-and you refused me the use of my blood to aid you-and you required of me that I eat aliantha which I knew to be poison-and so I beseeched of you something greater than fidelity. I pleaded of you meaning for my life-and for the death of Nassic my father. And still you were not done, for you wrested Hollian Amith-daughter from her peril in Crystal Stonedown as if it were your desire that I should love her. And when we fell together into the hands of the Clave, you redeemed us from that hold. restored our lives.
“And still you were not done. When you had taught” us to behold the Clave’s evil, you turned your back on that crime, though it cried out for retribution in the face of all the Land. There you betrayed me, ur-Lord. The meaning of which I was in such need you set aside. In its place, you gave me only a task that surpassed my strength.”
That was true. In blood-loss and folly and passion Covenant had made himself responsible for the truth he had required Sunder to accept. And then he had failed. What was that, if not betrayal? Sunder's accusations made him bleed rue and tears.
But Sunder also was not done. “Therefore,” he went on hoarsely, “it is my right that you should hear me. Ur-Lord and Unbeliever, white gold wielder,” he said as if he were addressing the hot streaks that stained Covenant's face, ”you have betrayed me-and I am glad that you have come. Though you come without hope, you are the one hope that I have known. You have it in your hands to create or deny whatever truth you will, and I desire to serve you. While you remain, I will accept neither despair nor doom. There is neither betrayal nor failure while you endure to me. And if the truth you teach must be lost at last, I will be consoled that my love and I were not asked to bear that loss alone.
“Covenant, hear me,” he insisted. “No words suffice. I am glad that you have come.”
Mutely, Covenant put his arms around Sunder's neck and hugged him.
The crying of his heart was also a promise. This time I won't turn my back. I'm going to tear those bastards down.
He remained there until the Graveler's answering clasp had comforted him.
Then Pitchwife broke the silence by clearing his throat; and Linden said in a voice husky with empathy, “It's about time. I thought you two were never going to start talking to each other.” She was standing beside Hollian as if they had momentarily become sisters.
Covenant loosened his hold; but for a moment longer he did not release the Graveler. Swallowing heavily, he murmured, “Mhoram used to say things like that. You're starting to resemble him. As long as the Land can still produce people like you. And Hollian.” Recollections of the long dead Lord made him blink fiercely to clear his sight. “Foul thinks all he has to do is break the Arch of Time and rip the world apart. But he's wrong. Beauty isn't that easily destroyed.” Recalling a song that Lena had sung to him when she was still a girl and he was new to the Land, he quoted softly, “ 'The soul in which the flower grows survives.' “