Stephen Donaldson - Covenant 6 - White Gold Wielder

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PARTI
Retribution
ONE: The Masters Scar
AWKWARD without its midmast, Starfare's Gem turned
heavily toward the north, putting its stern to the water clogged
with sand and foam which marked the passing of the One
Tree. In the rigging. Giants labored and fumbled at their tasks,
driven from line to line by the hoarse goad of Sevinhand's
commands, even though Seadreamer lay dead on the deck
below them. The Anchormaster stood, lean and rue-bitten, on
the wheeldeck and yelled up at them, his voice raw with sup-
pressed pain. If any compliance lagged, the Storesmaster,
Galewrath, seconded him, throwing her shout after his like a
piece of ragged granite because all the Search had come to
ruin and she did not know any other way to bear it. The
dromond went north simply to put distance between itself
and the deep grave of its hope.
But Grimmand Honninscrave, the Giantship's Master, hud-
dled on the afterdeck with his brother in his arms and did
not speak. His massive face, so strong against storms and
perils, looked like a yielded fortification; his beard tangled the
shadows as the sun declined toward setting. And beside him
stood the First of the Search and Pitchwife as if they were lost
without the Earth-Sight to guide them.
Findail the Appointed stood there also, wearing his old
misery like a man who had always known what would happen
at the Isle of the One Tree. Vain stood there with one heel of
the former Staff of Law bound around his wooden wrist and
his useless hand dangling. And Linden Avery stood there as
well, torn between bereavements: outrage and sorrow for Sea-
dreamer swimming in her eyes, need for Covenant aching in
her limbs.
But Thomas Covenant had withdrawn to his cabin like a
crippled animal going to ground; and he stayed there.
4 White Gold Wielder
He was beaten. He had nothing left.
Harsh with revulsion, he lay in his hammock and stared at
the ceiling. His chamber had been made for a Giant; it out-
sized him, just as his doom and the Despiser's manipulations
had outsized him. The red sunset through the open port
bloodied the ceiling until dusk came and leeched his sight
away. But he had been blind all along, so truncated of per-
ception that he had caught no glimpse of his true fate until
Linden had cried it into his face:
This is what Foul wants!
That was bow his former strengths and victories had been
turned against him. He could not feel Cail standing guard
outside his door like a man whose fidelity had been redeemed.
Beyond the slow rolling of the Giantship's pace, the salt of
futility in the air, the distant creak of rigging and report of
canvas, he could not tell the difference between this cabin and
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the dungeon of the Sandhold or the betrayed depths of Revel-
stone. All stone was one to him, deaf to appeal or need, sense-
less, He might have destroyed the Earth in that crisis of power
and venom, might have broken the Arch of Time as if he were
indeed the Despiser's servant, if Linden had not stopped him.
And then he had failed at his one chance to save himself.
Horrified by love and fear for her, he had allowed Linden to
return to him, abandoning the stricken and dying body of.his
other life. Abandoning him to ruin, though she had not in-
tended any ruin.
Brinn had said to him. That is the grace which has been
given to you, to bear what must be borne. But it was a lie.
In darkness he lay and did not move, sleepless although he
coveted slumber, yearned for any oblivion which would bring
surcease. He went on staring upward as if he too were graven
of dead stone, a reification of folly and broken dreams snared
within the eternal ambit of his defeat. Anger and self-despite
might have impelled him to seek out his old clothes, might
have sent him up to the decks to bear the desolation of his
friends. But those garments he had left in Linden's cabin as
though for safe-keeping; and he could not go there. His love
for her was too corrupt, had been too severely falsified by
selfishness. Thus the one lie he had practiced against her from
the beginning came back to damn him.
He had withheld one important fact from her, hoping like
a coward that it would prove unnecessary—that his desire for
The Master's Scar 5
her would be permissible in the end. But by the lie of with-
holding he had accomplished nothing except her miscompre-
hension. Nothing except the Search's destitution and the
Despiser*s victory. He had let his need for her blind both of
them.
No, it was worse than that. He did need her, had needed
her so acutely that the poignance of it had shredded his de-
fenses. But other needs had been at work as well: the need to
be the Land's rescuer, to stand at the center of Lord Foul's
evil and impose his own answer upon it; the need to demon-
strate his mortal worth against all the bloodshed and pain
which condemned him. He had become so wrapped up in his
isolation and leprosy, so certain of them and what they meant,
that they had grown indistinguishable from Despite.
Now he was beaten. He had nothing left for which he might
sanely hope or strive.
He should have known better. The old man on Haven Farm
had spoken to Linden rather than to him. The Elohim had
greeted her as the Sun-Sage, him as the wrongness which im-
perilled the Earth. Even dead Elena in Andelain had said
plainly that the healing of the Land was in Linden's hands
rather than his. Yet he had rejected comprehension in favor
of self-insistence. His need or arrogance had been too great to
allow comprehension.
And still, with the destruction of everything he held pre-
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cious laid squarely at his door, he would not have done other-
wise—would not give up his ring, not surrender the meaning
of his life either to Linden or to Findail. It was all that re-
mained to him: to bear the blame if he could not achieve the
victory. Failing everything else, he could still at least refuse
to be spared.
So he lay in his hammock like a sacrifice, with the stone
vessel spread out unreadably around him. Fettered by the iron
of his failures, he did not move or try to move. The first night
after the dark of the moon filled his eyes. In Andelain, High
Lord Mhoram had warned, He has said that you are his
Enemy. Remember that he seeks always to mislead you. It
was true: he was the Despiser's servant rather than Enemy.
Even his former victory had been turned against him. Suck-
ing the wounded places of his heart, he returned the sightless
stare of the dark and remained where he was.
He had no measure for the passage of time; but the night
6 White Gold Wielder
was not far advanced when he heard a stiff, stretched voice
rumble outside his door. It uttered words he was unable to
distinguish. Yet Cail's reply was precise. 'The doom of the
Earth is upon his head," the Haruchai said. "Will you not
pity him?"
Too weary for indignation or argument, Honninscrave re-
sponded, "Can you believe that I mean him harm?"
Then the door opened, and a lantern led me Master's tall
bulk into the cabin.
The light seemed small against the irreducible night of the
world; but it lit the chamber brightly enough to sting Cove-
nant's eyes, like tears he had not shed. Still he did not turn
his head away or cover his face. He went on staring numbly
at the ceiling while Honninscrave set the lantern on the table.
The table was low for the size of the cabin. From the first
day of the quest's voyage, the Giantish furniture had been re-
placed by a table and chairs better suited to Covenant's stat-
ure- As a result, the lantern threw the hammock's shadow
above him. He seemed to lie in the echo of his own dark.
With a movement that made his sark sigh along the wall,
Honninscrave lowered himself to the floor. After long mo-
ments of silence, his voice rose out of the wan light.
"My brother is dead." The knowledge still wrung him.
"Having no other family since the passing of our mother and
father, I loved him, and he is dead. The vision of his Earth-
Sight gifted us with hope even as it blighted him with anguish,
and now that hope is dead, and he will never be released. As
did the Dead of The Grieve, he has gone out of life in horror.
He will never be released. Cable Seadreamer my brother,
bearer of Earth-Sight voiceless and valiant to his grave."
Covenant did not turn his head. But he blinked at the sting
in his eyes until the shadow above him softened it The way
of hope and doom, he thought dumbly. Lies open to you. Per-
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haps for him that had been true. Perhaps if he had been
honest with Linden, or had heeded the Elohim, the path of the
One Tree might have held some hope. But what hope had
there ever been for Seadreamer? Yet without hope the Giant
had tried to take all the doom upon himself- And somehow at
the last he had found his voice to shout a warning.
Roughly, Honninscrave said, "I beseeched of the Chosen
that she speak to you, but she would not. When I purposed to
come to you myself, she railed at me, demanding that I for-
The Master's Scar 7
bear. Has he not suffered sufficiently? she cried. Have you no
mercy?" He paused briefly, and his voice lowered. "She bears
herself bravely, the Chosen. No longer is she the woman of
frailty and fright who quailed so before the lurker of the
Sarangrave. But she also was bound to my brother by a kin-
ship which rends her in her way." In spite of her refusal, he
seemed to believe that she deserved his respect.
Then he went on, "But what have I to do with mercy or
forbearance? They are too high for me. I know only that
Cable Seadreamer is dead. He will never be released if you do
not release him."
At that. Covenant flinched in surprise and pain. If /
don't—? He was sick with venom and protest. How can / re-
lease him? If revelation and dismay and Linden had not
driven restraint so deeply into him during his struggle against
the aura of the Worm of the World's End, he would have
burned the air for no other reason than because he was hurt
and futile with power. How can I bear it?
But his restraint held. And Honninscrave looked preter-
naturally reduced as he sat on the floor against the wall, hug-
ging his unanswered grief. The Giant was Covenant's friend.
In that light, Honninscrave might have been an avatar of lost
Saltheart Foamfollower, who had given Covenant everything.
He still bad enough compassion left to remain silent.
"Giantfriend," the Master said without lifting his head,
"have you been given the tale of how Cable Seadreamec ay
brother came by his scar?" '
His eyes were hidden beneath his heavy brows. His beard
slumped on his chest. The shadow of the table's edge cut him
off at the torso; but his hands were visible, gripping each
other. The muscles of his forearms and shoulders were corded
with fatigue and strain.
"The fault of it was mine," he breathed into the empty
light. "The exuberance and foUy of my youth marked him for
all to see that I had been careless of him.
"He was my brother, and the younger by some years,
though as the lives of Giants are reckoned the span between
us was slight. Surely we were both well beyond the present
number of your age, but still were we young, new to our
manhood, and but recently prenticed to the sea-craft and the
ships we loved. The Earth-Sight had not yet come upon him,
and so there was naught between us beyond my few years and
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the foolishness which he outgrew more swiftly than I. He
came early to his stature, and I ended his youth before its
time-
"In those days, we practiced our new crafts in a small ves-
sel which our people name a tyrscull—a stone craft near the
measure of the longboats you have seen, with one sail, a
swinging boom, and oars for use should the wind be lost
or displayed. With skill, a tyrscull may be mastered by one
Giant alone, but two are customary. Thus Seadreamer and I
worked and learned together. Our tyrscull we named Foam-
kite, and it was our heart's glee.
"Now among prentices it is no great wonder that we reveled
in tests against each other, pitting and honing our skills with
races and displays of every description. Most common of these
was the running of a course within the great harbor of Home
—far sufficiently from shore to be truly at sea, and yet within
any swimmer's reach of land, should some prentice suffer
capsize—a mishap which would have shamed us deeply,
young as we were. And when we did not race we trained for
races, seeking new means by which we might best our com-
rades.
"The course was simply marked. One point about which we
swung was a buoy fixed for that purpose, but the other was a
rimed and hoary rock that we named Salttooth for the sheer,
sharp manner in which it rose to bite the air. Once or twice
or many times around that course we ran our races, testing
our ability to use the winds for turning as well as for speed."
Honninscrave's voice had softened somewhat: remembrance
temporarily took him away from his distress. But his head re-
mained bowed. And Covenant could not look away from him.
Punctuated by the muffled sounds of the sea, the plain de-
tails of Honninscrave's story transfixed the atmosphere of the
cabin.
"This course Seadreamer and I ran as often as any and
more than most, for we were eager for the sea. Thus we came
to stand well among those who vied for mastery. With this my
brother was content. He had the true Giantish exhilaration
and did not require victory for his joy. But in that I was less
worthy of my people. Never did I cease to covet victory, or
to seek out new means by which it might be attained.
"So it befell that one day I conceived a great thought which
caused me to hug my breast in secret, and to hasten Sea-
The Masters Scar 9
dreamer to Foamkite, that I might practice my thought and
perfect it for racing. But that thought I did not share with
him. It was grand, and I desired its wonder for myself. Not
questioning what was in me, he came for the simple pleasure
of the sea. Together, we ran Foamkite out to the buoy, then
swung with all speed toward upthrust Salttooth.
"It was a day as grand as my thought." He spoke as if it
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were visible behind the shadows of the cabin. "Under the
faultless sky blew a wind with a whetted edge which offered
speed and hazard, cutting the wave-crests to white froth as it
bore us ahead. Swiftly before us loomed Salttooth, In such a
wind, the turning of a tyrscull requires true skill—a jeopardy
even to competent prentices—and it was there that a race
could be won or lost, for a poor tack might drive a small craft
far from the course or overturn it altogether. But my thought
was for that turning, and I was not daunted by the wind.
"Leaving Seadreamer to the tiller and the management of
the boom, I bid him run in as nigh to Salttooth as he dared.
All prentices knew such a course to be folly, for the turning
would then bear us beyond our way. But I silenced my broth-
er's protests and went to Foamkite's prow. Still preserving my
secret, hiding my hands from his sight, I freed the anchor and
readied its line."
Abruptly, the Master faltered, fell still. One fist lay knotted
in his lap; the other twisted roughly into his beard, tugging it
for courage. But after a moment, he drew a deep breath, then
let the air hiss away through his teeth. He was a Giant and
could not leave his story unfinished.
"Such was Seadreamer's skill that we passed hastening
within an arm's span of Salttooth, though the wind heeled us
sharply from the rock and any sideslip might have done
Foamkite great harm. But his hand upon the wind was sure,
and an instant later I enacted my intent. As we sped, I arose
and cast the anchor upon the rock, snagging us there. Then I
lashed the line.
"This was my thought for a turning too swift to be matched
by any other fryscull, that our speed and the anchor and Salt-
tooth should do the labor for us—though I was uncertain how
the anchor might be unsnared when the turn was done. But
I had not told Seadreamer my purpose." His voice had be-
come a low rasp of bitterness in his throat. "He was fixed
upon the need to pass Salttooth without mishap, and my act
10 White Gold Wielder
surprised him entirely. He half gained his feet, half started
toward me as if I had gone mad. Then the line sprang taut,
and Poamkite came about with a violence which might have
snapped the mast from its holes."
Again he stopped. The muscles of his shoulders bunched.
When he resumed, he spoke so softly that Covenant barely
heard him.
"Any child might have informed me what would transpire,
but I bad given no consideration to it. The boom wrenched
across the stem of Poamkite with a force to sliver granite.
And Seadreamer my brother had risen into its path.
"In that wind and my folly, I would not have known that he
had fallen, had he not cried out as he was struck. But at his
cry I turned to see him flung into the sea.
"Ah, my brother!" A groan twisted his voice. "I dove for
him, but he would have been lost had I not found the path
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of his blood in the water and followed it. Senseless he hung in
my arms as I bore him to the surface.
"With the sea thus wind-slashed, I saw little of his injury
but blood until I had borne him to Foamkite and wrested him
aboard. But there his wound seemed so great that I believed
his eyes had been crushed in his head, and for a time I be-
came as mad as my intent had been. To this day, I know
nothing of our return to the docks of Home. I did not regain
myself until a healer ^poke to me, compelling me to hear that
my brother had not been blinded. Had the boom itself struck
him, mayhap he would have been slain outright. But the im-
pact was borne by a cable along the boom, taking him below
the eyes and softening the blow somewhat."
Once more he fell still. His hands covered his face as if to
stanch the flow of blood he remembered. Covenant watched
him mutely. He had no courage for such stories, could not
bear to have them thrust upon him. But Honninscrave was a
Giant and a friend; and since the days of FoamfoIIower Cov-
enant had not been able to close his heart. Though he was
helpless and aggrieved, he remained silent and let Honnin-
scrave do what he willed.
After a moment, the Master dropped his hands. Drawing a
breath like a sigh, he said, "It is not the way of Giants to
punish such folly as mine, though I would have found com-
fort in the justice of punishment And Cable Seadreamer was
The Master's Scar 11
a Giant among Giants. He did not blame the carelessness
which marked his life forever." Then his tone stiffened. "But
I do not forget. The fault is mine. Though I too am a Giant
in my way, my ears have not found the joy to hear this story.
And I have thought often that perhaps my fault is greater than
it has appeared. The Earth-Sight is a mystery. None can say
why it chooses one Giant rather than another. Perhaps it
befell my brother because of some lingering hurt or alteration
done him by the puissance of that blow. Even in their youth,
Giants are not easily stricken senseless."
Suddenly Honninscrave looked upward; and his gaze struck
foreboding into Covenant's maimed empathy. His eyes under
his heavy brows were fierce with extremity, and the new-cut
lines around them were as intense as scars. 'Therefore have
I come to you," he said slowly, as if he could not see Cove-
nant quailing. "I desire a restitution which is not within my
power to perform. My fault must be assuaged.
"It is the custom of our people to give our dead to the sea.
But Cable Seadreamer my brother has met his end in horror,
and it will not release him. He is like the Dead of The Grieve,
damned to his anguish. If his spirit is not given its caamora"—
for an instant, his voice broke—"he will haunt me while one
stone of the Arch of Time remains standing upon another."
Then his gaze fell to the floor. "Yet there is no fire in all
the world that I can raise to give him surcease. He is a Giant.
Even in death, he is immune to flame."
At that. Covenant understood; and all his dreads came to-
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gether in a rush; the apprehension which had crouched in him
since Honninscrave had first said, // you do not release him;
the terror of his doom, to destroy the Earth himself or to sur-
render it for destruction by ceding his ring to Lord Foul. The
Despiser had said. The ill that you deem most terrible is upon
you. Of your own volition you will give the white gold into my
hand. Either that or bring down the Arch of Time. There
was no way out. He was beaten. Because he had kept the truth
from Linden, seeking to deny it. And Honninscrave asked—!
"You want me to cremate him?" Clenched fear made him
harsh. "With my ring? Are you out of your mind?"
Honninscrave winced. "The Dead of The Grieve—" he
began.
"No!" Covenant retorted. He had walked into a bonfire to
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White Gold Wielder
save them from their reiterated hell; but risks like that were
too great for him now. He had already caused too much
death. "After I sink the ship, I won't be able to stopi"
For a moment, even the sounds of the sea fell still, shocked
by his vehemence. The Giantship seemed to be losing head-
way. The light of the lantern flickered as if it were going out.
Perhaps there were shouts like muffled lamentations in the dis-
tance. Covenant could not be sure. His senses were con-
demned to the surface of what they perceived. The rest of the
dromond was hidden from him.
If the Master heard anything, he did not react to it. His
head remained bowed. Moving heavily, like a man hurt in
every limb, he climbed to his feet. Though the hammock hung
high above the floor, he stood head and shoulders over the
Unbeliever; and still he did not meet Covenant's glare. The
lantern was below and behind him as he took one step closer.
His face was shadowed, dark and fatal.
In a wan and husky voice, he said, "Yes, Giantfriend." The
epithet held a tinge of sarcasm. "I am gone from my mind.
You are the ring-wielder, as the Elohim have said. Your
power threatens the Earth. What import has the anguish of
one or two Giants in such a plight? Forgive me."
Then Covenant wanted to cry out in earnest, torn like dead
Kevin Landwaster between love and defeat. But loud feet had
come running down the companionway outside his cabin, had
already reached his door. The door sprang open without any
protest from Call. A crewmember thrust her head past the
threshold.
"Master, you must come." Her voice was tight with alarm.
"We are beset by Nicor."
TWOs Lepers Qround
HONNINSCRAVE left the cabin slowly, like a, man re-
sponding by habit, unconscious of the urgency of the sum-
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mons. Perhaps he no longer understood what was happening
around him. Yet he did respond to the call of his ship.
When the Master reached the companionway, Cail closed
the door behind him. The Haruchai seemed to know instinc-
tively that Covenant would not follow Honmnscrave.
Nicor! Covenant thought, and his heart labored. Those tre-
mendous serpentlike sea-beasts were said to be the offspring of
the Worm of the World's End. Starfare's Gem had passed
through a region crowded with them near the Isle of the One
Tree. They had been indifferent to the dromond then. But
now? With the Isle gone and the Worm restive?
And what could one stone vessel do against so many of
those prodigious creatures? What could Honninscrave do?
Yet the Unbeliever did not leave his hammock. He stared
at the dark ceiling and did not move. He was beaten, defeated.
He dared not take the risk of confronting the Giantship's
peril. If Linden had not intervened at the One Tree, he would
already have become another Kevin, enacting a Ritual of
Desecration to surpass every other evil. The threat of the
Nicor paled beside the danger he himself represented.
Deliberately, he sought to retreat into himself. He did not
want to know what transpired outside his cabin. How could
he endure the knowledge? He had said, I'm sick of guilt—but
such protests had no meaning. His very blood had been cor-
rupted by venom and culpability. Only the powerless were
truly innocent, and he was not powerless. He was not even
honest The selfishness of his love had brought all this to pass.
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Yet the lives at stake were the lives of his friends, and he
could not close himself to the dromond's jeopardy. Starfare's
Gem rolled slightly in the water as if it had lost all headway.
A period of shouts and running had followed Honninscrave's
departure, but now the Giantship was silent. With Linden's
senses, he would have been able to read what was happening
through the stone itself; but he was blind and bereft, cut off
from the essential spirit of the world. His numb hands
clutched the edges of the hammock.
Time passed. He was a coward, and his dreads swarmed
darkly about him as if they were bom in the shadows above
his head. He gripped himself with thoughts of ruin, held him-
self still with curses. But Hoaninscrave's face kept coming
back to him: the beard like a growth of pain from his cheeks,
the massive brow knuckled with misery, the hands straining.
Covenant's friend. Like Foamfollower. My brother has met
his end in horror. It was intolerable that such needs had to be
refused. And now the Nicor—!
Even a beaten man could still feel pain. Roughly, he pulled
himself into a sitting position. His voice was a croak of coer-
cion and fear as- be called out, "Caill"
The door opened promptly, and Cail entered the cabin.
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The healed wound of a Courser-spur marked his left arm
from shoulder to elbow like the outward sign of his fidelity;
but his visage remained as impassive as ever. "Ur-Lord?" he
asked flatly. His dispassionate tone gave no hint that he was
the last Haruchai left in Covenant's service.
Covenant stifled a groan. "What the hell's going on out
there?"
In response. Call's eyes shifted fractionally. But still his
voice held no inflection. "I know not."
Until the previous night, when Brinn bad left the quest to
take up his role as ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol, Cail had never
been alone in his chosen duty; and (he mental interconnection
of his people had kept him aware of what took place around
him. But now he was alone. Brinn's defeat of the former
Guardian of the One Tree had been a great victory for him
personally, and for the Haruchai as a people; but it left Cail
isolated in a way that no one who had not experienced such
mind-sharing could measure. His blunt / know not silenced
Covenant like an admission of frailty.
Cail— Covenant tried to say. He did not want to leave the
Leper's Ground 15
Haruchai in that loneliness. But Brinn had said, Cail will ac-
cept my place in your service until the word of the Blood-
guard Banner has been carried to its end. And no appeal or
protest would sway Cail from the path Brinn had marked out
for him. Covenant remembered Banner too poignantly to be-
lieve that the Haruchai would ever judge themselves by any
standards but their own.
Yet his distress remained. Even lepers and murderers were
not immune to hurt. He fought down the thickness in his
throat and said, "I want my old clothes. They're in her cabin."
Call nodded as if be saw nothing strange in the request. As
he left, he closed the door quietly after him.
Covenant lay back again and clenched his teeth. He did not
want those clothes, did not want to return to the hungry and
unassuaged life he had lived before he had found Linden's
love. But how else could he leave his cabin? Those loathed and
necessary garments represented the only honesty left to him.
Any other apparel would be a lie.
However, when Call returned he was not alone. Pitchwife
entered the chamber ahead of him; and at once Covenant for-
got the bundle Cail bore. The deformity which bent Pitch-
wife's spine, hunching his back and crippling his chest, made
him unnaturally short for a Giant: his head did not reach
the level of the hammock. But (he irrepressibility of his
twisted face gave him stature. He was alight with excitement
as he limped forward to greet Covenant
"Have I not said that she is well Chosen?" he began with-
out preamble. "Never doubt it, Giantfriend! Mayhap this is
but one wonder among many, for surely our voyage has been
file:///F|/rah/Stephen%20Donaldson/Donaldson%20Covenant%206%20White%20Gold%20Wielder%20.txt (10 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:40 PM]
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file:///F|/rah/Stephen%20Donaldson/Donaldson%20Covenant%206%20White%20Go\ld%20Wielder%20.txtPARTIRetributionONE:TheMastersScarAWKWARDwithoutitsmidmast,Starfare'sGemturnedheavilytowardthenorth,puttingitssterntothewatercloggedwithsandandfoamwhichmarkedthepassingoftheOneTree.Intherigging.Giantslaboreda...

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