White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson

the cabin. Berek had set the Guardian? Why? The Lord-Fatherer had been described as both seer and prophet. Had he been shortsighted enough to believe that no one else would ever need to touch the One Tree? Or had he had some reason to ensure that there would never be a second Staff of Law?
    Dizzy with implications, Covenant was momentarily unaware of the way Linden regarded him. But gradually he felt her eyes on him. Her face was sharp with the demand she had brought with her into his cabin—the demand of her need. When he met her gaze, she said distinctly, “Your friends in Andelain didn’t think you were doomed. They gave you Vain for a reason. What else did they do?”
    “They talked to me,” he replied as if she had invoked the words out of him. “Mhoram said, ‘When you have understood the Land’s need, you must depart the Land, for the thing you seek is not within it. The one word of truth cannot be found otherwise. But I give you this caution: do not be deceived by the Land’s need. The thing you seek is not what it appears to be. In the end, you must return to the Land.’ ”
    He had also said,
When you have come to the crux, and have no other recourse, remember the paradox of white gold. There is hope in contradiction
. But that Covenant did not comprehend.
    Linden nodded severely. “So what’s it going to be? Are you just going to lie here until your heart breaks? Or are you going to fight?”
    Distraught by fear and despair, he could not find his way. Perhaps an answer was possible, but he did not have it. Yet what she wanted of him was certain; and because he loved her he gave it to her as well as he was able.
    “I don’t know. But anything is better than this. Tell the First well give it a try.”
    She nodded again. For a moment, her mouth moved as if she wished to thank him in some way. But then the pressure of her own bare grasp on resolution impelled her toward the door.
    “What about you?” he asked after her. He had sent her away and did not know how to recall her. He had no right. “What’re you going to do?”
    At the door, she looked back at him, and her eyes were openly full of tears, “I’m going to wait.” Her voice sounded as forlorn as the cry of a kestrel—and as determined as an act of valor. “My turn’s coming.”
    As she left, her words seemed to remain in the sunlit cabin like a verdict. Or a prophecy.
    After she was gone, Covenant got out of the hammock and dressed himself completely in his old clothes.

THREE: The Path to Pain
    When he went up on deck, the sun was setting beyond the western sea, and its light turned the water crimson—the color of disaster. Honninscrave had raised every span of canvas the spars could hold; and every sail was belly-full of wind as Starfare’s Gem pounded forward a few points west of north. It should have been a brave sight. But the specific red of that sunset covered the canvas with fatality, gilded the lines until they looked like they were slick with blood. And the wind carried a precursive chill, hinting at the bitter cold of winter.
    Yet Honninscrave strode the wheeldeck as if he could no longer be daunted by anything the sea brought to him. The air rimed his beard, and his eyes reflected occasional glints of fire from the west; but his commands were as precise as his mastery of the Giantship, and the rawness of his voice might have been caused by the strain of shouting over the wind rather than by the stress of the past two days. He was not Foamfollower after all. He had not been granted the
caamora
his spirit craved. But he was a Giant still, the Master of Starfare’s Gem; and he had risen to his responsibilities.
    With Cail beside him. Covenant went up to the wheeldeck. He wanted to find some way to apologize for having proven himself inadequate to the Master’s need. But when he approached Honninscrave and the other two Giants with him, Sevinhand Anchormaster and a steersman holding Shipsheartthew, the caution in their eyes