Free White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson Page A

what it was; for no craft or crew ever came back from it unscathed. And each of those ships had been driven there by a Dolewind that blew too long without let or variation.
    Linden argued for a while, vexed by the conflicting vagueness and certainty of Pitchwife’s explanations. But Covenant paid no heed to either of them. He had a name now for his chill anxiety, and the knowledge gave him a queer comfort. The Soulbiter. It was not Lord Foul’s doing. Neither could it be avoided. And the outcome of that sea might make all other fears unnecessary. Very well. The galley was too warm; but outside cried and groaned a cold which only Giants could endure for any length of time. Eventually even the din of the cooks became soothing to him, and he passed out of trepidation into a kind of waking somnolence—a stupefied inner silence like an echo of the emptiness which the
Elohim
had imposed upon him in
Elemesnedene
.
    That silence comprised the only safety he had known in this world. It was a leper’s answer to despair, a state of detachment and passivity made complete by the deadness of every nerve which should have conveyed import. The
Elohim
had not invented it: they had simply incarnated in him the special nature of his doom. To feel nothing and die.
    Linden had once redeemed him from that fate. But now he was beaten. He made decisions, not because he believed in them, but because they were expected of him. He did not have the heart to face the Soulbiter.
    In the days that followed, he went through the ordinary motions of being alive. He drank enough
diamondraught
to account for his mute distance to the people who watched him. He slept in the galley, took brief walks, acknowledged greetings and conversations like a living man. But inwardly he was becoming untouchable. After years of discipline and defiance, of stubborn argument against the seduction of his illness, he gave the effort up.
    And still Starfare’s Gem plowed a straight furrow across the gray and gravid sea while the wind blew arctic outrage. Except for a few worn paths here and there, the decks were now clenched with ice, overgrown like an old ruin. Its sheer weight was enough to make the Giants nervous; but they could not spare time or strength to clear the crust away. There was too much water in the wind: the blow sheared too much spray off the battered waves. And that damp collected in the sails faster than it could be beaten clear. At intervals, one stretch of canvas or another became too heavy to hold. The wind rent it out of its shrouds. A hail of ice-slivers swept the decks; tattered scraps of sail were left flapping like broken hands from the spars. Then the Giants were forced to clew new canvas up the yards. Bereft of its midmast, the granite
dromond
needed all its sails or none.
    Day after day, the shrill whine of the rigging and the groans of the stone became louder, more distressed. The sea looked like fluid ice, and Starfare’s Gem was dragged forward against ever-increasing resistance. Yet the Giantship was stubborn. Its masts flexed and shivered, but did not shatter. Grinding its teeth against the gale, Starfare’s Gem endured.
    When the change came, it took everyone by surprise. Rest had restored the combative smolder to Linden’s eyes, and she had been fretting for days against the maddening pressure of the blast and the constriction of the galley; but even she did not see what was coming. And the Giants had no warning at all.
    At one moment, Starfare’s Gem was riding the howl of the wind through the embittered heart of a cloud-dark night. At the next, the
dromond
pitched forward like a destrier with locked forelegs; and the gale was gone. The suddenness of the silence staggered the vessel like a detonation. There was no sound except the faint clink and crash of ice falling from the slack sails. Linden jerked her percipience from side to side, probing the ship. In astonishment, she muttered, “We’ve stopped. Just like that.”
    For an