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 ploughed a straight furrow across the grey 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 smoulder 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 instant, no one moved. Then Mistweave strode to me forward door, kicked it out of its frost. Cold as pure as absolute winter came flowing inward; but it had no wind behind it. The air across the Giantship was still.
Shouts sprang along the decks. In spite of his inward silence, Covenant followed Mistweave and Linden out into the night.
The clouds were gone: the dark was as clear and sharp as a knife-edge. Spots of light marked out the Giantship as the crew lit more lanterns. Near the eastern horizon stood the moon, yellow and doleful. It was nearly full, but appeared to shed no illumination, cast no reflection onto the black and secret face of the water. The stars littered the sky in every direction, all their portents lost. Linden muttered to herself, “What in hell-?” But she seemed unable to complete the question.
Honninscrave and Pitchwife approached from opposite ends of the ship. When the First joined them, Pitchwife said with unconvincing nonchalance, “It appears that we are here.”
Covenant felt too numb to be cold. But Linden was shivering violently beside him. In a bitten voice, she asked, “What do we do now?”
“Do?” replied Honninscrave distantly. His visage was benighted, devoid of content. “This is the Soulbiter. We must await its will.” Plumes of steam came from his mouth as if his spirit escaped him at every word.
Its will Covenant thought dumbly. My will. Foul's will. Nothing made any difference. Silence was safety. If he could not have hope, he would accept numbness. Returning to the galley, he curled up on his pallet and fell immediately asleep.
But the next morning he was awakened by the cold and the quiet. The stoves put out no heat. Except for Cail, the galley was deserted. Abandoned. Starfare's Gem lay as still as if he and the Haruchai were the only people left aboard.
A pang went through him, threatening his defences. Stiff with sleep and chill, he fumbled erect. “Where-?” he asked weakly. “Where did they go?”
Cail's reply was flat and pitiless. “They have gone to behold the Soulbiter.”
Covenant winced. He did not want to leave the confines of the galley. He feared the return of sensation and pain and responsibility. But Cail's expressionless stare was insistent. Cail was one of the Haruchai. kindred to Brinn and Banner. His comrades Ceer and Hergrom had given their lives. He had the right to make demands. And his gaze was as plain as words:
It is enough. Now you must resume yourself.
Covenant did not want to go. But he adjusted his rumpled attire, made an effort to secure the silence closely about him. When Cail opened the door for him, he took a step over the storm sill and walked blinking into the bright, frigid morning.
After so many days hidden behind the glower of the clouds, the sun alone would have been enough to blind him. But it was not alone. White cold glared around the ship. Light sprang at him from all sides; dazzles as piercing as spears volleyed about his head. His tears froze on his cheeks. When he raised his hands to rub the beads away, small patches of skin were torn from his face.
But slowly his sight cleared. He saw Giants lining the rails, their backs to him. Everyone on board stood at the forward railings somewhere, facing outward.
They were still, as quiet as the sea and the sails hanging empty in then gear. But no hush could silence their expectant suspense. They were watching the Soulbiter. Waiting for it.
Then he recovered enough vision to discern the source of all the dazzling.
Motionless in the water, Starfare's Gem lay surrounded by a flotilla of icebergs.
Hundreds of them in every size and configuration. Some were mere small humps on the flat sea. Others raised jagged crests to the level of the dromond's spars. And they were all formed of the same impeccable ice: ice as translucent and complete as glass, as bard faced as diamonds; ice on which the morning broke, shattering light in all directions.
They were moving. Singly or in squadrons, they bore slowly down on the ship as they floated southward. A few came so close that a Giant could have reached them in one leap. Yet none of them struck the dromond.
Along the deep the flotilla drifted with a wonderous majesty, as bewitching as me cold. Most of the Giants stood as if they had been carved from a muddier ice. They scarcely breathed while their hands froze to the rails and the gleaming burned into their eyes Covenant joined Linden near the First, Pitchwife, and Mistweave. Behind the raw red of cold in her face lay a blue pallor as if her blood had become as milky as frost; but she had stopped shivering, paid no heed to the drops of ice which formed on her parted lips. Pitchwife's constant murmur did not interrupt the trance. Like everyone else, he watched the ice pass stately by as if he were waiting for someone to speak. As if the sun-sharp wonder of this passage were merely a prelude.
Covenant found that he, too, could not look away. Commanded by so much eye piercing glister and beauty, he braced his hands on one of the crossbeams of the railing and at once lost the power of movement. He was calm now, prepared to wait forever if necessary to hear what the cold was going to utter.
Cail's voice reached him distantly. The Haruchai was saying, “Ur-Lord, this is not well. Chosen, hear me. It is not well. You must come away.” But his protest slowly ran out of strength. He moved to stand beside Covenant and did not speak again.