Sunder walked up the wet slope without a glance at his companions. He was hunched over Hollian as though his chest were full of broken glass. Beyond the reach of the river, he stumbled to his knees, lowered Hollian gently to the ground. He settled her limbs to make her comfortable. His blunt fingers caressed the black strands of hair from her face, tenderly combed her tresses out around her head. Then he seated himself beside her and wrapped his arms over his heart, huddling there as if his sanity had snapped.
Pitchwife unshouldered his pack, took out a Giantish firepot which had somehow remained sealed against the water. Next he produced a few faggots from his scant supply of firewood. They were soaked, and he was exhausted; but he bent over them and blew raggedly until they took flame from the firepot. Nursing the blaze, he made it hot enough to sustain itself. Though it was small and pitiable, it gave enough heat to soften the chill in Linden's joints, the gaunt misery in Covenant's eyes.
Then Pitchwife offered them diamondraught. But they refused it until he and the First had each swallowed a quantity of the potent liquor. Because of his cramped lungs and her injury, the Giants were in sore need of sustenance. After that, however. Linden took a few sips which ran true warmth at last into her stomach.
Bitterly, as if he were punishing himself, Covenant accepted the pouch of diamondraught from her; but he did not drink. Instead, he forced his stiff muscles and brittle bones toward Sunder.
His offer produced no reaction from the Graveler. In a burned and gutted voice Covenant urged, pleaded. Sunder did not raise his head. He remained focused on Hollian as if his world had shrunk to that frail compass and his companions no longer impinged upon him. After a while Covenant shambled back to the fire, sat down, and covered his face with his hands.
A moment later, Vain appeared.
He emerged from the night into the campfire's small illumination and resumed at once his familiar blank stance. An ambiguous smile curved his mouth. The passion Linden had felt from him was gone. He appeared as insentient and unreachable as ever. His wooden forearm had been darkened and charred, but the damage was only superficial.
His left arm was withered and useless, like a congenital deformity. Pain oozed from several deep sores. Mottled streaks the colour of ash marred his ebony flesh.
Instinctively, Linden started toward him, though she knew that she could not help him, that his wounds were as imponderable as his essential nature. She sensed that he had attacked the ur-viles for his own reasons, not to aid or even acknowledge the company; yet she felt viscerally that the wrong his sculptured perfection had suffered was intolerable. Once he had bowed to her. And more than once he had saved her life. Someone had to at least try to help him.
But before she reached him, a wide, winged shape came out of the stars like the plunge of a condor. Changing shapes as it descended, it landed lightly beside the Demondim-spawn in human form.
Findail.
He did not look at Covenant or Linden, ignored Sunder’s hunched and single minded grief; instead, he addressed Vain.
“Do not believe that you will win my heart with bravery.” His voice was congested with old dismay, covert and unmistakable fear. His eyes seemed to search the Demondim-spawn's inscrutable soul. “I desire your death. If it lay within the permit of my wϋrd, I would slay you. But these comrades for whom you care nothing have again contrived to redeem you.” He paused as if he were groping for courage, then concluded softly, “Though I abhor your purpose, the Earth must not suffer the cost of your pain.”
Suddenly lambent, his right hand reached out to Vain's left shoulder. An instant of fire blazed from the touch, cast startling implications which only Linden could hear into the fathomless night. Then it was gone. Findail left Vain, went to stand like a sentinel confronting the moonlit prospect of tile east.
The First breathed a soft oath of surprise. Pitchwife gaped in wonder Covenant murmured curses as if he could not believe what he had seen.
Vain's left arm was whole, completely restored to its original beauty and function.
Linden thought she caught a gleam of relief from the Demondim-spawn's black eyes.
Astonishment stunned her. Findail's demonstration gave her a reason to understand for the first time why the Elohim believed that the healing of the Earth should be left to them, that the best choice she or Covenant could make would be to give Findail the ring and simply step aside from the doom Lord Foul was preparing for them. The restoration of Vain's arm seemed almost miraculous to her. With all the medical resources she could imagine, she would not have been able to match Findail's feat.
Drawn by the power be represented, she turned toward him with Sunder's name on his lips. Help him. He doesn't know how to bear it.
But the silhouette of the Appointed against the moon refused her before she spoke. In some unexplained way, he had aggravated his own plight by healing Vain. Like Sunder, he was in need of solace. His stance told her that he would deny any other appeal.
Pitchwife sighed. Muttering aimlessly to himself, he began to prepare a meal while the fire lasted.
Later that night. Linden huddled near Covenant and the fading embers of the fire with a damp blanket hugged around her in an effort to ward off the sky-deep cold and tried to explain her failure. "It was too sudden. I didn't see the danger in time.”
“It wasn't your fault,” he replied gruffly. “I had no right to blame you.” His voice seemed to issue from an injury hidden within the clenched mound of his blanket-hidden and fatal. "I should've made them stay in Revelstone.”
She wanted to protest his arrogation of responsibility. Without them, we would all be dead. How else were we going to get away from those ur-viles? But he went on, “I used to be afraid of power. I thought it made me what I hate-another Landwaster. A source of Despite for the people I care about. But I don't need power. I can do the same thing by just standing there.”
She sat up and peered at him through the moon edged night. He lay with his back to her, the blanket shivering slightly on his shoulders. She ached to put her arms around him, find some safe warmth in the contact of their bodies. But mat was not what he needed. Softly, harshly, she said, "That's wonderful. You're to blame for everything. Next I suppose you're going to tell me you bit yourself with that venom, just to prove you deserve it.”
He jerked over onto his back as if she had hit him between the shoulder-blades. His face came, pale and wincing, out of the blanket. For a moment, he appeared to glare at her. But then his emanations lost their fierce edge. “I know,” he breathed to the wide sky. “Atiaran tried to tell me the same thing. After all I did to her.” Quietly, he quoted, “ 'Castigation is a doom which achieves itself. In punishing yourself, you come to merit punishment.' All Foul has to do is laugh.” His dark features concentrated toward her. “The same thing's true for you. You tried to save her. It wasn't your fault.”
Linden nodded. Mutely, she leaned toward him until he took her into his embrace.
When she awoke in the early grey of dawn, she looked toward Sunder and saw that he had not moved during the night.
Hollian was rigid with death now, her delicate face pallid and aggrieved in the gloom; but he appeared unaware of any change, uncognizant of night or day-numb to anything except the shards of pain in his chest and her supine form. He was chilled to the bone, but the cold had no power to make him shiver.
Covenant roused with a flinch, yanked himself roughly out of his dreams. For no apparent reason, he said distinctly, “Those ur-viles should've caught up with us by now.” Then he, too, saw Sunder. Softly, he groaned.