We start the chapter with Starfare's Gem fighting the sea and the winds. If there was ever any doubt that the dromond is a living being, Donaldson lays them to waste with sentences like, "The dromond lay so massively in the viscid sea that for a moment it seemed unable to move," and "But then Starfare's Gem gathered its legs under it, thrust forward, and the pressure eased. As the clouds came boiling overhead, the Giantship took hold of itself and began to run." The last coming right after Dawngreeter splits. Again, the abuse that Donaldson heaps on his living characters is not spared from Starfare's Gem.
Soon, however, the ship is out of the peril of the Soulbiter and we begin to look at the peril Linden is in.
There is a great contrast between the careful ministrations of Seasauce and Covenant's curse-laden desperation. One cups her gently and gives her diamondraught; the other chafes her wrists and slaps her around a bit. Linden only aspirates the diamondraught, nearly sending Covenant into a venom-sparked white gold rage. The only thing the anger does, though, is give Covenant the strength to "thrust
Pitchwife away as if the Giant were a child." Instead he uses good old-fashioned artificial respiration. Never mind that it's never as physically easy as TV leads you to believe, he's also trying to hold in his own destructive fire.
Shortly afterward, they put her in a giant stewpot. Covenant finally has an outlet for the power burning inside him and uses it to heat the pot. He walks up to the already kindled pot and "With white passion he girdled the pot. Then he narrowed his mind until nothing else impinged upon it and let the fire flow."
"In that way, he turned his back on silence and numbness." At first this line just drew my eye, and I wanted to quote it because it was just so potent. Then I had to ask myself why. It has to be more than the fact that it's just sitting on the page all by itself. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I say this is Covenant's answer to leprosy and all that it entails. Silence and numbness are the way of his life. Perhaps the wreckless use of power to save the ones you love isn't the best idea, but it's choosing real life. Life with the possibility of pain and death commensurate with the possibility of hope and love.
Of course, such power has a strong hold on the mind, and Covenant nearly makes Linden stew. Pitchwife tells him enough, though, and Linden is lifted out of the pot, dripping and still a little sickly looking but conscious. In instances like these, one has to wonder if it's more than just the heat that brought her around. How deep did it go, and was it something like a mini-caamora at the Grieve?
"Covenant turned away and hid his face against Pitchwife's malformed chest until his relief eased enough to be borne."
Linden has to know what had happened, what the apparitions meant. I suppose the reader does, too. In a bit of a contrast to the first Chronicles, Covenant explains that it was all illusion, even if it doesn't mean that they had no power to harm. They would be damned if they had tried to help, and they would have damned their souls if they had not tried. The only answer, in this case, is to break the illusion. Before passing out, Linden confides, "'It was like watching my parents' Her eyes closed. 'If they were as brave as I wanted them to be' Her voice trailed toward silence. 'If I let myself love them.'" If relief is pain, and understanding is pain, what lies beyond that? Where can these two find peace?
The crew of the giantship begin to pick up their spirits and go back about their work. "They had survived the Soulbiter. Valiantly, they went back to their battle with the bitter grue of the sea." Can anyone verify that the word in hard copy is actually grue?
Covenant remains in the galley for a while to watch over Linden, not trusting the profundity of her sleep. If we had not yet gleaned the importance of her to him, it is stated directly in his thoughts. "She was the only woman he knew who understood his illness and still accepted him. Already, her stubborn commitment to him - and to the Land - had proved itself stronger than his despair."
After walking out into the snow and sharing a meaningful glance with the First, he briefly goes to sleep, having a nightmare of being tortured back in Kemper's Pitch. He is awakened by the impact of the Giantship colliding with something. With a quick glance to Linden to make sure she's safe, he stumbled out into the ruin of the main deck. Among the debris of the broken spars and masts lie four Giants. The first three are dead, but the last one still lives. Covenant calls for Linden and they try to lift the broken mast off the injured Giant. When they fail, Covenant prepares to blast it away, but is stopped by Honniscrave who needs the mast whole if the dromond is to sail again. By the time that's sorted out, they're able to get the wreckage off. Galewrath has no way of assessing the Giant's internal injuries, but Linden arrives in time. At first she mumbles out that if the bones are set properly, she should be fine, but then she notices the Giant's heart has been punctured by a broken rib. The First has lost too many of the crew, so demands that Linden heal her, something Linden has no way of doing without an operating table and several liters of Giantish O+.
Well, no way but one. Without so much as a 'May I?' Linden grabs Covenant's hand, and with it, grabs his power over the White Gold. It is an outright violation of who Covenant is, plain and inexorable. Worse than this violation is the perception of Covenant that she deserves the ring more. She can heal with it. The Giant is saved, Linden passes out again, and Covenant makes his "preterite" way back to the galley.
While Covenant and the others recover in the galley, the Giants outside work to repair the ship. Though the wreckage is cleared away and the hull is patched, "nothing the crew could do changed the essential fact; the dromond was stuck and crippled." Even if the ship could sail, it couldn't go anywhere. It's surrounded by a field of ice, the ship having hit it in the night.
The Land and its few inhabitants are dying, the ship is stuck, and Covenant has to face the fact that he has failed everything he has tried so far. Because of this, he is determined to show Foul and even Linden and the others that he has the determination and the right to continue. Once again, he prepares to blast his way out with the White Gold. When he tells the others his plan, their reaction is doubt and outrage, Linden even accusing him of "looking for an excuse to throw power around" to which Covenant gives his classic reply "Do you think I like being this dangerous?"
The others look chagrined, but tell him they have another plan. They are considering abandoning the ship and making their way to The Grieve over the ice, a distance of about 240 to 300 miles by Honniscrave's admittedly fuzzy reckoning. It becomes clear (after its revealed that Honniscrave has some resentment towards Covenant for his willingness to use the White Gold to destroy the ice but not to give his brother release) that this means either leaving most of the crew to die stranded on the ship or leaving the ship and becoming the new Unhomed. It's decided to spend some time making some repairs to the ship before leaving in order that the crew can live off their stores until the ice thaws. When Honniscrave tells Covenant that two or three days are needed, Covenant tells him to try to do it in one. Pitchwife's response is, "Stone and Sea!... It is a small matter. What need have I of an entire day?"
The ship is being repaired, Pitchwife wiving the stone here and there. Sleds are being built. After a night of saving the ship and a full day of putting up a new mast, a very weary and slightly drunk Pitchwife says to Covenant, "Giantfriend, I thank you that you accorded to me this opportunity to be of service to the Giantship."
As Covenant sits in the galley besides a slumbering Linden Avery, he hears the Giants singing. At first the songs are glad and celebratory, but as Covenant falls asleep, they turn to grieving for their imminent departure. It is at this time that Covenant first imagines a fire strong enough to give him Caamora, but the idea slips away upon waking.
In the morning, Covenant rouses himself just in time to leave with everybody else who is going ashore. The First gives a speech to the crewmembers (Donaldson's word, not mine, though since they're technically not men as well as being of both genders, probably apt) staying behind.
As Vain and Findail join their party, they depart."Now has the time of parting come upon us once more." Her voice rang crisply across the frigid air. "The hazard is great, for no longer stands Cable Seadreamer's Earth-Sight at the helm of the Search. Yet do we pursue our sworn purpose-and for that reason I do not fear. We are mortal, and the visage of failure is heinous to us. But we are not required to succeed. It is required of us only that we hold fast in every gale and let come what may. On all the seas of the world, there are none better for this work than you who remain with Starfare's Gem. How then should I be afraid?
This only do I charge you: when the ice uncloses, come after us. Sail to that littoral which you know, to Seareach and brave Coercri, The Grieve. If there we fail to meet you or send word, then the Search falls to you. Do what you must- and do not fear. While one valiant heart yet defends the Earth, evil can never triumph utterly."
I would just like to say that the voyages in the One Tree seem drastically different than the one in White Gold Wielder. Where the first was more Conrad or Swift, the second is definately more like Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I tried to find some passages to compare, but of course, found nothing that could really directly correlate. The themes of despair, survival, despite, and penace both seem to run throughout, of course.
Er, isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
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