White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson

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 wondrous majesty, as bewitching as the 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.
    Covenant had no sense of time. Eventually the waiting ended. A berg drifted past the line of spectators, showing everyone a flat space like a platform in its side. And from that space rose cries.
    “A ship at last!”
    “Help us!”
    “In the name of pity!”
    “We have been marooned!”
    He seemed to hear the same shouts behind him also, from the other side of the Giantship. But that strange detail made no impression on him.
    His eyes were the only part of him that moved. As the iceberg floated southward amid the slow procession, its flat side passed directly below the watchers. And he saw figures emerge from the pellucid ice—human figures. Three or four of them, he could not be sure. The number was oddly imprecise. But numbers did not matter. They were men, and their destitution made his heart twist against its shackles.
    They were hollow-eyed, gaunt, and piteous. Their hands, maimed by frostbite, were wrapped in shreds torn from their ragged clothing. Emaciation and hopelessness lined their faces. Their cracked and splintered voices were hoarse with despair.
    “Marooned!” they cried like a memory of the wind.
    “Mercy!”
    But no one on the
dromond
moved.
    “Help them.” Linden’s voice issued like a moan between her beaded lips. “Throw them a line. Somebody.”
    No one responded. Gripped by cold, volitionless, the watchers only stared as the iceberg drifted slowly by, bearing its frantic victims away. Gradually the current took the marooned men out of hearing.
    “In the name of God.” Her tears formed a gleaming fan of ice under each eye.
    Again Covenant’s heart twisted. But he could not break free. His silence covered the sea.
    Then another berg drew near. It lay like a plate on the unwavering face of the water. Beneath the surface, its bulk lightly touched the ship, scraped a groan from the hushed hull. For a moment, the plate caught the sun squarely, and its reflection rang like a knell. Yet Covenant was able to see through the glare.
    Poised in the sun’s image were people that he knew.
    Hergrom. Ceer.
    They stood braced as if they had their backs to the Sandwall. At first, they were unaware of the Giantship. But then they saw it. Ceer shouted a hail which fell without echo onto the decks of the
dromond
. Leaving Hergrom, he sprinted to the edge of the ice, waved his arms for assistance.
    Then out of the light came a Sandgorgon. White against the untrammeled background of the ice, the beast charged toward Hergrom